D&D 5E Awakened Spell and effects on offspring of awakened creatures

[jgsugden]

If they do true breed more generations of intelligent creatures, and druids have been around for a long time, it results in a sad truth: These creatures are so miserable that they decide against breeding true more often than not in an attempt to prevent their tragedy from being inflicted on another generation. Otherwise, the intelligent, with their superior minds, would soon outnumber the unawakened.

In my game - no, their offspring do not automatically gain their intellect. Instead, if they want it for their children, they seek out a druid.

 

[Helldritch]

@BookTenTiger It can also be fun if the druid is awakening creatures who come back lonely demanding more of their kind be awakened and then for awakened parents asking for their children to be awakened.

Or maybe the opposite. Maybe an awakened creature would desire a return to a more simple life.

There was a science fiction book whose name I can't remember that had the premise that with technical enhancements, dolphins were uplifted to personhood but wanted to return to their natural states.

You are looking at the Earth Clan novels. Very nice books to read. Great sci-fi.

As for our topic, I would not allow the awakening to be passed on to offsprings. This makes for a great tragedy where the awakened animal knows his offspring will never be like it. To avoid too many tragedies like this, the druid would not awaken young animals but animals that are near the end of their life, so that as guardians for groves, they would not suffer a lot from their awakening. But anything goes. It was just my stance on it.

 

[Prakriti]

There was a science fiction book whose name I can't remember that had the premise that with technical enhancements, dolphins were uplifted to personhood but wanted to return to their natural states.

You are looking at the Earth Clan novels. Very nice books to read. Great sci-fi.

Pretty sure MNblockhead is thinking of David Brin's Hugo-Award-winning Uplift saga, since he mentioned dolphins and even used the word "uplifted."

EDIT: Oh, it seems Earth Clan is the same thing. My mistake.

 

[Helldritch]

Pretty sure MNblockhead is thinking of David Brin's Hugo-Award-winning Uplift saga, since he mentioned dolphins and even used the word "uplifted."

EDIT: Oh, it seems Earth Clan is the same thing. My mistake.

You were more precise than I was. I worked from memory and I read them a long long time ago. Bit they were very interesting to read, and muse on the implications of uplifting. When the spell awaken was first introduced, I immediately thought of these novels. It guided me a lot on the awaken animals and their reactions.

 

[D1Tremere]

In Starfinder, which is the future universe of Pathfinder, which uses the 3.5 D&D rules with some twists here and there, there is an entire race of awakened animals now called Uplifted. Obviously this doesn't mean a DM must go with that, but it is an near cannon an answer as we are likely to get on this long term question.

 

[aco175]

Awaken one dog and your it master.
Awaken 1,000 and you are a warlord.
Awaken them all and your a god.

I was reading the earlier post and thinking if the awakened whatever would think the druid was a god.

 

[77IM]

In My Game...

1. Yes, they breed true. Moreover, if an awakened animal breeds with a non-awakened animal, the offspring would have an Intelligence somewhere in between the two, and be able to speak crudely. Sure, why not? This is a setting where you can cast speak with animals which acknowledeges that animals' thoughts are at least complex enough to translate into language, even if the animals themselves lack the power of speech. It's also a setting where magical experiments can create things like owlbears and mongrelfolk. So I think it makes sense for the awakening to be permanent down to the genetic level.

2. Yes, they still think of themselves as animals. They don't have prejudice towards non-awakened animals. Animals don't "need" Intelligence and don't view it in a necessarily positive light the way humanoids do. The ability to think and talk is a neat trick that really helps when interacting with humanoids and navigating their world. Once in a while it might help evade a predator or catch prey, but in general, being fast and strong and a good sniffer helps more. So an awakened animal wouldn't have any compunction about mating with a non-awakened animal, and might even view the non-awakened animal as superior if they are bigger or wiser or more respected among their kind. Non-awakened children wouldn't bother them as long as the children can play and grow normally for that type of animal.

 

[MarkB]

If they do true breed more generations of intelligent creatures, and druids have been around for a long time, it results in a sad truth: These creatures are so miserable that they decide against breeding true more often than not in an attempt to prevent their tragedy from being inflicted on another generation. Otherwise, the intelligent, with their superior minds, would soon outnumber the unawakened.

Only if druids commonly awaken several members of the same species in the same region. It'd take more than just a breeding pair or two, otherwise the benefits of intelligence would be outweighed by the detriments of inbreeding.

 

[Iry]

Whatever makes for the best story, honestly. Even if that means being utterly inconsistent in how I handle it. Maybe I want to tell a story about a forest full of talking animals braving the big wide world for the first time. A druid wove their magic into the very fiber of a creature's existence and they breed true. Maybe I want to tell a tragic tale of an awakened beast with a gemstone in her head, and deal with the moral issues of taking it out and going Flowers for Algernon on her. A bard buried the gemstone into their body, and the arcane pathways constantly buff the animal.