# Dragonborn in Faerun



## KahlessNestor (Dec 27, 2015)

So I found this very interesting after reading Erin Evan's interview in Dragon+. Love that she's an anthro-nerd.

http://slushlush.com/2015/12/ashes-of-the-tyrant-roundup/


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## Al2O3 (Dec 27, 2015)

I can really recommend reading her books. Looking forward to Ashes of the Tyrant arriving soon.


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## KahlessNestor (Dec 27, 2015)

I have the first Brimstone Angels sitting on my shelf waiting for me. I've never read her, but heard good things.


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## Mephista (Dec 27, 2015)

Evans books are awesome, and I love all the detail she's made about dragonborn and tieflings.  They've always been my favorites!  She's one of my favorite authors right now!


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## EzekielRaiden (Dec 28, 2015)

Might need to acquire these books. I've heard good things about Evans and have liked what I've seen of Mehen. I also very much like much of what she's done with the language and culture of the Dragonborn. It's not precisely how I'd handle it, but it's _damn_ close--if I didn't know better, I'd think she'd been picking my brain! I'll definitely be combing through all of these articles to piece together my own take on it.

There's a lot to like, but one I like quite a bit particularly because it's so simple: "dragonborn" is what _others_ call them. They have their own name for themselves. And they have their own name for "others" too...though it might not be something used in polite (multiracial) company.


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## KahlessNestor (Dec 28, 2015)

I love her take in Part 3 on marriage among dragonborn,  the importance of eggs and damn tour feelings on the issue lol It's way more realistic than most modern Western concepts of love and marriage. Especially now that Tymanther got squashed.


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## Eis (Dec 28, 2015)

makes me want to read books about Dragonborn


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## EzekielRaiden (Dec 28, 2015)

Eis said:


> makes me want to read books about Dragonborn




To be honest, it makes me want to _write_ about them.


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## KahlessNestor (Dec 28, 2015)

Yeah, I mean when was th3 last time you saw real world - building in a Forgotten Realms novel? Last I remember is RAS' Drow trilogy,  and a bit in Ilvariel's (?) conversation with Drizzt about what it means to love as an elf. I'm glad WOTC are letting her stretch the world.

EDIT: The Kingdom of Many-Arrows and Netheril were great attempts too, even though RAS and Greenwood tore those down as soon as they could


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## GreenTengu (Dec 28, 2015)

Why is it that when WotC comes up with a new race its got to be splattered across all settings in precisely the same manner as they did in the original setting?

They did it with WarForged, they used their lame 4E version to ruin Tieflings in all settings and they do it with Dragonborn.
And Dragonborn are utterly the lamest attempt to do dragon-people I have ever seen-- from their mud-brown skin and their lack of tails and wings (taking away anything remotely "draconic" about them) for mechanical balancing reasons of all things! After all, in 4E they couldn't give Tieflings a balance bonus for having tails if Dragonborn had them too. Then there is the fact that they are 7' tall draconic creatures yet they are expected to be universally good and endeared to everyone-- even when dragons are the most recurring enemies, NEVER are they to be actually working for the dragons. And, of course, that this reptilian race has to show human sexual characteristics because if the girl ones don't have tiny waists and big bouncy boobs, then how is one to know which one is the girl? (As though it were somehow important for that to be immediately obvious and you couldn't just have it hard to tell with this particular race.)

It is just the worst.

Then again, Faerun already had something very similar-- they had the Dragonkin. So instead of forcing the utterly inept and gross abomination that dropped from the bowels of 4E, something I have a hard time believing even those who play them really wanted when they thought of Dragonpeople, why not drop the idea and just use Dragonkin or Draconians from Dragonlance?


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## Al2O3 (Dec 28, 2015)

TheHobgoblin said:


> Why is it that when WotC comes up with a new race its got to be splattered across all settings in precisely the same manner as they did in the original setting?
> 
> They did it with WarForged, they used their lame 4E version to ruin Tieflings in all settings and they do it with Dragonborn.
> And Dragonborn are utterly the lamest attempt to do dragon-people I have ever seen-- from their mud-brown skin and their lack of tails and wings (taking away anything remotely "draconic" about them) for mechanical balancing reasons of all things! After all, in 4E they couldn't give Tieflings a balance bonus for having tails if Dragonborn had them too. Then there is the fact that they are 7' tall draconic creatures yet they are expected to be universally good and endeared to everyone-- even when dragons are the most recurring enemies, NEVER are they to be actually working for the dragons. And, of course, that this reptilian race has to show human sexual characteristics because if the girl ones don't have tiny waists and big bouncy boobs, then how is one to know which one is the girl? (As though it were somehow important for that to be immediately obvious and you couldn't just have it hard to tell with this particular race.)
> ...




As someone who stated playing during the 4e era and have yet to hear any reason why I should even take a look at anything older, I can tell you that playing a 7ft tall creature with scales and a draconic face very much appeals to me. And due to the good writing of Erin M Evans the two parts of Faerun I currently care about are Cormyr and Tymanther, with Tymanther being the part of Toril where I am truly interested in the culture etc. The rivalry or enmity with dragons (probably including good dragons) and avoiding the gods are very much part of why I like them.

The human sexual characteristics on dragonborn are bad choices on the part of artists, and I can see why non-asmodean tieflings are great as well.


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## Mephista (Dec 28, 2015)

KahlessNestor said:


> Especially now that Tymanther got squashed.



 Hm?  What do you mean?  Its still there.  At war, sure, but the country hasn't been destroyed.  Unless you're talking abotu something that's not even out yet, in which case, shame on you for spoilers!


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## Mephista (Dec 28, 2015)

TheHobgoblin said:


> Why is it that when WotC comes up with a new race its got to be splattered across all settings in precisely the same manner as they did in the original setting?



 Enough with the edition warring.  People enjoy playing them.  That alone should be reason enough for them to have a place.


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## Al2O3 (Dec 28, 2015)

I think that it might be a reference to the SCAG where it is described that Tymanther has been reduced in size. So shame on WotC for posting spoilers in SCAG maybe?


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## KahlessNestor (Dec 28, 2015)

TheHobgoblin said:


> Why is it that when WotC comes up with a new race its got to be splattered across all settings in precisely the same manner as they did in the original setting?
> 
> They did it with WarForged, they used their lame 4E version to ruin Tieflings in all settings and they do it with Dragonborn.
> And Dragonborn are utterly the lamest attempt to do dragon-people I have ever seen-- from their mud-brown skin and their lack of tails and wings (taking away anything remotely "draconic" about them) for mechanical balancing reasons of all things! After all, in 4E they couldn't give Tieflings a balance bonus for having tails if Dragonborn had them too. Then there is the fact that they are 7' tall draconic creatures yet they are expected to be universally good and endeared to everyone-- even when dragons are the most recurring enemies, NEVER are they to be actually working for the dragons. And, of course, that this reptilian race has to show human sexual characteristics because if the girl ones don't have tiny waists and big bouncy boobs, then how is one to know which one is the girl? (As though it were somehow important for that to be immediately obvious and you couldn't just have it hard to tell with this particular race.)
> ...




I started in 4E too. Guess I didn't know I wasn't allowed to like dragonborn and tieflings.

And what are you talking about dragonborn having only mudbrown skin? They're all different colors. And tieflings without tails? You mean like these guys? All from 4E products:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Tiefling_rangersm.JPG
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net...iefling.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080924052904
https://theclichedtavern.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/rqrjj.jpg

And that's just three.

Maybe people want to play a noble race. Dragonkin in Dragonlance are evil. If you want evil dragonborn, you can do that. Just like you can have evil elves or evil humans.  And dragonborn can be working for dragons. Pretty sure on Abeir there were still some that were slaves to them.

So...bitter much?


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## KahlessNestor (Dec 28, 2015)

Al2O3 said:


> I think that it might be a reference to the SCAG where it is described that Tymanther has been reduced in size. So shame on WotC for posting spoilers in SCAG maybe?




Yeah, SCAG said that returning Unther got dropped on top of it. So all that exists now is the bit along the coast where most of the cities were, I think.

Sorry if that's spoilers


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## Mephista (Dec 28, 2015)

KahlessNestor said:


> Yeah, SCAG said that returning Unther got dropped on top of it. So all that exists now is the bit along the coast where most of the cities were, I think.
> 
> Sorry if that's spoilers



 No, not quite.  I meant the latest Brimstone Angel book comes out tomorrow, and it actually is set in Tymanther, and we're talking about during the latest Abyss storyline, completely post Sundering.  The dragonborn country is very much there, and still going strong.   What happened is that Unther did slam into Tymanther, but the two kinda merged, so they're -btoh- in the same spot, and the returned people have gone to war with the dragonborn to "kick them out." 

I can't really say that either is crushed, considering that all the major cities and civilizations are around.  Different landscape, but I don't consider that to be as important.


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## Al2O3 (Dec 28, 2015)

Mephista said:


> No, not quite.  I meant the latest Brimstone Angel book comes out tomorrow, and it actually is set in Tymanther, and we're talking about during the latest Abyss storyline, completely post Sundering.




Based on the sample chapter, Ashes of the Tyrant starts off in 1486 DR, while The Herald is set or ends in 1487 DR. But it certainly is part of the Rage of Demons storyline, so there is either overlap or otherwise the Rage of Demons storyline takes part before the Sundering is totally finished. Not sure how strict they are with the timelines at WotC, since I am under the impression that Tyranny of Dragons was after the events in The Herald, but that the Adventurer Legaue Epics happen one after another. I guess that SCAG is based on something like 1488 DR or 1489 DR.

Just noticed that according to http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Archmage_(novel) the novel that triggers the Rage of Demons storyline takes place 1485 DR to 1486 DR.


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## bedir than (Dec 28, 2015)

Mephista said:


> Enough with the edition warring.  People enjoy playing them.  That alone should be reason enough for them to have a place.




That's not an edition war. It's a battle in the idea that all races must be allowed in all settings. That attitude creates a concept that if taken to extremes means that house elves should be in Lord of the Rings. That's lazy world building.

For a hobby that expects classes to have limitations, races to have limitations, spells to have limitations, weapons to have limitations...
It strikes me as odd that there has been a modern development that a setting should not have racial or class limitations. We've begun concentrating so much on how to please players with the simple syrup of "play whatever you want" that they skip the meat and go right to that sweet dessert. It's how the Realms becomes the default for everything, because in the Realms you can be anything.
It's a saccharine method to world-building. It's lazy.

Dragonborn, and their related races such as the draconians, only belong where they make sense. They should not be in every world. Just like when you build your first ever character, as you build your world there are tough choices. Make them and live with them.

Don't make the Old Country Buffet. Make a living and breathing world.


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## KahlessNestor (Dec 28, 2015)

Just curious,  those that know previous editions, where dragonborn came from conceptually. 4e s3ems to have originally made them for Nerath, th POL setting. Obviously they were popular enough to find a place in Faerun. Not sure what the complaint there is, though,  since Faerun was always a kitchen sink setting.  And dragonborn don't have to be in YOUR FR campaign,  so not sure on your complaints there, either.


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## GreenTengu (Dec 28, 2015)

Al2O3 said:


> As someone who stated playing during the 4e era and have yet to hear any reason why I should even take a look at anything older, I can tell you that playing a 7ft tall creature with scales and a draconic face very much appeals to me.




Really? Okay, let me break this down for you.

If they are going to exist at all, if you have Dragon-people they could be... nay, *should* be this:





But that isn't a dragonborn. That is actually menacing, actually formidable, actually... well... possible to be taken seriously. Dragonborn are this




I mean, besides being ugly as sin, exactly what part of that says dragon to you? Its just a weird furry fetishes fantasy. In fact, even the furry fetish version would probably retain a few more actual draconic characteristics. They are almost entirely absent-- and not because the changes make sense from a narrative perspective, but simply because they felt that if they had tails, wings and claws they would be forced to convey those aspects mechanically which would unbalance the race.... and pretty much everything about their culture is also designed for fitting a particular mechanical niche rather than being logical, interesting, dynamic or adding anything whatsoever to the story.... they just wanted to randomly add dragon people while also doing everything possible to drain any sort of impact or threat or interest to a thing such as dragon-people existing... Try to take the most powerful well-known creatures in the game, embody it into a humanoid form and then somehow make them as mundane, uninteresting and undisruptive as possible.... which just serves to make dragons in general a lot more laughable and mundane.
When the whole design of a race is about the mechanics rather than generating any sort of narrative interest, it really doesn't belong in a story.

They shouldn't even be in Faerun because they make everything worse by their inclusion. At least as long as one insists that their inclusion be done precisely as it was originally conceptualized.


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## KahlessNestor (Dec 28, 2015)

So why can't your dragonborn look like that? Nothing is really preventing you to fluff it up like that.


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## Al2O3 (Dec 28, 2015)

[MENTION=6777454]TheHobgoblin[/MENTION] I think we can agree that male and female dragonborn should probably be as similar to each other as male and female dragons, and I have no idea how one would distinguish them from each other.

These images are more along the lines of how I imagine dragonborn (and I would not argue against someone claiming the first one to be female).



The one you posted with a desert background made me think of devils or vultures, with even less to remind of dragons than even 4e/5e style dragonborn. So the art is of varying quality regardless of what version of dragonborn we are talking about. I can agree with the first image being awesome, but I personally dislike the humanoid dragon with tail thing. The wings can be neat however, and I must admit that I like the versions with wings displayed in the picture below:


My main issue with wings on D&D characters however is the apparent impracticality of wearing heavy armor along with the wings. So just from a roleplaying standpoint I prefer my characters to default to no wings. I still like playing a large menacing humaniod reptile with scales and a large weapon.

Regarding the concept and worldbuilding I would say that those don't really match between Forgotten Realms and Netheril. In the POL setting the dragonborn were originally very much the willing servants of dragons, while in the Forgotten Realms they are self-liberated and clan-loving former slaves of dragons. The reason I like the FR version so much is also the well-developed culture and society that Erin M Evans has fleshed out. The major cultural similarity between the original concept and the FR version is the strong sense of Honour.

I should also state for the record that my interest in dragonborn since the release of 5e is purely the narrative interest, not the mechanical parts (because in 5e I NEED my characters to have darkvision).


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## Mephista (Dec 28, 2015)

KahlessNestor said:


> Just curious,  those that know previous editions, where dragonborn came from conceptually. 4e s3ems to have originally made them for Nerath, th POL setting. Obviously they were popular enough to find a place in Faerun. Not sure what the complaint there is, though,  since Faerun was always a kitchen sink setting.  And dragonborn don't have to be in YOUR FR campaign,  so not sure on your complaints there, either.



 Actually, the dragonborn originated in the 3e book Races of Dragon, which started adapting Dragonborn and Spellscales and half-dragons into a distinct identity instead of just others.   Its the direction the game, as a whole, was moving towards before 4e.  

I find it equal parts amusing and frustrating at how people blow up at 4e sometimes.  4e, for all its claimed changes, actually didn't introduce a lot of the changes beyond the AEDU system.  So much was taken from Eberron and other later 3.5 era books and merged into the default setting.  Even the dragonborn v. tiefling war was inspired by Eberron's early history of dragons versus fiends.  

Either way, I don't really care about everyone else's edition complaints.   I like the modern dragonborn, though, to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed at the mechanics.  Dragonbreath really could use a boost, and we could really stand to see some racial variants here.


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## Dark Sun Gnome (Dec 28, 2015)

I have nothing against the Dragonborn being in the Realms, but I was saddened that there was no focus on the reptillian races that were part of the setting from 3.5 in the SCAG. Not much on the yuan-ti, the asabi, the firenewts and the khaasta. I can understand why there is not much focus on the asabi or the khaasta (the planescape intinerations were great), but the firenewts are in canon, held up as the embodiment of flame by the church of Kossuth and are found in most areas of the realms where there is volcanic activity, and are more widespread and populous than the ghostwise halflings. The yuan-ti had entire nations under their control (covertly or directly) in 3.5, and more could have been written on them.

I have more of a problem with them being in Dark Sun, where the dray were created by the undead dragon king Dregoth as his dream race, in the image of a full dragon (which Dregoth was on the verge of becoming before the other sorcerer kings killed him). They had their own stats and looked like replicas of a full dragon. There are no chromatic or metallic dragons in the setting - just bestial drakes, that correspond to the elemental and paraelemental planes and in some cases look nothing like dragons, and becoming a fully fledged dragon means becoming a 20th level wizard, a 20th level Psion and then undergoing a 10 stage process that ends becoming a full dragon. 

In 4th edition, the Dragonborn looked the same as the ones found in other settings, though at least it was implied that was the reason they were expelled from New Guistenal. But considering just how menacing the dray looked as the second generation that were the success story, and how pitiful they looked as the first, the runts that were cast out by their dread king and looked upon their creator with rage, but still hoped that one day Dregoth would find it in his heart to forgive their imperfect existance and welcome them back, I find the dragonborn a lot less appealing than the bestial dray (and the dray rode giant psionic bugs, which is always a bonus).

I just find the dragonborn bland, which is a shame considering the types of dragons, and how much they could vary in appearance. A sleek, almost feline white dragonborn or a skull faced black one, or maybe a one descended from crystaline dragons that had gems in its flesh. Ones that had one human arm and one reptillian arm, ones that had almost human faces - there is so much potential variation.

I like the idea of dragonborn, but when compared to the equivalents in the Dark Sun (dray), Scarred Lands (tatsuri and their take on kobolds) and the Dragonlance (the draconians) settings, I just feel like there is so much potential. I would love to see skull-faced dragonborn, or ones that are a mix of different characteristics.


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## gyor (Jan 2, 2016)

Read Ashes of the Tyrant by Erin M. Evan which is out now, you get a much better view of the Dragonborn (which is not what they call themselves, its what humans call them) of Tymanther a Faerun Dragonborn nation.


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## n00b f00 (Jan 2, 2016)

From reading those posts it makes me sorta interested in reading a story about them. I always thought they were kinda cool, but until now wasn't particularly interested in their society as the setting for stories.

What do their cities look like. For a long time I always imagined them living underground in stone structures not unlike dwarves. Them being dragons and all. But I'm pretty sure that's not the case, since that idea is never suggested anywhere.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 2, 2016)

In Returned Abeir some free dragonborn lived underground  (safer from dragons), but Tymanther is different.  They have a militaristic bent, so I believe their cities are fairly solidly fortified. Otjer than that, not sure. Apparently The Brotherhood of the Gryphon series has done some stuff with Tymanther too and dragonborn society.


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## Al2O3 (Jan 2, 2016)

n00b f00 said:


> From reading those posts it makes me sorta interested in reading a story about them. I always thought they were kinda cool, but until now wasn't particularly interested in their society as the setting for stories.
> 
> What do their cities look like. For a long time I always imagined them living underground in stone structures not unlike dwarves. Them being dragons and all. But I'm pretty sure that's not the case, since that idea is never suggested anywhere.



They live inside a large pyramid with catacombs under it. Or well, that is the main city/fortress, they also have villages and homesteads with sheep, probably not very much unlike the Dalelands etc.

For more information, check slushlush.com or the Brimstone Angels saga.


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## n00b f00 (Jan 2, 2016)

Well there you go, I wasn't too far off. Thanks guys.


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## I'm A Banana (Jan 2, 2016)

I wasn't a fan of dragonborn when they appeared in 3e, or when their story got an overhaul in 4e, but Erin M. Evan's alien, godless dragonborn have some meat on their bones. Maybe I'll just quietly make ALL DB FR DB.


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## Al2O3 (Jan 2, 2016)

I'm A Banana said:


> I wasn't a fan of dragonborn when they appeared in 3e, or when their story got an overhaul in 4e, but Erin M. Evan's alien, godless dragonborn have some meat on their bones. Maybe I'll just quietly make ALL DB FR DB.



What, are there any other dragonborn?


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## I'm A Banana (Jan 2, 2016)

Al2O3 said:


> What, are there any other dragonborn?




Heh, lets just say "I used to hate (what eventually turned into) tieflings," and "I love Bahamut so much I'm going to get magical plastic surgery" are not nearly as interesting as a slightly shell-shocked diaspora of refugee aliens forced to live alongside the world they're not a part of.


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## ccs (Jan 2, 2016)

TheHobgoblin said:


> Really? Okay, let me break this down for you.
> 
> If they are going to exist at all, if you have Dragon-people they could be... nay, *should* be this:
> 
> ...




So what do you think a female crossbreed between a reptilian dragon & a humanoid mammal would look like?


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## Eltab (Jan 3, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Just curious,  those that know previous editions, where dragonborn came from conceptually.



The earliest I have seen them mentioned - and they were 'offstage' for this - was in 3e: Races of the Dragon.
Back in the Year of Dragon's Rage*, many valiant warriors helped defeat the Cult of the Dragon's scheme to create a perpetual Rage of Dragons^.  Bahamut offered to them a gift: become more like dragons.  The result was the first dragonborn.

*1370 DR?  I need to check my calendar (or Grand History of the Realms) ...

^ First-Speaker Samwise, founder of the Cult and by now a lich himself, reasoned that the dragons of Faerun would face this choice: go mad or become dracoliches.  He wanted them to decide 'dracoliches'.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 3, 2016)

TheHobgoblin said:


> Why is it that -snip-




Nah, Dragonborn are great. 
Have a nap or something. 

Half of that isn't even true. Like, there are definitely evil dragonborn, they aren't universally liked or trusted in any setting, etc. 
And they are a great version of dragon ppl. Most ppl I know who want to play lizards or dragon ppl, and don't have a hatred boner for 4e, like them.

Also, they have dragon heads, scaly bodies, and breath weapons that match the color they share with a type of dragon. Not sure where you get the idea they are mud brown, but they are literally the colors of dragons. There is even one in an adventure, IIRC, who is black, complete with black dragon style horns. 
And I think most of the 4e phb DB art has them either red or one of the metallic colors. 

Not sure why you want them to be alien and disruptive. That seems like a nonsensical goal.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 3, 2016)

Half-dragons go back to the 2nd Edition, and in the Forgotten Realms were originally difficult to distinguish from their humanoid parents. They were the result of the union between dragons that had the natural ability to polymorph to humanoid form and some other humanoid. Thus metallic dragons, steel dragons, and later shadow dragons (primarily with drow).

I have no problem with what anybody else wants to run in their campaign, but I don't particularly care for dragon born as designed (and also tieflings, which were also much less conspicuous before), especially in the Forgotten Realms. Erin's books are fantastic, but I just wish they weren't FR.

It's easy to say that I don't have to use them in my campaign. Except that it seems that dragonborn and tieflings have become the favored races in D&D, at least around here. Which means either I have to allow them, or I have to tell people they can't play what they want. I specifically tell new players I don't care for tieflings and dragonborn, and invariably that's what they come back with.

The biggest issue I have with using any sort of 'monstrous' race that isn't fully part of the campaign and integrated into what is essentially a human-centric campaign world is that you either have to deal with the 'oh my god it's a monster' reactions, or you simply ignore that they look like a monster to the majority of the population. While that former can be an interesting campaign element, and has been used well at times, most of the time it just gets old. It works well in a novel (like Driz'zt), but not so much that every time your drow or dragonborn character enters a tavern that a significant portion of the NPCs would fear, hate, or just outright want to kill them. All in a world where killing 'evil' races and monsters on sight is acceptable. Actually, in many cases they wouldn't make it to the tavern.

Of course I understand that the world doesn't have to be this way, and everybody is accepted. But unfortunately my FR campaign started in 1987 and as they've added significant changes like these it's difficult to maintain continuity credibly. And sure, a part of that is just that I don't care for them as they implemented them. I wasn't a fan of the Dragonlance draconians, nor the Saurians that popped up in a couple of early Realms novels. The closer to their dragon heritage the half-dragon and dragonborn drifted, the closer they felt to draconians that we were just importing parts of Dragonlance to the Realms. I'm not particularly interested in importing kender, gully dwarves, or minotaurs as primary races either.

My Realms, like many D&D campaigns at the time, leaned heavily on Tolkien's human-majority with elves, dwarves, and halfling minorities. Heck, my FR was a reskinned version of my home campaigns which was a mix of homegrown and Greyhawk since that was what we had to work with in the late '70's/early '80's. As more and more of Ed Greenwood's articles appeared in Dragon, more and more of the Realms did too. 

The last dragonborn I allowed in the campaign I reskinned as an older variation half-steel dragon, which actually turned out to be a very young steel dragon trapped in his humanoid form. The tiefling not only had less conspicuous traits, he was unaware that he was a tiefling at all. 

I get that they are popular races, and because the point of the game is to have fun, I work with things as I have to. I just wish I didn't have to deal with these particular races in my campaign. 

Ilbranteloth


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## n00b f00 (Jan 3, 2016)

I think he's being a bit of a hater. Though dragonborn are often described as being coopery in general with some rare members showing a strong resemblance to specific types with matching breath weapons.

I always took that as most or at least many NPC DB don't show a very strong color, but the PCs being exceptional almost always do. A sort of mark of future greatness in their society that in this case at the least resulted in class levels. No small feat in setting.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 3, 2016)

What I don't get is the idea that NPCs should want to kill them. Distrust teiflings? Of course. But I know ppl who distrust Italians. 
But dragonbirn aren't an unknown thing. Ppl know they exist, that they don't habitually rampage and kill stuff, etc.   its not like drow look like monsters, yet they are hated on sight because of their ppls reputation. Likewise, DB have a positive rep. Looking draconic isn't going to overcome that. No one is reacting "oh its a monster oh wait no its a ppl", they are going "oh look a dragonborn." In my campaign, they may even use Tymantheran more than dragonborn.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 3, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> What I don't get is the idea that NPCs should want to kill them. Distrust teiflings? Of course. But I know ppl who distrust Italians.
> But dragonbirn aren't an unknown thing. Ppl know they exist, that they don't habitually rampage and kill stuff, etc.   its not like drow look like monsters, yet they are hated on sight because of their ppls reputation. Likewise, DB have a positive rep. Looking draconic isn't going to overcome that. No one is reacting "oh its a monster oh wait no its a ppl", they are going "oh look a dragonborn." In my campaign, they may even use Tymantheran more than dragonborn.




Well, in the Forgotten Realms, anyway, they are an alien race that suddenly appeared in one distant realm. My campaigns center in the Sword Coast and the North, and if one appeared there it would be an oddity, and bear enough of a resemblance to yuan ti, lizard folk and other serpentine monsters which are known in the region, and also 'known' to be a threat and enough warrant at the very least some wariness on the part of the locals.

It's funny. Most of my current group were new to D&D and lump the majority of undead into zombies or skeletons of some sort or another. It never dawned on me that most people would do the same, regardless of the actual abilities of said zombie.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 3, 2016)

Maybe. Idk, they've been around for a couple generations at this point, though.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 3, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Maybe. Idk, they've been around for a couple generations at this point, though.




Yes, but now their homeland is gone again, and from what I've read the majority of them never travelled far from their (transplanted) homeland. It's a long way from Unther to the Sword Coast. Look at race relations in the real world. All of the various races have pretty much been around since the dawn of modern man, and interacting with each other for thousands of years now. Still not up to the same standard as the human/elven/dwarven/halfling dynamic that is the standard of most fantasy worlds.

It works from my perspective in the Forgotten Realms because the elves have settled Toril for over 20,000 years, and they came to Toril with their culture intact. Humans have only factored in for the last 5,000 years or so, but they grew in a world where the elven and dwarves civilizations were well established, and the elves helped build human civilization, along with the dwarves to a lesser extent. So the dynamics of these cultures are very different in the Forgotten Realms than our own. But that doesn't translate to accepting new races, particularly because at this stage many of the elves and dwarves aren't sure that helping the humans was that wise of an idea, and the humans wish to maintain their civilizations and dominance.

So a new race would take many, many generations, to establish themselves as generally accepted in society, and that would require large numbers to do so. Neither of which apply regarding dragonborn in the Forgotten Realms. Considering they are described as following their own rigidly defined culture, and worship no gods, there is little reason for the majority of them to leave their homeland. Those that do would be very rare, particularly the farther you go from Tymanther, and would likely have difficulty fitting in with society in the rest of the Realms. Their honorability would play well, and eventually, in localized regions, an individual would become accepted, but that doesn't always translate to trusting an entire race. All of which lead me to believe that they would primarily be viewed with suspicion. The vast majority of Realmsfolk would never have heard of Tymanther.

So, for a PC - you are treated with suspicion, you are isolated from your culture where honor, clan, and family are among the most important parts of your life, most likely speaking a language that is not understood here (oh, right, common is exactly the same on every world in the D&D multiverse), and you quickly learn that the society on the rest of the world does not place honor and clan as the most important parts of life, and they worship unseen extraplanar beings and practice magic frequently.

The only way you'd be in a generation that was born locally is that at the very least a pair of dragonborn had to leave their clan and family in their regimented society to settle in that uncomfortable location and start laying eggs. Of course, the second generation would somehow have to find different dragonborn to settle down with, requiring yet more to have made the journey from Tymanther, etc. Otherwise, you'd hail form Tymanther.

Sounds like a decent main character for a novel. As a PC, either the majority of the attention is centered on you, or you just ignore the ramifications of the race altogether, making it somewhat pointless.

Now that the majority of them have returned to Abeir, there's an even smaller group to spread throughout the world, and most of them are probably defending their new homeland against being reclaimed by Unther.

It's not all that different to trying to incorporate an Uthgardt barbarian into the campaign. Oh sure, a rare individual leaves everything they've ever known to associate with magic-using infidels in the civilized world. As an interesting character growth scenario it's very cool, but tough to maintain in a group of PCs. But everybody wants to play something 'different.'

Obviously, there are plenty of different directions a DM can choose to go in their own campaign with what little information is published. And I am fully admitting that I have a bias against them, and that I may be in the minority at this point. The problem for me is that it greatly changes the nature of my Realms, and try as I might, it's become quite difficult to say, 'no, that just didn't happen in my world.'

Yes, it's a danger of using a published world for my campaign. And I am in no way implying that others shouldn't do it differently. It's just my personal opinion about how dropping an entire alien race into an established world and calling them a 'standard' race (although I guess in 5th edition they are technically optional), has generated a good deal of difficulty for those of us who would have preferred it didn't happen.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 3, 2016)

I didn't read all of that, no offense. 
Anyway, IIRC, from the 4e FR books, there are DB in most places. Some from Tymanther, some not. 
And again, multiple generations. 
Irl, we tend to think of things as normal that appeared in our grandparents' time. 
And the reputation for honorable behavior and the like is specifically called out as well known.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 3, 2016)

OK, read it all. I get where you're coming from, but I disagree with you fundamentally on most of your assumptions, so I doubt this will lead anywhere. 

Aside from what I've already said, it's established in the Neverwinter Campaign Guide, if nowhere else, that there are Dragonborn on the Sword Coast. Personally, I think that the whole idea that most dragonborn have "returned" to their "home world" is complete nonsense, so I ignore it along with at least a dozen other things in the ridiculous "this is not a retcon" retcon they call the sundering. IMO, it's worse than the ToT or Spellplague, and only mostly because it's so thinly veiled in it's "people got butthurt about the 4e realms, so we're retconning them out of existence. Mostly. 

Anyway, all that baggage aside, the dragonborn have been spread out accross Faerun as long as they've existed, in a meta sense. There may only be one DB nation, but there's no reason to assume that there aren't families and even villages with multiple families in and near most major metropolitan cities. They are a minority, fine. But there's nothing disruptive or weird about playing a minority. And the idea that most Faerunians would never have heard of Tymanther...what? FR isn't medieval europe, especially when it comes to info. That's one of the things bards do, is bring news, and that's just one way it travels. But even if it were in terms of info traveling, it still isn't in terms of literacy and people getting educations, so I just find the idea of even a plurality of people not knowing where DB come from to be...really odd. 

That all being said, I'm not sure I even buy the assumption people make that a member of a monster race would be killed on sight, most places. In a small village, who is going to risk their lives to kill something that isn't attacking anyone? It would be beyond stupid. Especially if it looks as well armed and competent as an adventurer is likely to look, and _especially_ if it has a handful of equally well armed and competent looking companions, who seem to think it's an alright sort of personage, and are likely to take offense to you trying to kill their friend. And by take offense, I mean kill you dead and sleep like the innocent that night, because from their perspective they were justified. 
Seriously, what villagers or townsfolk or even city guards are going to do that? Attack one member of an adventuring company on sight, because they look reptilian and kinda scary? 

So, we're left with distrust and varying degrees of xenophobia or acceptance, depending on where you are and how crappy your DM likes to play villagers. 

But there are probably also fairly well known DB heroes that any given villager has heard stories about, also. 

I think in most cities, they'd be treated like 3rd generation immigrants, at worst. At best, they'd be treated like everyone else because there are surface drow now, and there was an orc kingdom that traded with people, and Waterdeep has members of pretty much every race living within it's walls. 

Of course, in my Realms, Many Arrows is still doing fine, Netheril has lost most of it's power but is still around and has abandoned the worship of Shar, having bigger fish to fry with using their magic to build new oasis enclaves and normalize relations with it's neighbors, Myth Drannor wasn't re-destroyed, there are still big chasms leading into the Underdark, none of the old heroes have been shot through time or whatever the hell, etc. 
At this point, anything that comes out for FR, even if it comes from Elminst- I mean Greenwood, is a suggestion. Once you retcon, no matter how much you insist it isn't one, you have no canon, IMO. 
I'd have accepted a reboot to "day one" or one where Greenwood remakes the realms into what he runs at home or something more easily than a totallynotaretconbutreallyit'saretcon.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 3, 2016)

Pretty sure Tymanther didn't go back to Abeir, Unther just 'returned'. Made a bit of a mess and started a war, but all those dragonborn are still there. Returned Abeir is probably a different story.


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## gyor (Jan 3, 2016)

They're homeland isn't completely gone.

 Spoilers 

 The God Enlil saved a region around the capital and the return of Unther was a Chaotic event so other parts of Tymanther might have survive. We won't know until Erin M. Evans writes her next book. Also as odd as this sounds different Dragonborn might have returned WITH Unther, slaves and servants of Unther possibly.


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## gyor (Jan 3, 2016)

I think alot of Dragonborn on the Sword Coast actual come from Returned Abier, the contient, by boat, Dragonborn fleeing Dragon Tyrants and crazy primordials, so think the Sword Coast would have alot more Dragonborn then some other regions, but they would have many cultural differences from Tymanther Dragonborn, because they come from other Dragonborn cultures.


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## Dark Sun Gnome (Jan 3, 2016)

Ah, I get it now. Looking though at the lore for the race, Dragonborn on Toril are supposed to be a perfect combination of humanoid and draconic, and thats why they look like they do. I was looking at it like they were supposed to just be dragons, but playable. Now it makes a lot more sense, and looking at it that way, I do prefer the dray from Dark Sun and the draconians, but they are different.

The dray (at least in the original setting of DS) were made in the image of a mad sorcerer king that belived his form was the pinnacle of existance and that his children would inherit the entire planet as the dominant race when the Day of Light came and he rose to godhood. So it made sense that the dray looked like scaled down versions of a fully fledged dragon. 

The draconians were made from corrupted eggs of metallic dragons, so it made sense that they looked somewhat like twisted mockeries of metallic dragons with a bit of humanoid influence thrown in. The (really nice) picture that was posted earlier was a kapak, which were born from copper dragon eggs and it does look like a twisted and scaled down version of a copper dragon, plus its hat is that its stealthy and they make up most of the assassins in the dragonarmies. And while it does look a bit devilish, remember that Tiamat (Takhisis) resides in the nine hells, and there are a group of devils (Abishi) that were the footsoldiers of the dread queen, and that look very much like dragons, and the resemblance is possibly (probably?) not a coincidence......

So, within the lore of FR, it makes sense that the dragonborn look the way they do. Of course, I would love to see ones that were skull faced. 

I'm not the greatest fan of them, and I would have preferred to see emphasis on other realms races and others in the SCAG (volodni, the many scalyfolk, races from Kara-Tur) as well as the dragonborn, but I've no problem with them being in the Realms. 

And as for prejudice, well, it would vary from region to region. In a place such as Thesk or Westgate, a dragonborn walking down the street might not even get a second glance, but in other places, they might arouse panic and fear.


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## Mephista (Jan 3, 2016)

I don't particularly care about your world - to each her own.   But you have a number of factual errors I feel compelled to point out.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Yes, but now their homeland is gone again, and from what I've read the majority of them never travelled far from their (transplanted) homeland.



 Majority, no.  But mercinary companies with dragonborn aren't unheard of either at the start of 5e's timeline.   There are the orphans of Bahamut running around too.  So, while not exactly common, its not exactly the same shock as finding an illithid or kobald adventurer.



> It's a long way from Unther to the Sword Coast. Look at race relations in the real world. All of the various races have pretty much been around since the dawn of modern man, and interacting with each other for thousands of years now. Still not up to the same standard as the human/elven/dwarven/halfling dynamic that is the standard of most fantasy worlds.



 Except that fantastic racism is a thing in most fantasy worlds.  Its glossed over in D&D games simply because we need cooperative games involving mixed parties.  But just look at the fiction - half-elves, tieflings, and half-orcs all suffer major prejudice.  Elves and dwarves still have their age-old rivalry, which heats up anytime a dwarf goes to cut down trees for the forge.  Halflings aren't even allowed a culture of their own - they are forced to live and work inside of human culture.   



> It works from my perspective in the Forgotten Realms because the elves have settled Toril for over 20,000 years, and they came to Toril with their culture intact. Humans have only factored in for the last 5,000 years or so, but they grew in a world where the elven and dwarves civilizations were well established, and the elves helped build human civilization, along with the dwarves to a lesser extent. So the dynamics of these cultures are very different in the Forgotten Realms than our own. But that doesn't translate to accepting new races, particularly because at this stage many of the elves and dwarves aren't sure that helping the humans was that wise of an idea, and the humans wish to maintain their civilizations and dominance.



 Returned Uther is at war with the dragonborn.  Prejudice in action.  People in the Sword Coast and dalelands still stare and point at the dragonborn.  Some point fingers, raise prices, try to trick them.  Meanwhile, in dragonborn cities, they treat humans the opposite way, as outsiders.



> So a new race would take many, many generations, to establish themselves as generally accepted in society, and that would require large numbers to do so. Neither of which apply regarding dragonborn in the Forgotten Realms. Considering they are described as following their own rigidly defined culture, and worship no gods, there is little reason for the majority of them to leave their homeland. Those that do would be very rare, particularly the farther you go from Tymanther, and would likely have difficulty fitting in with society in the rest of the Realms. Their honorability would play well, and eventually, in localized regions, an individual would become accepted, but that doesn't always translate to trusting an entire race. All of which lead me to believe that they would primarily be viewed with suspicion. The vast majority of Realmsfolk would never have heard of Tymanther.



 I think you understimate gossip, especially with traveling bards who perform for money and food to spread news.  And your assumption that the dragonborn would never leave their home is demonstratively false - a notable have been exiled for worshiping Bahamut, a number have left because the clan elders have become as tyranical as the dragons they once fought in their original plane, and some just adventure for the same reason that human villagers do, because they don't want to be sheep tenders.   And dragonborn as a whole have made a name for themselves as dragon slayers, going out and hunting down dragons to kill.  Its a cultural thing - one of the few ways to be honored as an actual adult.



> So, for a PC - you are treated with suspicion, you are isolated from your culture where honor, clan, and family are among the most important parts of your life, most likely speaking a language that is not understood here (oh, right, common is exactly the same on every world in the D&D multiverse), and you quickly learn that the society on the rest of the world does not place honor and clan as the most important parts of life, and they worship unseen extraplanar beings and practice magic frequently.



 Dragonborn have been on Toril for 100 years.  Plenty of time for them to integrate Common as the most common language of their neightbors.   And being bilingual is actually pretty common in most non-American cultures.



> The only way you'd be in a generation that was born locally is that at the very least a pair of dragonborn had to leave their clan and family in their regimented society to settle in that uncomfortable location and start laying eggs. Of course, the second generation would somehow have to find different dragonborn to settle down with, requiring yet more to have made the journey from Tymanther, etc. Otherwise, you'd hail form Tymanther.



 There are dragonborn enclaves outside of Tymanther already.  I mentioned a few of them in passing already.



> Now that the majority of them have returned to Abeir,



 They have not.  The majority of them were in Djerad Thymar, which was remained behind.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 3, 2016)

Mephista said:


> I don't particularly care about your world - to each her own.   But you have a number of factual errors I feel compelled to point out.
> 
> Majority, no.  But mercinary companies with dragonborn aren't unheard of either at the start of 5e's timeline.   There are the orphans of Bahamut running around too.  So, while not exactly common, its not exactly the same shock as finding an illithid or kobald adventurer.




While it doesn't give numbers, it refers to ..the remaining dragonborn... (after the return of Unther), and under Honor and Family: 'The aftermath of the Sundering has tested these principles, leaving some clans fractured and decentralized...'

So assuming I will retain the Tymanther storyline, I'm taking the fact that it originally materially replaced the entire country, and the return of Unther did largely the same, with only a small region left of Tymanther.



Mephista said:


> Except that fantastic racism is a thing in most fantasy worlds.  Its glossed over in D&D games simply because we need cooperative games involving mixed parties.  But just look at the fiction - half-elves, tieflings, and half-orcs all suffer major prejudice.  Elves and dwarves still have their age-old rivalry, which heats up anytime a dwarf goes to cut down trees for the forge.  Halflings aren't even allowed a culture of their own - they are forced to live and work inside of human culture.




Totally agree. I wasn't saying everything was perfect, just that after thousands of years that those relationships had reached the state they are now. It varies from region to region, and also from settlement to settlement. For a race that appeared 100 years ago, they would be far from integrated into society, particularly in the numbers that would be exploring beyond the borders of Tymanther.   



Mephista said:


> Returned Uther is at war with the dragonborn.  Prejudice in action.  People in the Sword Coast and dalelands still stare and point at the dragonborn.  Some point fingers, raise prices, try to trick them.  Meanwhile, in dragonborn cities, they treat humans the opposite way, as outsiders.




The animosity would vary from one location to another, but since the most common traveling dragonborn are with mercenary companies, it all depends on who hires them. In the past they probably would have been hired by the Zhentarim in great numbers, which would have tainted their names even more.



Mephista said:


> I think you understimate gossip, especially with traveling bards who perform for money and food to spread news.  And your assumption that the dragonborn would never leave their home is demonstratively false - a notable have been exiled for worshiping Bahamut, a number have left because the clan elders have become as tyranical as the dragons they once fought in their original plane, and some just adventure for the same reason that human villagers do, because they don't want to be sheep tenders.   And dragonborn as a whole have made a name for themselves as dragon slayers, going out and hunting down dragons to kill.  Its a cultural thing - one of the few ways to be honored as an actual adult.




I think most people think of gossip and news as traveling far to fast, and more importantly, intact. News travels primarily with slow moving caravans, bards and minstrels, and adventuring parties, and based on gossip at the origin. The farther from the source, the more mouths it has passed through. News of this nature is notoriously slow and unreliable for more than a good tale, exaggerated by the bards and entertainers, and often met with disbelief by those who hear it. 'Really, dragon-men, what a great tale!'



Mephista said:


> Dragonborn have been on Toril for 100 years.  Plenty of time for them to integrate Common as the most common language of their neightbors.   And being bilingual is actually pretty common in most non-American cultures.




Under the assumption that they want to. Establishing their own (new) home in a strange world, particularly a potentially hostile one would take time to reach that point. Political emissaries and merchants would be the first to begin to learn a new language, but when back home they would use their native language. Near the borders with friendly neighbors they would start to learn some basic phrases (both directions) to communicate, and learning the basics. Europe remained linguistically divided (and still maintain a number of languages) with latin being a common denominator for religious texts, although most probably knew only the latin they learned in church, rather than being able to carry on a conversation with it. 

100 years is a short time.



Mephista said:


> There are dragonborn enclaves outside of Tymanther already.  I mentioned a few of them in passing already.




I've gone through the Campaign Setting, Neverwinter Campaign Setting, and the Player's Guide and the majority of references are to they Dragonborn in Tymanther or Returned Abeir. The major Dragon article (#365 I think) detailed what seems to be an alternate history than the dragonborn of Abeir. If there are more specifics I'd be interested in seeing them, but they are unlikely to change how I handle them in my campaign.

The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide states, 'some of Tymanther's dragonborn have spread across Faerun and gained reputations as competent, highly sought-after mercenaries. Multiple sources did mention some of them being involved in the Cult of the Dragon (with dragonborn mercenary on the random encounter tables for Neverwinter as a whole along with the Cult of the Dragon random encounter table). As I mentioned before, being hired by groups such as the Cult of the Dragon isn't going to help their reputation in those areas specifically.



Mephista said:


> They have not.  The majority of them were in Djerad Thymar, which was remained behind.




I base this on the fact that their land physically replaced Unther, which has now returned, displacing their land and driving them to a small area on the coast. 

Much of my interpretation is supposition from the very limited published material I could find. It doesn't take into account Erin's books which are probably the largest source of information regarding the dragonborn in the Realms. I've only read a little bit of them, and really enjoyed the writing, just haven't been reading any fiction in some time.

Best I can tell, WotC purposely left most of things vague and up to the DM to determine how to incorporate the new race into their campaigns. My preference is to ignore them altogether, but I've found that's difficult to do. Some things are easier to ignore (like the elves > eladrin > elves thing).

I don't want to rain on anybody else's parade, we're all here to have fun. For those playing dragonborn in the realms I hope you're having a great time. I may lose the battle to exclude them from my Realms, and if that's the case I'll go with it. 

Ilbranteloth


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 3, 2016)

Well, you have Mehen running around and doing heroic things, and some dragonborn in the famous Brotherhood of the Gryphon too doing things like killing an ex-god like Tchazzar. Considering it didn't take Drizzt's reputation long to spread enough that Jarlaxle could claim to be him somewhere out in the sticks and get free drinks in a tavern,  I think the bard rumor and gossip mill works pretty well.


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## Hussar (Jan 4, 2016)

Ibranteloth said:
			
		

> I think most people think of gossip and news as traveling far to fast, and more importantly, intact. News travels primarily with slow moving caravans, bards and minstrels, and adventuring parties, and based on gossip at the origin. The farther from the source, the more mouths it has passed through. News of this nature is notoriously slow and unreliable for more than a good tale, exaggerated by the bards and entertainers, and often met with disbelief by those who hear it. 'Really, dragon-men, what a great tale!'
> 
> Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?474645-Dragonborn-in-Faerun/page6#ixzz3wEe1LMNX




See, this here is something I think shows a rather large divide in how people approach settings.

This is very much the "fantasy Middle Ages" model where Faerun is more or less Middle Ages Europe with some fantasy layered on top.  People hear stories and treat them like stories because they haven't seen the "fantastic" that often and will disbelieve stuff because of that.

OTOH, there are those who look at Forgotten Realms as a setting where the fantastic happens every other day.  Spells and magic are common, multiple races mix together on a regular basis.  The Cantina scene from Star Wars is a regular occurrence in this interpretation.

So, it really comes down to how you interpret the setting.  If it's the latter interpretation, then Dragonborn aren't going to do much more than raise a couple of eyebrows.  If it's the former, then it becomes a much bigger issue.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 4, 2016)

Hussar said:


> See, this here is something I think shows a rather large divide in how people approach settings.
> 
> This is very much the "fantasy Middle Ages" model where Faerun is more or less Middle Ages Europe with some fantasy layered on top.  People hear stories and treat them like stories because they haven't seen the "fantastic" that often and will disbelieve stuff because of that.
> 
> ...




Exactly.

I don't remember which thread I quoted, but in Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms he says that while magic is everywhere, the average person has never felt magic cast upon them. I take that to mean not even healing magic. While the Realms is certainly more magical than Middle Earth, I think the effects of magic and the fantastical encroach upon the average small village about as much as it does in Tolkien's world. The cities are a whole different place.

I see the nature of the resident of a small village that finds themselves in the life of an adventurer (like Shandril in Spellfire) to find themselves in an unusual world where they have to learn fast, that magic is amazing, and the world outside of any sort of civilization is dangerous. I like to compare that to the same sense of wonder that a first-time player of D&D experiences.

As far as things like Jarlaxle and Drizzt, I see those stories as exactly that, tales that have grown in the telling. That's why Drizzt typically slays most foes with a single stroke, etc. That also turns the novels into game tools. If the players want to read them it's no problem. The events may or may not have happened, or maybe not quite in the way they thought. That was particularly important back in the early '90's when the novels were being released at a rapid pace and adding new Realmslore (of varying quality) on what seemed like a monthly basis. 

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 4, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Well, you have Mehen running around and doing heroic things, and some dragonborn in the famous Brotherhood of the Gryphon too doing things like killing an ex-god like Tchazzar. Considering it didn't take Drizzt's reputation long to spread enough that Jarlaxle could claim to be him somewhere out in the sticks and get free drinks in a tavern,  I think the bard rumor and gossip mill works pretty well.




Except in my campaign, the PCs took on Tchazzar in the '90's. Which presents a bit of a problem with incorporating that new story line...

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 4, 2016)

In fact, looking back at the novel list, that campaign lasted from 1993 until 1998, and 1358 to 1368 in game years, two houses, at least 10 different players with a core of about 4-5 throughout. Additional campaigns continued with a smaller group of the same core players until just into the start of 4th edition.

Fortunately, by the time the 100-year jump in the 4th edition occurred I was in a hiatus, and the players from that group has long since moved away. Many of the characters (particularly the demi-humans) remain, and my daughter is playing a descendent of one of my NPC (and occasionally a PC) characters.

Perhaps that explains a bit better why I feel a bit more strongly about what changes I don't incorporate into my campaign.

Ilbranteloth


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 4, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> Except in my campaign, the PCs took on Tchazzar in the '90's. Which presents a bit of a problem with incorporating that new story line...
> 
> Ilbranteloth




Obviously he was only _mostly_ dead. 

 Deity-level figures, particularly in FR, are notorious for treating death like a revolving door. Unless they're the deity of magic, in which case dying is permanent but someone else will inherit the mantle.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 4, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Obviously he was only _mostly_ dead.
> 
> Deity-level figures, particularly in FR, are notorious for treating death like a revolving door. Unless they're the deity of magic, in which case dying is permanent but someone else will inherit the mantle.




Oh, yes, although he wasn't exactly dead, but trapped in a gem. But it's not just the state of Tchazzar himself, but all of the events surrounding Tchazzar that followed in later published materials that would be different. I wasn't done with the story (in fact, I'm still not, but that group has moved on, and I'm still deciding how much of WotC's material will affect that potential story and where I want to go with it).

One of the really fun things for me is that I have 100+ years of my own game history, written by almost 30 real years with our own PCs and NPCs populating the land and impacting the history, which means my trajectory isn't quite the same. For those that do continue to pop into the campaign every now and then, they have actual ties to the world, with ancestors, allies, and enemies that they already know about.

At the time I picked a little known NPC of great power in a region that had little published material to interfere. I had a lot of things going on in Sembia as well, because the original campaign set designated it as 'home campaign' territory, not to be addressed in future published material so you wouldn't have to worry about 'canon' interfering with your campaign.

Oops.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 4, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Obviously he was only _mostly_ dead.
> 
> Deity-level figures, particularly in FR, are notorious for treating death like a revolving door. Unless they're the deity of magic, in which case dying is permanent but someone else will inherit the mantle.




By the way, my group totally missed a Princess Bride reference I dropped in recently... (he could track a falcon on a cloudy day).

Ilbranteloth


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 4, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> By the way, my group totally missed a Princess Bride reference I dropped in recently... (he could track a falcon on a cloudy day).
> 
> Ilbranteloth




I'll be honest, that one probably would have snuck past me, too. Probably because it's Buttercup mentioning one of Humperdinck's (few) virtues. And also happens just a couple lines before The Man In Black threatens to hurt her for "lying."

----

I've got a question for the thread in general (which you, Ilbranteloth, are of course free to answer as well):

Is part of the problem with dragonborn the fact that they are _official_?

Sometimes, I get the feeling that there is a deep antipathy, with certain segments of the gaming population, for "novelty" in the...for lack of a better term, "narrative" content of D&D. Novel mechanical ideas aren't necessarily seen as good or bad (e.g. 5e's "universal" proficiency score, or 4e's one-and-done +5 "training" value), and it seems like many DMs from all styles of play are open to cool player suggestions if presented in the right way. But for some reason, dragonborn (even more than tieflings or drow) seem to really stick in peoples' craw. The idea of playing something draconic isn't weird in the global sense--it's well known, by now, that Gygax allowed people to play (young)  dragons and even _balrogs_ at his table, as long as they grew into their power in some way, rather than just starting off awesome. And while I've seen (what I consider) far too many DMs who open conversations about their campaigns with lengthy, detailed, and occasionally vitriolic lists of all the things they'll never ever let you play in their games, I still hold out hope that _most_ DMs are cool enough to listen when the player has a cool idea they'd like to bring to life.

So...yeah, I guess my question is (whether specific to Faerun or not): Is the fact that dragonborn are in the book when you didn't "ask" for or "want" them there what really makes them a "problem"? Or is it more fundamental than that--that people just can't accept lizards-with-epic-halitosis as an option thematically "equivalent to" a dwarf or even a half-orc (since the 4e mechanics were well-balanced and the 5e ones are, if anything, on the weak side)?


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## gyor (Jan 4, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> Except in my campaign, the PCs took on Tchazzar in the '90's. Which presents a bit of a problem with incorporating that new story line...
> 
> Ilbranteloth




 Well Tchazzar is back ruling a Chessenta city, Erbros I think according to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, in a new incarnation and this isn't the first time this bastard come back from the dead, so just call the one you killed in the 90’s another incarnation.

 Seriously dude's got more lives then a cat or Mystra.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 4, 2016)

I just don't see how a bad pastiche of Egyptian and Babylonian gods/culture is MORE interesting than dragonborn.  Unther, Mulhorand, and Maztica could have stayed  gone. Has anyone even played in thise nations? Granted, I started in 4e when they were gone, but having read up on yhem I'm lik3...meh. Doesn't add to the setting at all. I don't want to play on ancient Earth.


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## Mirtek (Jan 4, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> . Considering it didn't take Drizzt's reputation long to spread enough that Jarlaxle could claim to be him somewhere out in the sticks and get free drinks in a tavern,



 dudn't the novel say that this failed to get him anything most if the times due to no one knowing who Drizzt is?


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 4, 2016)

It's been a while since I read them, so that very well could be the case.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 4, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I'll be honest, that one probably would have snuck past me, too. Probably because it's Buttercup mentioning one of Humperdinck's (few) virtues. And also happens just a couple lines before The Man In Black threatens to hurt her for "lying."
> 
> ----
> 
> ...




The short answer is:
Yes, the novelty side has worn off for me, I'm much more interested in the narrative content, and new rules should support my game and not get in the way or intrude upon that narrative.

I'm always willing to consider any idea they have, including dragonborn or tiefling (see below), but it IS entirely dependent upon how they present it. If they are invested in the character, then we can work with it. If it's just because it's cool and they want to play it because it makes them different than everybody else, or gives them powers that others don't have, I'm probably not interested.

By making them official, it opened up the floodgates. Players often don't care if it fits your world, and you're not being fair if you don't let them play one. So it's not so much whether or not it's official, but the conflict it creates when, as a DM, we opt to not include something in our campaign.

The long answer is:
My campaign is fairly traditional since it's been going on for so long. The world is humanocentric. I'm one of those types that explores the nature of people and the world in my stories. It's all about the development of the character, how they fit into the world, and character growth. It's a Tolkienesque approach, where the journey and growth of the characters is the real story, not the adventures that they get into.

Yes, the game is about having fun, killing monsters and getting treasure. But after a while that gets kind of old. But if you develop the characters, then people get invested in the game, and maybe we learn something. I know I have.

If the focus is on special abilities, the character 'build', the 'I want to be different by playing a unique race or class,' then the game starts to revolve around the rules, trying to find more abilities that make me unique. It pulls you out of the story and into the 'game' and it also tends to be centered on 'me' instead of 'us' at the very least, and hopefully the world that you're involved in if you move beyond that. It's exacerbated by the fact that most (in my experience) people who want to play them are just looking to be 'better' than the other characters in the campaign. These people also tend to be the ones that grow tired of their character when the novelty has worn off, and they want to start a new character. This 

The 5th edition has recognized that the ever-expanding ruleset to always have something new isn't sustainable, nor good business practice. Sure there's a group of gamers that are entirely focused on the game aspect of D&D. For them it's about the 'build' and getting more power, and being unique as in 'totally different than everybody else.' Or at least in character design. That's an entirely valid approach, and if that's what they enjoy, it's what they should do.

In terms of dragonborn and tieflings in the Forgotten Realms specifically, it has to do with the nature of the races and how they've changed over the years. When it was a hidden nature I found it interesting. But TSR and WotC, like many game companies, felt the need to have new things for the players to do. Initially almost every release was geared toward the DM. But in any given game the DM is 25% or less of the participants. How do we sell to the others? Make up more stuff for the players. New classes, new abilities, new races. Hey, I jumped in totally in the '80's - this was cool stuff!

But when you start dumping (as TSR did) everything into the Forgotten Realms it begins to stretch credibility. And they went both directions - ever more fantastic, and ever more mundane. Hey, we should have a campaign based on the ancient Aztecs (really, no). Oh, put it in the Forgotten Realms. Hey, we have a new ruleset, we have to reshape the Realms to fit. Plus, it's getting old, let's drop in parts of another planet, that would be cool (not so much). And that's how we can add these new races. We don't have to worry about the fact that they haven't been there for the last few thousand years and people just didn't notice. In the case of the dragonborn and the influx of new tieflings, it was a sudden, 'here they are, new races have invaded your world,' with little support or explanation beyond a few entries in the Campaign Setting. There was no development beyond 'wouldn't this be cool?' Now, of course, we have precedence. TSR or WotC in the 3rd edition introduced something that a group, it might be a small but vocal group, it might be a larger group, wants in their game. And I think that WotC learned from TSR's mistakes. Council of Wyrms was a campaign setting where you could play dragons. Cool right? Maybe it wasn't implemented in a way that people connected with. But the larger business issue is that it will sell more if connected to an existing, established campaign. 

Plus the world doesn't need more races. Over the years there have been all sorts of new humanoid races as monsters, and eventually playable PC classes as well. Most get very little traction. It seems to be because people have grown tired of orcs and goblins, but in the end that's what's believable and works well within the setting.

Now Erin M Evans appears to have done some very cool things with it and run with it in a big way. I haven't read any fiction in a long time, but I might get around to them because they look like awesome books and for the little bit I have read, I really like her writing. And the stories probably work them into the Realms very well. Except that the races don't feature in other author's Realms books. Oh, there might be one mentioned here or there, since they are now part of the world. But they aren't integrated into the Realmslore as a whole, either by the fiction authors or the game authors. 

Contrast with Spellfire, another exception to the rule, and how it feels like it's part of the living, breathing Realms (largely because it's Greenwood), but also that its absence in other writings is a non-issue. Why? Because it's very, very rare. If dragonborn and tieflings are supposed to be 'standard' and more common, then they should be. And they aren't.

The concept of 'dragonmen' as it's been implemented isn't really what I'm interested in either. Originally it was based on the idea that some (primarily good) dragons could polymorph. And that certain of those dragons spend considerable time in humanoid form in civilized locations. Hey, what if they had a kid with a human? They had a few special abilities, but were largely human. Also very, very rare.

Spellfire is another good example. Everybody suddenly wanted spellfire because it was now a rule. Except that it's exceedingly rare. Essentially, for players it's best to design the standard, the norm. When you codify the 'exception' it becomes the new standard because everybody wants to do it.

In the case of the last player I had who wanted to play a dragonborn, I worked with them and recast it as my old-style half-dragon. They new they had some unusual heritage, but didn't know what (they were an orphan). Part of the adventure was to determine what that was, and from what they learned they believed they were half steel dragon. The other aspect they were investigating was this strange anklet they had, that was enchanted so they could not remove it.

Of course, they didn't stick with the game. I suspect in part because I wasn't running the type of game they wanted. Perhaps they wanted the 'standard' dragonborn and my approach didn't work for them. The character lives on, though, although he's not with the group on regular adventures. He also learned that the anklet was forcing him to stay in his humanoid form, and that he was in fact a young steel dragon. If they had stayed with the campaign, this would have come out much later, because it would have taken some time to learn the secret of the anklet and how to remove it. At the same time, everybody else in the party has their own personal mysteries they are trying to solve as well, and they've been following clues as they find them (many of which have been intertwined).

So in my campaign, I like to be a bit more subtle. Most things are fairly mundane. By centering the world on an approximation of our world in an earlier time, it forms a frame of reference that everybody can understand to judge how fantastic the fantastic really is. We're over a year in real time into this campaign, playing weekly, and they are only 6th level.

The 'monster as a character' thing on one hand can expand the level of intellectual discussion. Orcs aren't really evil, they are just raised that way. Except in the end we want them to be just evil so we can kill them with impunity. That there are actually races and beings that exist solely for the purpose of war, oppression, and are a deadly threat to life as we know it, whether it's a band of 6 or 60,000. I still push that boundary a bit, because players (or more specifically characters) should stop and consider their actions when killing any intelligent living creature.

It's not for everybody. And for me, dragonborn and tieflings have sort of become sort of a poster-child that signals that there's a good chance that this player probably isn't looking to play the same sort of game I am. Admittedly, a big part of it is that I've done the monster as a PC, the munchkinizing, the 'we play by every rule written' and 'tactical combat is better' approach. And everybody is entitled to find the game style that works for them, whether it's a phase or their permanent preference.

But 5th edition came along as my daughter was getting old enough to play, and I want her to experience what I did in the '70's. In addition they are undoing a lot of the changes that I didn't like in the 4th edition Forgotten Realms. Call it old school, whatever you want. But I've tried so many systems, so many variations, and settled on this as my preferred campaign to run. 

Ilbranteloth


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## gyor (Jan 5, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> I just don't see how a bad pastiche of Egyptian and Babylonian gods/culture is MORE interesting than dragonborn.  Unther, Mulhorand, and Maztica could have stayed  gone. Has anyone even played in thise nations? Granted, I started in 4e when they were gone, but having read up on yhem I'm lik3...meh. Doesn't add to the setting at all. I don't want to play on ancient Earth.




 Its not either or, the Dragonborn nation Tymanther is reduced in size to make room for Unther's return, but its still there including its capital.

 And Mulhorand and Unther are no more Ancient Egypt and Babylon then Canada and America are Britian and France.

 Mulhorand was never culturally divided the way Egypt was between lower and upper lik e Egypt for example and Mulhorand no longer uses heiroglyphs.

 And Unther is an amalmation of multiple mesopotimion cultures, Babylonian, Summerian, maybe Ayssrian too.

 Plus they've intermixed genetically and cultural with the Imaskari and they've had thousands of years of history since being kidnapped from earth.

 And we don't know what kind of influences the Untherite's time in Abier has had.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 6, 2016)

Eltab said:


> The earliest I have seen them mentioned - and they were 'offstage' for this - was in 3e: Races of the Dragon.
> Back in the Year of Dragon's Rage*, many valiant warriors helped defeat the Cult of the Dragon's scheme to create a perpetual Rage of Dragons^.  Bahamut offered to them a gift: become more like dragons.  The result was the first dragonborn.
> 
> *1370 DR?  I need to check my calendar (or Grand History of the Realms) ...
> ...




Yes, but that's not the same dragonborn as these, although quite similar. Obviously in 5th ed they would use the same race. 

Having said that, I wasn't interested in them at that time either. Because of my history with D&D, pretty much any dragon-man race feels like we're trying to import Draconians from Krynn of the Dragonlance world. And to a large degree, that felt to me like a lot of races at that time (and particularly the 2nd and 3rd editions) of 'what else can we make into a humanoid? People want to play dragons, let's make dragomen.' This thinking has also created an endless number of half-races. 

I know that's not always the case, but they've never really felt that organic to me. I guess part of the reason is that anytime you introduce an intelligent, civilized, and powerful race to a world, they will change that world, probably significantly. Historically the multi-racial system has worked because dwarves tend to stay to their subterranean cities, elves to the woods, and both are usually in decline. Other races, like halflings and gnomes, tend to be minor races that would never be bent on world conquest. The evil races, on the other hand, such as the goblinoids and orcs are semi-subterranean, usually with a dislike or even disadvantage in sunlight, and their brutal and evil warlike nature almost keeps them in check by itself, and when they do get organized in a large enough group to be a threat, then all of the good races band together to defeat them. And the good races are always better at tactics and working together.

Lizard folk are more primitive, etc. Yuan-ti have organized their own domain in the Realms, but again are partially subterranean, and haven't grown enough in strength to overcome the good raced banded together.

But introducing another race that is of equal power (and to some degree more powerful in dragonborn) would drastically alter a world over time. Whether by their own desire for conquest, or expansion triggered by defense of their race, land, and way of life, it would be extremely likely that they would shape the world in significant ways over a long period of time.

Sure you can just ignore these probabilities and say they are honorable, will stay primarily in their country, and live happily among the other races' culture. But I just don't think that's the way things work. It's pointless to have them if they just stay in their own country, and their culture is well-established and mature, and since it's quite different than human culture (which defines most of the world), they would likely want to have their own settlements in each region, run by their beliefs and culture. As those settlements grow, they would need to grow, and it would introduce conflict. All great narrative ideas. 

So if they've been there for a long period of time, the world would be different. If they've just arrived, they will likely change the world dynamic to go in new directions. And for my world, that just doesn't appeal to me.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 6, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Just curious,  those that know previous editions, where dragonborn came from conceptually. 4e s3ems to have originally made them for Nerath, th POL setting. Obviously they were popular enough to find a place in Faerun. Not sure what the complaint there is, though,  since Faerun was always a kitchen sink setting.  And dragonborn don't have to be in YOUR FR campaign,  so not sure on your complaints there, either.




No, I don't think they were popular enough to find a place in Faerun. And Faerun wasn't always a kitchen sink setting. Business/game design decisions made the Forgotten Realms the kitchen sink setting, including things like dragonborn.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 6, 2016)

Mephista said:


> Actually, the dragonborn originated in the 3e book Races of Dragon, which started adapting Dragonborn and Spellscales and half-dragons into a distinct identity instead of just others.   Its the direction the game, as a whole, was moving towards before 4e.
> 
> I find it equal parts amusing and frustrating at how people blow up at 4e sometimes.  4e, for all its claimed changes, actually didn't introduce a lot of the changes beyond the AEDU system.  So much was taken from Eberron and other later 3.5 era books and merged into the default setting.  Even the dragonborn v. tiefling war was inspired by Eberron's early history of dragons versus fiends.
> 
> Either way, I don't really care about everyone else's edition complaints.   I like the modern dragonborn, though, to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed at the mechanics.  Dragonbreath really could use a boost, and we could really stand to see some racial variants here.




No, half-dragons (although different) go back at least as far as 2nd Edition in the Forgotten Realms, and of course the Dragonlance draconians go back to the 1st edition, which bear a much closer resemblance to the dragonborn.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 6, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> I just don't see how a bad pastiche of Egyptian and Babylonian gods/culture is MORE interesting than dragonborn.  Unther, Mulhorand, and Maztica could have stayed  gone. Has anyone even played in thise nations? Granted, I started in 4e when they were gone, but having read up on yhem I'm lik3...meh. Doesn't add to the setting at all. I don't want to play on ancient Earth.




Well, Egyptian-themed elements and adventures have been a staple in D&D from nearly the beginning. The Desert of Desolation series is one of my favorites (and I'm actually using elements of that in a campaign right now). I agree that tacking it onto the Realms in the manner they did wasn't great, but it was worked into the lore of the area fairly well, especially since it happened so long ago. However, it also provided precedence for doing the same with other cultures. (well the Moonshaes did really, since they were added on at the beginning, and it was much more European).

I have had campaigns involved in Chessenta, Unther and Mulhorand in particular. I'm sure I'm not in a majority in this regard, but I am aware of other campaigns in the region. Of course, back in the mid-late '80's this was all quite new and exciting, and we were still on the path of more is better, in game releases and also in the gaming community. We just didn't know better. But they have been better integrated into the setting than the other settings. 

Tacking on Kara-Tur and even Zakhara worked OK because they were both very well developed, and also had product support for a while. And they were also very far away. So it really was irrelevant for most that they were in the Forgotten Realms. If you wanted to play in one of those locations, you just started a campaign there.

Maztica was a mistake on pretty much every front. It's not that something like that couldn't work, but the various cultures were so different from the standard D&D concept, particularly when you get into magic, that it was really pointless. From a Forgotten Realms perspective, they just turned it into 'the New World' which pretty much meant that the Realms nations would be interested in conquest and the lands riches, essentially encouraging re-enactment of how Europe pillaged North and South America. Instead of a world where you'd be expected to fight and kill evil orcs, the 'enemies' were weak representations of actual historical cultures. Yuck. I'm sure somebody played in it for the novelty of the setting, which could be interesting, but after their two or 3 novels and adventures it was forgotten.

The Hordelands were another largely irrelevant addition. 

Tymanther and Returned Abeir were less integrated, and really just forced. To me it felt like they had come to the conclusion that new campaign worlds wasn't the way to go (they certainly exploded in the 2nd edition), so instead they just came up with a way to cram a new setting into the Forgotten Realms. The Spellplague was fine, and there were a lot of interesting elements and such in the overall story. And I'm sure the idea of 'let's take a little used section of the Realms and replace it with something better because of this really cool story concept' sounded great at the time. 

But, the Old Empires, Desert of Desolation, Kara-Tur, Hordelands, Zakhara, and Maztica should have made it clear that the far-off lands in the Realms usually have little to no impact in the core Realms products or campaigns. Regardless if it was poor publishing and planning, or the natural order of things in the Realms, clearly races and cultures from regions that far from the Heartlands (with the exception of Thay), just don't have much of an impact on the Realms as a whole. That's one of the reasons why I think that other than if they had started trying to expand Tymanther that I don't think the dragonborn would have spread much, or had much impact on the rest of the Realms. 

I'm not even sure there's much action in the Moonshae's among the many Realms campaigns.

Ilbranteloth


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## I'm A Banana (Jan 6, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> So...yeah, I guess my question is (whether specific to Faerun or not): Is the fact that dragonborn are in the book when you didn't "ask" for or "want" them there what really makes them a "problem"? Or is it more fundamental than that--that people just can't accept lizards-with-epic-halitosis as an option thematically "equivalent to" a dwarf or even a half-orc (since the 4e mechanics were well-balanced and the 5e ones are, if anything, on the weak side)?



As someone who is a bit ambivalent on DB in general, my hypothesis is that the issue is principally one of aesthetics. DB didn't necessarily "fit" with what people saw D&D as. There's a lot of D&D out there that is heavily reliant on Tolkeinesque imagery or with the "Mundane + Magic" assumptions that see even dwarves, elves, and halflings as strange beings rarely seen by others. 

4e's presentation of a more cosmopolitan racial makeup was probably unwelcome for those players. Combine that with the Edition Wars entrenching ideologies, and you have a race that has become something of an icon, regardless of if that's fair or not. In FR especially, the resentment over the 4e treatment of the setting made the DB the vanguard of punching around a beloved setting - they just dropped in from Outer Space. 

This would be part of why dragonborn and tieflings are in the "uncommon races" section in the 5e PHB. It's subtle permission from the game to ignore them if they don't fit your idea of what a setting entails. And sometimes all you need is a little bit of official validation to feel welcomed.

For me personally, "dragonborn" has always seemed like a linguistically awkward word, and the "Proud Warrior Race Guys" of 4e never grabbed me (the 3e "ascended mortals" even less so), but the 5e dragonborn (as a continuation of the 4e dragonborn, but now without a homeland) are growing on me, thanks to their narrative of diaspora and refugee status, which isn't a common narrative trope trucked in for D&D races (it's been done, but it's not over-done). Unlike the Proud Warrior Race or the Former Slave Race or other similarly over-done narratives, there's interesting space there to explore some unique kinds of heroes particular to their time and place and not simply generic anybodies. That's an interesting proposition to me.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 6, 2016)

I keep seeing the sentiment that dragonborn in FR are "aliens", and while technichally true...so are shadar-kai and gith and other mortals from other planes. The way DB came to FR isn't any different. It's not like they came in spaceships. They were transported by a cosmic magical event. Gith are more like aliens than DB, honestly.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 6, 2016)

I don't understand the idea that if players tend to pick something, it can't also be rare in the game world. 

I play mostly force users in my buddy's star wars campaigns, which are set during the rebellion era. Force users are extremely rare in those campaigns. The fact that I usually play one, or the fact that in some of those campaigns we have a group with 2 or more force users, does not in any way change the fact that they are rare. We just happen to be playing the vanishingly few force users there are. 

There is no reason that good drow, civilized orcs, or any other options described as rare shouldn't work the same. or spellfire, for that matter. 

Sure, it's rare. And ted likes to play that specific very rare character a lot. Ok. So ted plays a thing that is rare. What is the issue?


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 7, 2016)

I'm A Banana said:


> As someone who is a bit ambivalent on DB in general, my hypothesis is that the issue is principally one of aesthetics. DB didn't necessarily "fit" with what people saw D&D as. There's a lot of D&D out there that is heavily reliant on Tolkeinesque imagery or with the "Mundane + Magic" assumptions that see even dwarves, elves, and halflings as strange beings rarely seen by others.




For me it's the appearance is a big part. And yes, my campaign is very Tolkienesque in regards to the general look and feel. It's also because of the ramifications that come with the appearance. But it's also an issue with the cultural aspects that I've noted before, and my dislike of using the Returned Abeir storyline. I don't care about the extra abilities at all, that's fine.



doctorbadwolf said:


> I keep seeing the sentiment that dragonborn in FR are "aliens", and while technichally true...so are shadar-kai and gith and other mortals from other planes. The way DB came to FR isn't any different. It's not like they came in spaceships. They were transported by a cosmic magical event. Gith are more like aliens than DB, honestly.




The elves, dwarves, orcs, and a great many other races are aliens to the Forgotten Realms. I don't have a problem with them being aliens. My problem is first, the story element that put them there, and second the ramifications of dropping an entire society of a culturally advanced race in the Realms. An event like that would have extremely significant ramifications, initially locally, and then expanding from there. Imagine that there's an alternate earth, populated by other intelligent races, and then drop an entire large country of _us_. We would have a huge impact on the world, and most likely not an entirely good one.

We have a historical precedent in the European settlement of North and South America. In my opinion, a culture as different, as regimented, and well established ex-slaves would not be a non-event. And I don't want the future of my campaign going in that direction.



doctorbadwolf said:


> I don't understand the idea that if players tend to pick something, it can't also be rare in the game world.
> 
> I play mostly force users in my buddy's star wars campaigns, which are set during the rebellion era. Force users are extremely rare in those campaigns. The fact that I usually play one, or the fact that in some of those campaigns we have a group with 2 or more force users, does not in any way change the fact that they are rare. We just happen to be playing the vanishingly few force users there are.
> 
> ...




The rarity doesn't bother me. I've had a player with a character using spellfire in my campaign. The issue is that if it's the only Dragonborn that's been seen, or maybe one or two more, then every trip to civilization becomes one centered around the lizard guy, and everything that entails. Sure, it can be an interesting story element. But either it constantly becomes a thing, or you ignore it, in which case being a 7' tall guy that resembles a dragon is kind of pointless.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 7, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> For me it's the appearance is a big part. And yes, my campaign is very Tolkienesque in regards to the general look and feel. It's also because of the ramifications that come with the appearance. But it's also an issue with the cultural aspects that I've noted before, and my dislike of using the Returned Abeir storyline. I don't care about the extra abilities at all, that's fine.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I guess I can see where you're coming from, but a lot of this just confuses me. 

First, why not just...not have your campaign go in "that" direction, whatever direction that is. Like, there's no real reason to assume Dragonborn are going to start invading people, or immediately get invaded (since everyone by the time everyone isn't reeling from the spellplague, Tymanther is up and running and ready to defend itself if needed), or interact with the world in any given specific way. That's up to you. 

Second, so lot's of players playing a thing that's supposed to be rare doesn't bother you? Did I read your other post wildly wrong? I'm not being facitious, I just don't understand what your actual stance/issue is, now. 

That being said, I don't think the idea, in 4e or 5e FR, is that Dragonborn are so rare that people haven't seen a few. I may be wrong in teh case of 5e, but that is still something you can determine for your campaign, either way. 

If they are rare, that's fine, they can be a big deal, or not. If they aren't, that works too. Neither needs to turn every trip to civilation into a "look at the lizard guy", and whatever you've decided that "entails". I'm curius what that entails, for you? Because in my campaigns it entails...that race is reptilian, and that's about it. Like, it just isn't an issue outside of the same racist NPCs that fetishize gnomes and call halflings "rats". 
I mean, they don't look like lizardmen, and no one is going to confuse them for one even if they've never seen either, because the dragonborn is wearing well clothes and speaking Chondathan. FR is full of weird stuff, some of which is bad, some good, most in between, and every single person in FR knows that fact. I can't imagine that seeing a race you haven't seen before, as a denizen of whatever Sword Coast farming town you can think of, is a source of shock, confusion, or even fear. Caution? Sure. 
But a dragonborn in nice clothes, polished armor, speaking the same language as you, with a yarting on her back and eagerly greating people and asking where she can get some ale and a bath, is probably less cause for concern than a Uthgardt human in furs and face paint, glaring suspiciously at everything. 

As for common Dragonborn, I don't think most people want to play DB purely for the novelty, so I'm not sure how not being stared at in varying levels of terror and confusion means that playing one becomes pointless. Like...playing a 7' tall dragonic humanoid is an appealing thing (or not) in itself, not because it's novel. 

So, the idea that it "either it constantly becomes a thing, or you ignore it" seems like it might just be a you thing, not a dragonborn thing. Which I get, but that's the game. 
I think halflings are a stupid race, and FR would be better if you replaced every halfling with a gnome, because gnomes do or can do everything halflings do, without being boring and redundant. But I know other people like them, so I deal, and recognize that it's mostly my hangup. 

and don't get me started on all the elves and dwarves that honestly could just be elves and dwarves. Not to mention, why are there so many kingdoms of humans and each race gets like, one, at most? Seriously, I've heard or read all the excuses, but it's a forced thing, and it's always bugged me. 

Now, all that being said, I'm not sure why they couldn't have come from one of the far off continents, with more details on those places, instead of the whole spellplague thing. I'm just saying, they don't need to be a big deal when they walk into town, any more than a human from a far off land, if that. 

and I can't speak for your players, but mine have always wanted to play dragon people that weren't broken, didn't have level adjustments, could be played from level one, and weren't drizzt-y "this whole race is monsters, except you. and ted. everyone loves ted."  it's not, for them, a matter of wanting to play it because it's in the book, but rather being glad that it's in the book, and balanced and official, so they _finally_ get to play it.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 7, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I guess I can see where you're coming from, but a lot of this just confuses me.
> 
> First, why not just...not have your campaign go in "that" direction, whatever direction that is. Like, there's no real reason to assume Dragonborn are going to start invading people, or immediately get invaded (since everyone by the time everyone isn't reeling from the spellplague, Tymanther is up and running and ready to defend itself if needed), or interact with the world in any given specific way. That's up to you.
> 
> ...




Well there's no doubt that it's a me thing...

In terms of lots of players playing things that are rare - yes I'd prefer that things be largely the norm. If the party was a drow, a duergar, a high elf, a minotaur, a dragonborn and a tiefling, that would bother me. That's not the norm in my world, and very unlikely to occur. But I don't want to negate the possibility of somebody playing something that's rare just because it's rare. It would depend partially on how we bring it into the campaign. Don't know if that makes sense or not.

My frame of reference for my campaigns is the real world coupled with Tolkien. So, humans, whose civilization has grown from primitive to civilized with help from the elves, dwarves, and halflings, view these races in much the same way people view other people in our world. Which means there is a wide variety with outright racists, to mostly acceptance. In most places it's largely acceptance, with stereotypes.

For the average Realmsfolk, anything outside that norm is generally cause for caution and suspicion. They've been attacked enough, by enough strange things, often masquerading as a friend, that they are generally quite wary. The larger the settlement, the more accepting they can be, and it's not always a hostile suspicion, but it's there. More unusual creatures or monstrous humanoids are dangerous than not, so the default is basically consider them dangerous. The most closely resemble dragons (dangerous), lizard folk (dangerous), yuan-ti (dangerous) which are also all races that would be considered largely acceptable to kill on sight.

In addition, if somebody became outright hostile towards one, they probably wouldn't suffer significant repercussions since there is nobody there to speak on behalf of the dragonborn. 

I have yet to find something in the published material that supports they are common, other than a sentence here or there that might mention it. In the Neverwinter Campaign Setting I could only find reference to them in the random encounter tables, both the general and the one for the Cult of the Dragon. If they were seen as allied with the Cult of the Dragon, then the perception of them being dangerous goes up, and repercussions for engaging one in combat or killing one goes down.

I've already questioned the idea of them speaking the same language, because I don't think there would be much need for the majority of the race that doesn't have a specific need to communicate with anyone outside their homeland to learn other languages. In addition, their neighbors speak less common languages of the Realms natively.

I also think that a race that suddenly found themselves in a new world, suddenly free from slavery, not speaking the native language, with cultures vastly different than theirs, that has very strong ties to a regimented society and clan, would be very unlikely to be common outside of their homeland even 100 years later. What compelling reason is there for the race to start to Think of how long it took the Europeans to work their way across North America. It's roughly the same distance in a straight line from Unther to Waterdeep, but much longer by a land route. Now in Chessenta they find favorable reactions, why would they continue past there? 

The fact that I don't like the Returned Abeir story means the dragonborn never would have arrived in the first place, which is a bigger hurdle. 

This is entirely my interpretation, and an partial one at best. But the world that I enjoy is one where the characters and the players start with the mundane, everyday life of existence, and the magic of the world unfolds before them as they stray farther from home. Obviously, the mundane is very different for a farming village in the Shaar compared to somebody born in Waterdeep. Since I'm the one laying out the world, it helps if the world makes sense to me. 

By no means am I saying that it's the way it has to be for everybody. And I certainly don't want to rain on anybody's parade. As I said before, when the situation has arisen I've worked to make it happen, but with some modifications that work within my thinking as well.

I've had no problem over the years finding players who enjoy the world I enjoy and share and that they not only populate it, but expand it with their characters and actions. I have no doubt that my world, my DMing, or even just me is the right fit for every player. It's extremely unlikely that I'd change my mind on this, and I'm not really trying to change anybody else's mind. I'm just presenting how I think through and build my world, and why I make some of the choices I do. I'm certainly no Ed Greenwood, but I don't think people question him as to what he chooses to add and remove from the published materials in his campaign. Obviously I'm being questioned in part because I'm putting it out there on a public forum with the intent of engaging in the discussion, and I'm also probably taking a contrary view to most of the others in the discussion.

I do try to make sure that before people join they know what they're getting into. In the current campaign I've provided a 37 page booklet of house rules and modifications, along with campaign background for their starting point (Berdusk in this case). I don't expect them to read it all, but it's there for them to engage with as much as they'd like. Most of my players don't really care about the specifics of the rules to a large degree (and I do end up with a lot of new players too). The overall feel is much like the 1st edition where the bulk of the rules were in the DMG for the DM, and the players just had the rules to build their characters. I love having players who know the rules well, it helps keep things moving, and right now it's about 30% knowing the rules well, 70% not. That probably has an impact on them being OK with my approach, since they haven't really attached themselves to things like dragonborn yet.

I do really enjoy these types of discussions, because I learn a lot from how others manage their worlds and game, and at the same time it helps me understand my world and decisions a bit better too.

Ilbranteloth


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## Mecheon (Jan 7, 2016)

I will say I have no problem with Dragonborn, but I am really bored with the whole Tolkein-esque type of thing going around.



Ilbranteloth said:


> If the party was a drow, a duergar, a high elf, a minotaur, a dragonborn and a tiefling, that would bother me.




I don't know about you, but that sounds amazing. I mean, one of the campaigns I follow had a frog, a human, a kobold, a myconid and a tengu team up to defeat, well, possibly evil, possibly just anything in their way. And it works.


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## Mephista (Jan 7, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I've got a question for the thread in general (which you, Ilbranteloth, are of course free to answer as well):
> 
> Is part of the problem with dragonborn the fact that they are _official_?



 I suspect it has more to do with ... gaming conservatism, for lack of a better term.  People don't like change, they want the purity of the old ways.  Humans, dwarves, halflings, and elves were enough for us back in the day, so they're good enough now!

Exaggerations aside, its a real issue in the world, and not just gaming.  Change is not easy in a lot of cases.  Its inevitable, but people resist it, they want to keep things from being different.  You see it all the time in movies, books, games, comics.  Whenever something "new" and progressive happens, there's a huge fit thrown.  People throw fits when superheroes change _costumes_.  And that's just geek culture - the same applies in the wider world, but I don't want to get into that mess.  

At the heart, I really think its just people resisting things being different from what they're comfortable with.  Especially with the older crowd - basic biology states that people grow set in their ways as time goes on.  Younger generations are more comfortable with wider range of things, they're more eager to explore and try new things - their minds are more flexible.  

Some people just don't want to vary from Tolkein, the so-called traditional setting, while the newer players rarely give two second's thought about LotR beyond "Oh, hey, saw that movie."



Ilbranteloth said:


> No, half-dragons (although different) go back at least as far as 2nd Edition in the Forgotten Realms, and of course the Dragonlance draconians go back to the 1st edition, which bear a much closer resemblance to the dragonborn.
> 
> 
> Ilbranteloth



 I discluded them specifically because neither half-dragons nor draconians have a culture of their own.  Dragonborn in 3e have a calling and identity from being half-Other, and Spellscales are a literal full race of beings, with a culture, calling, lifestyle, and provolicity.  

Hells, the dragonborn have more of a cultural identity than _halflings_​.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 7, 2016)

Let me guess. You're under 30?  Progress =/= better. Plenty of historical evidence for that, too. So before deriding is old fogies, adress the arguments. 

There's a reason that Tolkein is the touchstone and that even anti-fantasists like George R. R. Martin  (Notice the extra R as the homage?) respect him.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 7, 2016)

@_*Ilbranteloth*_ It may surprise you to know that, at least in my case, the "diaspora story" was something I...pretty much unconsciously assumed for the default 4e dragonborn (in the default setting, properly "Arkhosians") because of their history. It's true that their "honorable warrior" culture is the part that gets played up. But even in the 4e default setting (often called "PoLand" because of the _points of light_ description), they were driven from their homeland--the great war between them and the tieflings (Bael Turath) destroyed both civilizations, with the Arkhosians' already dryish lands suffering a withering curse that transformed them into barren deserts. The struggle to retain a social identity in the face of being spread to the winds is definitely an avenue they prepared for such characters--as is pining for their civilization's lost glory (though many races can lay claim to that in PoLand, e.g. elves, tieflings, humans).

 @_*Mephista*_ I...hesitate to assume such things, fearing that I will reveal more of my own biases than others'. :S

My problem is I love Tolkien...I just don't see anything wrong with having other things besides--or even _instead of_--elves and dwarves in a world with Tolkien-esque storytelling. I mean, heck, after the _Chronicles of Narnia_, my next stop on the fantasy-novel train was _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_!

Edit: And another way to say it. I have no problem with enjoying Tolkien-esque stories--even ones that remain focused only on those groups he chose to write into his stories. But limiting yourself to _only_ that...and opposing the inclusion of support for ideas _beyond_ that...seems just incredibly confining, for little reason other than to shut down creative avenues. It would be like saying, "I've been eating a variety of food for 40 years...now all I want to eat is lasagna, every day, forever. And I don't want other people buying soy sauce and tofu either!" The former part is just...why would you limit yourself to even one kind of _cuisine_, let alone a single dish--even a really versatile one like "stir fry" or something? What happens when someone asks if you'll make soup? And the second part makes even less sense than that, since it's about controlling what _others_ can do.

I get that it can be annoying to have to tell people, "No, just because it's in the book doesn't mean I'm okay with you playing one." But I just straight up don't see how that mild annoyance--even if it is repeated every single time you run a game!--trumps others' desire to play it _at all_. And yes, even with 5e, I've had DMs (well, *a* DM) who plays things purely by-the-book (no need to tell me how aberrant that is, it's already been discussed to death).


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## I'm A Banana (Jan 7, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> It may surprise you to know that, at least in my case, the "diaspora story" was something I...pretty much unconsciously assumed for the default 4e dragonborn (in the default setting, properly "Arkhosians") because of their history. It's true that their "honorable warrior" culture is the part that gets played up. But even in the 4e default setting (often called "PoLand" because of the _points of light_ description), they were driven from their homeland--the great war between them and the tieflings (Bael Turath) destroyed both civilizations, with the Arkhosians' already dryish lands suffering a withering curse that transformed them into barren deserts. The struggle to retain a social identity in the face of being spread to the winds is definitely an avenue they prepared for such characters--as is pining for their civilization's lost glory (though many races can lay claim to that in PoLand, e.g. elves, tieflings, humans).



I do think part of the cool thing about FR's DB in 5e is that the civilization they hail from isn't one of "lost glory," it's one they're happy to be away from. You're invited to play a DB who has no home, who is making one by dint of their own efforts in the place they currently find themselves. As the Real World struggles with refugee crises and immigration policies, it's interesting to be able to play a character in a game who you can play as struggling with the (imperfect) fantasy analogy of that experience. 



> My problem is I love Tolkien...I just don't see anything wrong with having other things besides--or even _instead of_--elves and dwarves in a world with Tolkien-esque storytelling.
> ...
> And another way to say it. I have no problem with enjoying Tolkien-esque stories--even ones that remain focused only on those groups he chose to write into his stories. But limiting yourself to _only_ that...and opposing the inclusion of support for ideas _beyond_ that...seems just incredibly confining, for little reason other than to shut down creative avenues.



I think there's maybe two things at work here.

The first is that play has goals, and someone whose goal is to tell a Tolkein-esque story through their play isn't going to be interested in any options to do otherwise. You may as well ask them to go play cricket. It's just not the experience they're looking for. That doesn't mean they dislike the option, just that the option isn't for them. The mild annoyance of resisting the Default is a mild annoyance you didn't have to deal with back in 2006, and it's not like people COULDN'T play dragon-people back then, it's just that resisting the default fell on THEIR shoulders, not YOURS. You made the minor effort to include them if you wanted, and you didn't have to make the minor effort to exclude them if you didn't want them (and saying YES! to ideas always feels better than saying NO!). No one was banned, but it was opt-in, not opt-out. 

The second thing keys off of that default effect, and has more to do with the assumptions of the setting and the push of the marketing materials. If you don't like them, but the game is pushing them and the marketing is pushing them and you see illos of them everywhere and they're on the cover of the book and they get their OWN book and they feature as NPC's...that's just a constant reminder of this annoyance. It's like an annoying pop song you just can't avoid or a super-annoying ad that pops up everywhere - the mental effort to dismiss it becomes great, and you start asking why you even HAVE TO expend such effort. You start to question why this is so important to everyone else, why you see it everywhere, why you're constantly being asked, "Hey, I know you said no before, but...how about now?....how about now?....what about now?...Hey! Um...how about now?". It might even be worth the effort to switch games just so you don't have to deal with the mental load of constantly saying no because you're not interested. 

Again, this might be why their presentation in 5e is gentler. They're an option, they exist, but they don't dominate the conversation the way they might've seemed to in early 4e. Even in FR, you can utterly avoid the DB storyline without hurting your Sword Coast stories at all. 

So I don't think it's about forbidding others from playing it.

I think it's about how much brain-space is eaten up by saying "no" to it. Not just in play, but even in reading the books and setting materials.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 7, 2016)

I'm A Banana said:


> The mild annoyance of resisting the Default is a mild annoyance you didn't have to deal with back in 2006, and it's not like people COULDN'T play dragon-people back then, it's just that resisting the default fell on THEIR shoulders, not YOURS. You made the minor effort to include them if you wanted, and you didn't have to make the minor effort to exclude them if you didn't want them (and saying YES! to ideas always feels better than saying NO!). No one was banned, but it was opt-in, not opt-out.




I don't really have much to say to most of your post, it's pretty fair. But...in my--relatively limited--experience, "opt-in" is not meaningfully different from "banned." Perhaps it's a matter of speaking up about it, but the number of DMs I've known who say they allowed their players to opt into obscure, late-publication, or third-party supplements can be counted on one hand. And I've been a regular member of forums--these and others--for many years now. That's...a *highly* un-inspiring track record. And the number of people who sharply delineate what they do and don't allow, down to the level of "all members of class X have alignment Y, and I don't let people play Y in my games so good luck playing one of them..." is easily 3x to 4x as big. Easily.

It's also a little hard to buy that they somehow have players CONSTANTLY asking for things they don't want to allow. (And really, if you get someone bugging you about it literally every game, maybe that's some evidence that it's well-loved and you should think about it even if you don't like it?)

I know for a fact I always hesitate bringing up supplemental or third-party material--just because I know, no matter how low-power and well-balanced and scrupulously checked it is, _every_ DM is going to inspect it carefully...with jade glasses on.


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## I'm A Banana (Jan 7, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> But...in my--relatively limited--experience, "opt-in" is not meaningfully different from "banned." Perhaps it's a matter of speaking up about it, but the number of DMs I've known who say they allowed their players to opt into obscure, late-publication, or third-party supplements can be counted on one hand.



I don't doubt that mirrors other players' experiences, too. The overall takeaway, I think, is that _defaults matter_ (even when they shouldn't really matter that much, since D&D is, ostensibly, a game about telling the stories YOU want to tell). The Default Effect is in full swing within D&D. Opt In vs. Opt Out is something that still affects a LOT of tables. The publishers of D&D have the complex job of determining what "default" is, when given options that aren't necessarily better or worse, but a trade-off. 



> It's also a little hard to buy that they somehow have players CONSTANTLY asking for things they don't want to allow. (And really, if you get someone bugging you about it literally every game, maybe that's some evidence that it's well-loved and you should think about it even if you don't like it?)



It's less individual players that the perception of what the game is pushing. I think WotC had mentioned at one point that in the DDI data, with all of 4e's diverse racial choices, that elves and dwarves and humans and halfling still dominated, so I don't think there were many folks out there who were like I REALLY WANT TO PLAY A DRAGONBORN and just would not take a simple "no" for an answer.

It was more like the game itself - the people writing and publishing it - kept saying "Hey, don't you really want to play a dragonborn? I MEAN LOOK! Here's one! They're cool. Here's another! So awesome. Here's a BOOK about 'em! We've spent a lot of time on them! See that guy on the cover? So neat. You should probably play one!" To someone with zero interest in dragonborn, and who didn't have to put up with them a few years ago, that might just be a mental load they feel like they don't need, and I could see how that can be annoying, at lest to the same level as people annoyed by 3e's dungeonpunk look or 5e's little-footed halflings (and then perhaps inflated by the Edition War). 



> I know for a fact I always hesitate bringing up supplemental or third-party material--just because I know, no matter how low-power and well-balanced and scrupulously checked it is, _every_ DM is going to inspect it carefully...with jade glasses on.




I think it's unfortunate that you hesitate! The more people that come out and ask for stuff to be included in the game that they're interested in, the easier it'll be for others.  They might say "no," but you never know until you try! And if you're cool with presuming "no," I don't imagine getting told "no" will be much worse - it could only be better!


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 7, 2016)

Mecheon said:


> I will say I have no problem with Dragonborn, but I am really bored with the whole Tolkein-esque type of thing going around.
> 
> Originally Posted by Ilbranteloth
> If the party was a drow, a duergar, a high elf, a minotaur, a dragonborn and a tiefling, that would bother me.
> ...




OK, I agree that it could be great fun in and of itself. But it wouldn't work for me in my Forgotten Realms campaign.

So I was thinking about it a bit more, and here's what ultimately is driving my decisions here.

Go back to the middle of the 2nd Edition - I'd been running and building my version of the Forgotten Realms off of Ed Greenwood's writings along with the published materials. There were a lot of published materials. By this time we had moved past trying other game systems (I've played and run games in most of the systems that were released from the late '70's to the mid '90's.

I literally owned every bit of published material for D&D - all editions. BECMI, AD&D, OD&D, including third party supplements, magazines, etc. I had compiled the rules we used, which included most mechanics that were released in the various magazines, stole some mechanics from other settings, and any Realms specific material from any source. In recompiling I also tweaked to fix contradictions, conflicts, some balance issues, etc. I had compiled a complete timeline, updated with our campaign information, lists of the languages, coins, etc. pulled from all of the various sources. I (really we) allowed almost any race, class, kit, etc. that we felt made sense in the Realms, regardless of source. 

In the meantime, we also played in the other published campaign worlds, some more than others. We tried Spelljammer (didn't much care for it), Planescape (very cool), Ravenloft (very cool), Greyhawk (like going home at the time, since it was the basis of my pre-Realms campaigns), Dragonlance (never really cared for the lore, although _Leaves from Inn of the Last Home_ was a great supplement, Dark Sun (very cool), etc. There were so many at that time - Known World, Red Steel, Council of Dragons. We played in each one as they came out, and sometimes went back after trying them out. 

Some of these were with Reams characters, some as new characters. What made the other campaigns so much fun is that they all had their own specific flavor. Playing in Athas was vastly different than Krynn, Grayhawk, Faerun, or even Zakhara, Maztica, Malatra, Kara-Tur, and other 'Realms' settings. The races, classes, monsters, magic and lore all work together to build each world.

As time went on, since the Realms was viewed by the marketing and design teams as 'something for everyone' and from time-to-time has been the default campaign setting, more and more material was dumped into the Realms. So I started limiting or not allowing in my campaign things that were drastically out-of-flavor for the world we had been collectively building for about a decade. By the 4th Edition, it reached it's worst stage where it seems to have been decided that all of the 'core' races, classes, and such would apply to all settings (although this proved not to be the case for Dark Sun). They changed the cosmology, and basically started 'officially' removing anything that made the worlds unique and different. So there was a lot of material that I ignored or didn't incorporate. 

In addition, the 4th edition campaign settings came out. The general concept of the Spellplague I was OK with, but not the large scale destruction, at least the way it was handled. Our longest running campaign had largely completed, and most of the players had moved, by the time the 4th edition hit. The story lines that were running were completed, but some had ramifications, even 100 years later when the 4th edition campaign setting picked up. Like many people I wasn't happy about the jump in time, but I could make it work since we weren't in the middle of something larger. The elven characters, of course, were the common thread among characters, but others had impacts too.

My interpretation of what the events of the Spellplague and its effects is part of what drives me in what to include and what not to. Since the 5th edition has largely undone the biggest issues, I can safely ignore many of them altogether, and work the others into the ongoing lore. 

Which leads me to things like the dragonborn, returned Abeir, geographical locations that entirely disappeared, etc. Perhaps if my group and I had been more active during the 4th edition, and had fully incorporated all of the changes it would be different. But that's not what happened. Instead, I have a campaign world with a very specific feel and flavor, that has been developed over 28+ years. It started as a variant Greyhawk campaign, incorporating stuff from other sources, but leaning heavily on Ed Greenwood's articles in Dragon. Once the campaign set came out, it shifted to its proper home. 

Because of the nature of these two campaign worlds, it has a heavy Tolkien influence. The mix of races, classes, monsters and magic are unique and different than the other worlds to me. If I had the time, and people who were interested, I might very well run a campaign again in Athas or Greyhawk in particular. Zakhara was also a lot of fun, partially because the setting was so well thought out and the components worked really, really well together. Like Ravenloft and Athas, it has a very unique feel that's immediately evident. It's very easy to blur the line between Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, as they are both Tolkienesque fantasy settings, with many similar elements. 

So for me, when running a campaign, the feel of the world is very important to me. That may not be evident or even occur to people who started D&D later, particularly the 4th edition, because the push was for everything to be in play all of the time. Among other examples given with cylons in Star Wars, I think the bigger example would be adding a jedi wookie to a game set in the Star Trek universe alongside Kirk and Spock. Could it be fun? Absolutely. And if that's your interest, go for it. But it doesn't 'fit'. 

I have no doubt that the feel of the Forgotten Realms to a group that started playing in the Forgotten Realms through video games and the 4th edition is very, very different than mine. That's great. It's just not what you're likely to find at my table. I can't tell you about that lore, or how it all came to be. But if/when you meet Cris Ilbranteloth, Tomas Marois, Wu-Han, Bronn, Skyseer, and Drial Blackblade. I can fill you in with all sorts of lore. Because I was there when that history was written. 

And the 5th edition dragonborn and tiefliengs (actually it goes back to changes made in 3.5) don't fit in my Forgotten Realms. It doesn't mean they can't fit in any Forgotten Realms. And yes, I could make them fit. I just don't want to.

So the party of drow, a duergar, a high elf, a minotaur, a dragonborn and a tiefling, along with the frog, human, kobold, myconid and a tegu will have to wait for when I run a different campaign.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Let me guess. You're under 30?  Progress =/= better. Plenty of historical evidence for that, too. So before deriding is old fogies, adress the arguments.
> 
> There's a reason that Tolkein is the touchstone and that even anti-fantasists like George R. R. Martin  (Notice the extra R as the homage?) respect him.




Yeah, no. We are not, in any way, obligated to give a damn about Tolkien while playing games, or writing fantasy, for that matter. The origins of a thing are useful for understanding it, but they are absolutely not something to abide by, or feel beholden to when making new things. 

And if you honestly don't think that the fact (yes, fact) that people tend to get set in their ways and resist change as a default position, I can't imagine what world you live in, but it isn't this one. Traditionalism is a distressingly common mindset, and it leads people to assume a no change without very compelling reasons mentality, which is strictly a bad thing. 

And pretty much no one thinks that change is always good, but progress is, in a cultural/social context, literally positive change, in a "forward" direction. Ie, toward egalitarianism, fairness, and a better world in general. In tech, progress is change that improves the technology in some way. 

So, while one can imagine progress (which is a distinct term from change) that leads to bad things, in general progress is better than stagnation. 

also, nearly every time someone has had an example of "bad progress", in my experience, it's been some nonsense about the soviet union, that actually has nothing at all to do with progress, and is just radical change, usually _going backward_, or claiming progress while doing pretty much what the old boss did with a new paint job. Well, and there's the people who think that segregation was good and the nation has gone downhill since women got the vote, but I just assume no one on here is in that camp.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Let me guess. You're under 30?  Progress =/= better. Plenty of historical evidence for that, too. So before deriding is old fogies, adress the arguments.
> 
> There's a reason that Tolkein is the touchstone and that even anti-fantasists like George R. R. Martin  (Notice the extra R as the homage?) respect him.




Yeah, no. We are not, in any way, obligated to give a damn about Tolkien while playing games, or writing fantasy, for that matter. The origins of a thing are useful for understanding it, but they are absolutely not something to abide by, or feel beholden to when making new things. 

And if you honestly don't think that the fact (yes, fact) that people tend to get set in their ways and resist change as a default position, I can't imagine what world you live in, but it isn't this one. Traditionalism is a distressingly common mindset, and it leads people to assume a "no change without very compelling reasons" mentality, which is strictly a bad thing. 

And pretty much no one thinks that change is always good, but progress is, in a cultural/social context, literally positive change, in a "forward" direction. Ie, toward egalitarianism, fairness, and a better world in general. In tech, progress is change that improves the technology in some way. 

So, while one can imagine progress (which is a distinct term from change) that leads to bad things, in general progress is better than stagnation. 

also, nearly every time someone has had an example of "bad progress", in my experience, it's been some nonsense about the soviet union, that actually has nothing at all to do with progress, and is just radical change, usually _going backward_, or claiming progress while doing pretty much what the old boss did with a new paint job. Well, and there's the people who think that segregation was good and the nation has gone downhill since women got the vote, but I just assume no one on here is in that camp.


and to be clear, I love JRRT. I've read everything published while he was alive (and every word of every appendix contained therein) and a lot of what Chris has published, from the trilogy and the Hobbit, to the Silmarillion, to everything in the Reader, his Beowulf, etc. I've written fanfic, played plenty of game sessions in Arda, between homebrewed dnd and more recently the One Ring rpg by cubicle 7. I know who the Noldor are and where Arnor was, and I wish my mind was retentive enough to challenge Stephen Colbert on the subject. 

But none of that love and respect for the man and his work, and the fact he essentially invented what we now think of as fantasy fiction, means that I'm beholden to him when telling fantasy stories.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

cbwjm said:


> True that, I'm in my mid-30s and I honestly couldn't care less about Tolkien. He was a rather boring writer in my opinion and the only good thing about him is that his stories influenced Gygax, and whoever else worked on DnD, to create the game. I'm all for games with elves, humans, halfings, and dwarves, but I'm also happy to add in other races into my games.




Ouch. It always hurts a little when someone calls JRRT boring. Otherwise I agree


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## Hussar (Jan 8, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I don't understand the idea that if players tend to pick something, it can't also be rare in the game world.
> 
> I play mostly force users in my buddy's star wars campaigns, which are set during the rebellion era. Force users are extremely rare in those campaigns. The fact that I usually play one, or the fact that in some of those campaigns we have a group with 2 or more force users, does not in any way change the fact that they are rare. We just happen to be playing the vanishingly few force users there are.
> 
> ...




The thing is, there's a difference between setting and campaign.  If the setting says X is rare, but, the campaign has X, then, in that campaign anyway, X is no longer rare.

IME, what generally happens is this.  Player chooses to play something rare, in this case a Dragonborn.  So, the first time the PC's meet NPC's, the NPC's cry a shocked, "What the Hell is that?" and an interesting role play moment occurs as the PC's and the NPC's interact and the rarity of the Dragonborn PC is discussed.  No problems.

But, then the PC's meet another NPC a while later and again it's, "What the Hell is that?" and you have another role play moment.

However, those role play moments tend to lose their lustre after the fifteenth time.  As a 6' 2" white dude living in an Asian country, I can tell you for a fact that that conversation loses a LOT of lustre after the 300th time.    So, the issue gets lampshaded because it's no fun anymore.  At that point, being a Rare X is no longer a campaign issue.  We stop dealing with it, even though, realistically, we should be having this same conversation with every new NPC, but, having the same interaction over and over again is boring.  

And Rare X, in this case our Dragonborn character is no longer rare - it's common as any elf or halfling because, beyond this point, no one bothers to comment on it again.  

If you don't care, then fair enough, no problem, but, it does mean that by playing X, the campaign is pretty much taking the concept of "X is rare" largely off the table.  It gives a very skewed view of the setting.  As was mentioned, the Drow, Minotaur, intelligent blob group should be a major issue wandering around the Realms.  it really should be.  But, after the second or third time, it stops being fun, and it stops being an issue.  Repeat this over many campaigns, and people have a view of the Realms that the Realms is this huge melting pot of weird races that all get along and every bar in Waterdeep is a scene from the Cantina.

Playing a rare X, whatever that rare is, changes how the group views that setting.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

Hussar said:


> The thing is, there's a difference between setting and campaign.  If the setting says X is rare, but, the campaign has X, then, in that campaign anyway, X is no longer rare.
> 
> IME, what generally happens is this.  Player chooses to play something rare, in this case a Dragonborn.  So, the first time the PC's meet NPC's, the NPC's cry a shocked, "What the Hell is that?" and an interesting role play moment occurs as the PC's and the NPC's interact and the rarity of the Dragonborn PC is discussed.  No problems.
> 
> ...




My experience with playing rare stuff bears no relationship with that, and it's not because my group and I "don't care". 

Thing is, non mundane stuff isn't rare, when taken as a whole, in the Realms. Any given individual part may be, but as a whole, not so much. 

Look at it this way. Rather than looking at a tall white guy in a fairly monolithic Asian country, the dragonborn is like a Sikh in the full traditional garb, dagger and bracelets and turban and rad beard and all, wandering into a bar in the US, in a town with no Sikh population, but in general a diverse demographical makeup. Does the Sikh turn some heads? Sure, most people in the bar have never met one. Depending on the bar, someone might make a rude and ignorant comment about people from the Middle East. If a backward enough place, people might even generally mistake the man for a Muslim, and due to rabid mouth frothing racist idiocy, treat him poorly. 

But, the reactions are not going to be the same as they would if the same man walked into an establishment in boot scoot Nebraska, circa 1950.  (and now I have "Boot Scootin Boogie" stuck in my head...I hate that song) 

FR has been for some time a place where there are plenty of non human, even non Tolkien, people running around in enough places, killing monsters and running bakeries and what have you, that while a person of an unknown race, obviously from a far off land will attract notice, it's nothing on the order of a teifling walking into the Prancing Pony. 

In other words, there are plenty of ways to deal with players playing things which are rare in the game world, without it going the way you've described.

edit: and without losing the "stranger in a strange land" vibe. 
But also, if a group doens't want to deal with that, and just wants to assume that dragonborn are well known enough that people don't really freak out or even stare much, and just get's treated like a foreigner, at worst, that's fine. The point of playing a dragonborn isn't to play a stranger in a strange land for everyone. For many people, it's about things entirely unrelated to that, in any way.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 8, 2016)

Hussar said:


> The thing is, there's a difference between setting and campaign.  If the setting says X is rare, but, the campaign has X, then, in that campaign anyway, X is no longer rare.
> 
> IME, what generally happens is this.  Player chooses to play something rare, in this case a Dragonborn.  So, the first time the PC's meet NPC's, the NPC's cry a shocked, "What the Hell is that?" and an interesting role play moment occurs as the PC's and the NPC's interact and the rarity of the Dragonborn PC is discussed.  No problems.
> 
> ...




Alternatively, this sort of "boring but everpresent" thing could be represented in a different way, as the game moves forward. DM makes, say, a percentile or d20 check on the "village reaction table." Get lucky, and this village is not only tolerant, but welcoming--nobody bats an eye or makes an off-color comment, you're treated to exactly the same reaction (skeptical, congenial, or otherwise) as any other stranger/customer/helping hand. Get unlucky, and it's torches-and-pitchforks time unless the situation can be smoothed over--which may or may not be possible. Slightly less unlucky, and your presence has subtle but meaningful impact even without playing it out: women and children (and perhaps even men!) cross the street to avoid you, conversation in a crowded establishment goes silent when you enter and everyone watches you, bartenders take inordinate amounts of time washing glasses without paying attention to you, guards take you aside and make sure you know what's up/that they're "keeping an eye on you." In the middle ground, you might get things like a constable saying, "You're a credit to your people, son" or the farmer you just helped saying, "I don't care what people say about you, you're a stand up gal."

Not only does this help to reinforce that some places are prone to disliking/rejecting "other-ness," it also opens up avenues for unexpected challenges for the party ("Sorry, don't care what ye call yerself, Paladin or Warlock or Pelor-knows-what, ain't lettin' no demon-horn freak inter THIS town!"), additional lines of inquiry ("Oh, you're wunna them our-cozy-uns, ain'tcha? New t'town? Better check in wit the Assemblage, yeah? Ain't much ter look at but you lot take care'a yer own."), and character development for both PCs and NPCs.

Or, in other words: Constantly _playing through_ the exact same reaction every time, not so fun. Having a general idea of how the town feels? Useful. If it further forks off into how the individual NPCs feel, that's even better: perhaps every character makes their own roll on that table, with a modifier based on the town average reaction (or, alternatively, particular average-town-reactions direct you to one of a set of secondary tables for individual people and their reactions). Then you can have a town that's flagrantly racist, but not _quite_ torches-and-pitchforks, and still end up randomly rolling a far more egalitarian shopkeeper.


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## Hussar (Jan 8, 2016)

But, even randomize get it wont change things in the long run. Eventually you'll be running through the same scenario multiple times. The might be spaced further apart but they're essentially the same. 

And, again IME, this sort of thing gets left by the wayside after a few times simply because it's a PITA to deal with it every time. It derails the game more often than it adds anything.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 8, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> My experience with playing rare stuff bears no relationship with that, and it's not because my group and I "don't care".
> 
> Thing is, non mundane stuff isn't rare, when taken as a whole, in the Realms. Any given individual part may be, but as a whole, not so much.
> 
> ...



This seems to be how I recall the Drizzt novels dealing with it. Sure, there were looks and remarks, and in a couple instances there was denial of access,  but I really only remember about one violent encounter in a Luskan bar, and after Drizzt wiped the floor with them everyone was like, "Leave the drow alone. He ain't causin' any trouble."


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## Mecheon (Jan 8, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Ouch. It always hurts a little when someone calls JRRT boring. Otherwise I agree




Tolkein was a linguist first and a writer second. I mean, the Silmarilion is amazing from a world building perspective but reading it is an absolute chore

(On the other scale the Hobbit was a great book and some not-so-great movies)


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 8, 2016)

Silmarrillian is my favorite. Especially the Children of Hurin.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 8, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Silmarrillian is my favorite. Especially the Children of Hurin.




And really, the Silmarillion is full of crazy weird crap anyway. Half-angel, half-elf girl falls for a human, crazy shenanigans with a talking horse-sized hound or a (rare/unique?) "dark elf," wars involving werewolves and the father of all dragons and balrogs, gems of crystalline light that sear the hands of anyone evil--including their fallen maker. And that's just like, one or two _sub-parts_ of the overall structure.

Plus, we have to remember that, as far as Tolkien was concerned, he was already completely re-inventing the wheel. Elves were once more akin to pixies! "Gnomes" became his Noldor, which includes both Elrond and Arwen. He had no compunction against making entire species of fully-sentient animals (having both _fëa_ and _hröa_) like the great eagles (that, AFAICT, never show up in D&D), or singular individuals like Huan.

I think it does a great disservice to his creativity to conceive of "Tolkien-esque" fantasy as being a thing where there are fixed, rigid kinds of beings and ne'er shall they be questioned nor altered. I agree that the tales aren't always the most gripping literature, but the man was hugely creative when it came to applying his expertise (anglo-saxon mythology, mostly) to a new and personal world.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 8, 2016)

You also have to remember that the Silmarrillian was an unfinished and unpolished work. It was never fully completed by Tolkein.


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## Radaceus (Jan 8, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> You also have to remember that the Silmarrillian was an unfinished and unpolished work. It was never fully completed by Tolkein.




Tolkien spent 29 years writing the Silmarrillion, i.e. building his world.  the lore known as There and Back Again, and the Lord of the Rings, being the polished stuff. He never published what we know as the Silmarrillion, because he didn't want to, it was his own world, which he drew from. In his later days he was forced to do a lot of things to pay the bills. mostly selling off rights to story adaptations. Christopher published the Silmarrillion , one would hope on his behalf, but if the Lays of Beleriand are any clue (awesome stuff BTW if you are into prose and poetry like I am), one might think it a desperate attempt to keep the coffers full.

Anyhow, on that topic, as far as Tolkien's world is concerned, I tend to think of him as the original house-ruling world builder. He set the tone and raised the standard by which many generations  later is still a bar to be matched.

Point being, anything goes, as long as the reader/player buys it.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 8, 2016)

Radaceus said:


> Point being, anything goes, as long as the reader/player buys it.




More or less what I was driving at. Tolkien changed whatever he wanted, inserted whatever he thought was needed, and used older material _at most_ as an interesting guideline. Whereas it feels like a lot of people today take his work--which is now _our_ "older material," and treat it as though you should use almost everything that's in it, the way it's used in it, and nothing that isn't used in it. Ever. Which is super disappointing IMO, and disregards how flexible and creative Tolkien was with world-building. Much like Gygax, actually, who allowed balrog PCs


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

Mecheon said:


> Tolkein was a linguist first and a writer second. I mean, the Silmarilion is amazing from a world building perspective but reading it is an absolute chore
> 
> (On the other scale the Hobbit was a great book and some not-so-great movies)




I disagree completely. The Silmarillion is no more a chore to read than the Eddas, or the Welsh Mabinogion, and it occupies the same sort of space in Arda. It is a book of collected history and mythology. In that light, read with appropriate expectations, rather than those appropriate to a novel, it's fantastic.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> This seems to be how I recall the Drizzt novels dealing with it. Sure, there were looks and remarks, and in a couple instances there was denial of access,  but I really only remember about one violent encounter in a Luskan bar, and after Drizzt wiped the floor with them everyone was like, "Leave the drow alone. He ain't causin' any trouble."




That's how I handle it. Sometimes you run accross someone who doesn't know you or your people, but your reputation spreads faster and further than it would for a human, because you are an outlander. Or, if we're talking DB in the Realms, you occasionally run into a village that has one or more dragonborn family, and most major cities have at least a few, more likely a whole neighborhood/community of dragonborn, and so no one really thinks much of it, any more than any other minority.


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## Wednesday Boy (Jan 8, 2016)

Dragonborn are nifty!  (I have nothing important to contribute but I just noticed I only needed one more post to make 1500 and this was the thread at the top of the page.)


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 9, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yeah, no. We are not, in any way, obligated to give a damn about Tolkien while playing games, or writing fantasy, for that matter. The origins of a thing are useful for understanding it, but they are absolutely not something to abide by, or feel beholden to when making new things.
> 
> And if you honestly don't think that the fact (yes, fact) that people tend to get set in their ways and resist change as a default position, I can't imagine what world you live in, but it isn't this one. Traditionalism is a distressingly common mindset, and it leads people to assume a "no change without very compelling reasons" mentality, which is strictly a bad thing.
> 
> ...




Totally agree. And some of the most interesting fantasy has been, not really anti-Tolkien, but entirely different. And I think that would make for a really incredible campaign too. It's just that I've invested a lot, and have a much more limited amount of time, that I want to see through what I've started.

On the other hand for those of us that choose to be more traditionalist might choose it for other reasons. Like, we really like it and think there are still really creative and 'progressive' things to do within the stories. It's kind of like music, to many 'pop' is a dirty word. But for some, the challenge of making a statement in about 3 minutes and be fresh and new is a worthy exercise.

I embrace change and incorporate a lot of new ideas and things from many sources, although they tend to be more story elements than world-changing events like Returned Abeir. But part of embracing change and progress also involves rejecting other ideas, whether they are old and/or traditional or new, and usually it's a combination of the two.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 9, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> My experience with playing rare stuff bears no relationship with that, and it's not because my group and I "don't care".
> 
> Thing is, non mundane stuff isn't rare, when taken as a whole, in the Realms. Any given individual part may be, but as a whole, not so much.
> 
> ...




I agree it's not because they don't care.

But in my campaign we do care. To me/us it is more like Nebraska, 1950. Or, you know, the middle ages. It's all about how many of those types of people are in your particular Realms. Those elements have increased enormously as the setting has grown from being closely tied to Ed's original campaign. We find the cultural relationships interesting because it adds additional layers of intrigue when dealing with groups of people. 


POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT


****


****


This is even addressed in the Councils in Rise of Tiamat, and the collapse of the treaties in Luruar also has some racial and cultural elements in it as well.

Ilbranteloth


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## MG.0 (Jan 9, 2016)

I'm not a big fan of Dragonborn or Tieflings (Tiefling is perhaps the stupidest name for a race I've ever heard). Some of my players like them so I don't ban them but I don't particularly like them.

Here's an interesting quote by Gygax from the 1st edition DMG which I agree with and which seems appropriate to the conversation at hand:

_On occasion one player or another will evidence a strong desire to operate
as a monster, conceiving a playable character as a strong demon, a devil,
a dragon, or one of the most powerful sort of undead creatures. This is
done principally because the player sees the desired monster character as
superior to his or her peers and likely to provide a dominant role for him or
her in the campaign. A moment of reflection will bring them to the un-
alterable conclusion that the game is heavily weighted towards mankind.

ADVANCED D&D is unquestionably "humanocentric", with demi-humans,
semi-humans, and humanoids in various orbits around the sun of
humanity. Men are the worst monsters, particularly high level characters
such as clerics, fighters, and magic-users - whether singly, in small
groups, or in large companies. The ultra-powerful beings of other planes
are more fearsome - the 3 D's of demi-gods, demons, and devils are
enough to strike fear into most characters, let alone when the very gods
themselves are brought into consideration. Yet, there is a point where the
well-equipped, high-level party of adventurers can challenge a demon
prince, an arch-devil, or a demi-god. While there might well be some near
or part humans with the group so doing, it is certain that the leaders will be
human. In co-operation men bring ruin upon monsterdom, for they have
no upper limits as to level or acquired power from spells or items.

The game features humankind for a reason. It is the most logical basis in
an illogical game. From a design aspect it provides the sound groundwork.
From a standpoint of creating the campaign milieu it provides the most
readily usable assumptions. From a participation approach it is the only
method, for all players are, after all is said and done, human, and it allows
them the role with which most are most desirous and capable of identify-
ing with. From all views then it is enough fantasy to assume a swords &
sorcery cosmos, with impossible professions and make-believe magic. To
adventure amongst the weird is fantasy enough without becoming that
too! Consider also that each and every Dungeon Master worthy of that title
is continually at work expanding his or her campaign milieu. The game is
not merely a meaningless dungeon and an urban base around which is
plopped the dreaded wilderness. Each of you must design a world, piece
by piece, as if a jigsaw puzzle were being hand crafted, and each new
section must fit perfectly the pattern of the other pieces. Faced with such a
task all of us need all of the aid and assistance we can get. Without such
help the sheer magnitude of the task would force most of us to throw up
our hands in despair.

By having a basis to work from, and a well-developed body of work to
draw upon, at least part of this task is handled for us. When history, folk-
lore, myth, fable and fiction can be incorporated or used as reference for
the campaign, the magnitude of the effort required is reduced by several
degrees. Even actual sciences can be used - geography, chemistry,
physics, and so forth. Alien viewpoints can be found, of course, but not in
quantity (and often not in much quality either). Those works which do not
feature mankind in a central role are uncommon. Those which do not deal
with men at all are scarce indeed. To attempt to utilize any such bases as
the central, let alone sole, theme for a campaign milieu is destined to be
shallow, incomplete, and totally unsatisfying for all parties concerned
unless the creator is a Renaissance Man and all-around universal genius
with a decade or two to prepare the game and milieu. Even then, how can
such an effort rival one which borrows from the talents of genius and
imaginative thinking which come to us from literature?

Having established the why of the humanocentric basis of the game, you
will certainly see the impossibility of any lasting success for a monster
player character. The environment for adventuring will be built around
humans and demi-humans for the most part. Similarly, the majority of
participants in the campaign will be human. So unless the player desires a
character which will lurk alone somewhere and be hunted by adventurers,
there are only a few options open to him or her. A gold dragon can assume
human shape, so that is a common choice for monster characters. If align-
ment is stressed, this might discourage the would-be gold dragon. If it is
also pointed out that he or she must begin at the lowest possible value,
and only time and the accumulation and retention of great masses of
wealth will allow any increase in level (age), the idea should be properly
squelched. If even that fails, point out that the natural bent of dragons is
certainly for their own kind - if not absolute solitude - so what part
could a solitary dragon play in a group participation game made up of
non-dragons? Dragon non-player characters, yes! As player characters, not
likely at all.

As to other sorts of monsters as player characters, you as DM must decide
in light of your aims and the style of your campaign. The considered
opinion of this writer is that such characters are not beneficial to the game
and should be excluded. Note that exclusion is best handled by restriction
and not by refusal. Enumeration of the limits and drawbacks which are
attendant upon the monster character will always be sufficient to steer the
intelligent player away from the monster approach, for in most cases it
was only thought of as a likely manner of game domination. The truly ex-
perimental-type player might be allowed to play such a monster character
for a time so as to satisfy curiosity, and it can then be moved to non-player
status and still be an interesting part of the campaign -and the player is
most likely to desire to drop the monster character once he or she has
examined its potential and played that role for a time. The less intelligent
players who demand to play monster characters regardless of obvious con-
sequences will soon remove themselves from play in any event, for their
own ineptness will serve to have players or monsters or traps finish them
off.

So you are virtually on your own with regard to monsters as player
characters. You have advice as to why they are not featured, why no
details of monster character classes are given herein. The rest is up to you,
for when all is said and done, it is your world, and your players must live in
it with their characters. Be good to yourself as well as them, and everyone
concerned will benefit from a well-conceived, well-ordered, fairly-judged
campaign built upon the best of imaginative and creative thinking._


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 9, 2016)

MG.0 said:


> I'm not a big fan of Dragonborn or Tieflings (Tiefling is perhaps the stupidest name for a race I've ever heard). Some of my players like them so I don't ban them but I don't particularly like them.
> 
> Here's an interesting quote by Gygax from the 1st edition DMG which I agree with and which seems appropriate to the conversation at hand:
> 
> ...




Don't need to go any further than this.

I'm only interested in this because I see the character as _superior_? Because I expect it to give a "dominant role"?

@#$% you, you presumptive arse. I like dragonborn because they _look cool_, and because their culture--as sketchily-drawn as it may be, being a culture in an RPG--appeals to me. "Dominance" or "superiority" has _nothing to do with it_, and I'm frankly offended that people would seriously suggest that it does.

But that was one of the things Gygax did best: having good DM advice wrapped in often-inflammatory rhetoric.


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## Hussar (Jan 9, 2016)

To be fair to EGG though, he was writing this at a time when there wasn't a huge body of work in the game to draw on.  Compared to now where you have decades of material and thousands, and thousands of pages spread across dozens of writers, all detailing the myth and background of the Forgotten Realms milieu.  The advice that "you are virtually on your own with regard to monsters as player characters" isn't true any more.  There's a ton of advice for doing this.  Note, his issue is more with the idea of playing dragons or demons and he freely accepts the idea of demi- and semi- humans in the campaign.  

I'd say Dragonborn are far, far closer to semi-humans than actual dragons or demons.  His issues stem mostly from balance and practical reasons which I completely agree with.  But, he's also not really talking about humanoid characters.

In any case, the advice is very outdated.  Even the idea of the "mostly human group" didn't last that long.  Look at Dragonlance.  Of the 6 original Heroes of the Lance, half of them aren't human.  Half-elf, kender, dwarf, and 3 humans (Caramon, Raistlin and Sturm).  And that was being created pretty much at the same time as the AD&D DMG.  Moving forward, you have numerous generic books - Complete Humanoids, Savage Species, etc - detailing mechanics for playing non-humans and most published settings came out with more and more non-human races to be played.  3e took a serious stab at making solid mechanics for playing truly non-humanoid characters with some degree of success - the Level Adjustment system did work, most of the time.  4e took a different tack and tried to tie racial abilities to feats and levels - again, with some degree of success.  

From a purely mechanical standpoint, there's no particular issue with Dragonborn.  It's not like they're over or under powered.  They're mechanically perfectly fine.

For my own FR games, I'd go the direction of Dragonborn simply being yet another race and no one really has any issue with it.  Treat them like Chewbacca from the original SW Trilogy (Han Solo's best friend is a seven or eight foot gorilla and not one person reacts in the slightest to seeing him, despite the fact that not one other Wookie appears in any of the original trilogy movies).  Sure, he's weird looking, but, then again, this is a fantasy setting with a bajillion sentient species floating around.  He's not that much weirder looking than a half orc or a Saurial (which live in the Dalelands, not that far from the Sword Coast and have been there for quite some time).  So, yeah, I'd have no real issue with a DB character wandering around the setting.


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## MG.0 (Jan 9, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Don't need to go any further than this.
> 
> I'm only interested in this because I see the character as _superior_? Because I expect it to give a "dominant role"?
> 
> ...




It's a shame you didn't read further.  I quoted the entire section because I think it is interesting, but the parts further down were particularly relevant.

Gygax's observations about players wanting to play dragons, demons, and the like is pretty spot-on in my experience, but starting with the third paragraph and running to the end are some great insights about the game and the people playing it.

I see Dragonborn and Tieflings as borderline cases. *Almost* too monster-like to be useful as a character.


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## MG.0 (Jan 9, 2016)

cbwjm said:


> Yeah, I honestly don't think that Gygax quote is really all that relevant to this topic considering he is talking about play as full fledged demons, dragons, and undead. Dragonborn are nowhere near as powerful as dragons and tieflings do not have at their disposal all of the powers of a full-on demon. A player saying that they want to run a dragonborn is not the same as a player wanting to run an ancient gold dragon.




The beginning is about playing powerful monsters, yes. The rest of the section is more general advice.


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## MG.0 (Jan 9, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Note, his issue is more with the idea of playing dragons or demons and he freely accepts the idea of demi- and semi- humans in the campaign.




Sure, although first and second edition had level limits for demi-humans because the game really was geared towards human characters.



Hussar said:


> I'd say Dragonborn are far, far closer to semi-humans than actual dragons or demons.  His issues stem mostly from balance and practical reasons which I completely agree with.  But, he's also not really talking about humanoid characters.




The first paragraph is definitely about powerful monsters as characters and concerned with balance, but I think it is a mistake to write off the rest of the section. There are some important ideas in there: Namely that the players are human and can identifiy most closely with human characters. Every step away from humanity is a step towards the player being unable to play it believably, nevermind imagining themselves as the creature in question.



Hussar said:


> In any case, the advice is very outdated.  Even the idea of the "mostly human group" didn't last that long.  Look at Dragonlance.  Of the 6 original Heroes of the Lance, half of them aren't human.  Half-elf, kender, dwarf, and 3 humans (Caramon, Raistlin and Sturm).  And that was being created pretty much at the same time as the AD&D DMG.  Moving forward, you have numerous generic books - Complete Humanoids, Savage Species, etc - detailing mechanics for playing non-humans and most published settings came out with more and more non-human races to be played.  3e took a serious stab at making solid mechanics for playing truly non-humanoid characters with some degree of success - the Level Adjustment system did work, most of the time.  4e took a different tack and tried to tie racial abilities to feats and levels - again, with some degree of success.




I agree there has been a noticable shift in what is accepted and normal within the game. I still think there is value in those original ideas however.



Hussar said:


> From a purely mechanical standpoint, there's no particular issue with Dragonborn.  It's not like they're over or under powered.  They're mechanically perfectly fine.




For me, it isn't a question of power or balance. It is the very obvious non-humanity of the races in question. I'd have an even bigger issue with a sentient slime character, even it were perfectly balanced.




Hussar said:


> For my own FR games, I'd go the direction of Dragonborn simply being yet another race and no one really has any issue with it.  Treat them like Chewbacca from the original SW Trilogy (Han Solo's best friend is a seven or eight foot gorilla and not one person reacts in the slightest to seeing him, despite the fact that not one other Wookie appears in any of the original trilogy movies).  Sure, he's weird looking, but, then again, this is a fantasy setting with a bajillion sentient species floating around.  He's not that much weirder looking than a half orc or a Saurial (which live in the Dalelands, not that far from the Sword Coast and have been there for quite some time).  So, yeah, I'd have no real issue with a DB character wandering around the setting.




To each his own. As someone mentioned earlier, making every session a scene fromt the Mos Eisley cantina is not what I'm looking for.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 9, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> Totally agree. And some of the most interesting fantasy has been, not really anti-Tolkien, but entirely different. And I think that would make for a really incredible campaign too. It's just that I've invested a lot, and have a much more limited amount of time, that I want to see through what I've started.
> 
> On the other hand for those of us that choose to be more traditionalist might choose it for other reasons. Like, we really like it and think there are still really creative and 'progressive' things to do within the stories. It's kind of like music, to many 'pop' is a dirty word. But for some, the challenge of making a statement in about 3 minutes and be fresh and new is a worthy exercise.
> 
> ...




Sure. Honestly, my objections to what you're saying kinda went awy the more I realized your concern is with your specific campaign, rather than FR as a published official setting and how anyone else runs a game, etc. 

For a given campaign like that, I would just present it to new players as a homebrew campaign based on the earliest FR info, before a lot of new stuff existed, and so some of the newer stuff might be hard to fit into the campaign. That's no less a reasonable way to run things than making a homebrew campaign that only has Gnomes, Goliaths, Minotaurs and Drow, and is based strongly on the Mediterranean, Byzantines and Abbasid Caliphate, and thus doesn't allow any elf characters. 

I almost want to play that now...but I have too many campaigns as it is...



Ilbranteloth said:


> I agree it's not because they don't care.
> 
> But in my campaign we do care. To me/us it is more like Nebraska, 1950.  Or, you know, the middle ages. It's all about how many of those types of  people are in your particular Realms. Those elements have increased  enormously as the setting has grown from being closely tied to Ed's  original campaign. We find the cultural relationships interesting  because it adds additional layers of intrigue when dealing with groups  of people.
> 
> ...




Funny thing about the middle ages europe. If you lived in any  sizable port town, you would almost certainly see someone who wasn't  white, and it would happen more than once. Africans of various cultures  traveled all over, as did people from the near and far east. Europeans  saw a lot more diversity than fiction portrays. Not saying you're off  track or anything, just that it's good to remember that trade and travel  didn't cease in the middle ages, and a very very small portion of  Europe genuinely experienced a "dark age", and it didn't last very long.  




cbwjm said:


> A player saying that they want to run a dragonborn  is not the same as a player wanting to run an ancient gold  dragon.




Also, I'm not sure what's wrong with wanting to play an actual  dragon, so long as it's a young one, and low level. It would have been  easier to build in 4e, probably, but I'm sure a clever DM could work  something up to allow someone to play a young dragon in 5e that would  balance just fine, gaining power and size, and the ability to polymorph,  as it levels. 



MG.0 said:


> To each his own. As someone mentioned earlier, making every session a scene fromt the Mos Eisley cantina is not what I'm looking for.




It's not a binary.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 9, 2016)

MG.0 said:


> It's a shame you didn't read further.  I quoted the entire section because I think it is interesting, but the parts further down were particularly relevant.
> 
> Gygax's observations about players wanting to play dragons, demons, and the like is pretty spot-on in my experience, but starting with the third paragraph and running to the end are some great insights about the game and the people playing it.
> 
> I see Dragonborn and Tieflings as borderline cases. *Almost* too monster-like to be useful as a character.




Alright. Having heard your request to read further, I have read the entire thing. I'll start, though, by giving a summary of the two paragraphs you're saying we can ignore. Paragraph 1 is, more or less, "players who want to play non-humans are powergamers, don't encourage them." Which we know to not be a generally true statement today. And paragraph 2 is, more or less, "I wrote AD&D to be humanocentric." Which, sure, that could quite easily be a factually true statement, but it's no longer relevant because, at least on the subject of dragonborn and tieflings, we're fundamentally not talking about that game--so, again, not applicable. I agree with your assessment of those paragraphs.

Now let's look at the next few paragraphs.

P3&4: The first half is a non-sequitur about the difficulty of making games with *no* humans. But showing that humans should be "featured" _does not_ show they should be _central and exclusive_. He then argues that the DMs' jobs are so _fantastically difficult_ that they'd need to be be Renaissance-level geniuses if we ask for more than humans, which is hyperbole of the worst sort. We're now _surrounded_ by settings (whether tabletop or videogame) which feature distinctly non-human races in a believable fashion. That you can cite the Mos Eisley cantina _at all_--for or against--proves it's possible, even for a newbie director. Hell, Star Trek had a staff of people whose specific _job_ was to come up with language symbols, and to flesh out things like the Klingon culture. So I think we can declare these, instead of irrelevant, _factually disproven._

P5: First sentence non-starter; not great. Lotta unfounded assumptions thrown around, like the idea that being non-human equates to being _hunted by adventurers._ And leading questions, asked not because the writer has _established_ the centrality and exclusivity of humankind, but because he _wishes_ to establish it. So the argument has become circular, mostly by confusing "humans should be present" with "humans should be the end-all, be-all." Particularly when stuff like "the natural bent of dragons is certainly for their own kind - if not absolute solitude" is only a rule Gygax made up to keep dragons out of the limelight (in other words, to _make_ humanocentrism, and thus inappropriate to use as _justification_ for it)!

P6: Well of _course_ Gygax is going to assume that it's only _unintelligent_ players that are going to like playing monsters more than once. I mean, how could _any_ TRULY _intelligent_ person ENJOY that??? Moving past the (again) incredibly presumptuous rhetoric, and a return of the "people want non-humans for power alone" stuff we've already rejected, all we're left with is...um...actually, I don't think there _is_ anything left. "Most smart players won't want to do this at all, if you show them how badwrong it is. Maybe some will still want to try it, but experiencing it will convince them of its badwrongness. Anyone who doesn't realize how badwrong it is, must be too stupid to succeed, and will thus remove the problem of their own accord." I don't think I need to say why I'm not interested in the "advice" in this paragraph.

P6: Eugh, those first two sentences. "I've told you why it's badwrongfun, so now you know why I didn't try to help you have any badwrongfun." The rest is pretty generic, meaningless platitudes: "players have to live with the consequences of their choices," "be good to yourself and your players," "everyone benefits from good judgment and creative thinking." Not really what I'd consider profound advice.

However, on thinking back over what was said here, I noticed three interesting sentences (ironically, both in the paragraphs we had agreed to reject). I hadn't seen two of them previously, because I only read the first paragraph. They are (emphasis mine):
"On occasion one player or another will evidence a strong desire to operate as a monster, conceiving a playable character as *a strong demon, a devil, a dragon, or one of the most powerful sort of undead* creatures."
"ADVANCED D&D is unquestionably "humanocentric", *with demi-humans, semi-humans, and humanoids* in various orbits around the sun of humanity."
"While *there might well be some near or part humans with the group* so doing, it is certain that the leaders will be human."

I don't buy the "humans always lead, humans are the center around which everything spins" idea. They certainly can be, but they don't have to be. But notice that, in the first sentence, Gygax appears to be talking about _extremely powerful_ monsters: fully-grown dragons, "strong demons," vampire ancients, etc. That's a pretty different sort of thing from simply being non-human! Now, I don't know the definitions of "demi-human," "semi-human," or "humanoid" in this case, and as I understand it they might have been almost terms of art for Gygax (such that a poster, some time back, argued that gnomes were "humanoidish" but not "humanoids"...). But I feel like any reasonable definition of those terms should include dragonborn in _one_ of them. Dragonborn are certainly nothing near the kind of being that a "strong demon, a devil, a dragon, or one of the most powerful sort of undead" is!

So...I kind of wonder if the entire thing is unrelated, even by the standards Gygax is using. We're not even talking about making worlds where humans aren't the "sun" that the other races "orbit" (a turn of phrase that I don't quite care for, myself). We're just talking about a planet slightly more different than the ones that came before--maybe a Roche world!  --certainly not a new star.



doctorbadwolf said:


> It's not a binary.




It's not even a single _axis_.


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## Mecheon (Jan 9, 2016)

MG.0 said:


> Sure, although first and second edition had level limits for demi-humans because the game really was geared towards human characters.
> 
> The first paragraph is definitely about powerful monsters as characters and concerned with balance, but I think it is a mistake to write off the rest of the section. There are some important ideas in there: Namely that the players are human and can identifiy most closely with human characters. Every step away from humanity is a step towards the player being unable to play it believably, nevermind imagining themselves as the creature in question.




I mean, if we're going down this route it immediately falls flat on Elves, as most people cannot realistically play an ancient race that lives so long it has seen entire empires live and die.

Realistically speaking, elves should view humans as mayflies or the like, because that's about how long their lives are compared to them. In the life of a single elf we advanced 500 years of history. Elves and humans, realistically speaking, shouldn't be able to even vaguely relate to each other because of things like this, their timespans are just so different. Psychologically they'd just be too different.

When you throw all that away then yeah, sure, I have no problem with people hanging around with a dragon looking guy and a demon

Incidentally my most powerful for the sake of being powerful character is an elf mage, meanwhile my most unique and modest character is the fire genasi


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 9, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Sure. Honestly, my objections to what you're saying kinda went awy the more I realized your concern is with your specific campaign, rather than FR as a published official setting and how anyone else runs a game, etc.
> 
> For a given campaign like that, I would just present it to new players as a homebrew campaign based on the earliest FR info, before a lot of new stuff existed, and so some of the newer stuff might be hard to fit into the campaign. That's no less a reasonable way to run things than making a homebrew campaign that only has Gnomes, Goliaths, Minotaurs and Drow, and is based strongly on the Mediterranean, Byzantines and Abbasid Caliphate, and thus doesn't allow any elf characters.




I still use most of the published material, and one of the reasons I love running in the Realms is that it provides a shared environment that other players can already 'know.' Since the dragonborn are literally relegated to their own sections in the sourcebooks and, as far as I know, only featured in one series of novels, if your introduction to the Realms was via novels other than Erin M Evans, you wouldn't even know they were there.

But yes, I'm talking about my home campaign, not Realms 'canon' which is a tough target in itself. To each their own.

I am admittedly out of the loop on the novels, having skimmed through them but not sat down to read them yet. But are they even _mentioned_ in the Sundering series of novels? Or any Salvatore or Greenwood novel?



doctorbadwolf said:


> Also, I'm not sure what's wrong with wanting to play an actual  dragon, so long as it's a young one, and low level. It would have been  easier to build in 4e, probably, but I'm sure a clever DM could work  something up to allow someone to play a young dragon in 5e that would  balance just fine, gaining power and size, and the ability to polymorph,  as it levels.




Oh, yes. As I said, I'm not against the players having powerful characters. The 'dragonborn' in this current campaign looked a lot like an elf, with a slightly different appearance. Looked elvish, but exotic. As long as he could remember, he wore this anklet, that grew along with him and he couldn't remove. They didn't stick with the game long enough, so the on-stage quest didn't lead to fruition, but he's still an NPC that is helping rebuild a keep that they inherited. During that process (along with werebear that already lived in the ruins, he did later discover what the anklet was and how to remove it.

That's when he found out he was not a half-steel dragon as he thought. He was a very young (20ish) steel dragon. The player never knew that, and I was particularly looking forward to the point when they discovered that in game. I love the idea of powerful secrets and such, and have had all sorts of 'overpowered' players like incantatrixes, and a spellfire user. 

Ilbranteloth


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## MG.0 (Jan 9, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> It's not a binary.




Never said it was.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 9, 2016)

Not in a Salvatore novel that I know of (though not caught up there), but he did a lot with tieflings. Outside of Evans, Richard M. Biers' Brotherhood of the Gryphon series  (not read yet) has done stuff in that area with dragonborn,  including working for amd then killing Tchazzar when he was going to conquer Tymanther.


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## MG.0 (Jan 9, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> P3&4: The first half is a non-sequitur about the difficulty of making games with *no* humans. But showing that humans should be "featured" _does not_ show they should be _central and exclusive_. He then argues that the DMs' jobs are so _fantastically difficult_ that they'd need to be be Renaissance-level geniuses if we ask for more than humans, which is hyperbole of the worst sort. We're now _surrounded_ by settings (whether tabletop or videogame) which feature distinctly non-human races in a believable fashion. That you can cite the Mos Eisley cantina _at all_--for or against--proves it's possible, even for a newbie director. Hell, Star Trek had a staff of people whose specific _job_ was to come up with language symbols, and to flesh out things like the Klingon culture. So I think we can declare these, instead of irrelevant, _factually disproven._



  You certainly seem to dislike Gygax's approach to D&D. I'm not saying everything he wrote is gospel or anything like that, but there are valid points in there.  The whole section rambles a bit and so I tend to read it as a disconnected stream of conciousness thing, which is probably how it was written. I'll just focus on this one part, because I don't have much time at the moment.    The third paragraph is about the importance of humanity as an anchor to the otherwise bizarre world of D&D, and also about the importance of making a campaign world a living breathing whole - indeed a monumental task without aid. In the fourth he's not saying that it's difficult to DM a world with more than humans, he's saying it's difficult to create a believable campaign world where humans don't play a central role or don't exist. The fact that Star Trek has created an (arguably) semi-believable culture for Klingons actually reinforces this, as it wasn't done by a single overworked DM in his spare time, but as you said, by teams of people hired to do just that, and still humanity plays the central role. Star Wars cantina isn't a good example either, as there is no believable culture there - just a throwaway scene in a movie. Unless you plan on lampshading culture issues, making everyone just humans in a funny suit anyway, it is a tremendous amount of work for a DM to undertake without aid from literature. Notice he doesn't preclude the possibility of creating such a world, just that it would be difficult, which indeed it is. His last sentence does cynically disbelieve such a world rival those of literary geniuses, and here I disagree. Not everyone is capable of creating a complicated believable world, but I don't think it as rare as Gygax seems to think.  Again, I don't agree with every point he makes, but I do agree with: 

Players wanting to play powerful monsters typically see it as a way to get attention or dominate the game. This is pretty much borne out in my experience. 
Creating an entire campaign world populated with believable cultures is incredibly hard without aid. Doubly so for worlds not centered on humans. 
 Literature is a big help in creating believable worlds. 
The further a character is from human, the harder it is to identify with and integrate into a world. 
Don't refuse monsters as characters, but place realistic (for your campaign) restrictions on them. If monster-like characters are not lampshaded, then most players will gravitate back to playing something that fits in better. 
  An example for the last item: If everytime your Xorn walks into weapon shop, the proprietor freaks out, it gets old. Ignoring that because it gets boring does a disservice to the integrity of the campaign world overall unless you make Xorn's walking into shops a normal thing in your world. Making a campaign world with believable Xorn nations and culture mixing with that of humans is a lot of work, due to the lack of any existing source material.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 9, 2016)

MG.0 said:


> You certainly seem to dislike Gygax's approach to D&D. I'm not saying everything he wrote is gospel or anything like that, but there are valid points in there.




Honestly, it's more the rhetoric than the approach itself. The man definitely understood design. But his _written_ opinions come across...far worse, and far less friendly, than his _spoken_ ones. I'm also not super big on the "player skill is the end-all be-all of the game." I think it matters, albeit more as informed choices and learning from results, but I'm also in it to hear an awesome story.



> The third paragraph is about the importance of humanity as an anchor to the otherwise bizarre world of D&D...




And had he stopped there, he would've had my full agreement. We need touchstones. They help us find the familiar in the strange--and, in the best cases, the strange in the familiar.



> and also about the importance of making a campaign world a living breathing whole - indeed a monumental task without aid. In the fourth he's not saying that it's difficult to DM a world with more than humans, he's saying it's difficult to create a believable campaign world where humans don't play a central role or don't exist.




It's hard for me to see it as such a "monumental" task when I engage in it as an idle pastime. I'm a clever guy, but I am not so puffed up to think that I am somehow specially imaginative! And again, I see a huge and fundamentally important distinction between the two things you describe here: a world where humans _don't play a central role_ vs. a world where humans _don't exist._ Arguments about the difficulty of making, and accepting, the latter cannot necessarily be used to justify the former! There's also a third, even grander state, which Gygax is stridently arguing for: humans not just in *a* central role, but *the* central role, with all other species as mere footnotes to their radiant, indeed _solar_ glory. The fact that it's hard to find your way in a world with nothing "human"--which I don't dispute--doesn't actually support the idea that humans MUST be the special, chosen/destined people that _always_ lead and _always_ dominate.



> The fact that Star Trek has created an (arguably) semi-believable culture for Klingons actually reinforces this, as it wasn't done by a single overworked DM in his spare time, but as you said, by teams of people hired to do just that, and still humanity plays the central role.




Well, other than having a separate costume designer, I'm 99% sure Klingon culture--language, rituals, etc.--can all be traced to one guy (Marc Okrand). And even if it were a team, so what? It just shows that "believable" cultures CAN be done, in fairly short order, by a small staff of people. Sometimes repeatedly (Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Bajorans, Romulans, Cardassians, the Founders). Will it take longer, and be more piecemeal, if done by a single person? Sure--but at the same time, they have the most fantastic special-effects engine ever created to ease their burden (that is, their players' imaginations). Hell, Tolkien did it with not just one culture, but half a dozen (some drawing heavily on real cultures, some fairly minimally, e.g. the Vanyar and Noldor).



> Notice he doesn't preclude the possibility of creating such a world, just that it would be difficult, which indeed it is. His last sentence does cynically disbelieve such a world rival those of literary geniuses, and here I disagree. Not everyone is capable of creating a complicated believable world, but I don't think it as rare as Gygax seems to think.




See, I think he is using that example to show that it _is_ impossible for most, if not all, DMs. Sure, he's allowing that it might be theoretically possible, but it's clear that his argument is "you're not going to _actually_ accomplish this." But there absolutely _are_ such worlds--and I think Gygax has misinterpreted why they happen. Humans are frequently central for the same reasons that males are far more commonly the leading role in books and films: because we humans (I would argue lazily) rely on stereotype and convenient cultural biases. But at least for gender or ethnicity or sexuality, there actually _are_ people to challenge us on these acts of convenience. There ain't a Lorax to speak for the trees aliens.



> Again, I don't agree with every point he makes, but I do agree with:
> 
> Players wanting to play powerful monsters typically see it as a way to get attention or dominate the game. This is pretty much born out in my experience.
> Creating an entire campaign world populated with believable cultures is incredibly hard without aid. Doubly so for worlds not centered on humans.
> ...




Okay, well, first point doesn't apply to dragonborn, tieflings, or the vast majority of other "non-human" races. They're not "powerful monsters." They're no more different from humans than elves are.* I disagree about the "doubly so for worlds not _centered_ on humans." Worlds can feature humans, and humans can be a common occurrence, without them being the "center" of the campaign/story. Consider, for example, World of Warcraft: arguably, the two most important races are not human--they're (Night) elves and orcs! (They certainly get better writing most of the time...) And sure, literature helps--good DMs borrow, great DMs steal, to "borrow" from Mr. Wilde--I see that, too, as kind of a platitude, since it's effectively impossible to work without being inspired by stuff you already know (and, particularly, stuff you like).

I can identify just fine with non-human characters. It's a matter of making them understandable, even if they aren't _like_ us. The difference between cognitive and emotive understanding. I also question that last assertion: I don't think either of us has any idea what "most" players, who decide to try a _balanced_ "monster-like" character, will want to do after experiencing the effect of being made Other.



> An example for the last item: If everytime your Xorn walks into weapon shop, the proprietor freaks out, it gets old. Ignoring that because it gets boring does a disservice to the integrity of the campaign world overall unless you make Xorn's walking into shops a normal thing in your world. Making a campaign world with believable Xorn nations and culture mixing with that of humans is a lot of work, due to the lack of any existing source material.




Eh. I don't think it's as much work as you're thinking it is. It does require effort and thought, but I came up with at least a delaying tactic (the "random race reaction table") with just a few minutes' thought. 

*And, in 5e, dragonborn are IMO decidedly _less_ different, mechanically!


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## MG.0 (Jan 9, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Eh. I don't think it's as much work as you're thinking it is. It does require effort and thought, but I came up with at least a delaying tactic (the "random race reaction table") with just a few minutes' thought.




That's all well and good, but eventually you need to come up with something more substantive and then it gets weird. What would Xorn culture be like? They don't wear clothes. They don't even eat oragnic material. Would they even have buildings? Would they have a concept of currency, and what form would it take? Xorn trading in gold would be like humans trading in baked chickens. How would they be accepted into human communities when their idea of a restaurant or alehouse is the local blacksmith's shop? Can you answer these questions and the inevitable thousand or so follow-ups in a consistent manner? Sure, but it's hard. The further you get from human the harder it gets because less and less of our own shared history and experience remains useful and the less believable and identifiable the end result tends to be.

Of course Dragonborn are nowhere near this extreme, but they are further out than elves, dwarves and the like which are at least distinctly mammalian. Like I said, I include them because some of my players like them, but I personally don't care for them.

In my opinion Tieflings are probably even worse. I find it hard to conceive of a human culture that would have no problem with a bunch of quite obviously demonically descended beings strolling around. It also begs the question of how common this type of interbreeding is. I would think Tieflings would inspire hatred and revulsion almost universally among human cultures, making them exponentially more difficult to integrate than even Dragonborn are.

Edit: ...and the word Tiefling just plain bugs the crap out me. The first time I heard it I thought "What is that, a race of pixies or brownies or something?" It sounds so incredibly mismatched. Do not like.


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## n00b f00 (Jan 9, 2016)

I also don't like the Tiefling name. I just view their integration as being similar to a number of real life groups who try to fit in various ways but never quite fully getting along. Either they're sorta on the fringes of society and untrusted but usually not actively hostile, maybe in a ghetto. Or they take lucrative but taboo professions, granting them quite a bit of social mobility and wealth, leading to more resentment but making them non trivial in local politics. Or some combination, they're poor people, criminals, cultists, vagabonds, adventurers, and merchants. Your average human doesn't like them, but if it was the right one, maybe his daughter marrying up wouldn't be the worst possible thing in the world.

Though I suppose it depends on the setting.


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## Hussar (Jan 10, 2016)

I both agree and disagree with [MENTION=6799436]MG.0[/MENTION].  He makes, IMO, a very good point about lamp shading Rare X characters.  Even @Ezekial Raiden's example reaction table, while a very cool idea, I imagine would last about 3 times and then quietly go away.  Are we now going to RP out every single shopping trip?  Every single NPC interaction?  No.  We don't do that for the other PC's, why would we bother doing it for this Rare character.  So, after two or three times, it quietly falls to the floor, never to be mentioned again.

Never minding the times when such a thing completely derails the game.  The players are in a tense investigation, trying to find the cultists of Bhaal before they do their dastardly deed.  They are meeting a Zhentarim agent in a dark, seedy tavern and it's going to be a very cool scene with negotiations and blackmail and whatnot for the entire group.  The group walks into the bar, the DM rolls, and the bartender calls out, "Hey, we don't serve there kind in here, get that out of here!!"

So, now what?  Do we bench one player for the remainder of the scene just because of his character?  Do we scrap the entire scene? IME, what actually happens is that the DM conveniently "forgets" the existence of the Rare Character for the scene and plays things out.  It gets lampshaded.  Otherwise, it's spotlight stealing, even if the player isn't intending it to be and just too much of a PITA.

------

OTOH, I disagree with [MENTION=6799436]MG.0[/MENTION] in this specific case about Dragonborn.  No, they really aren't any different than the immortal (at least from a human POV) faeries wandering around, or the magical dwarves who skulk deep underground, getting up to who knows what.  Mammalian?  Really?  How do you know dwarven parents don't carve their young from rock and breathe life into them?   Have you ever seen dwarves children?  Maybe there aren't any - dwarves are just "born" as full adults.  This is a magical world with active gods.  Just because something happens to share your morphology doesn't really mean a whole lot.  

Dragonborn, while perhaps a bit physically intimidating, are closer to humans.


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## MG.0 (Jan 10, 2016)

Hussar said:


> No, they really aren't any different than the immortal (at least from a human POV) faeries wandering around, or the magical dwarves who skulk deep underground, getting up to who knows what.  Mammalian?  Really?  How do you know dwarven parents don't carve their young from rock and breathe life into them?   Have you ever seen dwarves children?  Maybe there aren't any - dwarves are just "born" as full adults.  This is a magical world with active gods.  Just because something happens to share your morphology doesn't really mean a whole lot.



  Morphology may not mean everything but it still plays a part, even if only in the unconscious minds of the players. Dwarves are indeed a bit mysterious. We at least know that elves interbreed with humans,  and halflings have human-like families and communities. Dwarves may be odd but still appear largely (or shortly if you prefer) human. Dragonborn are lizards. It is definitely a step farther. Is it a step too far? That's up to the DM and players.  







Hussar said:


> Dragonborn, while perhaps a bit physically intimidating, are closer to humans.



  Closer than what? Closer than a gelatinous cube surely. Closer than an elf or halfling? No. Whether or not this important is up to you.


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## Hussar (Jan 10, 2016)

I'd say that they are considerably closer to humans than elves.  Elves are immortal!  Or, close enough from a human perspective.  They would share virtually nothing in common.  Their points of view would be completely different.  An elf is closer to a tree as far as viewpoint is concerned.  Humans would be a faceless mass with no more impact than a gerbil.  Dragon born, OTOH, have a pretty common point of view with humans, share similar outlooks and goals.  Socially, Dragonborn and Humans are actually pretty close.  They certainly aren't virtually immortal magical faeries.  Dragon born are described as honourable and courteous, elves are chaotic and flighty.  

So, you have a highly structured, honourable race that is generally willing to deal with you very fairly and on equal terms, and a race of chaotic, inward looking immortals who view you as little more than somewhat intelligent apes.  I mean, DB have very human like clans and family ties just like halflings.  Culturally, DB aren't all that different from humans.  
The biggest sticking point might be the lack of faith on the part of DB.

I'm thinking DB would be pretty easy to accept in human lands.  Again, Saurials were introduced to FR about twenty years ago in the novels (I'm not sure of the Forgotten Realms date and my Google-fu has failed) without too much of an issue.  I don't really see why Dragonborn would be much different.  I mean, good grief, _Genasi_ are accepted in public in FR.  If a dude whose hair is on fire can walk down the street, I'm thinking a big arsed lizard isn't much of an issue.  

This is a setting that has two trunked talking elephants.  Again, I'm not sure that talking lizards would really be an issue.


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## Mecheon (Jan 10, 2016)

Yeah, for all of the psychical closeness between humans and elves, psychologically they'd be miles apart

Dragonborn would be closer with humans just because they're far similar in how their worldview sets them about


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## Scribe (Jan 10, 2016)

I dont know how Dragonborn are easier to integrate than Tieflings, even the 4th/5th edition versions (which I still cannot get behind fully, what was wrong with how they looked in 3.5 and before...) but a Tiefling is at least human appearing outside the horns/tail/eyes, and those are not too out of control, to me.

I think we are downplaying the importance of the face to humans. Its what we look at, its part of our communication system, and a LIZARD looking back at me, is a whole other thing than maybe some horns or weird eyes.

Erin touches on this a bit, but to me Dragonborn are far more 'other' than a Tiefling.


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## Hussar (Jan 12, 2016)

Scribe said:


> I dont know how Dragonborn are easier to integrate than Tieflings, even the 4th/5th edition versions (which I still cannot get behind fully, what was wrong with how they looked in 3.5 and before...) but a Tiefling is at least human appearing outside the horns/tail/eyes, and those are not too out of control, to me.
> 
> I think we are downplaying the importance of the face to humans. Its what we look at, its part of our communication system, and a LIZARD looking back at me, is a whole other thing than maybe some horns or weird eyes.
> 
> Erin touches on this a bit, but to me Dragonborn are far more 'other' than a Tiefling.




Fair enough.  But, there should be a few points to remember.  1.  We don't have to deal with other intelligent faces (by and large).  Someone in FR does.  Regularly.  Again, if someone who looks like this:







or this:






can walk down the street and go into a bar without too much of a reaction, I'm thinking that this:






isn't going to be much of an issue.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 12, 2016)

It's also worth remembering that pretty much every place in Faerun, backwoods or not, tends to have some degree of population mixing, such that half-orcs are something people are expected to know of (just as an example).

When you're already used to people having a far, far greater variation in height, weight, skin tone, and hair color, it's not hard to believe that people could be, ever so slightly, more "open-minded" than we might expect. I can't even imagine how different Earth cultures would be, if we had four-to-six other relatively common sentient species that were clearly not human; we might be a little more willing to overlook human ethnic differences and a little more likely to take the medieval tack, where nationality and religion mattered substantially more than what you specifically looked like (though physical appearance might be used to guess at nationality).

In other words: I feel like the inherently greater variety present in even a "classic"/"core four" races setting would temper some of the relations between more distinctly other-than-human species, including dragonborn and tieflings. I can certainly see skittishness, or more "subtle" racism (assuming guilt, for instance, or paying a particularly close watch) but torches-and-pitchforks reactions, IMO, would generally need at least a little more justification than just "backwoods yokel that's never seen a dragonborn before." Simple example: backwoods-yokel town gets raided by a band of unscrupulous dragonborn mercs, as a ploy by a local baron to get the town to make concessions to him (e.g. higher taxes). Now, they _have_ seen dragonborn--and 100% of the dragonborn they've seen were _definitely a threat_. That kind of feeling can persist for a generation or more after the fact. It can even result in something humorous, when they don't question the sight of an _actual_ dragonborn because they haven't seen one before, but freak out when they learn the "truth." Reconciling the twelve-foot-tall, fire-spewing, bladed monstrosity they were imagining (from the aggrandized tale of surviving the assault) with one of the heroes that just saved them and shared a barrel of beer with the whole town can be a good laugh. 

Finding a good balance point between ignoring other-ness/rarity, and harping on it to the point of boredom, might not be easy. But I don't think it's impossible.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 12, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Fair enough.  But, there should be a few points to remember.  1.  We don't have to deal with other intelligent faces (by and large).  Someone in FR does.  Regularly.  Again, if someone who looks like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




And this explains exactly where my problem lies. Once TSR/WotC decided that everything fits in the Forgotten Realms, they drastically changed the setting. 

I totally get that I may be in the minority here, and that for most people in this thread the Forgotten Realms has always had this nature. But it hasn't. Go back earlier and what became known as 'planetouched' were more subtle. Humans with a touch of an extraplanar race that gave them some extra abilities, and possibly disadvantages. So the visual aspect wasn't there. I'm OK with that because it doesn't fundamentally change the world.

Those races are rare to non-existent as well. Tieflings and Aasimar in Mulhorond (but don't look like that) because they are distantly related to the God-Kings that actually lived in their land for centuries. Of course, if their bloodlines came from an Egyptian-based pantheon they shouldn't look like the second picture there.

Genasi in Calimshan, if at all. And again, less obvious. An extreme racial minority that looks that different won't survive long in a land where slavery and assassins are part of the culture.

And if you go with the Dragonborn and their country being dropped into the Forgotten Realms, who is going to wander off to other lands? Farmers? Oh wait, they are probably carnivores, aren't they? Merchants? They aren't human, what are they trading? What are they trading for? Why are they bipedal, instead of at least occasionally quadrupedal? Why did they build a human-like society and culture? 

It's primarily the adventurers that would wander the world. We always seem to forget that adventurers are a rare breed in the world. It's actually a perfect example of the rare feeling like the norm since that's all we play. As such they would be rare. And anybody in their right mind would be a bit wary of adventurers of any race. They always seem to bring trouble with them. Sure, they can be helpful from time-to-time, but overall they usually just seem to bring trouble.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 12, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> ...The man definitely understood design.




Huh? All you have to read is something like the dwarves special abilities:

Detect grade or slope in passage: 75% probability (d4, score 1-3)
Detect sliding or shifting walls or rooms: 66 2/3% probability (d6, score 1-4)
Detect traps...: 50% probability (d4 score 1-2, or d6, score 1-3)

His design and mechanics are all over the place. I'm not actually criticizing this, the game started as an off-shoot of war-games and he was designing in part by borrowing or expanding existing rules, along with finding solutions to new problems.

And his rhetoric was always full of 'musts' and 'must nots', although his home games from what I understood were not quite as rigid. So apparently what he viewed as good game design for publication was different than that of actually playing the thing.

As far as what he wrote about in terms of game worlds, etc. Remember that the DMG was published before the World of Greyhawk supplement, and that was far from a complete game world. Tekumel was the only real campaign setting at the time, and one could argue that it wasn't equalled/surpassed until the release of the Forgotten Realms a decade later.

We've also had 30+ years of science-fiction and fantasy movies, shared-world novels, video games and of course an enormous amount of RPG material released. The idea of building an entire fantasy world, with Tolkien as the yard-stick, made it seem far more daunting in the mid-to-late '70's than it does today. Your frame of reference today is vastly different than it was then. 

No doubt the quality of homegrown game worlds varies greatly, but the thing is, it's OK. It just needs to be good enough. Some of us are more particular than others (I'm sure I'm in that group), and that can be a good thing, and a bad thing. I've developed several worlds, and ultimately came to the conclusion that the Forgotten Realms (which I was also still running) made it much easier to focus on what's really important for a DM - running a good game. I could spent a week detailing some corner of a world that might never come into play, or focus on being prepared for the next session.

I do agree that a lot of players pick certain races because they see them as more powerful. Why? Because that's my experience. Over and over. Perhaps nowadays people play them because they are different, rather than more powerful. Which leads to my other primary experience - those choosing these types of races grow tired of not being different/powerful enough, something new comes along, and they want to play that instead. Obviously that's not the case with everybody.

Remember that most of these races go back to earlier editions where they _were_ more powerful. 5th edition has scaled (pun not intended) them back to be in line with the other races, with optional rules to provided them with some of their additional 'innate' abilities. I've never liked tying racial abilities to class level. If it's an innate racial ability, rather than one that's learned, shouldn't it at least be tied to age?

I do think it's a lot harder than people think to design a world where humans aren't the central role, or even just a non-human race. The vast majority of alien races are designed basically as re-skinned humans. Even the dragonborn.  

Have you ever played, or had a player in your game play a character or race that wasn't 'human?' Why are dragonborn designed to be humans in a dragon skin? Why not capable of being both bipedal and quadrupedal? Why would they develop a human-like society and culture? Why would they even see humans, or other humanoid races, as equals and not just a food source? Their language would be vastly different, and would they even be able to speak our languages? Why would they want to? For a creature with natural weapons, why would they invent a sword? Wouldn't their natural fighting style be different? Wouldn't they design any weapons to take advantage of that? If they designed armor, wouldn't they design something in an attempt to counter the most common weapon used by their opponents? As in, their breath weapon?

The standard dragonborn character sounds and acts human, and in game it's generally forgotten that they look different, and the only real in-game identifier is their breath weapon. Just killed an orc in plate. Oh, I'll take it. Yeah, it'll fit.

Add on the cultural issues, the fact that most conflicts in the world revolve around religion or race, or some power-hungry individual that manipulates religion or race, it's just very difficult for me to work into my world. Hey, that's probably just me. I'm no Greenwood, Tolkien, or one of many other extremely talented individuals that has designed a successful fantasy world. But I like the world I design, or at least modify, to make sense to me. That helps me to make it make sense to my players.

As an example, my lizardfolk are much more reptilian. Their 'culture' grew out of the fact that their mothers lay a clutch of eggs and abandon them. They are stealthy, can move in both a bipedal and quadrupedal fashion, climb and swim. Of course they are also cold-blooded and live only in warmer climates. Swamps are common, but so are arid grasslands. They differ regionally, in color patterns, crests, and other identifying features, sometimes with several in a given region that frequently war with each other. Well, war is a bit too organized a term. Essentially, anything that's not them is considered prey, if they think they can kill it. Otherwise it's to be avoided.

They don't fit any type of humanoid armor, but they can use weapons. Although they prefer small weapons that don't impeded their movement. Rocks and slings are more common than spears. Shields are sometimes used, as long as they can strap it to their back. Some are innately magical, so there are 'fighters' and 'sorcerers.' Any group is based solely on oppression, and if the leader is killed the group is more likely to disband than have a successor. Otherwise they are semi-cooperative. Several may attack the same prey, which helps bring them down, but then they fight amongst themselves for the largest share of the food. They do like trinkets and shiny things, which they will wear if possible, but otherwise bring back to their lair. But not to the degree that they would worry about taking it all with them if they move. They would take what they can carry and leave the rest, if at all. Their language is primitive, conveying only basic concepts of prey, danger, etc, and some communication is handled through scent, posture, and other non-verbal approaches and cannot be learned by other races as a result.

The only more 'organized' groups are those controlled by yuan-ti. They are treated and controlled more like guard dogs than an intelligent race. They generally have to be kept caged or chained to avoid them wandering off. But when pointed in the direction of prey, they are reliable enough, but with quite low morale unless compelled by magic. And they would never be a PC class. It just doesn't make sense.

But, I've started a new 'anything goes' campaign to see how it goes. So far it's fun, but I'm not sure it will have the depth, the ties that make it feel like a living breathing world. We'll see. The racial mix sounds like it's already going to shift with the next new player based on what he wants to play, so we'll see what happens. 

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 12, 2016)

MG.0 said:


> Morphology may not mean everything but it still plays a part, even if only in the unconscious minds of the players. Dwarves are indeed a bit mysterious. We at least know that elves interbreed with humans,  and halflings have human-like families and communities. Dwarves may be odd but still appear largely (or shortly if you prefer) human. Dragonborn are lizards. It is definitely a step farther. Is it a step too far? That's up to the DM and players.    Closer than what? Closer than a gelatinous cube surely. Closer than an elf or halfling? No. Whether or not this important is up to you.




And in the Realms, the dwarves and elves came first. The elves, and to a lesser degree the dwarves, helped build human society. The centuries of history between the races has a huge impact. A dragonborn walking into a village, town, or even city, for the first time would be quite noticeable, amongst the humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, and such. 

As originally described in Waterdeep and the North, even this most cosmopolitan city is primarily human. Of all of the NPCs listed in the supplement, all are human except for 1 elf, 1 half-elf, 1 dwarf, 1 gnome, 1 halfling, 1 half-orc, and 1 beholder. The beholder, of course, is the Xanathar and doesn't wander the streets.

The description of the half-orc states: Half-orcs are rare in Waterdeep, but are tolerated as all beings short of dow and illithids (mind flayers) are, if their gold is good. Ulmrin can pass for human in appearance...

Likewise, Greenwood's description of the North in the same supplement gives the following overview of history: One thousand years ago, the North consisted of a number of civilized elven and dwarvish realms surrounded by a wilderness roamed by fearsome monsters, and such races as orcs, trolls, hobgoblins, and bugbears. Human tribes were few and primitive, dwelling along the coast. The lower birth rates of the demo-human races rendered them less able to replace casualties suffered in their almost continual fighting with the aggressive humanoids, and with the years their number dwindled. They have been steadily pushed southward by the ever-expanding, fecund orc tribes, abandoning realm after realm, or being overwhelmed by numbers and slaughtered. The many resulting, largely-empty dwarves delves and holds are what human adventurers refer to as &#147;dungeons.&#148;

The demi-humans, although they achieved many splendid victories in battle, could not stem the humanoid tide even when they united (see &#147;the Fallen Kingdom,&#148; page 5). Today, the dwarves remain only around the richest &#147;mithril mines&#148; in the North, and no known elven settlements of any size exist north of Evereska. The rise of human power in the North outstripped even the growth of the orcs, and prevented the collapse of civilization in the area.

The Realms (and D&D) as a whole was this way well into the 2nd edition. I think the first organized foray into playing 'monstrous' races was the Complete Book of Humanoids in 1993, and additional races weren't really made 'canon' until the 3rd Edition Campaign Setting in 2001. 

Granted, the Forgotten Realms have been around as long with all of those races as without (bearing in mind that Greenwood has been writing stories since '69). Published accounts, of course, didn't exist until the late '70's. But for a lot of us, it was exactly the world we were looking for. And for more than two decades it was. When they did introduce the planetouched, they looked like this:

http://daedaluswing.wdfiles.com/local--files/planetouched/raceplanetouched.jpg

Planetouched are described as '...in most ways appear completely human.' Aasimar and tieflings both say 'some have a minor physical trait suggesting their heritage,' and the genasi are described as 'mostly human, with one or two unusual traits reflecting their quasi-elemental nature.' Also, the genasi are largely from Calimshan, a land where genies, djinn, jann, etc. have a long history, as the 'nation' was founded by genies, and now they are banned. So in their homeland they are persecuted, and would most likely go out of their way to hide their heritage even if they left the land.

These added unique alternatives, without having to drastically change the very humanocentric campaign that had long existed. 

Only with Races of Faerun in 2003 did we start seeing exotic races (aarokocra, centaurs, lizard folk, yuan-ti, etc.) as playable races. To me, playing an unusual race like that is most interesting in a campaign designed for that purpose. The Stranger in a Strange Land trope works best if that's the actual focus of the campaign, which means that the focus is on a single individual. 

So the Realms were very centered on a Tolkien-based worlds (complete with the elves in retreat), which fit very, very well into Gygax's concept of D&D, at least as it was published. The racial limits in AD&D built in an automatic limiter to make certain races and classes less common, particularly if you followed the rules and rolled up a character by rolling 3d6 for each ability, in order. You rolled, you got what you got, and you built your character off of those stats. If you were interested in rising to the highest levels possible, you had to be human.

Up until c2001, the published Forgotten Realms was very distinct, and then it started being pulled into the D&D homogenizer.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 12, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I'd say that they are considerably closer to humans than elves.  Elves are immortal!  Or, close enough from a human perspective.  They would share virtually nothing in common.  Their points of view would be completely different.  An elf is closer to a tree as far as viewpoint is concerned.  Humans would be a faceless mass with no more impact than a gerbil.  Dragon born, OTOH, have a pretty common point of view with humans, share similar outlooks and goals.  Socially, Dragonborn and Humans are actually pretty close.  They certainly aren't virtually immortal magical faeries.  Dragon born are described as honourable and courteous, elves are chaotic and flighty.
> 
> So, you have a highly structured, honourable race that is generally willing to deal with you very fairly and on equal terms, and a race of chaotic, inward looking immortals who view you as little more than somewhat intelligent apes.  I mean, DB have very human like clans and family ties just like halflings.  Culturally, DB aren't all that different from humans.
> The biggest sticking point might be the lack of faith on the part of DB.
> ...




Except that the elves helped the Realmsfolk build their civilization. The elves and humans share many values as a result. Yes, there are great differences. But their very nature is more human.

Dragonborn are described as all of those things, but that's part of what doesn't make sense to me. Why would they be that way? What would cause them to evolve into a human-like creature at all? Not to mention I don't think we can underestimate the nature of humans and how they would view something that looks so completely different from a physical standpoint. Particularly because they look like dragons, they are very large, and look like they would be a threat. Not a stretch considering most people's first-hand knowledge of dragons would be extremely negative, and their lore would also be about how dragons attack and horde treasure, etc.

Saurials were introduced poorly in my opinion, I have the same issues with them. Plus, the end state of them in the novels and game supplements is that they live in a very secluded part of the Realms and were never seen again. They too were an alien race, and despite it coming from Jeff Grubb, I'm convinced that it was one of the earliest examples of rebranding of a story to dump it in the Realms because it would sell more. 

And again, genasi as originally described looked almost entirely human, and they were/are very rare. The act of simply publishing something as a playable race seems to instantly make it 'common.' They are possibly common in adventuring parties in the D&D game, but adventurers are very rare too. It just doesn't seem like it, since we all play adventurers. 

Ilbranteloth


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 12, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> Except that the elves helped the Realmsfolk build their civilization. The elves and humans share many values as a result. Yes, there are great differences. But their very nature is more human.
> 
> Dragonborn are described as all of those things, but that's part of what doesn't make sense to me. Why would they be that way? What would cause them to evolve into a human-like creature at all? Not to mention I don't think we can underestimate the nature of humans and how they would view something that looks so completely different from a physical standpoint. Particularly because they look like dragons, they are very large, and look like they would be a threat. Not a stretch considering most people's first-hand knowledge of dragons would be extremely negative, and their lore would also be about how dragons attack and horde treasure, etc.
> 
> ...



Those genasi pictures you posted weren't very "human" looking.  Still the flaming hair and green skin. Still very "out there" and certainly not "human with a touch of otherness".

And remember,  there were humans on Abeir. Lots of them. The majority.  And probably elves and Dwarves and such. Same standard races. We don't know how the dragons created the dragonborn. Make up your own reasons why they are humanoid.


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## gyor (Jan 13, 2016)

Elves and Dwarves did not come first in the realms, the creator races and giants did during the Days of Thunder.

 The creator races are the reptilian Sarrulk first, then the amphibious and aquatic Batrachi, then the birdlike Aaeree (I may have misspell this), the Fey Leshay, and finally humans yes, humans.

  To  count as a creator race one has to be native to Toril and create empires. And while the human empire during the days of Thunder is a rumour, they were at least invovled in the other empires.

 And the Dwarf, Dragon, and elf empires came later, and yes any human civilization was ash by that time, and it was only later that humans  were influence by elf civilizations and then built there own.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 13, 2016)

gyor said:


> Elves and Dwarves did not come first in the realms, the creator races and giants did during the Days of Thunder.
> 
> The creator races are the reptilian Sarrulk first, then the amphibious and aquatic Batrachi, then the birdlike Aaeree (I may have misspell this), the Fey Leshay, and finally humans yes, humans.
> 
> ...




Correct, they did not come first, first. But they were first in relation to the elven, dwarven, and human civilizations. 

But the point was that humans would have a different perspective on intelligent races that occupied the realms before them, and helped them build their civilization than new races that came later.

Ilbranteloth


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## Hussar (Jan 13, 2016)

Seriously?  That's your idea of subtle?  That guy has _flaming hair_.  As in literally on fire.  The water genasi has scales.  The Tiefling I was most familiar with came from Planescape which describes their diet thusly:



> Tieflings prefer to eat only meat, blood, bone, and marrow, preferably raw. They enjoy balaena blubber, gristle, and even roasted insects, which most races find disturbing. They drink strange concoctions of broth, oil, sulphur, and firewater, though they’ll hoist an ale with any bubber in Sigil if nothing else is available. When meat is unavailable, they can live for short perions on ashes, coal, and other mineral matter.




Again, we're talking about things that are pretty bloody far from humans.  

Sure, if we're going to posit a Forgotten Realms that only draws from material written pre-1990, then fair enough.  Most of the things that have been added to the setting hadn't been invented yet.  I mean, by the time you're talking about, virtually none of the Drow material that we accept now, had been written.  The first Waterdeep supplement doesn't come out until '87.  How much of a Realms purist should we be?  

And, really, it makes it really hard to have conversations about the Realms when everyone starts drawing cut off lines.  "Well, in the Realms as presented by such and such a date, this would be true."  Fair enough, but, who cares?  Why are we talking about that?  Why not deal with the Realms as it's being presented today, rather than play "Guess the Era"?


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 13, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Those genasi pictures you posted weren't very "human" looking.  Still the flaming hair and green skin. Still very "out there" and certainly not "human with a touch of otherness".
> 
> And remember, there were humans on Abeir. Lots of them. The majority.  And probably elves and Dwarves and such. Same standard races. We don't know how the dragons created the dragonborn. Make up your own reasons why they are humanoid.




I agree that they were still more obvious than I like, and also not entirely in line with the description in the text. But they aren't nearly as obvious as the ones pictured nowadays.

It's not that the dragonborn is not that they lived with other humanoids like humans and dwarves. While civilizations can be impacted by other civilizations, evolution is not. Dragonborn are designed like a human in a dragon-person costume, in both appearance and culture. I find that uninspiring, and also wonder what's the point? 

The point is that they want a game where every PC race is a roughly humanoid creature, of small or medium build, that will fit the same armor and can use the same weapons as other humanoids. In our world, during medieval times, there was a wide range of civilized cultures. While the middle ages of armored troops armed with swords was prevalent in Europe, with variations in Asia, vastly different (usually considered more primitive) cultures existed in Australia, other parts of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Our needs and desires are one thing, why wouldn't the dragonborn value something different? Why would they build the same types of cities and towns, instead of something entirely unique?

If I were to design a race related to dragons, it would be quite different. They'd probably have wings and tails, to start. And I still wouldn't just dump them into the Forgotten Realms. I wouldn't design them with a singular point of view for the entire race either. Like humans, elves, dwarves, etc. they would have subraces and complex societies, and be one of the dominant races, if not the dominant race in their world. If they were enslaved by dragons, then they most likely would develop underground cities, with tunnels too small for the dragons. Their combat tactics would be centered on  attacking from many different directions at once, from cave mouths with stone doors about 20-feet into the cave that could be shut quickly to protect against the dragon's breath weapons. Ranged weapons and magic would be preferred where possible, and melee combat would most likely center on their natural weapons and their own breath weapons. 

Being partially quadrupedal they'd be good climbers, and I'm not sure they would develop the same types of weapons as humans because they would be accomplished hunters without having to resort to weapons. Humans require weapons to bring down large prey. A few dragonborn, particularly with wings, would be able to bring down prey with little difficulty in a group. As a result, I'm not sure they'd ever need to develop animal husbandry, or raise herds of animals, although it's possible that if civilization grew that they might.

On the other hand, as able hunters, and being well suited for self defense as well as hunting, they may not have needed to gather together in groups to take advantage of the benefits of farming (especially if they are carnivores) and protection that a larger settlement provides. Without dragon oppressors they might be more likely to live as nomads and roving hunters within their extended family or clan, with fierce rivalries over territories and prey among clans. 

Nomadic hunting clans are also not conducive to mining activities. So metal weapons, particularly steel which would require the evolution of advanced mining and metallurgy techniques, may not be part of their culture at all. Being strong with natural weapons, a show of strength with their natural weapons might also be considered more honorable.

If they primarily live a nomadic life following migratory prey, they may not have to develop a sophisticated language, particularly written. Trade as we know it, or currency, with the need for minted coins or some equivalent may not have a need to develop either. 

Humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and similar races have little natural protection or weapons. They rely on numbers for safety, clothing and shelter in hostile environments, agriculture to support civilization, and sophisticated languages to foster the trade in service, work, and goods that life in an organized civilization requires. In addition, their young are helpless for an extended period of time, and need the care of a family to survive. While it's entirely possible that a race of draconic humanoids could evolve in this fashion, I think it's unlikely. There are too many differences in the physiology and biology to expect that they would grow along the same trajectory.

There are so many places they could have gone. And yes, there are some contradictions above, this is just a stream-of-thought look at what could be. But this all depends on them having a well developed world of their own.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 13, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Seriously?  That's your idea of subtle?  That guy has _flaming hair_.  As in literally on fire.  The water genasi has scales...
> 
> Again, we're talking about things that are pretty bloody far from humans.




As I said, it doesn't quite match the description given in the text. But if that's just bright red hair, instead of flaming, it's not that different. 

The 3.5 picture has hair and no scales:

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net.../Genasi.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080819171438

The very pale skin of the air genasi and the green skin of the water genasi are still a bit more than I'd like, but they could pass as something exotic. On the other hand, they wouldn't get as old as pictured in Calimshan if they looked like that.



Hussar said:


> Sure, if we're going to posit a Forgotten Realms that only draws from material written pre-1990, then fair enough.  Most of the things that have been added to the setting hadn't been invented yet.  I mean, by the time you're talking about, virtually none of the Drow material that we accept now, had been written.  The first Waterdeep supplement doesn't come out until '87.  How much of a Realms purist should we be?
> 
> And, really, it makes it really hard to have conversations about the Realms when everyone starts drawing cut off lines.  "Well, in the Realms as presented by such and such a date, this would be true."  Fair enough, but, who cares?  Why are we talking about that?  Why not deal with the Realms as it's being presented today, rather than play "Guess the Era"?




Well, I think a lot of people care. _I_ care. Although there wasn't a particular direction in the original post, by the 10th post there was an opinion (that received XP) that the way WotC dumped the dragonborn into the FR was not great. And the discussion has continued.

I have been very forthcoming in pointing out that this is how I run my Realms, and that it's based on an early publishing era. But dragonborn in the Forgotten Realms appear to have the most support in Erin's novels. I just went through the 4th ed Campaign Setting, Neverwinter Campaign Setting, and the SCAG and they are mentioned only in places related to Returned Abeir, Tymanther, and their immediate neighbors in the 4th Ed. I don't know if there was an adventure that included more information. In terms of organizations, they are mentioned as being involved with the Cult of the Dragon (in the 4th Ed campaign guide and the random encounter tables of Neverwinter), and they, or their 'half-dragon' clones, are all over in Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat. 

Other than Returned Abeir and its affects, dragonborn, and the morphing of the descriptions from the 3rd Edition Campaign Setting, my campaign is largely canon with the current age. I've dealt with the issues by keeping to the original description of the planetouched, and eliminating most of the Returned Abeir story line that was effectively retconned anyway. That leaves the dragonborn as described. And based on the published game material, they exist outside of Tymanther only in relationship with the Cult of the Dragon, or in relation to Chessenta's veneration of Tchazzar. Having not read the novels, I can't comment. So it's almost 100% in line with the lore, classes, and such until the end of 3rd ed, and retains some of that from 4th edition, and the majority of the 5th edition. In fact, there is exactly a page-and-a-half of material regarding dragonborn in the SCAG, and that's the only material I do not retain so far in all of the 5th edition material published regarding the Realms.

I'm wondering if anybody can point me in the direction of any statement in the official FR game materials that states dragonborn even exist outside of Tymanther. Because I haven't found it. 

The bottom line for me is that not everybody is happy with the way WotC has handled the racial, class and lore additions to the Realms. That the most egregious of this occurred during the 4th edition is irrelevant, other than a lot of it has been brushed away to bring things closer to where they were in the 3rd edition. I don't feel that my opinion should be yours. But I do think that it's important for other DMs to understand that it's OK to stick to your guns regarding your world, even if it's a published world.

Ilbranteloth


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## Hussar (Jan 14, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> I agree that they were still more obvious than I like, and also not entirely in line with the description in the text. But they aren't nearly as obvious as the ones pictured nowadays.
> 
> It's not that the dragonborn is not that they lived with other humanoids like humans and dwarves. While civilizations can be impacted by other civilizations, evolution is not. Dragonborn are designed like a human in a dragon-person costume, in both appearance and culture. I find that uninspiring, and also wonder what's the point?
> 
> The point is that they want a game where every PC race is a roughly humanoid creature, of small or medium build, that will fit the same armor and can use the same weapons as other humanoids. In our world, during medieval times, there was a wide range of civilized cultures. While the middle ages of armored troops armed with swords was prevalent in Europe, with variations in Asia, vastly different (usually considered more primitive) cultures existed in Australia, other parts of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Our needs and desires are one thing, why wouldn't the dragonborn value something different? Why would they build the same types of cities and towns, instead of something entirely unique?




Hang on though.  You can't have it both ways.  You can't, on one hand, claim that it's perfectly fine to have elves and dwarves standing side by side with humans because they aren't very different so they are acceptable, and then complain that Dragonborn aren't different enough, so they're boring, and STILL too different to be acceptable in standard company.  

It's either/or.  Either the races are not human and therefore interesting, but, not really acceptable to have them commonly mixing because of those differences, or they're closer to human and thus boring, but can mix easily.


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## Hussar (Jan 14, 2016)

Maybe this can explain my point better. 

The issue is that Dragonborn are too alien to be easily accepted in polite society. 

The counter argument is that this is a setting with all sorts of weird races, such as elephant people with two trunks, people with hair on fire etc. Additionally, we're talking about an area around Waterdeep, a very cosmopolitan port city with ships arriving daily from all over the setting and an area where travel and access to the greater setting is not only not difficult but also expected and built in. 

So, cherry picking canon and then trying to claim generalizations doesn't work. Sure sometimes grenadine have been pictured as fairly subtle. Sometimes not. You can't have one without the other. If we all played in the same game, then fine no problem. 

But you can't claim that Dragonborn aren't acceptable based on only using a specific subset of canon. It would be like me saying all orcs are pig faced humans a la 1e DND. Canon evolves and in discussions about canon elements you don't get to pick and choose what applies and what doesn't.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 14, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Hang on though.  You can't have it both ways.  You can't, on one hand, claim that it's perfectly fine to have elves and dwarves standing side by side with humans because they aren't very different so they are acceptable, and then complain that Dragonborn aren't different enough, so they're boring, and STILL too different to be acceptable in standard company.
> 
> It's either/or.  Either the races are not human and therefore interesting, but, not really acceptable to have them commonly mixing because of those differences, or they're closer to human and thus boring, but can mix easily.




Were not sophisticated enough to have multiple points of views?

They don't fit into my Forgotten Realms primarily because of their appearance, but also because I don't think their culture, nor the time they have been on Toril, would make enough of them leave their land to establish themselves as a standard race. Those are my complaints regarding dragonborn in the Forgotten Realms.

The second is on the design of the nature of the dragonborn,  along with the similar approach regarding almost any playable 'monstrous' race,  that their culture,  philosophy,  and society are based on human concepts, rather than being a unique and different approach. 

My point is,  that to do something like dragonborn really well,  they would be very different, particularly from humans, and would work best as the center of a campaign in a different world. That doesn't relate to the Forgotten Realms directly, but rather with my dislike of the design of dragonborn in general.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 14, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Maybe this can explain my point better.
> 
> The issue is that Dragonborn are too alien to be easily accepted in polite society.
> 
> ...





I thought we were talking about whether we liked dragonborn in the Forgotten Realms, not Realms canon. Does that mean that only those that have and incorporate all officially published Realms products can participate? Is there anybody that plays it 100% canon?

And my orcs look like the ones sculpted by Tom Meier  for Ral Partha c1979:

http://www.ralpartha.com/images/Orcs-RossR.jpg

As I have always said,  this is how I run my Forgotten Realms. As I mentioned before, and it is specifically noted in the campaign settings of older editions, the SCAG, Elminter's Forgotten Realms, etc: (paraphrasing) This is your Forgotten Realms. Pick what you like.  Ignore what your don't.  Make it your own.

I have.  I like what I've got.

Perhaps there are some who come to the Realms later than me that don't realize that it was originally published as a very Tolkienesque setting that was extremely humanocentric, and that decisions made to homogenized this unique works had robbed it of some of that uniqueness. 

Surely we can discuss what we like and don't like about the setting? And how we use the setting in our campaign?

Ilbranteloth


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## Hussar (Jan 14, 2016)

Fair enough. But you have to realize that the criteria you are applying only applies in your game though. I don't like DB is fine. I don't like DB because they are so alien that I can't believe that they could be acceptable in society in FR is a whole 'nother argument.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 14, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> And if you go with the Dragonborn and their country being dropped into the Forgotten Realms, who is going to wander off to other lands? Farmers? Oh wait, they are probably carnivores, aren't they? Merchants? They aren't human, what are they trading? What are they trading for? Why are they bipedal, instead of at least occasionally quadrupedal? Why did they build a human-like society and culture?
> 
> 
> 
> Ilbranteloth




This seems like a stretch, to me. 

They would trade for those raw materials and finished goods that they want to use, but don't have much of, in exchange for those raw materials and finished goods of which they have surplus. Just like everyone else. Being dragony has no effect on that, at all. 
Regardless of what you think about the logic of them having built a human like society and culture, they clearly did, so they would interact with other nations in much the same ways that human nations do. Or elven nations. Or Dwarven ones. 

Also, many people travel because they want to, and this has been true in literally every era. It's more true now that ever before, sure, but even in the so called Dark Ages, people left home on merchant ships to seek their fortune, and often found some foreign shore upon which to "go native", and/or brought some part of their family with them to some foreign land, once they'd made the contacts and gathered the resources to do so. 

Why shouldn't dragonborn do the same, especially in the 100 years where they had a fairly powerful, quite stable homeland, and plenty of their own kind in other lands? 

And in their current state, yeah, they are definately going to be trading, engaging in diplomacy in foreign lands, etc. It's more reasonable to see a Tymantheran DB in Waterdeep than to see someone from most places east of the Heartlands, because Tymanther needs support, resources, allies, etc, and they aren't going to get it by having every single DB in the Realms hunkered down in trenches. 



Ilbranteloth said:


> But the point was that humans would have a different perspective on  intelligent races that occupied the realms before them, and helped them  build their civilization than new races that came later.
> 
> Ilbranteloth




I strongly doubt it. 

Humans have short memories, and are  quick to make friends and enemies. And the various novels make it seem  like humans aren't really all that enamored of elves, on the whole, IMO.


Also, I don't think that any FR novel I've ever read touches on human civilization being built with the help of elves and dwarves, etc.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 14, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> This seems like a stretch, to me.
> 
> They would trade for those raw materials and finished goods that they want to use, but don't have much of, in exchange for those raw materials and finished goods of which they have surplus. Just like everyone else. Being dragony has no effect on that, at all.
> Regardless of what you think about the logic of them having built a human like society and culture, they clearly did, so they would interact with other nations in much the same ways that human nations do. Or elven nations. Or Dwarven ones.
> ...




First, I don't think they have a 'quite stable homeland.' They have a homeland that has been dropped into another world, where they have developed a reasonable trading relationship with one neighbor (High Imaskar), who happens to be in constant battle with their other neighbor (Chessenta). In terms of their relationship with Chessenta, in the campaign guide it's all good, but in the one novel that I think it has any information (Whisper of Venom), they are moving toward war. With their other Returned Abeir neighbors, they have poor relationships. In addition, they landed in a portion of the Realms that has a history of being isolationist, being in perpetual conflict with their immediate neighbors, and little contact with the rest of Faerûn. Their primary focus, aside from the relationships and conflicts of these immediate neighbors is hunting down and killing dragons. While this in itself would be viewed as heroic by other civilizations, it doesn't really build political relationships. Adventurers are rare to begin with, and while a single dragonborn might be met with indifference, or even intolerance, a group of them, armed for battle, coming into a town would probably be somewhat alarming. If you're a farmer in a small village and a half-dozen or more heavily armed 7' tall draconic 'men' wander into town, I don't think you'd find it normal.

The elven/human connections are well documented in Realms supplements. Myth Drannor and Silverymoon are two examples, later Illefarn, etc. The rise of Netheril was directly because the elven nations taught the humans magic. The major exceptions being the Old Empires (humans from another plane) and Calimshan. 

And you're right, in general the humans, elves, etc. do have somewhat reserved interactions. Again, humans are predominant. Waterdeep is 64% human, with elves (mostly moon) and shield dwarves around 10% each. Lightfoot halflings and half-elves 5% each, gnomes 3% and half-orcs 2%, all other races are 1% of the population. It's one of the most accepting of cities. But Waterdeep is a long way away, support, resources and allies need to come from much closer to be in sufficient amounts, and for a reasonable price. That means by ship from any number of the ports on the Sea of Fallen Stars, or neighboring lands. Not far away Waterdeep. Humans are described as out pacing even the orcs in their growth, and the elves don't always see that as a good thing (part of the reason for the Retreat).

But regardless of that - how far into the Americas did Europeans travel in the first 100 years after Columbus? How many Europeans traveled to the Middle East (other than Crusaders) or China in the Dark Ages? Or Africa? India, perhaps? And when Europeans did start visiting other location in sizeable numbers, what was their general approach? For individuals and small groups, it was usually a religious pilgrimage. Or missionaries, which adds the intent to convert the natives to our way of thinking. When war proved expensive or impractical, colonization. Make them like us, or kill them.

Among civilizations in times of peace, aside from pilgrimages, merchants were the primary travelers. They would come to a new land, and yes, the merchants of Tymanther would also travel (once again because we have a humanized society with money using the same gold standard and they speak the same 'common' even though they are from different worlds). Land caravans find what? Chessenta, great regions of desolation and destruction, and Thay. Trade by ship would also be very likely, assuming they build ships. Pilgrimages don't exist, because they dragonborn don't worship any deities, nor do they have any holy sites in Toril, even if they did.  

Cultural, religious and language barriers are huge in societies. More so among different races. Because of Chessenta's worship of Tchazzar it makes sense that they would treat the dragonborn a certain way, but other sources indicate Chessenta is on the brink of war with Tymanther. In addition, the Cult of the Dragon has actively recruited them, which means that as they spread slowly throughout Toril, many people's first interaction with them would be based on that. 

Aside from all of that, like the majority of the changes made by the 4th edition, Tymanther is largely gone at this point, with Unther's return. Unlike many of the other changes back (like the Sea of Fallen Stars returning to it's old borders and the removal of the huge chasm to the southwest of Tymanther), Unther returned and is at war with what's left of Tymanther, driving it to small holdings that remain. To me, this seems like they did it in a way to allow the dragonborn to remain for those that liked them in their campaigns, and a way for those that didn't to continue to ignore them since they are no longer a potential major player in the published Realms. As I mentioned before, the Saurials existed in two novels, and promptly disappeared. They were added to Malatra, the RPGA's Living Jungle campaign, but have basically disappeared. 

I get that dragonborn are more popular, though, and I accept that WotC needs to provide a story line to allow dragonborn characters in the Realms, particularly since they had already added them. So they can't eliminate them altogether, since there will be players in public adventures that want to play them. And I also understand that my view of the history of the Realms isn't the same that everybody else shares. We all have different likes/dislikes, and when we first come to the Realms has a big impact as well. My Realms is much closer to what I imagine Ed Greenwood's Realms are like, and Elminster's Forgotten Realms bears that out quite well. It's a shared world, and I'm fine with the majority of what's been written, and I love having other writers providing stories of the world because it helps it to be a more living world to me. In a home-grown world I'd have to make everything up myself, and it wouldn't have the same impact for me. But that doesn't mean that I have to like or use everything they publish.

Ilbranteloth


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## chibi graz'zt (Jan 14, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> So I found this very interesting after reading Erin Evan's interview in Dragon+. Love that she's an anthro-nerd.
> 
> http://slushlush.com/2015/12/ashes-of-the-tyrant-roundup/




Evans should definitely write a 5e Dragonborn supplement, and now with the new OGL she can do so on her own


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 14, 2016)

So I have a question. Where in the Forgotten Realms game supplements does it indicate that dragonborn are known throughout Faerun?

I've found, in the 4th Edition Campaign Setting:
'They sometimes send small groups of elite warriors to track down known lairs of powerful dragons. Sometimes they return, sometimes they don't.'

'Despite Tymanther's desire for friendly relations with others, it has one few true allies. High Imaskar...Chessenta.'

'Dragonborn who achieve fame abroad are celebrates as state heroes back in Tymanther. The dragonborn see these few as emissaries of their race, proving to the wide continent of Faerun that they have nothing to fear from dragonborn.'

In the Neverwinter campaign settings, the only times I found the word 'dragonborn' is in two random encounter tables. One for New Neverwinter, and one for the Cult of the Dragon. Both are the same - a dragonborn mercenary and a dragonborn soldier.

Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (4th Ed): About 3/4 of a page including:
'Faerûn holds many new possibilities, new opportunities, without any of the prejudices of their past. Dragonborn are eager to explore and to extend the hand of friendship to their neighbors. Having no thirst for war, dragonborn work hard to achieve peaceful relations with those they meet and struggle to establish themselves as a viable nation in the tapestry of lands that make up Toril. Unfortunately for them, the strangeness of their customs and their uncertain origins casts many suspicions on the dragonborn and their motives, making establishing long-lasting alliances a challenge. ' and 

This adherence to proper behavior eclipses the race’s views toward the gods. Since Abeir was without divine influence, at least in a way that most people of Toril understand, dragonborn regard the gods and their servants with suspicion, for they have ever held themselves accountable for their own actions and never to the expectations of others, especially to some remote god or other. Although a few dragonborn have found themselves in the service of traditionally wicked institutions*, they cannot share the tenets and beliefs of the organizations they serve.

And yes, this entry is under a section called other common races. But looking at the number of times they appear in print, and the even fewer times it's more than a sentence, I'd disagree.

*Although we find, particularly in relationship to the HotDQ/RoT adventures that the most common published dragonborn is a member of the Cult of the Dragon.

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide:
'Some of Tymanther's dragonborn have spread across Faerun and gained reputations at competent, highly sought-after mercenaries.' and

'For a time, the dragonborn of Tymanther sought to integrate with their new world while maintaining their own traditions and culture. These efforts gave the nation and its people a reputation for being honorable and worthy of respect. Only a few generations later, however, the events of the Sundering returned Unther to Faerun, and the formerly displaced land sought to reclaim all it had lost to Tymanther. Reeling from this disaster, the remaining dragonborn in Faerun now find they must work even harder and with fewer resources to find their place among the people the world.'

From Defiance in Phlan (one NPC encounter):
'However, she has already been attacked twice by bandits while in Phlan, and everyone stares at her because of her white dragon heritage.'

Pool of Radiance Resurgent: One random encounter with a dragonborn druid member of the Emerald Enclave.

Dark Pyramid Sorceres of the Isle: Dragonborn thug and a mage, both members of the Cult of the Dragon.

Outlaws of the Iron Route: Main foe is a 'crazed' dragonborn sorceress.

Tyranny in Phlan: Dragonborn working for/allied with a green dragon and the Cult of the Dragon

Rise of Tiamat: A copper dragon is cautious of an alliance, instead of desiring it.

Search for the Diamond Staff: One comment:
'Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Others: In general "these races aren’t from around here" People in the Dales are used to seeing outlandish foreigners wander through and so they rarely give such individuals notice.'

-This is the first, and so far only comment of this nature I've found.

The Fall of Elturgard (Living Forgotten Realms): An NPC member of the Shields of Kilgrave adventuring party.

Age of Ruin: Set in the Abyss, there are survivors of a slaughter. Where and what depends on who the PCs called on for help. If they called on Tymanther, there is a 'maimed dragonborn Lance Defender.'

Scepter Tower of Spellgard: Dragonborn NPC looking for a mate.

They show up a few times as NPCs in a number of Living Forgotten Realms adventures, but those have always been debated as whether they are canon or not, in part due to their small distribution.

---

So, in published game materials, with the exception of two sentences in one adventure, and a vague and self-contradictory comment that could refer to the specific dragonborn in question, or the race, about being 'competent, highly-sought after' mercenaries, there is almost nothing that indicates the dragonborn have had any impact on the Realms at all, outside of Unther and their immediate neighbors.

The vast majority of references account for a sentence or two, and most of them are hostile NPCs, and again the majority of them with ties to the Cult of the Dragon. Yes, most of these come from adventures related to the HotDQ/RoT series, but they were even specifically called out as such in the Neverwinter Campaign Setting. If most people's knowledge of dragonborn are related to the Cult of the Dragon, particularly following the Cult's most recent activities, if they weren't suspicious before hand, they would be even more so now.

By the volume of written material, that among two Campaign Settings, two Players' Guides (SCAG one of them), plus all of the mentions in the adventures above account for less than 5 pages of material out of hundreds, even more than a thousand published pages. There is a well written and highly regarded series of novels. But there is a very long series of novels about a drow, and yet they still remain very rare on the surface world, and almost universally shunned, even after more than 100 years of Drizzt fighting for good. 

I have no idea how popular they are as a player race, but the published record looks like another one of a great many 'great ideas' for the Forgotten Realms that didn't pan out, and which they now retconning as much as possible. 

I think this supports my general thoughts that most cultures would distrust, if not actually shun, dragonborn, and that they have not spread widely thorugh the Forgotten Realms in the 100 years they ave been on Toril.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 15, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> So I have a question. Where in the Forgotten Realms game supplements does it indicate that dragonborn are known throughout Faerun?
> 
> I've found -snip-
> 
> ...




So, I'm not sure how you can read all that and conclude anything other than that DB are widely known, probably respected and sought after as mercenaries (after all, even if that one passage refers to a specific group, there are a lot of DB merc npcs in published encounters), and have a habit of leaving their homeland to explore the Realms. I mean, some of those literally prove that by canon people (either in general, or in a given area) are used to seeing dragonborn and other foreigners. 

"Search for the Diamond Staff: One comment:
'Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Others: In general "these races aren’t from  around here" People in the Dales are used to seeing outlandish  foreigners wander through and so they rarely give such individuals  notice.'"

That is an explicit statement that while the newer races don't live in the Dales in any big numbers, folk are used to seeing them, to the point where they don't even make much note of them. 

Another explicit statement that they, until very, very recently, travelled far and wide, worked to build good relations with other nations, and gained a strong and widely known rep as good guys: "Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide:
'Some of Tymanther's dragonborn have spread across Faerun and gained  reputations at competent, highly sought-after mercenaries.' and

'For a time, the dragonborn of Tymanther sought to integrate with their  new world while maintaining their own traditions and culture. These  efforts gave the nation and its people a reputation for being honorable  and worthy of respect.
There are also explicit statements that DB in service to evil organizations is rare, and that list them as a common race. Those statements outweigh and completely negate weird considerations like how often they appear as NPCs of a given time in published adventures. 

As for how stable their homeland was before the sundering (which is what I was talking about), it was stable enough for them to build large cities, and for their people to develop the habit of seeking fortunes elsewhere and then coming back, rather than emigrating elsewhere for better opportunities, which rarely involves going back to one's homeland. It may not make sense to you that they have a stable homeland, but they almost inarguably do. OR did. Before the proverbial hacksaw hit the proverbial bone. 

Random side question: why is it weird for you that they aren't quadrupeds? Just the fact that dragons are? Did half dragons become quadrupedal? Draconians? IIRC, none of DnD's dragon people have even been, so why should the Dragonborn be? 

"The elven/human connections are well documented in Realms supplements."

Sure. But not in any novels I've ever read, including a lot of the most popular ones, like the Drizzt and Elminster books, The Cleric Quintet, Paul Kemp's stuff, and lots of short stories by various people. SO, I very easily might be missing some, but it's just not something I think of as a big important part of FR. It's interesting history, but that's different. 

"how far into the Americas did Europeans travel in the first 100 years  after Columbus? How many Europeans traveled to the Middle East (other  than Crusaders) or China in the Dark Ages? Or Africa? India, perhaps?" 

Not sure how the first is a relevant comparison? The DB aren't trying to expand colonies, take other people's lands, spread an ideology, etc. They want to trade, and make friends. ANd the setting books explicitly say that they made great efforts to do so. Therefor, they did, as long as we're talking about non houseruled/homebrewed DB. 

So, again, this isn't an issue with dragonborn, as such. There's no inconsistency there, it just differs from your realms. WHich is fine, I don't use a lot of what I view as cheap retcons in the sundering. Netheril is still a viable, albeit reduced, nation. People still resent Sembia, so there is no "and they went back to their old trading habits" nonsense. Myth Drannor is still there, because Netheril's floating cities were grounded after the war with the Heartlands, and their magic turned to keeping the desert livable in spite of the old curse coming back. So now Netheril is a nation rebuilding, free of the Princes of Shade and the Shar cult, but still mistrusted by most other nations. Sembia continues to trade with them, but the relationship is much more equal now, and they need eachother because many nations distrust them both. Calimshan is still full of Genasi, and is the midst of a struggle over whether slavery will continue there, as Memnon is dead, and Calim is bound by a bargain of his own making to serve as a protecter of the nation, and advisor, and recieve tribute yearly. Another nation in a transitional, and thus much more interesting, state, rather than just retconned back to how it was before the ToT and SP. There's other stuff, and some changes that have made sense for my campaigns, like a 20 year time jump, and the creation of a multinational knighthood made up of people from various places, including Netheril, Cormyr, The Dales, Sembia, and accepting recruits from pretty much anywhere, dedicated to ensuring that the people of Toril will decide their own fate, not gods and chosen and dragon cults. Also, a great library on the Dragon Coast, connected to a large school set up by my group's characters from a 4e campaign. There's other stuff, but those are the biggest. 

​​​​ point is, I'm not a canon grognard or anything. I'm just saying, there's no canon reason for Dragonborn to be treated poorly, cause alarm, etc, in most places.


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## Hussar (Jan 15, 2016)

I'd point out too that Waterdeep is a city of 130 000 people. Even at 1% "other" races, you're still looking at thousands of nonstandard race individuals living there. It's not like they're really rare. Or that it would be rare to see them. Not common of course, but probably something you see daily. 

Doesn't that largely characterize a lot of places in FR?


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 15, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> So, I'm not sure how you can read all that and conclude anything other than that DB are widely known, probably respected and sought after as mercenaries (after all, even if that one passage refers to a specific group, there are a lot of DB merc npcs in published encounters), and have a habit of leaving their homeland to explore the Realms. I mean, some of those literally prove that by canon people (either in general, or in a given area) are used to seeing dragonborn and other foreigners.




To me it's all in your interpretation. In all of the Forgotten Realms game products published since the start of the 4th edition, where dragonborn first appeared as such, this is the extent of what's been said about them. Compared to the information on elves, dwarves, and especially humans. It's not the only interpretation, but I believe it's a valid one.



doctorbadwolf said:


> "Search for the Diamond Staff: One comment:
> 'Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Others: In general "these races aren’t from  around here" People in the Dales are used to seeing outlandish  foreigners wander through and so they rarely give such individuals  notice.'"
> 
> That is an explicit statement that while the newer races don't live in the Dales in any big numbers, folk are used to seeing them, to the point where they don't even make much note of them.




This is the only explicit statement, it's a broad 'they'll accept anybody' so it's not dragonborn specific. It's also not entirely consistent with earlier published materials on the Dalelands.



doctorbadwolf said:


> Another explicit statement that they, until very, very recently, travelled far and wide, worked to build good relations with other nations, and gained a strong and widely known rep as good guys: "Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide:
> 'Some of Tymanther's dragonborn have spread across Faerun and gained reputations at competent, highly sought-after mercenaries.' and
> 
> 'For a time, the dragonborn of Tymanther sought to integrate with their  new world while maintaining their own traditions and culture. These  efforts gave the nation and its people a reputation for being honorable  and worthy of respect.
> ...




My focus is on the word 'some.' Competent and highly-sought after are contradictory. One would hardly praise somebody who is 'competent.' Among the published materials, it would appear that they were hired a lot by the Cult of the Dragon, which would raise suspicion in those that have experienced anything related to the Tyranny of Dragons storyline.



doctorbadwolf said:


> As for how stable their homeland was before the sundering (which is what I was talking about), it was stable enough for them to build large cities, and for their people to develop the habit of seeking fortunes elsewhere and then coming back, rather than emigrating elsewhere for better opportunities, which rarely involves going back to one's homeland. It may not make sense to you that they have a stable homeland, but they almost inarguably do. OR did. Before the proverbial hacksaw hit the proverbial bone.
> 
> Random side question: why is it weird for you that they aren't quadrupeds? Just the fact that dragons are? Did half dragons become quadrupedal? Draconians? IIRC, none of DnD's dragon people have even been, so why should the Dragonborn be?




Yes, they did have a stable homeland, but not in Toril. With their culture my sense is that their focus would be on stabilizing their new land. What sort of natural resources did they have on Abeir? Did they mine metals for example. If so, with those mines gone they would have needs that they didn't have the day before. Since I wasn't interested in exploring the nation, I haven't developed anything questioning these sorts of things. But I think they would be there.

The reason I mention something like being (at least partially) quadrupedal is that the vast majority, if not all playable races in D&D are essentially reskinned humans. But if this is a 'humanoid' race based on draconic heritage, why not retain more draconic features besides scales and a face? Half-dragons are the same, and even the draconians. Sure, they had tails and wings, although their design of being an entirely bipedal race with the same stance as a human negates the need for the tail, and probably impossible from a scientific perspective. Something that is both bipedal and quadrupedal, like the aliens in the movie Aliens would be an interesting departure. 

But aside from physical characteristics, I think their entire culture would have evolved along different lines because their needs, biology, and physical characteristics are different. That's just an example as an alternative that could have been used. That still doesn't mean that I think they should be in the Realms, just that they would be more interesting.



doctorbadwolf said:


> "The elven/human connections are well documented in Realms supplements."
> 
> Sure. But not in any novels I've ever read, including a lot of the most popular ones, like the Drizzt and Elminster books, The Cleric Quintet, Paul Kemp's stuff, and lots of short stories by various people. SO, I very easily might be missing some, but it's just not something I think of as a big important part of FR. It's interesting history, but that's different.




I'm pretty sure some of Ed's books go into it a bit. There isn't any official group that determines what canon is or not, but most people I know (along with Candlekeep.com and the Forgotten Realms wiki, places officially published game materials above the novels, which often have contradictions or incorrect information. I'm OK with both, but lean toward the game stuff, and Ed's stuff first. The only reason why the history with the elves is important in this discussion is that people have stated that humans don't have any problem with them. And my point is that the history and their relationship is entirely different than that of a new race that suddenly appeared.



doctorbadwolf said:


> "how far into the Americas did Europeans travel in the first 100 years  after Columbus? How many Europeans traveled to the Middle East (other  than Crusaders) or China in the Dark Ages? Or Africa? India, perhaps?"
> 
> Not sure how the first is a relevant comparison? The DB aren't trying to expand colonies, take other people's lands, spread an ideology, etc. They want to trade, and make friends. ANd the setting books explicitly say that they made great efforts to do so. Therefor, they did, as long as we're talking about non houseruled/homebrewed DB.




This is a difference of interpretation again. You see 'great efforts' I see 'some' and 'a few' along with the fact that they are not mentioned to any great degree in most of the published materials. 5 pages in 27 supplements published since 2008. That's just not a major part of the campaign as far as I'm concerned.



doctorbadwolf said:


> So, again, this isn't an issue with dragonborn, as such. There's no inconsistency there, it just differs from your realms. WHich is fine, I don't use a lot of what I view as cheap retcons in the sundering. Netheril is still a viable, albeit reduced, nation. People still resent Sembia, so there is no "and they went back to their old trading habits" nonsense. Myth Drannor is still there, because Netheril's floating cities were grounded after the war with the Heartlands, and their magic turned to keeping the desert livable in spite of the old curse coming back. So now Netheril is a nation rebuilding, free of the Princes of Shade and the Shar cult, but still mistrusted by most other nations. Sembia continues to trade with them, but the relationship is much more equal now, and they need each other because many nations distrust them both. Calimshan is still full of Genasi, and is the midst of a struggle over whether slavery will continue there, as Memnon is dead, and Calim is bound by a bargain of his own making to serve as a protecter of the nation, and advisor, and recieve tribute yearly. Another nation in a transitional, and thus much more interesting, state, rather than just retconned back to how it was before the ToT and SP. There's other stuff, and some changes that have made sense for my campaigns, like a 20 year time jump, and the creation of a multinational knighthood made up of people from various places, including Netheril, Cormyr, The Dales, Sembia, and accepting recruits from pretty much anywhere, dedicated to ensuring that the people of Toril will decide their own fate, not gods and chosen and dragon cults. Also, a great library on the Dragon Coast, connected to a large school set up by my group's characters from a 4e campaign. There's other stuff, but those are the biggest.
> 
> I point is, I'm not a canon grognard or anything. I'm just saying, there's no canon reason for Dragonborn to be treated poorly, cause alarm, etc, in most places.




And this is exactly my point. Your Realms are based on what you determined makes sense to you. I agree that the retcons were somewhat cheap, but they were trying to put the Realms back in a state that was as close to what it was before without coming right out and saying none of it happened. The 4th edition changes were largely irrelevant to me, since that was the period I was running games the least since I was a kid. A large portion of the changes I just ignored, and so the retcons were essentially irrelevant. That's the way it should be for everybody (and is explicitly called out in the books). 

The quotes I found give plenty of canon reasons why dragonborn might be treated poorly, just as you can decide to go the other direction. Other than some brief notes about what their society is like and what their possible motives would be, they are left almost entirely up to the DM to expand and develop. For example, in two places in the game materials it states that Chessenta is largely friendly and fascinated by the dragonborn, but the only novel that had anything to say on it says they are on the verge of war. 

They were in a tough spot, because they had lost a lot of players (many if not most which seem to be coming back) to Pathfinder. While nobody else can publish Forgotten Realms specific material, it was clear that many of those that had played in it for a long time, along with some of their most successful authors, were not happy with the new direction. But there are plenty of other people who picked it up in the middle and _were_ happy with the current state. So bringing it back to close to what was there allows those that were still playing 3rd edition Realms campaigns to jump forward to a familiar Realms and ignore the changes. By leaving slivers of things like Tymanther in play, it also allows those that want them in their campaigns to keep them. I think they did about as well as they could under the circumstances. 

Your interpretations are entirely valid and work well for your campaign. They wouldn't work for me and my interpretation or the way my world works. Call me old school or stuck in the past, I'm OK with that. 

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 15, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I'd point out too that Waterdeep is a city of 130 000 people. Even at 1% "other" races, you're still looking at thousands of nonstandard race individuals living there. It's not like they're really rare. Or that it would be rare to see them. Not common of course, but probably something you see daily.
> 
> Doesn't that largely characterize a lot of places in FR?




Yes, but 1,300 people divided among several races, with some more represented by others, it's still entirely possible that you'll never run into one. For example, I'd guess lycanthropes and doppelgangers  and vampires make up the majority of them with those three races alone. 

There were something like 199 playable races in the 4th edition. Whether all of them are included in a Realms campaign is up for debate, but if there are less than 7 of a given race (if all of them are represented equally in that 1%), then I doubt you'd run into the majority of them in a city of 130,000.

Of course, I don't have most of those races in mine. 

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 15, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> To me it's all in your interpretation. In all of the Forgotten Realms game products published since the start of the 4th edition, where dragonborn first appeared as such, this is the extent of what's been said about them. Compared to the information on elves, dwarves, and especially humans. It's not the only interpretation, but I believe it's a valid one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





OK, but here's the thing. I don't see how "the gaming supplement explicitly says X, but the mention per book count suggests, to me, Y, so Y is probably true" is a valid interpretation. 

If the book says they are common, leave their home a lot to explore, trade with other nations, that people in various places don't think twice about seeing them, etc, then that is the case in the official setting. Even if they're never mentioned again, it remains the case. How frequently supplements and novels mention them is completely irrelevant unless it's all we have to go on. But it isn't. We have direct statements in official material saying that DB are not an astonishing sight, they _do_ leave their home frequently, and they do have a strongly positive reputation, and DB who serve evil organizations are incredibly rare. 

Those statements trump extrapolated conclusions from mention frequency.


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## Hussar (Jan 15, 2016)

The other issue I'm having [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] is that you are cherry picking history a bit too.

The FR is set in roughly 14th century levels of technology and social advancement, right?  Somewhere thereabouts.  You're claiming that people were rarely traveling, but, that's ignoring a lot of history.  At that point in the real world, you have the Vikings setting up shop in Canada with a well established colony in Iceland already.  You had Marco Polo already traversing the Silk road and meeting the Mongols.  You could buy cinnamon in France that was grown in India.  You had the Incas with a well established system of trade and roads, where you could travel from the coast to the capital, a distance of several hundred miles, in a matter of days.  You had the Persians with contact with pretty much every society in Europe and Asia.   There was considerable movement all over the world. 

And, let's not forget, it's not like FR had a Dark Ages to slow things down.

I really don't think that FR is all that stay at home to be honest.  There are numerous well established trade routes and a people who are not adverse to trade or moving.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 15, 2016)

Hussar said:


> The other issue I'm having [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] is that you are cherry picking history a bit too.
> 
> The FR is set in roughly 14th century levels of technology and social advancement, right?  Somewhere thereabouts.  You're claiming that people were rarely traveling, but, that's ignoring a lot of history.  At that point in the real world, you have the Vikings setting up shop in Canada with a well established colony in Iceland already.  You had Marco Polo already traversing the Silk road and meeting the Mongols.  You could buy cinnamon in France that was grown in India.  You had the Incas with a well established system of trade and roads, where you could travel from the coast to the capital, a distance of several hundred miles, in a matter of days.  You had the Persians with contact with pretty much every society in Europe and Asia.   There was considerable movement all over the world.
> 
> ...




This. Exactly this.


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 15, 2016)

Regarding Chessenta and Tymanther,  when the game supplements were written, yes, they were on good terms.  Since then, the novels happened. The mercenary group Brotherhood of the Gryphon,  rescued Tchazzar from the Abyss. It is Tchazzar who was driving Chessenta towards war with Tymanther. The Brotherhood put a stop to that by killing Tchazzar. 

Not sure why there would be dragonborn working with the Cult of the Dragon if they are from Tymanther.  I suppose they could be deviants, like that false priestess of Bahamut in one of the Brotherhood novels that was really a priestess of Tiamat. I would like to think maybe Tymanther has infiltrated the cult to keep an eye on them and stop them. Or maybe they're Abeiran slave dragonborn from Returned Abeir.


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## MonsterEnvy (Jan 15, 2016)

cbwjm said:


> Probably not every dragonborn is anti dragon. I'd say many work with dragons and are rewarded for doing so, some may even venerate dragons. It isn't just humans who vary in outlook.




A church of Bahamut was set up in Tymanther because some of them decided to worship him.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 15, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> OK, but here's the thing. I don't see how "the gaming supplement explicitly says X, but the mention per book count suggests, to me, Y, so Y is probably true" is a valid interpretation.
> 
> If the book says they are common, leave their home a lot to explore, trade with other nations, that people in various places don't think twice about seeing them, etc, then that is the case in the official setting. Even if they're never mentioned again, it remains the case. How frequently supplements and novels mention them is completely irrelevant unless it's all we have to go on. But it isn't. We have direct statements in official material saying that DB are not an astonishing sight, they _do_ leave their home frequently, and they do have a strongly positive reputation, and DB who serve evil organizations are incredibly rare.
> 
> Those statements trump extrapolated conclusions from mention frequency.




Except the books never explicitly says they are common. 

'They sometimes send small groups of elite warriors to track down known lairs of powerful dragons.'

--->The key word for me is sometimes, and also the fact that they are tracking down dragon lairs, not involving themselves in societies.

'Despite Tymanther's desire for friendly relations with others, it has one few true allies.'

'Unfortunately for them, the strangeness of their customs and their uncertain origins casts many suspicions on the dragonborn and their motives, making establishing long-lasting alliances a challenge. ' 

'For a time, the dragonborn of Tymanther sought to integrate with their new world while maintaining their own traditions and culture. These efforts gave the nation and its people a reputation for being honorable and worthy of respect... the remaining dragonborn in Faerun now find they must work even harder and with fewer resources to find their place among the people the world.'

'...everyone stares at her because of her white dragon heritage.'

--->All statements indicating that dragonborn have difficulty fitting in with societies other than their own. 

'Dragonborn who achieve fame abroad are celebrates as state heroes back in Tymanther. The dragonborn see these few as emissaries of their race, proving to the wide continent of Faerun that they have nothing to fear from dragonborn.'

'Some of Tymanther's dragonborn have spread across Faerun and gained reputations at competent, highly sought-after mercenaries.' 

--->The first doesn't indicate how many, the second says 'some.' Not many, not they are common, just some. 

As for the Dalelands comment from an adventure:
'Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Others: In general "these races aren’t from around here" People in the Dales are used to seeing outlandish foreigners wander through and so they rarely give such individuals notice.'

This is just an indication that people in a specific location feel this way. Not the continent as a whole. This is in regards to a populace that has been through a lot, and that include among their populace some of the most famous and powerful adventurers in recent history. Described as rustic and xenophobic, but also recognize that skilled adventurers are their first line of defense. 

It's also directly contradicted by the 'everyone stares at her' and 'the strangeness of their customs' comments noted earlier.

So perhaps dragonborn would fit best there.

In addition, the majority of mentions or published NPCs are tied to the Cult of the Dragon, which I would consider an evil organization.

I think that the number of times a race appears in a published sourcebook or adventure has some impact if the criteria is whether they are common or not. In those same books there are a great many more humans and elves described especially. One can easily surmise that if there are a lot more humans and elves identified and detailed, that there are more humans and elves. 

More importantly, the vague and/or contradictory statements, combined with their low frequency leaves the interpretation to the DM and what they decide works in their campaign. At best, there are as many statements indicating they have difficulty in society as there are that they don't. They are sometimes sought after as mercenaries, but that could be in part because of their appearance, and doesn't indicate that they fit well into society. Just that they are recognized for their combat prowess, and perhaps loyalty.

So I'm not extrapolating conclusions, the conclusion that they are not common is based on what was written, with the frequency, or lack thereof, supporting it. That's not to say that it's not possible to come to another conclusion. It's not 'wrong' that you feel otherwise. It's just that the 'evidence' is presented in such a way that multiple directions are reasonable and possible.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 15, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> Regarding Chessenta and Tymanther,  when the game supplements were written, yes, they were on good terms.  Since then, the novels happened. The mercenary group Brotherhood of the Gryphon,  rescued Tchazzar from the Abyss. It is Tchazzar who was driving Chessenta towards war with Tymanther. The Brotherhood put a stop to that by killing Tchazzar.
> 
> Not sure why there would be dragonborn working with the Cult of the Dragon if they are from Tymanther.  I suppose they could be deviants, like that false priestess of Bahamut in one of the Brotherhood novels that was really a priestess of Tiamat. I would like to think maybe Tymanther has infiltrated the cult to keep an eye on them and stop them. Or maybe they're Abeiran slave dragonborn from Returned Abeir.




Well, I think that's largely a part of poor or partial design. The whole of Tymanther is basically described in less than two pages. About half of that is a description of the physical layout of one citidel-city. Their culture and beliefs are described in a few paragraphs, and they are very one-dimensional. They designed it with the idea that this would be a 'noble and honorable race' but the world isn't like that. A race doesn't determine your perspective and values. Society does.

Beyond that, I would be surprised that a race that overthrew the bonds of slavery would develop such and organized and regimented society. I think individual freedoms would be paramount. 

Outside of any sort of story reason, they were convenient and 'logical' members, provided you didn't worry about the published concept. I don't think the designers put a whole lot of thought into the backstory of their use and whether it contradicted what little has been written about Tymanther. 

If you're asking how to reconcile it, I think it's pretty simple. If a portion of your country suddenly found itself dropped in a new world, everything changes. Not all clans or individuals would agree with the choices and directions made by their leaders in the best of times, much less a huge change such as this. They aren't 'deviants' but rather individuals who feel that changing or difficult times require a different approach. That the individual (who may have lost most of their clan or family) must stand up and fend for themselves. Dragons, and the power of dragons, they understand. The politics of the rest of the new world, not so much.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 15, 2016)

Hussar said:


> The other issue I'm having [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] is that you are cherry picking history a bit too.
> 
> The FR is set in roughly 14th century levels of technology and social advancement, right?  Somewhere thereabouts.  You're claiming that people were rarely traveling, but, that's ignoring a lot of history.  At that point in the real world, you have the Vikings setting up shop in Canada with a well established colony in Iceland already.  You had Marco Polo already traversing the Silk road and meeting the Mongols.  You could buy cinnamon in France that was grown in India.  You had the Incas with a well established system of trade and roads, where you could travel from the coast to the capital, a distance of several hundred miles, in a matter of days.  You had the Persians with contact with pretty much every society in Europe and Asia.   There was considerable movement all over the world.
> 
> ...




So, the vikings were raiding and colonizing.

Marco Polo was an individual (obviously with a group of people for support), not the norm at the time.

The Incas would compare well with Cormyr, a well established and patrolled land with a good infrastructure.

And in the rest of the Realms I think it's the same - in Cormyr or Elturgard, where you have a well-patrolled land with good roads between cities, sure, travel is common and relatively safe. Outside of those few areas, not so much. 

Trade, via the sea or silk road, was established but long and dangerous, primarily due to weather. They didn't have to contend with monsters and evil wizards. Bandits, pirates, and the like seem to be more prevalent in the Realms. Spices, silk, and other exotic imports are expensive as a result. 

Published caravan travel times puts the trip from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate at 32 days. That's a month of travel in a world where there are monsters and magic. Most travel would be between a farm, village or hamlet to the nearest major settlement. This map of the region of Daggerford is a perfect example: 

http://mikeschley.zenfolio.com/img/s7/v153/p666144112-3.jpg

The Realms is a very different place with dangers that never existed in our world. So travel outside of a caravan is rare. Having said that, even in our world it took most people a long time. Near where I live, several towns originated as a single town, as a single parish. Several of the towns split off when the population was high enough, because the trip on Sunday to and from church took nearly the entire day - a 10-12 mile walk that was around 3+ hours each way depending on weather. Due to fear from native americans and large game like bears, plus companionship, they traveled as a group. This was in the 1600 to 1700s.

Ilbranteloth


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 15, 2016)

The reason they are highly regimented is because they had to constantly defend their home from dragons. They developed a military society. Much like Israel. Everyone serves their time.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 15, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> The reason they are highly regimented is because they had to constantly defend their home from dragons. They developed a military society. Much like Israel. Everyone serves their time.




Well, the Dalelands are very unregimented, but everybody is required to defend when needed. Daggerford requires every person to serve 2 years, if I recall, in the guard, and receive training for it.

So it doesn't necessarily follow that the rest of society must be as regimented as their militia or army. Particularly, I would think, if they are fending off their former slavers.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 15, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> Except the books never explicitly says they are common.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Since we disagree on whether or not frequency of mention is indicative of anything inside the game world, we're not going to see eye to eye on this. IMO, the books make it very clear with actual statements that Dragonborn are common, have a good reputation, and work with evil orgs only extremely rarely. TO me, the idea that page count matters in this discussion is a huge reach, at the least. 



Ilbranteloth said:


> So it doesn't necessarily follow that the rest of society must be as regimented as their militia or army. Particularly, I would think, if they are fending off their former slavers.
> 
> Ilbranteloth




"Must" isn't relevant. They aren't that way because it's the only way to respond to such a circumstance, but because it's the way _they_ specifically responded to it, and it's a perfectly reasonable way in which to respond. As for being former slaves, that experience also doesn't have a "must" in how people react to being free of it. Libertarian individualism may make sense to you, but to others the opposite is more sensible, or something in between. 


Oh, and about the real world bits in that other post. Maco Polo wasn't strange for having travelled afar. The VIkings were doing a lot more than raiding and colonizing. For the entire viking age, they did a lot more trading and working as mercenaries who were highly sought after because they didn't break their oaths, once given, came with their own really good gear, and fought with noteworthy ferocity. But they travelled so widely that Asian silks and rings engraved with Arabic are among the things found in Viking grave sites. And most of their travel was trade and exploration. 
The point is, travel wasn't as uncommon as most people think during that time. 

And while FR has more dangers, it also has more people who know how to defend against those dangers. And it's pretty well established that people travel further than the next village quite a bit. Maybe it wasn't back in the early days of FR, but that only matters in games like yours that take place then. For the rest of us, the world is as it's been established since then, more or less. And that includes travel that's at least as normal as it was in 14th century europe, but probably more so.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 15, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Since we disagree on whether or not frequency of mention is indicative of anything inside the game world, we're not going to see eye to eye on this. IMO, the books make it very clear with actual statements that Dragonborn are common, have a good reputation, and work with evil orgs only extremely rarely.




Page count debate aside, I provided every quote about dragonborn regarding how many and how far they have traveled, and to me nothing actually printed makes it clear to me that they are common. That's where we differ.

Ilbranteloth


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## Hussar (Jan 16, 2016)

Again, you can't have it both ways. You can't argue that strange creatures are so rarely seen that they wouldn't be accepted while at the same time they are so common that travel is extremely difficult. If they are so common and in such large numbers that travel in FR looks more like travel in Dark Sun, then they aren't going to be so strange that everyone freaks out when they see someone who looks a bit weird. 

Oh and you made a point above [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], that race does not determine perspectives and values. 

That's not true in DND.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 16, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Again, you can't have it both ways. You can't argue that strange creatures are so rarely seen that they wouldn't be accepted while at the same time they are so common that travel is extremely difficult. If they are so common and in such large numbers that travel in FR looks more like travel in Dark Sun, then they aren't going to be so strange that everyone freaks out when they see someone who looks a bit weird.
> 
> Oh and you made a point above [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], that race does not determine perspectives and values.
> 
> That's not true in DND.




One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

Monsters of all sorts of types are quite common in the Realms, and are part of what makes travel difficult. A large number of them are dangerous.

In any society there is 'normal.' In the Realms, normal are the Tolkienesque races, along with dragons, undead, owlbears, orcs and goblins, drow, etc. Normal doesn't mean liked. Many of these normal things are known dangers and cause for an immediate attack if possible. 

Normal is also regional. What's normal in Calimshan is different than the Dalelands and differnt again in Icewind Dale. Our baseline in this world is that a lot of what's in the Realms is not normal. But that doesn't mean that they would acknowledge everything they run into as normal. 

Dragonborn are not part of 'normal' for the Realms. At least not when they arrived, and not when it's the first time a specific somebody sees them. They are unknown until that time, so they may not be immediately hostile, but in a world where unknown can often be dangerous, they would likely tend toward suspicious. When something is visibly larger than you, and possibly more powerful, and armed, then you will probably be wary of them. If they have heard of them, and that they aren't a danger, they they would likely be more curious. Probably still staying mostly at a distance, and staring or pointing at the strange creature. 

For example, the Dalesfolk are described as 'seem(ingly) close-mouthed, suspicious, and reserved. Until newcomers are identified as friends or foes, or vouched for by a trusted friend, Dalesfolk prefer civil silence to empty pleasantries.'

This is to all outsiders. But they've seen elves, dwarves, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, etc. What they have not seen until they arrived was a 7'-tall dragonman. So they would probably be a bit more wary than just another elf. Because elves are normal. 

In Cormyr, because it is a land with strong regular patrols that protect the populace, and unless it's a time where a lot of monster raids and such are occuring, they probably feel fairly safe, and that if somebody is walking openly on the roads, the Purple Dragons have deemed them safe. In that case they'd probably be more curious.

But I've never argued that strange creatures are rarely seen. I've said that strange dragonborn are rarely seen. Intelligent races, as in those that don't look largely human, elven, dwarvish, halfling, or gnome which are races that have been established across Faerun for centuries are not commonly seen. As in never until a dragonborn wanders into town. Something that doesn't fit that mold is different, foreign, possibly dangerous. Just because the creatures that are normal to the Realmsfolk are strange to us doesn't mean that they don't have a threshold where normal passes into strange.

In my opinion, 100 years is a very short time for a new race to establish themselves locally, much less spread across a continent as large as Faerun. Some have traveled, and to those that care about such things (such as merchants) have heard that they are good mercenaries. An average villager cares nothing of good mercenaries, and probably hasn't heard anything about them, other than possibly a tale about this strange dragon-man that was seen with a caravan to the east. 

Word of mouth tends to travel slowly in a world like the Realms. It takes a month to get from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate, and longer to spread beyond that. It's dependent upon people that care and what gossip they pass on, and it grows less reliable the farther it travels. 

Numerous dragon-men, both dragonborn and half-dragons, were actively working with the Cult of the Dragon in the Sword Coast and elsewhere. For those that saw that, it colors their opinion. For those that hear about it, it colors their opinion. If a new threat may be rising, people listen. That is the sort of stuff that spreads by word of mouth. Thus, it's far more likely that they would have heard of the dragonborn in a negative light. Combine that with Unther returning, and news starts to trickle out that they are driving back the evil dragon-men that tried to conquer their nation, and the negative news continues.

Again, this all depends on what your frame of reference is regarding the Realms. 

Yes, in D&D race is often a shorthand for their general philosophy. But the elvish people in the Realms hold many philosophies, all colored by their history. The humans too, have a great many perspectives and such. Most of these are tied to a deity that helps clarify their positions. Most drow worship Lolth, and their culture reflects this. But those who worship Eilistraee have a very different one. In addition, the general philosophies of elves in the Realms is different than other worlds. Just like the other races. 

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 16, 2016)

Don't know how I missed this introduction in the SCAG. 

'Draconian humanoids from another world, the dragonborn of Farren are proud, honorable, and relatively rare.'

Ilbranteloth


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## Hussar (Jan 16, 2016)

Hang on, according to the Sword Coast map, it's about 600 miles from Baldurs Gate to Waterdeep.  Is that right?  With roads the entire way.  Well traveled roads with lots of way stations and the like.  20 miles a day?  I suppose, for a wagon, although mounted travelers should be able to go much faster than this.  When you talk about how long it takes, what kind of travel are you talking about?


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 16, 2016)

He might be citing the caravan trip from HOTDQ?


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 16, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Hang on, according to the Sword Coast map, it's about 600 miles from Baldurs Gate to Waterdeep.  Is that right?  With roads the entire way.  Well traveled roads with lots of way stations and the like.  20 miles a day?  I suppose, for a wagon, although mounted travelers should be able to go much faster than this.  When you talk about how long it takes, what kind of travel are you talking about?




That's the published travel time from several past supplements.

This has been a topic of much debate in the past. Waterdeep to Cormyr is about double the distance, plus through some mountain passes, and took about 2 to 2 1/2 months on average. A Cormyrean merchant could expect to make it to Waterdeep and back once in a trading season (spring to autumn) with stops along the way.

The roads in the Forgotten Realms are a mix of dirt and grass, with enough space for two wagons to pass. In some portions there is enough space for 4 wagons wide.

Overland travel in the PHB/DMG for the various editions is quite optimistic for long range travel. Most travel is via caravan, as it's the safest. These are described in various locations as well, but usually include a couple of extra wagons loaded with basic weapons for defense, extra axles and wheels, and the wagons themselves can be used as spares. Four or more wagons of food and water are the norm, and the caravan itself gets fairly large, with dozens of wagons and a lot of people. Wagons are typically hauled by mules, sometimes oxen. The oxen are slower, but require fewer rests and can subsist on lower quality food. A typical day of travel, including stops, in a caravan of this nature is 15 to 20 miles a day.

A party on foot can travel faster, of course, but the 30 miles a day is extremely optimistic. Most of the experienced people that contributed to earlier conversations, as well as some research online, says 10 miles a day is average when carrying a loaded pack, particularly if we're talking people wearing armor and having periodic encounters on the way. An exceptional day would be 20 miles.

Horseback isn't much quicker. You might get 30 miles/day, or even double that, but then the horse needs to rest for a day or two, so you still end up with about a 20 miles/day average. The advantage of horses for long distance travel is not speed, but how much you can carry. 

The Pony Express could manage a trip across the US in about 10 days, but they changed to a fresh horse every 10 miles, and a fresh rider after 75-100 miles and rode day and night. The load wasn't allowed to be more than 175 lbs including the rider.

The same technique was used on the Persian Royal Road (2,800 miles) allowing frequent changes of horse and rider to move messages (official business, not gossip) taking about 9 days. Regular travelers on the same road took about 3 months.

This is part of why I say news travels slowly. Somebody spotting a dragonborn for the first time in Cormyr has to consider it newsworthy enough to even have a story to tell. That's most likely going to be something of great heroism, like slaying a dragon or defending their village, or the opposite, such as being spotted in a battle against the Cult of the Dragon. Two months later the news might make it to Waterdeep. But unless there's a regular flow of stuff about dragonborn, the news (and they) just don't kind of exist until there is something of significant, and preferably, repetitive in nature. If the news doesn't make it this summer, then it probably won't get there until the next.

Sea travel is much faster, obviously, but that's limited, and only reaches so far up river. From the Sea of Fallen Stars to the Sword Coast it's all by land, and difficult and monster infested land at that. Mostly through mountain passes. The Zhentarim cut across Anauroch, to get a shorter route to the west, and perhaps that was enough to make two trips each year. Another likely route would be to head from Cormyr and the Heartlands to the North in the spring, then south to Baldur's Gate and the southern lands coming back east in the following spring. That way you could continue to travel with your wares year round, and it would take a full year to return 'home.' Depending on the actual route it could take longer. A round trip on the Silk Road from Rome to China (4,000 miles) and back was a two year trip. 

Another factor in the Forgotten Realms is that the maps have changed, somewhat significantly. The 3rd edition that they squished the southeast northward, to better fit the sheets of paper, which shortened travel routes by a significant margin (by at least 1000 miles in some directions if I recall). The 4th edition squished the entire continent more by using a different scale if I recall. I can't find the specifics right now, but I never really used the 4th edition maps, and when I did I didn't have to worry about measuring distances. The 5th edition maps seem to be on the same scale as the 3rd edition ones.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 16, 2016)

From City of Splendors Box Set (2nd edition)

Land Routes
Blackford Road (Luskan to Mirabar): 7 days.

East Trail (Waterdeep to Llorkh): Secomber, 11 days; Loudwater, 20 days; Llorkh, 27 days.

Evermoor Way (Triboar to Silverymoon): Yartar, 2 days; Everlund, 15 days; Silverymoon, 20 days.

High Road, north (Waterdeep to Luskan): Leilon, 11 days; Neverwinter, 17 days; Port Llast, 19 days; Luskan, 23 days.

High Road, south (Waterdeep to Baldurs Gate): 32 days.

Long Road, north (Waterdeep to Mirabar): Red Larch, 7 days; Triboar, 13 days; Longsaddle, 18 days; Mirabar, 26 days.

Silverymoon Pass (Silverymoon to Sundabar): 6 days.

Water Routes
Sea of Swords, Coast route by ship: Waterdeep to Luskan, 6 days; Luskan to Waterdeep, 8 days. Waterdeep to Baldur's s Gate, 9 days; Baldurs Gate to Waterdeep, 7 days.

River Dessarin, by barge: (Waterdeep (start at Zundbridge) to Silverymoon): Ironford, 6 days; The Stone Bridge, 14 days; Yartar, 20 days; Nesmé, 30 days; Silverymoon, 43 days. Silverymoon to Waterdeep by river, reduce all times by 1/3.

Ilbranteloth


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## Hussar (Jan 17, 2016)

How long have Dragonborn supposed to have lived in Forgotten Realms now?  I'm a little fuzzy on the timeline.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 17, 2016)

cbwjm said:


> To the best of my knowledge it is 100+ years since they arrived with the spell plague.




Which would seem to me enough time that, unless you were _really_ sheltered and out-of-the-way, you'd have heard _something_ about them. Hell's bells, if these people have anything like a European lifespan (a bit over 5 decades for the unlucky, shy of 7 for the lucky), at least one generation has been born _and died_ since they appeared. That could even have happened twice, back to back (born-lived-died then that same day another child is born, it lives and dies). And for humans, at least, it'd be at least four and possibly as many as seven "proper" generations (that is, from birth to giving birth) since they arrived; 100/25 = 4 as a minimum; add 1 for overlap (people alive at the time they arrived), and assume 120 years and a 20-year birth-to-birth time, and that's what you get (120/20 + 1 = 7). That's sort of the equivalent of being shocked and horrified by people descended from immigrants that arrived during your great-great-grandparents' lifetime, _at the most recent._

And, unless I'm mistaken, FR's dragonborn spread out from Tymanther for pretty much that whole time ("A whole world NOT enslaved by dragons, even a little bit?! IT MUST BE WONDERFUL!") But given the real and meaningful differences, I wouldn't be surprised if they congregate in specific areas in other cities--a "dragonborn quarter" or "dragontown," if you will.  But oddities like "I don't think they worship gods at all!" should surely come up now and again...and over

Also I have to say: The more I use the word "dragonborn," the more I hate it. Call 'em Tymantherians, call 'em Evans' "vayemniri," call 'em Arkhosians, _something_, because that oh-so-"functional" name is getting tiresome.

As always: it's your world, do what you want with it. But people who have been around and slowly, steadily spreading through the world for over a century...don't feel like something that should be sending _many_, let alone _most_, shopkeepers running for the hills and townsfolk to their local Torches-N'-Pitchforks-R-Us. It could--particularly if you intentionally play up the racism, exclusionism, and suspiciousness of the townsfolk-type people in your world. But it's far, far from required.


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## Scribe (Jan 17, 2016)

There is also the fact that there has been war, and upheaval during those 100 years. That moves people, that puts people into new areas, exposes them to others, mercenaries do their thing. After reading the last two of Evan's books I think she shows how the other races could interact and its pretty (very imo) good.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 18, 2016)

Even in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide in the description of the Far Traveler background states:

"Almost all of the people and other folk that one might encounter along the Sword Coast or in the North have one thing in common: they live out their lives without ever traveling more than a few miles from where they were born."

My campaign is modeled on Ed Greenwood's publications first, then other Realms materials second. In 2012, the same time the 5th edition was announced, WotC also released _Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms_. For a lot of the fans of the Realms this was a return to form. A book entirely of lore, with no game mechanics whatsoever, it's an overview of what life is like in the Forgotten Realms. 

Yes, you could consider this a home campaign setting at this point, the published Realms having diverged more and more from the original source material, even as that source (Ed) and new material was/is readily available to them should they choose to take advantage of that. But through the Sundering and as shown in the 5th edition releases, the current Realms is moving back to the classic feel, much like D&D itself is in the new rules system.

One of the most common elements of Forgotten Realms releases for a long time was the Current Clack or rumors section that had short paragraphs, often by month of a given year or years, moving the story of the Realms forward. Most of the time, these were never expanded upon, leaving it to the DM to do so, or not. I always interpreted much of this as fiction, based on statements like this:

"Most news and rumors are spread across the Realms by caravans, and along coasts, by the crews of ships. In many a wayside settlement, whenever a caravan stops for the night, the populace turns out at local inns and taverns to hear the latest "clack" (what's being talked about). Travelers can often earn something to eat or a drink or two by relating enough entertaining lore. The freshest news is the most in demand-which, of course, leads to embroidering and outright tall tales, lies and half-truths and  rumors building on each other into fanciful creations that bear little resemblance to their plainer and more demure beginnings."

"News" is very unreliable when it travels in this manner. And the more outrageous, the better. So telling a tall tale with a dragon-man would mostly likely be viewed as just that, a tall tale. 

It also describes how the races interact:
"Humans numerically and culturally dominate the civilized surface Realms. Most humans hate and fear creatures they deem monsters, such as beholders, illithids, yuan-ti, drow, and goblinkin. "Goblinkin" refers to hobgoblins, orcs, goblins, and their lookalikes; most humans neither know nor care about actual species differences. In the words of the long-ago King Roreld of Athalantar, "If it looks like an orc, it's an orc." Many humans mistrust half-orcs and all elves, and a few mistrust all nonhumans, but in Faerun, most humans grew up dwelling or trading with elves, half-elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes, and so accept them as fellow citizens.
  The folk of the Dales have typical backland human attitudes, hating and fearing half-orcs because they can't distinguish them from the ore mercenaries used so often by Zhentil Keep in Daggerdale. Some also mistake half-orcs for the beast-men (ogres) of Thar, having never seen real ogres (and lived to tell the tale), and will reach for the nearest weapon.
Almost all humans, elves, and dwarves in the Realms mistrust small, non-familial groups of orcs (four or fewer), and will be openly hostile to larger groups. As an old upcountry saying plainly states: "Orcs is trouble." (Or, in full: "Orcs is always trouble.")"

This is the feel that I expect in the Realms. The attitudes that if something looks like a monster, it's a monster. The Tolkienesque races are the 'normal' that other creatures are measured against when seeing for the first time. This is further supported by the discussion later about Special Bloodlines:

"From ancient days in the Realms until today, there have always been "special" families. These families, elf, human, or half-elf, have been bold enough to make secret pacts with other magic using races to gain magic of their own- as well as power, wealth, and influence. It's rumored that some of these families have interbred with their patron races, though, in the words of the long ago sage Alaundo, "Rumor can be a wild thing." Realmslore tells us that these patrons have included dragons, illithids, and beholders.
These pact-making families tend to keep themselves as hidden as possible, often taking other names and faces while they're out acting as the agents of those with whom they've made arrangements. Yet a few folk in the Realms know the names of some of these special clans: among the elves, some branches of Houses Starym and Elphaerendil; among humans, the Skeldragons and Talonmists; and among half-elves, the Alendrim, Saerendever, and Talyth families.
Much as nobles who plot treason against a ruler, these special families do much in secret, crave power, and betimes must do perilous or unlawful things. Their locations, reach, interests, capabilities, and deeds vary widely, and they and the patrons they serve-can be compelling and mysterious allies, manipulators, and foes."

I found it ironic that one of the first pieces of art is a typical 4th edition tiefling, although that race doesn't appear in the book as such at all. But this section describes what I would consider them to be.

For the most part, the 5th edition has brought the Realms back closer to this concept. Many of the classic Realms elements have returned. The dragonborn lands have been stripped back to a minimum, tieflings get a description that explains why they suddenly look so different, while at the same time returning the option for others to be subtle and largely undetectable as different than other humans. 

Not everybody wants this, and you don't have to follow if you don't want to. In my case, I largely never left this Realms. If people want to be related to a dragon, and even have some special abilities as a result, I can work with that. I will probably go along with Tymanther remaining in the Realms. Don't really know how I'll handle whether there are any dragonborn as written as characters in my campaign, though. As far as I'm concerned, very few of them are to be found, and since I'm likely to base most of them off of their appearances in the 5th edition stories, most of them are working with the Cult of the Dragon. If so, it's not going to be an easy road to travel. I (and therefore the people of my Realms) see them as just too different.

Ilbranteloth


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## Scribe (Jan 18, 2016)

I can totally respect your viewpoint, but the setting has evolved beyond the skinny beardless human/short and bearded human/normal human roots it had.

For better or worse just depends on ones perspective. I do agree that the more monstrous races are going to be more rare, but so to is an adventurer in the first place.

I dont think this needs to change in any real sense either as it allows for 'purists' to draw a line as you are and others to embrace it as they will. Totally fine.


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## Hussar (Jan 18, 2016)

So, if I'm understanding this right, FR is going back to a cheap Middle Earth knockoff and that's a good thing?  Humans doing all the stuff that matters and everything else just along for the ride?  

Yeah, not my bag thanks. I kinda got tired of that after the umpteenth pastiche of the eighties. Give the Realms of the Baldur's Gate game where you see all sorts of stuff wandering around. 

Funny how being a lizard dude makes you feared but wearing wizards robes and being able to level a village doesn't.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> So, if I'm understanding this right, FR is going back to a cheap Middle Earth knockoff and that's a good thing?  Humans doing all the stuff that matters and everything else just along for the ride?
> 
> Yeah, not my bag thanks. I kinda got tired of that after the umpteenth pastiche of the eighties. Give the Realms of the Baldur's Gate game where you see all sorts of stuff wandering around.
> 
> Funny how being a lizard dude makes you feared but wearing wizards robes and being able to level a village doesn't.




I certainly wouldn't call it cheap. But that's ok, I find the lack of imagination and depth in most of the monstrous pc races uninspiring. To each their own. 

And the dudes in the robes are typically the ones you have to worry about.  Those are the ones who think they are important.  The dangerous ones are the ones that look like just another shopkeeper.   

Ultimately, it's really about what you do with the source  material. 

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 18, 2016)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Which would seem to me enough time that, unless you were _really_ sheltered and out-of-the-way, you'd have heard _something_ about them. Hell's bells, if these people have anything like a European lifespan (a bit over 5 decades for the unlucky, shy of 7 for the lucky), at least one generation has been born _and died_ since they appeared. That could even have happened twice, back to back (born-lived-died then that same day another child is born, it lives and dies). And for humans, at least, it'd be at least four and possibly as many as seven "proper" generations (that is, from birth to giving birth) since they arrived; 100/25 = 4 as a minimum; add 1 for overlap (people alive at the time they arrived), and assume 120 years and a 20-year birth-to-birth time, and that's what you get (120/20 + 1 = 7). That's sort of the equivalent of being shocked and horrified by people descended from immigrants that arrived during your great-great-grandparents' lifetime, _at the most recent._
> 
> And, unless I'm mistaken, FR's dragonborn spread out from Tymanther for pretty much that whole time ("A whole world NOT enslaved by dragons, even a little bit?! IT MUST BE WONDERFUL!") But given the real and meaningful differences, I wouldn't be surprised if they congregate in specific areas in other cities--a "dragonborn quarter" or "dragontown," if you will.  But oddities like "I don't think they worship gods at all!" should surely come up now and again...and over
> 
> ...




This is exactly my thoughts. 

Also, not sure why Ilbrantaloth insists on concluding that because they are enemies in the adventure featuring the Cult of The Dragon, that it's a normal and well known thing for them to serve that organization, in spite of setting material explicitly stating that it's rare. 
That is a long walk, at the least.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 18, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> This is exactly my thoughts.
> 
> Also, not sure why Ilbrantaloth insists on concluding that because they are enemies in the adventure featuring the Cult of The Dragon, that it's a normal and well known thing for them to serve that organization, in spite of setting material explicitly stating that it's rare.
> That is a long walk, at the least.




I'm not 'insisting' per se, I'm just going by what's been published. I don't recall in all of the quotes I posted indicating that it's rare for them to work for the Cult of the Dragon - if you could provide that source I'd love to see it. Instead, I find the following:

In the 4th edition campaign setting is calls out the Cult of the Dragon of one of three power groups in in Tymanther, see the sidebar.

In the same source, the Cult of the Dragon entry indicates that "Dragonborn are also common...their militaristic ideals complementing the cult's ideology."

In the Neverwinter campaign setting, dragonborn are only mentioned in two random encounter tables, one for the city, and one for encounters with the Cult of the Dragon.

In at least half of the published adventures that have a dragonborn, they are working with the Cult of the Dragon. Note that the vast majority of mentions of a dragonborn in any adventure is a single NPC.

The way I look at it, which is also specifically what has been published, is that most people in the Realms never travel much at all, and 'news' is unreliable as such. 

As cbwjm responded:


cbwjm said:


> I wouldn't put much stock in the whole "most people only travel a few miles from home" bit. This is because that refers to farmers, villagers, serfs, etc. If you are a mercenary company, or a caravan guard, or any kind of soldier then it is likely that you travel much further afield. Think of Alexander and his army making it all the way to India, or the Romans conquering Europe (Although I hear there was at least one village which held out against the invaders). You will also have sailors and merchant ships traveling to other ports and you can bet that the dragonborn would be sending out ships if they have means to make them. Of course the best example of people who often travel much further than a few miles are of course, adventurers. These guys are not only traveling so far that they end up on other planes but they also meet and bring back all kinds of crazy traveling companions. If any village is a key point of travel with adventurers passing through then you can bet that that village has had a few dragonborn float through. Any large cosmopolitan city, such as Waterdeep, they will have definitely had visits by dragonborn travelers, considering everything else that the average Waterdeep citizen has seen, it's likely that they didn't even blink when the dragonborn showed up. I can understand that some out of the way villages, perhaps even most villages in civilised areas haven't seen a dragonborn, but those close to a major city would have likely heard of them, possibly from Jim the local farmer who takes his wares to the city to sell.
> 
> I'm not saying that people must accept dragonborn as being all over the realms, your game so do what makes the group happy, but if any do show up then it is likely to be in an adventuring party and people probably aren't going to be too amazed at them. They may even mistake them as some kind of lizardfolk until they breath fire.




That is exactly what is described:

"Across this vast expanse travel minstrels and peddlers, caravan merchants and guards, soldiers, sailors, and steel-hearted adventurers carrying tales of strange, glorious, faraway places." and

"The paramount travelers are merchants, peddlers, mercenaries, and drovers, all of them moving goods or services (their own) from one place to another."

That is, the vast majority don't travel. Adventurers are rare, despite them being the focal point of every campaign. It's one of those situations where our focus on the rare makes them seem common. They aren't. This sets the baseline. Most people don't travel far, and thus most of the people they see are locals. This has been repeated in many FR supplements over the years. Merchants and stories about adventurers are more common than the adventurers themselves. Magic exists, but most Realmsfolk has never seen it cast directly, other than simple enchantments like light globes and other useful low-magic items. or felt it cast on them. The new cantrip system stretches this a bit, but even still, if adventurer's are rare, then so are those that cast cantrips. It's not surprising that something magical like the elves have magical ability, they're elves after all.

On trade routes and in cities, they see foreigners. But again, the vast majority of those foreigners look a lot like they do. More importantly, regarding the races like elves, dwarves, and such, they even act and speak like they'd expect. Humans vary in appearance, language, and dress from region to region far more than elves, dwarves, halflings, or gnomes. Dragonborn stand out in every way. And it's not really a question as to whether I or you can imagine what it would be like to be a humanoid dragon, it's a question as to whether your average Realmsfolk would, or would even want to. Lizardfolk aren't seen in adventuring parties, and even if they think it's a lizardfolk, that's not good.

"If it looks like a lizardfolk, it's a lizardfolk." That is, not good. They probably wouldn't be openly hostile and attack a single lizardfolk, but they probably wouldn't welcome it into town either. To me it's a "we don't serve their kind" situation at least, and more likely an aggressive 'move along.'

Cities are different, but even Waterdeep has its limits. It is noted that 'evil' races like drow, orcs and other goblinoids, etc. are not welcome. Overcoming that is difficult.

There are no big Alexandrian armies or crusades, no large-scale military conflicts. Nor are there large-scale religious pilgrimages or conflicts. So sellswords hire out to caravans, or groups involved in regional conflicts. Groups like the Cult of the Dragon, or in the past, the Zhentarim (another group I'm still on the fence about, incidentally). 

The dragonborn are non-religious, nor do they have any holy sites obviously. So there are no pilgrimages. 

We already know that some are out hunting dragons. In addition, there are constant battles with the orcs to the south, the threat (real or percieved) from Murghom, and they have been working on forming relationships with their immediate neighbors. 

Trade is something that I find interesting. Tymanther is inland, so they have no ports or ships, so caravan travel is coming by land. Can they build ships? Depends on skills and resources. But they won't be a regular stop for merchants by sea, at least until they build a port.

They are in a remote section of the world, and a merchant caravan (at least initially) expecting to find Unther instead finds they land overrun by (invading?) dragonborn. In fact, the caravans probably heard about the creatures from the neigboring communities before entering. How long before a merchant is actually willing to risk it? How long before adventurers want to go slay the dragon-people and take their treasure? 

I've always used the various human languages and such in the Realms, and highly doubt that a creature from another world would speak any of them. But assuming they do, it will take time to establish trade, particularly because they have no coins that are accepted anywhere else, no natural resources. Not to mention potential distrust.

Beyond that, this is a nation, or primarily a city, that is dropped into a new world. What little we know about them would indicate that they had a culture of similar sophistication as others in the Realms. So, they've developed armor, weapons, blacksmithing, agriculture, husbandry, art, etc. Based on their implied biology I would question them being omnivorous, but we'll go with it since it mentions farmers.  Sounds great, until you're in a new world. What of your natural resources? The farmers will plant new farms, although the climate and crops may be quite different. Logging can obviously pick up relatively quickly, although there isn't much to be found around Tymanther. They would have to survey and build new mines and quarries, or find some and take them by force. All the while exploring a strange new land, with new monsters and potential enemies or allies.

Assuming they use the same gold standard, their coins (should they have some), would be worth their weight, minus any moneychanging discount, which is fine if that equals their value, but it may not. The merchants accepting their coins will either have to melt them down, or hope that other cities will accept this unknown currency. Even the currency of known locations is often worth less outside of the region they are minted (see Waterdhavian and Silverymoon coins). Minting coins requires gold, silver, etc. If this is in short supply, the value of the coins will increase within Tymanther, but not outside of it. That's a problem.

So what are they trading? Have they ever traded before? If they were the only nation to arise from the dragon empires as independent, who did they trade with? The dragons? I can see a lot of things that they would need to receive. But for selling? Most likely it would be exotics. Art, trinkets, etc. Perhaps clothes. Something that looks exotic. Remember, natural resources are scarce to begin with, so these can't easily be replaced yet. But a merchant could find a way to sell something that looks exotic, or tastes exotic if they have an unusual spice or something that will travel well (and hopefully will grow in this new land).

So their #1 resource is themselves. As guards or mercenaries. So a few hire on as caravan guards. They would be the oddity in each town the caravan comes to. But if they kept their head down and did their job well, they'd build a reputation. Not known throughout the Realms, and certainly not transferring good-will toward an entire race, but it's a start. 

As for mercenaries, they'd hire out to who needs them. This would again most likely start with neighboring lands, or those typically hiring mercenaries. Cult of the Dragon is one of the big ones. There are other 'evil' organizations that hire mercenaries as well. 

These are just a few of the hurdles that would confront the new nation. There are an endless number of ways they could be handled. In my view, it would take a long period of time, with distrust on both times, probably decades, to re-establish stability within their own nation, before worrying about exploring the world around them. Once they do, I view progress as quite slow, for a variety of reasons again. 

The distance from Tymanther to Waterdeep in a straight line is about 2/3 the length of the Silk Road. By land it's going to be at least as long. That's a journey of at least a year. So somebody is going to point out that they have been around plenty long enough to do that. The answer is yes, but. But they are spending considerable time rebuilding their nation, their resources, hopefully not dying from the exotic new diseases they've never experienced, etc. After some time, as trade is being established, some will travel farther and farther, but it will take time. Considerably longer to reach that point in significant numbers my opinion.

We don't have any sort of exact comparison, but it took a long time for settlers to move inland in the Americas. A long time. Not only because it was difficult, or the native population, but because they didn't need to. The dragonborn population of Tymanther doesn't have any _need[/] to travel. They aren't overpopulated, they aren't expansionists, they aren't interested in starting wars, they aren't attempting to recover holy sites, the only real drive is to slay dragons. I would think the majority of travel would be east, toward Murghom. In fact, any conflict between Murghom and Tymanther would probably strain relationships with High Imaskar since they will likely spill over into their territory. For folks that enjoy dragonborn, there's a campaign waiting to be written (or was, now that Mulhorand is back).

Ilbranteloth_


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## Scribe (Jan 18, 2016)

I'm hoping Evan's next book covers just that actually, as thats where the last one left off.


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## LordStorm (Jan 19, 2016)

I agree its a bit silly to not give them tails. I do understand not giving out wings at low level (although they did with Aarakocra). But if they give out wings to Sorcs at high level they could have given wings to Dragonborn at High level also. Warforged were very popular creations I was NOT surprised to see them in Faerun.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 19, 2016)

One of the books explicitly states that they rarely work for evil organizations, even as mercs.


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## Mirtek (Jan 20, 2016)

Scribe said:


> I'm hoping Evan's next book covers just that actually, as thats where the last one left off.



Well according to her the DB indeed travel only rarely, as they're numbers are low and duty to clan is too strong to waste members by having them wander the world. Especially since outsider merchants are coming to them eagerly enough to supply them with what they don't get from their down lands


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 20, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> One of the books explicitly states that they rarely work for evil organizations, even as mercs.




Ok, but what book?  I searched through them and while there seems to be a lot of folks that day the books say they are common among the Realms and that they rarely work for evil organizations, I have yet to find Realms sources that support this. 

It may be mentioned in the PHB, or in the Dragon article,  but those are not Realms specific. The Realms material takes precedence,  and they are specifically called out in two sections of the 4th Ed campaign setting as  dragonborn commonly being members, and the Cult of the Dragon being one of the three main power groups within Tymanther itself.

I provided direct quotes from the sourcebooks.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 20, 2016)

Ilbranteloth said:


> Ok, but what book?  I searched through them and while there seems to be a lot of folks that day the books say they are common among the Realms and that they rarely work for evil organizations, I have yet to find Realms sources that support this.
> 
> It may be mentioned in the PHB, or in the Dragon article,  but those are not Realms specific. The Realms material takes precedence,  and they are specifically called out in two sections of the 4th Ed campaign setting as  dragonborn commonly being members, and the Cult of the Dragon being one of the three main power groups within Tymanther itself.
> 
> ...




Yeah, I'm not going to dig through a pile of books to find you a quote. You seem to enjoy doing that, and that is great, but I am not invested enough in this to do that. I'm 90% sure it has already been sourced in this thread by someone else, anyway. 

All of which is tangential. You aren't going to stop thinking DB are basically a weird monster alien race that most people are going to mistake for lizard men or associate with evil cults, and everyone is not going to stop rolling their eyes at that idea.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 21, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yeah, I'm not going to dig through a pile of books to find you a quote. You seem to enjoy doing that, and that is great, but I am not invested enough in this to do that. I'm 90% sure it has already been sourced in this thread by someone else, anyway.
> 
> All of which is tangential. You aren't going to stop thinking DB are basically a weird monster alien race that most people are going to mistake for lizard men or associate with evil cults, and everyone is not going to stop rolling their eyes at that idea.




Well, OK. You were the one that called me out asking why I believed that when the books say otherwise.

I had already gone through the books and posted all of the relevant quotes for and against the concept of them being common, how others would react, and what alliances they have. I did that specifically because I had said a few things and thought that it would probably be better if I went to the source to verify it before I said anymore.

The only line I can find in any Realms sourcebook is one comment in the 4th Ed Player's Guide for FR regarding their point of view towards the Gods. At the end it says "Although few dragonborn have found themselves in the service of traditionally wicked institutions, they cannot share the tenets and beliefs of the organizations they serve."

That might be the one you were thinking about. Since there are other passages that specifically state the they are "also common (among the Cult of the Dragon), their militaristic ideals complementing the cult's ideology," along with there being an actual power group in Tymanther, I'd say that's pretty clear that they are plenty of dragonborn allied with the Cult.

You're right about the current state of my Realms in that the dragonborn, if I retain the Tymanther story-line at all, are still rare, and working through a phase where they do encounter problems out in the world beyond Tymanther. I suspect that this will be where I end up going, largely because I continue to hear great things about Erin's books, and I'd like to be able to retain them to some degree. I'll probably have to pick them up to read them too.

As for 'everyone rolling their eyes at it' - whatever, dude. I know there are a lot of people that really can't stand the direction things went with the Spellplague, etc. I don't offer any ill-will or eye-rolling to anybody who wants to run their Realms differently than mine. I encourage it. I find that the folks that come to the Realms from the 4th edition or video games are used to a much more cosmopolitan and fantastic world. Great for them. Many of the folks that have been playing in the Realms as long as I have feel that the changes that have been thrust upon the world change the feel too significantly. And there are lots of people that don't fall into either of those two categories. And 'everyone' is a lot of people.

I'm simply answering questions as to why I've set it up the way I have, and why I feel it's the right direction for my campaign. If I came across differently, that's my fault and I need to work on it. I find it interesting to hear what others have done, and I also really enjoy the questions and challenges that others present to me, because it forces me to think through things I might not have thought of. And that, along with digging into what little lore there is, is largely why I'll probably retain the little bit of Tymanther that's left. Not sure if, or when, I'd welcome dragonborn PCs in this campaign, but that's always dependent upon what the player comes up with for reasoning, background, and their plans on playing the character anyway.

I do find it interesting that the top selling Forgotten Realms Supplement on Amazon list of Best Selling D&D books after the _Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide_ is _Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms_ (#30) , followed by the several 3rd Edition books (Waterdeep, Cormyr, etc.) 3rd Edition [Campaign Setting (#73), then the Neverwinter Campaign Setting (#76), with the 4th Ed Player's Guide (#222) and Campaign Setting (#750) well behind. Along with the changes that have occurred during the Sundering and in the _Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide_ that the sales of that book was a strong indication that folks wanted to see the Realms go back to its roots. What exactly that entails is up to each particular campaign. I suspect that the Neverwinter setting is popular as a crossover from video games. I realize that none of this proves anything, and it's really not intended to.

But for a book that was published 4 years ago that doesn't include any game mechanics or rules - it's nothing but lore - to hold a spot that high is interesting. And I suspect it's high sales (combined with other book sales, surveys, and the 5th Ed playtesting) helped develop the direction they felt the Realms should take in the 5th edition.

And I should also point out that I personally am glad they didn't just do a straight retcon and totally eliminate the Spellplague, Returned Abeir, etc. I get a feeling I'm in a minority here as well, but I think it was very smart to allow the people that liked the 4th Edition world and all it entailed to not be abandoned, so they can continue in the direction their Realms is growing. It's tricky to validate such diverse viewpoints and approaches as valid, and while I'm not entirely sure how well they succeeded, I respect the attempt.

Ilbranteloth


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 21, 2016)

I think that, whatever the source books migjt say about the relative rarity of dragonborn, that was never the way they were presented in any adventures written for 4e or 5e, and I think that's what really matters.  They're common enough that the quest givers don't even pay them any mind. There's no adventure notes that say "If a dragonborn or teifling is in the party. .." Part of that is just the way adventures are written,  but it also leads to player expectations of the world they exist within. No one ever bats an eye when a dragonborn walks into a tavern, so if you run into it, it becomes something of a big deal.


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## Hussar (Jan 21, 2016)

How is the best selling Realms books all being from 3e "going back to its roots"?  3e made some very deep changes to the Realms. Particularly moving it away from trad fantasy and into having a bajillion PC races and very much embracing changes made in 2e.


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## Mecheon (Jan 21, 2016)

3E added Thrii-Kreen to the realms

I mean, don't get me wrong, I am a Kreen fan through and through and gladly take the opportunity to play everyone's favourite mantis-people, but 3E was sort of the edition where they decided "Well, we need a setting where we can shove everything" and FR became it

Dragonborn are fine in cities when you consider what they're not. Which is any of the very present other 1,001 threats your average village might face

(I think I once had a sorcerer character in NWN who's entire backstory was that their parents were semi-famous adventurers due to defeating a bloody Pyroclastic dragon who someone found its way into FR. They also managed to blind a Drow by casting Light on their raven because it was 3 AM and they were a bit tired with squinting)


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 21, 2016)

Hussar said:


> How is the best selling Realms books all being from 3e "going back to its roots"?  3e made some very deep changes to the Realms. Particularly moving it away from trad fantasy and into having a bajillion PC races and very much embracing changes made in 2e.




Well, Ed's book is not from 3rd edition, it's really a throwback to 1st edition since that's the Realms that is closest to his own. In addition, the 1st and 2nd edition books are not as readily available, combined with the popularity of the 3rd edition rules. I just found it interesting.

While there are a lot more playable races in the 3rd edition, the sourcebooks themselves don't give any impression that those races are common. Planetouched, while pictured as more exotic, are nevertheless described as appearing primarily as human, and the concept of planetouched works really well with the Realms cosmology. The 2nd Edition was still made with a lot of Ed's involvement as well. So while he didn't embrace all of the changes in his campaign, the general feel was fairly consistent with the 1st edition.

Otherwise, the majority of the races in the actual Realms supplements are just existing monster races, now playable. In some areas that works very well. For example, if you wanted to run a native campaign in the Underdark, then you'd have a party of races native to the Underdark. Coming up with reasons for multiple races to work together, along with the interesting role-playing opportunities such an unlikely alliance would present would be quite cool. Taking that same party to the surface and expecting the general population to ignore that it's a group of "monsters" is a whole different thing.

But while gnolls are common in Thay, for example, and creating a gnoll character would work there, they also don't receive a warm treatment even in their homeland.

The pattern for 3rd edition releases was to include new races, (prestige) classes, spells, magic items, and/or monsters in every supplement. However, once you got into the lore portion of those books, the new races and such were almost entirely ignored. Gnolls are mentioned a number of times, but as monsters, or fighters and guards hired by the Thayans. Other races, such as the Taer and Volodni exist only in their specific regions, and if one of them were seen outside of those, PC or otherwise, people would treat them differently. Aside from the fact that it would be very, very rare, as in mostly never. It specifically says, for example, that they are "isolated in the remoter portions of the region or found only here."

So yes, they are available as playable races, but they are presented in a way that doesn't change the fundamental nature of the Realms. Individual campaigns, of course, could go whatever direction they wanted. And whether something is very rare, or even nearly unique, once you put it in as an option (and this includes the video games), they start to feel common. The natural assumption being that they are everywhere.



Mecheon said:


> 3E added Thrii-Kreen to the realms
> 
> I mean, don't get me wrong, I am a Kreen fan through and through and gladly take the opportunity to play everyone's favourite mantis-people, but 3E was sort of the edition where they decided "Well, we need a setting where we can shove everything" and FR became it
> 
> ...




Actually, Thri-Kreen have been mentioned as monsters in the south, the Shining Plains and Shaar since the 2nd Edition Campaign Setting. There is also note in that set of thri-kreen being among the monsters of the Mindulgulph Mercenary Company of Priapurl. They also include wemics, beholders, and other monsters.

With the Shining South, they introduced them as playable races. This followed suit with the general approach to make as many playable races as possible. But they are indicates as "reclusive and alien, even to those that share the plains with them." I like that they have unusual monsters and races in the Shaar and the south, it should feel like a foreign land in nearly every way. But I also think that those monsters and races are limited by culture and biology. Loxo are the same way.

I don't see any reason to turn either of them into playable races, really. The loxo, for example, are shown is standard D&D-era clothing with a dagger, and the thri-kreen have specialized weapons, one of which appears to be forged metal (presumably steel), the other crystalline. The thri-kreen is also wearing a skirt (Kilt? Loincloth?) when it doesn't really require anything of the sort.

Now, as other alien races you could argue that they brought the technologies of mining, metallurgy, smithing, etc., with them. Except that the rest of their culture in the Realms doesn't seem to support that. You could argue that they trade with others (and it does state the the loxo do), but again, for what? Some people might like things that look 'exotic' so trinkets and art. But I would think that as nomadic hunters on the great plains of the Shaar that they would have all crystalline, stone, or bone weapons. 

More importantly, the thri-kreen are described as having "no solid personalities as humans would define them. Unpredictable in everything they do, thri-kreen do not evidence much emotion in their behavioral patterns...the focus of the thri-kreen is always on survival, and they respect only prowess and strength," and they "neither seek nor shun contact with other races. They simply exist with other species and share territory so long as others do not begin to over hunt an area or waste precious resources." and "Lacking any sense of honor or loyalty, thri-kreen are a hard species with which to negotiate."

The loxo are a little better, essentially a 'primitive' culture of peaceful creatures that are only aggressive in self defense. It says they occasionally come to cities to trade their "rustic works of art" but I'm not sure what they would be trading for. I don't see them as a race that would use money, nor be trained in the use of weapons.

They try to give both of them a reason to be an adventurer, but they really don't make good PC races unless you ignore how alien they are, and play them as mostly human in a monster skin. 

So I love that they exist where they do, as monsters. It makes sense. They won't be wandering around many cities, although I could see the thri-kreen being used as a sort of intelligent pet, and that's how I'd probably approach the one in the Mindulgulph Mercenary Company.

I've already covered in great detail why I think that dragonborn would be viewed in a worse light than simply being "one of the 1,001 threats they're not." But the way that exotic races were introduced in the 2nd and 3rd edition, as rare creatures from a specific region, and some with quite unique treatments in regards to personalities, culture, and their relationships with the civilized cultures of the Realms is much better thought out and presented than the minimal treatment that the dragonborn received.

On the other hand, it's not surprising because in the 4th Ed, races and classes were for the most part the driving forces of the game, not the settings and lore. Throw in the video games in which not only are there lots of playable races, but that they are presented visually, and it's easy to see that the focus was/is very, very different.  

For those of us that started prior 1st edition, the "proper" way to roll a character was at the table. You rolled your stats, in order, using only 3d6. Because of race and class requirements, your abilities limited the options for selecting either. By the 1st Ed DMG (and several Dragon articles if I recall), other methods were used, but most everybody I've ever met used the 4d6 minus the lowest, arrange as you desire method so you had some control in choosing your class. The ability requirements, plus race level limitations, had a direct effect on how common a given race or class was in the game itself. Which meant the game as a whole had a feel that reflected how common those races and classes were in the setting. Paladins _required_ a STR 12, INT and CON of 9, WIS 13, and CHA 17. Characters with high abilities also gained a +10% XP bonus, and for a paladin that meant a STR and WIS of 15. Imagine before the publication of the DMG and the alternate methods to generate ability scores how common paladins were in our games when you had to roll those stats, using 3d6. In order. Paladins were very, very rare.

Then there were racial restrictions. Humans could reach any level in any class. Elves could be fighters (max 7th level, 6th if 16 or lower STR), magic-users (11 with 18 INT, 10 with 17, 9 if lower), thiefs (unlimited), or assassins (10th level). PC clerics could only be half-elven (5th level), half-orc (4th level) or human. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of this makes sense. I'm only pointing out that the game design itself has an impact on the perception of the players. Release 100+ races, and the idea that the people of the world are used to seeing exotic races becomes the 'normal' that the players expect. Forgotten Realms was 'normal' in the sense that the (A)D&D standard at the time was what set normal. As the 2nd and 3rd editions came out, the lore was largely maintained, despite the game system itself changing the concept of 'normal.' At the same time the Forgotten Realms was becoming the default setting where anything published would 'fit' and be allowed (although in a more regional and segregated manner than is thought today), they released the Dark Sun campaign where 'normal' was very specifically defined. That narrow (and unique) definition is what makes a game set in Athas instantly recognizable.

The Realms used to be more like that. And to a large degree, the lore through the 3rd edition maintained that. The exotic stuff was relegated to certain parts of the world. Kara-Tur existed, but was entirely separate. A character from Kara-Tur was a rare site in Faerun, most likely didn't speak the language, and didn't 'fit in.' They fit in with a motley band of adventurers, but once they got to town, not so much. 

The 5th edition lore so far leaves open the possibility for a more exotic Realms, if that's what you like. But most of it looks back to the earlier editions. That's not entirely unexpected, because in each edition there has been a lot of material that has simply been reprinted from the 1st edition. So it also makes it easy to maintain the same feel as the earlier editions, wherever you fall on that continuum.

Ilbranteloth


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 22, 2016)

KahlessNestor said:


> I think that, whatever the source books migjt say about the relative rarity of dragonborn, that was never the way they were presented in any adventures written for 4e or 5e, and I think that's what really matters.  They're common enough that the quest givers don't even pay them any mind. There's no adventure notes that say "If a dragonborn or teifling is in the party. .." Part of that is just the way adventures are written,  but it also leads to player expectations of the world they exist within. No one ever bats an eye when a dragonborn walks into a tavern, so if you run into it, it becomes something of a big deal.




Well, the only time there would be a note on how to handle characters of any race is if there was an exception to the default., or if there's a specific scenario where the reaction is important and shouldn't change regardless of the default in the campaign.

The default _is_ what's published in the source books, as interpreted and presented by the DM. So I wouldn't expect an adventure to say anything about how common a race is or isn't or what the reaction of others would be unless it differs from what's published in the source book.

Which means, if it doesn't matter in your campaign, then it doesn't matter here. If it _does_ matter in your campaign, then it matters here as well.

Ilbranteloth


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 22, 2016)

and the gold metal for mental gymnastics goes to.....


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 24, 2016)

doctorbadwolf said:


> and the gold metal for mental gymnastics goes to.....




I fail to see how the source being the source unless something else specifically and explicitly changes it to be a stretch of logic, but whatever dude.

Ilbranteloth


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## Nemio (Jan 24, 2016)

I have a question about Dragonborn vs Sorcerors from another race who have the Draconic Bloodline origin.

Draconic ancestry gives such a human sorceror in my party a double proficiency bonus whenever making a Charisma check when interacting with Dragons.  

I also have a Dragonborn fighter in my party who does not have such a benefit and might be pissed when he learns this. He does look more like a dragon than the human after all.

How can this be explained from ingame RP reasons?
Do dragons detect the innate magic in the blood of the sorceror which makes them respect him more?


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## KahlessNestor (Jan 24, 2016)

I would go with that explanation, yes.


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## Ilbranteloth (Jan 24, 2016)

Nemio said:


> I have a question about Dragonborn vs Sorcerors from another race who have the Draconic Bloodline origin.
> 
> Draconic ancestry gives such a human sorceror in my party a double proficiency bonus whenever making a Charisma check when interacting with Dragons.
> 
> ...




I would just describe the sorcerer's ability as being magical in nature. Not even really a question of the dragons respecting him more, just a magical effect.

Ilbranteloth


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