D&D 5E So Shadar-Kai are now a subrace of elves: Huh?

[Shasarak]

I for one would like to welcome our new Great and Powerful Elven Overlords and hope they soon bring humanity into the warm comforting embrace of Elven subclassness.

 

[Nevvur]

In FR there is a reality-altering apocalypse every other week. SK being human-derived was two apocalypses ago.....they just didn't around to telling that it affected them until today.

To tell the truth, much like tieflings, aasimar, and genasai, I think SK should be a universal subrace (or subraces). Spend too much time in the 'Fell, and your subrace changes to SK. Your mountain dwarf gets lost in the Shadowfell and six months later, he is a masochistic SK dwarf. Of course, anyone born there would get that as their subrace.

Neat idea. It would be interesting if that were the origin for tieflings, aasimar, and genasi, as well. Too much time on the plane of fire, you go fire genasi, feywild turns you eladrin, nine hells turns you tiefling, and so on. That's way outside the canon for the origins of those races, but could make for a fun plane hopping adventure in a homebrew setting.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Neat idea. It would be interesting if that were the origin for tieflings, aasimar, and genasi, as well. Too much time on the plane of fire, you go fire genasi, feywild turns you eladrin, nine hells turns you tiefling, and so on. That's way outside the canon for the origins of those races, but could make for a fun plane hopping adventure in a homebrew setting.

Thank you. It would be a pretty big change, maybe appropriate for some kind of Planescape variant* or some kind of cursed item (if a human, elf, dwarf, Halfling, or gnome wears this ring, their racial subtype changes to tiefling [9 Hells]).

* something like having agents of the planes set districts like "Little Mt. Celestia", "Little Plane of Fire", etc. in Sigil where if you become a resident of the district, your subrace changes, to try to spread influence in Sigil, without being so blatant that the Lady is moved to interfere. And, of course, if one plane does it, they all have to do it.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Speaking of tieflings and aasimar, I just saw this from Mike Mearls:

"it's a reflection of their magical nature, a soul imbued with power that is reflected in its physical form. two humans might have a tiefling child if they had some tie to the Nine Hells."


https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/01/3...in-that-they-occur-from-genetics-of-a-parent/

I could see that applying to the 'Fell, the 'Wild, and the Elemental Planes too.

 

[Parmandur]

So, they said in the Twitch about MToF today that Shadar-Kai as an Elven subrace will make it into the final book.

 

[ssvegeta555]

I've heard that when a designer sneezes a new elf subrace is born. But to change something into an elf? That must've been one powerful sneeze, the type that makes you go cross-eyed for a bit afterwards.

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[gyor]

They need to explain how this change fits into the Forgotten Realms context.

 

[jasper]

They need to explain how this change fits into the Forgotten Realms context.

Easy. 1. A new edition will always have the option of rewriting lore for various reason,
2. the crunch has changed so the old version of x,y, sneeze race not longer works and needs to be rewritten,
3. some players don't follow lore,
4. some players are new to the game so the new lore makes no difference
5. we need to sell new lore books.
6. the new edition has already ticked off some players so let us tick off the lore masters.
7. Squirrel.

 

[Parmandur]

Easy. 1. A new edition will always have the option of rewriting lore for various reason,
2. the crunch has changed so the old version of x,y, sneeze race not longer works and needs to be rewritten,
3. some players don't follow lore,
4. some players are new to the game so the new lore makes no difference
5. we need to sell new lore books.
6. the new edition has already ticked off some players so let us tick off the lore masters.
7. Squirrel.

Sounds like D&D to me.

 

[QuietBrowser]

They need to explain how this change fits into the Forgotten Realms context.

I'm not a huge fan of it, but in 4e, shadar-kai were added to Faerun as a spontaneous mutation that swept the population of Returned Netheril in the wake of the Spellplague; whilst some did mutate from Shades or Krinth, enough that there were racial heritage feats to reflect that alternate ancestry, most of them actually developed from the non-Shade but still shadowtouched commoners of Returned Netheril, as well as spontaneously appearing amongst "other enclaves of shadow-touched humans" elsewhere in the Realms.

My guess is that they're either going to retcon shadar-kai in the Realms as arising from amongst a population of elven allies/servants of Netheril during their time in the Shadowfell, or just retcon out their connections to Netheril entirely - they may not even mention how shadar-kai exist on Faerun beyond the general handwave of "their need to stimulation leads many shadar-kai to explore realms other than their home plane of the Shadowfell".