Eladrins, Tieflings, Dragonborn Too Far Outside Standard Fantasy?

[drothgery]

I'm not talking about characters with demonic heritage, I'm talking about people with big curling horns and long tails who somehow fit comfortably into society without being burned at the stake. Merlin had demonic heritage, but he was very clearly not a tiefling.

Eh. Since I haven't seen anything saying that Tieflings horns and tails have any game mechanics effect, I'd say that's purely an art direction decision. If you don't want them to have horns and tails in your campaign, they don't.

 

[tuffnoogies]

How many of you feel that races such as Eladrins, Tieflings, and Dragonborn are too far beyond the scope of standard fantasy fare to be included as base races? Personally, I can't think of a single classic fantasy story that involved eladrins, tieflings, or dragonborn and I resent them being included in the core races.

They may not have been standard in 1950, but this is the 21st century. Standards change.

 

[Shadeydm]

I was unaware of the definition of core that excluded the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide.

I'm quite sure we would not be having this discussion if Eladrin, Tieflings, and Dragonboobs were in the 4E MM instead of the PHB.

 

[tomtill]

As has been stated before, humans dominate in the vast majority of sword and sorcery fantasy. This is also true in the 4e default DnD setting.

The old-school DnD races are very human non-humanoids. It's easy to imagine elves, dwarves, halflings and gnomes sitting at the dinner table with humans. Humans are aware that they are different, but they seem so human. Actually, these races are typically described with phenotypes that fall within the range of human variation. Most of us have seen people in RL that could easily be one of the old school races (even half-orc) with only a little imagination.

It takes a lot of imagination to see a RL human as a dragonborn or a tiefling. A tiefling can't even sit at the dinner table with that long fat tail in the way. It's hard to imagine that in a PoL setting the humans wouldn't immediately kill/drive away any such individual that showed up in their town.

Having said that, I should also point out that it is a game of imagination. While my own preferred fantasy world consists of humans or human-like humanoids mixing with humans, I have played Eberron for a while now. This is a setting where (especially in places like Sharn) monstrous races mix (sort of) freely with humanoids. It works. Scenarios can range from something similar to the bar scene in Star Wars to bands of people (loosely described) looking suspiciously at a monstrous newcomer (like a tiefling) but grudgingly accepting that they too have a right to be there, as long as they abide by the rules. We have had fun with, for example, with the warforged PC being completely accepted in some circles and vilified in others. I imagine it will work the same for tiefling and dragonborn.

Another inspiration might come from something like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, where the old races of legend started coming out of hiding in time for the last battle. The human races were afraid/suspicious but with proper sponsorship they came to accept the friendly ones.

 

[Dausuul]

But D&D races aren't all that much like mythological races, or Tolkien races, or 1960s science fiction/fantasy races, or 1980s gamefic races, or contemporary fantasy races. They're a blend of all of those with weird random stuff thrown in, and that's how they've been in every edition of the game. Calling it traditional versus modern or mythological versus fictional is drawing an arbitrary distinction that doesn't correspond very well to the actual material. That's what I was trying to say, that there is no "context of mythology and mythological origins" here, except in a superficial sense. And at that superficial level, Merlin + faun = tiefling, or close enough as to not matter.

But Merlin wasn't a faun.

The way I see it, each of the D&D races has a core identity, defined by appearance and concept, which goes something like this:

Humans: Humans.
Elves: Forest-dwelling, graceful, good-looking guys.
Dwarves: Short guys with an affinity for earth, stone, and metalworking.
Halflings: Sneaky little guys.
Eladrin: Good-looking magic guys.
Tieflings: Devil-spawn with horns and tails.
Dragonborn: Scaly reptile-guys with wings.

The exact details vary, of course, but that's inevitable--even if you were sticking strictly to the mythological roots of each race, there are a hundred variations on elves and dwarves. The thing is that the elf identity matches pretty well with the ljosalfar (though perhaps the fairies of British legend would be a better match), and the dwarven identity matches pretty well with the dvergar. You can point to the dvergar and say, "That there is a dwarf."

But the tiefling identity doesn't match with anything; bits of it match with this, and other bits with that, but as far as I know, there's nothing that you can point to in mythology and say, "That there is a tiefling."

Eh. Since I haven't seen anything saying that Tieflings horns and tails have any game mechanics effect, I'd say that's purely an art direction decision. If you don't want them to have horns and tails in your campaign, they don't.

This is a debate about fluff. I don't see what mechanics have to do with anything. I can slap the tiefling mechanics on giant anthropomorphic weasels; so what?

 

[BWS]

I think the difference between us is that I don't see ljosalfar or dvergar when I look at D&D elves and dwarves. I see bits and pieces of different sources, just like you say with the tieflings. Therefore, I don't see a difference in mythological fidelity between the two. They're all a pretty poor match for anything except previous editions of D&D (and even that's arguable).

 

[tomtill]

by the way, the old-school PHB races also lent themselves well to good vs. evil scenarios.

kill the baby goblins? no problem. evil monsters.

kill the baby goblins in eberron? murderer! You are the evil monster.

The more monstrous humanoid phenotypes pervade normal human civilization, the more complicated the morality of killing it, taking its stuff becomes.

Which is OK by me, but I can see why others might object.

 

[hexgrid]

Dragonboobs.

Why the fixation on breasts? Before deciding to allow them in my campaign, I need to know if dragonborn males have penises, hemipenises, or (like tuataras) have no copulatory organs at all.

 

[Fifth Element]

Why the fixation on breasts?

It's about verisimilitude. D&D wouldn't be realistic unless it included a fixation on breasts.

 

[theNater]

And last I checked, D&D was invented in the 1970s, so you can hardly cite it as a source for dragonborn as a traditional (that is, mythological) fantasy archetype.

The funny thing is that in many ways, 4E is including more mythological material than previous editions. We have the war between the gods and the primordials, which reflects the Titanomachy and various similar "old order of divinity versus new" myths; the Feywild and the Shadowfell, which resemble the northern European conceit of Faerie and many pagan portrayals of the underworld respectively; the shift away from Vancian casting toward a more generic model, which is closer to mythological magic; and the origins of Asmodeus and the devils, which are straight out of the Christian account of Lucifer's rebellion and fall (except that Lucifer didn't manage to actually kill God).

This makes it all the more jarring to me to have these "new fantasy" elements.

It sounds like you're saying that blending different kinds of old mythological material(like Christian accounts with pagan portrayals) is okay, but blending old mythology with new mythology is not okay. If I'm misinterpreting, please clarify.

I feel that all mythology should be fair game, and a myth doesn't have to be hundreds or thousands of years old to be a myth.