A Legacy Is So Much More Than Blood

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Hello and welcome, friend! We here at Sandermane Archives are pleased to offer the most thorough genealogical services in all of—oh, you're a sorcerer.

No, no! Don't say anything. You're screaming it loudly enough already, from that tacky dragon tattoo to the gaudy "gold" embroidery on your robe. Who even wears a robe in the summer? I just want one month to go by without seeing one of you deadbeats in here!

Let me guess? You know a few fire spells, some scales on your tuckus, and you daddy's cousin's great-aunt claims she spent a sweaty summer night with Mengkare. And now you want me to dig up some proof of their salacious interspecies gambol so you can embrace your destiny or claim your family fortune or settle a drunken bet?

Well you know what? You're paying up front! I'm tired of getting stiffed when you lot find out there's not a drop of dragon blood in your veins, and storm out in a huff!

Oh, what's that? You say "Mom had a tail, so grandma must've been a dragon!" Pssht! Dragons are a half-step down from gods, and you're about three square meals better than a goblin. And I know you know that; that's why you want me to tell you you're really half-dragon. But a dragon wants to make babies with you about as much as you want to make babies with your rose bush! Sure, there might be a few weirdoes out there, but that takes some pretty low self-esteem or a legendary quantity of whiskey!

Oh, but you're so sure you're the exception, are you? Ha, I say! Ha! Remember when I said they were close to gods? They change all the rules. Make 'em funny. They don't need carnal relations to leave their mark on the world. Maybe your grandpappy was a loyal servant for some wyrm, and just picked up a little taint to his blood hanging around so much—happens to kobolds all the time! Or maybe your great aunt helped slay an ancient wyrm. Or was standing too close when someone else did. Maybe your mom built her farm over the grave of some long-dead dragon's hoard. There was a lass in here last Rova, we figured out she wound up a sorcerer because her alchemist dad got addicted to dragon's blood! Never met a dragon his whole life; just bought the blood from a shifty-eyed dwarf, then his daughter winds up with claws and spells and a hankering for rubies.

Wouldn't have happened in my day.


Illustrations by Francesco Di Pastena, Hannah Kennedy, and Lance Red

It's not all bad. So you can't order your dragon grandma to lay waste to your enemies or claim some legendary pile of gold. Most folk can't! But see dragons impact everything they brush up against, not just people. They leave knowledge and magic and treasure wherever they go, and weirder bits, too. Dragons change the way the world works, and if you study them, you can too! There are these eccentrics in Katapesh can draw out dragon magic by worshipping dragons like gods—even turn into dragons, from what I hear! And Druma has these witches, they learn their magic by gathering up hoards of gold, no spooky deals with the powers-that-be required. Heck, we got a gladiator in this city who claims she learned to fight from a linnorm, and to see the way she tears open anyone that hits her, you'd believe it. You think you're limited without dragon blood, but the truth of the whole deal is that you're never limited just by your blood.

That's why being a genealogist is better than being well-bred!

Of course, you're still limited by your gold. Secrets don't come cheap, whether they're family indiscretions or secret techniques to tame a drake. One advantage to the many, many egotistical sorcerers who walk through those doors and hire me to peek into draconic history is that I have become quite the tidy expert of the subject—Probably the foremost in this city, at any rate—and I just happen to keep a copy all of my notes in this conveniently portable little folio. It's certainly a good deal cheaper—and less disappointing—than paying me to plot out your family tree on the off chance you have some scaly kin lurking around.

And look at the bright side: If you buy the folio, you never have to grapple with the existential dread that comes with discovering you're descended from a kobold.

Crystal Frasier
Developer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Francesco Di Pastena Hannah Kennedy Lance Red Pathfinder Player Companion
51 to 68 of 68 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

Liz Courts wrote:
Removed a post. "I couldn't help myself" is a wholly inappropriate response. Do not do this thing.

Sorry Liz, never meant to be disrespectful. Got misled by the translator. Won't happen again. (>.<)'


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

This blog post made my day.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I was already interested for Bloodrager bloodlines, and imperial dragon bloodlines for both bloodragers and sorcs. I'm hoing that gladiator points toward a brawler archetype, cause dragon based brawling seems fun.


I'm not in love with this sort of art. I apologize if this comes across rude, but I much more prefer art that doesn't come across as Anime of sorts. I could never display this at my game table for an NPC. Paizo, keep the art true gritty fantasy! Sorry for the rant.

Sovereign Court

I wouldn't really call this anime art.
Perhaps a bit lighter and more cartoon-ish.
I'm cool with it.

Silver Crusade

6 people marked this as a favorite.

... it doesn't really look different than their othe stuff...


Liked the post, but that guy is the worst sales person ever. He insults the person repeatedly, and make insinuations about his ancestors. Also it is strange to see something called a bloodline and a complete denial of the usual meaning. I mean what happens between two consenting adults is their business, even if one of them is a multi-ton fire breathing lizard that can fly and cast as a sorcerer.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
David Neilson wrote:
Liked the post, but that guy is the worst sales person ever. He insults the person repeatedly, and make insinuations about his ancestors. Also it is strange to see something called a bloodline and a complete denial of the usual meaning. I mean what happens between two consenting adults is their business, even if one of them is a multi-ton fire breathing lizard that can fly and cast as a sorcerer.

In all fairness, he seems to have had a long line of customers who refused to pay him because he clearly was doing it wrong by not turning up dragons in their family tree.

And it is a bloodline in that the power resides in your bloodline and often was passed down from your ancestors; the fact that it didn't enter your bloodline via sexual relations is not particularly new, many of the bloodlines have suggested similar things, such as maestro suggesting an ancestor might have been driven mad by a gibbering mouther, verdant implying that mad science magic was probably involved, and others which fairly explicitly don't, such as destined or nanite. You could even be the beginning of your bloodline - after all, someone has to be - the one with the initial exposure to whatever it might have been, such as suggested by the psychic bloodlines, and it would still be a bloodline if you can pass in on down to your children...in short, whatever abnormality you possess is hereditary.

Well, that's my view on it, at least.

Edit: And just because there are other possible methods of getting the draconic bloodline besides your ancestor boinking a dragon does not prevent you from having your sorcerer descended from such a union. It just means you have other choices if you're interested in taking them...and if you're not, that someone else does. And that's almost never a bad thing.

Shadow Lodge

I liked it, even if it felt pretty condescending at times to people that actually like being related to a dragon. I'm all for different ways for bloodlines to come about, and indeed the ways mentioned in the post are very interesting, but no need to belittle people that like that stuff.

Hmm. That genealogist must be packing some serious levels or a wicked life insurance policy pissing off draconic sorcerers.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ninjaxenomorph wrote:

I liked it, even if it felt pretty condescending at times to people that actually like being related to a dragon. I'm all for different ways for bloodlines to come about, and indeed the ways mentioned in the post are very interesting, but no need to belittle people that like that stuff.

Hmm. That genealogist must be packing some serious levels or a wicked life insurance policy pissing off draconic sorcerers.

Broad-spectrum energy resistance.

Shadow Lodge

On the entire shop?


Ninjaxenomorph wrote:
On the entire shop?

Gonna go with a custom-researched upgrade to Book Ward on this one...


Ninjaxenomorph wrote:
On the entire shop?

Probably on the entire city block that the shop is in, just in case.

Sovereign Court

This blog post is all kinds of awesome, Crystal.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

*This* was so much amazing vindication for my RotRL home campaign character!

Thank you so very much!

Scarab Sages

Well, like I'M descended from the gold dragon Astarathian. Have you seen my fire rays? They're like, totally awesome!


golfdeltafoxtrot wrote:
Am I the only person that found that blog post a bit off-putting?

Nope. Entertaining and informative as it was, a lot of it was "xenophilic dragons are stoo-pid!"

Although I am curious as to why there were so many half-dragon beings and not, say, half-celestial. Remember the Book of Enoch?


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
AlgaeNymph wrote:
golfdeltafoxtrot wrote:
Am I the only person that found that blog post a bit off-putting?

Nope. Entertaining and informative as it was, a lot of it was "xenophilic dragons are stoo-pid!"

Although I am curious as to why there were so many half-dragon beings and not, say, half-celestial. Remember the Book of Enoch?

I wouldn't say it's so much that they're stupid as that they're quite rare...and people who presume that they must be descended from dragons without much - if any - evidence to back it up are the dumb ones. And, from an in-character viewpoint, especially the people who refuse to pay when it turns out that they weren't.

As for why there's more half-dragons...I presume it's because most half-dragons are artificially created, as noted in the Bestiary.

Bestiary wrote:
Half-dragons are only rarely the result of dragons mating with other creatures—most are the result of strange magical experiments.

Conversely, most - though not all - half-celestials are actually the product of breeding with a celestial, also noted in the Bestiary.

Bestiary wrote:
Most half-celestials are born of a mortal who loved a good outsider, but powerful holy magic can also create one.

So, dragons probably aren't that populous in the first place, though they live a long time, not all of them can turn into a humanoid in the first place, and even the good ones are known for viewing themselves as better than humans, which - let's be honest - they pretty much are. Most don't live with humanoids in the first place, occult dragons being a notable exception, and wouldn't have the opportunity to build relationships very often, much less have those relationships become sexual. So I don't think it's a surprise that it's generally rare.

Conversely, though, half-celestials are probably more likely to happen when it comes to compatibility, but celestials - for the most part - dwell on a completely different plane, and not too many have the ability to come to the Material Plane on their own, primarily the most powerful. Thus, either they must be called, in which case they're usually only there long enough to perform a task, brought there via planar travel, which is also rare, or be quite powerful on their own, in which case they probably have their own agendas which are most likely to be based on their home plane, and even for those who do have agendas involving the Material Plane, well, the universe is very large indeed. So it's not hard to imagine that such things are fairly rare. Not non-existent, certainly, but there's enough barriers to make it understandable as to why it wouldn't happen terribly often, even if spellcasters can get around those barriers if desired.

51 to 68 of 68 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Pathfinder Player Companion / Paizo Blog: A Legacy Is So Much More Than Blood All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Pathfinder Player Companion