Having a hard time with including Dragonborn in your Campaign setting?

[Incenjucar]

So long as dragons exist within your game world they should be able to fit in.


Darksun however........

You mean Dray?

 

[Voss]

I don't really agree with that. I prefer traditional dragons of myth and legend, and not the weirdness that WotC has been doing with dragons in recent years. Largely solitary uber-predators don't really have much interest in a whole pantheon of deities (or three or whatever it is now), let alone a race of servitors or 'lesser kindred spirits'

On the R&C wandering mercenary thing... eh. I can't fit that either. None of the other cultures in my world would be willing to let these creatures wander around as armed bands of warriors, particularly after someone else crushed them in a war. 'Course, I don't really want a large number of random races running about anyway. A hundred or so sentient species (let alone the staggering number of cultures) is absurd unless you're doing some sort of planar nexus setting.

 

[Incenjucar]

Honestly, I think the Dragonborn culture was inspired by Lone Wolf and Cub.

As for multiple intelligent species... I try to stick to a small handful.

In my homebrew, there are only three natural intelligent humanoid races, and anything else is artificial, mutant, or of a completely unrelated ecological niche (dragons et al).

 

[Dausuul]

I have no place for dragonborn; they do not fit in the slightest with my conception of dragons. I don't see dragons as wanting or needing a servitor race. Moreover, the dragonborn "honorable warrior" ethos is wildly at odds with the typical dragon personality in my world (laconic, arrogant, playful in a predatory way).

What I intend to do instead is strip off the fluff and re-do them as follows. Note that "demonspawn" are slightly re-flavored tieflings.

Furies are a race of hell-spawned warriors, the offspring of humans and devils.

Furies are terrifying creatures who live for war. They are very tall, females being six to six and a half feet and males sometimes reaching a height of seven feet or more. Their bodies are lean and hard-muscled, and their black hair is usually worn long and loose. Their faces are fearsome to look upon, with sharp fangs, heavy ridges sweeping back from their brows and cheekbones, deathly white skin, and crimson eyes that burn with the flame of Hell when they go into battle. Some of the more powerful furies grow black-feathered wings, and can hurl blasts of fire, bolts of lightning, gusts of freezing wind, or gouts of vitriol from their clawed hands.

The furies were bred by the lords of the Nine Hells to lead the infernal legions in the War of Fire. Curiously, just as demonspawn are subtle and charming despite the savagery of their Abyssal sires, furies lack the calculating nature of the devils that made them. Instead, they are filled with an overwhelming lust for slaughter. They relish martial contests, and disdain the underhanded tactics often favored by their kin. To a fury, victory is only sweet if it is gained in open battle against a mighty foe. Some furies are sullen and humorless, while others are full of laughter and daring, but all of them find the purest joy of their existence in the clash of swords.

Since the end of the War of Fire and the banishment of their masters, the furies have wandered the world. They are not fond of one another, and an encounter between two furies typically ends in a duel. They breed true with humans, however; the child of a human and a fury is always another fury, and this has enabled them to replenish their numbers. Since a fury born to a human woman is usually killed at birth, most are the offspring of female furies and human men. Fury mothers train their children from birth in the ways of war, and will fight savagely to protect them. The bond between mother and child is the only connection most furies have with others of their kind.

Not all furies follow the evil ways of their creators. Many become mercenaries, and a few--usually those who were raised by human mothers despite their infernal heritage--even devote themselves to the cause of good, turning their bloodlust against the evil creatures of the world. This is all fairly academic to most humans, however, who will gladly kill any fury they can. Furies quickly learn to conceal their true nature, wearing gloves over their claws and hiding their faces beneath masks or deep hoods. The most difficult thing for them is to rein in their hunger for combat, lest the glow of their eyes give them away.

 

[Incenjucar]

Definitely nothing wrong with a good re-fluffing.

It's the beauty of the game: at the end of the day, everything is just examples.

I've been considering offering my players the option of taking the normal non-human races in my homebrew with the understanding that they're mutated humans, since it's a strong theme in the setting, so long as it all balances well.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I have no place for dragonborn; they do not fit in the slightest with my conception of dragons

Interesting stuff!

Of course, dragonborn don't actually have to have anything to do with dragons, as I'm sure you realise.

 

[ferratus]

I'll agree with Cam Banks on Dragonlance, in that I wouldn't use the dragonborn as written, but as inspiration for how to rework draconians and dragonspawn for 4e rules. On the plus side, the simple fact that dragonborn are in the campaign setting sets my heart a-flutter about the possibility of playing an 1st level Aurak Draconian. Tieflings are fine in Dragonlance, though I wouldn't make them an entire nation. I would be very surprised however if I didn't see tieflings birthed to Nerekan warlocks or in the sewer cults of Flotsam.

For Dark Sun, I wouldn't use the mutant spawn of Rajaat, but instead make them a preserver answer to the Dragon-kings. After all, preserver magic is supposed to be less powerful than defiler magic, so dragonmen instead of dragons would fit perfectly there. Of course, that would mean that dragonborn could only be used with the wizard class, which might cause problems. Tieflings would be completely out of place in Dark Sun however.

For Ravenloft tieflings are a bit too public to have a nation as well, but they work well enough for a decadent noble family into diabolism. Just add another country to the mists and you're fine. Dragonborn are a bit brutish and monstrous to put in a horror genre though.

Greyhawk could have a rain of eggs like Forgotten Realms did, but I think the majority of the setting's fanbase would dislike it, so why bother? It isn't like FR where they are trying to sell it as their main setting, so you want to use as much of the core rulebooks as possible. As for tieflings, you can't turn around on Oerth without snagging a devil horn, so I don't see that as a problem.

Mystara might be a good spot to put Dragonborn in to spice it up a little, but it seems a little too pastoral to put in tieflings.

With Planescape and Spelljammer you can put anything in by adding a new plane or crystal sphere (respectively).

I've never played Birthright, so I can't comment on that setting.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Well, in my homebrew, dragons as a separate race don't exist. All dragons are mortals that wanted to achieve the pinnacle of arcane ascendence. I have a PrC that allows mortals to become dragons. Much like Dark Sun.

Dragon disciples have an extra prereq that requires a dragon sponsor. Half-Dragons are not able to ascend to become dragons and dragonborn plum don't exist.

 

[am181d]

Here's the back story that I'm leaning towards at the moment:

At some point a few centuries back, the human nations got together and decided to conquer the lands of nearby orcs (okay), goblins (no objections here), dwarves (not so good), elves (hey!), halflings (boo!), etc. Eventually a band of (non-human) heroes managed to get the dragons involved. ("If you do nothing, it's only a matter of time before they come for you too.") The dragons laid waste to the human empire from above and then created the dragonborn to serve as their emissaries in human lands and to oversee humanity's surrender.

Some 30 years later, the human race is still enslaved to the dragons. The dragonborn have taken over the humans' remaining castles and cities. Some humans live as serfs, others serve the dragons and the dragonborn directly, and the rest languish imprisoned in mighty dungeons.

Most humans have come to accept their fate. Some believe they deserve their punishment. But a few, particularly amongst the young, believe that it is time to revolt against their draconic slave masters.

And they are being urged on by a race of demon-tongued strangers who've arrived from distant shores. The tieflings speak of freedom and dignity and destiny, but one suspects they have ulterior (possibly sinister) motives for their intervention.

Will humanity free itself from the yoke of oppression? And if so, will we become a force for good or for evil?

That'll be up to the PCs, I suspect.

If I run this campaign, I think I'll call it "Dungeons & Dragons." It has a nice ring to it...

 

[Orius]

I wasn't exactly sure how to shoehorn them into my world either. Tieflings are doable, even though I liked their original version better. But even so, there's a place IMC where they'll fit alright.

Dragonborn are different. I haven't read much about them, but I wasn't sure how to shove them in. If they're wandering mercenaries created as a servitor race to dragons who have a long-lost empire, then that works better than I thought it would. IMC, after the fall of the Elder Races (stuff like illithids, beholders and other various cold-blooded or invertebrate civilizations), but before the rise of humanoids, there was an age ruled by dragons and giants. This age ended in a destructive war between the giants and dragons, and their fall allowed humanoids to prosper and thrive. I can easily stuff the dragonborn into that. So it's a similar backstory, but doesn't involve tieflings.