Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JL3712 01-07-06, 06:25 PM	Not too knowledgable on couatls, save that they come from central and south american myth. But I always figured they were the dragons of the myths in that part of the world. So if so, or even possible, why does WoTC make them outsider?, have they always been this way?, and if it has to do with their supernatural/celestial aspect, weren't the dragons of asian myth just as much outsiders, yet Oriental Adventures made them regular dragons, why? The point being has anyone ever given them a progression similar to true dragons, in that they get more powerful through age, and thus making them more of a formidable race in their regions?
RavinRay 01-07-06, 07:12 PM	Good point. I've wondered myself why they aren't magical beasts; their native outsider type implies that they possibly had a divine origin in their past and were sent to the Material Plane. In Maztica (set in the Forgotten Realms), the Feathered Dragon god Qotal, depiced as a plumed golden dragon, is not only the god of the couatls but of the maztican (rain) dragons. To further muddy the picture, in Middle Eastern mythology there is the amphiptere, a winged snaked that guards frankincense trees (got this from a Google search). And it is distantly related to dragons. Here's a nice picture: http://ewancient.lysator.liu.se/pic/art/t/e/teriathanin/amphiptere.jpg
runestar 01-07-06, 10:13 PM	Coatls were once yuan-ti who sought to escape their current life, and were thus tranformed into their current forms by some celestial power to give them the ability to fend off their pursuers. This is why they look like serpents, because of their origins. :)
urial angel of death 01-08-06, 02:55 PM	they were not yuan-ti they were the yuan-ti's creators
JL3712 01-08-06, 03:38 PM	Where does all this infor come from? What book detailed their history? and if the whole they used to be Yuan-Ti is true, thats just sad. They should have their own history.
SinisterSeraph 01-09-06, 03:24 PM	I've never heard the connection to the Yaun-Ti before. I do know that TSR put out a book that attributed the creation of the Great Wheel to two "Great Serpents". The good one become the ancestor of Couatls, while the evil one was rumored to have become Asmodeus. This was only ever stated in this one book, which is conflicts with 25 years of established canon. This book was not very popular to say the least. To fans of the old canon, this is quite possibly the only product looked down on more than Die Vecna Die.
Shemeska the Marauder 01-09-06, 06:29 PM	Couatls were only made native outsiders in 3.5, and were outsiders in 3.0, something along the line of logic that made Rakshasas (natives of Acheron) native outsiders in 3.5 as well. I can't speak with absolute certainty on the status of Couatls in 2e, I'd have to look up some of the material. The 2e 'Guide to Hell' attempted to claim that Jazirian, the goddess of couatls had a hand in the formation of the setup of the planes. However elements of that book's claims have some hideous conflicts with other planar origin myths that appeared across multiple books, and most of that book's claims have been uniformly ignored or blatantly overwritten in 3e. I wouldn't take any of it into consideration as it applied to Couatls.
runestar 01-09-06, 10:18 PM	Ah, my mistake. :embarrass Some fluff on them can be found in Serpent Kingdoms, yep, they were an offshoot of sarrukh who were granted their new forms by some god(forgot who :P ) to help fend off the rest of the sarrukh whose ways they had forsaken. Or something like that....
Shemeska the Marauder 01-09-06, 10:27 PM	Ah, my mistake. :embarrass Some fluff on them can be found in Serpent Kingdoms, yep, they were an offshoot of sarrukh who were granted their new forms by some god(forgot who :P ) to help fend off the rest of the sarrukh whose ways they had forsaken. Or something like that.... It's worth keeping in mind that Serpent Kingdoms (while very well written) is written from the 3e FR design perogative that it is no longer, and never has been, connected with the rest of the DnD multiverse and so some of the ideas that it advances w/ respect to species' origins may suddenly break with prior canon origin stories (including those in past editions of FR material).
Shemeska the Marauder 01-09-06, 10:29 PM	I looked at the Couatl entry in the 2e Monstrous Compendium, and there's nothing in there to indicate that they were considered to have an extraplanar origin or to be planeborn creatures. Making them outsiders in the first place seems to have been entirely a 3e change, and then downgrading them to native outsiders seems to have been whimsy on the part of 3.5.
Ogre4Hire 01-09-06, 11:20 PM	I'm of the opinion that WoTC simply slapped the Native subtype on Couatls and Rakshasas so that they'd have more outsiders than the Planetouched who were natives.
Thurbane 01-09-06, 11:26 PM	I think they were given Native Outsider status to reflect that in myth, they are "spirit beings". I could be wrong. In 2E MM, it mentioned that Couatls are "believed to be distant relatives of dragons, although this remains unproven"...
JL3712 01-10-06, 02:36 AM	I noticed that they've been given some lime light in the Eberron campaign, making them allies with the dragons against the rakshasas. But from my searching on the internet on couatl, amphitere, quatzalcoatl, and dragons; I think they should have been put a dragons (it would have made them more interesting if you compare a 9 HD coatl to a 9 HD dragon (of any type), they could have had easy stats for young ones, and been much stronger as great wyrms of their type). Looking at the Pan Lung from the Oriental Adventures they didn't have much of a difference save the whole feathered wings, of which Li Lung already had a pair made of peacock feathers even. Given a website I saw in the linking of the native people of the Americas and Asia, I'd say the couatl would have fit nicely as the south american dragon w/ a closer link to the oriental adventures ones than the MM 3.5 ones. Just as the T'ien Lung (Celestial Dragon) is still just a dragon and yet the most favored officials of the Celestial Bureaucracy, they could have put the couatl in the same rank in their part of the world and still kept them just dragons and not outsiders or native outsiders for that matter. So I figure I'll start making their new stats as dragons, any advice would be helpful (especially if someones done it already).
JL3712 01-10-06, 02:45 AM	I know it ain't much but how's this route so far- COUATL (FEATHERED DRAGON) Dragon (Air) Environment: Warm forests Organization: probably as gold dragons Challenge Ratings: Treasure: Triple Standard Alignment: Always lawful good Advancement: probably as gold dragons Level Adjustment: ? This dragon has a long, serpentine body that coils in on itself as the dragon moves or fights. A multicolored mane of feathers surrounds its neck just behind its head. Instead of limbs, two rainbow-feathered wings emerge from either side of the dragon. As a juvenile, its scales are various shades of green, but they develop into a bright almost gemlike coat and shine with all the colors of the rainbow in sunlight. It appears confidant, powerful, and totally aware of everything around it. Couatl’s prefer to eat fruits and vegetables, however they take delight in pearls and gems like all dragons. Couatls speak Auran, Celestial, Common, and Draconic, and have the power of telepathy (see below).