Kmart Kommando
First Post
Rogue as well, just no locks to pick.
leading an american- indian campaign
- Thread starter dame duergar
- Start date
Phlebas
First Post
I think eberron shifters would fit well into this kind of setting - especially as a totem based ability - as for classes i'd imagine ranger replacing fighter as the default combat class and that should fit well into a low armour, high mobility guerilla warfare with minor spells as supernatural abilities for legendary figures
maybe the question is which race should be used to represent the coming of the europeans? from an indian perspective they were highly advanced technologically but without the ability to live off the land....
it could be interesting to have techno-orcs, but maybe an imperial elven culture could be more interesting?
maybe the question is which race should be used to represent the coming of the europeans? from an indian perspective they were highly advanced technologically but without the ability to live off the land....
it could be interesting to have techno-orcs, but maybe an imperial elven culture could be more interesting?
dame duergar
First Post
I think that I've been misunderstood in some of words. first of all, when I said that american indians didn't use armor, I meant that they didn't practice metal working, so they didn't use the classic metal armor typical for the classic d&d world, and therefore, by some d&d editions, a brave wouldn't be considered a fighter by the classic terms (plus, as mentioned, braves don't carry shields, and the bone armor wasn't a full bodied one), and some barbarians also wear leather shields.
about the horses: when the first native americans arived the north american continent, some species of wild equids did exist there, untill the indians brought them to extinction, so you can picture an alternative reality, were the american indians actually domesticated those horses.
druids aren't shamans, but I've related to the classic d&d world since I don't know the book mentioned above about the oriental- mythology based role game, so I meant that the druid role is the closest role to a shaman in a d&d game. And by mentioning nature worshiping, I meant that the american indians worshiped nature spirits , not nature itself.
about the horses: when the first native americans arived the north american continent, some species of wild equids did exist there, untill the indians brought them to extinction, so you can picture an alternative reality, were the american indians actually domesticated those horses.
druids aren't shamans, but I've related to the classic d&d world since I don't know the book mentioned above about the oriental- mythology based role game, so I meant that the druid role is the closest role to a shaman in a d&d game. And by mentioning nature worshiping, I meant that the american indians worshiped nature spirits , not nature itself.
Aries_Omega
Explorer
My Two Cents
Just to put it out there...it may have been already said but the scout character class from Complete Adventurer. In my homebrew game the Bard, Paladin and Ranger are prestige classes as per Unearthed Arcana. I allow scout though which in my mind emphasizes the guerrilla warfare tactics that made the early Native American's famous. I'd only give horses to those tribes of the plains and only after they were introduced by your equivalent of "Europeans" for a generation or two. Same goes for other technology I'd use the same rule of thumb. The first generation of Native Americans were not expert horseman or rifle marksmen until a generation or two but that generation were really good with them.
Just to put it out there...it may have been already said but the scout character class from Complete Adventurer. In my homebrew game the Bard, Paladin and Ranger are prestige classes as per Unearthed Arcana. I allow scout though which in my mind emphasizes the guerrilla warfare tactics that made the early Native American's famous. I'd only give horses to those tribes of the plains and only after they were introduced by your equivalent of "Europeans" for a generation or two. Same goes for other technology I'd use the same rule of thumb. The first generation of Native Americans were not expert horseman or rifle marksmen until a generation or two but that generation were really good with them.
dougmander
Explorer
Jack7 said:
The way I did this in Northern Crown was to have Animal Ancestry feats for bear, wolf, and turtle. Each feat had three levels (basic, advanced, and heroic), which provided you with abilities appropriate to each animal -- at the heroic level, you could shapechange 1/day into your totem animal.
Hmmmm, I've never encountered any stories about Native American changelings. Source? Which cultures in particular? Sounds fascinating. Most Native American cultures do have legends of fey creatures, though.
Claudius Gaius
First Post
You might want to look into the Hexcraft rules from Eclipse: The Codex Persona. They'd work nicely for totemistic shamanisn.
1) Strongly seconding Dougmander's work in Northern Crown. From other D20 products, consider the Kingdom of Kalamar Shaman & Spellsinger; Unearthed Arcana Barbarian variants; Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved Greenbond & Totemic Warriors.
Outside of D20 (though there is a D20 version), check out Deadlands.
2) Races to consider: Almost any! I've run plains-indian culture Minotaurs, for example. And while Elves seem obvious, think about Centaurs, Equicephs, or Eberron's Shifters.
Consider this- any of the Anthropomorphic Animal races could be reworked into a single-nation inspired culture: Turtle-men for a swamp based tribe (like Seminoles of Florida or Choctaw in Louisiana), Otter-men for pacific coast tribes or Wolverine-men for a tribe like the Mowhawks, Eagle men for the Navajo, and Leopard men for the Maya. Et Cetera.
3) Looking further about, Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Fallen Cloud books (http://www.sff.net/people/giambastiani/Biblio.htm) feature native americans who don't have horses, but instead have a semi-domesticated breed of predatory dinosaurs (something like a kind of velociraptor) as steeds, which enabled them to halt European advances.
Outside of D20 (though there is a D20 version), check out Deadlands.
2) Races to consider: Almost any! I've run plains-indian culture Minotaurs, for example. And while Elves seem obvious, think about Centaurs, Equicephs, or Eberron's Shifters.
Consider this- any of the Anthropomorphic Animal races could be reworked into a single-nation inspired culture: Turtle-men for a swamp based tribe (like Seminoles of Florida or Choctaw in Louisiana), Otter-men for pacific coast tribes or Wolverine-men for a tribe like the Mowhawks, Eagle men for the Navajo, and Leopard men for the Maya. Et Cetera.
3) Looking further about, Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Fallen Cloud books (http://www.sff.net/people/giambastiani/Biblio.htm) feature native americans who don't have horses, but instead have a semi-domesticated breed of predatory dinosaurs (something like a kind of velociraptor) as steeds, which enabled them to halt European advances.
Flynn
First Post
There was a fantastic article in Dragon magazine somewhere around 185-205 that detailed the native american culture for 2nd Edition. I would suggest reviewing that, if you can find it. Think of the thoughts on kits as either PrCs or feat chains, and see what you can come up with.
Good Luck,
Flynn
Good Luck,
Flynn
GreatLemur
Explorer
Well, the Native American cultures did have their own mythical "demi-humans", if such options are desireable. I'm far from an expert, but there are definitely a lot of "little people", giants, and that sort of thing in their folklore. Of course, the big hassle in looking any of this stuff up is that there are so many different cultures to research...Geoffrey said:
Jack7
First Post
Western cultures near the Mexican border and out West.
Similar to Celtic myth in the fact that a baby was switched for what was in effect a changeling, but not in the sense that the creatures were fairies or anything like that.
More like the changelings were animal spirits or animistic gods/spirits switched out for humans and raised by Indian mothers. And sometimes they looked just like a person, at another they had some odd trait or appearance which disguised or revealed their probable origins. I remember one story in particular about a changeling who was found at a stream and raised by an Indian mother because he (the changeling) had fallen in love with a human female and wanted her as his squaw. It seems though that he ended up being the adopted son of the woman he was after. I cannot now recall the exact source, but it was while studying Indian folklore of, I believe, the Pueblo peoples. I'm not familiar with stories like that regarding the Eastern tribes, but the Cherokees did have some rather fascinating and even bizarre folklores and myths (I being in ancestry part Cherokee and having grown up around their original haunts, before the forced exodus, heard quite a lot of those as a kid.)
To my knowledge though such substitutions were not common in Indian folklore, just that stories like that did appear. And of course there was wide variation in many myths and legends depending upon tribal affiliation, geographic locale, language groups, etc.
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