The Symbol on Warforged's Foreheads

[TarionzCousin]

What is the symbol on Warforged's foreheads called?

What purpose does it serve?

Where in the books is it referenced?

 

[Lord Xtheth]

After reading your question, I googled images of warforged, and found that there are many pictures of warforged heads, and not many have the same symbol on their head. Some don't have any symbols on their heads.

My best guess is that its there to make the warforged look cool.

As to where its refferenced in the book... it isn't... unless you count the pictures.

 

[pawsplay]

My first guess would be a rune meaning, "truth."

Golem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Woas]

I always thought it was a nod to the 'real' golem of Prague folklore who had either Emet or Met (hebew for truth and death respectively) written on the forehead to either empower or stop the golem.

 

[AlterForm]

A bit of googling suggests it is called a "Ghulra." It's supposedly like a fingerprint to warforged - an identifying mark that is used among warforged to ID each other similar to names or faces.

I'm trying to find it in a book as I type.

[EDIT]: So far:
4e Eberron Player's guide makes a mention of it, page 33, left column.
Dragon 364, page 28, middle column.
3.5 Player's Guide to Eberron, page 150, first paragraph, no name given.

[EDIT2]: Siberys (Oh, the irony!) scores big with a pair of nice, juicy paragraphs of description.

 

[Siberys]

Dragonshards -- The Warforged, Part One

Summary;

Named 'Ghulra', Dwarven for truth. (The symbol itself doesn't necessarily mean anything.)

No one knows their true purpose.

They can be removed, but healing magic will restore them.

Each is unique.

 

[Piratecat]

In my game, the symbol is used to identify unique warforged as possessions of the Empire. In addition, I'm using it as a big honking plot hook - the PC warforged just learned that he may have been a very important (and very high level) tyrannical inquisitor many hundreds of years ago, far enough back that he no longer remembers it. I plan to use the symbol as a plot device, a key for certain magical locks and traps, and an identifying mark.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Thanks!

 

[chitzk0i]

The symbols? They tell you which primordial they served and worshiped as gods before the primordials were shown to be false gods. Instrumental to this was a type of permanent planar portal which can be activated without a ritual if you know the address rune sequence of the gate portal that you... yeah, okay

 

[Siberys]

"Your SG1 is in my D&D!"

"No, your D&D is in my SG1!"

It's like Reeses for nerds! (Not that base reeses aren't... Everyone on the 'net says it's cheetos. 'Round these parts, it's mini reeses.)

</threadjack>