D&D General D&D Archetypes that spread out to other settings and media

[Reynard]

For sure. I mean, in '77 D&D was still just Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halfling Hobbits. I'd be willing to bet that the aesthetic of having a Mos Eisley cantina worth of different races in a setting was a direct result of the popularity of Star Wars.

So we can blame Lucas for playable gnomes?

 

[Cergorach]

Dragonborn are not draconians. Like, not even a little.

Dragonborn of Bahamut in 3e are creatures that are not born, but made by Bahamut, the counterpart to Tiamat.
Tiamat = Takhisis
Draconians are made by clerics of Takhisis (as in the power of Takhisis makes the Draconians).
4e made the Dragonborn into a playable race in the PHB and left out the 'of Bahamut' part. Which is slightly different in 5e again, just like the Drow...

There are some young folks that say that Warhammer stole the Orcs from World of Warcraft, but those that are a bit older and know, Warcraft is a game with Warhammer serials filed off. Similar things happened with Starcraft and 40k btw. Warhammer pulled inspiration from everything, unknown if they were inspired by D&D or Lord of the Rings, as at the time Citadel (the miniatures arm of GW at the time) was producing both D&D and LotR miniatures...

And the Orcs from Tolkien are not the same as the Orcs in D&D, or in Warhammer, or in Warcraft, but boy were they inspired by them. The same holds true for the Draconians vs. Dragonborn.

And while the Council of Wyrms setting (and other sources) had things like half-dragons, that was a similar, yet separate path that was ultimately abandoned with almost all the other half-xxx species/templates.

 

[Reynard]

Dragonborn of Bahamut in 3e are creatures that are not born, but made by Bahamut, the counterpart to Tiamat.
Tiamat = Takhisis
Draconians are made by clerics of Takhisis (as in the power of Takhisis makes the Draconians).
4e made the Dragonborn into a playable race in the PHB and left out the 'of Bahamut' part. Which is slightly different in 5e again, just like the Drow...

There are some young folks that say that Warhammer stole the Orcs from World of Warcraft, but those that are a bit older and know, Warcraft is a game with Warhammer serials filed off. Similar things happened with Starcraft and 40k btw. Warhammer pulled inspiration from everything, unknown if they were inspired by D&D or Lord of the Rings, as at the time Citadel (the miniatures arm of GW at the time) was producing both D&D and LotR miniatures...

And the Orcs from Tolkien are not the same as the Orcs in D&D, or in Warhammer, or in Warcraft, but boy were they inspired by them. The same holds true for the Draconians vs. Dragonborn.

And while the Council of Wyrms setting (and other sources) had things like half-dragons, that was a similar, yet separate path that was ultimately abandoned with almost all the other half-xxx species/templates.

There is a lot of red string in this post.

 

[TwoSix]

And, I'm fine with that.

But then you have an issue of tracing. Someone saying that, though media had barehanded martial artists aplenty for years, Final Fantasy got its version specifically from D&D, and not also from those other sources? That's a hard claim to substantiate.

Yea, I doubt it was specifically D&D. Martial arts related media had a major boom in the '70s, and there were plenty of manga, anime, and live action films for creators to draw from. I would guess the FF1 Monk/Black Belt took more from Fist of the North Star than D&D.

But disentangling the cross-pollination 40 years after the fact is pretty much impossible.

 

[TwoSix]

So we can blame Lucas for playable gnomes?

I think we all know Lucas has a lot to answer for.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'd be willing to bet that the aesthetic of having an Mos Eisley cantina worth of different races in a setting was a direct result of the popularity of Star Wars.

I don’t think this is specifically Star Wars. It’s a fairly standard SF concept. Star Trek TOS would have done it if they had the budget, the animated series did do it, Doctor Who did it around 1973 - The Curse of Peledon had major characters from six different species, two not even remotely humanoid. I expect more examples could be found.

 

[Corinnguard]

Dragonborn of Bahamut in 3e are creatures that are not born, but made by Bahamut, the counterpart to Tiamat.
Tiamat = Takhisis
Draconians are made by clerics of Takhisis (as in the power of Takhisis makes the Draconians).
4e made the Dragonborn into a playable race in the PHB and left out the 'of Bahamut' part. Which is slightly different in 5e again, just like the Drow...

The Dragonborn of Bahamut were individuals from the other races (humans, elves, dwarves, etc.) who had heeded the call of Bahamut to be his soldiers in the Dragonfall War against Tiamat and her Dragonspawn. All of the individuals underwent a magical rite called the Rite of Rebirth, which saw them giving up their past lives and appearances to become what were essentially Half-Platinum dragons.

The 4e version of the Dragonborn are completely different than their 3e counterparts. Initially they didn't resemble the Chromatic and Metallic dragons. That came later in 5e.

As for Tiamat and Takhisis, very ancient and very powerful dragons had numerous versions of themselves scattered across the multiverse. Some draconic deities are the result of one of these ancient wyrms assimilating their multiversal counterparts. Takhisis is merely an aspect of Tiamat, just as Paladine is an aspect of Bahamut.

 

[Umbran]

Draconians are made by clerics of Takhisis (as in the power of Takhisis makes the Draconians).

If I recall correctly, draconians come from metallic dragon eggs corrupted by the power of Takhisis.

I don't know that goes well as a playable PC concept, though. Dragonborn today are separated form those old concepts, and are now their own thing, because while being a corruption is icky, being a dragon-person isn't. So at this point dragonborn are not draconians, even a little.

 

[Corinnguard]

If I recall correctly, draconians come from metallic dragon eggs corrupted by the power of Takhisis.

For a time, there were also Noble Draconians. These Draconians came from Chromatic dragon eggs redeemed by the setting's strong adherence to balance.

 

[SkidAce]

...Ringwraiths. The Witch King of Angmar is not impressed by Lord Soth...

Well he should be!