Warforge in LFR

[Niehaus]

Hello I'm fairly new to Forgotten Realms and have been DMing for some Living Forgotten Realms home games. So far the groups that I've DM'd for have had a great time, but recently have had a couple players show up with Warforge PC's. I haven't seen anything in the rules for LFR saying you can't play Warforge but they aren't in any of the FR supplements so it's hard to figure out where they fit in the world.

So far I've just played the NPC's reactions to Warforge as one of complete wonderment kind of a "By the god's what are you?!" kind of reaction. But this takes up alot of time since everywhere the PC goes he has to explain what he is and you can tell he's getting tired of it. Like when you break your leg and everywhere you go people as how it happened, it get's old quick. So I've just started ignoring the fact that he's different from anything in the Realms. I don't like that approach either though one of the cool things about playing a Warforge is that you are very different.

I was wondering if you guys have had any experiances similar to this and how you've handled it or how you might handle this situation both from a rules and lore standpoint.

 

[dm4hire]

The warforged were in a Dragon article and per LFR guidelines any race or class in Dragon or Dungeon are legal to play in LFR upon release of the full pdf for that month the article was in. The same goes for the preview class for the Artificer. True they originally appeared in Eberron, but WotC is trying to go away from campaign speciffic classes, races, rituals, and what not to allow people to play what they want in their home campaigns. Stuff included in books related to FR or Eberron should be viewed more as features of that campaign than being restricted to them. If you haven't read the article for the warforged I'd recommend reading it. Also check the current LFR guidelines as it lists when and what aspects of a book are legal within the LFR campaign.

Hope that helps you.

 

[Dragonbait]

If you allow Warforged in your Forgotten Realms game (and you have to if it's by the RAW of a Living campaing like dm4hire brought up) then they could be:

- Creations of old Thay, prior to the undead takeover (I have not read the FR book so I'm vague on current events).
- A creation from some empire of Abier and brought over in smaller numbers than the Dragonborn.
- Golems brought to life in the Spellwarped regions.

Just tossing some ideas out there.

As for the second part - I've encountered the same situation with weird PC characters. The worst thing you can do is ignore it. You really lose something of a character when you ignore such a huge aspect like that. Instead, maybe skip over the explanation part (let the play say "I explain to him what I am" after RPing the initial reaction). Or maybe the NPC does not ask what the Warforged is and instead talks to others thinking the PC is a tool/weapon/unintelligent golem, etc.. Maybe someone wants to buy pieces of the 'forge's body? Maybe someone just stares at the 'forge during a conversation. You can play things like this and it can convey the idea that the Warforged is unusual without just doing the same routine of "What the heck are you?" over and over again.
You could do this for other races too. Like drow, Deva, and other rare races. It reminds people that their group does NOT represent a standard Realm's population breakdown. Drow, gnomes, warforged, and the like are very unusual sights.

 

[keterys]

Don't forget the work of Gond. Mechanical creations are hardly new to Forgotten Realms.

 

[Derulbaskul]

They can also be legacies of the old Raumathar Empire based in the east. Raumathar clashed with Narfell and was known for its use of constructs (Narfell relied on fiends).

 

[waytoomuchcoffee2]

As someone pointed out in another thread, The Grand History of the Realms talks about bloodforges - ancient war machines that manufactures armies of enchanted golem. It happened in the Utter East in 657. It's on page 95. The recommendation is that we call Warforged, Bloodforged.

 

[LoneWolf23]

I had the idea of making them creations of Lantan prior to it's sinking, who have salvaged a single Creation Forge, and are now building their own society on the ramnants of Lantan...

 

[Stormtower]

Don't forget the work of Gond. Mechanical creations are hardly new to Forgotten Realms.

Yes, in fact there is already an LFR adventure (CORE1-3 Sense of Wonder) that I was privileged to prep & run at GenCon this past summer which features a prominent NPC cleric of Gond and some built-in RP opportunities for warforged PCs that are even called out specifically in the adventure. I highly recommend this adventure from either side of the screen... though it is particularly a blast to DM.

Perhaps the warforged of LFR are a splinter sect of the ancient Gondsmen, the sentient mechanical constructs of the Wondermaker? Make up any backstory you want and encourage your players' ideas. There's fun RP waiting to happen so welcome the warforged with loving arms into LFR... not to mention, as others have already said, they are RPGA legal.

 

[Niehaus]

I have no problem with Warforge being legal I just want to include some of the more exciting aspects of the race without driving the player insane explaining who he is. Last week I just had NPC's stare at him while talking to the group or keep their distance from him out of fear. I really like some of the ideas mentioned.

The PC's background is very limited and I was hoping to get alittle bit of history on contructs in the realms to help the play develope the Warforge's background. Thank you for all of your imput I'm looking forward to doing Core 1-3 we just did Core 1-2 last week and it was one of the better adventures we've run in the Realms so far. The last encounter was especially cool the players really enjoyed it and the Warforge Cleric was able to complete the skill challenge while the rest of the group dealt with the enemies. We're going to spend the next couple of weeks catching new players up with the Waterdeep and Loudwater adventures, but I'm really looking forward to DMing Core 1-3.

 

[inati]

I ran Core 1-3 for the RPGA group here about two weeks ago Good times.

Even if the warforged was a creation from Gond, or any other means, I think they would be as rare, if not rarer than seeing a Drow walking around in the streets, so I would think having the citizenry stare at a Warforged is more than fine.

And yup, according to Living Forgotten Realms rules, all things in Dragon Magazine are open for use in Living Forgotten Realms games once it has been compiled into a single pdf issue at the end of the month.