D&D (2024) All about Ardlings

[Corinnguard]

Imho, that's not lore that matters or has much value.

That's FR-specific silly business. All of it pretty recent and forgettable and only existing because the FR is the gelatinous cube of settings. It's definitely fair to say that generally speaking, Aasimar lore is extremely thin and inconsistent. They don't reflect part-angels from mythology/fantasy literature (who are approximately a million times spicier than Aasimar) the way Tieflings do reflect part-demons from mythology/fantasy literature, for example.

By Mulan gods are we meaning Mulhorandi? Took me a while to unpick that one.

Honestly I blame 3E. It utterly ruined Aasimar and Tieflings, and only Tieflings really recovered. 4E having Daevas which were so much more interesting than Aasimar doesn't help (and the idea that they're "the same thing" as Aasimar is terrible and whoever thought of that should stop writing lore forever). I believe 4E much later added Aasimar and they were milquetoast as usual.

Have you ever checked out the Aasimar and Tieflings from Pathfinder 1st edition? Both of these planetouched races in PF1 were given their own lore books in that RPG. Blood of Angels and Blood of Fiends. Sometimes a RPG does a great job portraying a race, and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, homebrew it till you like it.

As for the Devas, if they were so much more interesting than the Aasimar, why didn't WoTC bring them forward into 5e?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As for the Devas, if they were so much more interesting than the Aasimar, why didn't WoTC bring them forward into 5e?

Because 4E was largely radioactive with the folks who bounced off it and away to other systems and WotC is only now open to bringing in obvious innovations (arcane, divine and primal power sources is straight out of 4E). Instead, with 5E, they over-corrected, tossing out even many non-controversial elements of 4E.

 

[Mind of tempest]

my complaints are they have dull mechanics not bad just dull.
and I find furry races in general kinda lazy you just get stereotypes of the animal in most cases or a human in a lazy costume better to craft something out of lots of sources to get something truly great but otherwise I do not care never liked any PHB races anyway.
tempted by the jaffa idea.

Have you ever checked out the Aasimar and Tieflings from Pathfinder 1st edition? Both of these planetouched races in PF1 were given their own lore books in that RPG. Blood of Angels and Blood of Fiends. Sometimes a RPG does a great job portraying a race, and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, homebrew it till you like it.

As for the Devas, if they were so much more interesting than the Aasimar, why didn't WoTC bring them forward into 5e?

this was the apology for 4e edition remember lots of cool stuff got killed to try to get more pathfinder players back.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As for the Devas, if they were so much more interesting than the Aasimar, why didn't WoTC bring them forward into 5e?

Because 5E is an "apology edition", and they didn't really "bring forwards" much that was new or cool from 4E unless it was insanely good (Feywild for example), and indeed, even where 4E had done a great job, and where the D&D Next playtest had cool ideas, at the very last minute, without a playtest, WotC reverted tons of stuff to be basically 3E-like, including entire classes, like Sorcerer.

Bringing forwards Daeva would have certainly not pleased very people WotC was seeking to "apologise" to. Indeed it's notable that 5E Aasimar revert to the terrible 3E-style lore for Aasimar, not the better 2E lore.

Also 5E or more specifically Volo's just made a lot of bad lore decisions relating to the planes and planar beings early on, not least that Angels only serve Good-aligned gods (so much for making alignment optional!), which, hilariously, left Neutral and Evil gods with zero servants, as Volo's also clarified that converse, demons/devils were NOT the servants of Evil gods, and Neutral gods just had nothing too. Sorry I know that's an off-shoot but Volo's, which reintroduced Aasimar was just a total mess. It also reintroduced horrific racist implications with the Orcs for example, by virtually quoting 1940s racist textbooks in describing Orcs.

 

[Corinnguard]

Because 4E was largely radioactive with the folks who bounced off it and away to other systems and WotC is only now open to bringing in obvious innovations (arcane, divine, primal power source is straight out of 4E). Instead, with 5E, they over-corrected, tossing out even many non-controversial elements of 4E.

I know. I was one of the folk who bounced off of 4e and straight to Pathfinder 1st edition.

 

[TheSword]

Quote from the playtest: "An ardling has a head resembling that of an animal, typically one with virtuous associations. Depending on the animal, the ardling might also have soft fur, downy feathers, or supple bare skin."

How do you interpret this? A mostly human head with animal ears on top like an Anime catgirl? or a fully animal head from the neck up like an Egyptian god?

Would having a different mouth shape cause trouble when drinking from a cup, or give them an odd lisp when speaking?

Do we even need ardlings? or are they redundant when we already have Aasimar and Shifters?

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Thundercats are GO!!!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thundercats are GO!!!

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I once considered doing a vaguely Thundercats-themed campaign for D&D but I realized, depending on the mood of my players when I got them to make the PCs, I was going to either get five variants of Lion-o, or five variants of Snarf.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I once considered doing a vaguely Thundercats-themed campaign for D&D but I realized, depending on the mood of my players when I got them to make the PCs, I was going to either get five variants of Lion-o, or five variants of Snarf.

but what about a hybrid lino/snarf for variety?

 

[Corinnguard]

If the Thundercats were brought into 5e, they would be an all Tabaxi team.

 

[Mind of tempest]

If the Thundercats were brought into 5e, they would be an all Tabaxi team.

nah at least some of them would be the lino folk from MTG