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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9708820" data-attributes="member: 6790260">There are some neat things here.My problem is that--ironically, despite the fact that Arkhosia is in some sense "a dragonborn clutch that became a whole empire"--I just don't see the shape of dragonborn culture forming if we had started from this point, rather than the point we had with 4e. Because the Golden One, the dragon emperor of Arkhosia, does all three of those things simultaneously, while not doing a bunch of the negatives this associates with it. Citizens of Arkhosia were often soldiers, but never cannon-fodder; custodians of the land, but not shackled to that duty only; seen as the Golden One's many and purely metaphorical children, but not with a demand of subservience to him, and instead a demand of vassalage under him--meaning a reciprocal relation, not a pure hierarchic one.Of course, that's also the perfect, burnished ideal of that society, and the real thing was much more complicated and murkier, but in general, Arkhosia leans into the "noble kingdom that slowly descended into internal chaos and was overcome by a horrible disaster" type of society-level heroic tragedy. When burdened by this "all people of dragonborn physiology are the direct, spawned servants of a dragon", well, we're right back into the problems of half-dragons and draconians, just blended up and mixed together.Dragonborn, by not being physiological descendants of dragons, and instead being able to form their own association with, hatred or avoidance of, or simple non-opinion about dragons, can thus take on a dramatically wider spectrum of possibilities.If it makes you feel better, I do separate "Arkhosian" culture from "dragonborn" physiology. I think it's entirely possible to have had even Arkhosian tieflings (and, likewise, Turathi dragonborn), perhaps to the extent of multi-generational, loyal citizens of the "wrong" empire. But, just as we see a distinction--however subtle and not accepted in its day--between the in-Italy Roman Empire and the in-Greece Byzantine Empire (which called themsels Rhomaioi!), I see a valid distinction to be drawn here, in saying that Arkhosia was "a dragonborn empire", even if many of its citizens definitely weren't dragonborn, and even if many dragonborn were true, loyal citizens of its hated foe. That link still matters, even as we recognize that it's not the end-all, be-all.Edit: And one reason I will be forever grateful for Arkhosia, and dragonborn, is that they finally, FINALLY gave us something that has been horrendously lacking in D&D-adjacent fiction. (Or, at least, it doesn't show up nearly often enough.) We got what TVTropes would call a "Proud Warrior Race" that WASN'T made of people who were at least two of: dumb, brutish, ugly. Arkhosian Dragonborn were smart; what little we hear of them indicates they were excellent engineers, for example, and well-known for battle strategy. Arkhosia was emphatically not brutish--it could sometimes be harsh, but they were clearly a civic, values-minded culture. And dragonborn literally get +2 Cha, so even if some folks think they're ugly (as will always be the case for anything!), they clearly have game, they can be sculpted and beautiful, not all scars and spikes etc.I was always going to love them because I love anything dragon-y. But Arkhosia did so many fun, interesting, different things with a "proud warrior race" concept that I'll probably never completely get over it. I've intentionally kept dragonborn few, far between, and not particularly "organized" as a culture in my Jewel of the Desert game so that I am denying myself the temptation to make a nearby Totally Rad Awesome Dragonborn Civilization Where Everything Is Perfect. I know how tempting that would be for me. I can't trust myself with that possibility.</blockquote>

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