Mixing Earthdawn & Gamma World and D&D4

[mattcolville]

I love Earthdawn, it's one of my favorite settings. I love the races and the attitude and the explanation for stuff like Dungeons.

I love D&D4, great system. A+.

I love the new Gamma World. I want to run a THUNDARR game in it.

So I thought...why not mash them up?

1: The players start as 4E versions of Earthdawn characters. Has anyone done any Earthdawn conversions for 4E? All I need, I think, are the races. I plan on otherwise using

2: Their cairn, the world they've known their whole lives, uses bog standard D&D4 rules, with the Earthdawn flavor. The races, the history, etc.... It's a huge and thriving city-state, cut off from the outside world for thousands of years.

3: Something happens, some ancient magic starts to fail, probably the artificial sun that's sustained them for generations is failing and the PCs are tasked with being the first people to ever leave the Cairn. They have a mission, an artifact they need to recover. Something like...the Mitre of the Mage. A powerful headdress that makes the wearer an epic-level sorcerer, with knowledge of the spells necessary to reignite the sun.

4: When the PCs emerge from the Cairn, they emerge into...literally...the world of Thundarr the Barbarian. It's not the world of Gamma World, which is a mashup of multiple realities, it's our Earth thousands of years from now after super science developed and then a huge disaster.

As the players adventure, they begin to mutate because of the high levels of radiation. That gets them the Gamma World mutation cards. They discover ancient super-science, Omega Tech.

Maybe someone realizes that real mutations don't work that way, leading the players down the path to discover the Cairn inhabitants were all genetically engineered to survive the Collapse. And become highly unstable in the presence of the surface world's radiation.

If players die, they roll new Gamma World characters, native to this surface world.

Finally, upon reaching level 10, the PCs finally discover the Mitre of the Mage. It is exactly as described, a magical headdress that makes you a powerful sorcerer. Who knows if the characters at this point understand that Mage is an acronym for Mentalics Augmenting Genetic Encephalotron.

Or that it's called a Mitre because it was made at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolgoy's Research and Engineering company. A real thing.

I feel like I have a pretty good handle on all this, what I need are stats for the Earthdawn races. Or best guesses and ideas. And any ideas for 10 levels of Thundarr content.

 

[nogray]

Race Considerations

The Earthdawn major races were dwarf, elf, human, obsidiman, ork, troll, t'skrang, and windling. The first three are pretty obvious, as they are the same types as in the base 4e books. For the dwarfs, I suggest encouraging the +2 strength instead of Wisdom (as per the Essentials and most recent CB update).

For obsidimen (big, tough, stone folk), I might think that Goliaths match up nicely. They might actually not be strong enough, but something as strong as they are supposed to be would not do well as a balanced 4e race.

Orks (also big and somewhat tough) could be done as half-orcs, but the default agility of half-orcs might make that troublesome if you are trying to be very precisely aligned to the old Earthdawn racial bonuses.

Trolls (also big and tough) could be done as minotaurs. I like the symmetry of the horns on the troll. It is a silly thing, but it might work for me.

I would make the T'skrang (agile lizard folk with a tail attack) as re-fluffed Thri-Kreen. Both the free draw/sheathe and the claw attack could be attributed to the tail of the t'skrang (nimble, prehensile for the draw and sheathe, and a tail swipe for the thri-kreen encounter claw attack).

Windlings are the only one that really does not fit any sort of 4e pattern, with its flight and tiny size and weird "Astral-sensitive sight."

You could mix it up a bit, too, and change obsidimen into warforged (really tough and hard to kill), then push the goliath into ork or troll. Adding in some MM races might be nice, but those aren't well supported. The orc, though, might make a good ork or troll.

If you are in the mood to experiment a bit more, you could expand Human to include all of human, genasi (elemental human), shadar-kai (necro-humans), deva (holy humans), kalashtars (psychic human), and maybe some others.

How do those sound?

 

[mattcolville]

I think Obsidimen as Warforged is a great idea, I'd considered Goliaths but part of the point is running something more "exotic." And we've seen a couple of Goliath PC in the group.

I feel like maybe the Hawkpeople from Gamma World might do for the T'Skrang. I guess it depends on what aspect of T'Skrangness I'm trying to capture.

Love the idea of Minotaurs as Trolls, that's inspired.

Obsidimen, T'Skrang, and Windlings are what I'd like to focus on, as options for the PCs.

 

[Jhaelen]

Hmm. I was going to suggest visiting the Redbrick forums for 'Age of Legend' which was the name they were going to use to publish the Earthdawn setting for D&D 4e, but apparently it's gone (at least I cannot find it anymore).

Which is a shame, since there's been several threads discussing how to stat the Earthdawn races for 4e