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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dnd3dm" data-source="post: 4218864" data-attributes="member: 4680">It's pretty easy for me to introduce tieflings and dragonborn into my howmbrew campaign world of Ralanar, since they already exist there. Same with eladrin. Dragonborn: Dragons were one of the first races to be created by the Overgoddess. They warred amongst themselves constantly, being powerful magical creatures of legendary arrogance. The five younger gods created other races (elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, and lastly, halflings and humans) to challenge (compete with) the dragons so they wouldn't wipe themselves or the world out. Once confronted and defeated (gasp!) by these small, individually frail creatures who had stolen their magic, dragons used their remaining powers to create servitor races for themselves to deal with these upstarts while they licked their wounds and recovered from the conflict. This resulted in the creation of the lesser servitor races of lizardfolk, kobolds, troglodytes, and others. The race now know as dragonborn were a greater servitor race, the most favored of their progenitors. Once the dragons had recovered, the world was again plunged into war, with some dragons siding with the "younger races" (the metallics) led by Bahamut, some withdrawing from the conflict to other planes (the gem dragons). The rest remained to fight for their renewed dominance (the chromatics), led by Tiamat. The resulting Dragonwar devastated Ralanar as never before until the gods forcibly stepped in and ended the conflict. They banished the metallic and chromatic dragons to pocket demiplanes, along with most of their servitor races. Thus, for eons, the younger races developed, flourished, but of course they warred on each other. Finally the Swordlords, servants of the dark gods, searched for a way to maintain their newly conquered kingdom, and begin to find the keys to the dragons' extradimensional prisons. The minions of the Swordlords let the chromatic dragons back into the world in exchange for promises of alliance. To counter them, a group of adventurers (my latest group of PCs) who had risen to challenge the Swordlords and topple their kingdom searched for and found several of the keys to unlock the metallic dragons' demiplanes. Thus, dragons and their servitor races have returned in force to Ralanar, setting the stage for a new series of conflicts. Dragonborn have reappeared both due to re-emerging from the dragons' realms and due to magical rituals that certain worshipers of Bahamut (now a deity) have performed to turn themselves into "created" dragonborn (Races of the Dragon, but they are not infertile). Dragonborn are uncommon in the civilized lands. They can now be found serving dragons that have returned to Ralanar, serving Bahamut (or Tiamat) as religious disciples or warriors, or wandering free as mercenaries. Eladrin: Eladrin are immigrants from the extraplanar realm of Faerie. The first elves of Ralanar were sea elves, as they were created by the goddess of the sea, destiny, and chaos. Being curious and chaotic creatures, the sea elves sought to explore the dry lands, but found themselves unable to breathe there. They prayed and pleaded with their goddess for assistance, and being the whimsical entity that she is, the Lady of Destiny brought the eladrin from the fey realm to assist her children. The eladrin found the elves to their liking and bred with them. They taught the new land-dwelling elves how to survive and how to harness the dragons' magic for their own defense. At the end of the Dragonwar, after the schism that caused the dark elves to move underground, the eladrin led the elves away from the devastation to new continents in the west. The elves and their fey masters colonized these lands and have achieved dominion over many of them, away from the influences of humankind. To other races, eladrin merely look like elves that are even more graceful and otherworldly, thus resulting in their more common name of "high elves". Eladrin are relatively rare, and rule elvin settlements and generally act as nobility. Tieflings: (Much shorter)Tieflings are the result of the depraved humans of the evil empire of Stygion (evil pseudo-Egyptian realm ruled by intelligent undead from behind the scenes) breeding with summoned entities from the nether-realms. Others began to imitate the Stygians' malefic practices, and tieflings began to appear in lands north of the Stygian deserts. (Tieflings were available as a PC race, but with the +1 ECL in 3.X, no one played one. I did introduce one as a recurring NPC in my campaign.)Tieflings can be found anywhere on the fringes and dark corners or civilization as rogues, assassins, mercenaries, or adventurers. They are common in the empire of Stygion, and uncommon everywhere else. Gonna have to copy that and put it into my campaign handout! Whew!</blockquote>

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