Re: You know you're a Spelljammer nerd when...

I think that furry races are like anything else in D&D. They have their 
place in the great scheme of things. If they are overdone they can seem a 
bit corny. But in specific campaign settings they *can* be given a 
background that really makes sense.

A man with the head of a hippo might seem a bit nuts to Erik Mona, but *no* 
fantasy race is logical. That is the entire point of fantasy - to be stuff 
that is impossible. If elves were just humans with pointed ears they 
wouldn't be interesting enough to play.

I'm sure we could dissect the abilities are appearance of *any* race in the 
PHB if we tried. There are many races in the MM that have Level Adjustments 
and starting HD that make them very hard to integrate into a game. Some of 
these are viewed as unplayable by certain people.

But the whole thing about D&D is that the game belongs to the DM and the 
players. Each DM picks and modifies an off the shelf campaign setting or 
creates a home brew one. So it doesn't matter if any of us dislikes a 
certain race or monster. I don't see the need to delete things from the 
universe - you just don't use it in your *own* game.

If I was in charge of the universe (or multiverse), I would want to see a 
multitude of *optional* races so that DMs could pick and choose a small 
amount of PC races from that list. As long as players realise that giff PCs 
are "at the DMs discretion" (and don't stamp their feet if the DM says "not 
in my game") I can't see any problem with their existence.

Taking that to Spelljammer, I would actually love to see us build up planets 
and crystal spheres so that each one has one or two non-standard races. But 
they really do need to be given a history and culture that fits in with the 
rest of the societies around them or they will seem cheesy to some people.

Maybe furry races would make sense if they evolved on planets that didn't 
have some (or all) of the standard races. Maybe they would make more sense 
if you picked a set of related animals and worked up an entire planet from 
them.

So you could have a planet of "cats", with every possible combination. Some 
could be fast and others could be strong. The roles of centaurs could be 
replaced by catlike versions with four clawed feet *and* two clawed hands. 
There could even be aquatic cats and artic cats and a lot of cat-like 
monsters. If you did that you could create (or borrow) feats that would fit 
in will with catlike creatures and make them "general feats" for PCs.

And I think you could do the same thing for any *other* type of creature. 
There are already several lizard-like races in D&D as well as a few 
snake-like ones. If they were collected together (and some new races and 
monsters made) a "lizardfolk" homeworld could be created.

But lets not stop there. I'd like to see the beholder homeworld knocked up. 
I would *love* to see a planet of creatures that were all able to give the 
beholder a run for its money. But something like that would probably only be 
suitable in an epic Spelljammer campaign and most conventional PC races 
wouldn't fit in (even as visitors).

I think the wonkiest part of 2nd edition Spelljammer, was the fact that 
certain elements have been introduced with no history behind them. Something 
like scro works, because we have a starting point for this orc variant. But 
other races seem to have popped into existence from nowhere.

I'm pretty sure that giffs (and other SJ races) could benefit from having a 
homeworld. (I'd probably say the same for a lot of the unusual monsters in 
the SRD.) From what I recall, they are one of many races that "don't know 
where they came from". We need to know why these races don't know where they 
came from. Slavers, like the neogi, are a very good excuse, because we can 
say that groundling versions of certain races are much more primitive than 
their spacefaring counterparts.

I think that Spelljammer actually gives us the best of both worlds (if you 
will excuse the pun), because we can have a game on Krynn (where no drow PCs 
are allowed to be created) move to Toril (where only kender PCs that *came* 
with the party are allowed) and then move to another crystal sphere (where 
the DM can let players start giff or dracon PCs). I think that if almost all 
"non-standard" races are pitched as "groundling races" and tied in to 
specific planets, they help add a more unique "feel" to those places. And I 
think that the "furry races" can have a small part to play in the 
multiverse.

In a way, some of these "wonky" creatures *only* make sense if they come 
from distant crystal spheres from the Spelljammer Campaign Setting. (I would 
say that the same thing applies to all the playable "outsider" races in the 
MM/SRD. That you can't justify their inclusion unless you use the Planescape 
Campaign Setting as a conduit to take them from their home planes to the 
planet that you import them into.)

And if the giff seem wonky to Mr Mona, then perhaps the problem is that they 
are not explained properly (yet). Forgotten Realms' sun elves (aka gold 
elves) get a respectable amount of coverage in FRCS (as do Dragonlance's 
kender in the DLCS). The giff didn't get the same sort of coverage in 
Spelljammer, so it isn't surprising if *some* people don't think they work. 
There just isn't enough information to make explain about different types of 
giff.

The good news is that we have Beyond the Moons and can use it enhance and 
expand any underrated race that hasn't got enough coverage in commercial 
products. There are plenty of things that could be done to make the giff 
more believable. We could use page 25 of Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 
to create a monastic order of giff found only in Realmspace. We could 
explain which of the Holy Orders of the Stars (from Dragonlance) is most 
attractive to the giff who have settled in Krynnspace and turned to the 
local gods (and "invent" the giff names for Paladine, Takhisis and the other 
gods). We could even create one or two giff subraces for use in places where 
they have been cut off from spacefaring culture for long enough to justify a 
difference to evolve. These would probably be groundling giffs, but wouldn't 
necessarily need to be devolved versions (like the wiggle). If the giff 
obsession with all things military was turned to something else you could 
create a subrace that was very good at any other sort of skill. I'm sure 
there are lots of possibilities.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/

From: "Michael Shell" <FenrysStar@???.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 11:35 AM


> He basically called them wonky or weird or some other such nonsense. But
> apparently someone at Paizo managed to talk him into letting them through 
> for the
> one January issue of Dragon. He also put a moratorium on animal heads in
> Dragon. Apparently he wanted something besides the deluge of furry races 
> that
> gamers wanted to see in Dragon. And yes, Giff can very well be considered 
> furries
> since they're anthro hippos. But some of us like our furry races. Myself
> included as I play lupin rangers whenever I can.