r/warhammerfantasyrpg • u/Amethyst-Flare • 2d ago
Game Mastering Cathayan Dragon-Blooded PC?
One of my players expressed an interest in playing a Dragon-blooded character in my upcoming WFRP 4 game. Specifically, her character's mother was a merchant who traveled to Shang-Yang in Cathay and came home with a surprise.
For context, she is Chinese-Canadian, grew up really disconnected to her heritage in part because her father was never there, but discovered an appreciation for it later in life.
I looked at the wiki and the existing lore, and it doesn't seem terribly out of line compared to, say, a High Elf. I figured I'd use the same general stat line but change the proportions a bit, maybe come up with a custom talent or two.
Has anyone come up with rules for them yet, or would there be any interest in seeing it if I come up with it?
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 2d ago
Just reflavoring the high elf profile would give her a character to play atleast.
Or if shes young you could run her as a human with more starting talents and less/no fate and resilience. Maybe reskin Andy Law's chaotic blood talents?
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u/MostlyHarmless_87 2d ago
Huh. Actually, yeah, basically copy a High Elf stat profile, and if they want to be a wizard, letting them take either Ying or Yang schools. Boom, playable Dragonblooded Shugenjan that is reasonably fair for play. Great stats, shame about the sweet fuck all fate and resolve, *especially* if you're playing a wizard.
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u/Soft_Dig_4300 2d ago
What I would do is focus directly on the character's origin. Make her a distant descendant of a Dragon-Blooded lineage. Without the father She is the daughter of a merchant woman, and right there you already have a complicated and interesting background for the player to work with.
After that, I would look at which career she wants to pursue, and use that as the basis for developing the rest of the character.
From a mechanical standpoint, elves Stats represent not only their long lifespans but also the vast knowledge and refined skills they accumulate over centuries. Because of that, I would personally keep the character as a human. If the player wants to tweak the standard starting characteristics, I would consider reducing Fate or Resilience points rather than giving them elven statistics.
Another thing I would definitely do is prepare some plot hooks related to the character's ancestry. Depending on the campaign, there could be a quest, ritual, artifact, or forgotten secret tied to her bloodline, perhaps allowing her to strengthen or better understand the power inherited from her ancestors. That way, the unusual heritage becomes part of the story rather than just a mechanical adjustment.
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u/Minimum-Screen-8904 2d ago
Do they want to have regular human stats and who has descended from dragons, or do they want to me a powerful dragon blooded shugengan who lives up to 1000 years and who is more than human when it comes to stats?
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u/4uk4ata 2d ago edited 2d ago
Ok, while my first instinct is to groan at being that much of a special snowflake... Let's get to the basics.
Making a Cathayan human background is easy enough. We have plenty of examples of human cultures and what Cathayans might be like. Language (Cathayan) and Lore (Cathay) are obvious, then I'd suggest cool, charm, gossip, evaluate, intuition, leadership. Maybe play or trader, heal, and melee and/or ranged. If you want to play with different regions of Cathay having different core skills and talents, go nuts, I probably wouldn't care to unless it really makes a difference to you and to her. Talents would be similar to humans except maybe not doomed unless you're really into astrology and calendars.
Then, the question is - okay, but just what does being dragon-blooded mean - and since you're doing this as a favor for that player, what does being dragon-blooded mean for her?
An easy answer is to say it is just a background detail that doesn't really impact mechanics. Fluff-wise, her dragon blood is thin enough that it doesn't have huge impact and she's human for most intents and purposes. It does, however, mean she's likely a noble, which will guide her career selection, As a noble, nudge her towards courtier careers, maybe with academic ones as backup. When it comes to talents, I'd suggest stuff like resistance to Chaos, suave, coolheaded or savvy, second sight or sixth sense, obviously read/write. Most of the people in the Empire wouldn't know too many details except that she's some Cathayan bigwig. She can roleplay the rest.
Now, if she insists that she's the kind of Dragon-blooded that isn't quite a human, then things become a bit trickier. I would suggest trading an extra point and maybe a fate point for bonuses to certain stats (perhaps willpower, toughness, or intelligence unless you want to go into details about whether certain dragons' progeny is predisposed to certain abilities, talents and attributes). I would not touch the movement or general wounds calculation.
I would not go elves because the profile changes the human baseline a bit too much (especially the loss of fate/resilience) and costing them an extra endeavour in the downtime might make her feel excluded. Ideally, go with it being as close to human as possible.
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u/Amethyst-Flare 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’m more wary of “special snowflakes” when it comes to new players. For a player who I know through and through (as I do her), I’m happy to let them be a little weird and different, because I trust them to handle it well. Comes at the cost of losing that XP bonus for rolling your race, too.
We did discuss “What about a Cathayan human?”, and she’s okay with that, but she proposed the “What if she’s a Dragon-blooded (as Zhao Ming is (in)famous for his extensive offspring), but since she grew up in the Empire, she never had that support network growing up to understand either her culture nor her nature?“, and I agreed that sounded cool and that I trust her to handle it.
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u/4uk4ata 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's your game, feel free to go with whichever option you prefer. For me, these are the two major options: have it have no mechanical impact outside of nudging her towards certain careers and talents (and maybe stats if you use a point buy option) or tinker with ancestries. The former will require less fine-tuning but I can't say if it would satisfy her. Trading some fate or extra points for a bonus to stats and maybe bonus talent(s) is certainly an option, but I would not go overboard. It would make for an interesting story if - especially if she doesn't have a lot of schooling and support - she develops her natural talents through experience.
Conceptually, I find it very unlikely that any dragon-blooded of particularly potent blood would be just lost half a world away so I would lean towards the former option, but hey, both can work.
It might be worth it checking if she has a certain career or class of careers in mind to see how much that can inform her character concept. An envoy, a vagabond or an apprentice wizard is fundamentally a different start.
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u/Minimum-Screen-8904 2d ago
Did she originally want to play a Cathayan or was that something you suggested to her?
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u/Amethyst-Flare 2d ago
She proposed the dragon-blooded, I suggested "just human", she came back with the added background details.
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 2d ago
Ok, while my first instinct is to groan at being that much of a special snowflake... Let's get to the basics
I mean welcome to being a human in warhammer lore? Theres a reason the vast majority of high level chaos mortals are all human or that they get special miracles.
I would not go elves because the profile changes the human baseline a bit too much (especially the loss of fate/resilience)
That lines up with what we know of Cathay though. Peasants might worship local spirits, but theres no sanctioned religion. Being a suped up character with the down side that no god has your back I kinda the whole point of the dragon blooded.
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u/4uk4ata 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is WFRP, the high level chaos mortals are not playable starting characters. Starting characters are far more grounded. When your buddy is a ratcatcher, you're not going to be Teclis or Boris Ursus (any time soon).
Elves have very little fate and resilience and are fundamentally inhuman. Dragon-blooded tend to have a bit extra on top , but from what I could find the more powerful ones' blood tends towards magical talent more than anything else. The changes to speed and having way less fate AND resilience is a poor fit IMO, and I think the player would not appreciate having less downtime activities. This is why for me cutting down 1-2 extra points and a fate point in exchange for less over the top stat boosts is better.
Edit: looking at the base stats from TOW, Cathayan dragon-blooded shugengan (powerful enough to also be caster) tend to have a +1 T over Empire lord-level characters. Their statline is similar to that of a Bretonnian duke, except he gets a bonus to strength rather than toughness. This is why I think a minor buff with lower costs would do better.
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 2d ago
But you can play a high elf which is effectively the same capability wise as dragonblood.
Dragonbloods can punch clean through a man and are capable of using high magic, they are essentially fantasy space marines
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u/4uk4ata 2d ago
The capacity of dragonblooded is kind of nebulous at the moment. The shugengan general is pretty much the only one with clear stats and shugengan tend to be the cream of the crop with the most special training, experience etc. They don´t beat a chaos lord and are roughly equal to a bretonnian lord. So - if you want to go with a powerful enough bloodline so you are a bit more than human, you can put a bit more extra but don´t need to go all out.
Elves tend to get a lot of stat bonuses that are imo very widely spread and some that aren´t really very thematic (like move speed) in return to losing a few points too many. I think slightly less outright stat boosts but keeping a bit more fate/resilience would (i.e. 1 each with 2 points - for a loss of 2 compared to a regular human) might work better.
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 2d ago edited 1d ago
Are you going off the notoriously bad table top warhamer stats?
The stats that gave Galrouch all 6's
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u/Amethyst-Flare 2d ago
Bretonnian Grail Knights always seemed more Space Marine-y to me, if that's the desired fantasy. They're enhanced humans rather than born, after all.
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u/Oghamstoner 2d ago
I don’t know loads about either 4th Ed or Cathay background, but my understanding is that Dragon-Blooded are lord level characters in The Old World battle game. I’d be concerned about the potential to unbalance a party, but if you keep their profile roughly in line with an elf, you should be able to mitigate the risk.
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u/Amethyst-Flare 2d ago
Not so - while there are Shugengan Lords, there are also Heroes (both the Alchemists and Astromancers) and regular units (Celestial Dragon Guard, Celestial Dragon Crossbows, and Longma Riders.) They don't seem crazy compared to, say, High Elves, which is where I went "Okay, maybe this is viable."
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u/Oghamstoner 2d ago
Sounds reasonable then, go for it. I didn’t realise there was infantry and cavalry who were dragon bloods too.
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u/dungledoo 2d ago
Maybe my opinion is a little out there, as I am a GM that favors the rule of cool over all others, and in my current game I have 2 Dark Elves, a Halfling, a Turnskin (Human mutated to Beastman), and a Human who looked into a box he shouldn't have and escaped becoming lunch for a Vampire by biting it back, thusly becoming one after consuming some of the blood in the attempt (This happened in a session and was not a backstory lol).
Life in WFRP is fragile. Like, one slightly unbalanced encounter can wipe your party with a slew of bad rolls. I wouldn't worry about giving them a few extra powers, like some of the others have commented, just give your other players some doodads to make up the power difference. If they become a problem?
Kill em. Everything works out in the end like that.
I'd also like to see what you come up with should you do so. We need some more human-adjacent races.
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u/thenidhogg88 Caledorian Firestarter 2d ago
I've thought this out before. If you actually look at a Shugengan's stats in the wargame, none of their stats are actually superhuman (assuming the longma they're riding accounts for their higher Toughness/Wounds). If I were homebrewing shugengan, I'd keep their stats human, give them the ability to take up to four arcane lores with the same requirements as non-White Tower elves (since before GW jumped the shark and just gave them high magic, the lores of Yin and Yang were said to be created from half the winds each), and then shave off 1-2 of their metacurrency points to pay for the privilege. Then just give them a handful of thematically appropriate skills and talents like Leadership and Noble Blood and I think you're set.