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Aw, man, I miss gem dragons sooooooo bad.  I haven't seen any adaptations, but I had some thoughts about updating them.  Especially to bring in Sardior.  Basically, I was thinking of gem dragons as being relatives of shardminds.  A particularly powerful fragment of the Living Gate imprinted on dragons, after seeing Bahamut and/or Tiamat as it first gained consciousness.  Thus was born Sardior.  He sculpted his Thanes and his people.  I don't have all the details worked out, but it just feels right.  The old canon mentioned that Sardior had a floating castle that orbited near the moon, that he hoarded knowledge, and that he was a mischievous trickster.  Well, a fortress in the night sky seems like a particularly good bastion against the stranger stars.  And even as he guards against the Far Realm intrusion, he also studies it and amasses knowledge about it.  (What better way to keep dangerous knowledge safe than to store the only copies of said knowledge in your most secure vaults?)  Of course, that doesn't go well with Sardior's trickster spirit.  It was described that he'd rather trick somebody into reading a book and telling him about it than read the book himself.  Then again, (1) he is his own being, so why does all his motivation need to center around the Far Realm now? (2) the knowledge could be dangerous to even himself.  Perhaps using a less than innocent intermediary can help shelter his own mind.  Hey, he is unaligned.

Oct 11, 2011 -- 4:49PM, The_Ubbergeek wrote:

I like the ideas of yours, Omnirak...

Thanks.  You know, I've been thinking about submitting something about this to Dragon or Dungeon.  I've just been debating how best to frame it.  They're not looking for updates, so that may kill it.    Even if I don't update the gem dragons myself in the proposal, it's going to cause an expectation for the update.  Still, if I do make a submission, I can see a few ways to go:

• Sardior as a Dungeon submission.  His goals and such.  History and background.  Some of his servants.  Seradess, the banished Sixth Thane.  Plot hooks.
• Sardior as a patron of psionic characters.  Powers, feats, etc.  Make a nice tie-in as Sardior as a special patron of shardminds.
• Sardior as a repository of knowledge about the stars and a repository of star pact related items.  Maybe written as a Bazaar of the Bizarre.  If his castle in the sky serves as a place to watch against the Far Realm, he probably hordes all sorts of star pact-related magic items, artifacts, and lore.  But with his approach, he's probably willing to share some of that knowledge or loan some items if he thinks that will better advance his own goals.  Be that containing a bigger threat (contain, capture, not destroy.  For studying), or furthering some other goal of his.  Honestly, this is the one that has me most drawn in, but I feel like it's wrong to reintroduce Sardior and gem dragons as star pact warlock patrons and do nothing for psionics.  Maybe a balance of both with a multiclass option or two.

Anyway, I feel like there's just too much history behind Sardior and the gem dragons to do in one Dungeon/Dragon article.  Maybe if I get enough people together, we can push for a themed issue, like the Oriental Adventures last month.  Heck, anyone else up to submit a few ideas?

(Sorry for hijacking the thread).