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If I was Forgeborn, I’d be pretty pissed.
To be fair to Rob and Jonathan, 13th Age’s creators, they’re obviously depending on us being familiar with many things simply because they’re renamed D&D standards – not the case for me since my D&D experience started and ended with 1e AD&D, and I completely missed the Warforged, but most of you probably fill in the blanks unconsciously without even noticing. Rob’s also stated numerous times that they very intentionally left a lot of holes in the Dragon Empire setting to allow players (as in ‘people who play’, i.e. GMs and Players alike) everywhere to latch onto whatever they’re excited by and fill in the blanks however they want.
If Forgeborn exist in a campaign, that fact automatically gives their creators the dwarves a different, and not particularly pleasant, flavour. Why would a dwarven smith forge a Forgeborn? Perhaps the very first creator did it for the sheer delight of creating something so crazy complex, but the only reason that occurs to me to repeatedly produce them is slave labour. Dwarves have a basically greedy nature, so they’re not likely to expend the immense time and resources needed to bring a sentient being into the world for the hell of it, are they?
This makes Forgeborn a pretty cool NPC race, but if you decide to play one as a PC, you should probably think about how your character won her freedom. If you can’t get a kickass unique out of that, there’s no helping you.
I won’t start a massive metaphysical discussion right now, but I generally assume that in fantasy settings with real good and evil and magic, living beings also have souls, if for no other reason than it just seems to fit, or is it just me? And creating a soul has go to be a Big Deal, yeah? So if we have Forgeborn with souls in our campaigns, here’s my favourite explanation of how the souls get in there:
If I was Forgeborn, I’d be pretty pissed.
On p. 72 of the 13th Age book, the Forgeborn get the shortest race description there is, not even enough to fill half the column. For the most exciting race there is, it’s wholly unsatisfactory.
To be fair to Rob and Jonathan, 13th Age’s creators, they’re obviously depending on us being familiar with many things simply because they’re renamed D&D standards – not the case for me since my D&D experience started and ended with 1e AD&D, and I completely missed the Warforged, but most of you probably fill in the blanks unconsciously without even noticing. Rob’s also stated numerous times that they very intentionally left a lot of holes in the Dragon Empire setting to allow players (as in ‘people who play’, i.e. GMs and Players alike) everywhere to latch onto whatever they’re excited by and fill in the blanks however they want.
Did he say really “most exciting race”?
Indeed I did. How could anyone not be totally excited by the Forgeborn? They’re the only race that wasn’t born (despite the name), that doesn’t feel pain or bleed (probably), doesn’t need to eat, drink or sleep (maybe?), isn’t even really a race technically, and, well, um… we don’t really know much about them at all, now do we? Even with the briefest of descriptions, they fill my head with interesting ideas for uniques, backgrounds, feats and story hooks, and I immediately wanted to play one. But as I started creating a character, I had more questions than anything else. So I’ll take a stab here at bringing the Forgeborn into focus.Why forge a Forgeborn?
If you’re including Forgeborn in your campaign, you’ve got to be aware that they are the most amazing thing the dwarves have ever created. I mean think about it: walking, talking, thinking magic machines. In the dwarven smithery books, that’s got to be knocking it well out of the park compared to a quirky magic axe, don’t you think?If Forgeborn exist in a campaign, that fact automatically gives their creators the dwarves a different, and not particularly pleasant, flavour. Why would a dwarven smith forge a Forgeborn? Perhaps the very first creator did it for the sheer delight of creating something so crazy complex, but the only reason that occurs to me to repeatedly produce them is slave labour. Dwarves have a basically greedy nature, so they’re not likely to expend the immense time and resources needed to bring a sentient being into the world for the hell of it, are they?
This makes Forgeborn a pretty cool NPC race, but if you decide to play one as a PC, you should probably think about how your character won her freedom. If you can’t get a kickass unique out of that, there’s no helping you.
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| by Viktor Titov |
It’s alive!
Everything else about the Forgeborn more or less grows out of answering this question: how the hell are they made? I can easily imagine a skilled Dwarven smith banging together some metal and other bits, infusing it all with some serious magic, and making a simulacrum of a human (or any other species for that matter), basically a moving but relatively stupid robot. But if we’re going to play Forgeborn PCs, they’ve got to at least be sentient right? How does even a total rockstar smith manage that? Isn’t that kind of stepping on the toes of the gods?I won’t start a massive metaphysical discussion right now, but I generally assume that in fantasy settings with real good and evil and magic, living beings also have souls, if for no other reason than it just seems to fit, or is it just me? And creating a soul has go to be a Big Deal, yeah? So if we have Forgeborn with souls in our campaigns, here’s my favourite explanation of how the souls get in there:
The dungeons of the dwarves are deep, unquestionably secure, and populated by those foolish enough to get caught stealing from them. They’d just as soon kill them, but the thieves can still be put to good use. The last step for a smith working on a Forgeborn is to imprison a thief's soul in a fist sized rough cut gemstone, killing the thief of course. When the stone is planted in the Forgeborn's chest, her eyes open for the first time, glowing the colour of her gemheart.Endless hooks for GM stories and PC backgrounds & uniques there. Go to town.
The perfect slave
Soul or no soul, as mechanical and magical creations, Forgeborn can't possibly be allowed to walk around with free will, especially considering that most of them are built to fight and are therefore pretty dangerous. If I was a dwarf smith, I'd be sure to whack in at least one of the following safeguards, to keep my Forgeborn from running amok:- A second gemheart, kept locked away by their master, is attuned to that of the Forgeborn, and can be used to track the creature. Should worse come to worst, smashing the gemheart will smash the other.
- Each Forgeborn is imprinted with three words of power: Stop, Kill, and Die. The conditioning is so deep that if their master says any of the words as a command, they must obey instantly.
- Three smaller stones are implanted around the gemheart, influencing Forgeborn behaviour. Each stone contains one of Izak Anvilstrike's three laws: first, a Forgeborn may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Secondly...
For example...
I'll come back to riff off this some more soon, but to wrap it up for now here’s how character conception has gone so far:Elaine was forged to be a bodyguard for the Archmage, insisted upon and paid for by the Emperor. At that time her name was simply 'Guard'. After years fulfilling her function at the Archmage's side, she discovered that her soul was that of an executed thief, a fact that disturbed her to the point of cracking her gemheart. She fled the Archmage and returned to confront her creator. He was so impressed with her unexpected moral judgement and "humanity" that he vowed to help free her. No Forgeborn with a gemheart can ever truly be free, so he underwent a risky procedure and exchanged hearts with her, setting her free. Her unique is "I am the only Forgeborn with a biological heart. My heart remembers that it's owner owes the Dwarf King his life."
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