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Post by Trailfoot on Mar 17, 2009 13:42:27 GMT -8
We need Anthrosian niches for the PHB2 races! Given Anthros's wildly different backstory from Points of Light, and its different cosmology, many of the new races really can't work with their flavor from Core. So... here's where we talk them out!
Deva: I was thinking of having these as reincarnations of people who died with great potential unrealized - powerful souls released too early. They've always existed, but are becoming more common since Tereus's rise.
That's the only one I've thought in-depth about. I think Devas should hatch from cocoons when they're born, since they're born as adults... but that might be because their flavor reminds me a lot of a very un-D&D-like anime series, Haibane Renmei.
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Bladedancer
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Post by Bladedancer on Mar 17, 2009 21:17:56 GMT -8
Goliaths
Once there were (and perhaps there still are) gem-eyed giants who moved in the earth, hearing the song of the stone and mending the bones of the world. They were the Utrini. When Moradin made the Dwarves, and set them to mining the earth, they found great caves the Utrini had sculpted and took them for Dwarfholts. For the Utrini, these little creatures who lived in and picked at the earth were distracting... and, for a few, fascinating. One Utrini, at last, took stone and earth and breathed into them a kind of life - a great mountain of a creature, flesh gray as slate and bones like stone, with the same gem eyes as their makers. But the Utrini had no arts to teach their children - no mining, no sculpture. So the children of the Utrini took to hunting the deep places of the earth, and to raiding, and so they have gone on since time immemorable.
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Post by Trailfoot on Mar 17, 2009 21:28:56 GMT -8
Alternate Idea for Devas, and one I like better:
The Will is a fickle entity, and does things for reasons no one - not even the Ascendants who can touch it directly - truly understands. Thus come the Devas, souls favored by the Will for reasons only it knows, and granted an odd sort of immortality for it.
Each Deva is a soul that has been reborn continually, for centuries. As the Will can only touch Anthrosian souls, there are no Devas who were, in their first lives, pureblooded Rabneans - all have at least some blood from Anthrosians. When a Deva dies, their soul behaves just as the soul of any other mortal race - they stay near the corpse for a given period of time, then are released. Yet Deva souls do not go to a deity and are not dispersed into the Astral Sea - they are, instead, sent to the Dreaming and reborn.
Once in the Dreaming, the soul creates a new body for itself from dreamstuff. This body is an adult - any lives in which they were children is so long-lost that they cannot remember a hint of them. In their new form, they find themselves in a chaotic dreamscape, made up of fragments of events from previous lives, piled together haphazardly. These dreams will form the memories of the Deva's new incarnation.
In the dreamscape, the Deva knows but one thing - he must escape the dreamscape and claw his way back to Anthros. It takes years for the new incarnation to develop the will to rip free of the dreamscape, which deposits them on Anthros, somewhere that was important to one of their previous incarnations, ripping a momentary portal to that new location. It is only then that the Deva is considered an adult. However, there is another way...
For Tiamat, too inhabits the Dreaming. And Tiamat sends visions into the dreamscapes of the immature Devas, offering easy ways out - accept help, accept a little corruption. Those who accept are incarnated as the highest form of nightmare-spirit, the Rakshasa.
Whether Deva or Rakshasa, their choice only lasts for a single incarnation, yet memories of all incarnations - regardless of form - show in the future dreamscapes. It is said that each time a Deva finds an incarnation as a Rakshasa, escaping the dreamscape under their own power becomes just a little harder...
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Post by Nephallim on Mar 17, 2009 22:17:45 GMT -8
Re: Devas.
I liked the first one better. Maybe devas are the souls of Fallen Star ancestors who were displaced by the rise of other spirits. Rather than fade into obscurity, these enlightened souls choose to resume mortal life, in hopes of achieving deeds of heroism worthy of reclaiming their position in the ancestral court?
Devas from the northern continent might be the souls of wizards who attempted the immortality ritual and failed. They successfully bound their souls to the world, but failed to empower their bodies.
As for how they're reborn... maybe no one really knows, not even the devas themselves.
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Post by Trailfoot on Mar 18, 2009 9:04:36 GMT -8
I think that the part of the second background that really captures me is the dreamscape bit, with Tiamat and the Rakshasas.
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Post by Nephallim on Mar 18, 2009 9:16:19 GMT -8
That can easily be added into my Fallen Star idea. Ancestor spirits who become corrupt reincarnate as evil shadows of their past selves. You can keep the Rakshasha fluff or create a new monster to represent this. Or both. You can also say that Tiamat has a vested interest in corrupting these souls and puts a lot of resources into it.
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Post by Trailfoot on Mar 18, 2009 9:28:50 GMT -8
I... really don't want to link them to the Fallen Star. I'd rather them be a much more universal phenomenon.
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Post by Nephallim on Mar 18, 2009 9:59:19 GMT -8
Fair enough, but how about offering different explanations as to why they reincarnate based on background? In the Fallen Star they might be souls fallen from ancestor status or close to achieving enlightenment. In the Core they might be the remnants of wizards who failed to make themselves immortal. I can even see 'Dark Devas' showing up in the far North as souls cursed by Tereus to repeat life subject to Blin... over, and over, and over again. Maybe some of the devas everywhere are beloved of the Will and reincarnate for that reason.
I'd rather see variety than limitations. What we can keep uniform is the how of their reincarnation. They all visit the Dreaming between lives and there encounter Tiamat's temptation.
Sound good?
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Bladedancer
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Post by Bladedancer on Mar 18, 2009 16:01:47 GMT -8
Nephallim -
While "options, not restrictions" is a good mantra for classes and characters, races by their very nature are designed to be a little more woven into the fabric of a setting. What you're suggesting could certainly work as a race, and might even be effectively modeled with the Deva template (like using a Warforged write-up for a magical construct warrior), but it doesn't seem like it ought to be lumped in with the same racial background as the Deva "proper." A new name and some new flavor would make it more suitable, I would think.
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Post by Nephallim on Mar 18, 2009 17:10:50 GMT -8
Nephallim - While "options, not restrictions" is a good mantra for classes and characters, races by their very nature are designed to be a little more woven into the fabric of a setting. What you're suggesting could certainly work as a race, and might even be effectively modeled with the Deva template (like using a Warforged write-up for a magical construct warrior), but it doesn't seem like it ought to be lumped in with the same racial background as the Deva "proper." A new name and some new flavor would make it more suitable, I would think. What we're talking about here is altering the racial background of the deva to make it uniquely Anthrosian. The root of the race's flavor is 'immortal souls that find their way back to the material world through reincarnation.' I'm suggesting a plurality for A. reasons the souls are immortal and B. why they reincarnate. Ultimately the difference in flavor amounts to the same as one human nation being flavored more European while another is flavored more Japanese. On another note, I think it would be neat if 'devas' from different backgrounds called themselves by different names. I've always been a believer in the idea that OOC name =/= IC terminology (though in the past the idea was limited to class).
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Bladedancer
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Post by Bladedancer on Mar 19, 2009 16:11:47 GMT -8
I think the problem with the idea of having a plurality of origins is that it reduces the uniquely Anthrosian flavor - or, in fact, the flavor period. Naturally, you can certainly look at it like different nationalities, but I think a more accurate analogy for what you're suggesting on the flavor end is having one race called "humanoid" and having Orcs, Humans, etc all grouped under it. They have similar background elements, after all - created by God X, live in cities in area Y, and so on.
That's ad absurdum, of course, but it illustrates the point that having different origins for why the souls reincarnate is a pretty big deal in terms of flavor, and a name of a race should conjure flavor even more than it defines a particular set of rules. Races are one particular area in which I think making a distinction that IC and OCC names need to match for flavor reasons is valid and important.
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Post by Shiningwolf on Mar 19, 2009 18:20:49 GMT -8
Another Goliath fluff suggestion. When Kronin returned and saw the state of the world, he realized he needed to do something. As the world stood, the dragons, and their gods, were slowly losing their importance. To fix this, he knew he needed to get believers, and figured he could get some servants for the dragons as well. But creating a new race is not easy, and Kronin had little knowledge on how to do it. So, he took the most basic of materials, the earth, and imbued it with life. To accurately reflect their creator, Kronin gave these new beings great strength, endurance, an inherent bravery, and a sizable frame. The resulting creatures were goliaths. However, the goliaths did not please Kronin, as they were mostly interested in wandering, and had little interest in listening to the god's commands. Kronin, frustrated, threw them to the side forbidding them from ever settling down, and set out to make an even better race to serve and worship the dragons. The goliaths left alone, wondered the land, with no goal in mind. To prevent boredom, they started playing games, with the more dangerous the game, the more fun it was considered. Finally, a goliath who wanted to top all the others bet he could attack and raid a dragonborn settlement, and get away with it. The goliaths fellows all thought this was a wonderful idea and joined in. Since then, an almost constant conflict existed between the two, for the dragonborn wished to protect their homes and the goliaths wished for fun.
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Post by Trailfoot on Mar 19, 2009 18:34:20 GMT -8
RE: Goliaths
Them being creations of Kronin dilutes the Dragonborn. I can see them as being children of Bahamut, though.
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Post by Shiningwolf on Mar 19, 2009 18:43:23 GMT -8
I can see that working. Would they have come up before the dragonborn, or as a response to them? and on that note, when did bahamut and kronin return in relation to each other, time wise.
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Post by Nephallim on Mar 19, 2009 18:46:52 GMT -8
I've been talking to Trail online a bit about deva and came up with this:
A. Devas are mortal souls compelled to reincarnate as full adults on death. (the obvious)
B. Devas reincarnate in this fashion because of the influence of the Will of Anthros, usually because they have attracted her attention in some way.
C. The manner in which they attract this attention can differ. One soul might inspire the Will's sympathy by falling from a position of respect and power. Another might raise her curiosity by attempting to become a true Immortal (and failing). Still another might be forced to reincarnate as a punishment, made immortal by the Darkest Suffering through his influence over the Will.
D. Some deva are vaguely aware of how they came to be bound to the world. Others haven't the faintest clue. Their approach to their state varies from deva to deva. One might quest to free himself from the cycle of rebirth by living justly. Another might believe it is her mission to accumulate knowledge and experience until she becomes a complete person in the truest sense of the word. Still another might quest after arcane lore that will break the Darkest Suffering's hold over his life.
E. When devas are between lives, they visit the Dreaming, where they attempt to find a path to rebirth and are tempted by Tiamat's promise of expedience. Those who choose the easy path reincarnate as rakshasha and when between lives again find it harder to find their own path to a new life.
One of the reasons I'd like to see a variety in the deva race is because their basic fluff, immortals bound to reincarnate ad infinitum, inspires a lot of different basic backgrounds in my mind. I believe we can find a fluff in Anthros that allows for this plurality while tying the race together with a common theme, namely the influence of the Will.
I understand the need for relatively tight racial themes and flavor. Actually, I'm a little annoyed with a player in the table-top game I run who plays his eladrin like an angry human. The unifying theme I see in the deva is the journey. All deva know they are trapped in a cycle of reincarnation. All deva have some knowledge of their past lives. Some deva might have a vague sense of why they're stuck. For others, discovering why might be their driving goal. The point is, the sort of 'racial story' I see the deva having is the story of the endless journey, and what each member of the race makes of it.
So, thoughts?
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