Every death meant the loss of decades training and experience, but even more than that it meant the loss of fathers, of sons, of mothers and of daughters. Therefore the seven smithlords gathered together and decided something must be done. A great task was given to the dwarven runesmiths: find a way to regulate the fires at the heart of the forge without putting dwarven lives at stake.

The runesmiths devised a plan; they would create a skeleton of clay and ceramics, and to that skeleton they bound the elemental forces of flame. The initial experiments were a failure; the fire elementals could exist comfortably in the hottest furnace, and even protect their skeletons from the intense heat, but the work was simply too complicated. Little more than mindless automatons, they simply couldn’t do it.

Here the runesmiths turned to the warforged for inspiration. With the help of the human magewrights, they adapted the same processes which granted the warforged sentience to their own creations.

It worked, and thus came into being the creatures now known as kiln-born. The same process, it turns out, works equally well for other elements. Fire kiln-born still work the dwarven forges, but air kiln-born serve as messengers and earth kiln-born as cheap and durable laborers. Water kiln-born are not terribly common, though some navies and wealthy maritime merchants use them as scouts.

Human magewrights are constantly experimenting with new forms of kiln-born. They’ve successfully bound lightning, smoke, magma and ice elementals to the skeletons, and are working on sound, light and many others. Rumors persist that Gendelve University is even working on creating kiln-born bound with incarnates, the spirits of emotion, such as love, rage and fright.

Anatomically, kiln-born can come in any shape or size, though humanoids between 4 and 6 feet tall are by far the most common. The skeletons they are bound to are tough, but not invincible; it’s as common for kiln-born to break a bone as any creature of flesh and blood. For the most part these injuries are not life-threatening, and fairly simple to repair or replace. Every kiln-born has a binding rune in its skull, though, and if the rune is disrupted the elemental spirit will be released, in essence killing the kiln-born.

Encounters with the Kiln-born

The kiln-born are very much inspired by the warforged of Eberron. In Eberron, warforged are a recent creation; the eldest of them is less than 20 years old, if I recall correctly, and they were all considered property up until recently (using the Eberron assumed timeline where the campaign starts around 998 YK).

I personally always find myself gravitating towards having warforged be ancient creations, so the kiln-born allows me to explore some other topics that are more pronounced in Eberron. Specifically, the kiln-born are a recently-created race and the vast majority are considered property.

Most kiln-born, as I see it, are fairly simple creatures. There are exceptions (notably, PC kiln-born should be free to have as complex a personality as the player wishes), but by and large I’d play kiln-born as simple creatures with simple desires. They do what they’re told out of a combination of fear of punishment and not knowing what else to do.

When having the players encounter kiln-born, there are a few directions you could go. I like the idea of them as unwilling slaves; most are docile and almost tragic, and this is the aspect that I’d play up. They work unquestioningly, but their posture is sunken and defeated; their eyes seem dimmed or glossed over. If the PCs actually interact with them, they speak solemnly and grimly; they do not complain about their lot in life, but it is clear that they’re not happy with it.

Then of course there are the rabble-rousers. Sometimes something snaps, and even those born into subjugation can find the will to strike back. Imagine an earth or fire kiln-born escaping and going on a rampage; lead the players into thinking it’s just going to be a typical monster hunt.

All the while, keep dropping hints that the creature has been horribly mistreated. Its handlers talk about how they’re going to punish it by locking it in an underground vault, completely alone, for a month, or some kind of similar tortures. Eventually, make it clear that they are not good people.

At the same time, try and find a way to humanize the kiln-born. Perhaps while investigating, a mother tells the story about how the horrible beast nearly stepped on her and her child, but when it saw them it stared into their eyes for a moment, and then walked around them.

Point out that, in fact, nobody was hurt, and all the damage seems to have just been collateral damage as it tried to escape the dense urban sprawl. Ideally, the players should be willing to ask questions first when they find it hiding, rather than just attacking.