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Jun 30, 2012 -- 9:09AM, Ivid_IV wrote:

Jun 29, 2012 -- 7:08PM, OleOneEye wrote:

Jun 29, 2012 -- 5:52PM, Ivid_IV wrote:

Warforged don't fit with canon Greyhawk.

I'm just not seeing any harm whatsoever to saying, for instance, that the Pasha of Tusmit had an elite core of sentient golems created to act as his palace guards.  Granted that a warforged showing up in Hommlet to battle Lareth's bandits would likely lead to some tense roleplaying with Rufus and Burne.  But to say the very existence of warforged would defy Greyhawk canon seems a bit much.

I don't have an issue with the Pasha of Tusmit having a group of warforged if that's what you want for your campaign. What I object to is warforged as a common available choice for player characters. It isn't an easy fit with the settings material, and there are many, many character race choices that I would rather see made as options first. Tasloi, mongrelmen, bullywugs, hobgoblins, gnolls, orcs, etc. are all in line before warforged as races common to the setting and that fit in well. We shouldn't be in a race to use Eberrons IP because a player longs for that setting.

Ahh...OK, I think we are close to being on the same page.  I wouldn't want a warforged PC (or whatever newer race) to be able to stroll down the streets of Radigast City just like an Oerdian could.  Nor would I want the books to claim or insinuate that they are a common PC type.*

However, I do think that, should a player want to have a warforged PC, it would be well within the look and feel of the setting to allow them to be one of the few of the Pasha's bodyguard or tbok's awakened machines of the spaceship in the Barrier Peaks.  It would come with a lot of roleplaying challenges standing out like a sore thumb anywhere they went, often accused of being possessed by a demon or whatnot.  As long as the player is willing to accept such challenges, I'm cool with them being the only adventuring warforged in the whole of the Flaneass.



* Assuming the books follow established canon, perhaps moving the timeline forward a little bit.  I am totally against, for instance, such cheese as eliminating an entire nation to have a warforged nation from "another plane" show up just to make the race commonly available.  If they go this way, even the LGG went to far in integrating the races for my taste.  Conversely, I would be completely cool with a complete reimagining of the canon with the newer races fully integrated.

• Don't advance the timeline any more. It's not needed. No Oerth-shattering catastrophes to justify changes in the rules. (I honestly pity fans of the Forgotten Realms because of the violence that has been done to the setting over the years.)
• Give detailed information about the three established periods; the Folio/Gold Box (576 CY), From the Ashes (585 CY), and The Adventure Begins (591 CY). That gives you a neat 15 year span where we see the rise of Iuz, the fall of the Great Kingdom, dire pressures on the Sheldomar Valley, and the rise and near-fall of the Scarlet Brotherhood. 
• Present the whole thing as a coherent campaign saga, with weighty events happening as background. Don't try to railroad the player characters into participating in the sweep of history like Dragonlance, but have the ever-unfolding tableau of events in the background. Think "The Great Pendragon Campaign."
• Above all, present each of the eras-- 576, 585, and 591-- as a distinct option for the DM, fully developed as a setting in its own right, with thematic linkages to the others. What happens if the PCs rescue Prince Thrommel from the Temple of Elemental Evil in 578? The DM should be given guidelines that he can use or discard as is appropriate to his campaign for these sorts of major turning-points.