Dragonewt and Telmori werewolf PC's?

[Grimmshade]

I was wondering if the Dragonewt would be possible as a PC? My wife loves playing lizard/dragon types, and it's the only real lizard type I see in the Bestiary.

Also, the Telmori werewolves are listed as being a possible PC race, but in the book there isn't a section calling them out as such.

[Zozotroll]

Dragonewts are not normally considered to be PC race.  They just    to weird.  The party wants to go somewhere and the newt starts dancing instead.  Or it  is his watch and he goes to check out a bug.  They just dont live in the same we do.  That said, I have let someone play one before

[jeffjerwin]

Dragonewts are very strange and there was an article in Wyrm's Footnotes on how to role-play them (mainly as npcs) - WF #14. 

I would recommend an intelligent dinosaur like a Magisaur, or a defective dragonewt (one who has been separated from the dragon path).

There's a cult of Telmor in the old Dorastor book, but I suspect there will be changes from that version in RQ:G.

Edited September 24, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[Zozotroll]

I have found that anytime a wife/girlfriend wants to play instead of calling you and idiot for playing, allowances should be made

[Richard S.]

32 minutes ago, Grimmshade said:

I was wondering if the Dragonewt would be possible as a PC? My wife loves playing lizard/dragon types, and it's the only real lizard type I see in the Bestiary.

Also, the Telmori werewolves are listed as being a possible PC race, but in the book there isn't a section calling them out as such.

Alright, as self-appointed dragon expert of the unofficial Chaosium discord (a position which I am definitely not qualified for), here is my opinion on dragonewt PCs: don't.

Or at least not traditional dragonnewts. A barbarian dragonewt (aka one which is no longer part of dragonewt society and cannot resurrect/evolve) can be fun to play, as they still retain some dragonewt features while also being able to adopt other customs and magics. How you would go about determining runes and passions for them is a mystery to me though. Perhaps they acquired a connection to one or more runes resulting in their departure from the path? In any case they'd probably still be an odd duck to play.

Perhaps you could play an orthodox dragonewt temporarily, one who is on a mission from their temporal ruler. If so I'd suggest imposing some restrictions on their behavior given by their ruler, to better integrate with mortals, and also focusing on the threat of them losing the path of they become too involved in the world. Plenty of odd, random behaviors and bizarre rituals should be enacted by the player, and then and the GM should discuss their dragonnewt's mission and restrictions/obligations in private.

In either case I'd recommend you keep player characters to the Crested caste. That will both keep them from completely overshadowing the party in combat with higher castes' dragon magics and hightened physical abilities, and it's more reasonable that they would have fallen/be on a dangerous mission like that. Also if they're barbarians they can still learn non-dragon magic if they're created.

Anyways, YGMV. These are just my suggestions if you want to try and sick to "canon" (at least I hope this is acceptable within canon), but you could always change up how dragonewts work or interact with the world if it suits your game.

[Grimmshade]

Thanks guys!

So here is what she has decided upon. (Keep in mind we are Gloranthan noobs, and advice/suggestions are more than welcome!)

She was a dragonewt who really failed during her last lifetime. Was really evil or something. Instead of reincarnating in another dragonewt form, she reincarnated as human. 

Now, this part we haven't totally figured out yet, but she wants to be a necromancer and to have her old body as an automaton/mount. (It wouldn't be any more powerful than a bison or something)

What she was thinking is that she was really advanced, almost dragon, and then really messed up, OR alternatively she was cursed by a rival/god/etc. 

Thoughts?

[jeffjerwin]

6 minutes ago, Grimmshade said:

Thanks guys!

So here is what she has decided upon. (Keep in mind we are Gloranthan noobs, and advice/suggestions are more than welcome!)

She was a dragonewt who really failed during her last lifetime. Was really evil or something. Instead of reincarnating in another dragonewt form, she reincarnated as human. 

Now, this part we haven't totally figured out yet, but she wants to be a necromancer and to have her old body as an automaton/mount. (It wouldn't be any more powerful than a bison or something)

What she was thinking is that she was really advanced, almost dragon, and then really messed up, OR alternatively she was cursed by a rival/god/etc. 

Thoughts?

Dragonewts fail by being too much of some passion: greed... or generosity. Anger or peacefulness... The failure could make no sense to humans. 

They generally reincarnate as dinosaurs, not humans when this happens. Hence... my recommendation, a magisaur.

There's also some weirdness in the EWF (Empire of Wyrm's Friends) that could lead to a human believing they had a dragon origin - but that was 600 years+ earlier. Forang Farosh in Tink is a survivor - actually a ghost possessing someone. The ghost was a EWF bureaucrat. Something like that might be an interesting approach or something you want to explore in the backstory, but, as ever, Your Glorantha Will Vary.

Edited September 24, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[jeffjerwin]

See here: http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Forang_Farosh

[Richard S.]

Just now, Grimmshade said:

Thanks guys!

So here is what she has decided upon. (Keep in mind we are Gloranthan noobs, and advice/suggestions are more than welcome!)

She was a dragonewt who really failed during her last lifetime. Was really evil or something. Instead of reincarnating in another dragonewt form, she reincarnated as human. 

Now, this part we haven't totally figured out yet, but she wants to be a necromancer and to have her old body as an automaton/mount. (It wouldn't be any more powerful than a bison or something)

What she was thinking is that she was really advanced, almost dragon, and then really messed up, OR alternatively she was cursed by a rival/god/etc. 

Thoughts?

Ehh. YGMV again but here's my issues:

1. If a dragonewt reincarnates as a different race it will be a dinosaur, and only if they regress to and then fail at being a crested. Basically a dinosaur is a lower caste than even a crested . Magisaurs are a particularly good option for former dragonewt PCs as they commonly learn human magics and interact with them.

2. Evil is a bad way to describe why a dragonnewt would regress. They regress due to "wrong action", the opposite of "right action", basically by disobeying their duties/and or becoming too entangled with the world. Instead of regressing, a dragonnewt can also just become cut off from the cycle if the inhuman king deems their wrong action too great, preventing them from every resurrecting again and making them an outcast in dragonewt society.

3. Dragonnewts will go to almost any length to destroy/mutilate their past bodies so they cannot be used for anything, which would degrade the dragonnewt's soul. This is in fact part of their Utuma suicide ritual, in which they use their blade to mutilate the body so thoroughly while killing themselves it can never be used again. Thus, unless they screwed up at destroying it, there is little hope at resurrecting the body, as it was either destroyed by them, by whatever killed them, or used to make dragonewt hide armor (a very magical and difficult to make thing).

4. If they were already near drains dragonhiod, aka in the final stages of being a winged/ruler, how did they mess up so badly as to be divided from the path, and how did they die before attoning it? By all rights they should've been spending most of their time cooped up in meditation preparing for the final transformation, or even waiting in their egg.

[Grimmshade]

I'll probably drop some of the wacky nature of Dragonewt, and make them a bit more like samurai or Zen monks in my game. It feels like that still follows at least the basics laid out in the Bestiary.

I like to go big in campaigns, so what if this act was something involving the human world, maybe an act of vengeance on a human or a settlement. The Inhuman King or a human sorcerer/shaman (or a temple's/cult's god) punishes her by making her reborn human, and out of the cycle of rebirth. She eventually finds and reanimates her old body because (right or wrong) she thinks she can re-enter the cycle with it. (She also wants revenge)

I know I'm sticking hard to this background, but I generally like to let the players make whatever characters they want to play within reason in the system. I also realize I don't know much about Glorantha (yet!) I'm not even sure how the Runes relate to the gods.

Edited September 24, 2018 by Grimmshade
Typos

[g33k]

This is IMHO one of the great flaws in Glorantha as a setting:  Player cames up with a great idea, but it's based on a  non-Gloranthan POV, so experts say "no."  This is valid -- the experts are right -- but it's VERY discouraging for a player!

How close can we get to the PC-concept, while being not-absolutely-outside-any-chance-of-being-canon?

 

[metcalph]

Personally I would have the Dragonewt PC either from Ormsland or Ryzel.  That way they can be slightly more "human" in their thinking and still seeking to  improve themselves by study at the Dragon's Eye.  That way other dragonewts would still be incomprehensible to them.

For Dragon Magic, I would basically use the Rune Points to model if and when they cast their magics.  There's long been talk of tying their magics to what RQG now calls rune affinities.  

[g33k]

5 minutes ago, Grimmshade said:

I'll probably drop some of the wacky nature of Dragonewt...

It's not so much "wacky" as different; alien.  Dragonewts can seem "wacky" or "brave" or "cowardly" without actually BEING any of those things -- their decision-making process, and the criteria upon which they decide how to act, are outside human ken.

There is a hint of Buddhism there, in the ideas of "right action" and "wrong action" and the (hopefully advancing) cycles, etc.  I see where you get the "Asian Martial Arts" vibe from!  Add in some incomprehensible motivations and methods... and ROCK that scaly mofo!

 

[Richard S.]

Oh, I have some homebrew rules for how Dragon Magic could work for PCs written up from a while ago. I've promoted it in a few threads before but I think it may be relevant to this: 

 

[Zozotroll]

when RQ first came out, nobody knew how they where supposed to be played, so we just played them and had fun.  So do that. Just ignore us old farts, and you and your wife have fun playing however you want. Later, if you pick up some Glorantha lore and learn how the world is intended to work,play again a different way.  I would bet everybody on here advising has played something"wrong" some time or other and had a lot of fun doing it.  Drive on and enjoy

[Crel]

You could sidestep this and see if she wants to play a Newtling.... They're lizardy, right? Right?

[Gryphaea]

5 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I would recommend an intelligent dinosaur like a Magisaur,

I would say this is probably the way to go. Magisaurs are also blank slates, they don't have all the culture and hence all the cultural baggage. A new player can be introduced to the world without all the law dumps that would be necessary for a dragonewt.
For any new player you want to avoid the law dumps, your wife may well have told you already about the limits to her interest when you start a detailed 20 minute explanation of something - mine does all the time.

I have run a campaign with a magisaur PC and it worked out fine - but that was using Mythras/RQ6. There are no guidelines for magisaur character creation, but there is enough in the Bestiary to give you some decent ideas.

You could also suggest a human Maran Gor Priestess, what is a better alternative than being a lizard than having an intelligent pet dinosaur. 

[Psullie]

6 hours ago, Grimmshade said:

Thanks guys!

So here is what she has decided upon. (Keep in mind we are Gloranthan noobs, and advice/suggestions are more than welcome!)

She was a dragonewt who really failed during her last lifetime. Was really evil or something. Instead of reincarnating in another dragonewt form, she reincarnated as human. 

Now, this part we haven't totally figured out yet, but she wants to be a necromancer and to have her old body as an automaton/mount. (It wouldn't be any more powerful than a bison or something)

What she was thinking is that she was really advanced, almost dragon, and then really messed up, OR alternatively she was cursed by a rival/god/etc. 

Thoughts?

Perhaps she's human who believes that she was a Dragonewt in a past life and that her triceratops zombie thing was her former body - lots of fun potential as she try to awaken her dragon kind and who knows a hero quest may achieve that as she tries to atone for whatever slight she thinks caused her to be cast out

It's your Glorantha so have fun. 

[Garry]

Another option would be to look at the Path of Immanent Mastery cult, which teaches it's followers how to transform themselves into Dragonewts.  You could suggest that a botched ceremony has the character locked into this current shape.

 

[Videopete]

Why go with reborn dragonewt. Why not be a victim of transformation magic.  Some sorcerer tore the dragon rune from your soul and replaced it with the Man Rune. As in not the physical rune but the actual Rune that instructs the universe how you are.  Your Leader sent you on a quest to destroy the Rune Thief even wit the undrstanding you will be removed from the cycle, but the Nest will remain untainted.

[Grimmshade]

Wow, this is a great community. I've already run out of "likes" and "thanks" to give people today (I didn't know there was a limit!) Thanks for all the advice and insight so far!

Video Pete's idea of a dragon transformed to man is very close to my wife's original idea. I'll definitely be looking into that!

I'll also check out the Path of Immanent mastery, magisaurs, and Maran Gor Priestess after work today, as they all sound very cool.

[Joerg]

Telmori are basically humans when in human form, wolves when in wolf form and possibly some horrifying in-between on Wilddays, although I would make them slightly monstrous berserker wolves rather than wolflike humanoids in that stage. On Wilddays, they are immune to all weapon damage but magical weapons or silver (but, like Grendel, will take damage from falling, or wrestling).

There used to be two sources of Telmori in Sartar - the cursed tribe of shapeshifters on the upper Creek, with a line of chieftains descended from Ostling Four-Wolf and Onelisin (granddaughter of Sartar the Founder), and a contingent of bodyguards to the Prince of Sartar in Boldhome led by such descendants, and probably including more of them in the ranks. One of those was the wife of Prince Salinarg and mother of the children who formed the Household of Death against the Lunar Invasion of 1602.

Depending on when you play, there has been/is going to be a conflict between Argrath of Pavis and the tribal Telmori, with the majority of the Telmori killed, and their pelts (from the Wildday wolf form) kept as a magical garment to allow transformation.

No extermination will be complete, but survivors may end up as lone wolf avengers rather than as pack wolves.

Edited September 24, 2018 by Joerg

[Grimmshade]

Are they acceptable as PC's?

I'll probably start the campaign in the recommended year from the Core.

[Joerg]

59 minutes ago, Grimmshade said:

Are they acceptable as PC's?

I'll probably start the campaign in the recommended year from the Core.

Like Lunars, they are problematic because of their Chaos affliction, but you could have a character with blood ties to the House of Sartar.

You'll need to have a way to split from the party on Wilddays, but other than that one day in the week, the character would be fine. He or she could even have lived in Boldhome for most of their life, making them better accustomed to urban environment and even court protocol than those rural Orlanthi yokels.

[Grimmshade]

All the setting depth is pretty daunting, but I'm looking forward to a deep dive into the Core book this week. Hopefully I'll come out with a better overall idea of things.

Looks like my player group will tentatively be:

-the "necromancer" with some sort of dragon ties. (Are there necromancer's?!)

-either a centaur hunter or a baboon farmer.

-a human "chronicler" (scribe I think) "pyromancer" (not sure what this would be, possibly someone who summons fire elementals)

-one undecided.