A comprehensive look at Avariels (FR)

[Arravis]

Well, it was made for a Forgotten Realms campaign, so what I did was Realms specific. I originally had the FR icon on there, but looks like it got dropped. I put it up again, hope that helps.

Anyway... in putting this together it wasn't my intent to judge which campaign settign is better, or which one had them "originally", etc. I wanted to gather all the lore on this race that could be used for Forgotten Realms and put it together into one document. And yes, FR co-opted alot of things from Grayhawk, just like Grayhawk co-opted alot of things from Lieber, Moorcock, Tolkien, Howard, etc.

P.S.: Thanee, I have the logging out problem with Safari, Internet Explorer and Netscape (all on a mac). It wasn't until the recent ENWorld update, but it totally hosed my ENWorld experience . Netscape won't even let me log in at all. Safari will only let me log in for a few minutes before kicking me out, and IE seems to act more or less at random. Ugh.

 

[Psion]

Well, it was made for a Forgotten Realms campaign, so what I did was Realms specific. I originally had the FR icon on there, but looks like it got dropped. I put it up again, hope that helps.

Ah, well...

Wouldn't help me to much. I'm currently in stealth mode. Can't see icons.

 

[Arravis]

Well, I threw in a "(FR)" tag on there... unfortunately my FR icon keeps vanishing. Ugh.

 

[Derulbaskul]

MHO,

Very nice, but the FR specific references bother me. Like many elements that were part of the general metasetting and Greyhawk (nonhuman deities, Lolth, Kara-tur, etc.), Avariel got co-opted into FR.

I've never understand comments like this. How can this be an issue? D&D "co-opted" Tolkien-isms. FR "co-opted" dwarves, elves, orcs etc...: where do you draw the line? Should we just play Tasilanta instead?

Great write-up, Arravis.

 

[Nifft]

Very nice write-up. It's stuff like this that makes me want to re-consider my bad Realms experiences.

-- N

 

[Arravis]

I actually really liked Talislanta (and Arcanum before that, by the same guys) .

 

[mythusmage]

Deep Avariel Background

The Avariel began as a group of adventurers. On one assignment they were given alation potions (an invention of the DM, one Niall Shapiro) which gave them wings. Permanent wings. It was later determined that the trait was inheritable, so a new race of humans was born.

That's right, humans.

Later the Shapiros (Niall and Kay) submitted the new race for the fan publication, All the World's Monsters. Later Kay redid the winged folk as elves, named them Avariel, and submitted them to TSR for (I think) publication in Dragon. The rest is history.

 

[Angcuru]

She also apparantly never heard of closing her damn mouth. The first time I played Baldur's Gate II, I let her join my party. After a while, I got so tired of her whining and angsting over her missing wings that I let her die in combat and never bothered to resurrect her.

Hmm. Seems that a lot of people found her to be more of a piddly annoyance than anything else. I actually liked this character, and she was playing a major part in story hour I was writing until I decided to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch with my own universe. (as I didn't want to be tied to forgotten realms and thus have my creativity diminshed) I've got most of the basic stuff worked out mentally, but the big challenge is trying to create an 'elf-like' race (humanoid, beautiful, long-lived, etc) without them seeming overly elf-rip-offs. :\

ANYway, that's a nice write-up there, Arravis.

 

[Psion]

I've never understand comments like this. How can this be an issue? D&D "co-opted" Tolkien-isms. FR "co-opted" dwarves, elves, orcs etc...: where do you draw the line? Should we just play Tasilanta instead?

What do Tolkein's elves have to do with this? I really think you fail to understand my issue.

This is no slam on Arrivis, who has done a fine job to be sure. But to answer your question:

The "issue" is that in taking what were once general items (like creatures, characters, etc.), and chosing to include the writeups for these solely in an FR product in an FR context, in order for fans to get support for that item in the latest version of the system, they must buy a book populated primarily with FR specific items, and extract the item from its FR specific context.

I have no problem if FR wants to use any of the general stuff, so your Tolkein and Talislanta comments are way out of line. What I do take umbrage with is when the FR product becomes the sole source of a formerly general item.

 

[Psion]

Later the Shapiros (Niall and Kay) submitted the new race for the fan publication, All the World's Monsters. Later Kay redid the winged folk as elves, named them Avariel, and submitted them to TSR for (I think) publication in Dragon. The rest is history.

Does anyone else remember the Al Karak Elan (or something like that), or Winged Folk, that showed up in one of the old Best of the Dragons? Those clearly weren't avariel to my knowledge. But one of the more recent articles or products (I forget which, but I think it was an article) tried to make them the same.