What are your thoughts of the Genasi as a race for Athas? Have you used them? How do you think common folk would view them? How would uncommon folk view them?
I have never used them and I donāt think I ever will. In my opinion, they just donāt have the Dark Sun feel Iām going for in my game. Theyāre too fantastical with their innate magical abilities. I like my games to be normalish people struggling against vastly superior foes. That way, every tiny victory feels like a huge win.
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No, I havenāt used them, though Iāve played with the idea. Iām with @Rajaat99 on this one, theyāre a bit too fantastic for my taste.
Have you seen the article in Dragon 396 called āWinning Races: Genasi of Athasā?
It contains most of the information youāre after.
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Iāve seen the article, I just wanted to get peopleās opinions and foster some discussion.
I have used them both when I first started in DS and then later after years of experience. The biggest problems I had were how they affect tone and how they fit in a low magic setting. From a tone standpoint you need to dial back the Al Qadim effect to something that fits into Athas. So my recommendations are to
- Figure out why genieās exist in Athas and what are their goals both cosmologically and locally
- Figure out what the sorceror-kingās opinion of genasi are and how they would use them. THEY WOULD USE THEM.
- Figure out how dreary gritty Athas has changed them from a world view/ character way
- Figure out if they are psionically gifted or if you want to limit that.
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For me:
- Genieās are part of the elemental war ongoing for Athas, but are limited by elemental lords in how much they interfere. So a genie works for an elemental lord, but genie kind are not allowed to present an organized approach to Athas.
- Genasi are gifted individuals to be used as tools or crushed. Some city states prefer them off the board entirely and would kill on sight. They need to cover up any outward signs of their parentage, and their magic is no better understood than a preservers.
- Cross the loneliness and lack of culture that a half elf has with the struggle to stay hidden of a preserver.
- Strictly non-psionic which is a hardship in a psionic world.
As I continue my work on the āgenieā issue in Athas, and mold my Athasian genies which I have dubbed enochol enochol thread , it remains for me to decide upon Athasian half-genies, or to reframe, the āgenasiā of Planescape as they might be on Athas. In short, I believe these shall be the children of my enochol, as this seems the most appropriate.
As far as the ukoven go, these will remain separate beings, human in origin I think, but significantly altered by the energies of Euripis. They are their own monstrous compendium entry, I think, and when empowered by their islandās energies, are considerably more powerful than common genasi.
I think genasi make more sense than most of the āstandardā races. A very close version of Athas would have them as standard races, or use them as templates for them (elves as air genasi, for example).
But, in practice, I donāt see them as being much a part of Athas. There might be one-off characters who are genasi, or you might adapt them into somethat that happens to high-level clerics or druids, but they donāt have a current place in the lore (that I know of).
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FWIW, thereās currently a lot of work being dine by the PT team right now in both the Elemental Overloads book and Races of Athas on genasi, ukoven, and other elemental/human hybrids.
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Now picturing para and quasi-elemental genasi. A Magma genasi. Silt genasi. Maybe a halfling rain genasi?
As Adam said, we are working on the genasi and ukoven (which are a special case of genasi), both elemental, para elemental and quasi elemental
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Seems like the genasi would fit into the half outsider slot for Athas. Given that so many things tie into the elemental lords and planes, i would think them as mortals who have given up half their mortality to serve the elemental lords and be adapted to survive. It would become one of the few seemingly legit ways to āescapeā from Athas, the SKs, and mortal drudgery.
Of course, i would prefer the elemental lords and the genasi to be purely psionic, as there is way too much magic in a supposedly high psionic low magic world (SKs and Templars notwithstanding, they are exceptions).
Hmmmā¦ quasi-psionic variant on the Way based around the elements?
No quasi about it?
Hydrokinetic
Lithokinetic
Pyrokinetic
Aerokinetic
(And then the the magic nation attacked) 
But seriously, we officially already have 5 energy kinetics, and 4 elemental psionic mantles, shouldnāt be that hard to polish up a bit.
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Iām guessing these are 3e things? These elemental kinesis powers and mantles?
Given that Athas.org has a 3e Charter, and no provision for any other editionā¦ yes, the 5 energy kinetics and 4 energy mantles are all 3rd edition material. The pyrokinetic is core EPH, the extra kinetics came from a web article, and the mantles from Comp Psi.
Note: there is no lithiokinetic prestige, I just added that to make the joke work.
Like I said, I donāt do anything with 3rd edition anymore, so thinking about what to do with an elemental psionic system, for me, is usually going to be a 2e thing.
So, thinking about it, probably my go-to would be stealing the sorcery system from Dragonlance Saga systemā¦ but that isnāt well set for 2e. (Ironically, I intergrated it into 3e a couple decades ago, but thatās neither here nor there). Basically, youād create your powers on the flyā¦ also not dissimilar to Ars Magicaās spells. I also used it for psionics in Hackmaster. The Ogre's Library: Mindhacks (Revision; Hackmaster)
Going off the Dragonlance system
*Preparation Time: How Long do you concentrate before the effect happens
*Range: Does it happen to you? Where you touch? Where you can see?
*Duration: How long does it last?
*Area of Effect: Mindhacks worked on number affected, but a measurement based system might work better for kinetics1
*Element-based effect levelsā¦ what you can do with Earth is different than what you can do with Air.
The trick is going to be rendering this USEFUL; a roll-under system, as is done for a lot of 2e stuff, is going to be hard to square with tiers like this and keep it possible to do anything. d20 + Attribute + Modifier v. Difficulty? It works, of course, but youāre also going to want level-based bonuses, or you wind up with 2eās Comp Psi system, where you donāt get good at things unless you sacrifice a lot of potential.
Also worth considering is whether or not someone would have only a single elementā¦ can an elemental kinetic do both pyrokinesis and lithokinesis? Or are they limited to a single element?
Time to start pounding away.
1 I know this touches on some Pathfinder stuff, but donāt want to go there; āI blast elementsā is not what Iām going for.
Ugh, geez - the charter DOESNāT MATTER.
Athas.og is currently doing 5e stuff just fine today, thank you. And the forums donāt count for that stuff at all.
I mean, itās not like Iām going to ask athasdotorg to publish any of this; Iāll hash it out here, then put it on my blog, because I like playing with ideas. Itās another of my fundamentally unsaleable ideas and projects, that might turn into grist for something in the future.
Heck, Iāve played 3.x more recently than Iāve played 2eā¦ this morning, if you include Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. But the difference is that I like 2e for tabletop stuff.
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