Editing Aarakocra (section)

==Forgotten Realms==
Novels and videogames established that the aarakocra have a presence in the [[Forgotten Realms]]. Their most dedicated Faerunian-specific writeup actually comes from the [[Spelljammer]] splatbook "Realmspace", which explains that the planet Coliar is home to a substantial population of aarakocra who are much more socially advanced than the generic tribals of base-D&D lore. These aarakocra had a complex government with a matriarchal democracy, and engaged in active trade of mined gems with passing spelljammers to finance their battles against the [[lizardfolk]] with whom they fought for dominance over the gas giant's myriad sky-islands.

Because of this, aarakocra returned in 3rd edition through Realms [[splatbook]]s, with monster writeups in Monsters of Faerun and PC writeups in Races of Faerun. Sadly, these both focused on the existence of the generic tribal aarakocra from Toril and not their advanced relatives from Coliar.

Aarakocra made an early and surprise debut in the "Elemental Evil Player's Guide", a PC-orientated free web-supplement for D&D 5e released as a tie-in to the then-new adventure "Princes of the Apocalypse", a 5e update for the [[Tomb of Elemental Evil]]. This actually makes more sense than it may seem at first glance, because, beyond the obvious lazy "flying race = Air themed race!", aarakocra were traditionally associated very heavily with air elementals, and even portrayed as worshippers of the Wind Dukes of Aaqa, a set of primordial Lawful-aligned air elemental demigods, on occasion. They are best known for being the most mechanically gimped race released in 5e so far, and haven't had any updates or even official recognition since.