| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 00:25:00
The Terrain Series Races in Faerun (Races from Frostburn, Sandstorm, and Stormwrack In The Forgotten Realms Setting)
The lands of Faerun are vast and varied, and so are the people that live within those lands. Many are well known and populous, but there are many species of intelligent creatures that are seen less often, and have a history that is little known to the more common folk of the Realms.
What follows is a list of the various new races presented in the terrain series of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 sourcebooks (Frostburn, Sandstorm, and Stormwrack), and how these races might be adapted for use with the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 08 Jun 2007 : 17:32:13
Yup, right here in this thread:
http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9043
Thanks for the compliments, and I'm very pleased to know that someone gets some use from this material. Thanks. |
| Mean Eyed Cat |
Posted - 08 Jun 2007 : 17:24:43
quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I did the Planar Handbook races, and I've been toying with doing some of the Races of Books, although Champions of Valor covers the "big guns" of each book.
Have you posted the Planar Handbook races one yet? Oh, and great job with the terrain races! I'll be using this information in my campaign  |
| Daviot |
Posted - 08 Jun 2007 : 00:05:38
It looks fine, KEJR. I've been wanting to use the bhuka for a while now, so I might toss some at the party when they venture into the Raurin. That is...when my campaign (hopefully) resumes in the fall. Great work once again. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 06 Jun 2007 : 01:59:29
Updated the asherati and the bhuka entries. If you are so inclined, let me know what you think. I'm a lot happier with them now. |
| MerrikCale |
Posted - 05 Jun 2007 : 02:08:09
quote:
Originally posted by warlockco
quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I did the Planar Handbook races, and I've been toying with doing some of the Races of Books, although Champions of Valor covers the "big guns" of each book.
That's right, forgot that CoV did cover some ground on that.
Plus, a Goliath appears in the Depths of Madness novel |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 04 Jun 2007 : 22:32:14
I'll likely be reworking my Asherati and Bhuka background a little bit, much as I like the Asherati worshiping old Untheric deities and the like, since I recently noticed that Raurin was a "vast fertile plain" before the fall of that empire.
|
| warlockco |
Posted - 02 May 2007 : 17:11:34
The Vanara are new with 3E as far as I know of. Remember the Oriental Adventures of 3E is not the same as the OA of previous editions.
OA used to be based in Kara-Tur, now it is based in Rokugan and even there the Oriental Adventures book doesn't quite mesh with that setting. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 01 May 2007 : 19:24:41
I really like your take on them KEJr, just a couple of comments -
I placed the Neanderthals in the Spine of the World region as well in an Elven Netbook article, just a little further north above Ten-Towns where the Rendghart and they raid each other's settlements.
I've been toying with the idea of bringing the Hadozee into the Oriental regions, which would explain why Faerūnians have nearly no knowledge of them. Also, there is already a land-bound Simian race in that region (the Vanara), as well as the god(?) known as 'Mad Monkey', so it makes some sense for them to be living 'over there'. Also, the largest Spaceport in Realmspace is located nearby, and they are known for confiscating ships and stranding Spacefarers on Abeir-Toril. Otherwise, everything you wrote fits perfectly, thanks for that.
In my current work on the Oriental realms, I have an idea for 'underwater humans', but I'm not sure if the Aventi are 'right' for my concept. I do love both your version AND Valaxaxath's, however, and they are actually highly compatible. Perhaps the Jamdathans had encountered the Aventi before along the coast and traded with them, OR when the cities were inundated Aventi felt pity for the drowning humans, and rescued some. Either way, they encountered them, and the humans, who's homes now lie at the bottom of the sea, used a poweful 'group-mind' effect to turn themselves into Aventi. This would bring both ideas together, and could explain how the Corynactis Aventi learned of Tyr or vice-versa. If I use them IMG, I'll probably go with this line of reasoning, because I like both of your ideas so much.
The only thing I have a problem with is the Asherati. They were brought here by the Imaskari, yet live in a desert that didn't come about until AFTER the Imaskar were gone? The only way I can reconcile this, in my mind anyway, is that they were brought over at the VERY END of the Empire (along with the Bhukas), perhaps in desperation to get help against the rebelling Mulan. It was too little, too late, and Imaskar fell soon after, creating the desert that both races now dwell in.
Great Work, I've enjoyed your other 'Race adaption' pieces in the past, and look forward to more. 
|
| Halidan |
Posted - 30 Apr 2007 : 19:33:54
Thanks for all the hard work that went into this KnightErrantJR. I really appreciate seeing how other DM's have added the material from the terrain books to thier versions of the Realms. |
| Victor_ograygor |
Posted - 30 Apr 2007 : 09:05:15
Well done.. I like it
Keep up the good work KnightErrantJR ! |
| Rinonalyrna Fathomlin |
Posted - 30 Apr 2007 : 00:48:35
Agreed, besides, just because a group of elves settles in a different clime doesn't mean they have to be a different race. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 29 Apr 2007 : 14:39:27
Some of the sub races in the terrain books were very interesting to me, but given that the "main races" have a fairly well detailed place in the setting and the overall lack of interest by a lot of FR fans for more subraces of the main races, I decided against trying to incorporate some of these into the list.
I briefly toyed with the idea that Lamruil's elves might have been changed by high magic to make them more sturdy, thus making them into the snow elves listed in Frostburn, and that the painted elves in Sandstorm could represent the wandering Star Elves that apparently settled in Raurin in Darkvision, but both of those would have been a judgement call, and elven subraces seem to be the least appreciated of the bunch (which I understand, just saying its a bit of a juggling act). |
| boddynock |
Posted - 29 Apr 2007 : 07:15:53
KnightErrantJR,
One of my players played a glacier dwarf in our forgotten realms campaign. More information will be posted later in time, because I have the intension to put the history, settlement etc ... on the candlekeep website. But it will take some time before this is ready. (I work on Fel. Krae project, my own campaigns logs for the site, etc ... so it can take a while).
I use them as a nearly extinct dwarven race that you only find in the spine of the world. Once they were a much more learned race but through decennia and facing nearly extinction they became more savage. Much of their knowledge and craft is forgotten, even by their own people. At the moment there is only one great bastion which is located in the southern regio in the Spine of the world. The bastion called Karak Azullu. At the moment the town is led by a chaotic good dwarven king called Guormundr I.
During history they got many wars with goblinoids, especially with a tribe who worship the demon god orcus. It's mentioned that the demon lord has plans for the future of the dwarven subrace. He would see them either extinct or if he can he will try to corrupt them to create his own fiendish dwarf race on Faerūn
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| lokilokust |
Posted - 29 Apr 2007 : 06:00:52
well done!
(and that reminds me, i need to start seriously working on my 'star frontiers' collection.) |
| Darkmeer |
Posted - 28 Apr 2007 : 04:12:34
Hey KEJR,
I love the explanation. You truly are a completionist in using your sourcebooks (and I thought MY collection was pretty obsessive). You're also good at following established lore (most anything you'd put out I might as well consider cannon in my games anyways). I think these are great things you've done, and I wonder why they weren't done elsewhere. Oh well, I'm happy 'cause now I have even MORE races to put on Faerun. I'm gonna have to give you my copy of Mythic Races to ponder over.
Later
/d |
| The Sage |
Posted - 28 Apr 2007 : 01:48:33
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Hadozee will always be a spelljamming race, to me.
While I do agree, I do like the version presented here.
Perhaps we could suggest that these Hadozee reflect those primate-humanoids who never left their warm homeworld for the "coldness" of Wildspace.
|
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 21:46:27
Thanks for the comments all . . .
As far as the aventi go, I really liked Eric Boyd's take on Dagon's corruption of the shalarin in the Sea of Corynactis, and for some reason it just clicked that throwing the aventi into that environment would be interesting. I wanted to keep them as being from another world because the fall of Aventus really seemed to be a big part of their racial makeup. |
| Valaxaxath |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 20:47:26
For a realmsian version of the Aventi, I just pegged them as psionicly mutated survivors of Jaamdath. |
| warlockco |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 18:14:54
quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I did the Planar Handbook races, and I've been toying with doing some of the Races of Books, although Champions of Valor covers the "big guns" of each book.
That's right, forgot that CoV did cover some ground on that. |
| warlockco |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 18:13:10
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Hadozee will always be a spelljamming race, to me.
Amen on that Wooly. |
| dwarvenranger |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 15:53:43
I like it, good job Knight. |
| Sian |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 06:16:44
in my campaign Hleid fleed to Faerūn just before ToT kicked off, barely settled herself in House of Nature. Early in the ToT she got into a big fight with Auril on top of the Great Glacier, which she lost with flying colors but managed to flee and ran for hiding on the northenmost part of Icewind Dale where she hid in a little tribe composed by Arctic Dwarves and a few Humans primary worshipping Ulutiu. After the ToT she returned to House of Nature but kept looking specificy after the icy wastelands of the north and got some tribes of devout Uldra's 'Transferred' from their homeworld to Icewind Dale and the Glaciers, but as an aftermatch from her 'exile' in northen Icewind Dales she have started to get interested in Ulutiu and his followers and after having looked at them since she started to try planing a way to wake Ulutiu from his slumber, idialisticly without doing any harm to the body of Oetha |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 01:58:37
Well . . . I tend to see them wearing shades a lot . . . but still in space . . . hence the last paragraph . . .  |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 01:56:37
Hadozee will always be a spelljamming race, to me. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 01:40:10
I did the Planar Handbook races, and I've been toying with doing some of the Races of Books, although Champions of Valor covers the "big guns" of each book. |
| warlockco |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 01:34:22
quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
Thanks, warlockco, I appreciate it.
Now do the Races of X books  Or has that already been done by someone? |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 01:33:32
Thanks, warlockco, I appreciate it. |
| warlockco |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 01:25:21
Great job KEJ |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 00:29:08
Stormwrack Races
Aventi; Aventi are a relatively new race to Faerun. This race of aquatic humans did indeed live in a human empire known as Aventus, and when that empire fell beneath the waves, Aventurnus, their most prominent god, changed the Aventi to allow them to survive beneath the waves.
What many do not know is that one of the primary forces working against the empire of Aventus was the ancient demon lord Dagon. The details are unknown, but at some point in the ancient history of Aventus, Dagon set in motion the events that allowed the nation to sink beneath the waves, and many of the monstrosities that the Aventi found there were his minions.
The Aventi that are currently in Faerun were members of a crusade several thousand strong that followed a minion of Dagon from their homeworld through a portal to another group of Dagon's minions. These minions were the corrupted shalarin of the Sea of Corynactis. The Aventi crusaders battled the corrupted shalarin for some time in this region of Toril.
A few hundred of the aventi crusaders were caught up in the wild tide of Dagon in 1371 DR when a permanent portal was established between Corynactis and Seros. The shalarin of Seros have cut off the travel between the portal to Corynactis and the Sea of Fallen Stars, and the Aventi are effecitvely cut off from what is left of their crusade in Corynactis.
Being relatively new to the region, the Aventi do not trust the shalarin, even those native to Seros, due to their experiences in Corynactis, and by extention they do not trust the races allied to them. Similarly, the ixitxachtil presence in the Sea of Fallen Stars has convinced the Aventi that the Sea of Fallen Stars is haunted by demon worshiping denizens of the deep.
Some Aventi might be disillusioned by the long crusade away from their homeworld, and some may end up on quests that take them far from their new home, and these are the Aventi most likely encountered by adventurers. Aventurnus has not yet petitioned Ao to become a member of Faerun's pantheon, but his followers still petition him, and for the time being, Tyr answers their prayers. While the god of the just does not seek to steal them as followers, if Aventurnus ultimately decides not to enter Faerun's pantheon, Tyr will take on Aventurnus as another manifestation of his own power and utilize his new followers to scourge the seas of demonic influence.
Darfellan; The darfellan are a race not entirely unlike humanoid versions of killer whales. These powerful aquatic humanoids were peaceful but powerful hunters that once had several well settled villages on the islands around the Sea of Swords. They rarely had contact with humans, but the Northmen barbarians that occasionally found their islands thought that they were spirits and avoided them.
Hundreds of years ago the darfellan were attacked by the sahuagin and nearly hunted to extinction. The darfellans were powerful of build, but ignorant of the ways of war and destruction, and the sahuagin offered many of the darfellans up on the altars of Sekolah.
In recent years, the darfellan had begun to recover a bit from their ancient battles with the sahuagin. Two particularly strong settlements had arisen, with many smaller islands with only a few families on them had come about, and once every four years the darfellans had a moot on the central island, south of the Moonshaes, about halfway to the Nelanther Isles. Darfellans from all of the other settlements traveled to this moot, leaving their other large settlement, far to the north in the Sea of Moving Ice.
This moot occurred in 1370 DR. The horde of Iakhovas overtook the island meeting of darfellans, slaughtering and scattering them, and another contingent of sahuagin traveled north, far more northerly than they normally would, so that they could destroy the few darfellans that remained in the settlement in the Sea of Moving Ice.
The darfellans are very nearly extinct at this point. A few families exist from place to place, but no villages or settlements of any note still survive. Occasionally a few darfellans may be found working as deck hands or dock workers in Waterdeep or Baldur's Gate, and in far south Calimshan a few decadent merchants who deal in sea travel consider them to be exotic and much sought after slaves.
The darfellans themselves still hate the sahuagin with a passion, and they are devoted to the deity that they know as the Whale Mother.
Hadozee; Hadozee are a race of primates that have adapted to a life at sea. They love sailing, and they apparently have no homeland to call their own, usually only serving on ships of other races. Small families may live in various ports, mainly up and down the Sea of Swords.
While hadozee are fairly rare, when asked about their origins the sea faring apes can rarely produce any solid evidence for where they came from. While most hadozee can tell tails of their family members sailing on ships until they encountered other hadozee and then settled in a port city to raise their children (until those children could find ships to serve on themselves), a few tell even wilder tales.
According to some hadozee family tales, the hadozee came from beyond Faerun, sailing on ships that could travel to different worlds and planes. There are still hadozee among the stars and on other worlds, and while the hadozee will often say there is indeed a hadozee homeland, they are rarely wistful about this place.
A few truly wild hadozee tales, those often told by the boldest of hadozee bards and adventurers, tell tales of the hadozee being survivors of an ancient universe that existed before the present one, and that the hadozee sailed on a ship that traversed time and space itself to outrace the End of Time. These hadozee tales often times revolve around worlds filled with amorphous shapeshifters, insectile creatures, and the villains of these tales are usually snake or worm like creatures. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 27 Apr 2007 : 00:28:00
Sandstorm Races
Asherati; The asherati are a race of thin, bald, luminecent humanoids that can swim through the sands as merfolk swim through water. While they are not a populous people, they have been seen in various locales in Faerun, in the Calim Desert, the Raurin Desert, and even Anauroch. Despite this, they seem to be most commonly seen in and around Calimshan.
The earliest records regarding the asherati seem to trace them back to the time period just after Calim and Memnon, the two great genies that battled over the Lands of Intruige, were vanquished with Elven High Magic. Eventually the elves and dwarves of the region managed to eliminate the remaining genie warlords from the region, but for a time the warlords desperately sought to bolster their ranks.
Many genies had jann as servants, and some of these janni knew the way to several other worlds. An efreet warlord named Ba'haui bid his janni servants take him to one of these worlds, and recruited the asherati into his service as scouts, spies, and assasins.
The asherati did not like being pressed into service, and it wasn't long before most of them managed to escape into the relatively young Calim desert, away from servitude. After the last of the warlords were defeated, the asherati managed to find and settle an abandoned genie stronhold, and named it Duneheart.
Almost a hundred years ago, a asherati sorcerer named Daeheayr managed to revive some of the magic of the janni travelers, and he forged new portals to some of the other deserts of Faerun, notably Anauroch and Raurin, and even opened a portal to far off Zhakara.
The asherati are rarely seen even in the Calim Desert, thanks in part to their burried city, and in part to still only existing in fairly small numbers. They have small settlements in both Anauroch and Raurin, but both settlments are more like outposts manned by a few curious families.
The asherati are interested in exploring a variety of desert sands, and some have even heard of the far off lands of Maztica and seek to travel there to explore its terrain. Eventually asherati mages may even forge links to these far sands.
The asherati were very close to the janni living in their homeworld, and bear then no real ill will despite their role in the asherati's conscription. This closeness to the janni led the asherati to the worship of Solanil, goddess of oasis, She-Who-Plants-Seeds-In-The-Waste (and some asherati see themselves as "seeds" and therefore see it as their duty to establish settlments in other deserts around the world).
Bhukas; Bhukas, desert dwelling goblins with a special reverence for nature, are first beleived to have come to Faerun when renegade wizards of Mulhorand opened a portal to another world and loosed an massive army of orcs during the Orcgate Wars.
The bhukas has already broken away from their kin on this distant world, but were enslaved by the tyrannical orc warlords of that place. Brought to Faerun as labor slaves, the bhukas never lost faith in their goddess, and eventually, when the orc legions were broken by the forces of the Mulan nations of the Old Empires, the bhukas scattered.
The largest concentration of bhukas are found in the foothills of the Giant's Belt mountains bordering the desert of Raurin. The bhukas live here with their meager farms in their cliffside dwelling, still prospering because of their ingenuity and their druid talents.
There are also reports of a small bhuka community in the hilly regions of the Bandit Wastes north of Halruaa, and another community may exist on the edge of the Calim Desert, in the hills of the western edge of the Marching Mountains. These communities are small and very easy for explorers, and hungry monsters, to miss. They also contain bolt holes that lead to the upper reaches of the underdark, but the bhukas are loathe to return to "Kikanuti's Woumb," since they are called to the sun and the sky.
At one point in time there was a settlement of bhukas that managed to wander all the way north to the outskirts of Anauroch. This settlment was near the Mines of Tethyamar. At some point in the fairly recent past this settlment came into contact with the current inhabitants of the mines, and Tarkomang's followers slaughtered the bhuka to the last.
Long ago on their native world the bhukas broke away from other goblins. While most bhukas see Kikanuti as their benevolent mother, some go even further and say that she was at one time Maglubyiet's wife, and that she turned on him when he began to viciously waste the lives of their children. The bhuka blame Maglubyiet and his goblins for their enslavement at the hands of the orcs, claiming that if goblins lived as their mother intended, the orcs would never have been able to conquer them. |
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