D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor: Species
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Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
In Komodo the legend is told of Putri Naga (Princess Naga) who became pregnant and gave birth to twins, a son and a daughter . The baby boy is named Gerong and is raised among humans. While his twin named Orah has the shape of a giant lizard (Komodo dragon) and grew up in the middle of the forest. …
being a Komodo dragon legend is quite ironic given the point of contention, but Komodo dragons are monitor lizards not mythic serpents. As you yourself indicate the greek term Drakon refers to giant serpents and serpentine creatures which can be seen in Chinese lung and even in various european wurms but not so much in Dragonborn hence my assertion that Dragonborn are a poor stand-in for dragons.
The serpentine nature of the mythic Drakini also makes using those examples as raison d'être for dragonborn somewhat moot. I have no issue with halfdragons or even draconians, but I just dont thinks dragonborn are a good depiction of dragons or a reptilian species.
Anyway besides the Komodo legend above there are also the Ubaid Lizard-women artefacts from prehistoric Mesopotamia (predating Uruk and Sumerian culture) admittedly not much is known about them except for the ‘reptilian’ heads and indeed lizard is often conflated with serpent in mythic depictions, and really once you give a serpent arms and legs are they not lizards?
Scribe
Legend
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Those look exactly like dragonborn. They even have breasts. I've used that very image in the past as justification for dragonborn being mythically supported.
You may dislike the serpent thing all you like; they are still explicitly dragons, even in the original Greek, Chinese, Slavic, etc. "Dragon" is and has always been a flexible category.
Plus... they're not meant to be "stand-ins for dragons." There are already dragons! They aren't standing in for anything. That would be like saying that tieflings are "stand-ins" for actual fiends, or that elves were stand-ins for actual faeries, or that aasimar were stand-ins for actual angels. They aren't, because all of those things actually exist in D&D. You don't need a symbolic representation of them, you can just have them show up, or be discussed, etc. Dragonborn are connected to dragons, but they are not somehow supposed to be taking the place of dragons or like...fulfilling the quota of dragon-ness for fantasy. They're just people with a close connection to dragons. That's all they have ever been, and all they were ever intended to be.
Tell me, are you familiar with the 4e lore for dragonborn?
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EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
I mean, the main issue there us just that 3.5e was obsessed with forcing people to earn the gameplay experience they wanted to have, and that PrCs were equally split between absolute garbage, stupidly overpowered, and reasonably balanced but very niche. This one looks like it's dancing on the line between garbage and niche, though I could see it working in gestalt as a source for pounce.
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Mind of tempest
(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
that seems oddly backwards for getting people to buy stuff, you want the core idea to be ready to go and all the high-level stuff be you being an absolute master of said goal.
if it takes five levels to get to even the first part of my goal I need a reason to put up with the time getting to it and the payoff better be worth it or why should I keep playing the game?
Vaalingrade
Legend
They also have defined waists, something I wish more dragonborn had instead of their stump of a corpus.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
You have to remember, 3e was built on a "naturalism" über alles mentality: "naturalism" (note the quotes) trumps almost literally ALL other considerations, no matter what. If it is frustrating, dull, tedious, or slow, but more "naturalistic" than something that isn't, 3e/3.5e/PF will accept all of those and do so without the slightest shred of remorse.
One of the things classified as "naturalism" is having to earn your play-experience. You don't get to start as a cool fantasy hero doing cool fantasy things. You have to earn that, 4head! You have to go through several levels of proving that you deserve the skills you want to make use of. This, of course, means you have to meet a prescribed set of characteristics if you want to grow in the ways you'd like to, and if you don't meet those prescribed characteristics, you haven't earned the right to the stuff you want to do.
This is one of the relatively rare places where 5e actually (sort of...) broke from 3e as opposed to hewing to it as close as possible without simply duplicating it. That is, you don't have to spend 3 levels as a Fighter and 3 levels as a Wizard before you're allowed to become an Eldritch Knight--you just are one as soon as you hit Fighter 3, same level every Fighter becomes fully operational. The idea is still present, in that a lot of key/thematically-essential features only kick in at high levels (e.g. Bardic Inspiration is stupidly precious until Bard 5 because you'll have, at most, 4 uses a day and that only if you're a Custom Lineage with +2 Cha and a feat that gives +1 Cha.) But they at least tried to deal with that extremely frustrating aspect of 3rd edition, and I try to recognize such efforts in the rare places where they occur.
Depends on the artist. Some artists like the "bodybuilder" type where it's nearly a straight line from armpit to upper thigh. Others prefer a more defined waist. And some, it's more a function of the clothing they wear (heavy armor, in general, should not have a sharply-defined "waist," as that's an incredibly dangerous weakness) than of their actual body plan.
Scribe
Legend
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Did you enjoy 3e? Or PF?
More importantly, do you have the time to invest, as a player, in doing dull or tedious things for several months before you will be allowed to do cool things?
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