AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

There is no official approved list of physical traits, but if you'd like assistance in deciding on traits and checking that they'd be appropriate, you're welcome to PM me in the forums or in-game to discuss it. I'll be happy to help out.

No one has assembled such a list, to my knowledge. Given the vast number of outsider types it's probably easier if you pick one and we can suggest traits. Unless you're looking to choose the outsider based on the desired traits.

The simple stuff is generally left to your discretion - funky eyes, mostly-humanoid bone structure, funny smells, minor changes in height, weight, shape, number of fingers, funky hair colours, horns (more of a tiefling thing). Part of the point of Planetouchedness is that there isn't really a strict level of rhyme or reason. As a guide look to the generally notable traits of a given ancestor. When it comes to tails, wings and jointed legs - ie, the requestable stuff - you need an ancestor with similar physical traits. If it doesn't have a tail or wings, you'll have a hard time requesting them. I've come to understand it's generally frowned upon to pick an ancestor that's particularly powerful (pit fiends, balors, glabrezu) or to have the fiendish ancestor only a few generations removed from the PC. But there are no hard rules to this that I'm aware of.

Edit: And yeah if you're really unsure or it's particularly important, check with DMs.

Races of Faerun lists

Aasimars can have;

Golden eyes
Emerald skin (planetar)
Feathers at the shoulder (astral deva, avoral celestial, planetar, solar, trumpet archon)
Feathers in hair (avoral celestial)
Pearly opalescent eyes (ghaele celestial)
Powerful ringing voice (lillend, trumpet archon)
Brilliant topaz eyes (solar)
Silver or golden skin (solar)
Iridescent scales in small patches (couatl or lillend)

Tieflings may have;

Small horns on head (demon, devil)
Fangs or pointed teeth
Forked tongue (demon, devil)
Glowing red eyes (demon, devil, night hag)
Cat eyes (Rakshasa)
More or less than 5 fingers (demon, devil)
Goatlike legs (devil)
Hooves (devil)
Non-prehensile tail (demon, devil)
Furry, leather or scaly skin (demon, devil, rakshasa)
Red skin (demon, devil)
Bruised blue skin (night hag)
No shadow (demon, devil)
No reflection (demon, devil)
Hot-to-the-touch skin (demon, devil)
Smell of brimstone (demon, devil)

But it does ultimately fall to DM discretion what is and isn't allowed.

I have a totally random question after I saw and heard about the elfling race; a crossbreed between elves and halflings.

I've been told that humans and halflings can't mate at all, but I don't see how this makes much sense if they can do so with elves. I'm not so sure how its possible for a female hin to give birth to anything bigger than another hin, but I could see it working the other way around, unless the mating of a human and hin would result in either or as opposed to some weird combination. Then there's a chance the female hin could birth to another hin, but its still taking a chance.

So...enough of my rambling. Can someone explain this to me?

Not sure there is a game book that describes elflings. I think one has been in some novel.

I think the Human-Hin relationships isn't anything about mating (Because people stick things in everything), but more probably that when a human and hin mate, they produce either a human or a hin. Now, granted, I don't know where you're getting that source on hinlove, but I do know that's how it is for the Elves. When a Moon Elf and Sun Elf bear a child, the child is either one or the other.

Maybe its something the Gods do to protect the integrity of their creations? Who knows!

That's probably while Elflings are so rare, because no only would the Elf-Hin relationship be rare, but the fact that its a mixed race in and of itself is probably unique.

The core rules are pretty specific about what humans can and can't produce crossbreeds with, so there's no reason to speculate that they should be able to produce half-halflings, or anything at all if they tried. Elflings are a thing because they are, I guess. It's not like real-world genetics as we know it apply. But it probably has to do with relative size, with hin being 3' tall on average, elves being 5', and humans being on the high side of 5'6"-5'8". Elflings are probably small enough at birth, or something weird (see: dragons can breed with hin fine, and so can a number of extraplanar outsiders), and then there are male hin/female elf pairings. But let's not make this any weirder than it has to be.

Mind you, no one says they can't mate, it just wouldn't result in a viable pregnancy. But again, let's not make this any weirder than it has to be.

I wouldn't even read it as literally as Hackums: I do think when races cross-breed, the result can be something in-between. I don't buy that the child of a moon elf and wild elf has absolutely no characteristics of the other parent. Or that the descendants of a half-orc lose all orcish appearance. I take it more as a game rule issue: racial averages are reflected in the modifiers and unique abilities, and you obviously cannot make a new subrace for every individual that happens to diverge from the norm. You get the penalties and benefits of one subrace, so you should pick the one that your character is the closest to.

A human-hin offspring would be closer to one or the other parent, but it would probably be shorter than the average human and taller than the average halfling. It might be weaker than the average human and more dexterous, but that's not something you need a subrace for; rather, you are free to represent that in your ability point attribution at character creation. Races are fluid categories; evolution and cross-breeding blur the lines, but the game-rule races are generalisations that you pick because you're playing a game. Since it's a fantasy world, though, perhaps there is some magical essentialism at play: you're a Lightfoot halfling if you have the essence of one, and the multiverse recognizes this. I find this crude and problematic, but even if it is so, we need not suppose that just because you're essentially a Lightfoot you couldn't have the skin- and hair-color of your human parent.

I'm not sure core rules apply to FR, btw. Since it's pretty clear that almost any combination already exists, I'd say that demihumans in general can occasionally cross-breed.

That's a better explanation, yes. Too much weight is probably put on the nominal subraces, when traits can and should be represented in smaller details, as well as abilities.

IronAngel wrote:

I'm not sure core rules apply to FR, btw. Since it's pretty clear that almost any combination already exists, I'd say that demihumans in general can occasionally cross-breed.

Wait, what? Source? I was always under the impression that there's a shortlist of compatible races and a good chunk of those have it based on being magical creatures.

serbiris wrote:

IronAngel wrote:

I'm not sure core rules apply to FR, btw. Since it's pretty clear that almost any combination already exists, I'd say that demihumans in general can occasionally cross-breed.

Wait, what? Source? I was always under the impression that there's a shortlist of compatible races and a good chunk of those have it based on being magical creatures.

...There... There is that mythical breeding compatibility chart in the... Book of Erotic Fantasy.

All I've heard about it is that it's disturbingly extensive and that dragons are compatible with literally everything.

If anyone is willing to delve the depths of the Internet... It exists. Somewhere.

I've never had the constitution to do it myself.

There are some books men should never open.

serbiris wrote:

IronAngel wrote:

I'm not sure core rules apply to FR, btw. Since it's pretty clear that almost any combination already exists, I'd say that demihumans in general can occasionally cross-breed.

Wait, what? Source? I was always under the impression that there's a shortlist of compatible races and a good chunk of those have it based on being magical creatures.

I have no source but if by core you mean some Greyhawk book, I wouldn't put too much weight on it. Ed is a kinky old man, anyway. It's something that doesn't really need additional policing, IMO, since we have the practical and clear rule already: demihumans on Amia's subrace list are free to play, and you don't get special powers from the combination of two. So if your character's background has a dwarven grandfather and that's why you grow such a mighty beard, it's not worth correcting.

We know at least that elves and humans crossbreed, elf and hin crossbreed, and dwarves can do it with anyone. (Dwarves Deep, p. 6; I think contrary to core?) It seems weird that human and hin would be excluded for some reason.

Interestingly, Dwarves Deep says about halfbloods pretty much what I said above: they are not a real race, but they're a head taller than most dwarves. They look, act and are treated in the rules(!) as normal dwarves. This, of course, is a generalisation since dwarves have plenty of variety as such, so it allows for the idea that you might have more human features.

Maybe you're right though; maybe there is some specific reason human and hin can't reproduce. I don't know, I just think it's not the kind of thing worth thinking about unless we really want to codify a table with fluff explanations in R&L.

I'm aware of the BoEF, but that's a third party D&D supplementary so it's not canon.

As for core books not counting - AFAIK, the core trio (PHB, DMG and MM - of 3.5) count unless the FR books state otherwise. Which they often do, but I've seen no word on crossbreeding. If you ask me, I think it's inconsistent to allow dwarves and humans and so on to breed freely with every other humanoid, purely because of the existence of half-elves, half-orcs, half-fiends etc. That is - those ones have particular stats due to their mixed heritage, so why would a half-dwarf or the various other permutations not have consistent racial bonuses? In general I think it gets really messy if you don't just decide, "Yeah the crossbreeds available are the ones set here, for everything else GO BACK TO SINFAR."

But you know - this is just, like, my opinion. I'd rather draw the line and keep it neat, given that we have a large, varied playerbase. But it really is up to interpretation/which books one finds acceptable.

Dwarves Deep is an FR product and it makes that explicit statement. Why they have no special racial bonuses is anyone's guess - probably so as not to bloat the subrace list needlessly.

By the rules as written, yes, D&D rules apply when not amended by FR rules, but it isn't a very good indicator of the real intent of FR lore when we know that pretty much every other piece of racial lore (from age and size categories to origin and culture), and in some cases the rules of cross-breeding, are different in FR. It would be a freak chance, more than anything, that this particular tidbit should apply. It's probably just not something anyone happened to write about (though I wouldn't be surprised if there's a part-halfling NPC in some novel or sourcebook). It is, after all, a matter of what rules we want to police.

I am in full agreement with keeping it neat, but to me compiling some already nonsensical table from a core D&D product and amending it with FR changes from half a dozen books we probably can't track down is not very neat. (Though to be fair, it took me five minutes of googling to track down that Dwarves Deep reference, so we probably could check for most possible pairings. Or just ask on Candlekeep.)

EDIT: Where is this table you referred to, by the way?

Dwarves Deep is AD&D though, and I'm given to understand that not all 2nd edition lore still applies on Amia. Granted there's no explicit contradiction of this particular piece, but you'd think it'd come up if anyone actually remembered that particular bit of lore, no? I mean, there's a lot of weird marysue stuff applied to elves in prior editions, I'm pretty sure not all of that was explicitly retconned, but still considered no longer applicable?

Huh? I didn't mention any table. I'm talking about the list of playable races in the PHB, and also the templates in Monster Manual (Half-fiend, half-dragon, half-celestial etc). There is a table in BoEF that talks about biological compatibility, but it's non-canon anyway. My position is that we should leave it at what's explicitly given to us in the core and 3rd edition Races of Faerun (although there's just some monstrous crossbreeds there, IIRC) and just forget about obscure 2nd edition weirdness. We have elflings and they've shown up on Amia so there's no going back on them, but I'd be much happier if I didn't have to sit through depictions of half-dwarves, or dwelfs, or dworcs.

In the end though the DMs can decide that the information presented in Dwarves Deep is valid on Amia, no? Or do they have to accept it whether they like it or not?

Well, if they did decide to retcon it, it would be pretty random and unjustified. Most of our lore comes from 2e and it's often unequivocally better. If you had some actual, compelling reason to decide differently, I suppose you could, but other than the supposed appearance of oddity there doesn't seem to be one. There's nothing weird, in my eyes, about these cosely related races (not species, as weird as that may seem) being able to cross-fertilise. It would be weirder if some could and others couldn't. I imagine there is a fairly high percentage of failure, though.

They're somewhat established in lore, anyhow.

Anauroch mentions the D'Tarig people who were probably (2e books tend to be speculative and leave it for DMs to develop further) descendants of dwarf-human crossbreeding but are now mechanically short humans.

Eric L. Boyd took the Dwarves Deep reference and implemented it in a recent source:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/mc/mc20010829e (search "dwelf")

Aaaand this is from Steven Schend unofficially (but really, Boyd and Schend are not people you should doubt in Realmslore):

Quote:

Dwelves....okay, I'll stop myself early before I start doing haiku about stone shelves and dungeon delves....

As stated above (and like half-elves), they favor and adopt the lifestyle/culture under which they are raised. Same goes for which gods they revere.

Both elves and dwarves have serious cognitive dissonance when it comes to dwelves, as (unlike half-elves or half-orcs, IMO) there's no set form or expectation for how they'll look. It's anyone's guess if you'll end up with a dwarf's body size and shape with elven features and ears or an elf's body but stocky vs. svelte and rather hairier than the norm. Dwarven parents may mourn their child's inability to grow a decent beard, thanks to their elven half, while elves may grumble that the child is more interested in the dirt rather than the tree from which it springs. Most likely, they're only comfortable among some societies that embrace acceptance and unity (like Myth Drannor or Miyeritar or elsewhere).

That said, I was surprised by that Myth Glaurach note. Methinks I'll have to talk to Eric and find out what else he's had the Blackstaff up to while I've not been watching....if only for my own curiousity, of course.

Steven
(and some day I'll tell y'all about the Pentad, an alliance of the churches of five gods of four races...but not today, as only three dwelves worshiped among them, and none of them reached high priest stage or any ranking of note)

The point is, if we started looking I'm pretty sure we could find NPCs of most racial combinations. They may be rare but they probably aren't biologically impossible.

As for why they aren't listed as available races in the PHB: they're not races. For game design reasons (and possibly some lesser lore reasons) they don't get distinct racial traits of their own, but are mechanically one or the other. But like I argued above (and indeed references suggest) it doesn't mean they look 100% pureblood. (And then there's the fact that new stuff is introduced to the game all the time and they want the core to be simple for marketing reasons, but nobody's suggesting we actually add a dwelf subrace.)

Last edited by Ice on Thu, Nov 13 2014, 20:23 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Tyrak wrote:

serbiris wrote:

IronAngel wrote:

I'm not sure core rules apply to FR, btw. Since it's pretty clear that almost any combination already exists, I'd say that demihumans in general can occasionally cross-breed.

Wait, what? Source? I was always under the impression that there's a shortlist of compatible races and a good chunk of those have it based on being magical creatures.

...There... There is that mythical breeding compatibility chart in the... Book of Erotic Fantasy.

All I've heard about it is that it's disturbingly extensive and that dragons are compatible with literally everything.

If anyone is willing to delve the depths of the Internet... It exists. Somewhere.

I've never had the constitution to do it myself.

There are some books men should never open.

EDIT:

So sayeth the disturbing book.

Ah. That makes most sense, IronAngel. I mean, it's Forgotten Realms. Anything can mate with anything, pretty much, if they tried hard enough. Not that we all want to think about that, but it's true! I was just wondering more about the fact that elflings are recognized as a subrace while other such weird crossbreeds aren't. Also, simply because someone told me that humans and hin just outright can't make anything through mating. It didn't really make sense to me, because I was going more by the logic that Hackums was talking about, the way I've been told many crossbreeds work. One race crossbreeding with the other results in a child that is either race and not some crazy half breed subrace that has a category of its own. Like Aasimar and Tiefling, or what have you. I find the genetics a very interesting topic, seeing as how I barely understand how genasi exist. BUT. That being said, I'm fairly new to the setting and could probably benefit from some more reading of source material on this stuff. Thanks guys

For the curious.

Crossbreeds might be possible through magical means, but you'll have to find a source other that BoEF that can confirm.

That comes from a non-Canon book, though.

The reason why Elflings are featured on Amia, to be quite honest, is just because someone pulled them from some arbitrary source thought they would be cool. There's no grand plan to Amia's subraces, so we just have to deal with it.

Grymia wrote:

That comes from a non-Canon book, though.

Which is why I said to confirm from another [actual] source.

Although, one could just use the infinite potential of magic to crossbreed whatever they please.

It appears that job system xp is subject to the multiclass xp penalty... why is that? I don't see why jobs have anything to do with multiclasses. Fighting monsters is one thing because yes, one is half-proficient at their fighting abilities and needs to learn to do two things at once, so they 'learn' slower, but what does successfully butchering an animal for meat have to do with being 29 wizard or 29 wizard and 1 rogue? If anything a wizard should totally suck at being a butcher

Sorry if this has been discussed to death, just wanted to know why

Blame Bioware, is my guess. It likely applies the penalty to any XP gained.

Rigela wrote:

Blame Bioware, is my guess. It likely applies the penalty to any XP gained.

Automatically, yes, but I'm sure the code can be changed to not include multiclass

If I were to make a character with 24 levels in Druid and 1 in Ranger, would my animal companion get the same benefits as the animal companion of a level 25 Druid?

They don't stack, no.

What is our forum's policy on foul language? I wanted to post something in the screenshots thread earlier today (still sort of do), but rather hesitated due to not knowing how tolerant this community was of that. Don't want to get thrown out, especially not over something stupid, so I figured it'd be wisest to ask first. .-.

You can probably get away with the usual set: shit, fuck, ass, bastard, bitch, and some variations thereof. Depends on context. Excessive use might be tasteless.

People have been permabanned for using nigga in non-racially slurring manners however, so avoid using that if possible. Context before judgment.

You can also get away with using 'cunt' in-character, too.

If someone's got a problem with it, I'm sure they'll act maturely and ask you politely to tone it down.

I am considering a character based on the Elven phenotype with the subrace of aasimar. According to this article: http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Celestial, this seems plausible. They claim Eladrin are actually Celestials. If so, then an Elven (likely Sun Elf, though I know that's just RP flavor) Aasimar with Eladrin heritage is possible? Please advise, those in the know on such things!

From reading, I just don't see Mulhorandi heritage mixed with Elven blood to be what I'm looking for. By the way, this character will be mostly the Divine Champion prestige class, so being of Eladrin blood mixed with Tel-Quessir is a wonderful fit I think.

Thank you!

Yes, the Chaotic Celestial variations are Eladrin. If you want a good book that has more about them, look at Book of Exalted Deeds.

Is there a way to just delevel a character, or does it require a full re-build type write-up?

If it's a slight mistake, you can ask a DM in game to take one or two levels, at best, but otherwise you should always write the request.

Semi-random question here... I didn't know where else to put it.

I did a search but only came up with one mention of a player wanting to use a bugbear skin instead of one of the two hobgoblin skins for his character... though I'm unsure if he actually got it or not.

Is it possible to request a bugbear skin instead of a hobgoblin at character creation? Or would this fall under the category of a DC request?

Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry if this question has already been answered in a previous post that I couldn't find.

Bileworm wrote:

Is it possible to request a bugbear skin instead of a hobgoblin at character creation? Or would this fall under the category of a DC request?

Possible? Yes. But, if a particular skin/model isn't available in character creation or activated through subrace, you would need to make a request for it. Hobgoblins and bugbears are not exactly the same thing.

Thank you for the reply. I'll interpret that as a No, then. What I meant by request is the initial DM request upon character creation for one of the hobgoblin skins, though instead of one of those two, request a bugbear skin. No, they are not exactly the same, I grant you that. Though they are very similar, and there would be no request for additional stats of any kind, just the ability to take on the hobgoblin subrace with a bugbear skin.

If I have interpreted your answer correctly, it sounds like it would fall under the DC request category, rather than something that could be obtained at character creation through a simple request upon initial login.

It would be a DC request because you would be playing a bugbear, not a hobgoblin. The two races are -very- different, and do not look similar.

Thanks for the info.

What physically happens when I charge my portal wand with a mythal piece? I'm imaging putting batteries into a flashlight.

Physically nothing afaik. The weight does not change, so I imagine nothing major happens.

Its sort of like putting a battery into something. Only that the mythal is consumed, rather than held, by the portal wand. Essentially, the portal rod uses the magical energy of the mythal to recharge itself. Nothing is left of the mythal, and the rod itself is recharged. Like magic.

Thanks to both!

Has anyone created an image or sigil of Kohlingen that I don't know about?

There's this that's been used in a few posts and the like: http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee31 ... Symbol.png

How "official" would you say that is, IC'ly?

Back when Gorgy was the Kohl DM, he used it 'officially.' So unless Rigela redacts it, I'd say its fairly official!

Good. I've actually found references to it elsewhere, so it seems to have entered common usage.

*Redacts it to be difficult*

S'good and official though.

Does the +50 skill cap only apply after ranks? The nwn wiki doesn't seem to have a search function anymore.

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