Workshop: LPM6 The Omm-Wa

D&D has always been about monsters to me.  As a kid, I obsessed over Godzilla and brought home books from the library about monsters from myth and legend or just those with great monster art on the cover.

This is actually what led me into D&D as a neighborhood friend brought over the 1e Monster Manual.   

To this day, they are still my favorite part of the game and when I feel like reading, I open up one of the old monster books from any edition.  They always bring inspiration.

Such is the case with the omm-wa, though I have had my eye on them for years with Lopango.  I once tried to write up a 3e version of them called the "omara" in my retired book Monsters of the True World.

They are one of the few creatures in that book that I have not yet updated and after reading through the Savage Coast Monstrous Compendium (which unfortunately, does not seem to be on DMsGuild yet), I realized it was high time I should do so.

So what are the omm-wa?  Well, to be fair, they are nothing more than (slightly) anthropomorphic manatee-folk.  Their appearance brings nothing special in past editions.  I believe it was only their flippers that became hand-like so that there was an excuse to give them the ability to wield weapons like nets, tridents and even underwater crossbows.

My plans were to do the following:

  • Give them a reason to be in Lopango, considering their origins on the Savage Coast of Mystara.
  • Make their appearance more interesting.
  • Make them playable.
My plans have been evolving and here were the solutions.

Omm-wa in Lopango?

This was fun and rather simple to do.  It is well known that Dagon (the obyrith demon-lord) has a presence in the seas west of Maztica in a place called the Sea of Corynactis.  With his shalarin worshipers, he has canonically created powerful Wildtide Gates in the past connecting the Sea of Corynactis to the Sea of Fallen Stars.

Dagon and his gates are a chaotic unknown with little lore so I decided that "eddies" from the gate opened in the world of Mystara, dragging in tribes of omm-wa and a few other creatures behind them.  The "other creatures" give me a great excuse to rip other creatures from the Savage Coast MC if I should want to in the future, and certainly the sea hermit will be written up in this project too.

Aesthetics

The fifth edition has had its series of furries as playable races, from the rabbit-like harrengon to the minotaur.  The manatee would be another, but I wanted to give them an identifying characteristic that makes them different.

In the earliest image of an intelligent manatee I was granted usage of, was the one I used for the omara.  


Though it is unlikely to be true, those markings on its back always seemed to me to be some form of tribal tattoo.  Perhaps in Lopango, all the omm-wa get such tattoos?  

This is also going to allow for a nice collection of new magical items related to the omm-wa when I expand upon the magical tattoos introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.  After describing the omm-wa to my daughter (who is an incredible artist), she quickly whipped up her version of a tattooed omm-wa which is exactly what I needed.  At 13 years old, am I right to think you shouldn't be that good?

So here we have them; the manatee-folk are not just furries, they are tribal tattooed furries! 🤷

Playable Omm-wa

I don't know the statistics, but I am assuming there is not a large percentage of games currently being played that remain completely within an underwater environment.  This makes playing omm-wa quite a challenge.

Thus we introduce the omaru.  No, not the omara; those are my abandoned earlier 3e version.  Omaru are a subspecies of omm-wa that actually have legs.  Inspired by the malenti born among sahuagins, I figured there could be a rare subspecies of omm-wa born to walk the land.  I included their origins in the history section and voilĂ , playable omm-wa.  


So that's it.  I'd like to finish this part of the Workshop with a link to the current WIP (there's not too much as of now) in addition to the Piazza forum link where the book is also being discussed.  Please let me know if you have any criticisms, praise or suggestions!  If the link is broken in the future, please note this is because it was taken down in lieu of a more recent WIP.

Current WIP:  LPM6 The Omm-wa WIP 01-08-24

Discussion of the Omm-Wa of Lopango on the Piazza


Updated 01-08-24

Made some progress creating a new background and some magic items, particularly the aforementioned tattoos.


Updated 01-09-24







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