Horns for Tanarukk

[Grinning]

A friendly player, krimsondaddy, saw my Tanarukk in the Nexus and pointed me to the rules about head models here: http://www.bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22632

My Tanarukk does have the horns and admittedly if I had read the rules I wouldn't have chosen them, but since my RCR is on the line I thought I'd have a crack in arguing for them

Tanarukk have demon blood and can develop horns, scales or anything else a strongly blooded Tiefling might receive: http://www.realmshelps.net/charbuild/ra ... rukk.shtml

Now I understand that these are meant to be minotaur horns but in my opinion they fit quite nicely with a demonic narrative and for the sake of flavour and variety I'd like to ask that Tanarukk be allowed the use of the minotaur horns. We don't get to have snouts, scales or glowing red eyes, but we could have some wicked looking horns.

Thanks to the DM team in general and anyone else who wants to put in their 2 cents for or against.

[DM Narshe]

We've had this question crop up in the past.

Tanarukks can have horns, yes, but not the gigantic minotaur ones. They're not Hellboy.

Orcs commonly feature tusks.

Tanarukks likely have more prominent tusks and sometimes 1-2" horns.

A lot of these things come from descriptive roleplay and writing. Game models don't allow for each and every variable to be represented but character descriptions do. As long as they're in good taste and don't cause trouble, we're usually okay with it.

For example, a recent question about tiefling tails was resolved and the response recorded here. The same kind of concept applies to these horns. They're not weapons, likely won't get a character model added for them, and otherwise they're not any different from anyone else (cept your helmets might fit weird ).

In short, minotaur horns should never be picked at character creation. I don't even know why they're still available other than it's not been a huge priority to root through and remove them.

Please RCR and choose an option that isn't minotaur horns. You're welcome to RP small horns if you wish.

[Grinning]

Tanarukks can have horns, yes, but not the gigantic minotaur ones. They're not Hellboy.
...

Tanarukks likely have more prominent tusks and sometimes 1-2" horns.

Can I have a source on these statements? I wouldn't have made this thread if I could find this evidence.

[DM Narshe]

http://www.bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?p=158564#p158564

[Grinning]

Any actual lore sources? Tanarukk, like Tieflings and other blooded races, can have any variety and extent of demonic heritage that make 'hellboy' horns a possibility. The Vrock, the tanar'ri that inspired the appearance of the Tanarukk in the artwork, is explicitly stated in Races of Faerun as not being the only possible sire of the race. Even if they did only come from Vrock, and not from other, more hornily-gifted demons, as with Tieflings there would still be distinct differences.

There is no call to say that they "sometimes" have "1-2" horns". That's an arbitrary measurement not supported anywhere that I can find, and in saying that it happens "sometimes", can't it also be said that the horns can be "sometimes" larger?

I understand that the minotaur horns shouldn't be in the game, and if I had read the rules I wouldn't have used them, but they are lore appropriate and there's no reason to disallow them. I'd like for them to be used by Tanarukk for lore-appropriate flavour, as I did with my character whose backstory includes Balor blood, hence the horns. Why not use them? I'll gladly answer any argument against them for the sake of variety.

[DM Narshe]

My citing of 1-2" was just to give you an idea of the measurement we'd find reasonable.

The minotaur horns have been universally disallowed in the past. If balor or minotaur were playable races, we could consider the horns being on PCs.

For now though, it's disallowed.



Lore sources only detail "ridged with horn or scales." Tanarukk lore seems pretty sparse so if we look at a close counterpart, the Tiefling, they appear to have short horns or backward-angled horns. Neither really suit the minotaur horn model we have.

Also, their horns seem more prominent in later editions of D&D (when tieflings became more popular as a player race). The server is -technically- 2.0 edition with 3.0 and 3.5 elements thrown in as we find need. It's a timeline thing, mostly. Pre-Time of Troubles and all that. So most 4.0 edition and beyond lore is difficult to place. In earlier editions, it is also mentioned that the more a tiefling differs from a standard human appearance at birth, the less likely they were to survive to adulthood.