On the origin of species: Warforged

[Rechan]

The Keth were a dying people. They had forgone Divine power in the pursuit of the Arcane. And this had been their folly, as the actions by the leaders of the Keth insulted a spiteful Demi-god. He cursed them, striking the entire community with infertility, and dared them to find a cure with their arcane power.

They could not reverse the curse. And their numbers began to die out.

Except that they struck an idea. They could not breed, yes, but they could live on. The powerful mages created the Forged. As the Kesh grew old and died, their souls were funneled into the SoulForged. There, they were given a form of immortality, and the SoulForged were taught how to build more of their own.

However, the Demi-God was not pleased that the Kesh had managed to overcome their curse. So he laid down another caveat - the SoulForged lost their memory. While they had the souls of the Kesh bound to them, they did not have the memories, the abilities, of the dead. So the people of Kesh may live on in spirit, but they would not be themselves any longer, not even in these metal shells.

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The Forged have certain benefits, potential. They do not sleep, eat, breathe, and are not susceptible to poisons and diseases. They may have been constructed for war long ago, but the land that made the first 'Forged lost, and the constructs were destroyed in the ensuing battle.

Then came the Kingdom of Tashun. Tashun was young, vigorous and enterprising. They excavated the first makers of the Warforged, took the technology, and used it for something entirely different: exploration. The warforged made great frontiersmen, going out into uncharted lands to build settlements for Tashun's expansion. They could dive underwater and retrieve riches from sunken vessels.

 

[jdrakeh]

The Keth were a dying people. They had forgone Divine power in the pursuit of the Arcane. And this had been their folly, as the actions by the leaders of the Keth insulted a spiteful Demi-god. He cursed them, striking the entire community with infertility, and dared them to find a cure with their arcane power.

They could not reverse the curse. And their numbers began to die out.

Except that they struck an idea. They could not breed, yes, but they could live on. The powerful mages created the Forged. As the Kesh grew old and died, their souls were funneled into the SoulForged. There, they were given a form of immortality, and the SoulForged were taught how to build more of their own.

However, the Demi-God was not pleased that the Kesh had managed to overcome their curse. So he laid down another caveat - the SoulForged lost their memory. While they had the souls of the Kesh bound to them, they did not have the memories, the abilities, of the dead. So the people of Kesh may live on in spirit, but they would not be themselves any longer, not even in these metal shells.

Cybermen! Seriously, though, that's an excellent idea!

 

[smootrk]

I had done some work importing them into the Forgotten Realms. See Soulforged (thayan warforged) in my signature, and you will see ideas sprinkled in there on some other FR variants.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Hot-dang Rechan. I think I just found an idea on how to deal with living construct in a modern day Atlantis game!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In my campaign WIP, Warforged are called "Inheritors"- the result of a military contract, they are Dwarven Constructs originally meant to hold the intellects of willing psionically active humanoids.

Then came an event that wiped out most of the Dwarves (still unsettled in my notes- War or ELE or possibly both)- all except those who took refuge within the Constructs.

As a result, even though the world is Dwarf-less, the Inheritors still carry on the traditions of their people.

(Meaning they also have those dwarven traits that are not linked to Dwarven physiology)

Hmmm... it seems as if great minds are thinking along similar lines of thought!

 

[Subversive]

In my homebrew, Warforged have appeared during several ages throughout history.

In the first epoch, when Arranus was a whole and unbroken world, unified nation of Prion created Warforged using elemental binding techniques similar to those that powered nearly all of their magical devices. They were used for a variety of tasks from manual labor to staffing the armed forces.

In the second epoch following the sundering of the world, where earth and sea were rent asunder leaving a world a floating landmasses orbiting an eternal storm, a series of wizard kingdoms arose, led by the survivors of Prion. The greatest and longest-living of these was Aquilon, which redeveloped its magical arts and again discovered the method for making warforged. They were employed in a similar fasion.

In the third epoch, present day, Aquilon fell much in the same way its predicesor did. The elves of Isilmar, subjects under the Aquilonians, had learned much of their magical techniques, though not the ability to perform elemental bindings. They instead developed a form of spirit-binding that was more primitive in function, was more expensive and took longer, but gave much the same results. The time and money limited the practice's usage, and the warforged of the Isilmari were limited to deployment as the Death's Head Legion royal guard.

-GM Steve

 

[Wik]

I kind of like the Eberron approach - they're a fairly new race.

Imagine if the current warforged are a race that was just built LAST YEAR. They are, in fact, totally new. That, by itself, is a great hook.

When you say "Warforged are unlike most other races in that they're not quite so easy to just drag and drop into a homebrew setting," I have to disagree. Warforged are probably EASIER to introduce, simply because they're constructs. You can put them anywhere in your world, even well-established areas, and just say "Well, they're new".

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Surprised you didn't mention anything about a prince-turned-barbarian with a magical sword who fights a liche.

That's becuase those rights are held by a different company, making such a cross-over a nightmare of licensing arguments to hash out

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've always been tempted to liken the Warforged to the clay warriors of Qin, supposing their shells to retain the spirits of mighty warriors who served their creator in life (and intended to further that service after his death).

Which, for the record, was my point of inspiration!

 

[BaldHero]

Clay warriors were my inspiration for an army of stone soldiers that stood, waiting and slowly eroding in the desert of one of my campaign worlds.

Ages ago, a dwarven seer lead his people to craft large, stone statues of exquisite beauty that their souls would inhabit when they died. After thousands of years of oblivion, the stone soldiers awoke just in time to be discovered by the heroes who needed to raise an army in order to save the world. What luck!

Ancient origins, new race issues, without a bajillion years of knowledge and skill use to explain away.

L.