I think there's a slight problem in that kender and halflings may not be the same race(although many people treat them as if they were). In my experience/opinion, kender were supposed to be eternally 14 years old or so, while halflings were eternally 10(at least in build when compared to humans). It's one of those things where the reality would be a hell of a lot stranger than the perception. Maybe we can get some info from more recent works(perhaps races of ansalon) on what Kender are supposed to look like vs. halflings? I have two of the main D20 Dragonlance books, but they aren't in front of me right now.
Frankly, my biggest - not my only, not by far, but my biggest - issue with kender is that they're such a mary sue race that their racial writeup literally states that everyone loves them.
As in word for word, it states that you have to be evil or derranged to not love them.
:psyduck:
Kender are halfling. Just halfling taken to the exstream, in that they have No Fear.
Most halfling = If party tries to sneak past a evil dragon. The halfling will try to sneak past the dragon with the rest of the party.
Most Kender = If party tries to sneak past a evil dargon. The kender has 50% chance to try to sneak past the dragon with the rest of the party OR 50% chance to walk right up to the dragon, wake it up, and try to have a conversation with the dragon. Just because, WOW, never meet a dragon before... cool... whats your name, you have pretty scales, how old are you, what do you eat, etc, etc, etc.
On the other hand... As a DM in a Kender world.... I would make the evil dragon (50% chance) chance to fry him on the spot, or (50% chance) to spend 1d4 rounds trying to figure out why any creature in its right mind would wake me up and try to ask me question in the first place. Depending on the question, dragon, were, who, how... the kender might create a new Role-play opportunity.
PS = Good Dragon (+2 % chance per kender meet = max set by DM) to also fry the kender on the spot..... Just because its a kender.... regardless of alignment. ((what, how else do you get them to be QUIET)).
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My favorite kender story (I think it was in Dragon magazine, but I could be mistaken):
Tas found a ring that would randomly teleport him, until he wound up in a wizard's tower. Turns out, the ring was sent to the Prime Material by none other than Demogorgon, who was tired of this weenie wizbang summoning him every ten seconds. Demogorgon knew somehow a kender would get the ring,and, since kender are incapable of not totally screwing up everyone's plans, he banked on that messing up the wizbang's summoning circle or something. Demo winds up eating the wizard, and thanking the kender personally.
Tas felt fear for the first time and didn't understand the emotion, beyond not liking it one bit. I like to imagine he soiled his pants as well, my loathing of Tas and all kender runs so deep...
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More like Tas wouldn't even be a mouthful so it wasn't worth bothering with lol. (Disclaimer: I don't know what size Demogorgon is)Awesome story Derek. Even Demogorgon can appreciate the abilities of the Kender :)He appreciates they are bundles of pure Chaos. I'm sure the only reason he didn't eat Tas is he knows kender taste like crap.
;-)
I think he was 18 feet tall in 1e. And he just ate a human wizard. And Tas was paralyzed by something he didn't understand.
Nah, kender just taste like rancid beetle dung. Only explanation. Heck, apparently bulettes won't even eat them [citation needed]. ;-)
Here it is: Annotated Kender Racial Description
(some NSFW language)
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If I remember right, a dragon was in the fiction that enjoyed Kender. 'Tastes just like a human child' or something along those lines.More like Tas wouldn't even be a mouthful so it wasn't worth bothering with lol. (Disclaimer: I don't know what size Demogorgon is)Awesome story Derek. Even Demogorgon can appreciate the abilities of the Kender :)He appreciates they are bundles of pure Chaos. I'm sure the only reason he didn't eat Tas is he knows kender taste like crap.
;-)
I think he was 18 feet tall in 1e. And he just ate a human wizard. And Tas was paralyzed by something he didn't understand.
Nah, kender just taste like rancid beetle dung. Only explanation. Heck, apparently bulettes won't even eat them [citation needed]. ;-)
I'm pretty sure the "Ecology of..." article on Dragonlance dragons explicitly stated they didn't possess taste buds [citation needed].
Kender can be awesome characters to play....unfortunatly the majority of people who attempt a Kender character are immature in the extreme.
Strange as it sounds, it takes a certain maturity on the players part, to play a Kender well.
I will link the D&D PHB PSA here. I'm sure most of you have seen it, but the kender is true to form, and maybe someone hasn't seen it.
Frankly, my biggest - not my only, not by far, but my biggest - issue with kender is that they're such a mary sue race that their racial writeup literally states that everyone loves them.
As in word for word, it states that you have to be evil or derranged to not love them.
IT'S TRUE!!!
And by that I mean... I struggle to see players and GM's not loving the little klepto's. In-world, however, is a much different story. Within the Dragonlance fiction Kenders were pretty universally distrusted and misliked. People tolerated them, but it was pretty clear they expected trouble from Kender.
Also, I have to ask, are you referring to the original write-up Prof? I've got the 3rd edition dragonlance campaign setting, and I don't remember it ever implying that other races were expected to love Kender.
Humans who dislike them are classified as "Close-minded," and it claims that the "truly wise" know how important they are to the world. Other fun lines include "the sight of a grieving kender can be enough to reduce even the most cold-hearted person to tears" and "kender get along with anyone and everyone they meet."
They're literally the author's pet race that was elevated into complete sue-dom. Nobody ever truly hates the kender except the eeevil races, and people who don't like them are either unwise or close-minded! They're so amazing that seeing a sad kender makes anyone cry alongside in grief! They're ADD-afflicted twits but it's ok, that's what makes them lovable!
*Wretch*
Here it is: Annotated Kender Racial Description
(some NSFW language)
I know the guy who did this :B
I know the guy who did this :BHere it is: Annotated Kender Racial Description
(some NSFW language)
It's brilliant. And utterly true.
When asked if I have Kender in my world, my answer is "Yes, there are halflings with ADHD and kleptomania. Fortunately, nobody thinks they're cute, least of all the other halflings."
I guess bringing up Kender paladins will just increase the hate.....
I actually wanted to know what fun equipment or feats or traits and fighting style my halfling should think about getting.
I selected additional rogue talents in the build rather than other feats did I mess it up?
Frankly, my biggest - not my only, not by far, but my biggest - issue with kender is that they're such a mary sue race that their racial writeup literally states that everyone loves them.
As in word for word, it states that you have to be evil or derranged to not love them.
:psyduck:
Normally I disagree with you on most things, however, I see where you are coming from with this, and I agree from a literary standpoint.
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Normally I disagree with you on most things, however, I see where you are coming from with this, and I agree from a literary standpoint.Frankly, my biggest - not my only, not by far, but my biggest - issue with kender is that they're such a mary sue race that their racial writeup literally states that everyone loves them.
As in word for word, it states that you have to be evil or derranged to not love them.
:psyduck:
Dragonlance is so full of Mary Sue I think even Greenwood and Salvatore shook their heads...
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Dragonlance is so full of Mary Sue I think even Greenwood and Salvatore shook their heads...Normally I disagree with you on most things, however, I see where you are coming from with this, and I agree from a literary standpoint.Frankly, my biggest - not my only, not by far, but my biggest - issue with kender is that they're such a mary sue race that their racial writeup literally states that everyone loves them.
As in word for word, it states that you have to be evil or derranged to not love them.
:psyduck:
*ouch* I'd like to say Ansalon is so full of Mary Sue... Taladas on the other hand, isn't (well before they nuked it, again).
Plus Kendar at least are honest. "Yes, I took it. It looked dangerous and better I have it than you did, eh? No I'm not hyperactive or need a potion of ritalin. Now tell me why I should give it back to you."
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Dragonlance is so full of Mary Sue I think even Greenwood and Salvatore shook their heads...Normally I disagree with you on most things, however, I see where you are coming from with this, and I agree from a literary standpoint.Frankly, my biggest - not my only, not by far, but my biggest - issue with kender is that they're such a mary sue race that their racial writeup literally states that everyone loves them.
As in word for word, it states that you have to be evil or derranged to not love them.
:psyduck:
*ouch* I'd like to say Ansalon is so full of Mary Sue... Taladas on the other hand, isn't (well before they nuked it, again).
Plus Kendar at least are honest. "Yes, I took it. It looked dangerous and better I have it than you did, eh? No I'm not hyperactive or need a potion of ritalin. Now tell me why I should give it back to you."
Have you read the list of standard answers Kender give when caught with someone else's stuff?
Honest? I think...not...[/cat from Watership Down voice]
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Plus Kendar at least are honest. "Yes, I took it. It looked dangerous and better I have it than you did, eh? No I'm not hyperactive or need a potion of ritalin. Now tell me why I should give it back to you."Have you read the list of standard answers Kender give when caught with someone else's stuff?
Honest? I think...not...[/cat from Watership Down voice]
Kendar, Derek, not Kender. They're the ones who will steal your stuff and when confronted say "Yes, I did." like above.
The other trouble is that a race written up as lovable scamps and comic relief really has no place in a great number of storylines. A tragedy, for example.
Let's say that there's this castle, with this snotty and haughty young noblewoman, daughter of the local lord. Secretly she's in love with one of her guards, and even more secretly, she's pregnant. Her lover has also given her a love token, not a great precious jewel but some sentimental trinket that symbolizes their doomed love and she treats as her most precious possession for as long as she can until daddy puts 2 and 2 together and executes her lover for treason while sending her off to a convent in disgrace--unless daddy's more of a pragmatist and just has her lover secretly assassinated for treason, then has the midwife give her a potion of abortion so he can keep her viable as a political match.
The trinket is what the kender "borrows" and when the young lady figures this out, she tears into him with all the pain and secret sorrow symbolized in that bauble, calling him a thief from a race of thieves and far worse. This should probably set the kender off, and he will then taunt her with all the cruel and telling taunts he can, driving her to distraction, and more to the point, suicide. After all, she's doomed to either a lifetime of shame or an unhappy loveless marriage forever mourning the death of her true love and her child (one assumes she has a medieval view of abortion), or she can take the noble route and sacrifice herself, at least saving her lover before daddy catches on. She throws herself into the palace furnace so daddy won't be able to have some nasty cleric use Speak With Dead after she's gone and so the midwife can't do CSI Greyhawk on her remains and realize she was pregnant.
Of course, the kender may actually figure some of this out, in between that crying jag that's supposed to make everyone else feel so awful, and he probably then blabs about what the young lady was up to. Daddy is horrified, and then orders the summary execution of the treasonous guard.
If the young lady then came back from the grave as a revenant to throttle the kender, who exactly would blame her?
And who, after this story was over, would still love the kender and excuse his casual cruelty as an innocent mistake?
I approve this message. Nobody wants to have to kill a 5 year old child. Much better if it looks like a 12 year old :PAt 3'6" to 3'9" the Halflings typically depicted would weigh something like 35-40 lbs and would basically resemble 4-5 year old humans.
That's why I generally change halflings to 4'6" or so and Dwarves closer to 5'+ in average height.
Nobody likes generalizations :P
I want to kill children. /evil grin.
Dragonlance is so full of Mary Sue I think even Greenwood and Salvatore shook their heads...Normally I disagree with you on most things, however, I see where you are coming from with this, and I agree from a literary standpoint.Frankly, my biggest - not my only, not by far, but my biggest - issue with kender is that they're such a mary sue race that their racial writeup literally states that everyone loves them.
As in word for word, it states that you have to be evil or derranged to not love them.
:psyduck:
You..you...Take that back!!!!!!!
Santa’s Elves look like Kender. Maybe we all decorate our homes with sparkly trinkets and tinsel so the ‘elves’ take some of that instead of our gold, jewels, pretty green pieces of paper, or cell phones. Merry Christmas! 
Baba Yaga was persuaded to curse some Kender, but she has a sense of humor. She put the curse of the were-squirrel on them. She said, ”Now were squirrels are a necessary part of the world. They plant trees.” Insane cackling! Were-Squirrel disease is spreading throughout the Kender and Halfling population on many worlds. It seems their need to explore gets even worse when they go squirrely.
Having just read the annotated Kender racial description again, I'm struck by this line from the original: It is extremely rare for a kender to be evil, for kender hold a high regard for life and liberty, and are almost completely incorruptible (as the gods of Darkness have discovered).
Now, with this in mind, exactly how difficult should it be to get a kender to sell his soul? I mean, you tell them that if they just sign this piece of paper with all sorts of boring writing on it they don't have time to read, you'll give them all these cool toys. Heck, it doesn't even have to be particularly cool, just suitably sparkly, shiny and intriguing. Getting the kender to sign in blood might be a bit tricky, but if you say that the magic won't work unless they stick the crow quill in their arm (true, actually) and wave the shinnies at them, you should pretty easily convince them to do it just to prove how brave they are. After all, they're fearless, and therefore shouldn't have any fear of blood, should they?
Whether the devils actually want a bunch of kender souls is another matter, but if they're naturally innocent, they're the gold standard of what you're supposed to corrupt, and even if that doesn't work, their whiny screams will likely annoy the other souls of the damned in the "special hell" you've got reserved for them.
Having just read the annotated Kender racial description again, I'm struck by this line from the original: It is extremely rare for a kender to be evil, for kender hold a high regard for life and liberty, and are almost completely incorruptible (as the gods of Darkness have discovered).
Now, with this in mind, exactly how difficult should it be to get a kender to sell his soul? I mean, you tell them that if they just sign this piece of paper with all sorts of boring writing on it they don't have time to read, you'll give them all these cool toys. Heck, it doesn't even have to be particularly cool, just suitably sparkly, shiny and intriguing. Getting the kender to sign in blood might be a bit tricky, but if you say that the magic won't work unless they stick the crow quill in their arm (true, actually) and wave the shinnies at them, you should pretty easily convince them to do it just to prove how brave they are. After all, they're fearless, and therefore shouldn't have any fear of blood, should they?
Whether the devils actually want a bunch of kender souls is another matter, but if they're naturally innocent, they're the gold standard of what you're supposed to corrupt, and even if that doesn't work, their whiny screams will likely annoy the other souls of the damned in the "special hell" you've got reserved for them.
If they are so all fired innocent, they can open the gates of hell for you. You don't have to torture them. They will annoy the dambed without any prodding.
Were-Squirrels are caotic neutral(nuts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue
The dark secret is that kender are incorruptible because they are far more corrupt than any mortal being can ever be. They are the purest form of evil, sent by the dark powers to torment the damned.
If you see a kender you know you're already in hell.
I don't like sand in my food, and I have only had bad experiences with Kender. I couldn't even read the book, "Time of the Twins".
Call me crazy, but I actually like that story.If the young lady then came back from the grave as a revenant to throttle the kender, who exactly would blame her?
And who, after this story was over, would still love the kender and excuse his casual cruelty as an innocent mistake?
Well, I like that story too, but part of the point of it is that it ends in character growth. The character growth is either for the kender, who realizes that his habitual theft, casual cruelty, and inability to keep secrets have resulted in the death of three people, and likely damnation of at least one of their souls--and he should sob all the little kender tears he can, and forswear ever doing anything so selfish, cruel or stupid again.
Or the kender doesn't grow at all, unwilling to admit even the slightest personal responsibility for the tragedy, giggling and putting it out of his head and going off to find something else to amuse himself. In that case it's the kender's associates who go through the character growth, looking at what they had formerly thought was a cute innocent sidekick and realizing him to be fundamentally broken, a bipolar sociopath who cares only for his own amusement and has no true understanding or empathy for anyone beyond himself.
In either case, the kender don't stand as written. Either they grow as characters and are capable of being more than ADHD kleptomaniac morons, or else they don't, but the other civilized races no longer give them a free pass.
1) I consider Kender hate to be one of the hallmarks of a good gamer.
2) When I first read "A Stone's Throw Away" (the demogorgon story) in Dragon Magazine, I hadn't yet been tortured with the abomination of Dragonlance, and I thought it was an amusing story.
Even when I was subjected to the land of annoying paladins and whiney half-elves, I just thought Tas was a single character, not the standard for his race. As a character, he was interesting (possibly the most interesting character in the books) but as a race, he was annoying.
And Kender are.
I've banned them from my games. If a player wants to play a halfling, I tell them fine, as long as it in no way resembles a Kender. As a GM, any Kender-like tendencies are likely to get you banned...(Don't want the disease to spread and infect the newer players...)
Unfortunately,when you take away all of the things that people hate about Kender (kleptomania, ADHD, Annoying Personality, Unreasonable Fearlessness that other races don't get) you end up with something that isn't a Kender...so why bother playing it at all.
However, I think that Kender players should get a chance to play with each other (and that's not supposed to sound dirty). Go ahead, have an all Kender game. That way we know which ones to avoid.
I don't like sand in my food, and I have only had bad experiences with Kender. I couldn't even read the book, "Time of the Twins".
Unfortunate- that was my very first fantasy trilogy.