New to these forums(but not to Athas, been playing and DMing it since its inception), but figured this was the best place to air my ideas. Feedback would be appreciated.
Recently, one of the players wanted to play as a defiler/psion(we’re using 3.5) attempting to become a dragon. He was inspired to do so after our CbtSS/Dregoth Ascending campaign we recently “finished”(all party members dead after facing Dregoth in the PT). One thing he said that really got my imagination-juices flowing was “I want to recreate the dray, but use halflings as the base stock, but i don’t know of a reason why my character would. Maybe you could help me out. Why did Dregoth make the dray in the first place?”(he’s never read CbtSS in its entirety)
Why indeed?
Perhaps because the Dragon Transformation was invented by a kobold prophet that had foreseen his own race’s genocide and decided to do something about it. To resurrect his people, by making the Champions of Rajaat recreate them. To avenge his people, by making the Champions of Rajaat use their own people as building blocks for the task. Sound crazy?
Well yes, it is crazy. Crazy like a kobold. What other classic D&D race has a closer tie to dragons in standard settings? In a world where psychic premonitions of the future are established in canon, is it much of a strectch to think that maybe one of the Cleansed races might see their own death coming? If they couldn’t see a way to stop it, wouldn’t it make sense to come up with a way to bring about their own rebirth afterwards? Kobolds in most D&D settings are sorcery-inclined, so is it a strerch to think they’d try to learn magic after Rajaat invented it? Wouldn’t it make sense that their brightest minds would already be psions, and that the first kobold students of magic would be their brightest?
I’m not saying kobolds ever turned themselves into dragons, just that they might have created the process. The sacrifice of so many lives that is required for the transformation could be the kobolds’ way of punishing those that would follow a Champion. The madness inflicted at the various stages of transformation could be a way of punishing the Champions themselves. Perhaps recreating kobolds is some sort of compulsion buried in the psyche of those that transform. What is a dray, if not a human-sized kobold(in both form and mindset)? Reptilian humanoids living subterranean lives worshipping a dragon, sounds like kobolds to me. Sure, Borys didn’t try to make them(at least we have no evidence of an attempt), but his plate was full maintaining Rajaat’s prison, and his transformation happened all at once. The Champion that came the closest to full-dragon by actually taking the “normal” route to dragonhood(Dregoth) had been working on making a draconic-people for quite a while before he was slain(and was still obsessed with doing so after he became kaisharga).
Anyone got any 3.5 stats for a cool undead kobold seer/defiler?
That will probably be the PC’s motivation for picking halfling, even though i plan on it not working(the CbtSS said it won’t, but that doesn’t mean i won’t let him try)
Unfortunately, like (almost) all cool niche things, you will probably have to create it your self. There may be a (non-undead) kobold seer around some where, then just add defiler levels and which ever undead template fits best and voila! If not just get a normal kobold, raise some stats, add seer/oracle and defiler levels, and an undead template.
It’s a really neat concept you have there, by the way.
Just finished designing a ruined kobold city for the PCs to explore, filled it with undead, now just waiting for them to get high enough level to spring it on them.
Plenty of traps, very low ceilings, narrow but highly organized streets, art and architecture that will remind the players of a scaled-down version of New Guistenal, plus a few gnomish undead that were prisoners of the kobolds while alive.
I took a kobold city i designed years ago, “filed off the serial numbers”, and added some “Athasian spices”. As it is now, it’d be a challenge suitable for 4-6 PCs levels 14-15. Haven’t made an adventure-hook for it yet, but my players are starting at 4th level so i have time.
Any additional ideas would be welcome, as i have plenty of time until the players get there
What about Drakes? I don’t think Athas ever had non-transformed dragons and in their absence it would make sense that kobolds would be adopting them. They might even have disected or experimented on them to make the transformation ritual.
What if the fate of the kobolds is linked somehow to that of the champion that slew them, and knowing that, the last trap they placed puts a compulsion in its victims’ heads to slay that champion?
Maybe there’s even a clutch of eggs waiting for the champion’s death.
In a temporal stasis perhaps?
Would have to be, otherwise they would no longer be valid and maybe even mummified.
I like that idea a lot, consider it stolen!
