Campaigns Anew

Quite by happy accident, over the last year I've suddenly found myself running two separate Dungeons & Dragons games with a third one potentially starting soon. I'm also playing in a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire campaign, which is a first for me. Even young Samwise is getting into the game a bit. I run a game for him by himself, and keep things super loose with the rules since he's only 8. Here's a quick summary of the games in progress.

Valgora

For middle child Joc and their friend Avery (and sometimes Lauren), I'm running a campaign using a homebrew campaign I found online called Valgora. It's pretty well developed and has some elements I like a lot. The ancient past had a great cataclysm, but the world has been steadily recovering and is in an extended era of peace. The characters are as follows.

• Pyral (⚧ Silver Dragon / 5^th-level Dragon / LG) [Played by Joc]
• Zinc "Zech" Cortielia (♀ Halfling / 5^th-level Bard / CN) [Played by Avery]
• Drest Ranio (♂ Human / 5^th-level Rogue / NG) [Played by Joc]
• Hinkle of Turen (♀ Gnome / 5^th-level Rogue / LN) [Played by Lauren]

There are various NPCs around, including a wife of sorts for Zinc and a recurring villain (or two). And the dinosaur is still at large.

Dark Sun

Lisa and I and our group of grown-up friends are playing a Dark Sun game. The characters are a big group when every is available.

• Joe - Half-giant Cleric
• Michael - Dwarf Fighter / Cleric
• Lisa - Halfling Rogue
• Jess - Elven Fighter / Wizard / Arcane Archer
• Chris - Human Warlock
• Ben - Elan Psion / Uncarnate

The party is escorting a caravan around the Tyr region and the time period is right at the death of Kalak.

Bytopia

Oldest child Reese and their friends, we will be starting a new campaign that is guaranteed to be super non-serious. I'm basing it on the outer planes setting of Bytopia and the three thematic elements they requested were (1) f*cking dinosaurs, (2) all ogres talk like shrek and (3) airships! So that will be fun. They have character concepts that involve memes.

• Sadie (elf cleric)
• Mars (human sorcerer)
• Tyler (half-orc ranger)
• Reese (half-elf rogue)
• Danni (elf bard)

Anyhow, I'm having a blast. Oh and Sammy is running a sort of Elvish Fighter/Mage and the campaign is sort of Zethul, but again I'm being super loose with the rules.

The Rules of Planescape

Back in the day, I had a fun time playing with friends in the Planescape campaign. It was literally an infinite tablet of interesting places to visit, with as much expanse and complexity as the DM wanted to put into it. For the uninitiated, Planescape as a campaign setting re-introduced the idea of an entire cosmology to Dungeons & Dragons. The game's setting could now traverse multiple planes of existence, truly breaking the traditional mold of standard fantasy settings. The story's characters would traverse different worlds via gates or dimensional portals or powerful magic of their own.

To create a unifying flavor for the setting, there was a lot of artwork done with a thread of similar style. And the writing and language was tied together nicely with easy-to-use slang terms invented for the setting. In addition, there were general some big philosophical rules that helped flesh out the place. Here's some more detail quoted from the Wikipedia entry for Planescape.

There are three principles (or heuristics) governing the world of Planescape: the Rule-of-Three, the Unity of Rings, and the Center of the Multiverse.

Rule-of-Three

The first principle, the Rule-of-Three, says simply that things tend to happen in threes. The principles which govern the planes are themselves subject to this rule.

Unity of Rings

The second principle is the Unity of Rings, and notes that many things on the planes are circular, coming back around to where they started. This is true geographically as well as philosophically.

Center of All

The third principle (fitting neatly into the Rule-of-Three above) is the Center of All, and states that there is a center of everything — or, rather, wherever a person happens to be is the center of the multiverse... from their own perspective, at least. As most planes are functionally infinite, disproving anyone's centricity would be impossible. In Planescape, this is meant philosophically just as much as it is meant in terms of multiversal geography.

Wikipedia entry for Planescape

My main character in Planescape was an arrogant Fire Genasi fighter/wizard nicknamed Koal. Koal was always on a serious mission of some kind, and never spent a single moment to stop and "smell the roses" in the Planescape scenery, but still managed to stumble around to interesting places.

Fire Genasi

I once played in an extended Planescape campaign (2^nd Edition) where I chose a slightly different character race, a half-elemental half-human type creature known as a Fire Genasi. They are a descendant of Efreeti or Fire Spirits who had paired with a human. My character's nickname was Koal, though he had a longer name that the other players never learned to pronounce, and which I can't recall now. Though the four elemental types of genasi always bear some part of their features that undoubtedly marked them as something other than human, the exact feature differed quite a bit. Fire Genasi usually had red or black skin with red hair or sometimes ashen gray. I chose that Koal's skin would be deep black like pitch and his hair would be very light gray. His eyes were dark with red tints and reflected (or shined) red in low light. Personality-wise, like most Fire Genasi, Koal was an arrogant jerk and made several attempts to strike out on his own.

Tonight I was discussing with Nate on the phone the possibility of playing a Fire Genasi in a new online campaign. I was intrigued by this and so was Nate, but I feel it would be important to find a 3^rd edition version of the Fire Genasi to balance correctly. So naturally, my first logical step is to turn to Google.

I wasn't entirely exhaustive in my search, but from what I have found there doesn't appear to be an officially sanctioned version from Wizards of the Coast. There are a few that were posted here and there, but a lot of the sites were down or there seemed to be little interest in the races of Planescape.

First listing I found useful was on Portalkeep.net [site down]. The Google Cache was helpful for what I needed.

Fire Genasi Racial Traits

• +2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma. Fire Genasi have bright minds but are easily angered and poor in dealing with others.
• Medium size humanoid.
• Fire Genasi base speed is 30 feet.
• Control Flame (Sp): Fire Genasi can cause a nonmagical Fire within 10 feet of them to diminish to the level of coals or flare to the brightness of daylight and double the radius of its illumination. This ability does not change the heat output or fuel consumption of the Fire source, lasts 5 minutes, and may be done once per day. they use this ability as a 5th level sorcerer.
• +1 racial bonus on saving throws against all Fire spells and effects. This bonus increases by +1 for every five class levels the Genasi attains.
• Darkvision up to 60 feet.
• Automatic Languages: Common, home region. Bonus Languages: Any (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
• Favoured Class: Fighter.

The one question this result did not answer was whether Fire Genasi have any Level Adjustment for their heritage. The lack of a listing seems to indicate that they do not have one, which seems unusual for this kind of race based on my presumptions.

Here are some other results that I found helpful from a Google Search for "Fire Genasi".

• Quoted above, Portalkeep.net - Fire Genasi [down] [Archived on Google] goes into quite a bit of detail with one full page with everything from history and common names
• Planescape Races [down] [Archived on Google] which does not go into as much detail but gives +1 LA in addition to a +4 on Planar Survival checks
• The Artwork of Amy K. Brown - Fire Genasi - a good artistic representation of the common Fire Genasi encountered in their home plane
• Planetouched Deities (Faerun) - including common deities for Fire Genasi, most likely Tempus as a good choice for Koal
• Wizards.com Community Board - Genasi Revisited - where the capabilities of Fire Genasi in 3^rd edition is discussed
• Planetouched Templates - Planescape fan forum where the capabilities of Fire Genasi in 3^rd edition is discussed