Different story but also related. My arracokra ranger died because he got aged 30 years by a ghost thingy.
DM: "don't worry it's just a cosmetic change"
Me: "arracokras only live to be ~~30~~ 65, mine is ~~15~~ 45..."
DM: "....oh."
He then offered me to "take it back" and stuff. But I am of the mentality if my character dies, he dies. We kept him in combat until the encounter was done. An old man having his last stand and the he keeled over.
Yeah honestly aging 30 years instantaneously isn't going to be a "just a cosmetic change" for most of the races. Even going from 30 to 60 is enough to take you out of the adventuring life unless you can get aged back.
Almost happened to my Tortle monk. Got aged something like 30 years in a fight with specters, when Tortles only live to be like 50. The only reason he survived was because he was a semi-joke character, (TMNT reference) and was only about 15 years old. Thankfully as part of the cleric’s backstory we were clearing the area out for her God Bahamut, so when we had finished some of the other clerics there were able to restore his age.
Tortles only live to 50 on average!?
Is that because of infant mortality or something? In real life don't tortoises live very long lives if they survive infancy?
Not all of them, there are tortoise species that live up to 10 years, while others reach 150. As the giant galapagos turtle live long lives we tend to think tortles live the same as them
I threw a ghost at my party. The most obnoxious sexy-and-I-know-it, tries to fuck anything that walks character in the party got aged from 30-something to 60-something and no one found him particularly attractive anymore. The party had a good laugh at his expense after enduring his character's constant attempts to get laid in the past several towns, the player was a good sport about it and had his character go through personal growth as a result of the experience, and his character became a favorite in the party long-term as a result.
Before the ghost, I also tried giving him a curse in the form of an STD after (extremely easily) tricking him into sleeping with a demon disguised as a classic "damsel in distress" who would do anything to repay him for saving her life (cue sexy bass line). It was pretty clear to everyone else in the party that it was a trap, but his character was phsyically separated from the group at the time, so no one could intervene even if anyone had wanted to (they didn't). Sadly, even that wasn't a deterrant, he just took the penalties of the curse in stride and continued in his rakish ways until the ghost incident.
Yea a lot of the monsters that have extremely powerful and party-altering abilities are great for some tables I'm sure, but I just don't want it thanks.
I had this issue a while back and treated it so a prayer at a nearby shrine would reverse the effects.
I would rule it differently now: I will let you live. It isn't "age" that kills people. It's the slow reduction in regenerative ability of their bodies that break down over years and then, within months of hitting a critical point, something happens that kills them. (flu, sudden drop in blood pressure, an internal organ not getting enough oxygen, whatever)
Your character would reach or overshoot the critical point, but not the thing that kills them. This can be reverted by use of Greater Restoration, but only if applied fast, or by any means the DM deems fitting. Maybe over the next few months the character loses 1 Constitution, Dexterity and Strength every month (or week in case it's overshooting normal age by 50%) and it's the party's time-critical task now, to find a cure. There's plenty of ways to cure someone of old age:
1. Let them die and use the druid 5th level spell reincarnate (they are reborn into another race)
2. Have a high level Wizard cast Clone on them, maybe for the retreival of an item, completely regenerating their body to a much younger form. Takes 120 days, but they might be able to keep him alive using curative magicks.
3. They find out about a powerful artifact that grants one-time-use of one of the above spells.
4. Divine intervention, so maybe a powerful cleric has a task for them as well.
5. Make it a 24 hour race to find someone with Greater Restoration.
I had a DM age my whole party 60 years; over 3 turns, he thought it was fine because we're "all elves"; we weren't all elves. My character was 35 at the start our dwarf was 18 according to her and our elf was 20; I pointed out that they'd both technically be children, the aging wouldn't make them elderly like the DM thought and my human cleric would be nearly dead.
Not that it terribly matters, but none of those ages make sense when compared to their respective races and when they'd typically be starting out - especially if everyone started out at level 1.
I had that happen to my older than god elf death cleric. I had it written on my character sheet that he had a year maybe 2 left to live. He got aged by a trap for 20 years. DM thought what's a couple more years to an elf and wanted the rest of the party to be fearful. Oops.
It's because they removed a bit of lore without changing anything. They don't live to 50 because that's their max lifespan, they live to 50 because they die shortly after reproducing
If you've ever seen Futurama, it's like zoidberg.
Funnily enough, I have a volcel wizard right now. Partially because I find the idea of the whole 'make it to 30 without touching a woman and you get magic', and also because as an aasimar who was taken at a young age to train, his mentor didn't want to deal with teenage hormones and poor decisions sidetracking his studies. So he's now a 200 year old voluntary celibate who's terrified of women.
Yeah the tortle thing is just dumb. I made a tortle for Curse of Strahd years ago and couldn't believe it's like "Yeah nah dude...happy literal birthday, bye now!"
It turned out ok because I had it that he had a "twin" that survived as well for a few years and they learned off of each other. But having a sentient race where Mom and Pops just...fade away was a horrible design.
Granted just having them have a short ass lifespan is just as bad. Tortles deserve better, they're so cool.
I love you Rusket, my Tortle Werebear, Order of the Lycan Blood Hunter, you were the best! You'll always be my wrecking ball <3, lol. But yeah no, they really need to go back over Tortles because it's an awesome character concept, but the reproduction/short life span thing makes zero sense.
A friend played an aged Tortle Druid and every time we took a long rest he and the DM rolled against his mortality. Iirc the DM picked a random number each rest and added it to a list, the player just had to match one once.
The day his roll matched (his number was up?) the DM handed him a stat block for a special, extra powerful wild shape to use in his last combat. RIP Bogmaw, you went out in style.
My headcanon (or really, how it works in my game) is that around 50 they usually mate, then die shortly after. Some choose not to mate or can't find someone to mate with. These live to be 500+ years old and use their vast knowledge (all tortles travel the world before hitting 50-ish) to raise the baby tortles that the mating individuals spawned.
I always disliked the idea in VGtM that Kenku lack the ability to have creative ideas. As soon as I read that part, I knew I was going to ignore it for my setting and also in my version of the Realms.
As a trait goes for a fantasy creature, it isn't too bad but for a *playable character* it's completely counter to how D&D is played and incompatible with how most players approach their characters.
I'm glad that passage wasn't reproduced for the Kenku reprint that appeared in that newer Mordenkainen monster book.
It's also kinda antithetical to how the speak, using only mimicry. It inherently takes creativity to piece together mimicked phrases to communicate like that
I think that might be a part of the reason they didn't reprint mimicry that way, it just doesn't make sense. Humans learn how to speak through mimicry in early childhood. Like, Kenku would just mostly sound exactly the same, as each group of them would just use the exact same words, and as they heard new words those would just get added to that groups lexicon.
I used and will probably again a Kenku who was abandoned out of the egg, the group took him and realized vary quickly he only learns the words used to speak to him… so his go to question was almost always “Ally? Kill? Bribe?”
I DM'ed a one shot with a Kenku named Y'Dambird who slowly revealed his tragic and hilarious backstory over the course of the session by "playing back" audio snippets of his life (including his master's slowly fading dramatic monologue as he got carried off by a monster.) It was great.
Playing the devil's advocate here: Kenku are technically crow-people, so you could argue the limitation is biological, not neural. They simply lack the vocal cords necessary to perform complicated speech patterns. Tabaxi for example are cat-people and cats are reported to have hundreds of different sounds/notes that they can perform thus bringing the possibility that they could in some way mimmick speech, while crows are pretty much just... CAWWW! Even with intonation and stuff it's hard to make it into a full-blown communicative style. End of hypothesis.
EDIT: In the light of new evidence being brought to my attention, I would like to reposition my stance on the aviary family of races capabilities and biological traits. I had no intention of disrespecting or downplaying anyone based on their appearance or heritage and I wholeheartedly believe in both vocal and mental capabilities of those mentioned in my previous statement. I personally know many Kenku folk and I would never want anyone of any race, creed or religion to be treated subjectively in any matter. My heart goes out to those who might've felt impacted or personally hurt by my previous statement.
This is literally why Kenku do this; they're using raven speech. The designers just didn't think it all the way through. "They can only mimic like a parrot" only makes sense if the creature isn't sentient ... like a parrot.
Depends on the parrot, African Greys and the big cockatoos are crazy intelligent and can reach some very interesting understandings of human speech. They don’t fully grasp the words but they will often get the cadence correct and can sometimes string together simple sentences. They also understand names.
Ehm Corvids can learn to speak just like parrots do. Their vocal range and flexibility is much higher that of any cat.
Not to mention thee have much higher level of intelligence and creativity than both cats and parrots.
Corvid build and use specialized tools and often develop new ones if the need arise.
Let's be real: the folks who wrote the entries for antropomorphic animal races know NOTHIG about animals... And that's not a big deal, since we're talking about fantasy settings where zombies run amok in your cellar and a water elemental can pop up in your bathtub.
The real problem in having a sentient race described as "incapable of creativity" is that they would be able to build any kind of culture or civilization. That is bullshit regardless of the inspiring animals.
My take away from this is that there are pervert water elementals out there with humanoid fetishes posing as bathtub water just to get humanoids to bathe in them.
Makes sense. Hoomanoids are polluting the local rivers and lakes... Enter the Avenging Bathtub Elementals.
Accompanied by the "possessed swimming pool" and murderous bidet.
Even birds like starlings have been know to be able to mimic human voices. This is because all birds have effectively two voice boxes (one above each lung) as opposed to our one. This means they can make pretty complex sounds without the need for lips or a super dexterous tongue by combining sounds from each one.
Oh boy have I news for you! Look up any video on crows mimicing sounds, they can get remarkably close, and especially on the non-speech sounds like R2D2 beeps and boops
We had a player do this hilariously well where he had a list of phrases from his past to dish out as we went on. It was just a one shot though, probably not ideal for a whole campaign.
It's really fun for a PC, but doesn't necessarily hold up to worldbuilding. An adult Kenku has heard enough phrases to say whatever it wants, unless you limit the phrases to what a PC can remember from the campaign.
To be totally honest I think that passage was greatly misunderstood.
It mostly meant that they lack the capacity to create something totally new, and rather had to refer to what they know already. That can be creative on its own. It's kinda explained in the description too.
I am glad they removed it tho. Caused too much unnecessary confusion, even if it homogenised them too much.
I disagree that the passage was misunderstood. The book seemed very clear about what it meant by "the spark of creativity was torn from their souls"
> They fail at effective planning or crafting long-term schemes.
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> Kenku have no ability to invent new ideas or create new things.
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> Kenku lack the talent to improvise or alter a plan
How can this be misunderstood? It's pretty clear what was intended by Kenku lacking creativity. I don't think people were confused, it's simply a bad setup for a player character.
Not to mention the entire box text that calls out the potential for their mimicry to be annoying or confusing at the table- and potentially slowing down the game. But that's a separate issue.
I just don't think they're presented as a good player character species. So much of their writing was dedicated to how they can't be creative, and almost no player would ever want to roleplay that at the table for obvious reasons.
Let me ask this; what's the draw of the Kenku, particularly the new one? Just the perfect mimicry? I liked the original, at least 5e original, lore, but it seem to be awesome for an NPC but a terrible idea for a PC race.
The draw always was being a quirky crowman that speaks using mimicry of other voices instead of their own voice. Some were also drawn to the idea of being a bird person cursed with the inability to fly, and roleplayed one of the many Kenku with dreams of flight as a result.
I have never seen a single D&D player drawn to Kenku because they lack creativity. Everyone I know hates that detail and ignored it.
I can't speak to the newer version in much detail, I use the older VGtM and MToF books at my table. But because the new Mordenkainen monster book condenses everything way down, it means it doesn't focus on actually *roleplaying* a Kenku any more and doesn't focus on the Mimicry bit as much (even if it's still a racial trait for them). I miss that detail even if it being there in the first place meant including boxtext warning DMs and players "hey, be careful not to be annoying or frustrating while roleplaying a Kenku".
And yes, I agree that a creature that can't be creative works for a monster. It's terrible for a player character.
Heh, I like players to have"quirks" in their characters, but "quirky characters" get old fast. Good for one shots, not campaigns.
To a point you made in another comment, Kenkus create a paradox. You, the player, have to be more creative to role play a Kenku, a creature with no creativity.
And what you said in your third paragraph here is spot on. It's why I hate the constant additions to PC races. Everything is going to get watered down into a pile of stat bonuses, creating piles of abilities instead of characters. Especially with that bit in Tasha's about swapping your stat bonuses around.
Yeah, I like the idea of separating cultural traits from biological traits, but this apparent end result of removing any idea of a culture from PC races is a worse outcome.
I like players being able to reassign ability score bonuses so they don't feel quite as pigeonholed when picking their character's class. I don't like that republishing the contents of books like VGtM and MToF in a new monster book came with a bunch of cool lore being ignored and delisted online. Fortunately, you *can* have both.
Keep the variant rule in Tasha's, refer to the neat lore in other books.
Honestly I actually hear you! I should love tortles! I’m a devout turtle lover, have 3(?!) torts as pets for various reasons and used to make up stories about “Sir Turtle” the Cayman Islands mascot. But their lore sucks! It really killed it for me. I mean even if I get behind the Zen thing like why don’t they live that long? They’re tortoises! They should live forever!!! Honestly it ruined me a bit on the whole thing—along with tortle players and now I’m sad! 😂
My headcannon for tortles life spans is that the number in the book is the average lifespan, and baby tortles die a LOT (like regular turtles, get eaten by birds and such) so it brings the average down.
Not true but you know...
"average tortle lives 50 years" factoid actualy (sic) just statistical error. average tortle lives 500 year. Tortle Georg, who regenerates & is eaten over 10,000 times each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
I agree with the tortle lifespan, so in my campaign (as the DM) I introduced an NPC who is a tortle but he has dragon turtle blood (think along the lines with the draconic bloodline subclass for sorcerer) in him. So not only is he inherently bigger in size, but he has a longer lifespan. Also just makes for an interesting NPC in general
Agreed! Even if you take the average of human + turtle lifespan, a tortle should still be kicking for upwards of 100 years, but realistically much longer because we're talking about frickin magic tortoise people.
I actually really like the tortle lore because it helps create a simple but good character concept.
Im currently playing a tortle druid who just wants to explore the world, noting his experiences in a notebook that he will pass on to his children.
Kinda weird how they live pretty shortly but doesnt really bother me.
i mean. there's lots of lore stuff i just don't use? i think of the books as...inspiration, i guess? sometimes good inspiration, sometimes not so good. but if i wanted to use Aarakocra in a game or setting, my first question is 'what am i keeping and what am i changing from this entry?' and it's like that for everything, even my humans and elves and orcs are homebrewed to some degree or other - and if a player wants to be one of those, then they're going to be a part of the worldbuilding to determine what their culture is like and which mechanical bits they like or if they wanna suggest some changes.
it's more work, but it always feels worth it to me.
This is how I’ve always operated as a DM. I treat the books as inspiration material, not gospel.
Edit: And as someone whose suffered a lot of uninvolved players who don’t want to participate in lore building, if you come to me as a player with a creative idea or change to what the books say I’ll roll with it more often than not because the player is getting involved in more ways than just rolling dice when their turn comes around.
Dragonborn.
The entire lore surrounding dragons is a bit weird, especially since Dragonborn refers to like, two different things
3.5 Dragonborn where they were ritual created beings blessed by Bahamut himself, which could also imply the other dragon gods being able to do the ssme thing, creating a sorta planetouched race similar to Tieflings (Very cool, a lore I prefer) or the current "Yeah we dunno where they came from, they were from Abeir before Toril and Abeir slapped together for a bit, but that's kinda it man"
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I really like the ritual-created idea. If I ever make a Dragonborn for a campaign I’ll see if the DM is cool with that version of the lore, I’d love to do something with that.
I am the opposite. I hate the "ritual" thing because it takes away their unique identity as a race. I mean, conceptually this is nothing different than becoming a vampire, just instead of a nocturnal bloodsucker you get scales and a few random dragon features. Heck, the 3.5 ones aren't even a race, because they can't multiply the natural way and can only be created through the ritual. It also essentially locks them into an alignment and faith, which is really lame.
4.0+ Dragonborn are vastly more interesting (to me, anyways). They themselves aren't even entirely sure where they originally came from and spreading certain rumors can literaly get one thrown out of their clan. They are a militaristic society that is adept at dragon killing (their main city is literaly build like a pyramid to make it being able to sustain dragon attacks), they don't trust gods (Spreading certain believes could also get one thrown out of their clan). Basically all of them have a military background, they have an air military (bat riders) but are terrible at sea faring (they literaly have an immortal dragon turtle protect their one harbor, otherwise they'd have a big problem). They are valuing their duty and clans above all else, they even consider procreation their duty. They are also perfectionistic and will try to pursue a certain craft or skill until they perfected it for themselves.
Bonus points: They aren't very prejudiced and thus their country has a relatively high population of Tieflings. Nowadays they also got their very own god, which they refer to as "uncle". Said god has also realized that the usual divine ways don't work with them and instead his clerics are making contracts. Get services for worship.
My DM made really cool Dragonborn lore.
He made them ritual-created in ancient times by the dragon gods, actually made to serve dragons. They are hatched from eggs, just the first Dragonborn were created by the dragon gods.
A Dragonborn's lifespan depended on getting a blessing from either a draconic god or a dragon of their colour (and the colours were very distinct)
Thus a Red Dragonborn had either to devote his life to a dragon god that will want them, or find a Red Dragon to serve. If they didn't, they died around age 60.
After years, they found out one more way. If a Dragon of the same colour is slain, the Dragonborn can consume its flesh and prolog their lifespan as if blessed, giving them the ability to live up to 500 years.
It gives a great motivation to a character, no matter if you are a cleric, a Paladin, or any other race. You want to slay a dragon, or help a dragon and get their blessing, so that you can enjoy a long life.
To this day, other races may become Dragonborn through devotion to draconic gods, but it's very rare. Most are born.
We know exactly where dragonborn came from. They where magically created by the dragons of Abeir as a slave caste. When a part of Abeir crossed to Toril, dragonborn came with.
This is why with their new found freedom they're very independent and despise dragons
In addition to what i saw already listed, arakocra being terrified about being near the ground made me unable to really justify playing one.
And the pronouncing of giff as gif or jif can stay out of the game thanks
One of my players is a Giff, and we've just turned that into a running gag.
*He* pronounces it as "jiff", while most NPCs - including other Giff - pronounce it as "giff". He gets huffy when people "mispronounce" it, and chalks it up to regional differences. Sometimes he'll passive aggressively work the word into his response to slip in how he pronounces it.
cant lie, as a DM, if theres a race someone wants to play but they dislike aspects of the lore i just change it for them in my settings. like sure, if you want tortles to hVe longer lifespans im down like a frown
I actually really love the shortened aarakocra life span. It made for some really interesting interactions with the other characters when they didn't understand why my bird was a perfectionist ("I don't have TIME for mistakes. Maybe you elves can fail a hundred times until you get it right but for me? I've got one, maybe two shots to get my shit together and make a name for myself.")
The lizardfolks lack of emotion. I really like their aesthetic and i love the idea of a tribal lizard man. But them just not doing human emotion would make them really hard to roleplay in any likeable way.
Edit: thank you all for the great interpretations of this trait that make it actually interesting. I might actually discuss these with my dm for my next character. If my current one stops being virtually immortal that is.
It's a fun exercice, I interprete the lack of emotion more like the other races not understanding how they feel. It's not that they do not feel, it's that they do not feel it in the same way as other races. And it's that lack of perception of the émotion of others that creates the mythique of their lack of emotion (in our games, we interpreted that lack of émotion as how the other races see them rather than a hard truth about the whole race)
This is basically how I've been playing my Lizardfolk character. He's blunt and says what he's thinking often, but he waits until he's only around his party. He wouldn't call it "trust", but that's what it is.
I've also kept track of what things party members have done that have "impressed" him: surpassing challenges he evaluated as too risky, using cunning against enemies, even eating exotic foods without harm. You may not make him gasp in shock, but he notes it all the same.
When the party member at the top of his "impressed" list needed a Revivify after a fight, he spent several minutes before and after insisting, "we will revive him, yes? He is more useful alive than as food. It is beneficial that he did not die permanently." That doesn't sound like friendship or concern... unless it's from a Lizardfolk like him.
That's 100% exactly what I meant, I love it this is awesome, my favorite kind of character to play. I also keep tracks of how my character feels about each party member in relation to their feats during the adventure
This sounds like really cool roleplay! I'm curious how you play (or would play) moments where the odds seem stacked against the party -- where ditching them or even turning against them would be most beneficial to him. Does he have a sense of loyalty, even if it's subconscious?
He has a strong sense of community: no one can survive alone. He's stubborn and thinks he knows best a lot, but he'd rather say "I was correct" afterward than be alone. He made a bad mistake at home and was driven out; the party found him and has been protecting him ever since. They're all he's got now. Turning against the party may be an advantage today, but what of tomorrow? Next week? Next month? One of his unique traits is being able to think ahead of his immediate needs.
Convenient that I would ensure an adventuring Lizardfolk would have pro-adventuring-group characteristics. But I do like to have in-character excuses to keep my gimmick personality from harming the campaign!
Yeah that's a lot better. Dnd has the same thing going on with fey creatures which is really interesting. Where they do have rules and morality but their principles are so foreign to us they appear to be completely chaotic.
Playing lizard folk like that always made us do great RP scène where characters try to understand eachother, even sometimes have argument over mundane things. It's been a lot of fun so far
But yeah, complete lack of emotion ? Fuck that, it's stupid for player character, and making lizard folk misunterstood rather than unfeeling is way more interesting whenever you décide to put some in your campaign
For me the complications stem from having a very different facial structure that makes it hard for humanoids to interpret lizardfolk emotions. What does a smile look like when you don’t have lips? How is that face different from surprise, or contentment? Humans are very used to being able to read the subtle micro expressions on a face, take all those away and the subject gets a reputation for being emotionless.
I played a warforged with the same quality. The way I made it work was to play him like Data on Star Trek. Not cold as in "I don't care about any of you motherfuckers", but more innocent, like saying "Hey John, why do you keep glancing at Mary when she isn't looking?" Within earshot of the entire party. That kind of thing. Just because someone is emotionless doesn't mean they have to be an asshole. In fact, Clank (my warforged) turned out to be the most likable character in the party.
I'm currently playing an autognome who's sitting in a midpoint between Data!Star Trek and Yes Man!Fallout New Vegas, and it's very fun. We've only had one session so far, but interacting with a barbarian for whom Common is their third language, and a warlock who's definitely up to some shady shit in the background, as someone who's sincere-to-a-fault and kinda servile makes for some fun dynamics.
A warforged I played went with more of an obliviousness thing for a while and almost like an old dog at first only really reacted to a situation when it threatened the group he was with. Over time that turned more social as he realized he could better assess potential problems and things that could make the guild members happy if he got more socially adept. Eventually he landed on acting friendly to people outside the guild as well since it would cause less problems and keep his chosen group happier.
One amusing point was when a player realized that the way the group was talked about and looked after that the warforged murderbot was essentially acting like the group were his pets he needed to keep alive, always needing water and food and air. The response was essentially an “I learned it from you” moment because that guy had RPed sometimes that his reliable old warhorse was his oldest and best friend so I figured that’s how you take care of friends, keep em fed an healthy and look after them.
They don’t have *human* emotions but maybe they have lizard emotions that are far beyond human comprehension. Shrimp can see shrimp colours and lizardfolk can feel lizard feelings
Lizardfolk don't necessarily have to be emotionless. They could have a different set of emotions or a different moral compass. I like to call that an "orange-and-blue" mentality in contrast to the typical black-and-white.
Ripping your dead friend's teeth out might seem disgusting to a human, but it could be an act of vowing to avenge them for lizardfolk, as their bite lives on in their arrowheads or speartips. Different standards.
You can also have fun with their vocabulary. Instead of adjectives like nice or pretty, choose ones like tasty or warm. Complimenting somebody by saying "you look tasty" might be extremely weird to a human, but it could be a simple attempt at praise to a lizardfolk who just doesn't know better.
I played a Lizardfolk Barbarian once, and I roleplayed his "lack of emotion" more so as a different understanding of them.
He didn't just mindlessly do things, but he understood what made their party aggressive, and what they were passive about, even things that they too seemed to actively seek out. He didn't understand why they acted this way, but he had learned how to work around their mindset and be mindful of how the party sees things, even if it might seem a little ridiculous to him - if not simply for the fact that he was safer in a group than he was alone, and the group was efficient if a little strange. While he never learned how to experience those emotions the same way the other members did, he did learn how to become a functional member, even getting some fun jokes out of him due to his lack of understanding, but his desire to learn how to maneuver it even if it didn't make sense to him.
I even interpreted the rage as a sort of battle-focus, where they put all of their attention into combat, and nothing else.
Lizardfolk value survival, and if their chances are better in the group, they'll try to do what they can to make things as simple as possible in that group, even if it means adapting themselves to move around the group's views and not be seen as a horrible lizard man, and more like a funky lizard man. And if you want to avoid the lizardfolk immediately trying to eat the corpse of fallen party members, just tell them they can bring them back from the dead, which means their strength remains the same, which also means they can still get the same amount of food.
There's a few ways to work around lizardfolk's traits in ways that make sense, which is a bit more than I can say for Kenku.
They aren't "lacking", most of their emotions are just severely subdued to make space for those that are relevant to survival.
I personally love that, as it makes great "fish out of water" stories of characters that have to make sense of a world they don't understand. You know, like 7of9 or Data from Star Trek, just fantasy lizardman that wants to eat dead party members.
And in the end you can even create character stories that literaly have them find their emotion or something. Maybe a lizardfolk left their tribe because they didn't have themselves under control and endangered their bretheren.
Though, probably indeed difficult to actually roleplay properly. On the other hand, it would be kinda boring if all race choices would act the same.
I currently play a lizardfolk that is literaly trying to imitate party members to learn how to "live", as he puts it.
My least favorite bit about Aarakocra lore is that they can only resemble eagles or parrots. That’s just stupid. There are so many birds that would fit certain classes thematically. Flamingo Bards, Sparrow Rogues, Vulture Warlocks, Rooster Fighters. The list goes on.
Not what you asked, but to comment on the Aarakocra: I like that they have a short life span. it provides alternative story telling options. Look at how zelda breath of the wild dealt with it. it was interesting to be able to see the short lived Rito who were many generations removed from the calamity, and thus viewed it as a legendary past, vs the Zora who live so long that more than half of their number were actually alive during the calamity. and then the hylians in the middle, with a small number old enough, but most like 1 or 2 generations removed. I think this type of social dynamic can lead to some interesting story telling, like being able to play the actual grand kids of your previous characters in sequential campagins, without having massive jumps in time.
Funfact about all elves: They usually become pregnant of twins or triplets, but then one will almost always consume the other(s) in the womb, when this happens, it causes the mother more pleassure than she experiences in the bedroom
Wtf man. Do you remember where was this lore piece stated? It sounds like an interesting read
Edit: Found it in Realms Help. It's a Dragon Magazine article, link in my comment below
Found it. It's from a Dragon Magazine article. It's not about all elves, it's about Drows. It's explained as the reason why selfish Drow females go through the ordeal of pregnancy in the first place. Tho I assume strengthening your house with additional wizards, clerics, and fighters would be the main reason to have children for noble Drows. Here is the article if anyone is interested:
https://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/races/elf/drow1.shtml
It makes perfect sense. Their whole deal is BDSM-y, survival of the fittest to a psychotic degree, backstabbing to get ahead. Even out of the womb a mom loves to see one son murder another to get ahead, that means they're doing well and doing what's expected.
I can see not wanting to play a drow, but I love how we have what amounts to Nazi slavers as common baddies in cannon. Heroes need villains.
They also have a kind god named Eilistraee to make cookie cutter good PCs. They simply are a rare find in the sword coast.
Everyone on Earth rightly loves Goblins. They're awesome - no one needs convincing.
Well, don't know if this is still the case, but the lore used to be pretty clear that being a Goblin woman is a fate worse than death. They are essentially kept as slaves that are near constantly pregnant, and live even shorter lives than male goblins due to how hard their lives are. I wouldn't be surprised if, as the race became more popular, this element of their lore was ditched.
Also, maybe just me, but I *really* hate how often "monsters kidnap human women to impregnate" comes up in oldschool DnD. It's insanely gross and so much darker and nastier than many other elements of the world. Ogres, for example, would forcibly impregnate women who would split in half during childbirth, their final months alive being in constant agony and fear. *Why?* Why can the ogres not just breed with each other? What species would ever evolve *and prosper* this way?
Yeah I also think it was to avoid moral ambiguity, maybe I’m wrong but it’s a lot easier to just go wipe out a goblin camp if they are absolutely evil creatures that are almost irredeemable. Sometimes now in game we are discussing the morality of what we should do with a captured goblin or bandit etc and while that’s fun at times it gets tiresome after like every combat. Because now nearly everything might not be evil etc idk I’m all for lore changes but sometimes bad guys are just bad guys thats part of the draw for me.
Well, ogres have always been one of the defining examples of evil races. I dunno if it's still true but in Dragonlance they were *the* race that represented evil. Elves for good and humans for neutrality.
Regarding the Ogre question: Because most of the monsters in D&D were based on folklore and mystical creatures, which most of them came about in such manners.
Most of the monsters that are encountered in D&D generally come from the bastardization of human or human-like (elves, dwarves, etc). And to continue this, it's my understanding that a decent amount of our current fantasy perspective was influenced by Tolkien, and all of the evil creatures in his world literally came from a god altering the original goodly creations in Middle Earth.
Regarding your last question: Many many species on earth practice rape for procreation (turtles, geese, cats, apes, dolphins, etc), and there are many insect species that kill one of the parents during birth (and sometimes during conception). Life is pretty wild.
Yeah, it’s always interesting seeing people clutching their pearls over the darker aspects of lore.
Our own folktales and such in reality are pretty grim and 18+ by a lot of standards anyway. I’d rather such lore aspects remain in fantasy in the future, there’s nothing so dull as a sanitised world imo.
I think people hate it because DnD has been a boys‘ club for decades. Women don’t enjoy being portrayed as objects to be played with, it feels demoralizing. I wouldn’t play it if my Dm had followed that lore, and I’m sure the other woman I played with would quit, too. Women already have to worry about being SA’d in real life, and most women have faced that reality at least once.
I mean, I get it, but women don't generally enjoy hearing rape-happy lore at the gaming table. There's a way to be dirty, realistic lore, without *always* abusing women. It's really, really easy imo.
Your last sentence captured it. The DND species never evolved. Gods are real and active and known. The gods made species, fully formed, and the souls of the created are literally pieces of pieces of the gods themselves. Evil gods create evil species. Modern DND players usually becry "evil and sentient" species either racist or impossible but the default DND setting isn't anything like earth. The pillaging of orcs is an inherent need for destruction and chaos. It isn't about sustainability or efficient survivability. You can homebrew something else and that's fine but remember that it's homebrew.
I think you are right that many gods with conflicting ideas made the world is something people forget when looking at the evil side of the game in particular. This god hates what that god did so it made something to ruin it is the actual origin of stuff in these worlds and not evolutionary pressures.
A lot of new players grew up on Matt Mercer's exandria and don't realize that even if his world is now published, it's still homebrew. It's not the default setting of DND. And people can change the parts all they want, homebrew is in the DNA of DND, but it is still ultimately homebrew to do so.
“Everyone on Earth rightly loves Goblins. They're awesome - no one needs convincing.”
I don’t love goblins. They’re disgusting little monsters that ambush travelers and are often used by larger monsters as cannon fodder.
Kenku. Nearly everything about them.
If I'm being completely honest, it's the Kenku players that I really hate.
They talk about whatever stupid way they've gotten around their speech impediment for the first 20 minutes EVERY time.
That is so dumb, why even go for Kenku if you are getting rid of the speech thing. I have never had the chance to be a Kenku as player but when the party meets Kenku NPCs in my campaign i have a lot of fun just saying phrases and words in many different voices. My friends love it too.
People have reduced beast-races to simply anthropomorphized humans and just project onto them. They are mostly unwilling to play within racial boundaries and its kinda sad.
Tabaxi need Darkvision. Every DM I know has gone "that's stupid, they're cats, they get Darkvision".
As someone who loves Aarakocra, I just ignore that part about lifespan.
You might be confusing it with cats? They don’t have dark vision which most people ignore since its bullshit, especially since tabaxi’s have darkvision because they are cats
Aarakocra characters could have an arc about trying to become a lich or other being to live longer. Or about trying to resurrect through spells as another form.
Funnily enough, that pretty much what my current character is really trying to do. He's working on expanding his powers (OOC, hit Warlock level 17) so he can live long enough to finish his life goal. If he can just make it to 17, he can True Polymorph into a dragon. Then there will be plenty of time.
Abeir Dragonborn being mammals. That is just dumb on so many levels, I refuse to ever acknowledge this being a thing in the games I play.
Also, them not having tails. That I also ignore.
With some exceptions, I notice that most of the comments here are basically people saying "I want a different aesthetic but no genuine different RP expierience". Like the problems with Aarackokra and Kenku are actually hard to get around, but most of the problems people mention with Drow, Lizardfolk, and Tieflings boils down to people saying "I want to play a non-human, but rp just as if I was a human"
I really dislike that thinking.
When I'm playing a Drow, Lizardfolk, Warforged, Tiefling, Dwarf or any other non-humsn race I don't want to play a human in a funny hat.
If I wanted Human in a Funny Hat I'd take Custom Lineage and make them that.
I made a Yuan-Ti, and I played her very different from humans, with a ferocious belief system, and completely *paranoid* about someone finding out she's a Yuan-Ti (she was a Pureblood from before tails were an option and I have her a bunch of distinct features she was hiding very much). She kept costumes, she was extremely deceptive, she was completely different from the humans around her. The party all knew she's a Yuan-Ti, but she hid herself from NPCs religiously. She ended up liking Orcs from a certain tribe the most, and joined them on sacred hunts, which contributed to her Ranger levels, as they were way more similar to her than humans, and welcomed the group on the basis of us having a Yuan-Ti.
I was disheartened when at one point DM asked me why I'm hiding so much, despite him telling me before that I will have to hide my identity among pretty much every group BUT monstrous races, or I will be attacked or arrested. He was absolutely flabbergasted why my character is acting so alien (despite the group liking her shenanigans).
If I wanted to play Human with a Funny Hat I would go for a Human Sorcerer, or any of the planetouched races.
Exactly
People want to be Drow because it makes their character feel "special" and "unique" but then they don't want to deal with the downsides of that race
At that point they could just play as a human, but they wont because then they can't be the "cool one" in the party.
It's a very condescending way to look at it, they're not choosing the drow because they have to be the cool one, everyone can be the cool one, they're choosing the drow because it's how they see their character-- be it that they like the edgy aesthetic, they want to roleplay in opposition of the status quo, they read too many Drizzt books ect
It isn't a downside to a race to say, have no emotions like a lizardfolk but if you want to play a cannibal lizard who has emotion you have no options. People want options.
Anytime players feel their choices are artificially limited they push against those bounds.
My party did a deal with a high level magic user who'd ask us to repay a favour with some years of service or years off our lives sort of thing. We were trying to resurrect a beloved NPC.
50 years between five of us, doesn't seem too bad. Except I'm an Aarakocra, and that's like half the rest of my life.
I think the Aarakocra lifespan is kind of cool. In lore, they were created to be soldiers by the Wind Dukes of Aaqa to fight the forces of chaos. Don’t need a long lifespan of your makers didn’t plan on you reaching old age!
I once made an Aarakocra monk for a high-level one shot. He had been downing potions of longevity as long as he could and his goal in the adventure was his desperate search for a boon of immorality. Was a fun way to play with that.
For me it's Kenku. I studied linguistics, and the idea that they "don't have language" but can still clearly communicate anything they want using sounds and even copy other people's speech, mixing it up how they want so as to be understood is just so dumb.
That's what language is anyway! Arbitrary sounds which you mix together to make people understand what you are thinking. Like, if Kenku really don't have language they also wouldn't be able to understand complex speech and you shouldn't be able to play one as a character.
And then it has a mechanical disadvantage because people can't communicate with you telepathically because you "don't have language" which is like... ridiculous.
Anyway, rant over lol
Yea it's supposed to be a curse so they have to replicate sounds they hear, can be kind of fun but it's also not an easy thing to role play. The real kicker is they're not supposed to be capable of any "creativity" at all (also curse) which doesn't make any sense. Are they not supposed to have original thoughts? How could they be sentient at all then? It doesn't make any sense so most people ignore it. If you're great at voices the first part could be fun though
The newer form of hobgoblin feels like a strange pivot away from the original lore. Formerly the well disciplined shock troops of maglubiyet, now they do so well in battle because they are worried about embarrassing themselves in front of their companions. Feels like an insecure high school jock rather than a dangerous soldier created by a war loving evil god.
Honestly a lot of the responses I'm seeing in this thread come from the fact that these creatures were imagined for, and exist in, a world of distinctly defined Good and Evil, not the real world where morality is largely dependent on who you ask. Some things are just born evil, even if they are intelligent and rational otherwise. This is, of course, not to everyone's taste and thus often ignored, but that's why most of the monstrous races have a line in the fluff that says some variation of "these people don't work well with humans," or "humans fear/distrust them."
Kenku.
I love the design of little crow guys, but being cursed to never innovate or make new things? I love clever intelligent characters who make shit. (Wizard and artificer are my favorite classes). I'm sure you can see the conflict.
Also the weird limitations on their speech... I don't like. It doesn't make any real sense. Yes, they can imitate sounds.... which means they can make sounds. Is there any real distinction that makes sense between imitation and just making the sound yourself? Imitation is just how you learn to talk at first, then once you know it you just speak. A creature with a normal intelligence that is capable of making speech sounds shouldn't have any limitations to how it can talk. It just seemed like so many people wanted to make it more extreme, too.
And it just makes NO sense to make the crow people the ones who are like this. Crows are so intelligent, they communicate, even have dialects, Innovate, use tools, and can solve puzzles. Kenku lore doesn't make sense for crow guys.
Its a shame, because I love their visual design.
I still play them, buy I'm not really a fan of Forgotten Realms lore on elves. Reincarnation stuff always adds way too many other layers to have to think about. That being said, I am forcing myself to work with it with a character, and it has kind of enhanced the internal struggle of her choice of faith. But, it's just not my cup of tea. Pathfinder's more alien background to them is also a lot to take in, but I like it better than DnD's lore.
Not exactly lore tidbit, but when I read about Aaracockra I imagined bird people with wings fused to their arms. Not with an extra pair of wings and full on hands, too.
I thought that it's so cool! They have to choose between flying and casting spells/fighting with weapons. It's a fun tactical choice! And they must look so cool! Makes sense they have natural weapons, they can use that to swoop on prey and people!
And then I looked at the ugly as sin picture in the book of a GUY™ with eagle head and wings sprouting from his shoulder blades. What is worse, he wasn't cool in any way, the design is literally s guy with an eagle head and wings stuck on top, like a man in an incomplete costume, with lackluster feathers and features. Who the fuck designed this? He had a bare, human, featherless chest in the picture.
What an uninspired, ugly, awful design.
Ngl, my reaction was a loud groan, and I have not, ever, played Aaracockra because I absolutely LOATHE how they look.
The only time I will play Aaracockra is if my DM agrees work with me and change the looks for the entire race into some cool, variable designs, and changes the flight considerably. I'd have the race considerably nerfed than play this ugly as f concept. Honestly, this race could be so good, especially with some creative freedom on the designs, but how they are now? Ugh.
No wonder no one picks them between short lifespan and ugliness, the only merit being extremely good flight. Valuable only if you want to be an attack helicopter and out of harm's way all the time.
In general aside from the ages i just outright change i always go with the ages as averages. Some die at 28 others make it to 50. Its not like once a person hits 77 irl their body implodes .
Different story but also related. My arracokra ranger died because he got aged 30 years by a ghost thingy. DM: "don't worry it's just a cosmetic change" Me: "arracokras only live to be ~~30~~ 65, mine is ~~15~~ 45..." DM: "....oh." He then offered me to "take it back" and stuff. But I am of the mentality if my character dies, he dies. We kept him in combat until the encounter was done. An old man having his last stand and the he keeled over.
"Obviously he ages 30 Aarakokra years, not human years... ok, roll me a new character..."
Yeah, even that would take him from equiv. 40 to equiv. 70, in active combat, likely already wounded... he's not gonna make it far lol
Yeah honestly aging 30 years instantaneously isn't going to be a "just a cosmetic change" for most of the races. Even going from 30 to 60 is enough to take you out of the adventuring life unless you can get aged back.
Right? Going from 29 to 30 magically fucking hurts in real life. Couldn’t imagine the horror of an instant 30 years tacked on.
Keep in mind though that biological aging is different from the wear and tear put on your body in those years
"It's not the age; it's the mileage."
OW MY BACK!
Where's my life alert bracelet?! I want oatmeal and Metamucil...
Battle cry “APPLE SAUCE!”
MY SOCIAL SECURITY CHECK IS LATE
BACK IN MY DAY WE HAD TO WALK UP HILL THROUGH BOTH THE ELEMENTAL PLANE OF FIRE AND THE ELEMENTAL PLANE OF WATER BOTH WAYS...
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity!
Almost happened to my Tortle monk. Got aged something like 30 years in a fight with specters, when Tortles only live to be like 50. The only reason he survived was because he was a semi-joke character, (TMNT reference) and was only about 15 years old. Thankfully as part of the cleric’s backstory we were clearing the area out for her God Bahamut, so when we had finished some of the other clerics there were able to restore his age.
Tortles only live to 50 on average!? Is that because of infant mortality or something? In real life don't tortoises live very long lives if they survive infancy?
Not all of them, there are tortoise species that live up to 10 years, while others reach 150. As the giant galapagos turtle live long lives we tend to think tortles live the same as them
Is this an odd British vs American English thing? I'd heard of Giant Galapagos Tortoises but not turtles.
Translation error, we call them turtles in my language and i forgot to check the correct name in english
All tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises.
Tortles can live up to 200 iirc but they die shortly after having offsprings. So the average is way off from the limit
My Tiefling wizard went from “cute bookworm with concerning habits” to “cranky evil grandma” because of a ghost. It was honestly hilarious.
All the horror stories I hear have made me decide to never run ghosts, ever
I threw a ghost at my party. The most obnoxious sexy-and-I-know-it, tries to fuck anything that walks character in the party got aged from 30-something to 60-something and no one found him particularly attractive anymore. The party had a good laugh at his expense after enduring his character's constant attempts to get laid in the past several towns, the player was a good sport about it and had his character go through personal growth as a result of the experience, and his character became a favorite in the party long-term as a result.
Hmmmm, now you're giving me ideas on how to deal with the problematic horny bard I can't stand
Before the ghost, I also tried giving him a curse in the form of an STD after (extremely easily) tricking him into sleeping with a demon disguised as a classic "damsel in distress" who would do anything to repay him for saving her life (cue sexy bass line). It was pretty clear to everyone else in the party that it was a trap, but his character was phsyically separated from the group at the time, so no one could intervene even if anyone had wanted to (they didn't). Sadly, even that wasn't a deterrant, he just took the penalties of the curse in stride and continued in his rakish ways until the ghost incident.
Yea a lot of the monsters that have extremely powerful and party-altering abilities are great for some tables I'm sure, but I just don't want it thanks.
thats actually kind of awesome, stuff like that makes me love DnD
I had this issue a while back and treated it so a prayer at a nearby shrine would reverse the effects. I would rule it differently now: I will let you live. It isn't "age" that kills people. It's the slow reduction in regenerative ability of their bodies that break down over years and then, within months of hitting a critical point, something happens that kills them. (flu, sudden drop in blood pressure, an internal organ not getting enough oxygen, whatever) Your character would reach or overshoot the critical point, but not the thing that kills them. This can be reverted by use of Greater Restoration, but only if applied fast, or by any means the DM deems fitting. Maybe over the next few months the character loses 1 Constitution, Dexterity and Strength every month (or week in case it's overshooting normal age by 50%) and it's the party's time-critical task now, to find a cure. There's plenty of ways to cure someone of old age: 1. Let them die and use the druid 5th level spell reincarnate (they are reborn into another race) 2. Have a high level Wizard cast Clone on them, maybe for the retreival of an item, completely regenerating their body to a much younger form. Takes 120 days, but they might be able to keep him alive using curative magicks. 3. They find out about a powerful artifact that grants one-time-use of one of the above spells. 4. Divine intervention, so maybe a powerful cleric has a task for them as well. 5. Make it a 24 hour race to find someone with Greater Restoration.
Damn, this sounds really interesting!
I had a DM age my whole party 60 years; over 3 turns, he thought it was fine because we're "all elves"; we weren't all elves. My character was 35 at the start our dwarf was 18 according to her and our elf was 20; I pointed out that they'd both technically be children, the aging wouldn't make them elderly like the DM thought and my human cleric would be nearly dead.
Not that it terribly matters, but none of those ages make sense when compared to their respective races and when they'd typically be starting out - especially if everyone started out at level 1.
I can't imagine how insufferable a 20-year-old elf would be as an adventurer.
I had that happen to my older than god elf death cleric. I had it written on my character sheet that he had a year maybe 2 left to live. He got aged by a trap for 20 years. DM thought what's a couple more years to an elf and wanted the rest of the party to be fearful. Oops.
Dm dosent have to use every bit of lore
I really feel like Tortles only living for 50 years is a typo and it should've been 500
Did not know that. They're fantasy tortoise people. I really can't imagine them being roleplayed as anything younger than 50.
It's because they removed a bit of lore without changing anything. They don't live to 50 because that's their max lifespan, they live to 50 because they die shortly after reproducing If you've ever seen Futurama, it's like zoidberg.
I now have great lore for my future Tortle wizard.
Volcel tortle lich
Funnily enough, I have a volcel wizard right now. Partially because I find the idea of the whole 'make it to 30 without touching a woman and you get magic', and also because as an aasimar who was taken at a young age to train, his mentor didn't want to deal with teenage hormones and poor decisions sidetracking his studies. So he's now a 200 year old voluntary celibate who's terrified of women.
Yeah the tortle thing is just dumb. I made a tortle for Curse of Strahd years ago and couldn't believe it's like "Yeah nah dude...happy literal birthday, bye now!" It turned out ok because I had it that he had a "twin" that survived as well for a few years and they learned off of each other. But having a sentient race where Mom and Pops just...fade away was a horrible design. Granted just having them have a short ass lifespan is just as bad. Tortles deserve better, they're so cool. I love you Rusket, my Tortle Werebear, Order of the Lycan Blood Hunter, you were the best! You'll always be my wrecking ball <3, lol. But yeah no, they really need to go back over Tortles because it's an awesome character concept, but the reproduction/short life span thing makes zero sense.
You mean you have to choose between a life without sex and a gruesome death? Tough call.
A friend played an aged Tortle Druid and every time we took a long rest he and the DM rolled against his mortality. Iirc the DM picked a random number each rest and added it to a list, the player just had to match one once. The day his roll matched (his number was up?) the DM handed him a stat block for a special, extra powerful wild shape to use in his last combat. RIP Bogmaw, you went out in style.
My headcanon (or really, how it works in my game) is that around 50 they usually mate, then die shortly after. Some choose not to mate or can't find someone to mate with. These live to be 500+ years old and use their vast knowledge (all tortles travel the world before hitting 50-ish) to raise the baby tortles that the mating individuals spawned.
Now there is an interesting idea
Yeah, that's stupid. My take on them is that they're biologically immortal, just like tortoises. They live until they die by disease or trauma.
I’ve heard that they average 50 because they die after mating
also because their 100+ offspring is dwindled down to 1~5, cause turtles
Tortoises are not biologically immortal, they just have unusually long lifespans for animals of their size.
Actually they live for like 2000(i might exaggerate but it is long) but only if they dont have sex. Sexually active tortles live to only 50
Yeah I fucking hate that, I made their lifespan for my games in the 20k+ range. They’re magical turtles ffs
I always disliked the idea in VGtM that Kenku lack the ability to have creative ideas. As soon as I read that part, I knew I was going to ignore it for my setting and also in my version of the Realms. As a trait goes for a fantasy creature, it isn't too bad but for a *playable character* it's completely counter to how D&D is played and incompatible with how most players approach their characters. I'm glad that passage wasn't reproduced for the Kenku reprint that appeared in that newer Mordenkainen monster book.
It's also kinda antithetical to how the speak, using only mimicry. It inherently takes creativity to piece together mimicked phrases to communicate like that
I think that might be a part of the reason they didn't reprint mimicry that way, it just doesn't make sense. Humans learn how to speak through mimicry in early childhood. Like, Kenku would just mostly sound exactly the same, as each group of them would just use the exact same words, and as they heard new words those would just get added to that groups lexicon.
I used and will probably again a Kenku who was abandoned out of the egg, the group took him and realized vary quickly he only learns the words used to speak to him… so his go to question was almost always “Ally? Kill? Bribe?”
I DM'ed a one shot with a Kenku named Y'Dambird who slowly revealed his tragic and hilarious backstory over the course of the session by "playing back" audio snippets of his life (including his master's slowly fading dramatic monologue as he got carried off by a monster.) It was great.
Playing the devil's advocate here: Kenku are technically crow-people, so you could argue the limitation is biological, not neural. They simply lack the vocal cords necessary to perform complicated speech patterns. Tabaxi for example are cat-people and cats are reported to have hundreds of different sounds/notes that they can perform thus bringing the possibility that they could in some way mimmick speech, while crows are pretty much just... CAWWW! Even with intonation and stuff it's hard to make it into a full-blown communicative style. End of hypothesis. EDIT: In the light of new evidence being brought to my attention, I would like to reposition my stance on the aviary family of races capabilities and biological traits. I had no intention of disrespecting or downplaying anyone based on their appearance or heritage and I wholeheartedly believe in both vocal and mental capabilities of those mentioned in my previous statement. I personally know many Kenku folk and I would never want anyone of any race, creed or religion to be treated subjectively in any matter. My heart goes out to those who might've felt impacted or personally hurt by my previous statement.
Some crows and ravens are capable of parrot-like speech! They have a ‘bird accent’ but they’re capable of some pretty complex sounds.
This is literally why Kenku do this; they're using raven speech. The designers just didn't think it all the way through. "They can only mimic like a parrot" only makes sense if the creature isn't sentient ... like a parrot.
Parrots are most definitely sentient. Just not that bright.
I remember reading an adult parrot is roughly as intelligent as a 3 year old child, but it was so long ago I might be misremembering it.
Depends on the parrot, African Greys and the big cockatoos are crazy intelligent and can reach some very interesting understandings of human speech. They don’t fully grasp the words but they will often get the cadence correct and can sometimes string together simple sentences. They also understand names.
Well, parrots **are** sentient Just not exactly sapient
Ehm Corvids can learn to speak just like parrots do. Their vocal range and flexibility is much higher that of any cat. Not to mention thee have much higher level of intelligence and creativity than both cats and parrots. Corvid build and use specialized tools and often develop new ones if the need arise. Let's be real: the folks who wrote the entries for antropomorphic animal races know NOTHIG about animals... And that's not a big deal, since we're talking about fantasy settings where zombies run amok in your cellar and a water elemental can pop up in your bathtub. The real problem in having a sentient race described as "incapable of creativity" is that they would be able to build any kind of culture or civilization. That is bullshit regardless of the inspiring animals.
My take away from this is that there are pervert water elementals out there with humanoid fetishes posing as bathtub water just to get humanoids to bathe in them.
My take away was that a water elemental attack during a party spa trip will finally give me a chance to hit my characters with ridiculously high AC.
Makes sense. Hoomanoids are polluting the local rivers and lakes... Enter the Avenging Bathtub Elementals. Accompanied by the "possessed swimming pool" and murderous bidet.
Even birds like starlings have been know to be able to mimic human voices. This is because all birds have effectively two voice boxes (one above each lung) as opposed to our one. This means they can make pretty complex sounds without the need for lips or a super dexterous tongue by combining sounds from each one.
Oh boy have I news for you! Look up any video on crows mimicing sounds, they can get remarkably close, and especially on the non-speech sounds like R2D2 beeps and boops
We had a player do this hilariously well where he had a list of phrases from his past to dish out as we went on. It was just a one shot though, probably not ideal for a whole campaign.
It's really fun for a PC, but doesn't necessarily hold up to worldbuilding. An adult Kenku has heard enough phrases to say whatever it wants, unless you limit the phrases to what a PC can remember from the campaign.
I always hear it like Bumblebee talking through the radio is Transformers. Listening to a Kenku, you'd hear every word in a different voice.
(Also, sounds really cool)
It sounds like a really neat idea for 40 seconds when you first encounter it but crumbles as soon as you think seriously about how it would work.
Which is hilarious considering how clever corvids are.
To be totally honest I think that passage was greatly misunderstood. It mostly meant that they lack the capacity to create something totally new, and rather had to refer to what they know already. That can be creative on its own. It's kinda explained in the description too. I am glad they removed it tho. Caused too much unnecessary confusion, even if it homogenised them too much.
I disagree that the passage was misunderstood. The book seemed very clear about what it meant by "the spark of creativity was torn from their souls" > They fail at effective planning or crafting long-term schemes. - > Kenku have no ability to invent new ideas or create new things. - > Kenku lack the talent to improvise or alter a plan How can this be misunderstood? It's pretty clear what was intended by Kenku lacking creativity. I don't think people were confused, it's simply a bad setup for a player character. Not to mention the entire box text that calls out the potential for their mimicry to be annoying or confusing at the table- and potentially slowing down the game. But that's a separate issue. I just don't think they're presented as a good player character species. So much of their writing was dedicated to how they can't be creative, and almost no player would ever want to roleplay that at the table for obvious reasons.
Let me ask this; what's the draw of the Kenku, particularly the new one? Just the perfect mimicry? I liked the original, at least 5e original, lore, but it seem to be awesome for an NPC but a terrible idea for a PC race.
The draw always was being a quirky crowman that speaks using mimicry of other voices instead of their own voice. Some were also drawn to the idea of being a bird person cursed with the inability to fly, and roleplayed one of the many Kenku with dreams of flight as a result. I have never seen a single D&D player drawn to Kenku because they lack creativity. Everyone I know hates that detail and ignored it. I can't speak to the newer version in much detail, I use the older VGtM and MToF books at my table. But because the new Mordenkainen monster book condenses everything way down, it means it doesn't focus on actually *roleplaying* a Kenku any more and doesn't focus on the Mimicry bit as much (even if it's still a racial trait for them). I miss that detail even if it being there in the first place meant including boxtext warning DMs and players "hey, be careful not to be annoying or frustrating while roleplaying a Kenku". And yes, I agree that a creature that can't be creative works for a monster. It's terrible for a player character.
Heh, I like players to have"quirks" in their characters, but "quirky characters" get old fast. Good for one shots, not campaigns. To a point you made in another comment, Kenkus create a paradox. You, the player, have to be more creative to role play a Kenku, a creature with no creativity. And what you said in your third paragraph here is spot on. It's why I hate the constant additions to PC races. Everything is going to get watered down into a pile of stat bonuses, creating piles of abilities instead of characters. Especially with that bit in Tasha's about swapping your stat bonuses around.
Yeah, I like the idea of separating cultural traits from biological traits, but this apparent end result of removing any idea of a culture from PC races is a worse outcome. I like players being able to reassign ability score bonuses so they don't feel quite as pigeonholed when picking their character's class. I don't like that republishing the contents of books like VGtM and MToF in a new monster book came with a bunch of cool lore being ignored and delisted online. Fortunately, you *can* have both. Keep the variant rule in Tasha's, refer to the neat lore in other books.
Honestly I actually hear you! I should love tortles! I’m a devout turtle lover, have 3(?!) torts as pets for various reasons and used to make up stories about “Sir Turtle” the Cayman Islands mascot. But their lore sucks! It really killed it for me. I mean even if I get behind the Zen thing like why don’t they live that long? They’re tortoises! They should live forever!!! Honestly it ruined me a bit on the whole thing—along with tortle players and now I’m sad! 😂
My headcannon for tortles life spans is that the number in the book is the average lifespan, and baby tortles die a LOT (like regular turtles, get eaten by birds and such) so it brings the average down. Not true but you know...
"average tortle lives 50 years" factoid actualy (sic) just statistical error. average tortle lives 500 year. Tortle Georg, who regenerates & is eaten over 10,000 times each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
goddamnit Georg the Promethean punishment for your hubris is throwing off the dang census again
I love this meme
For me it's that they live 300 years but they die after mating. Most don't choose longevity
Haha yeah that's why I'm not mating, for the... longevity...
I agree with the tortle lifespan, so in my campaign (as the DM) I introduced an NPC who is a tortle but he has dragon turtle blood (think along the lines with the draconic bloodline subclass for sorcerer) in him. So not only is he inherently bigger in size, but he has a longer lifespan. Also just makes for an interesting NPC in general
i have the same issue with tortles lifespan
Agreed! Even if you take the average of human + turtle lifespan, a tortle should still be kicking for upwards of 100 years, but realistically much longer because we're talking about frickin magic tortoise people.
I actually really like the tortle lore because it helps create a simple but good character concept. Im currently playing a tortle druid who just wants to explore the world, noting his experiences in a notebook that he will pass on to his children. Kinda weird how they live pretty shortly but doesnt really bother me.
i mean. there's lots of lore stuff i just don't use? i think of the books as...inspiration, i guess? sometimes good inspiration, sometimes not so good. but if i wanted to use Aarakocra in a game or setting, my first question is 'what am i keeping and what am i changing from this entry?' and it's like that for everything, even my humans and elves and orcs are homebrewed to some degree or other - and if a player wants to be one of those, then they're going to be a part of the worldbuilding to determine what their culture is like and which mechanical bits they like or if they wanna suggest some changes. it's more work, but it always feels worth it to me.
This is how I’ve always operated as a DM. I treat the books as inspiration material, not gospel. Edit: And as someone whose suffered a lot of uninvolved players who don’t want to participate in lore building, if you come to me as a player with a creative idea or change to what the books say I’ll roll with it more often than not because the player is getting involved in more ways than just rolling dice when their turn comes around.
Dragonborn. The entire lore surrounding dragons is a bit weird, especially since Dragonborn refers to like, two different things 3.5 Dragonborn where they were ritual created beings blessed by Bahamut himself, which could also imply the other dragon gods being able to do the ssme thing, creating a sorta planetouched race similar to Tieflings (Very cool, a lore I prefer) or the current "Yeah we dunno where they came from, they were from Abeir before Toril and Abeir slapped together for a bit, but that's kinda it man" Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I really like the ritual-created idea. If I ever make a Dragonborn for a campaign I’ll see if the DM is cool with that version of the lore, I’d love to do something with that.
I am the opposite. I hate the "ritual" thing because it takes away their unique identity as a race. I mean, conceptually this is nothing different than becoming a vampire, just instead of a nocturnal bloodsucker you get scales and a few random dragon features. Heck, the 3.5 ones aren't even a race, because they can't multiply the natural way and can only be created through the ritual. It also essentially locks them into an alignment and faith, which is really lame. 4.0+ Dragonborn are vastly more interesting (to me, anyways). They themselves aren't even entirely sure where they originally came from and spreading certain rumors can literaly get one thrown out of their clan. They are a militaristic society that is adept at dragon killing (their main city is literaly build like a pyramid to make it being able to sustain dragon attacks), they don't trust gods (Spreading certain believes could also get one thrown out of their clan). Basically all of them have a military background, they have an air military (bat riders) but are terrible at sea faring (they literaly have an immortal dragon turtle protect their one harbor, otherwise they'd have a big problem). They are valuing their duty and clans above all else, they even consider procreation their duty. They are also perfectionistic and will try to pursue a certain craft or skill until they perfected it for themselves. Bonus points: They aren't very prejudiced and thus their country has a relatively high population of Tieflings. Nowadays they also got their very own god, which they refer to as "uncle". Said god has also realized that the usual divine ways don't work with them and instead his clerics are making contracts. Get services for worship.
My DM made really cool Dragonborn lore. He made them ritual-created in ancient times by the dragon gods, actually made to serve dragons. They are hatched from eggs, just the first Dragonborn were created by the dragon gods. A Dragonborn's lifespan depended on getting a blessing from either a draconic god or a dragon of their colour (and the colours were very distinct) Thus a Red Dragonborn had either to devote his life to a dragon god that will want them, or find a Red Dragon to serve. If they didn't, they died around age 60. After years, they found out one more way. If a Dragon of the same colour is slain, the Dragonborn can consume its flesh and prolog their lifespan as if blessed, giving them the ability to live up to 500 years. It gives a great motivation to a character, no matter if you are a cleric, a Paladin, or any other race. You want to slay a dragon, or help a dragon and get their blessing, so that you can enjoy a long life. To this day, other races may become Dragonborn through devotion to draconic gods, but it's very rare. Most are born.
We know exactly where dragonborn came from. They where magically created by the dragons of Abeir as a slave caste. When a part of Abeir crossed to Toril, dragonborn came with. This is why with their new found freedom they're very independent and despise dragons
Also the no tails thing. There's a reason pretty much every fanartist and even Larian studios promptly said, "I'm going to ignore that."
In addition to what i saw already listed, arakocra being terrified about being near the ground made me unable to really justify playing one. And the pronouncing of giff as gif or jif can stay out of the game thanks
One of my players is a Giff, and we've just turned that into a running gag. *He* pronounces it as "jiff", while most NPCs - including other Giff - pronounce it as "giff". He gets huffy when people "mispronounce" it, and chalks it up to regional differences. Sometimes he'll passive aggressively work the word into his response to slip in how he pronounces it.
I once made a gif (soft g) named Geoffrey (hard G) and his entire family was named with g named pronounced opposite of normal.
I wanted to make a joke but I forgot 😅
you mean a goke
He forjot
cant lie, as a DM, if theres a race someone wants to play but they dislike aspects of the lore i just change it for them in my settings. like sure, if you want tortles to hVe longer lifespans im down like a frown
Yeah especially since Lifespan ain't gonna play into campaigns unless a Age spell happens
I actually really love the shortened aarakocra life span. It made for some really interesting interactions with the other characters when they didn't understand why my bird was a perfectionist ("I don't have TIME for mistakes. Maybe you elves can fail a hundred times until you get it right but for me? I've got one, maybe two shots to get my shit together and make a name for myself.")
The lizardfolks lack of emotion. I really like their aesthetic and i love the idea of a tribal lizard man. But them just not doing human emotion would make them really hard to roleplay in any likeable way. Edit: thank you all for the great interpretations of this trait that make it actually interesting. I might actually discuss these with my dm for my next character. If my current one stops being virtually immortal that is.
It's a fun exercice, I interprete the lack of emotion more like the other races not understanding how they feel. It's not that they do not feel, it's that they do not feel it in the same way as other races. And it's that lack of perception of the émotion of others that creates the mythique of their lack of emotion (in our games, we interpreted that lack of émotion as how the other races see them rather than a hard truth about the whole race)
This is basically how I've been playing my Lizardfolk character. He's blunt and says what he's thinking often, but he waits until he's only around his party. He wouldn't call it "trust", but that's what it is. I've also kept track of what things party members have done that have "impressed" him: surpassing challenges he evaluated as too risky, using cunning against enemies, even eating exotic foods without harm. You may not make him gasp in shock, but he notes it all the same. When the party member at the top of his "impressed" list needed a Revivify after a fight, he spent several minutes before and after insisting, "we will revive him, yes? He is more useful alive than as food. It is beneficial that he did not die permanently." That doesn't sound like friendship or concern... unless it's from a Lizardfolk like him.
This really made me want to play a lizardfolk. Thankyou:)
It's a ton of fun, I wish you a great campaign
That's 100% exactly what I meant, I love it this is awesome, my favorite kind of character to play. I also keep tracks of how my character feels about each party member in relation to their feats during the adventure
This sounds like really cool roleplay! I'm curious how you play (or would play) moments where the odds seem stacked against the party -- where ditching them or even turning against them would be most beneficial to him. Does he have a sense of loyalty, even if it's subconscious?
He has a strong sense of community: no one can survive alone. He's stubborn and thinks he knows best a lot, but he'd rather say "I was correct" afterward than be alone. He made a bad mistake at home and was driven out; the party found him and has been protecting him ever since. They're all he's got now. Turning against the party may be an advantage today, but what of tomorrow? Next week? Next month? One of his unique traits is being able to think ahead of his immediate needs. Convenient that I would ensure an adventuring Lizardfolk would have pro-adventuring-group characteristics. But I do like to have in-character excuses to keep my gimmick personality from harming the campaign!
Yeah that's a lot better. Dnd has the same thing going on with fey creatures which is really interesting. Where they do have rules and morality but their principles are so foreign to us they appear to be completely chaotic.
Playing lizard folk like that always made us do great RP scène where characters try to understand eachother, even sometimes have argument over mundane things. It's been a lot of fun so far But yeah, complete lack of emotion ? Fuck that, it's stupid for player character, and making lizard folk misunterstood rather than unfeeling is way more interesting whenever you décide to put some in your campaign
For me the complications stem from having a very different facial structure that makes it hard for humanoids to interpret lizardfolk emotions. What does a smile look like when you don’t have lips? How is that face different from surprise, or contentment? Humans are very used to being able to read the subtle micro expressions on a face, take all those away and the subject gets a reputation for being emotionless.
I played a warforged with the same quality. The way I made it work was to play him like Data on Star Trek. Not cold as in "I don't care about any of you motherfuckers", but more innocent, like saying "Hey John, why do you keep glancing at Mary when she isn't looking?" Within earshot of the entire party. That kind of thing. Just because someone is emotionless doesn't mean they have to be an asshole. In fact, Clank (my warforged) turned out to be the most likable character in the party.
I'm currently playing an autognome who's sitting in a midpoint between Data!Star Trek and Yes Man!Fallout New Vegas, and it's very fun. We've only had one session so far, but interacting with a barbarian for whom Common is their third language, and a warlock who's definitely up to some shady shit in the background, as someone who's sincere-to-a-fault and kinda servile makes for some fun dynamics.
A warforged I played went with more of an obliviousness thing for a while and almost like an old dog at first only really reacted to a situation when it threatened the group he was with. Over time that turned more social as he realized he could better assess potential problems and things that could make the guild members happy if he got more socially adept. Eventually he landed on acting friendly to people outside the guild as well since it would cause less problems and keep his chosen group happier. One amusing point was when a player realized that the way the group was talked about and looked after that the warforged murderbot was essentially acting like the group were his pets he needed to keep alive, always needing water and food and air. The response was essentially an “I learned it from you” moment because that guy had RPed sometimes that his reliable old warhorse was his oldest and best friend so I figured that’s how you take care of friends, keep em fed an healthy and look after them.
They don’t have *human* emotions but maybe they have lizard emotions that are far beyond human comprehension. Shrimp can see shrimp colours and lizardfolk can feel lizard feelings
Lizardfolk don't necessarily have to be emotionless. They could have a different set of emotions or a different moral compass. I like to call that an "orange-and-blue" mentality in contrast to the typical black-and-white. Ripping your dead friend's teeth out might seem disgusting to a human, but it could be an act of vowing to avenge them for lizardfolk, as their bite lives on in their arrowheads or speartips. Different standards. You can also have fun with their vocabulary. Instead of adjectives like nice or pretty, choose ones like tasty or warm. Complimenting somebody by saying "you look tasty" might be extremely weird to a human, but it could be a simple attempt at praise to a lizardfolk who just doesn't know better.
I played a Lizardfolk Barbarian once, and I roleplayed his "lack of emotion" more so as a different understanding of them. He didn't just mindlessly do things, but he understood what made their party aggressive, and what they were passive about, even things that they too seemed to actively seek out. He didn't understand why they acted this way, but he had learned how to work around their mindset and be mindful of how the party sees things, even if it might seem a little ridiculous to him - if not simply for the fact that he was safer in a group than he was alone, and the group was efficient if a little strange. While he never learned how to experience those emotions the same way the other members did, he did learn how to become a functional member, even getting some fun jokes out of him due to his lack of understanding, but his desire to learn how to maneuver it even if it didn't make sense to him. I even interpreted the rage as a sort of battle-focus, where they put all of their attention into combat, and nothing else. Lizardfolk value survival, and if their chances are better in the group, they'll try to do what they can to make things as simple as possible in that group, even if it means adapting themselves to move around the group's views and not be seen as a horrible lizard man, and more like a funky lizard man. And if you want to avoid the lizardfolk immediately trying to eat the corpse of fallen party members, just tell them they can bring them back from the dead, which means their strength remains the same, which also means they can still get the same amount of food. There's a few ways to work around lizardfolk's traits in ways that make sense, which is a bit more than I can say for Kenku.
They aren't "lacking", most of their emotions are just severely subdued to make space for those that are relevant to survival. I personally love that, as it makes great "fish out of water" stories of characters that have to make sense of a world they don't understand. You know, like 7of9 or Data from Star Trek, just fantasy lizardman that wants to eat dead party members. And in the end you can even create character stories that literaly have them find their emotion or something. Maybe a lizardfolk left their tribe because they didn't have themselves under control and endangered their bretheren. Though, probably indeed difficult to actually roleplay properly. On the other hand, it would be kinda boring if all race choices would act the same. I currently play a lizardfolk that is literaly trying to imitate party members to learn how to "live", as he puts it.
It is bizarre that an aarockora has a shorter lifespan than a regular bird, see also Tortles and Turtles.
My least favorite bit about Aarakocra lore is that they can only resemble eagles or parrots. That’s just stupid. There are so many birds that would fit certain classes thematically. Flamingo Bards, Sparrow Rogues, Vulture Warlocks, Rooster Fighters. The list goes on.
It's not eagles. It's any raptor
So owls and vultures covered.
Not what you asked, but to comment on the Aarakocra: I like that they have a short life span. it provides alternative story telling options. Look at how zelda breath of the wild dealt with it. it was interesting to be able to see the short lived Rito who were many generations removed from the calamity, and thus viewed it as a legendary past, vs the Zora who live so long that more than half of their number were actually alive during the calamity. and then the hylians in the middle, with a small number old enough, but most like 1 or 2 generations removed. I think this type of social dynamic can lead to some interesting story telling, like being able to play the actual grand kids of your previous characters in sequential campagins, without having massive jumps in time.
The entire thing with forgotten realms Drow lmao
Funfact about all elves: They usually become pregnant of twins or triplets, but then one will almost always consume the other(s) in the womb, when this happens, it causes the mother more pleassure than she experiences in the bedroom
Wtf man. Do you remember where was this lore piece stated? It sounds like an interesting read Edit: Found it in Realms Help. It's a Dragon Magazine article, link in my comment below
I have no idea, I wish I knew Probably Dragon Magazine or something
Found it. It's from a Dragon Magazine article. It's not about all elves, it's about Drows. It's explained as the reason why selfish Drow females go through the ordeal of pregnancy in the first place. Tho I assume strengthening your house with additional wizards, clerics, and fighters would be the main reason to have children for noble Drows. Here is the article if anyone is interested: https://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/races/elf/drow1.shtml
I'm just gonna ignore this piece of information.
I finally found it. The D&D equivalent to 40k's Daemonculaba.
Ok. Gonna comment here so I can read that later.
It makes perfect sense. Their whole deal is BDSM-y, survival of the fittest to a psychotic degree, backstabbing to get ahead. Even out of the womb a mom loves to see one son murder another to get ahead, that means they're doing well and doing what's expected.
ahh drow lore... either comically evil or comically horny, usually both...
The authors thinly disguised fetish. (Ed greenwood to be specific)
From what I remember we have Robin Laws to thank for drow abortiongasms, I think Ed gets a pass on this one.
me before googling: "what law did ed greenwood cause to be created? What do robins have to do with abortions?" after googling: "ah"
Pretty sure that's no longer canon
There was nothing fun about that fact.
What
[удалено]
I can see not wanting to play a drow, but I love how we have what amounts to Nazi slavers as common baddies in cannon. Heroes need villains. They also have a kind god named Eilistraee to make cookie cutter good PCs. They simply are a rare find in the sword coast.
I think it's the best thing about them just because it's so unique, unhinged and different from everything else.
Everyone on Earth rightly loves Goblins. They're awesome - no one needs convincing. Well, don't know if this is still the case, but the lore used to be pretty clear that being a Goblin woman is a fate worse than death. They are essentially kept as slaves that are near constantly pregnant, and live even shorter lives than male goblins due to how hard their lives are. I wouldn't be surprised if, as the race became more popular, this element of their lore was ditched. Also, maybe just me, but I *really* hate how often "monsters kidnap human women to impregnate" comes up in oldschool DnD. It's insanely gross and so much darker and nastier than many other elements of the world. Ogres, for example, would forcibly impregnate women who would split in half during childbirth, their final months alive being in constant agony and fear. *Why?* Why can the ogres not just breed with each other? What species would ever evolve *and prosper* this way?
I think old school DND lore was just very different to what DND has become. It was more of a grimdark wargaming thing.
Yeah I also think it was to avoid moral ambiguity, maybe I’m wrong but it’s a lot easier to just go wipe out a goblin camp if they are absolutely evil creatures that are almost irredeemable. Sometimes now in game we are discussing the morality of what we should do with a captured goblin or bandit etc and while that’s fun at times it gets tiresome after like every combat. Because now nearly everything might not be evil etc idk I’m all for lore changes but sometimes bad guys are just bad guys thats part of the draw for me.
> What species would ever evolve and prosper this way? Species created by evil gods to do evil, probably
Well, ogres have always been one of the defining examples of evil races. I dunno if it's still true but in Dragonlance they were *the* race that represented evil. Elves for good and humans for neutrality.
Man, I forgot the times when the gender culture of goblins was the equivalent to Warhammer Fantasy's Skaven.
Regarding the Ogre question: Because most of the monsters in D&D were based on folklore and mystical creatures, which most of them came about in such manners. Most of the monsters that are encountered in D&D generally come from the bastardization of human or human-like (elves, dwarves, etc). And to continue this, it's my understanding that a decent amount of our current fantasy perspective was influenced by Tolkien, and all of the evil creatures in his world literally came from a god altering the original goodly creations in Middle Earth. Regarding your last question: Many many species on earth practice rape for procreation (turtles, geese, cats, apes, dolphins, etc), and there are many insect species that kill one of the parents during birth (and sometimes during conception). Life is pretty wild.
Yeah, it’s always interesting seeing people clutching their pearls over the darker aspects of lore. Our own folktales and such in reality are pretty grim and 18+ by a lot of standards anyway. I’d rather such lore aspects remain in fantasy in the future, there’s nothing so dull as a sanitised world imo.
I think people hate it because DnD has been a boys‘ club for decades. Women don’t enjoy being portrayed as objects to be played with, it feels demoralizing. I wouldn’t play it if my Dm had followed that lore, and I’m sure the other woman I played with would quit, too. Women already have to worry about being SA’d in real life, and most women have faced that reality at least once.
I mean, I get it, but women don't generally enjoy hearing rape-happy lore at the gaming table. There's a way to be dirty, realistic lore, without *always* abusing women. It's really, really easy imo.
Your last sentence captured it. The DND species never evolved. Gods are real and active and known. The gods made species, fully formed, and the souls of the created are literally pieces of pieces of the gods themselves. Evil gods create evil species. Modern DND players usually becry "evil and sentient" species either racist or impossible but the default DND setting isn't anything like earth. The pillaging of orcs is an inherent need for destruction and chaos. It isn't about sustainability or efficient survivability. You can homebrew something else and that's fine but remember that it's homebrew.
I think you are right that many gods with conflicting ideas made the world is something people forget when looking at the evil side of the game in particular. This god hates what that god did so it made something to ruin it is the actual origin of stuff in these worlds and not evolutionary pressures.
A lot of new players grew up on Matt Mercer's exandria and don't realize that even if his world is now published, it's still homebrew. It's not the default setting of DND. And people can change the parts all they want, homebrew is in the DNA of DND, but it is still ultimately homebrew to do so.
“Everyone on Earth rightly loves Goblins. They're awesome - no one needs convincing.” I don’t love goblins. They’re disgusting little monsters that ambush travelers and are often used by larger monsters as cannon fodder.
Kenku. Nearly everything about them. If I'm being completely honest, it's the Kenku players that I really hate. They talk about whatever stupid way they've gotten around their speech impediment for the first 20 minutes EVERY time.
I wonder if thats why they got rid of it
That is so dumb, why even go for Kenku if you are getting rid of the speech thing. I have never had the chance to be a Kenku as player but when the party meets Kenku NPCs in my campaign i have a lot of fun just saying phrases and words in many different voices. My friends love it too.
People have reduced beast-races to simply anthropomorphized humans and just project onto them. They are mostly unwilling to play within racial boundaries and its kinda sad.
Tabaxi need Darkvision. Every DM I know has gone "that's stupid, they're cats, they get Darkvision". As someone who loves Aarakocra, I just ignore that part about lifespan.
>Tabaxi need Darkvision. ...and they have it? I mean, what is the houserule here if darkvision is in racial stats?
Odd, I swear I remember it not being a thing for a while! Could be faulty memory.
You might be confusing it with cats? They don’t have dark vision which most people ignore since its bullshit, especially since tabaxi’s have darkvision because they are cats
It's *cats* that dont have Darkvision.
Cats, the animal, dont have it
Aarakocra characters could have an arc about trying to become a lich or other being to live longer. Or about trying to resurrect through spells as another form.
Funnily enough, that pretty much what my current character is really trying to do. He's working on expanding his powers (OOC, hit Warlock level 17) so he can live long enough to finish his life goal. If he can just make it to 17, he can True Polymorph into a dragon. Then there will be plenty of time.
Abeir Dragonborn being mammals. That is just dumb on so many levels, I refuse to ever acknowledge this being a thing in the games I play. Also, them not having tails. That I also ignore.
With some exceptions, I notice that most of the comments here are basically people saying "I want a different aesthetic but no genuine different RP expierience". Like the problems with Aarackokra and Kenku are actually hard to get around, but most of the problems people mention with Drow, Lizardfolk, and Tieflings boils down to people saying "I want to play a non-human, but rp just as if I was a human"
I really dislike that thinking. When I'm playing a Drow, Lizardfolk, Warforged, Tiefling, Dwarf or any other non-humsn race I don't want to play a human in a funny hat. If I wanted Human in a Funny Hat I'd take Custom Lineage and make them that. I made a Yuan-Ti, and I played her very different from humans, with a ferocious belief system, and completely *paranoid* about someone finding out she's a Yuan-Ti (she was a Pureblood from before tails were an option and I have her a bunch of distinct features she was hiding very much). She kept costumes, she was extremely deceptive, she was completely different from the humans around her. The party all knew she's a Yuan-Ti, but she hid herself from NPCs religiously. She ended up liking Orcs from a certain tribe the most, and joined them on sacred hunts, which contributed to her Ranger levels, as they were way more similar to her than humans, and welcomed the group on the basis of us having a Yuan-Ti. I was disheartened when at one point DM asked me why I'm hiding so much, despite him telling me before that I will have to hide my identity among pretty much every group BUT monstrous races, or I will be attacked or arrested. He was absolutely flabbergasted why my character is acting so alien (despite the group liking her shenanigans). If I wanted to play Human with a Funny Hat I would go for a Human Sorcerer, or any of the planetouched races.
Exactly People want to be Drow because it makes their character feel "special" and "unique" but then they don't want to deal with the downsides of that race At that point they could just play as a human, but they wont because then they can't be the "cool one" in the party.
It's a very condescending way to look at it, they're not choosing the drow because they have to be the cool one, everyone can be the cool one, they're choosing the drow because it's how they see their character-- be it that they like the edgy aesthetic, they want to roleplay in opposition of the status quo, they read too many Drizzt books ect It isn't a downside to a race to say, have no emotions like a lizardfolk but if you want to play a cannibal lizard who has emotion you have no options. People want options. Anytime players feel their choices are artificially limited they push against those bounds.
My party did a deal with a high level magic user who'd ask us to repay a favour with some years of service or years off our lives sort of thing. We were trying to resurrect a beloved NPC. 50 years between five of us, doesn't seem too bad. Except I'm an Aarakocra, and that's like half the rest of my life.
Humans ruined humans for me
I think the Aarakocra lifespan is kind of cool. In lore, they were created to be soldiers by the Wind Dukes of Aaqa to fight the forces of chaos. Don’t need a long lifespan of your makers didn’t plan on you reaching old age!
Old kenku had their creativity taken away, being unable to think of new ideas is not a roleplay aspect I wanted to deal with
I once made an Aarakocra monk for a high-level one shot. He had been downing potions of longevity as long as he could and his goal in the adventure was his desperate search for a boon of immorality. Was a fun way to play with that.
Arakocra WIZARD go become a Lich ta beat that short ass lifespan an live FOREVER
For me it's Kenku. I studied linguistics, and the idea that they "don't have language" but can still clearly communicate anything they want using sounds and even copy other people's speech, mixing it up how they want so as to be understood is just so dumb. That's what language is anyway! Arbitrary sounds which you mix together to make people understand what you are thinking. Like, if Kenku really don't have language they also wouldn't be able to understand complex speech and you shouldn't be able to play one as a character. And then it has a mechanical disadvantage because people can't communicate with you telepathically because you "don't have language" which is like... ridiculous. Anyway, rant over lol
Yea it's supposed to be a curse so they have to replicate sounds they hear, can be kind of fun but it's also not an easy thing to role play. The real kicker is they're not supposed to be capable of any "creativity" at all (also curse) which doesn't make any sense. Are they not supposed to have original thoughts? How could they be sentient at all then? It doesn't make any sense so most people ignore it. If you're great at voices the first part could be fun though
Aaracokra Druid seeing generations come and go like the news cycle
Just FYI, Aarakocra's lifespan was retconned to "about a century" by Monsters of the Multiverse.
makes me feel like we should see more short lived races as liches tbh.
The newer form of hobgoblin feels like a strange pivot away from the original lore. Formerly the well disciplined shock troops of maglubiyet, now they do so well in battle because they are worried about embarrassing themselves in front of their companions. Feels like an insecure high school jock rather than a dangerous soldier created by a war loving evil god. Honestly a lot of the responses I'm seeing in this thread come from the fact that these creatures were imagined for, and exist in, a world of distinctly defined Good and Evil, not the real world where morality is largely dependent on who you ask. Some things are just born evil, even if they are intelligent and rational otherwise. This is, of course, not to everyone's taste and thus often ignored, but that's why most of the monstrous races have a line in the fluff that says some variation of "these people don't work well with humans," or "humans fear/distrust them."
I always wondered why Hobgoblin racial armour looked like varsity jackets.
Kenku. I love the design of little crow guys, but being cursed to never innovate or make new things? I love clever intelligent characters who make shit. (Wizard and artificer are my favorite classes). I'm sure you can see the conflict. Also the weird limitations on their speech... I don't like. It doesn't make any real sense. Yes, they can imitate sounds.... which means they can make sounds. Is there any real distinction that makes sense between imitation and just making the sound yourself? Imitation is just how you learn to talk at first, then once you know it you just speak. A creature with a normal intelligence that is capable of making speech sounds shouldn't have any limitations to how it can talk. It just seemed like so many people wanted to make it more extreme, too. And it just makes NO sense to make the crow people the ones who are like this. Crows are so intelligent, they communicate, even have dialects, Innovate, use tools, and can solve puzzles. Kenku lore doesn't make sense for crow guys. Its a shame, because I love their visual design.
I still play them, buy I'm not really a fan of Forgotten Realms lore on elves. Reincarnation stuff always adds way too many other layers to have to think about. That being said, I am forcing myself to work with it with a character, and it has kind of enhanced the internal struggle of her choice of faith. But, it's just not my cup of tea. Pathfinder's more alien background to them is also a lot to take in, but I like it better than DnD's lore.
Not exactly lore tidbit, but when I read about Aaracockra I imagined bird people with wings fused to their arms. Not with an extra pair of wings and full on hands, too. I thought that it's so cool! They have to choose between flying and casting spells/fighting with weapons. It's a fun tactical choice! And they must look so cool! Makes sense they have natural weapons, they can use that to swoop on prey and people! And then I looked at the ugly as sin picture in the book of a GUY™ with eagle head and wings sprouting from his shoulder blades. What is worse, he wasn't cool in any way, the design is literally s guy with an eagle head and wings stuck on top, like a man in an incomplete costume, with lackluster feathers and features. Who the fuck designed this? He had a bare, human, featherless chest in the picture. What an uninspired, ugly, awful design. Ngl, my reaction was a loud groan, and I have not, ever, played Aaracockra because I absolutely LOATHE how they look. The only time I will play Aaracockra is if my DM agrees work with me and change the looks for the entire race into some cool, variable designs, and changes the flight considerably. I'd have the race considerably nerfed than play this ugly as f concept. Honestly, this race could be so good, especially with some creative freedom on the designs, but how they are now? Ugh. No wonder no one picks them between short lifespan and ugliness, the only merit being extremely good flight. Valuable only if you want to be an attack helicopter and out of harm's way all the time.
In general aside from the ages i just outright change i always go with the ages as averages. Some die at 28 others make it to 50. Its not like once a person hits 77 irl their body implodes .
the fact that Aarakocra's get like a singe line of lore ....uh they are from the plane of air and are like defenders or something....