Post by Leasea on Jan 11, 2007 10:31:15 GMT -5
Creation Tale #1
The Greygem
by Arnaud Picard
When Reorx created the world, he began making things tough for us, Historians. He was responsible for creating races not originally planned for. According to most people, he was the one who built such things as the world of Krynn, the stars and the planets, the Greygem...
One of the aspects of Reorx, as a god, is craft. So he wanted to teach humans how to use their brains and muscles to create things. He took some with him. They were called the Smithes. Yet they didn't do what the god wanted, so he transformed them outright. Whereas they wer formally human, they became shorter, and lost the way of the Forge, yet the desire to build remained. Thus were born the gnomes. After an alteration between the gods and the intervention of those of magic, Reorx was tricked by Hiddukel.
The god of betrayal had Reorx build a gem, which was later placed on Red Lunitari. With the help of another Evil god, Morgion of the Diseases, Hiddukel won the Greygem, and tricked a little gnome. This gnome thought about a machine, as do all gnomes, that would be able to ascend into the sky. He built it successfully. Then, he went up into the sky, up to Lunitari, and with a net of his, he captured the Gem. Of course, that which nobody knew, Hiddukel had infused the power of row chaos into the Gem, that was alive.
The Gem escaped, and the gnomes were forced to follow it accross an ocean, and sailed from Taladas where they lived to Ansalon. There, the Gem was captured by a human, Gargath, follower of Zivilyn the Wise. Under the spell of two gems, it was held in place.
When they arrived, the gnomes took knowledge of this, and they wanted the Gem. So they asked Gargath to give it back. As he refused, they did what they could. They built machines to invade Lord Gargath's fortress. After the third try, they did it, though not like they thought they would. One of their machines broke down and began a fire. When they would have fought, they suddenly realized they were bathed in a strange kind of red light. All of them transformed. Those who sought the gem for its value became Dwarves. Those who thought it was just marvellous, and beautiful, and it would look pretty on them, became Kender. Those were not the only one affected by the gem : some sea-farers among the elves became sea-elves, Dargonesti or Dimernesti. Some bunches of ogres were made into Minotaurs, some humans living in mountains received the ability to fly, and grew feathers...
And the greygem escaped once more.
Creation Tale #2
Alternate Origin Theory
It's a well known fact that history usually is wrong (as most of the other races' history regarding us glorious gnomes) and there exists a huge mistake in elven (and especcially in silvanesti, Hah Ashabel) and human history as they think that kenders are kin to us effective and hard-working, honourable, friendly and reallyreallynice gnomes, and they often like to push the blame on other, bloody racists those elves, as we are not stealing and poking into other's matters like kenders, and if they are the result of a mix of several races they have inherited their sense of humour from us, but take a look at those kenders and compare them with the elves, and yes you'll see that it's like comparing one of those large horses to small ponies, and they are pretty much alike, and I did realize this based entirely on empirically facts and then I went into the library we have here in Palanthus and found ancient tomes from the time of the graystone of Gargath and they told the story as it is, and now Ashabel is complaining of lack of full stops, those bloody silvanesti are never happy.
I found an old tome called "Tales of the Lance" which I delved into and after a few hours of research I found one very important fact which I really must be allowed to quote from page 1018 "In answer to that called, armies from all the folk of Krynn came, bands of mercenaries, elves, ogres, and humans" which proves that there were plenty of those childlike and overly curious elves, and to quote from page 1019 which is hard to read and you must excuse me there "Kenders came from excessively curious and childlike Swifts" and as we know Swifts were the army of Balif, and when speaking of Balif who really enjoyed the company of the silvanesti and let me quote from page 1006 "Elves, fascinated by wild magic, joined the smiths to reclaim the stone. When at last the stone was freed, it escaped, but not before touching those present and changing their forms to reflect their natures. Thus kenders came into being" and we know that the first kender hero was Balif and he lived then, and was the leader of the elven army and that he after the battle with the graygem, where he was, he built the kender kingdom, even if that seemed ridiculous we accept it here and now just to please any kenders reading this newsletter, and it is kind of obvious that Balif became a kender along with his elves, and that they were the first smart kenders, something the kenders who live today has not inherited, and they even built a kingdom, which is quite good but far from the democratic anarcho-syndicalistic system we gnomes have reached which is far beyond what other nations have, and then I must conclude that kenders were the result of of the graygem on Balif and his elven warriors who run in the forest shooting arrows at you even if you can't stop your flying vessel from hitting their trees, the other theory I can accept is that the silvanesti is portraying as kenders and are stealing all we others have.
Creation Tale #3 aka The TRUE story
The Real Kender Creation
by Stuart Gibson
I was reading your page on the creation of the race kender when I remembered a First Quest section in Dragon 214, the article, by Harold Johnson had information about the creation of Kender you might be interested in, you may have already read it somewhere, I don't know...
Harold Johnson wrote in the First Quest section in Dragon 214: "My hero Almar Tann, a wandering halfling thief was created to playtest the Desert of Desolation module series in a campaign run by Tracy Hickman. Almar was a clever little fellow with a heart of a true hero and more pluck than men twice his size. Other that having a knack for getting into trouble due to his curiosity and willingness to take risk, and making the rest of the party deal with it, Al's tenacity and luck helped the party to emerge victorious in the end and win a limited wish. Almar wished for a coin case that would always refill with nine gold coins in it once it was emptied. This seemed practical and not too greedy at the time. Tracy was very agreeable. Little did I suspect that Tracy was about to whisk Al and the others off to the developing world of DRAGONLANCE Saga and the first adventure, Dragons of Darkness. Gold has no value on Krynn.
Almar left his mark on the world when he discovered a lone pillar standing in the middle of a room. He climbed the pillar to the top and found nothing there. I told Tracy that it didn't make any sense to have a pillar just sitting in the middle of the room with nothing on top. Tracy said it wasn't important to the adventure. So Al opened up his coin purse and left a stack of coins for the next adventurer to discover.
Almar went on to discover many new things in the ruins of Xak Tsaroth, until we decided that halflings had no place in this new world, especially since Almar also had a ring of invisibility; it all sounded too much like another story. So Almar went wandering off into the barbarian plains of Abanasinia and was never seen again.
It was up to me to create a replacement, so I found my God of Krynn hat and fashioned the incorrigible kender, that childlike race that refuses to grow up, and the first kender representative, Tasslehoff Burrfoot.
Now anyone who has ever played a kender, had the misfortune to bump into a kender, or ever heard of kender has swiftly discovered there is no more aggravating, though brave and clever, race of creature in the multiverse. Let's see somebody top that for annoying!"
Creation Tale #4 aka the Elfling Theory
On the Origin of Krynn Kender with Inclusions from the History of other Realms and Additions Especially Concerning the World of Kear
It is a rather common misconception to suppose that Kender, a living race of intellegent beings were created by some cabal of traders and writers called TSR, INC (whatever that may mean). There is enough historical evidence of Kender long before both the creation and demise of that short-lived organisation. Having marked off that concept, now we embark on a complex task of finding the true roots of the Kender race - a task unsolved yet finally, bringing more questions than it does answers for so long.
Kender are considered to be inhabitants of Krynn - finding any of them in other worlds is innatural, although reported. No doubt planar travel and spelljamming attract enough adventurous Kender to account for those instances.
But are there any other creatures like Kender in the Multiverse? Are they unique to Krynn, or not? Here are some of my speculations on the subject.
It is known among genealogists that one of the most famous clans of Hobbits, as Halflings in the realm of Middle Earth call themselves, inherited their un-Hobbitish adventurous spirit which took many of them to the roads of true Wanderlust from the descendants of an alleged marriage between a Halfling and an Elf-maid.
Unlikely as this may seem, this hypothesis found further proof in the world of Athas. The blazing desert planet, scorched by the rays of a dark sun, is home to several half-breed races not found anywhere else, such as muls (human/dwarf) and half-giants. Also, hidden in the dense jungle of the Verdant Belts there are scattered villages of half-savage creatures whose look was instantly familiar to me - Elflings!
Eager to pursue the trail, I continued searches through lore and divination, until my research brought me to the world of Kear.
The Elves and Halflings of the World of Kear have been living and adventuring side by side with other races for centuries, and some of the results of this, besides cultural influences ( there are both Elven Shamans and Halfling Druids nowadays) were children of mixed blood. Maybe it were mostly the proud Elven warriors who felt ever so protective about Halfling maids, or Elven women who couldn`t help appreciating the spirit and persistance of Halflings - no one feels like explaining, but the results - the Elflings - are a race surely worth their place in the world. Over time the Elflings of Kear drifted to make permanent settlements and even to form Elfling freeholds in several places of Hilear. Justly respected by neighbours, as every denizen of such an enclave returns from the Wanderlust a proficient, seasoned adventurer, those places usually are a welcome sight for travellers and all kinds of refugees.
Surely, the idea of a race, and a non-major one, found in many worlds, like Humans or Dwarves will find opposition, but a fine example of such possibility is another adventurous race, the felinoids or "cat-men". Known as Rakasta in the Forgotten Realms, Felpurr in the world of Wizardry and Shierdi in Kear, they are all the same and did find a way to Krynn - at least one has been sighted and potrayed by Janet E.Chui.
And if this be not satisfactory, there is a thing that cannot be beaten - the Elflings of Kear, although not inclined to "handle" anything within reach, do wear Topknots (Driffludi) and wield Hoopaks (Alcanth), as the everlasting symbols of Kender are called in Kear Common Speech.
This leaves us with a conclusion that Krynn Kender are also descendants of Elves and Halflings. The reluctance of Elves to admit this relation is but further proof, but there arises another question - where, in this case, are the Halflings? Have they become extinct before anyone noticed them? Did they move to another continent, neither Ansalon nor Taladas? Have they ever been to Krynn?
I cannot yet ansver this. Although many speculations may be made, none can be satisfactory enough. Anyone posessing information about this subject is welcome to Aecto`s Arcane Emporium in the working hours.
The Greygem
by Arnaud Picard
When Reorx created the world, he began making things tough for us, Historians. He was responsible for creating races not originally planned for. According to most people, he was the one who built such things as the world of Krynn, the stars and the planets, the Greygem...
One of the aspects of Reorx, as a god, is craft. So he wanted to teach humans how to use their brains and muscles to create things. He took some with him. They were called the Smithes. Yet they didn't do what the god wanted, so he transformed them outright. Whereas they wer formally human, they became shorter, and lost the way of the Forge, yet the desire to build remained. Thus were born the gnomes. After an alteration between the gods and the intervention of those of magic, Reorx was tricked by Hiddukel.
The god of betrayal had Reorx build a gem, which was later placed on Red Lunitari. With the help of another Evil god, Morgion of the Diseases, Hiddukel won the Greygem, and tricked a little gnome. This gnome thought about a machine, as do all gnomes, that would be able to ascend into the sky. He built it successfully. Then, he went up into the sky, up to Lunitari, and with a net of his, he captured the Gem. Of course, that which nobody knew, Hiddukel had infused the power of row chaos into the Gem, that was alive.
The Gem escaped, and the gnomes were forced to follow it accross an ocean, and sailed from Taladas where they lived to Ansalon. There, the Gem was captured by a human, Gargath, follower of Zivilyn the Wise. Under the spell of two gems, it was held in place.
When they arrived, the gnomes took knowledge of this, and they wanted the Gem. So they asked Gargath to give it back. As he refused, they did what they could. They built machines to invade Lord Gargath's fortress. After the third try, they did it, though not like they thought they would. One of their machines broke down and began a fire. When they would have fought, they suddenly realized they were bathed in a strange kind of red light. All of them transformed. Those who sought the gem for its value became Dwarves. Those who thought it was just marvellous, and beautiful, and it would look pretty on them, became Kender. Those were not the only one affected by the gem : some sea-farers among the elves became sea-elves, Dargonesti or Dimernesti. Some bunches of ogres were made into Minotaurs, some humans living in mountains received the ability to fly, and grew feathers...
And the greygem escaped once more.
Creation Tale #2
Alternate Origin Theory
It's a well known fact that history usually is wrong (as most of the other races' history regarding us glorious gnomes) and there exists a huge mistake in elven (and especcially in silvanesti, Hah Ashabel) and human history as they think that kenders are kin to us effective and hard-working, honourable, friendly and reallyreallynice gnomes, and they often like to push the blame on other, bloody racists those elves, as we are not stealing and poking into other's matters like kenders, and if they are the result of a mix of several races they have inherited their sense of humour from us, but take a look at those kenders and compare them with the elves, and yes you'll see that it's like comparing one of those large horses to small ponies, and they are pretty much alike, and I did realize this based entirely on empirically facts and then I went into the library we have here in Palanthus and found ancient tomes from the time of the graystone of Gargath and they told the story as it is, and now Ashabel is complaining of lack of full stops, those bloody silvanesti are never happy.
I found an old tome called "Tales of the Lance" which I delved into and after a few hours of research I found one very important fact which I really must be allowed to quote from page 1018 "In answer to that called, armies from all the folk of Krynn came, bands of mercenaries, elves, ogres, and humans" which proves that there were plenty of those childlike and overly curious elves, and to quote from page 1019 which is hard to read and you must excuse me there "Kenders came from excessively curious and childlike Swifts" and as we know Swifts were the army of Balif, and when speaking of Balif who really enjoyed the company of the silvanesti and let me quote from page 1006 "Elves, fascinated by wild magic, joined the smiths to reclaim the stone. When at last the stone was freed, it escaped, but not before touching those present and changing their forms to reflect their natures. Thus kenders came into being" and we know that the first kender hero was Balif and he lived then, and was the leader of the elven army and that he after the battle with the graygem, where he was, he built the kender kingdom, even if that seemed ridiculous we accept it here and now just to please any kenders reading this newsletter, and it is kind of obvious that Balif became a kender along with his elves, and that they were the first smart kenders, something the kenders who live today has not inherited, and they even built a kingdom, which is quite good but far from the democratic anarcho-syndicalistic system we gnomes have reached which is far beyond what other nations have, and then I must conclude that kenders were the result of of the graygem on Balif and his elven warriors who run in the forest shooting arrows at you even if you can't stop your flying vessel from hitting their trees, the other theory I can accept is that the silvanesti is portraying as kenders and are stealing all we others have.
Creation Tale #3 aka The TRUE story
The Real Kender Creation
by Stuart Gibson
I was reading your page on the creation of the race kender when I remembered a First Quest section in Dragon 214, the article, by Harold Johnson had information about the creation of Kender you might be interested in, you may have already read it somewhere, I don't know...
Harold Johnson wrote in the First Quest section in Dragon 214: "My hero Almar Tann, a wandering halfling thief was created to playtest the Desert of Desolation module series in a campaign run by Tracy Hickman. Almar was a clever little fellow with a heart of a true hero and more pluck than men twice his size. Other that having a knack for getting into trouble due to his curiosity and willingness to take risk, and making the rest of the party deal with it, Al's tenacity and luck helped the party to emerge victorious in the end and win a limited wish. Almar wished for a coin case that would always refill with nine gold coins in it once it was emptied. This seemed practical and not too greedy at the time. Tracy was very agreeable. Little did I suspect that Tracy was about to whisk Al and the others off to the developing world of DRAGONLANCE Saga and the first adventure, Dragons of Darkness. Gold has no value on Krynn.
Almar left his mark on the world when he discovered a lone pillar standing in the middle of a room. He climbed the pillar to the top and found nothing there. I told Tracy that it didn't make any sense to have a pillar just sitting in the middle of the room with nothing on top. Tracy said it wasn't important to the adventure. So Al opened up his coin purse and left a stack of coins for the next adventurer to discover.
Almar went on to discover many new things in the ruins of Xak Tsaroth, until we decided that halflings had no place in this new world, especially since Almar also had a ring of invisibility; it all sounded too much like another story. So Almar went wandering off into the barbarian plains of Abanasinia and was never seen again.
It was up to me to create a replacement, so I found my God of Krynn hat and fashioned the incorrigible kender, that childlike race that refuses to grow up, and the first kender representative, Tasslehoff Burrfoot.
Now anyone who has ever played a kender, had the misfortune to bump into a kender, or ever heard of kender has swiftly discovered there is no more aggravating, though brave and clever, race of creature in the multiverse. Let's see somebody top that for annoying!"
Creation Tale #4 aka the Elfling Theory
On the Origin of Krynn Kender with Inclusions from the History of other Realms and Additions Especially Concerning the World of Kear
It is a rather common misconception to suppose that Kender, a living race of intellegent beings were created by some cabal of traders and writers called TSR, INC (whatever that may mean). There is enough historical evidence of Kender long before both the creation and demise of that short-lived organisation. Having marked off that concept, now we embark on a complex task of finding the true roots of the Kender race - a task unsolved yet finally, bringing more questions than it does answers for so long.
Kender are considered to be inhabitants of Krynn - finding any of them in other worlds is innatural, although reported. No doubt planar travel and spelljamming attract enough adventurous Kender to account for those instances.
But are there any other creatures like Kender in the Multiverse? Are they unique to Krynn, or not? Here are some of my speculations on the subject.
It is known among genealogists that one of the most famous clans of Hobbits, as Halflings in the realm of Middle Earth call themselves, inherited their un-Hobbitish adventurous spirit which took many of them to the roads of true Wanderlust from the descendants of an alleged marriage between a Halfling and an Elf-maid.
Unlikely as this may seem, this hypothesis found further proof in the world of Athas. The blazing desert planet, scorched by the rays of a dark sun, is home to several half-breed races not found anywhere else, such as muls (human/dwarf) and half-giants. Also, hidden in the dense jungle of the Verdant Belts there are scattered villages of half-savage creatures whose look was instantly familiar to me - Elflings!
Eager to pursue the trail, I continued searches through lore and divination, until my research brought me to the world of Kear.
The Elves and Halflings of the World of Kear have been living and adventuring side by side with other races for centuries, and some of the results of this, besides cultural influences ( there are both Elven Shamans and Halfling Druids nowadays) were children of mixed blood. Maybe it were mostly the proud Elven warriors who felt ever so protective about Halfling maids, or Elven women who couldn`t help appreciating the spirit and persistance of Halflings - no one feels like explaining, but the results - the Elflings - are a race surely worth their place in the world. Over time the Elflings of Kear drifted to make permanent settlements and even to form Elfling freeholds in several places of Hilear. Justly respected by neighbours, as every denizen of such an enclave returns from the Wanderlust a proficient, seasoned adventurer, those places usually are a welcome sight for travellers and all kinds of refugees.
Surely, the idea of a race, and a non-major one, found in many worlds, like Humans or Dwarves will find opposition, but a fine example of such possibility is another adventurous race, the felinoids or "cat-men". Known as Rakasta in the Forgotten Realms, Felpurr in the world of Wizardry and Shierdi in Kear, they are all the same and did find a way to Krynn - at least one has been sighted and potrayed by Janet E.Chui.
And if this be not satisfactory, there is a thing that cannot be beaten - the Elflings of Kear, although not inclined to "handle" anything within reach, do wear Topknots (Driffludi) and wield Hoopaks (Alcanth), as the everlasting symbols of Kender are called in Kear Common Speech.
This leaves us with a conclusion that Krynn Kender are also descendants of Elves and Halflings. The reluctance of Elves to admit this relation is but further proof, but there arises another question - where, in this case, are the Halflings? Have they become extinct before anyone noticed them? Did they move to another continent, neither Ansalon nor Taladas? Have they ever been to Krynn?
I cannot yet ansver this. Although many speculations may be made, none can be satisfactory enough. Anyone posessing information about this subject is welcome to Aecto`s Arcane Emporium in the working hours.