OneDnD Ardlings, Shifter and Hengeyokai as different variations on animal people

[Charlaquin]

So, is the Ardling suppose to be a new core race or for a upcoming source book?

They’re testing for the 2024 core rulebooks, so that.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think it's important to make the baseline divine, but I'm all for distributing them around. Arcane ardlings being fey, perhaps.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think it's important to make the baseline divine,

Why?

 

[Incenjucar]

Why?

Ties them to a lot of good existing ideas and myths and art and makes the planes more diverse. Even has interesting implications with the devas and rakshasa.

 

[Lojaan]

I disagree on this one strongly. You'd lose a lot of the neat individual stuff that these groups have by themselves. Plus, well, those races have a history. They're not related and don't have anything feywild to 'em. Certainly more viable to have seperate beast-people race than 7 different types of elves

Totally fair if that is how you like your world. I find heaps of different races that are basically human-but-animal to be boring and lazy (Yes I'm looking at you PF2) but that is totally just my preference for my made up worlds.

 

[Marandahir]

I like the distinction of Ardlings as humanoid with full-on animal heads and a few vague animal features like vestigial wings, versus Aarakocra, Lizardfolk, and Tabaxi with full on animal forms that are vaguely humanoid as well.

Ardling vs Shifter is a distinction primarily of facial form and origin; Shifters are Weretouched and look like Sabertooth from the X-Men - something in-between human and animal but much more on the human form than the beast form - and Ardlings are Egyptian Gods that look like these attachments. Note the differences from extant D&D species, which lack the very-humanlike bodies. These look like agents of the Gods rather than natural or fey peoples - ex Aarakocra, Lizardfolk, Jackalweres, Yuan-Ti, and Tabaxi, for comparison.

 

[Lojaan]

Ties them to a lot of good existing ideas and myths and art and makes the planes more diverse. Even has interesting implications with the devas and rakshasa.

I think you will find way more animal people in fey myths and art from around the world than divine but hey. The lines between the two blur a lot

 

[Marandahir]

I think you will find way more animal people in fey myths and art from around the world than divine but hey. The lines between the two blur a lot

The line is very blurred yes, mostly because we're used to using the terms Fey, Demon, and Devil for any deity that isn't a well-known named god from Semitic, Greco-Roman, Norse, Celtic, Indo-Aryan, Chinese, Japanese, Aztec, Mayan, or Incan stories. Any other culture, any lesser divinity that isn't clearly an Angel variant, and we call them a Fairy or a Demon or something, because we don't know what else to refer to them as and we've only JUST begun to reclaim those listed traditions above from demonization and religious persecution…

 

[Lojaan]

I like the distinction of Ardlings as humanoid with full-on animal heads and a few vague animal features like vestigial wings, versus Aarakocra, Lizardfolk, and Tabaxi with full on animal forms that are vaguely humanoid as well.

Ardling vs Shifter is a distinction primarily of facial form and origin; Shifters are Weretouched and look like Sabertooth from the X-Men - something in-between human and animal but much more on the human form than the beast form - and Ardlings are Egyptian Gods that look like these attachments. Note the differences from how Aarakocra/Owlin, Lizardfolk/Dragonborn, and Shifter/Werewolf/Jackalwere/Gnolls look:

Ugh. Let's just make Egyptian gods from real life a playable species. No thank you. Leave the real world religions alone please.

People get the difference in taking a species from myth like saytrs, or elves and making them playable is different to taking the actual gods yeah?

 

[Incenjucar]

I think you will find way more animal people in fey myths and art from around the world than divine but hey. The lines between the two blur a lot

Depends on the definitions you use and what you read. The fey is pretty tied to a specific region of the world. Lots of other mythic systems chock full of animal headed people.

 

[Mecheon]

Totally fair if that is how you like your world. I find heaps of different races that are basically human-but-animal to be boring and lazy (Yes I'm looking at you PF2) but that is totally just my preference for my made up worlds.

I mean, we're talking D&D which had Mystara as a setting. Its downright historic this is how D&D be. Heck, folks still wanting Lupin

Ugh. Let's just make Egyptian gods from real life a playable species. No thank you. Leave the real world religions alone please.

Egyptian gods didn't actually have animal heads, it was just a visual depiction of them to represesnt they are beyond man and instead part man, part something else. Their divinity.

 

[Lojaan]

Egyptian gods didn't actually have animal heads, it was just a visual depiction of them to represesnt they are beyond man and instead part man, part something else. Their divinity.

So you are saying "Egyptian gods didnt have animal heads they were just always shown to have animal heads because they were Egyptian gods"?

That does feel like you are splitting your haregons there

 

[Incenjucar]

Yeah, this is more a reference to that art. Literal animal heads are used on deities, but it's a global thing that applies to all kinds of figures and not something owned by any one culture.

 

[Mecheon]

So you are saying "Egyptian gods didnt have animal heads they were just always shown to have animal heads because they were Egyptian gods"?

That does feel like you are splitting your haregons there

That's just one of their visual aspects, they were shown in other forms all the time . Anubis and Bast are the two big ones for just showing up as animals

But, it ties into the Guardinal thing and, while I do think we can always have more random animal-people races, does at least lower the rate for "Its a X guardianal you can now play as" from the days you needed 5 of them

 

[Lojaan]

Yeah, this is more a reference to that art. Literal animal heads are used on deities, but it's a global thing that applies to all kinds of figures and not something owned by any one culture.

No but it is owned by a lot of real world religions and cultures. Notably not Western culture. So we should think a lot about it before we just go do it.

But hey, I'm willing to give WotC a shot at it considering their new process with cultural consultants. We'll see how it turns out.

 

[Incenjucar]

No but it is owned by a lot of real world religions and cultures. Notably not Western culture. So we should think a lot about it before we just go do it.

But hey, I'm willing to give WotC a shot at it considering their new process with cultural consultants. We'll see how it turns out.

Western culture has them too, they just get interpreted in certain directions because of historical events.

 

[Lojaan]

Western culture has them too, they just get interpreted in certain directions because of historical events.

Oh? I did not know that. Like what?

 

[Incenjucar]

Oh? I did not know that. Like what?

Like the Minotaur, or some versions of St. Christopher.

The term for it is "Theriocephaly".

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Oh? I did not know that. Like what?

Most Greek/Roman gods turn into animals at some point or another or at least have "favored" animals (peacocks and cows for Hera, bulls and eagles for Zeus, owls for Athena, horses for Poseidon, leopards for Dionysus, etc). It's not the same as being drawn with animal heads, but it's pretty close.

Then there's also The Morrigan with ravens, Loki with snakes, and lots of other examples of gods/spirits from European mythologies transforming into or having strong connections with animals.

 

[Lojaan]

Like the Minotaur, or some versions of St. Christopher.

The term for it is "Theriocephaly".

The minotaur is very specifically both a monster and a curse (on the king his father) so that very much doesn't count in this respect.

I can't find anything about St Christopher with an animal head. What animal head is he portrayed with?