D&D General Dragonborn as Kobolds: Yea or Nay?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I feel like an update of Oriental Adventures is 100% possible if they do three things:

1) Make damn sure it isn't called Oriental Adventures.

2) Make it about Japanese mythology specifically (including cutting or redoing any elements which aren't present in Japanese myth, but that's not very much). About 90% of the original OA was Japan focused which was part of the big problem with TSR acting like it covered East Asian mythology in general.

3) Get actual Japanese people to work on it, particularly in leadership roles (pref. Japanese-Japanese to Japanese-Americans myself, but that might not be practical)

I think Radiant Citadel shows they can pull all of these off quite well. My preference, of course, would just be to go back to that book and connect all of the Asia-coded Concord Worlds settings into a single larger world, either as 5E Kara-Tur or as an entirely new world.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like the Radiant Citadel civs so much more than Kara-Tur.

But, there is some uniquely Kara-Tur, old-school D&D stuff that could use an update.

Hengeyokai are mechanically light enough and varied enough that I wouldn't mind if they were exported form Kara-Tur into D&D more broadly, honestly. Might want to update the name (it's VERY Japanese!), but the essential species mechanic is just a niche, low-level Wild Shape and a flavorful ribbon based on bein' a little beast-y. Honestly a great fit for 5.24's super light species mechanics.

Man, this really just makes me want a second Radiant Citadel book with an abundance of character options....

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I like the Radiant Citadel civs so much more than Kara-Tur.

But, there is some uniquely Kara-Tur, old-school D&D stuff that could use an update.

Hengeyokai are mechanically light enough and varied enough that I wouldn't mind if they were exported form Kara-Tur into D&D more broadly, honestly. Might want to update the name (it's VERY Japanese!), but the essential species mechanic is just a niche, low-level Wild Shape and a flavorful ribbon based on bein' a little beast-y. Honestly a great fit for 5.24's super light species mechanics.

Man, this really just makes me want a second Radiant Citadel book with an abundance of character options....

Hengeyokai being an available Radiant Citadel ancestry would be fantastic.

And yeah, a second Radiant Citadel book, ideally with content taking place on the citadel would be very welcome. We're really enjoying our campaign, which is actually picking up more players as it goes along, rather than shedding them, which is how campaigns usually go in my experience.

 

[haakon1]

I was brainstorming ways to incorporate dragonborn into older D&D settings which don't currently include lore for dragonborn, and found myself wondering: What if dragonborn were just kobolds who tapped into their latent draconic ancestry? In other words, there's no separate dragonborn species. All dragonborn are kobolds, and any kobold can, in theory, evolve into a dragonborn. That extra bit of lore gets added on top of any pre-existing kobold lore.

To me, that sounds like a fun way to hack dragonborn into an older D&D setting, but I'd be curious to hear the thoughts of diehard dragonborn fans. Would making every dragonborn a powered-up kobold detract from the fantasy of playing a dragonborn? Or would a kobold connection be no big deal, given the strong ties kobolds have to dragons in the current edition of D&D? Would your answer change if dragonborn were changed to be Small like kobolds?

Speaking as a diehard old schooler Greyhawker who doesn’t like Dragonborn …

Yeah, that seems to work. If I felt I “needed” to add Dragonborn, that would probably be the least setting disruptive way.

FYI, in my home 3.5e campaign where PC’s met Meepo, he had levels in Sorcerer (I don’t recall if that was “official” or my decision) and he took over as king of the kobolds and ruler of the Sunless Citadel, with the help of the PC’s.

Everyone likes Meepo!

 

[haakon1]

What's truly astonishing to me is that D&D still doesn't have a dog-person or wolf-person race.

We’ll always have werewolves. But yeah.

 

[haakon1]

Two random thoughts …

My PC in our family game DM’d by my niece is an Aasimar Cleric. Half Hound Archon. Looks human, but has shaggy hair and doglike personality traits.

I loved AD&D OA. First thing I really DM’d. 100% agree (though it was shot down pretty hard in discussions here) that it’s best as a Japanese setting - which agree the 1985 book 90% was - and not “every nation of Asia only in the Forgotten Realms” like the late boxed set. The latter feels wrong to me.

I have stealthily added Wa and Kozakura to my personal Greyhawk, as isolated islands deep in the Solnor Ocean. The only references to it so far:
1) Japanese-American player oathed about Amaratsu and I told him she exists in this Greyhawk.

2) NPC with a Naginata. Actually she is Jaethal from Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and I replaced her scythe with a Naginata. Back story is she’s from Ravilla (from the 2003 Chainmail setting west of mainstream Greyhawk), and that elvish empire once invaded Wa in my backstory. She was an inquisitor against non-elvish rebels there and elsewhere in that empire.

3) NPC they just met is carrying stolen maps and logs of a Great Kingdom expedition to the East, across the Solnor Ocean to the Raging Swan setting, like the Picaroon Peninsula. Those are lost colonies - like what happened to Norse Greenland settlements - but in contact with Kozakura. More raids than trade, but they each know the other is there.

Whoo!