I know the last post went into some detail about races.  However, I received a few emails afterwards, some positive about the change in how they were presented in the CA to how they look in AE, some negative.  That being the case let me talk about the changes and what drove them.  I’m also going to toss in an apology for not posting this earlier but I had to take a trip to California that threw me off schedule for roughly two weeks.  Anyway… 

First, and foremost, when writing Arduin Eternal there was a desire to ensure each race was depicted in some fashion.  A common thread over the years has been a lack of clear depiction of the different races.  What does a Khai Shang look like?  Or a Knoblin for that matter.  We’ve had lots of Deodanths, Phraints and Saurigs but little imagery on the “lesser-known” races.  This was something we wanted to clear up with Arduin Eternal.  This is why you will find an image, usually an action piece, for each of the races. 

Of course, it’s more than just adding an image to the races.  In some instances, we added entire description and detail for races where it was vague or lacking from previous Arduin releases.

You might find everything from Arduin in this book (as far as races go) but it will be close!  Some things will be named a little differently or altered to fit Arduin Eternal, so take a few minutes before proclaiming something is missing.  A good case example is the Half-[insert race] “Races” that was very popular in the day.  Arduin Eternal takes two approaches to handle half-breeds and further mixes.  The first is to make use of Racial Choices.  Using this option, you take one of your Racial options for your “base” racial stock and use it to select some attributes or powers from your other “half” race.  I placed an example within the Amazon for the Elfazon breed to demonstrate this capability.  The second way to delineate breeds is to actually build them into a functioning race like the others.  After all, if they are numerous enough to be noted as a player race, it’s probably best to do a full write up.  I actually do this for the old “Half-Hobbitt, Half-Human” breed in my games.  They are called Gaukroger, actually, not for any cunning mix of the two races’ names but because I had a remarkable player in the past who an equally remarkable hobbitt-human breed character.   

This particular fellow, adventured, gambled and drank his way across a good part of Khaora before meeting his end at the end of the toothy maw of pair of mated Wyverns hunting in the Prismatic Mountains of Falohyr.  His fellow shield mates, having little but shredded bits of him to work with chose to reincarnate him since they couldn’t perform a Death Breaker ritual with most of him digesting in the bellies of the mated Wyvern and their young.  What’s fantastic is he managed to stick the roll and came back as a Half-Hobbitt, Half-Human again (after rolling once to get a breed and again to get h/h,h/h)!  Anyway by the time he retired that character we had christened all new breeds of this type (since he had wenched his way across most of the continent at this point) Gaukrogers as a tribute to him.

Well, that ends up section one of the introduction to Arduin Eternal. I’ll be posting more, going through the book, and highlighting some of the great portions within.