Ampersand: Draconians!

[mhacdebhandia]

The funny thing is that 4e's philosophy of everything is core, makes me wonder about this. I mean, The Warforged appeared in Dragon (even though we knew Eberron would be the second setting released and that they were as intrinsic to it as draconians are to Dragonlance) and WotC had no compunctions about turning around and printing them again in the EPG.

Sure, but I don't think it's comparable.

First of all, warforged are a classic PC race. I'm sure there are PC rules for at least some draconians in at least the Margaret Weis Productions Third Edition material, but the better comparison would be to a Dragonlance-only race like, say, the kender.

Second, the warforged showed up in the first Monster Manual and had basic NPC racial stats there, then had a proper PC write up in Dragon - honestly, if you were going to see draconians as comparable, I'd want to see evidence of similar exposure and "promotion". I don't see kender getting this level of exposure, nor any other Dragonlance race (excepting possibly minotaurs, and the core promotion of minotaurs has been pretty focused on their classical, non-Dragonlance, Baphomet-worshipping or primal savage race schtick).

I think draconians are in Draconomicon 2: Metallic Dragons because a) it's the 25th anniversary and b) they're made from metallic dragons, so it's a logical thing to include.

 

[Klaus]

Weren't they always large? I remember it always struck me as odd that the sivaks were larger than the auraks.

Well, back in 1e and 2e "Large" wasn't ogre-sized. Gnolls, iirc, were large (at 7'6").

 

[gribble]

Well, back in 1e and 2e "Large" wasn't ogre-sized. Gnolls, iirc, were large (at 7'6").

Sure, although while the mini is on a large base, it certainly doesn't look the size of the 4e orges... much more the size of a 4e gnoll with wings.


I'm sure it wouldn't look out of place if you put it on a medium base and used it as a dragonborn mini...

 

[Nymrohd]

The good draconians are made from chromatic eggs. So I don't see why an Aurak being printed as a monster anywhere means that Dragonlance is not coming. Heck both changelings and warforged where in MM1 and I am pretty sure they are in my EPG too.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Funny thing: I liked the concept of draconians so much, in my homebrew I added a third god to the Bahamut/Tiamat dynamic, and had Faluzure steal chromatic eggs and hatch chromatic draconians from them.

They actually did that in the official setting under Sovereign Press' reign, interestingly enough.
The Noble Draconians were good Draconians who were formed when, in an act of desperation, the bad guys started using Chromatic dragon eggs. Not exactly the results they were looking for, so most of them were killed off.

 

[Cam Banks]

As D.Shaffer says, the so-called noble draconians were created from chromatic dragon eggs. This idea first started with a short story Jamie Chambers wrote years ago but never got published. When Andre and I were writing the Bestiary of Krynn, we included noble draconians in there to make Jamie happy. Author Kevin Stein included a vapor draconian in his contribution to the anthology Dragons of Time (2007), and I have a venom draconian pirate, Skullface, in my mega-adventure Price of Courage.

The nobles were illustrated by one of our favorite artists, Jason Engle, for the Bestiary. They showed up finally in Dragons of Krynn as player-ready races just like the original ("base") draconians.

If I ever get up off my ass, I'll write up the noble draconians in 4E monster format. One pet project I have in mind is to convert all of the Bestiary to 4E stats, but that would probably take a lot of free time...

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Rechan]

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[AllisterH]

Noble Draconians?

I guess I've been away from Dragonlance too long but what's the point of noble draconians?

The last set of novels I read where about the true-breeding Draconians and I got the impression from those novels that draconians weren't "evil" but were simply brought up that way?

Was I mistaken?

 

[Dragonhelm]

Noble Draconians?

I guess I've been away from Dragonlance too long but what's the point of noble draconians?

The last set of novels I read where about the true-breeding Draconians and I got the impression from those novels that draconians weren't "evil" but were simply brought up that way?

Was I mistaken?

Not entirely mistaken. Noble draconians came about after the draconian books. Maybe I can explain the situation a bit better.

Draconians (aka base draconians) are a corruption of the eggs of metallic dragons. As such, they are inherently evil. Now, one of the staples of the Dragonlance setting is that mortals have free will. This is the Law of Gilean. So draconians can follow any number of paths. With the influence Takhisis gone, they truly are free to follow their own wills.

Noble draconians are the corruption of evil dragon eggs. The Dragonarmies were desperate for more soldiers at the end of the War of the Lance, so they decided to try the same process on chromatic dragon eggs - often the eggs of chromatic dragons that had died in combat. However, the Balance came into play here, and the laws of the universe dictated that you cannot corrupt that which is already corrupt. Therefore, the draconians turned good. Most were destroyed by the Dragonarmies, but a few escaped. I've played three different noble draconians, and they're a blast.

The noble draconian races are as follows:

Flame - Red (These guys use their fiery breath weapons in the crafting of armor and weapons!)

Frost - White

Lightning - Blue (natural paladins)

Vapor - Green (natural mystics, very spiritual)

Venom - Black


As Cam said, these are the invention of Jamie Chambers. He wasn't certain whether to include them or not, but after some encouragement, he went ahead. They've been a hit in Dragonlance circles since.

 

[qstor]

It goes with the sacred hamburger theory of 4e. It shows that if there is a Dl setting it will have all the new dragons.

Hmmm...I haven't heard it called that before. One of the things I dislike about 4e.

I'm guessing that 2010 will bring Dragonlance too. All new in 2010 with half orcs and drow!

Mike