hobbygamers ~ View topic - How to go back from Warforged to your previous race

*Last edited by erwin on Mon Aug 10, 2009 10:26 pm; edited 1 time in total*

PMP has a character that turned from gnoll to warforged, thx to circumstances. Now he wanted it to be back. My campaign was suppose to give info about how to do it, though I'm not sure whether it would work or not. Hear it first.

He needs to go to a certain professor/scholar who theorized that to go back to your previous race, "You should die first and be revived using Raise Dead ritual".

I had an idea that the 'you should die first' is not simply accomplished be suicide, rather a series of rituals/procedures that slowly 'dismantles' the warforged, bit by bit, until the system that should have been making it alive (the mechanical parts) is removed, therefore killing the subject. Now, at the same time, the subject must be casted with the Gentle Repose ritual, to preserve the supposedly rotting body in it. Then, if the subject died but was preserved, s/he can now be a target of Raise Dead ritual, and be revived as its former race. S/he is still subjected to death penalty. The said procedure is very delicate that only a handful can perform such operation.

We could change the Gentle Repose ritual to a new ritual, something like 'Reform Body' ritual that only targets those under such cases.

I need your comments about this, especially Fluff team. Pls do tell if such procedure would work.

BTW, said professor would most likely be a renegade kobold scientist who was part of the 1st warforged-making procedures, or a crazy but genius goblin tinker that so happens to have thought about it.

Sorry, but I can't help but notice the mistake on your Topic Title... Just had to point it out.

Anyway, just to put things into perspective, I thought (I hope I'm not presumptuous) that the Warforged plot device was too Deus Ex Machina? Not that I'd know a lot on this, since I just listen to your campaigns.

It is too Deus-ex Machina. Sad to say, i think I was the one who started the trend. It should not be allowed to happen again; dead characters should stay dead until ressurected.

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

>_> You did. It was cute. And I gave it to them so I could have an excuse to plant a "revenge of the kobolds" story hook. Needless to say, I don't have any plans to give them the Warforged route again.

But yes...hmm...I'll give the backstory some thought.

mnightsilver posted here! :gasps:

what error? grammatical? I don't see it. If does not say my point, I'll just make it clear: it's a warforged (the deus ex type) who wants to become a gnoll again, since she does not want this state of being.

So, does the procedure work? I need a fluff approval here. Very Happy

If not, what does? Is it hopeless? Or could he (instead) be a revenant Razz

?

As for the dead going warforged characters, never have I did that, and not planning to use it either. Alternatively, we could make a new race regarding them, sort of deadforged or something, almost the same as revenants. Just a thought. Twisted Evil

ALL warforged in our setting are composed of modified dead bodies. What we could do is add a feat or three to represent a forged embracing that path. BUT we can't put that in a pdf, as it violates the GSL "fluff" redefinition as well as the inaccesibility of the warforged as a PC (also on the GSL).

At this point, making a seperate race seems counter-productive. Not to mention none of the other race write-ups are finished, yet. I don't want to start a new one until all former ones are done.

Hmmm... What's done is done. On one hand, it is a good plot device, until the player finds a way to exploit it. I guess what has to be done is to discourage players from utilizing it to remake their characters.

If a player's character dies, should its body be rebuilt as a warforged, it becomes non-sentient or loses its will completely. The first ones were special cases, and the technology has been perfected (by say wizards and artificers of some organization) so that any memory of its past is erased.

This is what I like about the flavor changes in 4th ed: When it comes to item creation, the difference between wizard and artificer is no longer blurred.

@erwin: I posted here, because I guess it's an obligation long overdue.
What's wrong, you say? "How go back from warforged to previous race?"

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

Warforged have will of their own. They're a race created by Kobolds but given life by the Godstone K'maht.

Anyways...I'm not completely satisfied with that backstory yet. However, I do want to propose something like the old and new personalities formed within any warforged returning to their old self clashing. >.>;; We're going into deep metaphysical crap here. Is the sentience in the warforged the same one as before or a new one squatting? What happens when you recall the old one? Some kind of silly sitcom? We can call it "Two guys and a body" or something. <_<;;

Ok, so a warforged has a will of its own. This will starts upon it's creation and is not dependent on its previous life. How's that?

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

Very Old Dragon Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

Change professor/scholar to something more religious or divine related and we might get somewhere.

Hmm...how about a quest to find the godstone of a certain deity who dislikes machinery and cleanses people of its "taint?" >_>;; Although I still like the personality clash. XD

Is this thread on the right place?

I think it qualifies as both a proposal and a discussion, so that would make it belong to the right thread.

Okay, warforged in BT, conceptually, are constructs made of the dead flesh of other sentients. That would have made them nothing but smaller flesh golems, but they have also been infused with the divine power of K'maht; so they are individuals that are totally distinct from their parts (yes, they're made of different bodies in most cases). That's why characters who started out as warforged (oghma's girating warforged, oghma's porcelain one, oghma's barbarian) are all unconcerned with past lives.

On juaberman's case, his construction was made by a goblin artificer, who of course did not have a godstone to "create" a new soul. What this meant is that his soul was still Crisostomo Lanyard's, but the forcing of the soul into him dismantled it bit by bit. Officially, Klesk the Nightmare Spider's personality eventually took over, and Ryan Nyar proceeded to become an exarch of Locust. (FOR THE RECORD, I do not plan on doing that again. I prefer it if K'maht was the only one who could make something as mindless as a flesh golem sentient.)

From what I understand, PMP's warforged retained full memory of its previous self. That imples that the soul is relatively intact, and killing the warforged and then using Raise Dead will work. Basically, I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't make things too difficult for him, as the warforged concept has been somewhat shoved down his throat. The Death Penalty should suffice.

If there is to be any difficulty, it should be with finding someone willing to kill you and then Raise you with your money, rather than running off with it instead. Raise Dead costs a significant amount of money, and there are few trustworthy beings in the dying world.

I dislike the anti-machine godstone, because it is, again, deity-centric. Making a new god just for this one purpose seems too Deus-ex, and I want godstone personalities to be kept at a minimum. Most godstones should have power based on how its users (not worshippers, users. The gods are dead, and only the Redeemer godstones should mildly be linked to what the god was before) predispositions, not on the portfolio of the god itself.