Spellweavers related to Tiamat ???

[questing gm]

In Races of the Dragon under the sidebar in page 4, it claims that the spellweaver works well as spawn of Tiamat ???

The spellweavers are actually related to Tiamat ??? It says accordingly that it was referring to the spellweaver from MM2, the magic-grubbing race.

What is that all about ??? How ??? When ??? Who ???? Why ????

 

[demiurge1138]

First. Breathe. Use less question marks.

Races of the Dragon's got a lot of weird little quirks like that. I think the idea was "we're going to be mentioning the spawn of Tiamat a lot in this book. But MMIV isn't coming out for half a year. If you want to use spawn of Tiamat before then, use these stats". It's not saying that Tiamat actually gave rise to the spellweavers (who, according to all the published lore on the subject are still bizarre magic-studying remnants of an ancient civilization), but that you could take the stats for a spellweaver, change the flavor-text, and make a mighty fine spawn of Tiamat.

Demiurge out.

 

[questing gm]

Ok...

Calming down....takes a deep breath....exhale....ok, feeling better now

I would like to post the exact words that i read in the book that intrigued me so much but it a bit late now and i don't have the book with me at the moment. Btw, is it legal to just post a small portion of the sidebar from the book ? so we can open this up for discussion

 

[Balgus]

I would like to post the exact words that i read in the book that intrigued me so much but it a bit late now and i don't have the book with me at the moment. Btw, is it legal to just post a small portion of the sidebar from the book ? so we can open this up for discussion

Why not? I have seen large blocks of stat blocks, spell descriptions and class features written word for word just to make a point.

Plus, a lot of the game is OGL, so i can't see it being such a big deal typing up a couple sentences to ask a question.

 

[Ripzerai]

A small quote from a book falls under "fair use." You can quote from it. Just don't post, for example, a whole class, item, spell, or monster (unless it's open content, which none of Races of the Dragon is). Quoting part of them in order to ask a question is fine.

Spellweavers are somewhat reptilian in appearance, but I think demiurge is correct - that was just an optional suggestion. If you want, you can change the background of spellweavers so that they're related to Tiamat. That doesn't mean that it's their official origin.

 

[questing gm]

Alright here goes...

This was the sidebar i was referring to which can be found in page 4, Races of the Dragon

Just as City of the Spider Queen expanded and enumerated the various spiderkind races, Races of the Dragon defines several existing races as dragonkind and adds some new ones. (Some of the stranger creatures, such as the ravid and the spellweaver, work very well as spawn of Tiamat - mortal enemies of the dragonborn who serve Bahamut.) The dragonkind races detailed in various D&D books (some of them appearing in more than one source) are as follow.

Races of the Dragon: Dragonborn, spellscale, kobold, draconic creatures, half dragons

Draconomicon : Dragonkin, dragonnel, elemental drakes, faerie dragon, fand dragon, spiked felldrake, landwyrms, planar dragons, shadow dragon, storm drake, draconic creatures, half dragon

Fiend Folio : Sea drake, sunwyrm

Monster Manual : True dragons, behir, dragon turtle, kobold, pseudodragon, ravid, wyvern

Monster Manual II : Gem dragons, felldrakes, frost salamander, hellfire wyrm, linnorms, spellweaver

Monster Manual III : Ambush drake, dracotaur, dragon eel, rage drake, ssvaklor

So, any comments about this ? Although the spellweaver cannot be proven to be a spawn of Tiamat unless the intention of the designers were like what Demiruge had said, but from here the spellweaver are definately (well, at least from this sideabar anyway) dragonkind...so they are related to dragons somehow....

Well, what do you think ?

 

[Felon]

There's not much known about spell weavers, although we got an ecology article in Dungeon relatively recently. The MMII makes them sound vaguely avian.

They are certainly highly adept sorcerers, and that's most likely the reason for lumping them in the section that's quoted. There really aren't many monstrous foes that have an emphasis on spellcasting (as opposed to spell-like abilities).

 

[Gez]

Okay. So, it's not what Demiurge thought.

They say you can decide that spellweavers are spawns of Tiamat, and that thematically it makes sense.

I wouldn't agree with them on that point (and neither on the point of ravid), but whatever.

Strange that they left out the Abishai, though. They are Tiamat's devilspawns.

 

[zoroaster100]

I dislike the idea of making the spellweavers related to dragons. I much prefer the take on spellweavers that Dragon and Dungeon magazines have provided lately. I think Paizo has really made spellweavers a lot more interesting and given them a lot more depth through their Ecology article and their use in Shackled City and Age of Worms adventure paths.

 

[Felon]

OK, I'll bite. What's the Paizo take on spell weavers?