Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Set" data-source="post: 3974293" data-attributes="member: 41584">Most of the 'changes' could be folded in relatively painlessly, with a combination of 'always there, just not as overtly present' or 'forgotten lore resurfacing' or 'recent arrivals / creations.'Dragonborn could be related to the 'Greyhawk Dragons' who are said to live in cities and occasionally take humans as mates.  How are they related?  Well, the 'Greyhawk' Dragons aren't telling, are they?  They *seem* to have suddenly arisen in numbers, but some records indicate that they are an older people, who have always been creeping around in the background.  Why are they suddenly cropping up in metropolitan areas all over the Flannaes?  They aren't telling, indeed, they don't seem to know, only that they have a connection to each other and regard each other as family.  And is there any sinister connection between their appearance and the mysterious disappearances that sometimes accompanied their sudden arrival?  (plot hook!  What if certain humans on the brink of death for whatever reason have been offered a new lease on life, as inheritors of a tiny fragment of the Greyhawk Dragons ancient heritage, through some arcane ritual known only to dragonkind?)  Alternately, the Scarlet Brotherhood have spent decades, if not centuries, engaged in horrifying breeding experiments upon their slave castes, crossing men with orcs, hobgoblins and even apes!  Imagine their twisted slave-breeders getting their hands on some sort of dragon-blooded creature, and creating a slave caste of 'Dragonborn,' who, oops, end up a bit tougher than expected and stage a massive escape!  Hundreds, perhaps *thousands* of these new Dragonborn escape their cruel masters and flood into the neighboring countries, and yet many hundreds remain slaves!  Built-in conflict potential as these new Dragonborn are people without a land of their own, many burning with a need to rescue the rest of their enslaved people, trying desperately to convince the neighboring countries that have taken them in to help them mount a full-out assault on the Scarlet Brotherhood!  (plot hook!  Intrigue aplenty as Dragonborn refugees begin to quickly wear out their welcome in lands that begrudgingly took them in, as they agitate and rabble-rouse, trying to work up the populace to aid them in a costly war against the Brotherhood!)Others could be newer.  Iuz was the original 'cambion' that has turned into the half-fiend or tiefling in later settings.  His domains would be the logical spawning point for a new race of tieflings, descended from the rampages of his demon-led armies.  Due to his own heritage (and the need to send the full demons back from time to time, since Iuz doesn't like letting them 'out' for a long time), Iuz might specifically appoint these fellow 'cambions' as the commanders of his various troops, as he thinks that the those like himself, a combination of mortal and demon, are inherently superior to their parent species.  Alternately, Iuz might persecute other mortals with demonic blood, not wanting to deal with possible competitors, in which case there is even more reason for Tieflings to be spreading across the world, to get away from Iuz's paranoid purges of their kind, even as his demon commanders continue to sire more of them.  Additionally, Tieflings could also be coming out of the former Great Kingdom as well, with the source of their origins being less clear...  (plot hook!  What is the sinister source of the Aedrie Tieflings, could they be descended from the nobles said to cavort with fiends in the dark rituals practiced in the fallen courts of the 'Great' Kingdom?)Warlords might be a long-forgotten warrior caste of old Aerdie, whose time came again during the Greyhawk Wars, and now the art has spread across the continent, as forces arrayed against the depredations of the Scarlet Brotherhood, giant nation or Iuz's armies, find themselves increasingly in need of a more specialized form of battlefield commander.</blockquote>

Verification