PDA

View Full Version : I'd like some creative input...



Shinizak
2009-06-18, 10:01 PM
I've been creating my own world, and was inspired after watching Battle Star Galactica to put war forged into my campaign setting, but I don't want to make my world to Eberron-ish or to BSG-ish either. Got any ideas on how I could do this without completely ripping off the two?

Oblivious
2009-06-18, 10:07 PM
I think the most important question is 'where did these constructs come from and how do they propagate?' If you want to make them rare, they could potentially be servants created by wizards who gained free will when their masters died.

Fishy
2009-06-18, 10:17 PM
Magitec is what makes Eberron feel like Eberron. The Warforged are common, everybody's seen one, not everyone knows exactly how they work, but not everyone knows the gritty details of how their car works. They were loyal servants until they were granted their independence through peaceful and legal means, like Robot Canada. Since then, Warforged groups have sprung up, but there's no one cause that unifies the entire race. They're not intrinsically scary.

Weird Science is what makes BSG feel like BSG. For 50 years, the Cylons simply disappeared, and they've been altering themselves the whole time, evolving into something we can barely comprehend. Humans have no clue how the 'skinjobs' are even possible, no idea how the fleet is organized or how resurrection works or where their homeworld is. We know, however, that they hate us, and that They Have A Plan.

So... go somewhere in between those two, why don't you.

Irate Ranger
2009-06-18, 10:29 PM
They were loyal servants until they were granted their independence through peaceful and legal means, like Robot Canada.

Well, they'd still make more sense than French Canada...

The Gilded Duke
2009-06-18, 11:39 PM
The Watchers

The Empire is dead. The blood forged peace is over, and now largely forgotten and myth. The ruins dot the landscape, most of it looted or defaced. What hasnt been converted to warrens, museums or tourist traps have been overrun by plants.

The Empire built the Watchers, metal golems and guardians who preserved the peace and never grew tired of a life of constant vigilant. When the Empire fell they grew silent. Most of them were looted, long ago melted down to scrap.

In some of the distant ruins the watchers remained. They were overgrown with vines and trees consumed by the forests around them. A few were made into idols, but mostly they were silent.

Last year they woke up. Part plant, part statue they walk the world again. Their memories as faded as the tales of the past. They are no longer bound to any Empire, or any idea. For the first time in a millennium they are free. And they are blank.

Some try to find their own way in the world. Some have been claimed as property. Some have joined religions, faiths, and ethos. Some have decided to stay still. Some are angry. Some still watch.

Doc Roc
2009-06-18, 11:41 PM
The Watchers
Some still watch.

TL;DR: The watchers like to watch.

Hat-Trick
2009-06-18, 11:50 PM
Cheap labor gone sentient. Usually used for heavy lifting or sent into high danger areas until a magical influx gave them self-awareness. Some stuck to labor, others sought a different path. One of the few alternates being adventuring, which they excel at.

Shinizak
2009-06-18, 11:50 PM
TL;DR: The watchers like to watch.

*Closes window blinds*

:smalleek:

Thrawn183
2009-06-18, 11:50 PM
The warforged were created by an ancient civilization (or perhaps the means to create them was, and now people just don't understand it), so while they act pretty normally most of the time, every once in a while a warforged will do something totally unexpected and not even know why.

This gets better if you have small or even large groups start changing how they act. This could work in a bunch of different ways.
- warforged that come out of a particular forge are incredibly superstitious about black kobolds crossing their paths
- warforged become unstable in high magic environments/with old age a previous set of programming surfaces
- sleeper cells activated for some unknowable reason (heck, it could be the pattern of how often it snows)
- all the way up to campaign central warforged rebellions, might come a little close to BSG, though it would be hilarious if they were running around in battle asking the enemy if they knew why they were fighting
- note, depending on presentation, this could also be scary or tragic

Basically, do you want warforged to be data, not hugely different from humanoids in most important ways? Do you want them to be dangerous, secretly or overtly? Do you simply want to emphasize how different living constructs are by pointing out the things that they seem to find important are totally different (maybe they see glaciers carving out canyons as a form of habitat destruction and decide to melt all the ice in the world)

Animefunkmaster
2009-06-19, 12:21 AM
Warforged, the next phase in evolution, or literal intelligent design.

First don’t call them warforged, but sentient constructs (treat them like any other organic organism). Originally man made (with a debate as to who the original creator was), the race has gained independence and a method of reproduction (albeit asexual). There are many political groups who fight for construct rights, the definition of what an object is, animate object spells and crafting constructs being held in the same regard as necromancy, and for perusing equality between constructs and other sentient biological creatures.

TheThan
2009-06-19, 12:41 AM
Here’s an interesting take on Warforged:

Long ago an ancient civilization arose. This civilization was vast and powerful; the citizens mastered the arcane and the mundane, a strange fusion of technology and magic. Their greatest achievement in the area of science was the forging of great artificial bodies. While their greatest achievement in the area of the arcane was a mystical way to preserve one’s mind out side of its body, a certain form of immortality. These two great leaps in magic and technology was eventually combined. So that their race could live on for eternity, eternal minds and everlasting metal bodies.

Despite their best attempts, nothing truly lasts forever. Over time the civilization became corrupt by its own power. Wars broke out as they sought to gain control over the younger races, trying to show them the light of their civilization. This civilization spread its hands out too far, and soon found itself collapsing in upon itself. as this happened, many tried to acquire the new forms that were emerging, these ‘forged as they were called, provided a way for them to survive their own destruction. The ‘forged were difficult and time consuming to create, so few were produced.

In this ancient civilization’s death throws, a new race was born, though few in number, their eternal life guaranteed their survival. Many centuries has passed and though they may be immortal, they have forgotten much of what they knew. Now they wonder the world, seeking the origins of their creation, their past.

wow I really like this, so I'm going to use it. (though i won't mind if anyone else uses it too)

Colmarr
2009-06-19, 01:52 AM
How about Warforged as a magitech equivalent of the 4e Deva (a race that is reborn every time it dies)?

The warforged shell houses the essence of a creature that might be 100s or 1000s of years old. Whenever that shell is destroyed, the creature needs another host.

When implanted into a new warforged host, the creature retains its memories and experiences, but loses its capabilities as it struggles to become familiar with its new body.

Eurantien
2009-06-19, 10:34 AM
Do you want them as a player race or just to have them appear in places in tha campaign? As a player race, you need to either say they're common (such as the cheap labour gone sentient idea - ever read Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay?), but as a rare encounter or a single NPC you can do a myriad of things. It could be the only one of its kind, a wizard's long-forgotten experiment, or, depending on the world, constructed by gnomes or other similar technically capable people, without straying too close to somebody else's material. Somewhere I have a copy of the 4th edition article on Warforged, but you won't be able to access that now, DnDInsider's gone subscription-based. Hell, you could even have it/them as a creature come to life after the magical saturation of a scrapyard or abandoned forge/other industry site. Imagine the iron slowly pulling itself together as though magnetised, forming limbs and a body, then creaking slowly to its feet. :smalleek: Worriying myself now

Cyclocone
2009-06-19, 10:50 AM
Well the easy explanation is of course "A Wizard Did It! -Because He Could!".

But you could also make them the chosen race of Primus, like how the elves are the chosen of Cory-Larry, the orcs are the chosen of Grummy etc. ´
You'd offcourse be ripping off the modrons with this, which may-or-may-not cause their brains to asplode.:smalltongue:

But i like TheThan's idea of making them an enigmatic elder race a la Deep Imaskari. Plus, warforged make awesome wizards/psions as well, so it makes sense for that to be their origin. Just do something about their stupid natural ASF, so they don't have to go out of their way to be reliable casters.

Set
2009-06-19, 11:34 AM
Variations;

The Forgeborn. 5000 years ago, there was a great civil war between two factions of Dwarven society. The losing faction was driven deep underground (or escaped there, and may have been thought dead by the victors). They are now known as the Duergar. In hiding, barely enough of them left to survive, and never terribly fertile even before being driven down into the areas of 'mysterious underdark radiations,' their hidden community seemed on the verge of failing from sheer lack of manpower (dwarfpower, whuteva). And so the Forgeborn were constructed, stumpy black iron constructs with furnaces in their bellies (and a door in front, that they can open to feed themselves by stuffing burnable mateials into their furnace!). Used as workers, to support the collapsing society around them, the Forgeborn were simple soulless constructs, no more intelligent than a zombie or cockroach, until something awakened the spark of life within them only a few centuries ago. Rebelling against the now rebuilt Duergar community that used them as slaves, many escaped to the surface world, where they are mistaken for 'soulless constructs' by some, 'infernal devil-dwarf invaders' by others and worse. They have found it necessary to 'circle the wagons' and defend themselves against surface dwarves (who revile them as reminders of the Duergar they thought long dead, and regard them as spies and agents of their former masters), elves (who regard them as soulless and unnatural), humanoids (who want to enslave them and use them as smiths and war-machines), etc.

The Olven. Certain ancient elves, particularly druids and nature priests, but also great champions, are said to imbue a part of their essence into the local flora when they die. For millenia, elves would visit copses of trees where ancestors were last seen, believing that the spirits of their ancestors were 'mostly strongly to be felt' in those places, that where their blood had seeped into the earth, a connection to these departed souls could be made. Despite these beliefs, many elves reacted adversely when slim elven forms, with skin of wood and leaves for hair, began to appear, calling themselves by the names of elven heroes long-dead. The Olven don't know what has awakened them, only that some great unnaturalness threatens the natural world itself, and that they must seek it out and undo it, but the chilly reception they have received from the 'flesh elves' concerns them. To some extent, they regard the flesh elves as their children, and yet, truly, no Olven really remembers a mortal existence as a flesh elf, only a sense of urgent purpose, which moves them to sometimes perform actions that are not in the best political interests of their 'descendents...'

Facets. A race of erudite humans, composed mostly of monks and psions, inhabited a world ravaged by disaster, with storm of heat and dust scouring the once-fertile midlands and glaciers of ice relentless marching down from the highlands. Unable to adapt the bodies of their entire race to these ever-changing conditions, and unable to find sustenance in a world growing lifeless and barren, they crafted golem-like bodies of crystal and metals, and attempted to survive the fall of their world by transferring their minds to these crystal constructs. The process seemed a success, but failed over time, with the majority of these survivors forgetting their ancient selves, and only recently being reawakened by a seismic shift that exposed their buried city to the rays of the sun. Newly born, sentient, but unaware of the bulk of their ancient history, psionic powers or monkly training long since vanished, along with the largest portion of their personality, these Facets have begun the long journey into this new world.

Eurantien
2009-06-19, 12:09 PM
Original post by Cyclocone
Well the easy explanation is of course "A Wizard Did It! -Because He Could!".
Like the Owlbear. I mean, what the deuce? If you can explain that, you can explain anything.
Sorry, Owlbears have always bugged me.

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-19, 04:39 PM
The great thing about adapting warforged to a setting is that their racial psychology is largely independent of their stats, so it's easy to swap it out for something more appropriate. Eberron has them as mentally rather human-like but learning very fast at the start of their lifespan. You could change that and make them transformed or mind-transferred humaniods, like TheThan suggested. Or you could make them robotically obedient, living only to carry out the instructions of their masters. Or any number of things. The point is, they're intelligent, artificial beings who aren't quite as "in touch" as humans are, and there are lots of directions you can take that in.