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Wild theories on the Synads, Tiraphegs & Juna

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Fri, 2006-05-05 02:16
#1
Kobold Avenger
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Wild theories on the Synads, Tiraphegs & Juna

The description of the Synad from Complete Psionic actually leads me to theorize that the Synads are the descendants of Tiraphegs, a really really weird (and obscure) monster from the original 1st edition Fiend Folio, which had three heads (two of them featureless like a Synad), three legs and three arms...

I don't think the Tirapheg has ever since then been mentioned. Though Spelljammer back in 2nd edition would speak of an ancient race that ruled much of the Material Plane, called the Juna (also the possibly rumoured Zookeepers) who were described as Tripartite beings.

Anyways my idea is that the Juna were first, their descendants were the Tiraphegs, and now from somewhere across the Shadow Plane, from some distant world hidden somewhere the Synads have arrived.

Anyone have their own theories on this?

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Sat, 2006-05-06 10:23
#2
ripvanwormer
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Wild theories on the Synads, Tiraphegs & Juna

I think I need to find out more about what the heck a tirapheg or snyad is before I have any thoughts about them. I only recognized "juno."

Sat, 2006-05-06 13:58
(Reply to #2) #3
Kobold Avenger
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Wild theories on the Synads, Tiraphegs & Juna

A description and direct conversion of the Tirapheg from 1e Fiend Folio is here. Yeah it's one of the 'ridiculous' monsters of the original Fiend Folio, right up there with the Flumph (though the Flumph gets more fans).

(Some one made a comic on a Tirapheg meeting a Flumph)

Synads were first described in Dragon Magazine as a preview to psionic PC races in the Expanded Psionics Handbook, they were recently reprinted Complete Psionic, and look like this. They're yet another human-looking PC race (which seems to be common nowadays) who come from another world across the Shadow Plane. They're abberations (not humanoid), and have three minds/consciousness the Overmind, Oracle and Collective. The oracle and collective parts of their minds gives them certain special abilities, and their favoured class is Psion. The other 2 heads only really appear in dim light when out of power points. They're more alien in their mindset compared to the Elan, and are a race that sort of lives among humans (secretly).

Sat, 2006-05-06 17:17
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ripvanwormer
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Wild theories on the Synads, Tiraphegs & Juna

Perhaps the tiraphegs, realizing how stupid-looking they were once they entered places like Oerth and Sigil for the first time, used psionics to transform their bodies into something more reasonable.

I don't really have a problem with tons of human-looking races in Planescape; they can all have their own worlds, after all.

Fri, 2006-05-12 18:53
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Kobold Avenger
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Wild theories on the Synads, Tiraphegs & Juna

With Tiraphegs it could have also been some sort of alteration into Synads when they crossed over into other realities, such reality couldn't handle their odd forms...

Of course known of those races really have been fleshed out. But my theory on the decline of the reign of the Juna would be that they retreated to another plane or another world somewhere. And from that world the Tiraphegs came to be, maybe they are what the Juna became, or maybe they were a creation of the Juna, sort of a 'servitor race' or lower caste. Occasionally a few of the Tiraphegs would would encountered outside this reality of the Juna, but they forms were so alien.

Now the Juna are interested in the worlds that they fled from, and want to explore them some more and possibly return to them, so they created (or became) the Synads. The Synad have the portion of their minds known as the "Oracle" so this Oracle is a mental link, back to the Juna in their reality. The "Collective" is a mental network between all Synads with some of the Juna's involvement. The "Overmind" is of course the individual personality of each Synad.

Now, do the Juna really want to take back the worlds they fled from after all of these years?
And really what was the full extent of the Juna back in those ancient times?
Was their existence and form some sort of connection to the truth of the 'Rule-of-Three'?

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