Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Oninotaki Oct 25, 2006 13:29:44	Ok folks I have finalised the list of races that my PC's will have access to in my next Darksun Campaign, my only problem is that the Mul and the Tarek are too similiar, so help me to re-envision it. I am hoping to change it to some sort of monsterous humanoid, maybe something like a dromite but more beetle like. I am not really sure. Dont worry about game mechanics though as this campaign is going to be so home ruled that you would cry reading it :P I just want help and ideas with the fluff. As an aside here is a list of the races that are going to be available. I am including it because I like to keep them in tight little sub-groups. Blue Age Races: -Halfling (Humanoid) -Nikaal (Monsterous Humanoid) -Thri-kreen (Monsterous Humanoid) Green Age Races: -Dwarf (Humanoid) -Elf (Humanoid) -Human (Humanoid) Lost Races: -Aarakocra (Monsterous Humanoid) -Pterran (Monsterous Humanoid) -Wemic (Monsterous Humanoid) Half-breeds: Dwelf (Humanoid) Half-Elf (Humanoid) Mul (Humanoid) Blue Bloods: Dwarfling (Humanoid) Elfling (Humanoid) Manling (Humanoid) Aberrations: Dray (Abberation, Sub-type Dragon) Elan (Abberation, Sub-type Human) Half-Giant (Abberation, Sub-type Giant) New Races: Dromite (Monsterous Humanoid) Jozhal (Monsterous Humanoid) Tarek (Humanoid, re-envision to a Monsterous Humanoid) Inhumanoids: Myconid (Plant) Obsidians (Elemental)(holder name for home brew race) Warforged (Living Construct)(regular and scout) Oh and thanks in advance for any help that you can give:D
#2 Kamelion Oct 25, 2006 14:59:33	I am taking it from your post that you want to make the tarek into some kind of insect/beetle men (which is a nice image), so these suggestions work with that in mind. I'd go with the idea that tareks are hive creatures with big, shiny carapaces that live in termite-mound things in the foothills and lower mountains. They are aggressive, dim and territorial. You can keep the idea that they are creatures of the earth (matches the idea of being mound-dwellers) and use this to elaborate on their hatred for the gith. If the gith have defiled the land as they are wont to do, it is no longer suitable for habitation by the tareks. They need land and soil in good condition in order to be able to harvest nutrients and build their big beetle mounds - the gith make this impossible with their rapacious depletion of natural resources. There are a few tarek mechanics that can be easily adapted to the beetle-man concept. Keep the tarek's stat adjustments - they seem to be fine to me for the concept of a beefy beetle-man. You might want to increase natural armour up to +5 to reflect a carapace. You can give them small wings for a low fly speed or even a burrow speed. I'd ditch the weapon familiarity and the slam attack - maybe replace it with a bite attack from big beetle mandibles? Keep the musk (and associated skill modifiers) and make it a pheremone that the tarek use to communicate with each other. Keep the free teamwork feat and make it a benefit of the tarek hivemind - they are in instinctive communication with each other through their pheremones, so teamwork works well. You could also keep the ferocity ability, should you be so inclined, and rule that their hivemind keeps them active on an instinctive level when they would otherwise die. Even when the tarek body is brutally injured, the hivemind keeps the beetle-man twitching and fighting until he is smashed to a crunchy pulp. Hmmm. Interesting. I might use this myself :D. Beetle-men are cool.
#3 kalthandrix Oct 25, 2006 15:07:22	+5 natural armor seems too high - a thri-kreen only has a +3 - and they are fully "armored" in the chitin. As an aside - if you do not like the tarek as is - why not just replace them with the dromites - but make them medium if you do not want a bunch more runts running around. To make them medium, you could drop the -2 Str mod, drop the bonuses for size and give them like +2 natural armor - it should work out to be about the same with an LA +1.
#4 Kamelion Oct 25, 2006 15:49:22	Yeah, +5 might be too high. I'm not stressing too much about the mechanics here, though, as Oninotaki seems more interested in concepts than rules balance at the moment.
#5 Oninotaki Oct 25, 2006 22:32:51	Yeah, +5 might be too high. I'm not stressing too much about the mechanics here, though, as Oninotaki seems more interested in concepts than rules balance at the moment. Yea I am mostly concerned with fluff at the moment, I want the basics of the tarek(fights a little after death, respects the earth, uses heart pick), but I want to make it more phyiscally different from the mul. Now by making part beetle/humanoid it fits a nice medium niche that exists between the dromite and the Braxat. This sort of unique animal/insect/reptile mix that you only get on Athas. That being said I love the ideas Kamelion has tossd out. Oh and dont worry about the mechanics as natural armor as is will not be in my campaign. Like I said above my house rules would make your head asplode Oh and dont even get me started on LA lol:D
#6 zombiegleemax Oct 26, 2006 11:49:48	Nice! I had written up a Tarek encounter but was a little unhappy with how to visualise them too. To make them more insect-like in nature sounds good to me!
#7 kalthandrix Oct 26, 2006 13:03:18	There is an insectiod template in Savage Species FYI - just putting it out there. I was going to use this template on a band of hald-gaints that were living in an area with strange emmenations (left overs from Rajaat learning magic - again - maybe).
#8 zombiegleemax Nov 02, 2006 16:16:02	Nikaal isn't blue age race but a new race (it's written explicitely in "the verdant passage").
#9 mouthymerc Nov 02, 2006 18:20:48	If you can do it, check out the Diopsid race in the Dragon Compendium book. They are beetle-like and could make a good counter-point to the thri-keen.
#10 Oninotaki Nov 04, 2006 1:54:48	If you can do it, check out the Diopsid race in the Dragon Compendium book. They are beetle-like and could make a good counter-point to the thri-keen. I have been meaning to pick up that book, is there any good art in of that race in it? right now I am just wondering how beetle to go. Should they have big mandibles and a big beetle carapace? Should they look like small umber hulks? That kind of a thing, if the diopsid has neat art work I may go with it.
#11 Oninotaki Nov 04, 2006 1:55:59	Nikaal isn't blue age race but a new race (it's written explicitely in "the verdant passage"). I'm not to terribly worried about that, I have been playing with whats cannon and whats not for my darksun campaigns for a number of years now.
#12 Oninotaki Dec 14, 2006 11:04:22	Ok I am currently imagining that the new tarek is composed of the following. -legs and torso of regular tarek, just add carapace in style of beetles -arms similiar to umber hulk -predator style head with beetle style horn growing out of upper forhead(not sure of size) What do you guys think? It sounds ok in my head, but not fantasitic.
#13 thebrax Dec 17, 2006 2:46:11	I agree that the Tarek could use some distinguishing from the Mul, but I really do not like the insect angle; this is simply an entirely different critter. I'd like to see distinctions that do not contradict the previous publications, but simply develop them.
#14 ruhl-than_sage Dec 17, 2006 9:13:26	Personally I would have made them really hair and musky, with fur kind of like a mammoths but stringier covering most of their body..... I'm not sure why, that's just how I would differenciate them physically.
#15 Kamelion Dec 17, 2006 9:42:53	Given that your plan is to completely re-envision the tarek and move it away from the original in concept, I'd say that turning it into a wholly different style of creature is absolutely the way to go. It's not like you need to worry about all that canon nonsense anyway . I'd totally go for the beetle/predator cross with big mandibles and a carapace. When you say you want to keep the original's legs and torso, I am assuming that you are making these insectile in appearance. I'd say that would be cooler than some kind of beetle/non-beetle hybrid. Go the whole mile and give him insect claws instead of feet (like in the Fly II movie). Essentially you are crafting a beetle-tank. There's definitely a niche opening for that. As said before, I really like the concept. There are references to other insect races on the Crimson Savanna - you could link the tarek to these in some way if you decide to move away from the mountain-dweller aspect. Huge tarek-mounds dotting the savanna makes for a cool image...
#16 thebrax Dec 17, 2006 21:24:47	Given that your plan is to completely re-envision the tarek and move it away from the original in concept, I'd say that turning it into a wholly different style of creature is absolutely the way to go. It's not like you need to worry about all that canon nonsense anyway . I'd totally go for the beetle/predator cross with big mandibles and a carapace. When you say you want to keep the original's legs and torso, I am assuming that you are making these insectile in appearance. I'd say that would be cooler than some kind of beetle/non-beetle hybrid. Go the whole mile and give him insect claws instead of feet (like in the Fly II movie). Essentially you are crafting a beetle-tank. There's definitely a niche opening for that. As said before, I really like the concept. There are references to other insect races on the Crimson Savanna - you could link the tarek to these in some way if you decide to move away from the mountain-dweller aspect. Huge tarek-mounds dotting the savanna makes for a cool image... I agree that it's a cool concept and that there's a niche for it; I'd just rather call it something other than Tarek, since that already means something.
#17 thebrax Dec 17, 2006 21:29:45	Personally I would have made them really hair and musky, with fur kind of like a mammoths but stringier covering most of their body..... I'm not sure why, that's just how I would differenciate them physically. While I think that's a considerable improvement for a creature called a "tarek" that's more distinct from the Mul, I think the fur starts to run into Baazrag territory. I think the way to distinguish these guys is by building on the foundation that's there already. We've got musk, bad temper, and the ability to fight on when most creatures would by lying in a puddle of their own blood. To me, these elements scream "wolverine." Maybe someone can do something with that that works within the DS story.
#18 Kamelion Dec 18, 2006 6:59:37	Well, as Oninotaki has said that he's doing this for a house-ruled, canon-liberated homebrew DS game, I'm not getting too hung up on how tareks have already been presented in published DS material. I see no problem with changing the nature of the beast while still calling it a tarek. It's a cool exercise in creativity .
#19 Oninotaki Dec 18, 2006 13:00:48	Couple of things I want to say because this thread has got me all excited again:D 1st: I am keeping to cannon, its just that my campaign is going to take place 838 years after free year 12(I just need to figure out what kings age that is lol) So the tarek that we are working on here is the evolution of the one described in the original material. 2nd: I imagine that the tarek most likely originated(sp?) from dwarven stock twisted and changed by the harsh new enviroments of Athas after the cleansing wars, and I imagine that this change will continue well into the future. I also imagine that the world of athas is so harsh that it creates mixtures of reptiles/mammals/birds/insects/crustaecions(sp?) that we just wouldnt see on earth because life here isnt nearly as competative as it is on athas. 3rd: Taking these things into consideration I now love the idea of adding wolverine bits to the beetle bits that we already have! So here are some quick ideas: -They live in underground burrows with others of there kind that resemble termit mounds -They have a favorite weapon the heart pick -There stature is similiar to a gorilla or umber hulk -Carapace,wings(only helps in jumping and falling), and horn from beetle -Thick hair,claws, and jaws from a wolverine -Their musk is a phermone that they use to communicate with each other, but otherwise functions just like normal tarek musk -Medium sized, only one set of arms and legs -They have a love of the earth and nature, hatred of the gith(which I have as off shoots of elves actually, if you wanna know more I can share my rough ideas) -They are dim but not terribly so(no bonus to intelligence but no penalty either), athas has no room for the stupid, unless its being protected by the smart(things such as sheep) What do you guys think? Did I give it too many things from the beetle and the woverine? Does it need more things or less?
#20 thebrax Dec 18, 2006 17:16:51	Come to think of it, O, you're right about even mammals on Athas taking on shells and stuff like that (e.g. Athasian bears). I'm liking some of this new iteration you've thrown out, and glad you're taking on some wolverine aspects, as a hand-tip to the original.
#21 ruhl-than_sage Dec 19, 2006 17:57:35	While I think that's a considerable improvement for a creature called a "tarek" that's more distinct from the Mul, I think the fur starts to run into Baazrag territory. Phhhehp! Baazrag. What's a Baazrag?
#22 Sysane Dec 19, 2006 18:15:14	I imagine that the tarek most likely originated(sp?) from dwarven stock twisted and changed by the harsh new enviroments of Athas after the cleansing wars I've always chalked them up to being a hybrid of dwarves and ogres. I figured that there would be a period during the Cleansing Wars that forced races that would ordinarily be enemies to become allies in order to survive. As the ogres became more scarce they would turn to other races for procreation.
#23 thebrax Dec 20, 2006 21:42:24	Phhhehp! Baazrag. What's a Baazrag? Try early in the first chapter of the Verdant Passage, or alphabetically in Terrors of Athas.
#24 thebrax Dec 20, 2006 21:44:20	I've always chalked them up to being a hybrid of dwarves and ogres. I figured that there would be a period during the Cleansing Wars that forced races that would ordinarily be enemies to become allies in order to survive. As the ogres became more scarce they would turn to other races for procreation. Heh. That takes the expression "politics makes strange bedfellows" to a whole new level.
#25 Oninotaki Dec 21, 2006 16:12:03	hmm + this or this + these & These too =
#26 ruhl-than_sage Dec 29, 2006 11:10:35	Try early in the first chapter of the Verdant Passage, or alphabetically in Terrors of Athas. ... I'm denighing their importance, and declaring their non-exsistance in my world.