There's something about Krynn Ogres

Unlike other fantasy worlds, Krynn gives a prestigious past to its ogres, making it one of the three main races (among elves and humans).

Yet, there are a few facts that bother me with the ogre race.

Ogre Diversification

One of the main reason so many fantastic species exist on Krynn is the Greystone, whose chaotic energies mutated many species, creating, for example, the sirens from humans, the sea elves from elves, the hobgoblins and bugbears from the goblin, and most famously, the dwarves and the kender from the gnomes.

But ogres actually mutated before the passage of the greystone, as we can see described in the Races of Krynn diagram found in the Dragonlance Adventures, and from which I extracted a subset, below

Extract of Races of Krynn, Dragonlance Adventures, p114

 

For example, from ogres, we got:

• Giants
• Ogres
• Irda
• Goblins
  

(We remove minotaurs from that list, as subsequent rulebooks made it clear minotaurs were created by the Greystone's passage)

So, the ogres mutated extremely, before the Greystone event.

(I know the wiki page of the Graygem of Gargath list most of the races above as created by the Graygem... Just bear with me, there...)

Ogre Curse

According to multiple sources, the ogres' own evil is what caused their degeneration. For example:

The greed and cruelty of the ogres was unparalled, and eventually caused their fall and degeneration
[...]
Over the next few centuries, the ogres fell deeper into ignominy. Their appearance became hideous, matching the ugliness they harbored in their souls. Their civilization fell into ruin, becoming naugt but a reminder of their former glory. By the close of the Age of Dreams, the ogres had completely degenerated into the slow-witted brutes of modern Krynn.

-- Races of Ansalon, p180

... which is strange because it follows the concept that beauty and morality is somehow related (and thus, ugliness and immorality), which is... not what Krynn is supposed to be (i.e. Krynn is about good, evil and balance)

A (most probably biased) text adds the following information:

The Irdanaiath, a book unknown among men of Ansalon, tells a tale of the most ancient days. When ogres walked the world in beauty and power, men awoke and had dealings with this evil race. In this exchange, the humans unwittingly gifted Igrane, a great and powerful ogre clanleader, with free will. For this Igrane both cursed and blessed men, for he looked upon the world with new eyes.

The gift spread among his clansmen until they all saw the curse of evil and the future of destruction and debasement that it held for them. They tried to convince other ogre clans of their folly but kindled anger. Civil war erupted among the ogres. The Ogre Wars of the Age of Dreams were fought in places hidden from the eyes of men.
[...]
The ogres who did not foresee their debasement eventually fulfilled the Irda's vision and became uglier and more misshapen until their appearance matched the evil in their hearts.

-- Dragonlance Adventures, p68

... which implies that free will is what caused the ogre's degeneration, either by not acquiring this gift from humans, or actually acquiring it, but refusing to abandon their "evil ways". Which is barely better than the previous explanation.

While it makes a fantastic mythology, this, in my humble opinion, is a poor explanation for this degeneration.

(I seem to remember that some claimed the gods of good cursed the ogre for being evil, which is worse, and comes with its own massive can of worms, so I'll discard that theory.)

So, the ogre degeneration's explanation is not convincing, at least, to me.

An alternative explanation

The Greystone had been imbued by the very essence of chaos (if not more), and causing extreme mutations. So it makes sense a similar cause, chaos, not free will, nor evil, might be instead involved in a mutation.

In this case, in my campaign, the ogres did something that is almost a staple of Krynn: The ogre, as a species, tried to ascend into some form of godhood by harnessing the power of magic.

Ogres at the time were innate magic users, at a time when magic wasn't really accessible to anyone.

This was most probably dangerous magic, and with enough power and arrogance, anyone can think the risk is worth the reward.

So, the ogre, with repeated use of the ritual, ended, as a species, being irradiated with chaos magic.

The results were not immediate, but when they came, the chaotic nature of the magic they used became most apparent:

• High birth defect/death rate
• Extreme physical and mental mutation on the survivors
  

In the end, the ogre civilization collapsed for lack of true ogres, as they were replaced by a congregation of mutants, most of them being mentally impaired.

Conclusion

The irda, having fled the ogre nation,were not affected by the ritual, and thus continued as the original ogre species, the only survivors, thanks to their exile.

But the ogre suffered from something that would be unheard of, for thousand years, until the Greystone's passage produced similar effects on everyone around it.

For my campaign, this will come handy as I expect the players to start investigating in the true nature of magic, both ambient and High Sorcery magic, how powerful (and unreliable?) it is, and what they can learn from the ogre failed experiment, and how this experiment could result, in the end, to the Age of Mortals.