Why...of course the gnomes survived wastelander. You probably heard tales about their magical cities full of wonders and corridors of illusions...Indeed one city exists far to the South with treasures for the brave....
Then after four months adventuring the PC's discover the gnomes are all mad and hate driven burning undead in a city made of obsidian shards and psionic vortexes of hate and fear. After a illusion of feast, the gnomes assume their real shapes and try capture guests to chain captives to a Throne of Blood-a magical device with magical needles and syringes that attempts to drain living things of life so that a gnome can experience being alive for one minute.
They are no longer gnomes but an entirely different and new race.
(sorry, couldn't resist it :p helps if you know what Pennywise IS, hehe)
1.) They were cleansed from Athas by Nibiney
2.) I just hate Gnomes and prefer they stay dead.
When I get to running it, I'm not going to allow "gnomes." However, I am going to allow "halflings from a rare tribe that encourage a few small preserver traditions relating to illusions." Fluffwise, no "gnomes;" mechanically, (gnomes) will be allowed.
Metal is rare on Athas, so it's kinda hard to do steampunk powered tinker gnomes.
[Inspiration equal parts Pandorum and Serenity.]
Recognizing that Gallard was unstoppable, some remaining gnomes rightfully concluded the only way to avoid extermination was to leave Athas. Get off the planet to where no Champion's army could get to them.
The gnomes devised a scheme to build a floating arcology that could be taken miles above the ground, hovering far out over the oceans.
In time the oceans turned to silt and the seemingly endless resource of the oceans disappeared, the arcology was was not completely self-sustaining intending to draw water and some food from the oceans. The gnomes of the arcology saw a second extermination, this one unavoidable. The inevitable slow doom cause gnomes to descended into a mad savage panic scavenging the arcology of all possible tools and food. The last gnomes began consuming each other until a final vicious clan claimed the arocology for themselves.
By now the hulk arcology had drifted afar, no longer over the silted ocean, the hulk was over the fertile lands of the thri-kreen empire. The alpha survivor-gnomes descended upon the kreen from above in ancient floating craft killing kreen with abandon, cracking kreen chitin open to everything like it was a feast. The survivor-gnomes returned to the sky to strike upon the kreen again and again when they run out of food again.
The kreen eventually were able to send a pack into the floating sky hulk. The kreen pack that made it on to the hulk manage to crash the hulk west of the Ringing Mountain west from the ruins of Kalidnay. The crashed mad-scavenging survivor-gnomes not only eat whatever flesh they can find in their raids from the crashed hulk, they destroy what they cannot carry with them or wear. The survivor-gnomes are venturing further and further out from the crash site as they are like a plague of locusts devouring or destroying everything they find that is not already dust or stone before returning again to the crash site until hungry again.
Player-gnomes have had their raving consumption madness fade from their minds . . . partially. When the madness suddenly unclouds from their mind in the midst of a raid, a survivor gnome find a way to flee the carnage. The memory of their past ravings never fades, and sometimes the hunger rises up to linger barely controlled. The constant subjection to a violent mass delusion had left their newly unclouded psyche adept detecting at mind illusions and crafting them as well.
Their intelligence and charisma manifests itself as preturnaturally acute minds, and mental focus and absolute control of their emotions(which allows them to react in whatever way is most beneficial to them.)
They are, in many ways, the other side to the same coin as Shadar-kai. Where the Shadar-kai use physically intense living and derring-do to keep the ennui at bay, the shadow gnomes use mental and emotional control, coupled with intense intellectual pursuits that occupy thier minds, and give them a sort of rest.
Shadow Gnomes can confuse outsiders, in that they are obviously more relaxed, and at ease, when engaged in something that is very intellectually difficult, than in more mundane settings.
Unfortunately, no one can completely escape the negative influence of the shadowfell. The Shadow Gnomes, like the Gnomes of other worlds, are master of deception and illusion. The difference is that shadow gnomes tend to have a much darker sense of humour in their pranks and tricks, and a tendency to look down upon any person who can't keep up with them, intellectually.
I'm kind of tired, so i'll just stop there. I haven't really gotten across everything I meant to about them, but they're not nice, or silly, or anything like that. They are closer to Puck, or other mythological hobgoblins, with a darker, more cruel sense of humour, than they are to tinker gnomes of any kind, and they don't have Puck's flippant comedic appeal. In other words, they're shadow creatures, rather than fey creatures.
Except for a small group set aside by Nibenay that he has turned into his own personal assassins.
Gnomes are extinct on my Athas because...
1.) They were cleansed from Athas by Nibiney
2.) I just hate Gnomes and prefer they stay dead.
Can't say anything better than that. Any pictures I see from a gnome (even in any other settings) want me to put them dead. I dont even remember anybody that played a gnome in our gaming since... since ever! Their description is sore in my foot and the moment I saw their were instinct in the DS setting (long time ago) I loved the setting because it was a more mature setting and no gnome were around! Thanks god!
It's one of those races everyone hates and you can safely state was completely eradicated from the planet, achieving the full swing of the lore effect without anyone ever asking to play one.
- Gallard didn't actually kill all the gnomes. He was tricked, much like how Keltis was with the lizardmen. Somehow, somewhere, a small contingent of Gnomes still exists on Athas. He believes he killed all the gnomes, however.
- The eladrin ideas provides a possible answer -- the eladrin hid the gnomes in their Feywild citadels, to be servants. The only remaining gnomes are effectively slaves to the eladrin, and are so willingly, to avoid returning to Athas to be slain by Gallard and his armies (something the eladrin still claim exists to keep the gnomes for themselves). The occasional gnome who returns to Athas has a lot to deal with -- the eladrin don't want to lose even one of their useful slaves, and the gnome would be deathly afraid of the evil Gallard (a legendary figure of terror and death they are all taught about through their lives) -- even if he/she doesn't know that Nibenay is Gallard...
- Undead gnomes. Yup, all the gnomes are dead. The only ones remaining are undead.
- Undead gnomes. Yup, all the gnomes are dead. The only ones remaining are undead.
Revenant gnomes, or any other race which was eradicated, could be a very interesting take on a character.
- Undead gnomes. Yup, all the gnomes are dead. The only ones remaining are undead.
Revenant gnomes, or any other race which was eradicated, could be a very interesting take on a character.
Very true.
Gallard didn't actually kill all the gnomes. He was tricked, much like how Keltis was with the lizardmen. Somehow, somewhere, a small contingent of Gnomes still exists on Athas. He believes he killed all the gnomes, however.
Thats the premise I went with regarding gnomes coming across a life-bender artifact and changing themselves into an entirely different race.
The remaining gnomes could have changed themselves into something that exists in present day Athas (i.e. silt runners or t’’chowb).
And Silverblade that's just evil.
1) Revenant gnome. Simple, and potentially fits.
2) Use the gnome stats for the Jozhal. Maybe change it for a Wis-Dex race, but the 2nd edition Jozhal fit reasonably well as primal lizard gnomes, mechanically speaking.
Use the gnome stats for the Jozhal. Maybe change it for a Wis-Dex race, but the 2nd edition Jozhal fit reasonably well as primal lizard gnomes, mechanically speaking.
The Gnome's stats do look appropriate for the Jozhal. Nice catch! And you can use the MMs' Gnomes for Jozhals, reskinning them.
I mean, is the entire scope of some people's experience with gnomes from dragonlance, or something?
Has no one read Races of Stone?
This ties into another point of confusion for me, why does everyone automatically equate gnomes with sillyness, or uselessness?
I still don't understand why people hate gnomes.
I mean, is the entire scope of some people's experience with gnomes from dragonlance, or something?
Has no one read Races of Stone?
This ties into another point of confusion for me, why does everyone automatically equate gnomes with sillyness, or uselessness?
I think gnomes have gotten a bad rap, the Tinker Gnomes are often so powerfully depicted in D&D novels, that they have affected everything else around them, among other issues. Personally, I don't hate gnomes, I actually like them. The current 4E incarnation is intriguing to me, more like the Brownies (from WILLOW) than Tinker Gnomes. I think there is a place that could exist for Gnomes in Athas... if they weren't already supposed to have been eradicated. Since they were murdered on a genocidal level, I require a player who wants to play a gnome, to have a good explanation as to how that character could exist. There are plenty of ideas out there, it just takes some creativity on the part of the player to find and expand, or even create some new explanation for his or her character.
Hell... that's a great setup for the Dark Sun version of Fallout! The four-foot-nothing Vault Dweller ventures forth into the wastes looking for a new Decanter of Endless Water.
It's because gnomes aren't cool. No one gets props from playing a gnome.
Unless he or she is an oopmaloompa.
Unless he or she is an oopmaloompa.
That's it, someone fetch me a weasle to beat Xlorp with.
Gnomish sorcerer king with an illusion-masked underground city-state like a post-apocalyptic Zilargo (imagine Paranoia's Alpha Complex) waiting for the other sorcerer kings to wipe each other out before resurfacing.
Hell... that's a great setup for the Dark Sun version of Fallout! The four-foot-nothing Vault Dweller ventures forth into the wastes looking for a new Decanter of Endless Water.
hahha!! classic!!
I still don't understand why people hate gnomes.
I mean, is the entire scope of some people's experience with gnomes from dragonlance, or something?
Has no one read Races of Stone?
This ties into another point of confusion for me, why does everyone automatically equate gnomes with sillyness, or uselessness?
I think gnomes have gotten a bad rap, the Tinker Gnomes are often so powerfully depicted in D&D novels, that they have affected everything else around them, among other issues. Personally, I don't hate gnomes, I actually like them. The current 4E incarnation is intriguing to me, more like the Brownies (from WILLOW) than Tinker Gnomes. I think there is a place that could exist for Gnomes in Athas... if they weren't already supposed to have been eradicated. Since they were murdered on a genocidal level, I require a player who wants to play a gnome, to have a good explanation as to how that character could exist. There are plenty of ideas out there, it just takes some creativity on the part of the player to find and expand, or even create some new explanation for his or her character.
Yeah. I really wish they had pushed the depiction of gnomes in Races of Stone a bit more aggressively.
Me, I don't give a damn about continuity, or tradition in general. They're both only useful when the specific traditions or bits of continuity are, themselves, useful. So if a player wants to play a gnome, I will change the world somewhat to allow it, because I know that players get more into their characters when they're playing something that they're excited about. Since the general traditions of DS are useful for creating the sort of feel that's desired, I will work them in in a way that doesn't disturb core assumptions or important plot points, but gnomes being extinct just insn't important, on a world building level.
Had they been successful with the elves, or dwarves, it would be important to the core of the world on a world building level. Gnomes could just as easily been including as I wrote in my earlier post, and the world as a whole would be no different.
Just my 2 cents on the matter.
It's because gnomes aren't cool. No one gets props from playing a gnome.
Perhaps in your group.
Gnome rogues, assassins(whether actually the class or not aside), warlocks, bards and wizards have been, at various times, much celebrated in my circles.
Of course, in my groups, halflings have always had about as much in common with hobbits as they do now, just to give you an idea of how we deal with stereotypes.
I mean, Gnomes are cool, anyway. Even by core fluff, in multiple editions. They're small, eccentric beings with a knack for deception, illusion and creativity. Sometimes they're tinkers, sometimes alchemists, sometimes arcanists, but they're almost always some of the keenest, quickest minds around. In 4e they've been made more fey, and while I don't think they're quite as awesome as they were in Races of Stone, the phb2 gnomes are still pretty badass. I read about them, and I see them at the forefront of Bardic assassin groups, for instance.
I'd like to see that in Athasian Gnomes. Assassins of unbelievable skill. You will never see a Gnomish assassin coming, no matter how keen your senses. You will just die. It may not be quick, and it probably won't be painless, but it will be sure, and without mercy, and they will be gone before you've fully come to understand that you've been attacked.
I can see the Gnomes not being illusionists before the attempted genocide, but rather using the shadow to gain mastery of illusions, and using those skills to hunt their hunters, without even letting them know who is hunting them. A group of hunters disapears, seemingly via battle with a pack of large carnivours, in one area, and a few days later another group of hunters finds the burned remains of a small family of Gnomes, hundreds of miles away from their missing allies' death site. They accept the death of the Gnomes as the work of other hunters, and move on once they've looked for clues to lead them to more Gnomes to kill.
Meanwhile, Gnomish manhunters watch from the shadows, smiling as their victims are mistaken for fallen gnomes. Tomorrow, they track back along these "hunters" path. By month's end, their families will be at the epicenter of a new "plague".
Seeds planted in the shadows bear useful fruit.
Hobbits in LotR were effective because they represented the proletariat, the every-man, but they lost that in the move to D&D, which kept the look but failed to hold on to the underlying principles that made them an effective anchor for an archetype.
I think Athasian halflings grasp onto a solid myth-image, though: they're full of mysticism and savagery, almost spirit-like beings who dwell in a mythical world (a forest is, to most Athasians, more myth than reality, another world, like the halls of the elves in Celtic myth, who are a mysterious people who live under the hills).
I really do like your ideas for shadowy Athasian gnomes. Most cultures have stories about things that lurk in the darkness and shadows, that are either vicious or helpful, often mischevious, and in many European myths those things are described as little people. So that's a good archetype to hold onto.
Gnomes survived, and survive as stories of the boogey-men that come when the lights are out, the creatures "hiding under the bed" or around the corner, who knock on walls and move things around. Who, if you're not respectful of them, can become angry and frightful.
they eventually devolved into Hejkin.
Hahah! I can get behind that. Or like someone mentioned below...they got turned into Jozhals...I could see that too. As long as they're not actually gnomes!
It'll stab you in the eye,
twirl and spiral 'round,
till your head rolls on the ground.
After falling victim to the gnomish equivalent of a 'Snake-in-a-can', Gallard had a small community of gnomes (and one subordinate) transferred to the top of an enormous pillar rock in the middle of the obsidian wastes. Stripping them of their magic users, Gallard believed the wastes would claim the gnomes in horrifically short order; but they persisted. Not one to leave anything to chance, Gallard kept an eye on his prison and had plans set to instantly destroy the community when the cleansing wars were close to being complete, but the SK revolt made such plans unnecessary.
- Enduring centuries of "night of the living dead" conditions has permanently stained the gnome racial psyche with severe PTS.
- Muscle memory of strike first, hide second.
- Intense fear and hatred of Gallard.
- Some recently escaped on air machines made from corpses. Silt horrors for the balloon, and land-bound dead for the basket.
Using gnomes in 4e Dark Sun can as simple as calling them Jozhals. A slight improvement is making them a +2 Wis/Dex (or Wis/Int?) race, and possibly replacing Trickster's Cunning with something like a bite-attack (proficiency with a unarmed attack, +3 1d8?) or speed of 6. Give them a penchant for primal rather than arcane magic and they're perfect jozhals. Secretive, magically adept but opposed to arcane magic... Practically perfect.
Let sleeping gnomes lie.
It'll stab you in the eye,
twirl and spiral 'round,
till your head rolls on the ground.
After falling victim to the gnomish equivalent of a 'Snake-in-a-can', Gallard had a small community of gnomes (and one subordinate) transferred to the top of an enormous pillar rock in the middle of the obsidian wastes. Stripping them of their magic users, Gallard believed the wastes would claim the gnomes in horrifically short order; but they persisted. Not one to leave anything to chance, Gallard kept an eye on his prison and had plans set to instantly destroy the community when the cleansing wars were close to being complete, but the SK revolt made such plans unnecessary.
- Enduring centuries of "night of the living dead" conditions has permanently stained the gnome racial psyche with severe PTS.
- Muscle memory of strike first, hide second.
- Intense fear and hatred of Gallard.
- Some recently escaped on air machines made from corpses. Silt horrors for the balloon, and land-bound dead for the basket.
You know, I like almost everything about that.
The only thing I don't like, is the airship part, and that's just because I'm tired of tinker gnomes being the first thing people think of when they think of gnomes. :P Still, if you're going to use tinker gnomes, might as well twist that tinkering skill in their past into something horrific in the present, I suppose.
If I were going to have the Gnomes transform themselves in order to avoid the purge (a fun idea!), I'd take the opportunity to introduce the Dromite to Dark Sun as I'd always wanted to.
Not a bad idea at all. I have always liked the dromites and thought they would fit nicely into the Dark Sun setting.
In my game dromites were the result of zik-chil getting their mandibles on halflings wandering to the west.
What you've heard from the sorcerer kings about gnomes, like with many things taught to you in the cities, have been lies. Nibenay did not cleanse athas of the entire race of gnomes. On the contrary, nibenay was nearly killed by the gnomes more than once. Every time nibenay's armies marched on a
gnome settlement, they found it empty and riddle with traps. Every time the armies thought they had
a colony backed into an inescapable corner, the armies would fall victim to brilliant ambushes while
the gnomes seemed to vanish into thin air. Nibenay's soldiers had a saying, "chasing a gnome was like chasing a shadow."
Eventually the war ended with nibenay believing he had succeeded, when he had actually failed. I could detail the specifics, but that would expose the gnome sanctuaries and betray their trust, and I don't find a gnomish needle in my spine an appealing future."
~ By an unknown source.
Also, gnomes are awesome. This is a fact, obvious and indisputable, so much so that I don't even need to argue the truth of it.
Could not Gnomes have been bred into the Dwarven gene pool?
Aren't Gnomes and Dwarves similar?
Could not Gnomes have been bred into the Dwarven gene pool?
No. 4e gnomes have no connection to dwarves by default, and so far, 4e gnome =/= feywild dwarf. Gnomes in this edition are a lot more interesting than before, which is why they would make a great addition to 4e DS. Cunning assassins and smugglers capable of vanishing from sight. Hard to track and capable spellcasters.
Personally, it doesn't matter what wotc does. Athasian gnomes are a pc race when I run darksun. Either nibenay didn't finish the job or he destroyed another race. Homebrew ftw.
"As powerful as Sorcerer kings are, they are not omnipresent. Athas has lots of places to hide, along with the feywild and the shadowfell. Gnomes have a knack for surviving in a world much larger than themselves, surrounded by creatures much stronger.
What you've heard from the sorcerer kings about gnomes, like with many things taught to you in the cities, have been lies. Nibenay did not cleanse athas of the entire race of gnomes. On the contrary, nibenay was nearly killed by the gnomes more than once. Every time nibenay's armies marched on a
gnome settlement, they found it empty and riddle with traps. Every time the armies thought they had
a colony backed into an inescapable corner, the armies would fall victim to brilliant ambushes while
the gnomes seemed to vanish into thin air. Nibenay's soldiers had a saying, "chasing a gnome was like chasing a shadow."
Eventually the war ended with nibenay believing he had succeeded, when he had actually failed. I could detail the specifics, but that would expose the gnome sanctuaries and betray their trust, and I don't find a gnomish needle in my spine an appealing future."
~ By an unknown source.
Nice.
Also, to your other post.
I like 4e gnomes, no argument there, but I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have been happier with what would have amounted to a copy past of their Races of Stone entry.
I mean...idk. Basically, when I run games, both types exist.
Then again, when I run games (and I'm not co-dming) elves and eladrin are both still called elves, or are called by the various elf names, like Moon Elf, or Qualinosti, or whatever, and Devas are reincarnated mortals touched by divine grace in some way, often by virtue of some immortal sexing it up with a mortal, but sometimes by divine boon, rather than having an angelic origin. The specifics vary from Deva to Deva. The default Deva fluff just bores me to tears, and so far no one in any of my groups has wanted to play one with the default fluff.
Athasian deva could be something as simple as a strong spirit unwilling to allow the gray to "absorb" them. This would not only allow deva in the setting, but also remove the whole "deva are teh good guys and rakshasa are uber naughty", alignment link. Give um some macabre bone wings or remove the wings completely. ( or do something else entirely with the wings)
As for warforged and shardmind, I had a similar idea. Replace the need for food and water consumption with maintenance, which should cost the same as a waterskin+Rations. Extended rests are used to "self maintain". That's assuming that warforged don't end up requiring food and water.
Basically, right now is the fun period of "how does this fit, why doesn't this fit, how should I change this, I think this works fine because", period. Once the setting is released and we get to see what it offers, I'm sure more concrete ideas will show up. We can say, "well, 2e did this" all we want. But since this is 4e, what DS was like in 2e really doesn't matter. (to some)
So, if we can have a kank riding thrikreen defiler who uses allied lifeforce to cast freezing cloud in the middle of a desert against a halfling deathknight, anythings possible.
Aren't Gnomes and Dwarves similar?
Could not Gnomes have been bred into the Dwarven gene pool?
No. 4e gnomes have no connection to dwarves by default, and so far, 4e gnome =/= feywild dwarf. Gnomes in this edition are a lot more interesting than before, which is why they would make a great addition to 4e DS. Cunning assassins and smugglers capable of vanishing from sight. Hard to track and capable spellcasters.
I ain't talking about 4e.
Aren't Gnomes and Dwarves similar?
Could not Gnomes have been bred into the Dwarven gene pool?
No. 4e gnomes have no connection to dwarves by default, and so far, 4e gnome =/= feywild dwarf. Gnomes in this edition are a lot more interesting than before, which is why they would make a great addition to 4e DS. Cunning assassins and smugglers capable of vanishing from sight. Hard to track and capable spellcasters.
I ain't talking about 4e.
Oh, I assumed you were. Silly me.
Reasons why a Gnome or Eladrin would venture out of the feywild could include travelling to another section of the feywild(as this is how it works in Athas), helping dieing wanderers, to kill/ make mishief with those seeking to find the feywild, or to hunt down magic users further destroying the world. An interesting twist I plan to use for my girlfriend who wants to play an Eladrin(this could easily work for gnomes too) is that while outside the feywild the section of the feywild where the pc was from shifts out of dimension forever, leaving the pc stranded in Athas and with an end mission of finding another door to the feywild.
Has no one read Races of Stone?
Races of Stone single-handedly made me fall in love with Goliaths, rekindle my love of Dwarves, and generate a grudging respect for Gnomes.
Having Gnomes in Dark Sun is kind of redundant; they'd be similar to Dwarves (no beard); the only thing different is the ability to use magic; so they'd be magic-using Dwarves.
As for warforged and shardmind, I had a similar idea. Replace the need for food and water consumption with maintenance, which should cost the same as a waterskin+Rations. Extended rests are used to "self maintain". That's assuming that warforged don't end up requiring food and water.
I am not sure that is going to work well. How would you scavange for maintenace in the desert? The maintenace for those races would not be interchangeble with the survival days of the other party members, making you track them separately.
They could make those two races and thri-kreen need less food/water than the other races, say 1 survival day for 2 days.
athasian warforged could require energy, nutrients and hydration to keep their living wood parts living, thus requiring food and water. Energy from the sun they'll get plenty of. :P
I dunno.... I actually tend to play Dark Sun as a literal dark sun -- what I mean is that the mid-day sun at its pinnacle and brightest is only mere twilight to other settings. My rationale is this -- basically the sun has been corrupted to being something equivalent to a red supergiant (with some, but not all of the properties associated with that class of star). I figure that while it has a lot of infrared and greater radiation (read: higher microwave radiation and thus higher temperatures on Athas), it actually is diminished a bit in the visible light spectrum. I then have a rule, if there ever was a way for characters to get to other worlds, they would have to acclimate considerably -- the suns there would be far too bright for them, and yet far too cold as well.
So... I'm not certain about warforged and getting solar energy... maybe.... maybe not. Since the warforged were built on Athas, it could be said they might. However I'd see them as something from a bygone era, when the sun was a different color and size... which means they might actually not be able to get enough power just from the sun (what if they needed more energy from the blue or higher frequencies?)
This could mean that the warforged might have to develop ways to replenish their energy that otherwise they wouldn't have needed -- thus producing effectively a food/drink replacement for them.
athasian warforged could require energy, nutrients and hydration to keep their living wood parts living, thus requiring food and water. Energy from the sun they'll get plenty of. :P
I dunno.... I actually tend to play Dark Sun as a literal dark sun -- what I mean is that the mid-day sun at its pinnacle and brightest is only mere twilight to other settings. My rationale is this -- basically the sun has been corrupted to being something equivalent to a red supergiant (with some, but not all of the properties associated with that class of star). I figure that while it has a lot of infrared and greater radiation (read: higher microwave radiation and thus higher temperatures on Athas), it actually is diminished a bit in the visible light spectrum. I then have a rule, if there ever was a way for characters to get to other worlds, they would have to acclimate considerably -- the suns there would be far too bright for them, and yet far too cold as well.
So... I'm not certain about warforged and getting solar energy... maybe.... maybe not. Since the warforged were built on Athas, it could be said they might. However I'd see them as something from a bygone era, when the sun was a different color and size... which means they might actually not be able to get enough power just from the sun (what if they needed more energy from the blue or higher frequencies?)
This could mean that the warforged might have to develop ways to replenish their energy that otherwise they wouldn't have needed -- thus producing effectively a food/drink replacement for them.
i like that. It gives them a "less than they were" feel, while also making survival just as harsh for them as for meatbags.
People wouldn't like them much, because they remind them of a time when Athas wasn't dying, but they tolerate them because they are strong, durable and willing to work. And because they can sometimes sense defilement, even when others can't. Because it causes them pain. Not crippling. Something akin to bad headaches or relatively mild joint pain. It hurts, and it's really crappy, but you can do stuff in spite of it.
Perhaps that's why they were created. By the Preservers to help them fight the Defilers, but over time their abillity to detect defilement has lessoned, and been tainted to being caused pain by being near it when it does work.
i like that. It gives them a "less than they were" feel, while also making survival just as harsh for them as for meatbags.
People wouldn't like them much, because they remind them of a time when Athas wasn't dying, but they tolerate them because they are strong, durable and willing to work. And because they can sometimes sense defilement, even when others can't. Because it causes them pain. Not crippling. Something akin to bad headaches or relatively mild joint pain. It hurts, and it's really crappy, but you can do stuff in spite of it.
Perhaps that's why they were created. By the Preservers to help them fight the Defilers, but over time their abillity to detect defilement has lessoned, and been tainted to being caused pain by being near it when it does work.
Well, they could have been built for the Preserver Jihad, to help in the otherwise very one-sided war that had taken place before the Cleansing Wars. They could have ended up buried and forgotten in some ancient Preserver stronghold, and only recently had been found again. They came out from what was previously basically a tomb for them, and found the world ravaged and desolate -- they don't even necessarily need to know what the world was like before that (they could have been constructed as an army that never was used). They have had to compensate for the changes in the environment, and are a bit less than they were, like you said.
I don't think they would remind anyone of the world that once was (well.... maybe some of the SK's might remember it), but they definitely would look a bit different to everyone. I'd still say there isn't many of them around (only one cache of them existed, out in the desert), but still very doable I'd say
I'd probably have it that any athasian warforged would need to periodically replace parts that get worn down and eroded -- the race, on a whole, is not doing very well. They've been effectively in storage for thousands of years, are quite old, and the pieces that they were made up from are breaking. So... over time, the warforged looks different as new pieces are constructed from modern athasian materials (like bone, chitin and obsidian) along with stone. I'd say some of the warforged know how to construct and animate new warforged, which would effectively make them able to "procreate" over time.
When it comes to defiling -- I'd say it affects them like other races. Especially if they were created with Preserver magic -- maybe they have an energy within them similar enough to organic life energy (as it was probably made from organic life energy) that defiling could take that energy from them as well.
Certain features of Athas would still pose a difficulty for the warforged. Dunes, or otherwise soft sand would pose extra movement troubles for them, as I'd imagine they would sink a bit more (tending to be on the heavy side, with all that stone in them). The Sea of Silt definitely would be a hazard for them -- sure, they would live, but they would sink like a proverbial stone, and get stuck deep in the silt, permanently trapped and buried under it all for the rest of their lives.
They could need extra liquids (like water) to help replenish whatever the heat of this new sun takes from them? Also, they could need raw materials (bone, chitin, obsidian, stone) to add to themselves to keep up their own maintenance in the harsh and unforgiving desert environment (deserts aren't kind to machines in the real world, why would it be any different for warforged in athas?)
Yeah, the more I toss this around in my head, the more I can see warforged as a viable race for Dark Sun.
Gnomes are Fey and so would be closely tied to the Eladrin, Elf and Drow of Athas and the remaining Feywild.
yeah, you use that take on it. Of course Gnomes were hunted to extinction during the Cleansing Wars (Athasian lore for ya), so technically they shouldn't have survived... of course, there is ways to get around this, of course ;)
Gnomes are Fey and so would be closely tied to the Eladrin, Elf and Drow of Athas and the remaining Feywild.
yeah, you use that take on it. Of course Gnomes were hunted to extinction during the Cleansing Wars (Athasian lore for ya), so technically they shouldn't have survived... of course, there is ways to get around this, of course ;)
The easiest explanation is to say the sorcerer kings lied ( as they often do) and the gnomes are very good as hiding. (which they often are)
Gnomes are Fey and so would be closely tied to the Eladrin, Elf and Drow of Athas and the remaining Feywild.
yeah, you use that take on it. Of course Gnomes were hunted to extinction during the Cleansing Wars (Athasian lore for ya), so technically they shouldn't have survived... of course, there is ways to get around this, of course ;)
The easiest explanation is to say the sorcerer kings lied ( as they often do) and the gnomes are very good as hiding. (which they often are)
Or they retreated into the Feywild before it became even more fractured and are just now starting to appear on Athas as more and more of the Feywild is fading/being destroyed.
I look at it like 4e eberron dragonmarks. Anyone can have any dragonmark as a pc, but DMs can leave npc dragonmarks as they were in 3x. Keeps the player characters uniquely different from the NPCs that can be encountered.
I will concede that, where I would let a Warforged trance for an extended rest during a non-taxing four-hour walk in Eberron, Athas is too harsh for travel to be so trivial as to be the equivalent of sleep.
I'm fine with Warforged being immune to the needs of food and water. I like the races being divided on balance-minor but fluff-major elements like that. If the 4e books don't present a racial disparity in that regard themselves, I'll probably houserule it into my game. Kreen need less water overall, Muls' kidneys can filter out a lot more salt than most other races' (meaning they can drink water that would kill others), etc. Warforged being completely immune to hunger and thirst is just the far end of the spectrum, and serves to make them alien even to the already-alien Kreen. Considering that the poor clanks will be drawing a lot of aggro for being unnatural beings ('It runs on defiling! Destroy it before it gets near the children!') made of metal ('I don't want to hurt you! I just want to make a sword out of you!'), I think throwing them a bone in the survival department is perfectly fine.
I will concede that, where I would let a Warforged trance for an extended rest during a non-taxing four-hour walk in Eberron, Athas is too harsh for travel to be so trivial as to be the equivalent of sleep.
Yeah, but I wouldn't expect Athasian warforged to have many (if any) metal parts to them. I don't believe that there was as much of a metal shortage in the Green Age (ref: Prism Pentad, the dwarven armor under Kled), but after a few thousand years, the metal may not be in very good condition (oxidized) and could have been the first things they needed to get replaced.
But I could see the warforged, rather than needing food, needs new parts, like I said, periodically. Sand, sun, very arid conditions, heat, etc. are just not very conducive to mechanical devices. Basically -- they don't "eat" food, but need to use new parts to replace the ones that have worn out from the environment. This could include the fluids that act like blood for them. I could see them going to the local smithies & craftsmen, purchasing the raw materials much like other races might buy food and drink at the markets and taverns.
Maybe they would need some kind of rest as well -- like I said previously, the sun isn't necessarily up to par with what they were built to need, and their reserves need replenishing. Maybe they need an hour or two in direct sunlight in a trance/sleep-like state (torpor?) to replenish their supplies every couple of days.
If I were going to have the Gnomes transform themselves in order to avoid the purge (a fun idea!), I'd take the opportunity to introduce the Dromite to Dark Sun as I'd always wanted to.
Not a bad idea at all. I have always liked the dromites and thought they would fit nicely into the Dark Sun setting.
Another great idea....I like the Dromites.
The obvious answer (which has probably been suggested 30 times already) is that natural world gnomes died but gnomes from the Feywild survived.
Albeit I wouldn't go as far - personal preference, really - you raise the same good point I thought of earlier the other night while trying to fall asleep: the Champions, IMO, would not have cared who or what lived in the Feywild, or any other dimension for that matter, nor would have Rajaat, as long as they stayed on their side and STFUed. What mattered to them was the realm of Athas.