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Thread: Races of Aduria

  1. #1
    Administrator Green Knight's Avatar
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    Hi,

    What non-human races would be suitable for placement in Aduria?

    Personally I have the gnolls (beastmen) as a quite profilic race. In addition I have found room for centaurs, wemics, and lizardfolk.

    Anyone have any ideas related to this matter?

    B
    Cheers
    Bjørn
    DM of Ruins of Empire II PbeM

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    I would say anyhting that can be found in cerilia more or less.

    Dragons, giants (maybe add fire giants and other types), elves , dwarves (maybe wern't forced back into the mountains by the elves), gnolls, goblins, kobolds, orog's(perhaps not forced underground), ogre , troll, sahuagin, centaur.

    Beastmen different from gnolls more corupted humans. Lizardfolk maybe.
    MORNINGSTAR

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    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    I have Adurian beastmen being a race engineered by Azrai or one of his chief minions (a sorcerer or priest). Humans and orogs were cross-bred to create a race of strong, reliable warrior-slaves who were elite shock troops for the Adurian armies up to the time of Deismaar. After the cataclysm and the collapse of imperial order, some of the surviving beastmen managed to escape their bondage and win freedom (when the priestly magic disappears, the rule of sword and strength begins). Others remained in bondage under emerging human and orog warlords. Today there is at least one beastman realm (Korgathnar) in eastern Aduria, and scattered bands/clans/tribes elsewhere.

    The biggest advantage of beastmen over orogs is they are less hampered by daylight [-1 to checks, while orogs IMC are either sickened (successful Fort save)or nauseated (failed Fort save) in daylight] while still retaining some darkvision (60&#39. They also tend to be less fractious than some orog tribes, more readily accepting a strong leader and their own place within a hierarchy. Of course, they aren't quite so monstrously strong as orogs, nor do they retain the intuitive underground senses and lore of the orogs.

    I had sketched out a jungle realm far to the south inhabited by dragon-worshipping yuan-ti, who plot to invade and enslave the human realms on their northern borders. The purebred elite are blooded, and most often sorcerers (the favored class of the yuan-ti nobility). IMC dragons are blooded because they are inherently divine creatures with their own (Draconic) derivation. Mortal creatures with draconic bloodlines might have been spawned by polymorphed dragons. A race like the yuan-ti might represent the blending of Azrai's line with a draconic one, spawning all sorts of abominations thanks to some ancient awnshegh and dragon progenitors. Scary.

    Osprey

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    Green Knight schrieb:



    >This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

    > You can view the entire thread at:

    > http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...ST&f=21&t=2937

    >

    > Green Knight wrote:

    > Hi,

    >What non-human races would be suitable for placement in Aduria?

    >Personally I have the gnolls (beastmen) as a quite profilic race. In addition I have found room for centaurs, wemics, and lizardfolk.

    >Anyone have any ideas related to this matter?

    >

    As Azrai used a gnoll-like creature in the appendix to "Greatheart" as

    his champion I also find a few gnoll realms across Aduria approbiate,

    not just one like that in northeast Brechtür.



    One Dragon article had the Yak-Men who use realmspells to steal the

    bloodline of their enemies placed in Aduria...

    bye

    Michael

  5. #5
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    At 06:14 PM 1/17/2005 +0100, Green Knight wrote:



    >What non-human races would be suitable for placement in Aduria?

    >

    >Personally I have the gnolls (beastmen) as a quite profilic race. In

    >addition I have found room for centaurs, wemics, and lizardfolk.

    >

    >Anyone have any ideas related to this matter?



    I think the lizardfolk idea is a good one, though a version of them that is

    less oriented towards swamps would need to be described. Since Aduria

    represents a southern continental progression, I think we should start

    heading toward populations that are more oriented towards that kind of

    climate. Reptilian race (like lizardfolk or yuan-ti but with a BR flair)

    should probably be included.



    Less obvious might be races of intelligent simians or avians--if depicted

    existing pretty far afield from Cerilia in particular environments so as to

    justify their lack of migration to that continent. IIRC, the idea of a

    leonine race was used pretty extensively in Ian Hoskin`s Aduria

    expansion. I think that`s a pretty sensible race to exist, though I don`t

    think there should be many of them since... well, to get a little technical

    here it makes less sense to have very prolific intelligent races based on

    what are mostly carnivorous species since that population by definition can

    exist in numbers that relate to the ability of the race to feed on

    herbivores (or, at least, less carnivorous) species. If one is going to

    premise vast herds of creatures like American bison upon which such a

    population can develop then it starts to make more sense--though it needs

    to be noted that such populations rarely develop beyond a stone age level

    technology and their populations remain, therefore, relatively sparse. A

    race of lion-men is a cool idea... but it starts to strain credibility

    fairly quickly IMO.



    I`m leery of centaurs and wemics or any "tauric" creatures existing on a

    large, domain level scale controlling their own realms per se rather than

    existing as populations within other civilizations, though that idea seems

    popular with lots of folks. Those races just seem a bit too powerful in

    regular D&D terms for inclusion in a continental expansion, so unless they

    are going to be totally redefined as different from the versions we have in

    3e/3.5 I would keep them out. (It wouldn`t be that difficult to redefine

    them, but people seem loathe to do that for some reason, so if the option

    is a version that is close to the D&D write up or not including them at all

    the latter choice seems more prudent.)



    As for "standard" races, I think goblins are quite prolific. We know very

    little about goblin origins in BR, but they seem fairly ubiquitous and

    their breeding cycle would seem to indicate they could exist in large

    numbers. In BR goblins are depicted in a more "civilized" light than in

    most other settings, so it`s not hard to see them as populating much of the

    globe. In a like manner, orogs should probably exist in similar numbers as

    they do in Cerilia. To be honest, these races should probably be more

    prevalent than new and more "original" ones. The trick isn`t so much to

    come up with new races IMO as it is to redefine them culturally for their

    particular regions.



    The big picture to me, however, is how extensive these kinds of races will

    be. In general, I don`t think they should appear more frequently than

    non-human races do in Cerilia, and less would probably make better

    sense. In some cases the races might have single, unique realms. Though

    I`d be concerned with an overuse of centaurs or wemics, as I mentioned, a

    realm with up to three provinces (say, the size of Spiderfell, for example)

    would be completely sensible IMO. I`d just be concerned with such races

    getting overused in a way that had them doing something like effectively

    replacing Cerilian elves.



    Gary

  6. #6
    Administrator Green Knight's Avatar
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    Originally posted by geeman@Jan 17 2005, 08:00 PM
    I`m leery of centaurs and wemics or any "tauric" creatures existing on a large, domain level scale controlling their own realms per se rather than existing as populations within other civilizations, though that idea seems popular with lots of folks. Those races just seem a bit too powerful in regular D&D terms for inclusion in a continental expansion, so unless they are going to be totally redefined as different from the versions we have in 3e/3.5 I would keep them out. (It wouldn`t be that difficult to redefine them, but people seem loathe to do that for some reason, so if the option is a version that is close to the D&D write up or not including them at all
    the latter choice seems more prudent.)
    I think I'll try my hand at some down-powered versions of tauric creatures. I like both the cantaur and the wemic, but as you say thay are massively powerful and that would make little sense if they were to rule domains.

    B
    Cheers
    Bjørn
    DM of Ruins of Empire II PbeM

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    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    You know mongrelmen would seem to fit the theme. Especially as portrayed in 2nd ed. There mostly the result of experiments and no two were alike. The 3.5 version radically changed them and I'm not certain I like it, but mechanically it is easier to handle.

    They could represent Azrais ever changing aspect and the fact that he didn't like to leave things alone.
    Duane Eggert

  8. #8
    Birthright Developer Raesene Andu's Avatar
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    I considered Mongrelmen when I was decided what stats to use in my Adurian campaign, but rejected them in favour of a race based off the half-ogre from Races of Destiny. Mongrelfolk are in that book as well if you are interested, but I don't recomend you buy it, especially as it spend 30 pages telling you how to play a human character...

    The original ideas for the new Aduria races from TSR were Wermics, Beastmen, Yuan-Ti, and Genies. Rich Baker's info he wrote up for Dragon (most of which was never published) also mentioned Gnolls in northern Aduria.

    In my version of Aduria I left the Wermics as a NPC race and made Beast-men, gnolls, djinn and two reptillian races (one serpent-like) as the new PC races. I also included a variant of the halflings (Desert Halflings using Unearthed Arcana variant).

    Personally, I wouldn't like to see Goblins, Orogs, Elves or Dwarves in Aduria, although dwarves would be acceptable I guess if they didn't show up much.
    Let me claim your Birthright!!

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    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Mongrelfolk are also in Races of Destiny which is what I primary basing my opinion on (3.5 wise that is).
    Duane Eggert

  10. #10
    Birthright Developer Raesene Andu's Avatar
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    As I said I did consider Mongrelfolk first off, but when I considered why Azrai would want to create a race of beastmen to start with, I settled on a variant of the half-orge, primarily because in my version of Aduria the beastmen were the core of Azrai's armies, therefore they needed to be a combat oriented race.
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