Journey into the Mystical Realms of Dungeons & Dragons: An Exploration of D&D Races, Legends, and Adventures

Andrew: 0:30

Welcome, travelers, to another exciting episode of Legends, Loot and Lore. Today we are ready to take you on an extraordinary journey into the hidden corners of the Dungeons and Dragons multiverse. We're venturing beyond the ordinary, exploring the uncommon races that add a touch of intrigue and mystery to the cosmopolitan cities and picturesque villages alike. In these far-flung locales, the common folk react with a mixture of curiosity, wariness and wonder when they encounter members of these unique races. Join us as we delve into the captivating tales of these uncommon beings and uncover the secrets they bring to the ever-expanding tapestry of D&D Lore, from the elusive tieflings and the mysterious dragonborn to gnomes, half-elves and half-orcs. We'll traverse the landscape where uncommon meets extraordinary, unravel the stories of unlikely alliances, unexpected friendships and the astonishing encounters that shape the very fabric of our beloved multiverse. Let's roll initiative and dive in.

Joe: 1:49

Joe, how are you? I'm doing great, but I only roll the seven. For what?

Andrew: 1:55

Initiative. You only rolled the seven. Well, you go later. You told me, you told me to roll initiative, then you don't get to talk.

Joe: 2:02

Hey, you just did the whole intro. I think it's my turn now. That's fair.

Andrew: 2:05

So we're going to introduce a new segment. We're going to talk about the campaign that Joe is currently DMing. Which book are we on now exactly?

Joe: 2:18

So the overall adventure is called the Tyranny of Dragons. The first adventure is called the Hoard of the Dragon Queen. That's the first book. The second book continues the adventure but sets it up so that people can play from the beginning of that book only, and that's called the Rise of Tiamat. So we have just finished the first book with the Horde of the Dragon Queen and we did one session so far into the second book, the Rise of Tiamat.

Andrew: 2:53

The Rise of Tiamat. So we looted the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, correct? So we now have most of that hoard in our possession, which is very exciting.

Joe: 3:06

Well, I think, technically you gave it back to the council. So what ended up happening is, in the beginning of it, you get hired on as some guards and then you turn out to find out that the place that's actually being raided is being raided by the Cult of the Dragon. This leads you to get recruited by a couple of local heroes who are trying to figure out what the cult is doing and through various you know hijinks and machinations, you end up in a flying castle that you convinced the giant who controls the flying castle to betray the Cult of the Dragon and come over to your side, and the dragons kept a good portion of that dragon.

Andrew: 3:51

Are we spoiling too much If somebody plays this adventure?

Joe: 3:56

Well, not really, because you don't have to convince him.

Andrew: 3:59

You can do anything, I see. So you're saying we convinced him Is that what you're saying so we as a party you convinced him as a party, as a party, we convinced him.

Joe: 4:07

That's how the adventure allows for multiple types of outcomes. I see you guys chose to try to sway him.

Andrew: 4:13

I just want to make sure we're not spoiling anything for potential players.

Joe: 4:17

Everything that I'm telling you about this adventure is generic or specific to the actions that the group that we're playing is doing, for example. Not everything's going to happen this way, but in this game play through, the giants kept a portion of the treasure and the rest of it was returned to the people. The giants are now waiting to see when the people of the Sword Coast are going to make their attack.

Andrew: 4:45

How did we not get a cut of that loot? That was a lot of treasure, I mean. They're going to miss a couple like 100,000 pieces of gold.

Joe: 4:55

Honestly, the reason why you guys didn't get a cut of it is when we came back to Waterdeep. You guys did not say anything about the treasure because it was brought back with you. I won't tell you this. Something happened when you walked into Waterdeep and that distracted you all and nobody thought to take any of the treasures. So the rest of it was returned to the council that was formed.

Andrew: 5:22

That's on us. Yeah, pretty much that is on us for not taking a cut.

Joe: 5:30

So the council was formed by all the leaders of the various races and groups of affiliations. Now we're in a book too. Right, Right, right, right. This is the very beginning of book two. Got it? A council was formed to try to join together to fight against the dragon cult and their dragon allies. The problem is, everybody who wants to fight them are very hesitant about doing this. Some people have this concern. Some people have another concern. So your friends from the first book, who kind of got you into this whole thing in the first place if you can call them friends they are trying to help you sway these factions to lend their support to a big climatic battle at the end of the adventure. So as we go through the adventure now you are one of the primary teams set out by the council to achieve to achieve certain goals and do certain tasks in preparation of this battle. You need to do them in certain ways to get enough people happy that they degree to sign on and, as your actions tell the council, when you come back they'll piss some people off or they get other people happy.

Andrew: 6:49

It's interesting. I mean, I can understand why they're hesitant to join this. It's not like dragons. These dragons have come because the dragon, the draak horn, was sounded.

Joe: 7:05

Now, that's telling. I was purposely not mentioning that.

Andrew: 7:10

I didn't say what the drag horn is or anything. It's just the draak horn was sounded and yes, and this, this, this is a once in a millennia event, would you say.

Joe: 7:25

At least, if not longer, from the way that the lore is told of. So now more dragons are flocking together in support of this cult than have been done in anybody's memory, including the histories that have been so far researched.

Andrew: 7:42

So the, the, the cult, the cult of the dragon, has summoned all dragons for a dragon extravaganza of killing everybody else. Is that? Is that theoretically what, what we're anticipating to happen?

Joe: 8:00

Yes.

Andrew: 8:01

Yikes. So this, this was so. So that's kind of the story as it's been going, but this, I've actually started enjoying this, so I well what's not.

Joe: 8:14

You are the only one who switched their character twice. Now You've got to find the right pair of shoes before he walks a mile.

Andrew: 8:23

I like mixing up my characters throughout the story. What can I say we were? We were given the opportunity when, when we kind of finished book one, we were given the opportunity to continue with our existing character, which I was playing a half vampire, the Baroness, and we get, but what were you playing before that? Is that the shapeshifter?

Joe: 8:44

Yes, so I spent a lot of time building a backstory for your shapeshifter character and you just write it off.

Andrew: 8:52

That's right, You're welcome Again. This is the job of the party to support the DM.

Joe: 8:57

This is what happens when you do the DM. Just, I'm not saying don't DM, because it's still a lot of fun, but just be ready for them to just disregard whatever you've planned. I'm sorry, continue with your, your half vampire.

Andrew: 9:10

No, I was just saying the last character I was playing was a half vampire, and so for the new, new half of the adventure, I decided to switch things up and, because of all the research that I've been doing for for the podcast and and and looking at all the kind of the basic races which I really haven't done before, there was a lot of great stuff to kind of dig into and play with there. So I decided to that. That was really the prompting for me to create a new character, was, was was doing all this research and I decided to create a dwarf, a mountain dwarf, the sub race mountain dwarf, and it is Thoradin ironbeard, and I'm really excited kind about the character that I built here. I feel like there's a lot of a lot to a lot to work with, so I'm looking forward to that.

Joe: 10:10

So a quick side note for the DMs here that may be listening, or hopeful DMs that are listening so when Andrew came to me and says I want this guy to be, like you know, a big proponent of bringing people together to fight the dragon, that's what's going on. But in his head he had his character as, like, a general or something like that. But the characters are only level eight. So you know, we talked about it and I said, well, hold on a second, you're a level eight, you're not going to be a legendary general, but we're going to do is one of the one of the members of the council is a dwarf. So I made that and that dwarf was a in the adventure, is a reluctant person. He doesn't really want to do this. He wants the dwarves to take care of the dwarves. So I tweaked the story a little bit. And this is what you do as a DM you take your characters and you tweak them into the story. And I said you know what, andrew, we're going to make you his right hand as a negotiator and we're going to say because you're only level eight, so you're not really the top guy yet, and we're going to say the leader of the dwarves sent you to counterbalance this guy's reluctance and then, through a combat that I threw together for them, he became endeared unto the leader of the council, who then sends him with the group to go on the tasks that are sent out. That's, therefore he can come back and report. And now there's the dwarven aspect and that additional support for the group. So, as a DM, even if they come up with something that really doesn't fit your storyline, sit down and talk to the players. Most of them will probably more or less amenable to modifying to fit the storyline.

Andrew: 11:50

That's part of, I think part of the fun of creating a character is not that you just you don't create a character in a vacuum. You create a character in partnership with the DM to help move the story along, help to build a better story. Some of my thoughts so the background, part of the background of Thoridin is that he is a soldier. That's the background that I chose. So he is a soldier and he's well over 250 years old, so he's been around a long time. He's seen a lot. I figure he's heard stories since dwarves are so long lived, I assume he's heard stories of other battles against dragons and so he wants his chance to help. He knows the dwarves are strong and resilient and are great fighters and they will come out and help everybody else defeat the assembly of dragons. So that's kind of how I envision his part in the party and the story.

Joe: 13:04

And in the book it talks about this dwarf who's the leader of the contingent, who's reluctant. But it also talks about how the dwarves are really anti-dragon in general, because where do the dwarves live? Mountains. What do they do? They go digging for treasure. Where do you find the majority of your dragons? Mountains. What do they have? Treasure. So there's a natural animosity between the two races from that perspective as well, which you can play off on if your character as a dwarf was more avarice than combative. What I found really interesting about you taking the fighter route was the fact that you've played melee characters before, but you've always been on the lighter side. You've never taken the more tank role which a fighter or a paladin or a cleric would have. You've played a wizard. You've played a monk. A couple of times You've played a ranger, because even the shapeshifter was a monk and the half vampire was again a ranger. So it's like this is like a complete change for you. You have always been in combat, somebody that's ran up and fought. That being said, you race the characters that you've, the classes that you've done. Oh yeah, you've been the sorcerer when you were Oswald.

Andrew: 14:26

That's why I'm looking up all my characters to see what I've.

Joe: 14:29

But so the thing is it's really interesting for me to see this change in your character. Oh yeah, there's El Rishi.

Andrew: 14:36

That's right. In the other campaign he was a barbarian.

Joe: 14:43

It's very interesting because I'm looking forward to seeing you go from doing four or five attacks at 10 or 12 apiece and doing two attacks at 30 apiece, and I think it's going to be an interesting dynamic for you to adjust to.

Andrew: 15:00

Oh, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it very, very much. Yeah, yeah, I've enjoyed playing the wizard, being kind of a ranged attack part of the party, but this is someone that really kind of goes headfirst right into battle and shoots first and asks questions later.

Joe: 15:25

My first character that I played through an entire campaign was also a wizard and I love the whole fact of it and I actually I took it a step further in my role playing and I took all the spells and I said them in Latin as a spell language and it was kind of a cool, little quick, just that I would do. But what I then? The campaign I'm playing in Tuesday night not that I'm DMing, that, I'm playing a character, I'm now a fighter and you know was, as the spellcaster I was always staying back. As the fighter I've kind of become reckless, abandoned. I run in and I start smashing on things and it's fun.

Andrew: 16:04

Smashing things can be a lot of fun. It's Hulk smash, absolutely. Yeah, you watch the Incredible Hulk and that's.

Joe: 16:12

That's like the fun, when you just grab somebody and throws them around, it's and you know what's a really good thing and this we can get back on track now. Is that one of the really good races for these melee characters? They're Dragonborns.

Andrew: 16:26

What, what, what an amazing transition. Joe, you like that? Right, I do so, yeah, so we. We are going to talk about five races today. These are these are still in the basic rules. These are these are the less common races than than the others that we talked about in the previous episode. So here we're talking about Dragonborn, we're talking about who else Gnomes, half elves, half orcs, and Tieflings, the dreaded Tiefling. Why do you say dreaded Tiefling?

Joe: 17:08

Unfortunately, they get stereotyped.

Andrew: 17:11

And again it's there, there's a lot of they. I don't want to say they're, they're outcasts, but but it's a well, it's a. It's a type of character that may resonate well with with a lot of people out there that that that feel the same way.

Joe: 17:27

We'll talk more about it when we actually talk about the Tieflings in a little bit. But yes, they are an outcast in society because of their physical features. But yeah, so they get a negative reputation and it's interesting to see how some people, when you watch some real live plays and stuff like that on YouTube, it's interesting to see how some people lean into that and some people like lean away from it and try to like step away from it and it's it's very interesting I think, almost comical, to see the two different portrayals.

Andrew: 18:00

Yes, indeed, and we will. We will definitely get to all that when we when we talk about Tieflings, but up first number one is the Dragonborn. So so, joe, let's let's talk a little bit about the background of of the Dragonborn when they were, when they first showed up, and and kind of what they represent in in Dungeons and Dragons.

Joe: 18:21

So you know, they were originally introduced in the third edition, which was 2000, when Liz's little coast brought them in there, and the obvious inspiration for them is the idea of a Dragon, human hybrid or a humanoid that has draconic roots or traits. They have a long standing presence in mythology in general and the third edition was, you know, bringing them into the D&D as an original creation for D&D.

Andrew: 18:55

So this was not, as opposed to our original four humans elves, dwarves and halflings. So those are, those are really steeped in every type of mythology you come across anywhere. They were. They were all very well fleshed out in literature already. This one was really a as a playable race. This was really an original creation for for D&D. So this was. This is when we start kind of veering off from how, how literature has inspired D&D. Now, now D&D is kind of branching off of that and creating some of its its own races. So that's that's where Dragonborn show up.

Joe: 19:40

Yeah and when. When you think of a Dragonborn, I've always and I think some, most people, often they think of a literal mix between a dragon and a human, or almost like a giant, oversized lizard, if you will. But I've always, I've personally always thought of them as almost more scholarly than actual combative, and in my head they're always noble and proud, majestic creatures that either have a lot of knowledge or are are the the gatekeepers to that knowledge. They're librarians, they're wizard, they're, they're wisdoms. But that's where I differ from most people, because Dragonborn tend to have a lot of combat basics behind them.

Andrew: 20:25

Interesting. Yeah, I mean you would think I guess when you think Dragonborn you think very aggressive, kind of an attacking race. But yeah, I mean they are.

Joe: 20:36

And I think one of the things that happens is people misunderstand that that dragons may not be the wisest of creatures all the time because they're blinded by their avarice or their need to protect their, their homes, but they're often extremely old and wise. They have a lot of knowledge, depending on how much they use it.

Andrew: 20:58

I mean I think I mean dragons have been around, I mean theoretically in. They've been around quite a long time, so I mean they. So I can understand this kind of noble, proud heritage that that dragons kind of give off. So as a Dragonborn as a part, you know having draconic lineage I could see how you'd have that same, that same type of Kind of attitude I guess you'd call it.

Joe: 21:32

Well, and then, in contrast to actual dragons themselves, though, the dragonborns tend to have this devotion and respect to their clan above everything else. So they don't. Actually, most dragons are very singleton creatures. Unless they're being called together for some reason, they don't necessarily care to associate with other dragons and tend to be very territorial.

Andrew: 21:53

Like the Drachorn when the Drachorn is sounded. Stop giving away the story. Can't help it.

Joe: 22:00

So so no, this, this, this idea of being devoted to your clan above all else, reflects the honor that they have to their clan and also how you know they look at their actions representing themselves and their clan when they're out there. So they don't want to dishonor themselves or their clan, and they tend to be better on the either neutral or the good side of the scale.

Andrew: 22:28

Interesting, I wonder. I wonder why they would be more clan based than than dragons themselves. Is it because? Is it because they're not as common, so they're not there's when you, when you go traveling to some of these towns there, you don't see dragonborn as much. So they, they maybe tend to stick together, you know and support each other, as opposed to living, living solitary lives.

Joe: 23:00

I think that's a huge part of it. From the D&D universe and any other place that you come across Dragonborn, I think that's a huge part of it. I always have had my own personal theory. I've always thought as other races in any science fiction or fantasy world, they all have special concepts that the human race doesn't have, and I've always felt that the human race has had one quality that no other race tends to have the the innate ability to bring people together instead of separating themselves out. And this is something we talked about in a previous episode when we talked about cities. The dwarves have their cities and the elves have their cities, but the human cities tend to be a real melting pot of all the different races and I think the human aspect of the dragonborn draws them together along the lines that there's so few of them, probably, but draws them together because they want to be that community. And I think, again, that's something that humans build more than any other race in most literature that you find.

Andrew: 24:07

That's. That's a really good point, I think. I think one of the things that I think is really attractive about playing a dragonborn is because you don't, there's really no way to play a dragon Right as as as a race. So you can't you can't necessarily be be a dragon in in D&D unless you're playing playing the bad guy. So this, this kind of this, is a way to have some of those draconic traits and and and get to play with them in a in a party and in a in a in an environment, role playing environment.

Joe: 24:48

So you get the you can tap into that draconic aspect of D&D dungeons and dragons Dragons. Indeed, so it's actually interesting. You don't see more of them. But for those of you looking for pop cultural reference, if you know Joe Manginello, he plays a red dragonborn on the evil side, he's a paladin oath breaker, which we'll talk more about that when we get into different classes. But you can check him out. He played a lot of episodes on critical role and he did something in critical role that witches of the coast took and made lore in their um, in the lore of dungeons and dragons. It was so epic of what he did that they they literally made it part of the story permanently. What was that? So in the adventure, the critical role was trying to find the hand of Vecna in order to have it destroyed. Vecna was an ancient, I believe he was a lich, and he had powers that continued on to his body, parts that were left over, and he was joining critical role in an in an attempt to find and destroy this. But right as they were getting ready to destroy it, he chopped off his own hand, put on the hand of Vecna onto his body. So he had that power and teleported himself away. And in the actual adventure, in the actual uh wrote the play, the live play. He says this he gets up, gathers his stuff and walks off the screen and the entire table's like nobody knew that he was going to do this. He blew everybody's mind and I probably ruined it for all of you people now, but it was one of the coolest moments of live play ever.

Andrew: 26:44

And has that sounds amazing.

Joe: 26:46

And then Hasbro. I was at the coast, liked it so much. They're like that is now lore and his character has his own keep inside, uh, Averus, which is one of the semi planes, and it's, it's. It's a crazy concept, Wow.

Andrew: 27:03

So, anyway, check that out. So let's get back to it. Let's get back to our dragonborn. So I think I think some of the stuff that I find really interesting is that we were talking about they. They, they bring in some of the traits of dragons and what they're one of their ways of attacking is they have, they have, a built in breath weapon which mimics the typical dragon attack. So so, based on what type of draconical lineage they're associated with, they have, they have, different types of breath weapons, which is, which is a really cool feature of the dragonborn.

Joe: 27:44

And and it feeds in well to the, to the melee character that typically are dragonborn, because it does do a limited range damage and area effect damage.

Andrew: 27:55

So now let's talk about some of the traits that the dragonborn possess. So some of the some of the basic things right off the bat we we keep talking about are the ability score increases of the the different races. So just just based on on on kind of who and what they are, dragonborn get a plus two to strength and a plus one to charisma and Joe. Why would that? Why would?

Joe: 28:19

that be. Well, obviously, the strength is going to be from the dragon strength. That is a typical thing, and you know, again following in my theory that humans gather people together, I think the charisma comes from their human aspect. That being said, dragons have often been known to be sneaky and and charismatic in their own way, so that could come straight from the dragons as well, and it it melds well to come from either or both.

Andrew: 28:46

Interesting Now as far as, as far as age is concerned, very similar to.

Joe: 28:52

This blew me away. When I first learned this, I was shocked, like the. The adulthood by 15 makes sense to me, but around 80, that really blew me away. Since dragons live for hundreds of years, why are we talking about these dragonborn only having 80 years?

Andrew: 29:12

Because they're humanoid. So that's, I think that's one of the one of the downsides to to being a dragonborn is that your, your lifespan is much shorter than than what a dragons would be.

Joe: 29:25

I had never considered that, and then, when I started doing my research, I was blown away by the idea of and that's exactly what it was.

Andrew: 29:32

Yeah, it's really interesting and their size. So they are, for, for the sake of D&D they're considered medium sized, which still still just kind of like, doesn't make sense to me, but but they are. So they are. They're typically taller and and heavier than humans, but they're still in that same kind of humanoid size. So so they're. They're definitely, you know, kind of kind of more, I'd say, broader shoulder than than than a human. You know they've got more mass than a human.

Joe: 30:03

So it's take take the rock and put them next to an average man and that would be kind of I'm thinking that it might be like the size discrepancy kind of thing. You know, the rock has always been like this bulked out guy, sure, and he's a little bit taller than most people, I think.

Andrew: 30:18

There you go, there's a. There's a good comparison. Take the rock and cover them with scales. Maybe that could be his Halloween costume. He could, he could go as a dragonborn. That'd be, that'd be badass, that would be awesome, right, um, speed wise. 30 feet Again, typical humanoid medium size. They're going to have that 30 feet. That's pretty much pretty standard for that size, that size creature. So let's talk about some of the, the special features to dragonborn there is. Dragons have draconic ancestry, so, based on the, the type of dragon that you're associated with, you get certain features, and those two things are your breath weapon and damage resistance. So there are different types of dragons, like black dragons, blue dragons, brass, et cetera, and so with each of these types of dragon lineages you get different, a different breath attack. So, for example, black dragons have acid damage, blue dragons have lightning damage. You know you get down to silver, which has cold damage. So you get, so you get it's. It's two fold. So for a silver dragon you would have your breath attack would be cold damage, and then you're also resistant to cold damage. And Joe, talk about resistance. Again, what, what resistance actually means?

Joe: 31:41

So resistance means if you take damage of a specific type in this case damage from cold or some type of cold spell that says, oh, we do cold damage. Resistance means you take half of that damage, meaning that you're resisting the effects of the spell or of that particular effect of a spell or an environment. Even actually you're in freezing cold water, you can take cold damage.

Andrew: 32:10

So, for example, I've got, I've got two D eight. So let's say, let's say an enemy is dealing cold damage and and the it's two D eight worth of cold damage. So I'm going to roll these and I've got, let's see, a five and a four, so that'd be nine. So half of that. And what's the rule on odd numbers?

Joe: 32:31

So it really is up to the DM. However, I believe in general most people err on the side of the player. So half of nine would be four and a half. So they will round it down to benefit the player. I've seen one or two instances where I've seen they will round it up to benefit the the DM. But I mean you're literally talking about a difference of one point of damage. And then in vice versa, when you're attacking, when you're at that five and at four and a half, you know you do nine points of damage in your enemy. The DM is playing the enemy and that's a four and a half. The DM will typically round that up to the five.

Andrew: 33:12

So it's always to the benefit of the player, always to the benefit of the player it is. It is how how most DMs would do it. So, yeah, so resistance. Resistance means whatever the damage, whatever the dice roll is for, damage that's halved, and then again, hopefully, your DM will do it in, in in your favor, rounding down for you and rounding up for for the enemy.

Joe: 33:38

There's one other thing that I think we should mention is that the dragons come in two different varieties and your dragonborn come in the same two basic, general varieties. There are chromatic, meaning colors, and there are metallic, meaning types of metal You're being a type of metal, gold being a type of metal, brass being a type of metal, and they differentiate slightly as you go through as a character and as as a as a classic concept of what dragons are, and when you dive into the dragon research, you tend to find out that the chromatic dragons tend to be more evil and the metallic dragons tend to be more neutral, meaning they don't want to get involved, and the chromatic dragons tend to be like, yeah, we're, we're going to come back and and bring ourselves back into the power and and they get that kind of concept. If you watch critical role, the the tune show on Amazon, you'll see that all the dragons that come in the second episode, they're all chromatic dragons. Ah, vox Machina, vox Machina, thank you, I'm sorry. I couldn't remember the name of the show.

Andrew: 34:55

Yes, I'm rewatching it. I got through season one and I didn't get into season two, so I'm starting from the beginning again and going all the way it's definitely worth watching. It's a great show. It's very enjoyable.

Joe: 35:10

And I was reluctant. I was resistant at first and I really enjoyed it.

Andrew: 35:15

Excellent, see, good, I'll put. I'll try to put a link in the show notes to Vox Machina so you can. You can find it easily on Amazon. Now onto our second of the five uncommon races gnomes.

Joe: 35:30

So the cool thing that I've noticed about gnomes is I have never seen or heard of a person playing a gnome. That doesn't mean people don't play them, and I'm sure you'll find them in live plays all over YouTube, but I've personally never seen one or heard one.

Andrew: 35:46

They're, they're. They're busy sitting on people's lawns With red pointy hats, red pointy hats, or or or working for travelosity.

Joe: 35:55

Or David the gnome if he's riding around on Swift and trying to save all the animals in the forest Right.

Andrew: 36:00

So I mean they've got other jobs. They don't? They don't have time to defeat dragons.

Joe: 36:04

Absolutely.

Andrew: 36:05

So let's talk about, let's talk about some of the things about. So, who? What is a gnome? So? So you're right, I, like I've never heard of someone playing playing a gnome.

Joe: 36:15

So, as a gnome, take your basic scientific curiosity and and put it into them. They're similar to dwarves where they they, they like to be in the earth, they like to to do craftsmanship, but they're going to be more along the lines of your artificer people who are making inventions and things like that and we'll talk about the artificer more when we get into classes again but they, they like these, these exploration, investigation, creation kind of things. Dwarves like to make things and things that have been made before and and refining those things that your gnomes tend to be a little more creative in trying to come up with something new.

Andrew: 36:52

Yeah, I loved in doing the research they talk about. They are. Many of them are skilled engineers, alchemists, tinkers, inventors, so so that the the artificer is a great class. I think for, for, for gnomes.

Joe: 37:10

I think I have to take that back. I think Pike in Vox Machina, I think Pike is a gnome, now that I think about it Really, I have to look into that, yeah, anyway, yeah, so they're tinkerers and they're inventors and I think they tend to have. And if you listen, if you read the books we've referenced, the books of Drisdorden by RA Salvador, there's a couple of books that deal with surf meflin, which are gnomes that live in the underdark, kind of like an upside down type world, and they are master craftsmen and one of them ends up losing his hands. So they fashion weapons, a hammer and, and I think, a claw that he puts on when he does battle, and it's, it's just fascinating to to read about.

Andrew: 38:00

Wow, I'd hate to try to like tie my shoes or something that way.

Joe: 38:05

He got moved to Velcro at that point.

Andrew: 38:06

Don't worry, the gnomes will take care of that I'm sure they've gotten an invention for that. The other, the other half to the research that I saw, this is this is the other thing that all of so gnomes love jokes they are. They are jokesters particularly puns and pranks. So that's, they are punny, which which I, which, knowing that I, I might consider making a gnome at some point. A punny just speaking in puns would be, would be, I think, a great little kind of role play aspect role play for for that type of character. So if you're, if you're into puns and pranks, you know, gnomes, gnomes might be the the race for you.

Joe: 38:49

I don't know much about this aspect of it. Yes, there was another gnome in the Drizduarden series in the later books and he's he. He realizes that there's some gas underneath the dwarven city that can be used to blow the top off of a hill and he makes a few jokes about how it's done and nobody laughs at it because nobody got it. So there is that aspect, but I was not really aware of this aspect of them until I did the research. Interesting.

Andrew: 39:21

And so I find it interesting they were. They were in the original edition, Gnomes were in the original edition of of DND all the way back in 1974. But I guess, I guess they've kind of evolved over time, as D&D has as well.

Joe: 39:41

Yeah, and I think, unfortunately, they've kind of fell by the wayside by all the well, even in the nine basic races that we're gonna talk about, but then also in all the creativity available in some of the other ones, I think they've kind of fallen to the wayside because well, which we're gonna start talking about in a little bit, when we talk about their traits, their intelligence is their boost, which is a plus two on their intelligence. But unless you're making a wizard, there's not a lot of classes that really will be good for that intelligence boost of two. So it's a lot of other things. You can kind of other classes and races, you can kind of mix and match, but with the intelligences it's really hard to find that use for having a plus two to your intelligence.

Andrew: 40:25

So, yeah, let's dive into the traits here. So the ability score increase. Yes, foreign Nome is a plus two to intelligence. So for things like wizards, if they were magic based wizards, artificers, so there are some classes that would benefit by that plus two to intelligence. Age wise again very interesting. They mature the same as adults. They get to adulthood around 40, but they're another long lived race. They're 350 to 500 years old, so they've been around a long time. Maybe there's something to living underground.

Joe: 41:07

That might be. You know, maybe the sun is killing us all prematurely.

Andrew: 41:10

Well, I mean, that's why we're sunblock all the time. Well, so hold on. If I lived, underground.

Joe: 41:16

I wouldn't have to worry about that. In the spirit of us talking about the gnomes right now, I think the next trait warrants this. So when you're talking about gnomes, people will think very little of them because their average size their average size is only about three to four feet and then about 40 pounds and they're sized small. Yeah, look, man, if you're gonna play a character that's a gnome, that's gonna be dropping puns in my campaign. One day I'm going to drop every pun I can on your character.

Andrew: 41:51

Wow, that was rough. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Let's not think little of the gnome. There's a lot you can do with a three to four foot size character. That's only 40 pounds, which is something that's really interesting.

Joe: 42:06

And a little quick side note small characters can move through certain. I think they have to be a large, but I think they can move through the space that a large character is standing in, so it avoids the need to go around certain characters. So there is some stuff, some play with that.

Andrew: 42:23

Interesting and so, like the other, like the dwarves, like the halflings, their speed as well is 25 feet, so obviously shorter legs. They can't move as much on each turn. Being somewhat underground dwellers, they have the dark vision capability as well. Another feature specific to the gnomes is what is known as gnome cunning, so you have advantage on all intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws against magic, which I think is a great feature.

Joe: 43:00

It actually is, because when you think about it, a lot of magic will have. You know, con saves or dexterity saves or strength saves. But when you think about the idea of cunning, that is more of a mental idea. And intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws are against somebody messing with your mind versus messing with your body. And there was a lot of support magic out there that was based upon going against somebody's charisma, somebody's wisdom. It's a support magical tool, weakening them in some aspect or another. So this is really a great aspect because you get to roll twice every time you're trying to save against this. That's pretty big.

Andrew: 43:45

Yes, it really is. So that's a nice feature to have as far as gnomes are concerned and plays really well into the other major aspects of them. In the basic rules there are one subrace mentioned for gnomes and that is the rock gnome. So the bonus to a rock gnome as you get an additional plus one to constitution. For the rock gnome there's also what is known as artificer's lore, so whenever you make an intelligence history checks that related to magic items, chemical objects or technological devices, you can add twice your proficiency bonus instead of any proficiency bonus you would normally apply.

Joe: 44:32

This is really. It makes perfect sense, because everything we've been talking about with the gnome, all of this tracks in Magical items that they do alchemy, all intelligence items, mechanical devices, anything you think of. They would be proficient in it and they would know about these types of things or, at the very least, be able to identify random things about stuff, identify things about these random items that would give insight into them. So this makes perfect sense for them. The artificer's lore.

Andrew: 45:00

So what type of things might they know about this? They might know who not necessarily who specifically made it, but maybe like what race might have made the item. Whether it is, when we're talking about, related to magic items, can they tell? If it is, it is like movie trapped, or can they tell that?

Joe: 45:24

I think you would be able to tell something like that, depending on how well the character rolled for it. But I think I'm thinking of this more as like the idea that, like you were saying, we have this unknown magical item. Well, this was a magical item made by dwarves or by elves. So that'll lead you a little bit more to what it would be useful for. You could probably even say, if it happens to be a trap, hey, where's the triggering mechanism? I personally would say, if they did a history check on this and identified that it was made by such and such a race and it turned out to be a trap, I would not tell them, but I would mentally, as a DM, give them a bonus if they rolled to try to disarm it. So let's say, the book says that it's supposed to be a 15 on a dex check to disarm this and they rolled a 14. I wouldn't tell them that there was the 15, but I'd give it to them based upon this type of thing. So it's also up to DM interpretation, but I would benefit them more that way as well.

Andrew: 46:26

I could see a rock gnome being like great for being great in like CSI Ooh in the mountains, though it'd have to be in the mountains. In the mountains Mountain CSI, exactly Starring Rock gnome. That would be amazing. I'd watch that. So let's move on to half elves.

Joe: 46:49

I've always liked the half elves.

Andrew: 46:51

So tell me, joe, why, why have you always liked the half elves?

Joe: 46:55

So what first drew me to the half elves is they. You know, they basically embody the best features of elves and humans and I've always felt that their dual nature, kind of you know, mixes a lot with. I gotta go back to Star Trek Spock, you know, spock is half Vulcan and half human and this is, you know, I've always seen my head equated elves to Vulcans, because they're usually calmer, logical, longer lived, things like that, and elves and Vulcans in my head text. So the idea of a logical creature and an emotional creature coming together to create a mix of that in that set of the half elf, and I've always loved that idea.

Andrew: 47:46

Yeah, I find it interesting. I feel it's interesting how they talk about I mean really half elves and half orcs, these kind of mixed race beings here, and they talk about how they talk about in many campaign settings. The half elves really face a lot of challenges from that mixed heritage, really struggling to fit into either society, human or elven. You know, the humans don't necessarily trust or like the elves, elves certainly don't trust or necessarily like humans. So the half elf is really how do they find their, how do they find their place in the world? And I think that's it's a very interesting concept to play. You know, I feel like I think a lot of people feel like outsiders and don't feel like they fit in anywhere. So a half elf is a great race to explore, kind of maybe how someone that themselves is personally feeling about how they fit into regular society they can build a character that really deals and struggles with those same issues in D&D.

Joe: 49:02

Unfortunately, you're absolutely right. A lot of people in our society feel kind of like they don't fit in one world or another and the half elf provides that harbor for them to place themselves into. And in life you're always gonna feel like you might not fit into this category or that category, and this is basically D&D's here. If you don't fit in, this might be a good match for you in the basic rules. Now, if we talked about we're only talking about the basic rules races here, there's tons of races out there that you can. You may not find exactly what you want, but you'll find something a lot closer than these nine things. So don't be afraid to experiment in there. But the idea is, in between the half elf and the half orc, which you can kind of look at as two opposites of the same coin the half elf kind of humanistic and the other one orcish because they tend to be more of an orc race they give you the dichotomy that you can pick between the two right off the bat.

Andrew: 50:11

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I feel I think that's probably why there was a lot of appeal to Dungeons and Dragons in the beginning in the 70s and 80s, because it was a lot of the people that didn't have a group that they fit into and they kind of found Dungeons and Dragons and were able to find races like this that they could build characters that they related to. They may maybe they're not the athlete or whatever. They just didn't have a peer group to fit into. So this was a great way to find something they could relate to and build a community.

Joe: 50:53

Absolutely, and we've said that from the beginning of this podcast and we'll continue to say that until we're done, and we're done with D&D for our lives. But this entire world is meant for people who don't necessarily fit in, and you don't have to fit in here. In fact, you're very welcome to create whatever strange twist on what you see in front of you. That even goes for a character that you would typically have as a good character. Feel free to write them up as evil play around with it. There's nothing that wrong with that.

Andrew: 51:29

Yeah, there's so much that you can do with these characters, Like some of the things that you get and the nice thing about blending the characters of humans and elves together you get a lot of those great traits from each of them. You get the adaptability of humans, you get resistance to charm from the elves and low light vision from the elves. So there's a lot of great traits that you get to pull together from both of these and really make a really fun, exciting character, and I think there's a lot, there's a lot of meat to the character that you can play with and explore in your campaigns.

Joe: 52:10

And when we get to talk about the traits, you're gonna see that the traits make them flexible like that. So you can be a warrior, you can be a magic user, you can be something that's more charismatic, you play certain races and you can be anything, but they tend to be fitting into certain hole that they fit into One of the things about the half-elf, kind of like the human. It fits a lot of different roles.

Andrew: 52:36

Yeah, and so, speaking of the traits, one of the with your ability score increases. So you as for, I guess from the elven side, you get a plus two to charisma, and then you get the ability to add a plus one to two other ability scores. So that's really from that human side, Cause if you recall, if you listen to the episode about humans, they get a plus one to every ability score. So this kind of gives you half of that, so to speak.

Joe: 53:06

And something else that's interesting about this is now the versatility is added in, because you get four points here the two for charisma and the two that you can add Most other races. The only way you get a third one is by going with the sub race, which you always have to pick a sub race Right Going with the sub race. This increases that. So for those characters out there that really like the min-max their characters, this is what's something that you can do. My very first character I didn't get the chance to finish the campaign with him, but my very first character was a half elf Paladin and I min-maxed that character to the insta-grade and it was great, it was a lot of fun. But then, after I stopped playing for various different reasons that I had to step away from the character, I realized that I wasn't really enjoying him as much as I could have because it I was being very stereotypical. I'd made him a Paladin, I boosted up my charisma and I was like I'm not really having fun with this. So my second character was that wizard and I had a lot more fun with that wizard. Which character was that? Which one? The half-elf, the paladin? Yeah, that was when Kat was running a oh cursive. Strad. Yes, I don't remember his name out the top of my head, got it. Yeah. Yeah, that was the one that was curious. And there's a part in strad where you go into this tomb that's centuries old. And there, yes, joe, what did you do? I touched everything. Yes, you did so. The idea being is that you know, when you're playing D&D, you know there are things hidden around and you want to go find them. So, inside this tomb, we started opening up crypts and pulling weapons and stuff like that. Well, I did anyway, and by the time we left, I had I was so deformed from different things. I had something that gave me a plus five to my charisma, but it made my appearance hideous. But I tell you something anything I wanted to do with charisma was practically a guaranteed done, because my charisma was like basically a 22 or 23 at that point, which is like a plus seven, and that's just with my ability scores, forgetting about everything else that baked into it. So it was a lot of fun to walk around being one of the most hideous creatures you could ever see, yet being so charismatic.

Andrew: 55:30

I, katherine, and I were talking about that just the other day, were you really? We were, we were talking about this character, and was he foul smelling as well? Yep, that was something else, that's right. So we were talking. I just like how hideous this creature, this person, had become from Because he had touched several cursed items and so the foul smelling?

Joe: 55:57

The reason why I was smelling foul was I had touched something and that had given me the option of summoning two hellhounds at once a day. If I lost them Once a day, I could have two hellhounds and they walked around with me. There were extra companions for me. And then there was something else that I did. I don't remember what it was, but I was able to use the word of death spell like once or twice a day, without I mean, yes, I was a hideous person, but I was one of the most powerful creatures in the. I was more powerful than everybody else in the group at that point because I had all of this extra stuff and I was writing around on an axe beak.

Andrew: 56:33

Yeah, and it was absurd, it was absolutely absurd, but it was a lot of fun to watch him role play, that for sure. So other traits of the half elves size very similar to humans between five and six feet tall. They're that same medium kind of size so they also have the same speed.

Joe: 56:57

The biggest difference between them and the humans is they're slightly longer lived, slightly About double their age, about double their age.

Andrew: 57:06

That's pretty decent, that's really good? Yes, absolutely. And because of the elven blood they have dark vision as well. So again, just reviewing that, you can see in dim light within 60 feet, and in darkness, as if it were dim in shades of gray. So, joe, let's talk about this fey ancestry.

Joe: 57:30

So the elves have this, of course, as well. But the basic is you have advantage on saving, throws about being charmed and magic can't put you to sleep. Now, fey is kind of like that mystical realm that you've always heard of, and that's where this comes in. So you cannot be easily charmed by somebody and convinced to do something, or a spell can't be done to you. Also, you can't be put to sleep on the very basic idea of a spell putting you to sleep, typically a spell cast, a sleep spell cast. You roll the numbers on the dice and if you get enough hit points you can put a creature to sleep. That doesn't work on half elves.

Andrew: 58:14

Apologies. I'm sitting here and in the recording studio are two of my cats, jordy, jordy LaForge and Fizzban. Fizzban is here as well, but I'm hearing Jordy is out cold asleep and just snoring in the background. So I don't know if the mic is picking that up, but I am hearing distinct snoring coming from across the room and Jordy, so apologies if you hear that on the recording. Lastly, joe, let's talk about skill versatility. So is this a human trait or an elven trait that they gain proficiency in two skills? I think this is more of a human trait To that versatility, kind of of the adaptability of the human, of the human race.

Joe: 59:05

Right. I mean, like again, when you look at all these other races, they tend to have something that makes them stand out Cuffer, dwarves, smarter, more intelligent elves, something that makes them stand out. And I think when they created this I think they did this with knowledge of foresight they said no, the human being is going to be the least specific race that we can make. We're going to make this as general as possible so you can mold and create it however you want. Thus, the skill versatility where you get proficiency. Proficiency is a little number. You have proficiency, everybody gets it. It levels up with you. You get to add that to your skill checks and that's two of your skills. Get this extra proficiency and that's really useful. For well, there used to be a slang term called a skill monkey back in third edition. So skills in third edition were very, very different than the skills were here in fifth edition. Fifth edition is about 12. In third edition, I think there's something like 50 or 60 that you could have 50 or 60 skills. I don't know the exact number. Yeah, there's a lot. How do you keep track of all that? Well, they had a lot bigger of a character sheet, but the idea was a skill. Monkey was the person who was basically your jack of all trades, the guy who you went to and you didn't know what to do. What skill can you possibly apply? And there's your role playing aspect. I want to apply this skill. How would you apply that? That has nothing to do with this. Well, I'm going to role play it by doing X-planes. Oh you know what. That's fantastic. Go ahead and make that role, make that check and that kind of gone away with fifth edition, because there's only about a dozen or 15 here and everybody gets about four of them already as proficiency. Here you get an extra two.

Andrew: 1:00:53

That's really nice and it's nice you get to pick them, so you get to really kind of customize your character.

Joe: 1:01:00

Yeah, that's great, and that's one of the things also about D&D. You can have a character that's meant to be the tough dwarf, but each person in our lives, we all have our own experiences that shape us and you can do that same thing. You get to pick certain skills. Usually when you're creating a character and you'll see it when we do our character creation in a couple of weeks. You can pick a character one way or the other to have this skill or that skill. You add your personal flair to it or your personal curiosity when you want to make something you've never done before and that shapes that character as you would be shaped in your life. And every time you create a character, it's almost like you're making a different expression of yourself.

Andrew: 1:01:45

Interesting. So, speaking about different interpretations of yourself, let's talk about half orcs Yikes Are you a half orc.

Joe: 1:01:56

Well, I consider myself a barbarian with a thin veneer of sophistication over top of it.

Andrew: 1:02:05

I say Interesting.

Joe: 1:02:07

So think of me as a bard-barian. I'm a bard and I have a little bit of sophistication, but then, once you get passed it into a battle rage, forget it, you're screwed.

Andrew: 1:02:16

It kind of reminds you of young Frankenstein singing, putting on the wretz. Is that your bard? If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, why don't you go with fashion sets? Oh my God.

Joe: 1:02:33

Oh, don't do that to me.

Andrew: 1:02:34

That's how I picture you, so like when you see fire, then you go into a rage and all hell breaks loose. I don't know, that's just my interpretation, who knows? So anyway, so half orcs.

Joe: 1:02:50

So this is a fascinating this is so, like I was saying before, this is the other side of the coin. I think the half-elf is like the good-natured side.

Andrew: 1:02:59

Yeah, it's interesting Reading the history of the development of these. I was reading it's like the unions are the result of violence. These are orcs. Orcs are violent creatures, so the orc raiders are capturing and assaulting human captives, or potentially vice versa, and it's these offsprings are the half orcs. And again they don't live in either world. So how do they survive? And again, it's another interesting kind of outcast portrayal of the half race here. So talk to me about some of your thoughts on half orcs.

Joe: 1:03:49

And that's the thing is, like you know, with the half orcs. They're considered watered down by the orc tribes, so they don't think they're considered weaker and less formidable and obviously the orcish features that they mostly end up having, they tend to stand out in the crowd of humans. So humans don't necessarily want to have them in their normal groups of connections. And you know, the problem really comes down to the fact that the orcs are your generic bad guy, one of the most generic bad guys you're going to come across our orcs. They are massively numerous and every race doesn't like them because the orcs fight just about everybody. That being said, most half orcs that you come across in D&D they tend to have a little bit of mellowing from that human race side. In the adventure that we're playing on Monday nights with Andrew, we have a bill. I think you're going to hear an interview with him in a couple of weeks. Bill plays a half orc and as a half orc he has the strength of the orc race that he is built, born with. But he also has made his half orc seek redemption for his heritage by becoming a paladin, which was very fascinating. But it's also something you typically see when you see half orcs, they tend to be clerics or paladins, because the half orcs are a noble concept as well. They feel like they've been thrown out by the orcs and they're unaccepted by the humans, and they end up turning to religion Many people who are lost. They sometimes turn to a religion to find their connection. This is not to say that they're all clerics or paladins, but it is a common one.

Andrew: 1:05:38

Interesting. I never really thought about that before, but I guess searching for purpose if you're not accepted by either side, trying to find some purpose in life is one of the things you might want to do. Being a cleric or a paladin makes a lot of sense.

Joe: 1:05:59

Just as easily they turn into a barbarian when a tribe accepts them, just because they're stronger than the average human in the tribe, so they accept them in Fair.

Andrew: 1:06:09

There's a lot to it. I've enjoyed Bill's portrayal of Tomah the half orc. I think it's been really interesting.

Joe: 1:06:18

It's been a lot of fun to I think he plays him extremely well with the perfect mixture of unrelenting aggression that you would still get from the orcish side, with the drive and ambition to try to talk his way out of most things.

Andrew: 1:06:37

Absolutely. Again, doing all this research, there was a couple things that really stood out. They talk about half orcs are really serve as a way to explore themes of identity, prejudice, the struggle for acceptance. There's a lot there that I think a lot of people can relate to and work with. It's interesting Really, they can challenge the societal norms because they don't fit into either one. There's a lot of inner conflict there that they can deal with as well and really just striving to find their place in the world. Absolutely, it's interesting. We're going to get to this moment when we're going to talk about the traits here. There's one trait that's called the relentless endurance, and I'll get to it. I had no idea that half orcs had this ability and when I was doing the interview with Bill, we discussed this. It was a fascinating trait that half orcs have. Let's talk about some of the basics. Again, half orcs similar to the dragonborn. They get a plus two to strength. Again, they've got the strength and brutality of the orc race. They also have a plus one to constitution. We haven't talked a lot about constitution, so how does that help a character?

Joe: 1:08:08

Constitution, as we have actually touched on a little bit. Constitution is mechanically what's going to help towards your health, your hit points In game. It's also going to be how well you can hold your breath if you have to go into water, how well you can survive some poison inside your food or bad food if you're forced to eat something that's not necessarily in great shape. The constitution, that plus one, it's not a huge thing, but if you're sitting on an odd number, it's enough to boost you into the next category, which gives you that bonus Again. And I would say that, unlike the half-elf and unlike the dragonborn I think these both purely come from the orc side. None of this comes from the human side.

Andrew: 1:08:56

I agree, the things they get from the human side are the age and the size. They reach adulthood by 14, and they rarely live longer than about 75. They definitely get that lifespan from the human side.

Joe: 1:09:14

I think that lifespan could be also a little bit on the orc side, because they tend to fight a lot. Well, that's true.

Andrew: 1:09:22

The natural life of a half-orc is, if you're more orcish and you're a fighter, you're probably living a lot shorter life than 75. This is true. I don't see many 75-year-old half-orcs on the battlefield.

Joe: 1:09:38

It's that old saying you either died the hero or live long enough to become the enemy. There you go. I like that. Where does that from? I don't know. It's an old one. It's an old one that's been reused and lore all over the place. I'd have to look that one up.

Andrew: 1:09:51

I like that one a lot. The size of a half-orc is five feet to well over six feet tall. Again, they fall into that medium category. They have the same speed 30 feet as the other races in that kind of realm. They have dark vision as well. It was funny, joe. I was just watching a video on TikTok. There was a guy playing the DM. He was going through the new party, they were starting a new campaign and everybody was talking about their character. He goes yeah, yeah, I know you got dark vision. It was like everybody's got dark vision. It was just so funny. I feel like it's like a trait they throw out to everybody but humans, seems to have dark vision.

Joe: 1:10:41

Yeah, it's also funny when you go into a cave. You're like, okay, it's very dark, there's no light source, and then all of a sudden three quarters, or all of the party, says I have dark vision, so it doesn't matter. Meanwhile you got the one human walking around with a torch. That's right, I can't see anything.

Andrew: 1:10:58

Exactly, that's the poor humans. They don't get dark vision Interesting as an orc, just their appearance alone. They have this what is called a menacing trait, which gives them proficiency in intimidation. You figure just on looks alone. Again, these are not common races. If you're in a party and you're traveling, going on quests, you walk into a random village. They may have never seen a half orc before. If they're familiar with what orcs are, they're going to be pretty intimidated. This is a natural ability that half orcs have as far as being able to intimidate others that they encounter. Next feature is this is the one that I was talking about relentless endurance. Why don't you take this one, joe? Talk about why this is such a special trait for half orcs to have.

Joe: 1:12:07

Here. I don't know if the orc race has this. I think that this is something specific to the half orc race Interesting. I'd have to look that up because the orc race I think it's one of the books of extra races. I can't think of it off the top of my head. I think it's Volo's Guide to Monsters they talk about. They make the orc a playable race, I think when you keep going.

Andrew: 1:12:44

I'm looking up orcs to see what abilities they have.

Joe: 1:12:48

I think when you look them up, you'll find out that they don't have this. I think that this is a mix between what you would have of a half of an orc concept and a human concept. You get the resiliency and the toughness of an orc, but then you mix that with that human concept, that ability to keep pushing on, to not give up, to never surrender. I think that's where your concept of relentless endurance comes. I think this is truly a melding of the two races. Here you drop down to zero hit points because of whatever reason of damage. You get one hit point back and you can stand back up. This is massively critical under certain circumstances and battles that you're not down, you can run off and take a potion, or maybe you can be that ultimate distraction so that somebody else the cleric can start healing people. You go up and you make yourself a big thing. You only got one hit point. You're going to die, no matter what happens on the next time they attack you. It's like there's a lot of flexibility of what you can do with that last hit point.

Andrew: 1:13:54

This is my idea for a character. I'm going to create a half orc.

Joe: 1:14:00

My half orc's name is Chumbawamba, because Chumbawamba will get knocked down, but he will get back up again, because you're never going to keep him down, and as a half orc you can like your whiskey drink or your vodka drink or your soda drink.

Andrew: 1:14:18

You got that plus one of constitution, so as a half orc you can drink a lot and you have to be a barge.

Joe: 1:14:23

You can sing the songs that remind you of the good times, and you can sing the songs that remind you of the best times. That's right, and your last name should be Danny Boy.

Andrew: 1:14:31

Really. Oh, danny Boy, I'm familiar, I know how the song goes, so yeah, yeah, yeah. So Chumbawamba will be my next half orc character.

Joe: 1:14:39

Did you just come up with that now, or have you been bottled that up and saved that until now?

Andrew: 1:14:44

I swear to you, that was just. It just occurred to me, because you were saying you can get knocked down, but you can get back up again. This is.

Joe: 1:14:51

Chumbawamba the half orc. So did you get the galaxy quest reference? No, I said, you know you get, you don't? You don't have to give up, you don't have to surrender.

Andrew: 1:15:04

And I said I want to win over my head.

Joe: 1:15:06

I said it I'm waiting for the galaxy quest comments.

Andrew: 1:15:09

Sorry, that went right over my head by Grapp Thar's hammer.

Joe: 1:15:12

But grab those. How much it went over my head. I will bash, that's right. Oh no, what? Next time I make a dwarf? I end up DMing a lot, so I don't get to make a lot of characters. But I think I'm going to make a dwarf who has a deity named grab Thor and he's going to have that special hammer man that would be amazing, that would be so cool. And then grab, thor is actually an alien who came to Earth to visit something and, and you know, the dwarf happened to save him, so he leaves him. This, you know, assigned them sci-fi tool and he just bangs people with it, with the hammer as a hammer, like a war hammer.

Andrew: 1:15:50

It could be a war hammer.

Joe: 1:15:51

But, but. But it's not. It's actually something like much more technologically developed. So eventually he comes up and he meets up with a what we're just talking about, the. He meets up with with with a Trumbulamba, no, and then he uses it a hammer because he doesn't understand the technology. And then he turns around and he meets up with an artificer and your artificer is like dude, what are you doing? He's like oh, this is my hammer. I said that's not a freaking hammer, Look at this. And he realizes that this is actually a science fiction. You know magic, you know it's that would be a high technology.

Andrew: 1:16:26

Oh, my alien technology.

Joe: 1:16:27

Crab's, las hama, and it can heal you and you can use it for potions and you can kind of transport 10 feet away and oh boy, that that that's a, that's a crazy character right there.

Andrew: 1:16:37

There's see, there's so much you can, you can play.

Joe: 1:16:39

I'm tried marking that character. You guys can play it, but nobody else can claim ownership of it.

Andrew: 1:16:44

You should, you should build that car. I will. I will challenge you to build that character and we should put it up like on the discord server so other people can play it. Absolutely.

Joe: 1:16:55

What level?

Andrew: 1:16:56

Oh, that's a good question. We'll have to think about that. Well, take a d20. All right, I'm going to.

Joe: 1:17:03

I'm going to d20 and and actually not take two d20s and and we'll take the higher of them. So the higher it is, the more interesting it is.

Andrew: 1:17:12

Okay, so we're going to roll to determine what level grab.

Joe: 1:17:15

Thor's hammers character will be grab. Thor will not be the character, but he will have a weapon called collab, thor's hammer it should be a paladin Like.

Andrew: 1:17:22

should that be the deity?

Joe: 1:17:24

Should? Should grab Thor be the grab Thor is going to be the benefactor. I don't know if it'll be a paladin yet I'll have to think about that, but I will make this character.

Andrew: 1:17:32

Okay, okay, so let's let's roll to see what we've got. Okay, I've got, ooh, a 17 and a two, so we're going to go level 17.

Joe: 1:17:41

Wow, level 17 character. Level 17 character you guys can pick up after the discord. Give me a week or so. I'm going to make this and we're going to. We're going to make it so that I'm going to make the hammer. So that's really, really special, of course, but then I'm going to put the character up and then why don't you come and tell us technological capabilities that we should build into this hammer, something not crazy, like you know, blowing the top off of a mountain, but think of, like the doctors, wand Doctors wand Doctor who, oh, doctor who. Yeah, he's got like the sonic screwdriver, Sonic screwdriver. I'm like what torture do you go to Doctor who? You're the hugest doctor who fan I know? I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this like the mud doctor.

Andrew: 1:18:27

You said a doctor's wand. I said no. I said that.

Joe: 1:18:30

Well, anyway, so the doctor I said the doctor, we're going to go talk to the doctor the doctors from Voyager, by the way, but anyway. So, no, no, think about the sonic screwdriver and how it has multiple uses and think about, think about giving us some ideas about what type of capabilities would be built into this thing. But obviously we're not talking about like blowing the top off of a mountain or something like that Some type of minor technological advantage that he can get, maybe a quick, little you know injection that he can give himself to boost him up 25 HP, or something like that. Think about that, throw us some suggestions and then we'll modify the item inside, d&d beyond and we'll make it a shareable item.

Andrew: 1:19:12

So you're going to make a magical item. I'm going to make a magical item beyond Okay.

Joe: 1:19:17

And don't look for the magical hammer until after we get these ideas, and at a later podcast we'll we'll talk about what ideas we've gotten and then what ones we're going to put into the hammer Right on, and then we'll tell you when the hammer will be searchable in the homebrew section of the D&D. Beyond magical weapons Sounds great.

Andrew: 1:19:36

This is going to be fun. We're going to. Joe is going to build graphedars hammer. I can't, I can't wait. This is great, this is. This is so much fun. Anyway, All right, so we've got one last trait. So running.

Joe: 1:19:48

I love how we went from relentless attack and and and and, Chumbawamba, Chumbawamba, you got to build.

Andrew: 1:19:54

Chumbawamba I'm, I will build Chumbawamba. The half orc, um, but yeah, so, finally, so the the last trait that we're going to talk about for half orcs is what is known as savage attacks, so that when, when you make a critical hit with a melee weapon, so when you, when you roll that Nat 20, you can roll one of the damage dice an additional time and add it to the extra damage. So so remember what happens when, when you roll a natural 20, when you roll 20, you automatically you already get to double the damage dice once. Now. This is, you get to roll one of the damage dice an additional time above and beyond that. So it is a savage attack. So not only is it a critical hit, but it is a savage, brutal hit. This is this is really probably taking off a limb, burying your acts into the chest cavity of this enemy. This is, this is this has the potential to do some serious damage.

Joe: 1:20:54

I cannot stress this enough. Go out and buy a pair of real dice. It costs you a couple of bucks. You're better off with real dice than rolling the DND beyond dice.

Andrew: 1:21:03

I I will contest that because I I have seen their, their studies and their research, that that it is evenly, evenly divided among all the numbers. When, when they, when they've rolled hundreds and thousands of rolls of their digital dice, they, they, they roll, naturally they, they. There's, there's an even spread among, among all the numbers. How?

Joe: 1:21:28

dare you bring reason into a completely irrational emotional argument? I will. I will logic you. That is, that is science, that's just science, it's true they they do have it fairly balanced on the probability aspect.

Andrew: 1:21:43

Anyway, but anyway, so I, I, I could, I could, I could go either way. As far as rolling the digital dice are concerned, I love, I love the feel of just rolling rolling physical dice. There's just something fun about it and it does it feels more random to me than than letting an electronic set of digital dice, just kind of agreed, roll for me. So I, just I, just I and I and I love, I love dice, I love the sound of dice and I have bought another pair this weekend.

Joe: 1:22:15

I've made my own dice tower and I love the sounds of the dice falling through the dice tower. I mean, it's just. I hate that sound, Do you really? I really do. I'm going to do it every game now, just so that you have to hear it. It's so annoying. See, one of the fun things that you can do as a DM is you can roll at random times for no reason whatsoever. And I've done this and they'll. They'll see people advise this, people that they'll be in a discussion trying to figure out what they're doing, and I won't like the way that the conversation is going because they're metagaming, they're talking outside of character and they're trying to hash something out. You just throw the dice, you throw a lot of dice and all of a sudden they start sitting down, Like why is he rolling dice? What's what's happening? And then you just, you know, put the dice down. You look up and you just wait and they're like, well, what happened? Oh, you look back down at that. There's nothing right now, and and and it's it's one way to focus the party very well as a DM start throwing dice.

Andrew: 1:23:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's. That's the easiest way to make the party nervous is is is not not only when the DM starts rolling dice. When the DM starts rolling a lot of dice, you're like what? Is about to happen. It gets a little, it gets a little hairy there. All right, let's, let's, let's dive into our last of the the uncommon races, the tiefling.

Joe: 1:23:43

Now, if you thought the orc was controversial, dealing with ideas of you know, injustices and disparages, wait a while about the origins of the tiefling race.

Andrew: 1:23:58

Tell us what are the origins of the tiefling race Demonic devilish origins.

Joe: 1:24:06

Now we've talked about this briefly before. A lot of people will sit there and they will be Christians and they will look at D&D and says, look, has got the devil and demonic and you can play a creature that has this basis, and they'll talk to you about all of this and how that this game is a terrible game you play you say Tannock Panic of the 1980s I was getting there. You play, you play, and if you find it uncomfortable to play the game, that's your call. That's all, that's all good. But in the 80s there was a group of college kids who played this game and the only place that they could find was downstairs, next to an old water heater in their college basement. And one day one of the kids from the group went missing. Do you know where this story came from? I honestly never heard the story, really. No, no, this is great, this is great. So they get downstairs and they play the game. The next day the parents can't find the kid, and this is like 83, 84, sometime around that. Why didn't they put a?

Andrew: 1:25:05

space on a milk carton. Well, I think they did actually.

Joe: 1:25:09

So that's the only way to find kids in the 80s. So what happened was they couldn't find the kid, their son, and they called around. The police, came and investigated because they thought there was some foul play, because he was a loner and he only had this group of friends in all of college. And they investigated the game and the cop, the detective who was doing this, he dove into the game and he put out these reports that talk about the game being satanic and I think later on he kind of walked the back. He's like, well, it's not really satanic. But what happened was the entire like United States went into what's called the satanic panic, where everybody thought Dungeons and Dragons was ways to summon Satan and demons and you're bringing them into the world and they they other children, the other college kids sacrificed this child to a demon. That was summoned and it was. It was ridiculous. They don't tell you the rest of the story. Steve Harvey comes in and says for the rest of the story that about five or six years later they found him living three towns away from where he was going to college. He just got sick and tired of all, went and created himself a new identity and moved on with his life. Really it's crazy, Wow. And now you know the rest of the story.

Andrew: 1:26:30

Fascinating. So so yeah, back to tieflings. So again, they were initially described as descendants of humans who have made packs with fiends or had fiendish blood in their ancestry. So and it's interesting this, the packs came with a price and Faustian deal might ring the bell Right. That's. That's the type of thing that was happening here and again. Tieflings are often depicted as outcasts and misunderstood individuals because of their, their appearance. So so what is? What is? What are some of the typical things you'll see is when you, if you see it, if you walk into a tiefling on the, on the street.

Joe: 1:27:15

Well, they're often different colors, usually of the purple or red issue, but they are all over the place on the color spectrum. But that kind of pales in comparison to the horns and the pointed tail that they tend to have.

Andrew: 1:27:27

Yeah, that's kind of a dead giveaway that you're, that you're walking, that you've met a tiefling.

Joe: 1:27:32

I think the the original tieflings were usually of the red or purple hue, but as D&D grew and people wanted to create their own, they've now come in multi-colored rainbows of the. You know the spectrum, so you can be whatever color you want now, but it was typically because of the demonic connection. It was red or purple because that was a another physical reminder of that intertwined origin.

Andrew: 1:27:59

So I'll tell you something. This, this is. I will. I will give a shout out to our neighbor, friend Fable, who lives next door, and they love tieflings, they love creating tieflings, mainly because they're they're an artist and so they love drawing tieflings. There's, there's a lot to work with there the horns, the tails, et cetera. So there there's a lot to a lot to work with there. But they also love the, the backstory, and they, they just love, kind of this, again, the outsider feel of of tieflings and how they get to play them, and there's some, some great features and traits that they have. Um, I think one of the things although that's the bonus to and we'll talk about it the bonus to charisma Uh, they're, they're very charismatic character as well. So we will talk about that. But what are some of the other things that I I I love Joe that in my, in my, my research knows we talk about? They've been depicted as cunning rogues, talented spellcasters and even leaders.

Joe: 1:29:06

Yeah, and and that that all of them come back to your basic idea of charisma um, a cunning rogue, and be somebody who's convinced you to look left while they go right with their hand and steal your purse, or, uh, they, they might talk their way past some guard who, uh, he's just not supposed to let somebody in and they run in as a spy to gather information. There are a decent number of spellcasters that base their uh of spellcasting ability on that charisma. And you know a leader? Well, yeah, you know, charisma, you get people to follow you for whatever reason, and boom, that's. That's everything you need.

Andrew: 1:29:40

Yeah, there's, there's some. They get some great additional traits that that a lot of the other ones don't don't have. It's fascinating, yeah. So let's talk about the traits of there. There's so much that we can get to on on tieflings Um, let's get into into some of the, the traits of them. Before we do that, I think, another, another thing in my notes here we talk about cause, we'll talk about hellish resistance and infernal legacy, but the characters themselves really wrestle with this, this heritage, this infernal heritage, again, grappling with things like the perception of evil. You know that that they're, they're perceived to be, evil creatures. Um, and what what's interesting is when you, when you create the character, you can choose to embrace that. So you can choose to embrace it and and be an evil creature, or you can, you can defy the stereotypes and and and through your actions, really prove yourself worthy and and being accepted. Yeah, this is remember. Uh, these are, these are uncommon races. So you, you walk into you, you walk into a new town or something, and the likelihood is they may have never seen you like a creature, like you before. And so there there's a lot of, uh, bigotry and and say racism. Yeah, so, so to speak in, in, in, because because they don't. They don't understand, they don't know who you are. They, they see you for for face value, with horns and a tail. They, they, they make assumptions, and so you can. You can either what's that? Judging a book by its cover? Judging a book by its cover, so you can, either you can either play into that or or or go against that. So there there's a lot to really play with.

Joe: 1:31:33

As far as a tiefling is concerned and this comes back to something that we've been saying from the very beginning do what you want. There are, there are presets in here to let you feed into that evil side. But you can. You can turn it to good, you can do what you would like.

Andrew: 1:31:48

Absolutely, you can, you can, you can definitely play it. Play either side of the coin, as as as they say. So let's talk about the traits. So yeah, so the ability score increases. They get a plus one to intelligence and that plus two to charisma, which I, which I think is a really nice, a nice bonus as far as that's concerned.

Joe: 1:32:08

And with the intelligence it also makes sense because they have a demonic heritage. While demons tend to be evil, they're often generally accepted as to be very smart creatures, cunning creatures if you will. So that intelligence based into that and you know, if you're not going to be a charismatic spellcaster, you can go into the wizard, the wizard line, and that would still give you a bonus there. That's, that's a great point.

Andrew: 1:32:32

And as far as age is concerned, they live a little bit longer than humans, but they're. They're going to mature at the same same rate as humans. So it's a typical similar life spans there, same size and build they're. They're considered medium. As far as D&D is concerned, they've got the 30 feet of speed. Oh, and look at that Dark vision. They have dark vision. Surprise, surprise. I never would have guessed Go figure.

Joe: 1:32:57

I am meanwhile I need a flashlight, that's right.

Andrew: 1:33:00

Now the two, the two big features.

Joe: 1:33:02

Yes, that was going to say the, the, the, this. This next one is one of my favorite the the the. Uh, not, not, not this one, actually, that the, the, then We'll talk about which one, which one you want to talk about. Um, I wanted to talk about the infernal legacy, so talk about infernal legacy. So you know. You know the thermatology. How do you know Thermatology? I can never say this Thermatology spell, Thaumaturgy, Thaumaturgy, spell Is that how it's pronounced? I think it's thaumaturgy. I think you're right.

Andrew: 1:33:28

Yes.

Joe: 1:33:30

Um, and then when you reach the third level, you get hellish rebuke spell as a second level spell um as as a, as a reaction, and I love this concept. So reactions in D&D we talked about it way back in our first episode. A reaction is when somebody does something and you act upon that. If you get hit, you can cast this spell, hellish rebuke, as a a reaction. You automatically get to do damage to them. You don't have to even do anything. You cast this spell as them as as your, your reaction, and it's come across a few times. I've seen in games that it just destroys like the attacker, because the attacker's some simple creature and they hit them and you're just kind of like, screw you, you're dead. It's like you mean nothing. You have nine hit points. I just did 15. Goodbye, wow, uh. The thaumaturgy cantrip, which allows you to boom your voice or some other uh, horrible and some physical um characteristics and it lets you kind of boost yourself up and misrepresent who and what you are, kind of feeds into the idea of being a cunning creature and trying to fool people and toy with people. So it fits in and that's one of the cooler things that I liked.

Andrew: 1:34:58

There's a lot to work with there and interestingly enough, they also talk about charisma being the spell casting ability for these spells. So with that plus two that you get, you definitely have an advantage when you're casting those spells.

Joe: 1:35:11

That plus two is to your stat, which means it interprets as a plus one to the spell casting With all these ability score increases that we're talking about. We're adding one or two to the stat, which, if it's a two, that's what boosts up your ability when you're using it, when you get the plus one. Just a quick reminder.

Andrew: 1:35:33

Thank you. Last but not least, the tieflings have hellish resistance. So fire and brimstone, they are resistant to fire damage. This would be a great, depending on what dragon you come across. If it's a dragon that uses fire as its weapon, this would be a great, because you take half the damage every time they hit you. So that's, that could be a big benefit, depending on on what, what type of monster or enemy you're encountering.

Joe: 1:36:12

A lot of fun concepts to deal with with these things and with all the races that we've talked about, because, like we said, these are some of the lesser known ones. Like Andrew said, in the very beginning, you walk into a city, you'll see a few of these people, but you're going to see a lot of the other ones when you walk into the city. So these are, in the minds of people probably lesser known, which allows you to do even more diversion, even more drastic diversion, from what you would normally expect out of these characters when you make your own. And again, this all feeds into the idea of do what you want to do.

Andrew: 1:36:50

Absolutely. And again, you can. You can play either side of the coin with this type of character. This is, I think this is a perfect character, to, to do that with, to, to to have the option of playing either side, because because I think there is a lot of inherent racism, as as far as tieflings are concerned, and and there's a lot of and I said, and there's a lot of racism and bigotry as far as this race is concerned. So you can, you can play into it or or you can play off of it. So there's there's a lot of a lot to work with there as far as these, these characters are, this race is concerned. But, all right, let's let's wrap it up for for everyone Thank you for hanging out with us, for for all this time We've had a great time talking about these, these common, these uncommon races. Joe, thank you for for hanging out. This has been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Joe: 1:37:44

I love being here, I love doing this.

Andrew: 1:37:46

And and, as corporate meetings go, we have a few takeaways from this meeting. One is, one is going to be I'm going to create the Chumbawamba Half work. I get not then. And you are going to create Grappler's hammer and what?

Joe: 1:38:01

a dwarf as a dwarf. Right? You know, I'm going to create a dwarf who gets Grappler's hammer, yes, and then you guys are going to let us know simple technological things that he can be discovered that are in this thing that he's been using as a hammer that's more like the screwdriver from.

Andrew: 1:38:18

What features should Grappler's hammer possess? That that this dwarf will discover? It kind of reminds me, because I've been I've been going back to a lot of the original Dungeons and Dragons literature and I've been reading the Dragonlands series and it reminds me of that. The staff that that the woman has ends up being like a healing staff the blue crystal staff.

Joe: 1:38:44

She didn't know that. It was right, I forgot about that. I've read some of the you're reading the ones with the twins, the ones of Mage, the others of Barbarian and Tannis, and them I read those years ago and I forgot about that staff until you mentioned that.

Andrew: 1:38:58

So it kind of reminds me of what you were talking about with Grappler's hammer. He doesn't realize that it has all this power built into it. It just looks like a normal hammer, and then then he starts wielding it and it's like whoa, what's what's going on?

Joe: 1:39:10

So he's going to find an artificer later in life that's going to tell him dude, you're an idiot, You're not a technology, not a hammer.

Andrew: 1:39:17

That'll be great. We were talking with I was talking with, I think, bill about the Heather Dither staff in Honor Among Thieves, and again somebody has this staff and they have no clue what it is, and the sorcerer is like don't you know what you have? So it'll be interesting for an artificer to walk up to the dwarf and be like don't you realize what you've got there? So I think this will be a lot of fun.

Joe: 1:39:41

Absolutely. Take a look. We'll be coming in the week, next week or so.

Andrew: 1:39:45

Excellent. Thank you all so much for listening. Again, please subscribe on whatever platform you are listening to to stay up to date on the latest episodes. We'd love for you to support the podcast. You can go to legendslootandlordsupercastcom and be a monthly supporter of the show. We would always appreciate that. That gives you extra access on the Discord server. We'll put all those links that we've been talking about in the show notes and we will talk to you next week. Thanks so much.