Birthright campaign setting the spiderfell
The most famous of these is The Siren, who came to rule her nation (now known as the Siren's Realm) by defeating the Dusk Man, a powerful and cruel awnshegh that had carved out the realm from the nearby kingdom of Halskapa. Bad Powers, Good People: Although nearly all of the awnsheghlien are evil aligned, they manage to avert the Always Chaotic Evil trope, as there are a handful of neutral awnsheghlien and even some (very rare ones) that are, if not outright good-aligned, then at least good in the eyes of their people.This usually (but not always) also includes the characters turning evil as whatever morals and scruples they may have once possessed are stripped away or perverted to better align with the dark god's ambitions. Bad Powers, Bad People: Those with Azrai-tainted blood who use their powers freely may find themselves slowly being corrupted by their bloodline, their flesh mutating as they slowly turn into an awnshegh.Asskicking Equals Authority: Quite simply, a bloodline gives a Blooded benefits that non-Blooded characters don't have, and they're also recognized as the upper class, usually.She once plotted to overthrow her mother and failed, but her mother was unwilling to execute her own daughter and exiled her instead, leading to the foundation of the Unseelie Court by Lussina and her followers. Antagonistic Offspring: Lussinam the queen of the Unseelie Court, is the daughter of the queen of the Seelie Court.He suffers from a particularly strong delusion of godhood, even given that scions are, technically, aspirant demigods. The Serpent is a strange awnshegh that can take the form of either a man with a snake's head or a giant serpent.The Sphinx is a weird case that might fit either category he's a scion who was killed and eaten by a lion, but who possessed his killer's body and reshaped it to have eerily human-like traits.Some of the Tainted-type awnsheglien have devolved into a grotesque animal-like form, most notably the Basilisk (grotesque humanoid reptile), the Chimaera (scaly, multi-armed, bat-winged panther), the Gorgon (stony-hided minotaur), the Kraken (an enormous, deformed, squid-like creature), the Seadrake (man turned into a sea serpent) and the Spider (hideous half-goblin, half-spider).Examples covered in the "Blood Enemies" sourcebook consist of the Boar (a gargantuan albino wild pig), the Hydra (a crocodile which has developed multiple limbs and a mane of tentacle-like necks topped with the screaming heads of the scions it's eaten), the Leviathan (giant carnivorous whale or sea serpent) and the Wolf (an unusually large and intelligent wolf).
Animalistic Abomination: Beast-type awnsheglien are former animals who consumed scions and were mutated by the Blood they carried.And Then John Was a Zombie: Killing an awnshegh is a good way to become one, since upon acquiring its bloodline power the slayer can get tainted.While a few are open to trade and (controlled, very limited) visits from outsiders, most range from "No outsiders in our lands on pain of death" to "We will actively hunt and kill any non-elves we can find to reclaim our lost territory." Notably, the elvish word for elves is "Sidhelien", which literally translates to "the people" elves consider all non-elves to be literal non-persons, ranging from tolerable (dwarves, sometimes humans) to "exterminate on sight" (goblins, ogrekin, etc.)
At the same time, Azrai's scattered essence granted power - but also monstrous mutations - to a variety of people and monsters, setting the stage for the awnsheghlien (monsters with similar "divine right" abilities).Ī videogame adaptation, Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance, was released in 1997. The mortals fortunate enough to survive the final blast inherited shards of godhood: while a small handful absorbed enough divinity to act as new gods, far more of the mortal onlookers ("scions") gained a few fragments of divine power that manifested as supernatural abilities and, more importantly in some ways, an ability to bond with the lands over which they rule. When the six gods' assembled mortal legions proved inadequate to overcome Azrai, the gods destroyed themselves in order to destroy him. The backstory of the setting focuses on an ancient battle in which six of the elder gods battled their corrupt brother, Azrai. Players are intended to be the rulers of large realms and receive special powers from their heritage. Birthright is a Dungeons & Dragons setting (first released in 1995) which attempted to put new life into the "classical" Fantasy Europe type of setting, primarily by integrating politics and the Divine Right of Kings.