"UndD&Ding" some stuff

[Desdichado]

For whatever reason, I got an urge to "unD&D" some elements from my campaign. Basically, I mean I need to file the serial numbers off some elements and relabel them as something that's not so obviously D&D... yet which still use the same basic concept. Here's the stuff I'm looking to find new labels for.

1. Tieflings
2. Biel Turath
3. Genasi. Particularly fire genasi.
4. Shifters

Any suggestions will be very welcome!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

1. Tieflings

Changlings, devil-born, demon-touched.

2. Biel Turath

Rome, Camelot, Tir Na Nog, whatever nonsense name you can think of.

3. Genasi. Particularly fire genasi.

Flame-born, fire-bloods.

4. Shifters

Werewolves, were-whatevers, wild children, furries.

 

[billd91]

3. Genasi. Particularly fire genasi.

When we used to play Al-Qadim, we just called them gens. Genie-kin would work too.

 

[interwyrm]

1. Tieflings
2. Biel Turath
3. Genasi. Particularly fire genasi.
4. Shifters

1. Hellborn
2. Garrom
3. Effra for fire genasi. You could see about chopping the various djinn names to make other genasi.
4. Lycans?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For #1 and #3- and all of the other Planetouched (Aasimar, Fey'ri, etc.)- I substituted Nephilim.

Wiki
Nephilim
...the hybrid offspring of fallen angels and human women.

I expanded the definition, obviously, to include any being from the Prime Material plane whose ancestry included contributions from any kind of extraplanar being.

I combined that re-definition with using Arcana Unearthed racial class levels to let players play these more powerful races from first level forward. It involved a little bit of work, but it was quite rewarding.

Shifters, OTOH, just seem to be a variant of lycanthrope or hengeyokai (see Oriental Adventures) to me. You could use those names, or...

• Animen
• The Moreau
• The Awakened
• Gaia's Children
• Feywild
• Feytouched
• Wildren

And so forth.

(I have no idea who the Biel Turath are.)

 

[Nifft]

I'd just lump all of the races together in one meta-group -- "Changelings", or "the Tainted", or something of a similarly xenophobic flavor.

You'd get Fiend Tainted, Element Tainted, and Beast Tainted.

Villagers will shun all three alike as "Tainted".

Your players will make jokes about their Taints.

It's win-win.

- - -

For Bael Turath, that's new enough that I expect you could use it on non-4e people as-is. Or change it to any other nonsense word(s).

Cheers, -- N

 

[fba827]

4. Shifters

primitive humanoid-animals (think caveman style culture)

no relation what so ever to lycanthropes.

 

[Desdichado]

I'd just lump all of the races together in one meta-group -- "Changelings", or "the Tainted", or something of a similarly xenophobic flavor.

You'd get Fiend Tainted, Element Tainted, and Beast Tainted.

Villagers will shun all three alike as "Tainted".

Your players will make jokes about their Taints.

It's win-win.

That would probably work in some regions, but since both the fire genasi and the tieflings have an empire where they're the ruling class, if not necessarily the majority of the population, they probably don't like being called something that has unsavory connotations.

I'm thinking sort of how like the Freeport setting turned the fire genasi into the azhar and their nation of Kizmir, for instance... that's exactly what I want to do. Except I want to come up with my own names. And by "come up with my own names" what I really mean is I want someone to suggest something cool to me that I can use, of course.

 

[Ktulu]

I'll just give examples from my campaign, as I've used them all in one form or another.

1. Tieflings

Beysibians, they're a culture of snake-worshippers (Zehir being their god). Switched fire resistance to poison resist (story being they're constantly ritually-bit by snakes until they're virtually immune). Historically, the Beysibians were always a major thorn in the side of the Rankan empire, only more recently becoming a massive threat.

2. Biel Turath

Sset, the kingdom of the Beysibians was once home to the children of Zehir, also known as the Yuan-ti. When the Lightbringers fought back the Beysibian army, they used a powerful and ancient ritual to banish the Yuan-ti and bind them in Zehir's realm. Sset slowly crumbled under poverty and lack of leadership. It is now ruins in the desert.

3. Genasi. Particularly fire genasi.

Flameborn; As with the other primals, Carrok the Firebird has his own gifted children. His flameborn are gifted with the fiery touch and actively protect the elemental spirits of fire.

4. Shifters

woodhelven; Lairlaif, the wood guardian calls lost children to his grove. Those who answer are spared death by the denizens of the wild. They are instructed in the protecting the forest and her kin. In accepting this call, they become more feral, able to traverse the wilds without alerting the more dangerous creatures. It is the duty of every woodhelven to usher trespassers out of the woods, but protect them, and treat destroyers of the wild with extreme predjudice.


Hope that helps.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I'm thinking sort of how like the Freeport setting turned the fire genasi into the azhar and their nation of Kizmir, for instance... that's exactly what I want to do. Except I want to come up with my own names. And by "come up with my own names" what I really mean is I want someone to suggest something cool to me that I can use, of course.

When I'm starved for names, I use an online translator like google translate. I'll type in a phrase in english, then see what pops up in other languages. When I find one kind of interesting, I'll tinker/rearrange til I get something I like.

For example, for fire genasi I plugged in "soldiers of flame" (after trying several other things) and found it translates to "alev askerler" in Turkish. Fiddle around and get "alavaskar" for the race name and maybe Al'Avask for the country name. Oh... and "alavaskar" sounds a lot like the English (ie, Common) "alabaster", so there's a little flavor potential as well: maybe that's why the Westerners call the genasi capital "The City of Alabaster", even though it has nothing to do with alabaster. Etc.

Using a translator is also a nice way to keep words in a game pseudo-language sounding self-consistent-- by just mapping each one to a real world language.

Anyway, there's a process that works for me. YMMV.