D&D 5E Dwellers on Shadow

[I'm A Banana]

I hear what you're saying. Y'know, it's probably reconcilable: they're byronesque extreme-seeking masochists who must do this because else their souls will slide to shadow.

Which means those who have given up and slid into shadow aren't going to fight against that shadow anymore.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Funny enough, I never cared too much about the shadar-kai, but the essay ends up describing what made 4E such a disappointment to me: first we make a commitment to create "a new githkin" in our next monster manual, every designer pitches something and one of those suggestions ends up having some traction with the player community. What we do now? How about changing it completely in the next edition?

I don't care what Shadar-kai will be in next, but I hope they stay either with the 3E or the 4E version, because a race that is three different things at three different editions is everything I don't need/want. Make a choice and go with it in Next, Next.5, Next II, and whatever comes after that.

Cheers,

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I never really grokked shaddar-kai. Aren't they essentially just dark gnomes with a piercing fetish?

 

[Jester David]

We already have dark ones (dark creepers and dark stalkers) as shadow infused humans. To say nothing of shades. Shadar-Kai are redundant as shadow plane humans. However, a shadow touched fey race works.

There's no shadar-kai variants, so they themselves could be a subrace of eladrin, and thus retain their shadow walking power as a variant on fey step. Eladrin corrupted by shadow and darkness and bound far away from the Feywild.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I definitely prefer the Shadar-Kai to be Fey, and I picked a bunch of choices that I felt were best among the 3e and 4e choices.

 

[avin]

I definitely prefer the Shadar-Kai to be Fey, and I picked a bunch of choices that I felt were best among the 3e and 4e choices.

I'd just stay away from any deity reference in their origin or, at least, hint it instead of declare as true.

As a Planescaper I like having tons of races for playing around.

 

[Sage Genesis]

Funny enough, I never cared too much about the shadar-kai, but the essay ends up describing what made 4E such a disappointment to me: first we make a commitment to create "a new githkin" in our next monster manual, every designer pitches something and one of those suggestions ends up having some traction with the player community. What we do now? How about changing it completely in the next edition?

I don't care what Shadar-kai will be in next, but I hope they stay either with the 3E or the 4E version, because a race that is three different things at three different editions is everything I don't need/want. Make a choice and go with it in Next, Next.5, Next II, and whatever comes after that.

Cheers,

This is an interesting opinion to highlight because I know there's also a lot of people who get frustrated with how stagnant D&D has become with Next (thus far, "Beta is Beta" and all that).

Many Wandering Monster articles over the past year are practically just copy-paste jobs of AD&D and 3e monster manuals. Shadar-Kai are given options, but the phrasing of the issues and questions strongly hint at a 3e preference (same as the Gith actually). While there is nothing wrong with this approach per se, it does mean that for some people there's nothing fresh. You'd be expected to buy into a new edition of D&D even though it's not dedicated to bringing any new scenarios to the table. Just the same monsters we've had for decades now.

I don't envy the Next team.

I never really grokked shaddar-kai. Aren't they essentially just dark gnomes with a piercing fetish?

Gnomes? Uh, no. Shadar-Kai are human sized and there's nothing gnomish about them.

 

[steeldragons]

Yeah, they love peircings and mohawks/shaving their heads...tattoos also, verrrry trendy, woohoo! They're punks/goths/emo [pick your decade of reference for this oh so "edgy", anitestablishment, and "dark kewlness" archetype of choice].

I do think, however, the "inflicting pain" to maintain their existence is farrrrr too close to a race of "cutters" and not something the game should be promoting so integrally into an entire race of creatures. Given the outsider and often impressionable types (not to mention age ranges) who are likely to play (and enjoy!) D&D, this is mmmmm'bad idea.

 

[SkidAce]

Yeah, they love peircings and mohawks/shaving their heads...tattoos also, verrrry trendy, woohoo! They're punks/goths/emo [pick your decade of reference for this oh so "edgy", anitestablishment, and "dark kewlness" archetype of choice].

I do think, however, the "inflicting pain" to maintain their existence is farrrrr too close to a race of "cutters" and not something the game should be promoting so integrally into an entire race of creatures. Given the outsider and often impressionable types (not to mention age ranges) who are likely to play (and enjoy!) D&D, this is mmmmm'bad idea.

I was thinking the same thing myself.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, they love peircings and mohawks/shaving their heads...tattoos also, verrrry trendy, woohoo! They're punks/goths/emo [pick your decade of reference for this oh so "edgy", anitestablishment, and "dark kewlness" archetype of choice].

I do think, however, the "inflicting pain" to maintain their existence is farrrrr too close to a race of "cutters" and not something the game should be promoting so integrally into an entire race of creatures. Given the outsider and often impressionable types (not to mention age ranges) who are likely to play (and enjoy!) D&D, this is mmmmm'bad idea.

This is an interesting perspective. So it's okay for the impressionable young kids to play murderous vagabonds who rifle through the pockets of the dead (not to mention their tombs) and summon monsters to slay their foes, but the shadar-kai tendency to cut themselves is going to hurt our children?

I think there's a fundamental disconnect there.

I also think it's a bit condescending to think that D&D players are that easily influenced into bad behavior by monsters in the game. If anything, monsters reflect our own bad behavior and habits, rather than engendering them- there are plenty of seductresses out there; which came first, the seductress or the succubus?

I really don't want DnD to EVER exclude material because "think of the children!". That's how we lost tons of awesome in 2e (demons, devils, etc). I'm okay with stuff that's actually too-extreme-for-kids bearing a warning label, and I'm totally okay with any given group excluding any given game element, but changing the shadar-kai and removing their coolest element to avoid influencing the young'uns? I don't think we've even heard a complaint referencing them from any parents or anything (or if we have, I am not familiar with it).

Final thought on the matter: Cutters are gonna cut themselves until they get past the part of their lives where they feel they need to do so, whether that is decades of loneliness later or after three weeks, when they discover a friend or piece of art or whatever that fills them with vivid emotion. Is it healthy? Probably not. Do I endorse it? Nope. But should we concern ourselves with the impact of the shadar-kai on the number of cutters out there? Not unless someone can actually show a real connection.