Dungeons and Dragons: Verdan

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A new playable race on the world of Toril, the Verdan were once goblinoids, but are now something quite different.

aj pickett, the mighty gluestick, dungeons and dragons, roleplaying, tabletop, 5E, 5th edition, faerun, toril, forgotten realms, Eberron, pen and paper, Dungeons and dragons lore, monsters, magic, magic items, monster ecology, greyhawk, mystara, krynn, golarion, spelljammer, planescape, homebrew, live stream, Magic the Gathering, Wizards of the Coast, WotC, Ravnica, Ravenloft, Theros, Strixhaven, Fizban, Mordenkainen, Drizzt, cosmology, planescape, spelljammer, lore, stories, outer planes, elemental, artifact, toril, faerun

#DnD #Verdan #forgottenrealms #RPG

[remygallardo]

The release of the Verdan was what really finally pushed me into character creation and diving into DnD in the first place. I'm primarily a DM now for a group where I roll roguelike One-shots, but the very first character I made was Asphodel, a verdan bard/necromancer. My concept for him was that on the travel from the Underdark to the surface he was separated from his family and became mute from the trauma and adopted by a colony of myconids. Since the myconids also communicate through telepathy via rapport spores he remained mute through most of his childhood but learned their gray neutrality to all things and a fondness for the idea of decomposing and recycling things which have grown too opulent and concentrated, to recontribute to the cycle of life. When a traveling group of adventurers visited the village he was fond of their bard's music and through their songs found his voice again and eventually departed with them to the surface. Now in the world of Toril he travels as an extremely charismatic bard, though speaks confidently with the wrong word choices. He received a lyre and a hat crafted from the flesh of the Sovereign of the myconid colony as a parting gift which allow him to meld as he used to with them. He is driven especially to identify locations which have an incredible concentration of magic where he seeks to seed spores from his village, a village which had been growing in the corpse of an eldritch ancient creature. The myconids that took him in specialized in consuming, absorbing, and returning magic to Toril.

As a fun bit of flavor however I decided long before I made him that if I ever made a necromancer that their summoned minions would be extremely passive aggressive towards him. If they have mouths they make it known they aren't happy to be back/mock him, and if not make it quite clear through body language, but still obey. Just a humorous foil to his high charisma.

[johngleeman]

It's always a plus to have versions of "usually evil" races with a culture that doesn't make being good a rare occurrence. Plus the verdan have a lot of distinguishing characteristics from goblins that set them apart even further than a much different culture.

[Nizati]

A very creative way to be the sexy (or just plain fun) goblin in a all-goblins-are-evil campaign.

[ThatsGuy]

Verdan are still Goblinoids. Stick with me, I'm an OG D&D player back when Orcs were the Goblin connection to other races before they were Warcraft-inspired altered. Also, back when Kobolds were Goblinoids and not some kind of draconic vermin. In my campaigns, even Orcs are Goblinoids. I never had a Goblinoid like Verdan in my campaigns but they would totally fit as Goblinoids.
Why? Goblinoids are anti-fey that came from corrupted Elves in their spawning origins, the first Orcs, what now qualifies as "High Orcs". So, from that relatively shallow bloodline, they spawned all over the planet into various Goblinoids to fill their roles as short-lived mortals, evolving into their racial and social roles over relatively short amounts of time. They became different races and different things quite quickly. Most became Goblins, so that became what their race was called, the low-level filler between all the other Goblinoids and mixer among them. The lowest became Kobolds, they seemed to be closer to vermin but many became reptile-like... that's still a thing in my campaigns before some later writers made them dragon-worshipping dragon-kin... kind of like making fleas on cats and dogs become more catlike or doglike but I digress. The Orcs are the ones that mutated the least from their original Goblinoid blood, the original corrupted Elves. The Hobgoblins became their militant superiors. The Bugbears became their physical superiors. There was both Hell and Abyss influence in that but that was mostly the original corruption of the source Elves that became the Goblinoids that spawned Goblinkind.
Now that I laid out the groundwork, Verdan are Goblinoids. Something that erased their racial memories has unleashed their mutative lifeblood that was added to make them anti-fey in the first place. Every single one of them, down to bone, blood, and organs, has gone from "finished project" to "work in progress, change here instead of in spawn." I can actually see that the restructuring process make a Verdan snap away from being a Verdan to becoming a form of Elf (or other Elflike fey) and stop mutating... and probably seeing themselves as weak and-or ugly.
And yes, I had a biology-inspired evolution tree that was not only divergent but assimilative and convergent among other things. Also, factor in the gods, demons, devils, etc.

[MrTehPuppy]

AJ, I just gotta say thanks man. You don't know me, likely never will. But being able to finally come home from a long week out at work, stretch out on the couch, and tune in to your latest lore vids so that I can just forget IRL for a few moments and let the imagination wander through your lore thinking of the possibilities of an upcoming DM session, that my friend, is just the bestest.

[mikki]

I love the point of view of this as that of a researcher. That made for a much more engaging experience, even through the content was largely similar to your other videos.

[tatsusama]

Haha, It's like an entire race is experiencing an indecisive God/Goddess who keeps messing with the character sliders😂🍿

[victorvaldez]

These guys would be interesting to play as a PC. The DM would be able to say if you notice anything new about yourself every time you pass a reflective surface. I can also see them having a penchant for Sorcery, specifically things related to transmutation & illusion, as they are fundamentally tied to CHANGE itself through "That Which Endures." As a settled NPC I can see one as an architect, or builder who specializes in renovations & interior decorating, leaving nothing as it was & everything in flux, a few in a city could cause many landmarks the PCs are used to to look radically different next time they visit a city.

[malleus]

Making them have permanent cultural amnesia seems like such a cop out to to me by WOTC. It would have been so simple to make them a branch of the goblin / hobgoblin/ bug bear lineage that had escaped Maglubiyet would have simple. Give them an archfey that was annoyed at how sad they were and lures them through a portal to the Material Realm, and bam.

[AzraelThanatos]

AJ, you probably ought to do some on the Bhuka which are another Goblinoid species that's extremely interesting and different from them in a lot of things.

They were fun to play in 3.5

[havokmusicinc]

I wonder if this species has some relation to fey trickster gods. A heavily protean species of righteous telepaths that originated in one of the crawling hordes of evil screams of fey meddling to me.

[dragonlord]

i think can almost guarantee they had some history with the abeloth given a instinctive dread deep waters of the underdark and innate mental powers make me that they could be involved with them somehow or similar aquatic dangers of the underdark

[jasonrustmann]

"It would be easier to change yourself then to change the world"

Gengus Kahn would beg to differ lol

[billberndtson]

C'mon man! You do this every time! Now I wanna play one. Like every race you describe. There aren't enough campaigns in the world and I'm already 50. Sheesh. :P

[dm_zemo]

Amazing! Love these new story grounded uploads. Deeply nerdy and deeply fun 🤓 keep up the great work AJ!

[VoiceOfReason]

I love the concept of the Verdan they sound amazing to play and write for.

[luckyte]

Also pls ask loot studios to make a miniature of you, I'd love to let my players meet the author of all the tomes they've been reading

[florenmage]

This is cool.
I've always wanted a good goblin sub race.
However I would not have done it like this.
I think you could just have a goblin revolution where they cast off their old gods and maybe have a civil war with the rest of goblin kind that results in them carving out an area where they can be different and the barbarian goblins being forced to accept it because their enemy is to powerful to destroy outright.
But this is cool to.

[martinpat]

You know I kind of mostly written them off as just psychic goblins, but after hearing all this I think it would be interesting to make like an archeologist Verdin trying to learn about past cultures to see if it could help the present and nurture the future

[Kid_illithid]

I love that you’re putting stories on here more often now.
One of my other favorite YouTubers is Baldemort, and that’s pretty much all he does is write 40k fanfic and voice act the living hell out of it 👍