I'd like to know how you envisionned them for the athasian setting and how you used them, if at all. I found an image of what an athasian centaur would look like (it's a kamunik from the BD Valérian). I envisionned isolated pocket of these centaurs losing a long lasting battle against the kreen because they competed for the same resources and ecological niche. No ideas about the genies or their place on Athas, beside their relations to the elemental planes and powers.
So please share your experience on the subject or your ideas.
I'd say anything horse-like is non-athasian. As simple.
The addess is http://www.haabet.dk/centaur/artists/j-c_nezieres/You'll see, this centaur is not you're ordinary centaur, it's a quadruped but more like an insect. If it hadnt looked like it would fit on Athas, I would'nt have talked about it. ;)
Now to do all of that we need an artist working for us, and a damn good one at that.
of it.It's also true that it is easier to keep the priginal flavor of the setting by using "real" athasian creature to replace those we know.
Genies are a different case because I always wondered why they were included in the original encounter tables : stoney barrens (dao), snady wastes (djinn) and rocky badlands (efreeti). Perhaps at first they didn't have enought monster to populate their encounter tables or maybe the genies are devolved and stranded on Athas since untold generations just like the drakes.
Questions, questions...
-->no centaurs in my campain wemics are enough of this kind of "monsters"
that lived on athas in the past.
You do know that the remorhaz, which lives in arctic climate is also on that list of so-called appropriate creatures?
Yes, but it seems to me that if they hadn't presented it as an arctic monster, it would have been a perfect DS monster (appearance, heat generation and general bad disposition) burrowing thru sand and earth instead of snow and earth.
no centaurs in my campain wemics are enough of this kind of "monsters" that lived on athas in the past
.
That's true that the niche of this kind of creature (half-humanoid/half-quadruped) seems filled with the wemics and that if ordinary centaurs had existed, they would have been on the Champion's "to annihilate" lists.
What appearance a genie would take on Athas? The same as anywhere else? New powers? What were the doing trekking in the wilderness in the first encounter tables? Some others humanoid creatures would have been ok, why genies? I keep asking myself.
You do know that the remorhaz, which lives in arctic climate is also on that list of so-called appropriate creatures?
I put Remorhaz in the mountian peaks. When the PCs needed to go to the mountain top to commune with the Avangeon, I used them as gatekeepers.
I have used Desert Centaurs with great effect in my games too. I placed them on the other side of the Ringing Mountains rubbing elbows with the Pterrans. They are quite fast and can match the speed and almost match the endurance of the invading Thri-Kreen scouts. The way I have it set up in my campaign is that the only reason the Thor-kreen scouts are not signalling an immediate invasion is that fact the the Desert Centaurs along with the Pterrans and the Ruhl-than make such a good barrier of deadly skirmishers.
I also let centaurs take the Thri-Kreen killer kit/prestige class depending on the rules you use.
You want to rip on these guys being unsuitable to a DS campaign? What about Dolphins???? Athasian Dolphins????
Hmmm.. let me post a picture...
http://www.cs.uno.edu/~jpfeil/DSArt/centaur.jpg
They are quite fast and can match the speed and almost match the endurance of the invading Thri-Kreen scouts.
The Hinterlands are a good place for desert centaurs since they are largely unexplored and visitors could go throught them without encountering a single living souls. The centaurs from the image I posted earlier where also at war with the kreen. Never thought of giving them the kreen slayer PrC but made them use the bug crusher, a double weapon with a ball of stone at each ends, destroying exoskeleton right and left.
I included every elemental beast I could find, and even included some that weren't included that were likely oversights... I occassionally consider a pdf of it, but the whole thing is 2E D&D. Besides... the thing is THICK!
It is funny how in the higher level adventures you start runnign into creatures from standard Fantasy games. I think in the Dregoth adventures the PCs can run across a Kobold...
What about Dolphins???? Athasian Dolphins????
You don't have to tell me they don't fit. I tried to convince the Monsters Bureau to make them Lawful Evil in Terrors of Athas, but "Noooo". :P
I mean happy dolphins?
Flipper?
...
Frickin' Flipper?
The whole Mind Lords of the Last Sea plays out like a Star Trek episode anyway, all you'd need is Kirk to beam down and either have them rediscover love and decide their time was past or destroy the computer behind the wall with illogic.
I have yet to play MLotLS on my players, there are no Water Clerics in the party and I feel that if the Half-Elven Bard, Mul Ranger, Half-Giant, and Human Sword fighter get a glimpse of dolphin, they would be salivating so badly I don't think the rest of the adventure would go very well.
(My campain is not one of heroics, but one of survival, I don't think the campaign will ever get much farther than the trade route between Balic and Tyr)
What about vicious psionic mind-enslaving dolphins at least...
That's what I pushed for... and with BIG POINTY TEETH!
The whole Mind Lords of the Last Sea plays out like a Star Trek episode anyway, all you'd need is Kirk to beam down and either have them rediscover love and decide their time was past or destroy the computer behind the wall with illogic.
ROFL! That is so true.
"Captain, it is illogical for dolphins to have evolved and survived in this climate."
"I...know that...Spock. We are...at the mercy...of TSR's R&D department. Bones...quick...come up with a dues ex machina...to save us...and end this...terrible episode."
"Damnit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a script editor! We would need a miracle or a game designer to get rid of this ridiculous section of this setting!"
"Regardless...I'm going to go make it with...that hot Mind Lord -- Lady -- whatever."
"Captain! There's a giant meteor full o' sleepin' halflings coming doon on top o' your position! Its impact is gonna destroy the entire region! I've got ta beam ya out noo before it's too late!"
"Scotty! I haven't made it with the hot, alien, chick...yet! We...need...more...time!"
(Ironically, the Mind Lords could just send them all back in time...hahahahahaha...so, once sent to the past...)
"Spock, Bones. Tell me...should we...tell...the Mind Lords' past selves...about...the meteor?"
"I believe that would be a mistake, captain. The sudden and unforseen annihilation caused by the crash-landing of the halfling meteor-spaceship in the Last Sea region is the only event capable of ending the region's inherent temporal and disbelief-suspension instabilities."
"Then...we must allow...this meteor...to strike!"
"But Jim, think of the loss of lives! We have a duty to these people to preserve and protect them. And what about the setting integrity?"
"I know...Bones...but think of the cost...to the fans of the setting...if we don't! These...people...here...in the Last Sea...are just poorly written shells, at the...mercy...of an underpaid development staff...from...a bankrupt...game publishing company. This...is a better end...for them. Scotty...beam us...up."
"Besides, doctor, setting integrity went out the window when half the Sorcerer Kings were killed at the end of the Prisam Pentad."
"Why you heartless, green-blooded machine..."
(--whhhheeeeeeeee-- transporter noise...roll credits...)