Hey all, while reading over the 4e campaign setting for Dark Sun the book went out of its way to mention Abelach-Re has sired children and that they manifest unusual psionic or magical abilities. As far as I can tell there is almost no canon discussing the nature of children born from Dragons or other advanced beings for that matter.
So I ask my fellow Athasians, what do you think the children of advanced beings would be like? How human should they appear? What abilities should they have? I could see them varying a good deal but I think there would still be enough common consistencies to give a starting idea on these guys and decide on variations from there.
Nanda Shatri is the daughter of Abalach-Re and appears to have no special abilities due to her heritage.
Prince Dhojakt is a mutated son of Nibenay due to exposure to the mutating energies surrounding the Pristine Tower IIRC.
I think the general rule seems to be the children of arcane advanced beings have no special heritage due to their parents unless said parent does something experimental to them in utero.
Correct, being an offspring of a dragon doesn’t mean anything. The canonical children we have include Nanda Shatri of Abalach-Re (one of literally HUNDREDS of children AR has borne), Dhojakt, and Siemhouk. Of those, only Dhojakt is “weird” in any way, and that’s because his mother gave birth to him at/near the Pristine Tower under the misguided assumption that it would make him powerful / bring him good fortune in life.
Thanks for the references everyone, puts what lore we have on the topic in perspective. However I am a bit curious on some non canon ideas or input folks might have for the children of advanced beings, if making them a monster similar to the half celestials, half fiends, and half dragons of 3.5 could be appealing. When I read about Abelach-Re’s Offspring the first thing that sprung to my mind was the concept of children that appear human but grow more monstrous as they age or grow in psionic/magical power.
As for how the world reacts to overtly monstrous dragon spawn, the way I see it a dragon spawn would either have developed its abilities sufficiently by the time it becomes overtly monstrous to conceal its appearance, hides itself from public society altogether, or is written off as just another mutant or monster (perhaps even a half-drake). However this is banking on the fact most people don’t know there’s more than one dragon.
The Offspring might not have any special traits or magical/psionic abilities, but they could certainly possess social power. Once I used an Offspring as the main assassination target for my group, who was influencing a noble against Abalach-Re.
It depends upon the SK/SQ as to the social power. Abalach-Re has apparently borne many children but she effectively abandons them to the care of palace staff after birth and the child takes the social standing of their adoptive parents IIRC - so a child raised by a templar would belong to the templar caste. Nanda Shatri, head of the Raam VA was raised by outcaste servants so she’s an outcaste herself. That didn’t stop her becoming a potent mage on the route to becoming an avangion.
Nibenay seems to be much more careful about raising his offspring - hence Dhojakt and Siemhouk have considerable social power.
As for the other SK’s its not beyond the realms of possibility they’ve sired/borne children, with varying degrees of social import. Although from the Atzetuk conspiracy in Draj, it would seem Tec never publicly acknowledged any children (otherwise they’d be a threat to the Atzetuk cabal).
As far as we know, the children of SKs have no inborn special power. Maybe that’s cause all the SKs are in the early stages of their metamorphosis.
Who knows what would happen if the Dragon would sire a child (assuming his unlucky mate would survive the act)?
Besides Nibenay (who was more focused in his purusit of knowledge, than the direct government of his city), and have Dhojakt as a full-fledged “prince”, I think that no other SK have a “special offspring”: they’re immortal, so imho they don’t care much to have a dinasty and a successor.
For Atzetuk, since in the Paizo continuity he becames a full Sorcerer King (with templars), my headcanon is that he’s the host body of king Tec (who did a sort of “contingent magic jar” on him). He kept the name Atzetuk, 'cause “Aztetuk” was more beloved than “Tec” by the Draji.
I think a similar situation would be Prince Raesene / The Gorgon, from the Birthright setting. He was super focused on dynasty and legacy. Until he realized he was immortal. At which point he stopped caring, settled in for the long haul and planning more longterm than nearly anyone else could fathom.
Another thought is that AR’s current MO of “give birth, quickly get bored, abandon and move on” may be the result of post-/peri-natal depression compounded with the fact that she has absolutely experienced outliving and watching children of hers grow old and die. Multiple times. There’s no way that doesn’t mess with someone, especially a mother.
And Abalach-Re seems already messed up by her own.
I think that she simply “doesn’t care anymore”. She doesn’t care even for her own city (since she was the one who wiped out ORCS, I find unlikely that Raam is a mess 'cause she can’t control the city… she just doesn’t care).
About Dhojakt, I don’t remember if that mutation is just casual or Nibenay (the most “scholary” of the SKs) somehow managed to control a bit the chaotic mutation of the Pristine Tower. Ok, Dhojkakt is monstrous, but he has super strength, incredible durability, etc. Either Nibenay managed to control the mutation a bit, or they may’ve been multiple “mutated children of Nibenay” (I think he consumes the marriage with his “wives”), and Dhojakt, being the one born with the most beneficial mutation, was kept and raised as the “prince” of Nibenay. The other ones were simply killed.
Can’t remember the source off the top of my head, but Dhojakt’s mother was responsible for his mutation, not Nibenay. It was supposed to be something along the lines of “Hey husband, lookit this! Give us the special privileges as a result of how awesome this is!” She probably DID do something in an attempt to control the Tower’s energies, and I don’t think its an accident he’s a cilops mutant, when the cilops are the symbol of the city.
I think all the SMs are crazy. They’ve lived for eternities, and all done, seen, and experienced countless things, both good and bad. There’s no way they haven’t been broken themselves a few times along the way.
That being said, just saying she’s crazy or doesn’t care seems a great disservice to AR. I want to know more about her motivations and reasoning, the whys and hows of her crazy. She’s one of the most interesting SMs there is. She took Raam: the wealthiest of the cities (at least until its gem mines ran dry), and the birthplace of “modern” Tarandan psionic teaching/thought. She orchestrated the attack and assassination of Dregoth, who by all rights should have curb-stomped everyone (with the possible exception of Hamanu, if you want to play up Hamanu’s “specialness”), and then proceeded to systematically loot his research and treasure. She also (according to the adventures) did that whole Rafernard scheme and—by the rules as written—will succeed in an epic spell she made to skip 4 defiler metamorphosis steps unless the PCs stop her. That all speaks to a lot of motivation, smarts, and planning on her part. On top of all that, her relationship with her city (open rebellion, borderline anarchy), her relationship with motherhood (simply labelling her a slut who can’t figure out birth control—which I think a lot of people do, unfortunately—is just lazy and misogynistic), the Badna religion . . .
Yes, she’s crazy. But her crazy is INTERESTING, on so many levels.
I deviate away from 2e’s depiction of Abelach-Re and run with 4e’s and then just keep running. I depict her as an extremely powerful, competent, and wise Sorcerer Queen with one very simple problem. She’s ruled her realm for centuries with little difficulty, in fact for the longest time it flourished as one of the greatest of the city states. After reigning for so long with no serious opposition and goals that would all take ages to complete she grew very very bored. People aren’t meant to live for centuries and Abelach-Re has simply stopped giving a f*ck.
Sure she is still focused on becoming a full dragon and unlocking the secrets of flesh in the hopes of attaining godhood, but the problems Raam is facing are the ones it has faced on at least two other occasions in the past. Both times when Raam was on the brink Abelach-Re purged all opposition and righted her city in remarkably little time. She allows Raam to enter such a state out of the hopes there might be potent enough opposition to alleviate her terrible ennui.
Needless to say the recent death of Kalak of Tyr has her sitting up all of a sudden with a variety of mixed feelings. Surprise, outrage, fear, and… excitement.
Imho even in 2e Abalach-re IS extremely powerful and competent.
Rammites think at her as a weak and insecure ruler… Yet she still rules after about two thousand years. If we put together “she wiped out orcs”, “she was the mastermind behind Dregoth’s assassination” and even her “Forest Maker gambit”, we understand that her “insecure and weak ruler, fearful of her own citizens” is just a deception.
The Sorcerer Monarch’s of Athas (except Borys) are not fully metamorphosed so their children are probably of whatever race their parents are. I do wonder what the child of a fully metamorphosed Abalach-Re and Borys would look like though. A true dragon, perhaps? But not an advanced being (unless it manages to become an advanced being on its own).