Tome of Monstrous Races
Humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings dominate the stories told using Dungeons & Dragons, but there are many settings in which less archetypical fantasy races hold sway, where "monsters" are people who can be traders, neighbors, foes, and friends, not just slavering hordes to be fended off.
The following is a collection of "monstrous" PC races, written to be as setting-agnostic as possible. Each fits onto two pages: one covering the game traits of that race, the other discussing its biology, psychology, culture, and likely roles.
You might be excited by a roleplaying challenge, or enjoy the visual appeal of a more exotic character, or simply want to turn the traditional narrative on its head.
There is room for expansion in any of these races. If your campaign calls for a new subrace, or a racial feat, or different background material: please, write away!
There are four basic design tentets here:
- Keep it simple. Four is an ideal total of "racial traits", with six as the maximum. This is tricky to adhere to, especially for stranger races, but any more risks overcomplication. Simple features like proficiencies are less of a problem.
- Middle of the road. A race that's too powerful won't be approved; one that's too weak won't be used. Under Detect Balance I aim for a score of 24, with 27 as the limit (the average for core races is 25).
- Core concept. Every racial feature that isn't a basic necessity should act as a source of characterful "I can do X because I'm a Y" moments for a game.
- No downsides. Races should not have "flaws" like Ability score penalties or Sunlight Sensitivity. These are meant to balance other powerful features, but in practice are easy to avoid or marginalize, and in some cases force a DM to work the campaign around the feature.
This is a living document, and will be added to as individual entries are finished. I will edit existing entries when necessary, but for the most part I hope to only add races that already appear to be complete.
Thanks also to the artists whose art I've used here. You're all credited, and I'm making no money, but get in touch if you'd rather I remove your work.
I hope you enjoy playing these new races.
Detect Balance
For those not familiar, Detect Balance is a useful guide for eyeballing homebrewed PC races in 5th edition. It's not perfect, and context is always king, but a particularly low or high score is generally a bad sign if you're building a race of your own. The scores for these races are as follows:
- Blights: 25 (Abilities 4, Camouflage 2, Plant Food 2, Tremorsense 4, Subrace 13)
- Chitine: 26 (Abilities 12, Climb Speed 2, Climbing Claws 2, Fey Ancestry 2, Superior Darkvision 4, Weaver's Art 4)
- Dragonborn: 26 (Abilities 12, Ancestral Feature 4, Draconic Resistance 4, Subrace 6)
- Gnolls: 25 (Abilities 8, Bite 1, Skill Proficiency 2, Darkvision 3, Carrion Eater 3, Subrace 8)
- Goblins: 23 (Abilities 8, Darkvision 3, Nimble 2, Skill Proficiency 2, Subrace 8)
- Half-Orcs: 26 (Abilities 16, Darkvision 3, Endurance 4, Versatility 3)
- Hobgoblins: 26 (Abilities 14, Darkvision 3, Warrior Culture 4, Subrace 5)
- Kobolds: 25 (Abilities 8, Darkvision 3, Thieves' Tools 1, Naturally Stealthy 4, Subrace 9)
- Kuo-Toa: 24 (Abilities 12, Amphibious 4, Faith 1, Darkvision 4, Otherworldly 2, Slippery 1)
- Minotaurs: 24 (Abilities 8, Mighty Horns 4, Powerful Build 2, Rushing Trample 2, Subrace 8)
- Naga: 26 (Abilities 8, Blindsight 2, Constricting Tail 3, Serpentine 3, Subrace 10)
- Orcs: 26 (Abilities 8, Darkvision 3, Endurance 4, Powerful Build 2, Subrace 9)
- Revenants: 25 (Abilities 12, Darkvision 3, Dead Body 7, Unkillable 3)
- Sahuagin: 26 (Abilities 12, Amphibious 4, Bite 1, B.Scent 1, Darkvision 3, Frenzy 3, Mutation 2)
- Shardminds: 25 (Abilities 8, Psychic Resistance 2, Cantrip 2, Living Gemstone 6, Subrace 7)
- Thri-Kreen: 26 (Abilities 8, Movement 2, Extra Arms 2, Sleepless 3, Standing Leap 2, Subrace 9)
- Tieflings: 26 (Abilities 4, Darkvision 3, Hellish Resistance 4, Unholy Aura 1, Subrace 14)
Further races planned...
Aarakocra, Aetherborn, Bullywugs, Centaurs, Goliaths, Harpies, Lizardfolk, Mannequins, Myconids, Nycter, Ratfolk, Shadar-kai, Shifters, Vryloka, Warforged
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Blights
“He led the way in under the huge branches of the trees. Old
beyond guessing, they seemed. Out of the shadows, the hobbits peeped... like elf-children in the deeps of time, peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.”
The great tree looms over the forest, shrouded in dark myth and guarded by living effigies of wood and thorns. A sage dispenses wisdom from the depths of his woodland home, bark-rough skin hidden behind thick robes. Bandits launch deadly ambushes from an overgrown castle, born from the very vines that clutch at it battlements.
Root and Branch
When ancient power rots beneath the soil, imprisoned in rune-sealed tombs or left to decay in a shallow grave, its immortal might seeps into the land around it. The plants that feed on such tainted earth gain a measure of that being's soul and twisted sapience.
The seeds of these mad trees grow to be blights, awakened offshoots born from the lingering traces of long-dead druids, foul vampires, and conquered fey.
Many of these savage, humanoid plants have no greater drive than to spread their kin far and wide, or are outright wielded as puppet-soldiers by their slumbering master.
Often, however, a grove of blights will literally grow beyond their origins, becoming independent beings in their own right... for better or worse.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Bad Seed
Known by most as cruel plantfolk filled with bloodthirsty trickery, the truth behind the behavior of the blights is far more complex. Each sprouts from the lingering ego of a fallen titan, born with personalities, goals, and even a few fragmented memories drawn directly from the ancient seed.
Even blights who outgrow their shambling origins have a poor reputation: those who live near the swampy grave of a green dragon seldom appreciate the appearance of sneering mangrove-men with scale-like leaves.
Nevertheless, the treekin are not rooted down. Some come to view their ancient seed with puzzlement, contempt, or regret. Such cursewoods try to make up for the sins of a past that is not theirs, or simply try to make their own way in the world, forging an identity of their own.
Groves of the Heart
The culture of a given grove of blights varies wildly, largely derived from its ancient seed and the nature of the cursed tree at its heart. Some form cults dedicated to their origin, or to sealing it away forever. Others simply claim the forest as their territory, spreading with creeping speed.
Whatever the case, the ego and common origin of each blight makes competition a constant in each grove. Every cursewood must prove itself the better of its fellows, watching the achievements of their fellows with envy and interest. The weak must flee or rot.
A blight is a core of animated vegetation, around which further plantlife is drawn or grown into a tightly-wound mass of pseudo-flesh shaped into humanoid form. Blights can discard this excess, but do so only in times of need.
Wandering Woods
Those groves which develop a positive relationship with the outside world are often born from less malevolent entities, such as summer fey or powerful giants. Others are allies of convenience, trading partners or members of a military pact.
Blights can become adventurers for many reasons. Some are simply out to prove themselves, following in the footsteps of their ancient seed. Others seek power in their own right, or abandon their grove to carve a new identity of their own from old and tainted wood. A rare few hold more than mere fragments of memory, and seek out their originator's legacy.
Blight Names
Infused with the ego and drive of their ancient seed, blights eagerly seek formal titles from civilized lands, bearing them as true rewards or simple vanities.
Blights have little need for gendered names, as sex is largely cosmetic for them. Indeed, most groves roughly model their appearance after their originator, resulting in seemingly monogendered communities of treekin.
Branch Blight Names: Master Mn'drok, Prince G'root, Lady P'clolo, Laird Mn'gabo, Minister Z'etoos, Graf Sk'ogora
Needle Blight Names: Sultan Al'roon, Duchess Aa'droor, Ser Vool'frd, Raja Ol'doori, Baronet Pa'ola, Emir Us'poko
Vine Blight Names: Palatiness Css'odo, Archbishop Pci'nonos, Sage Zs'losio, Franklin Gh'soni, Mme. Ghs'oran
Blight Traits
Your blight character has various unique traits that stem from its nature as a plant fed on ancient power.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age. Blights are immortal, though it is common for older blights to give up their lives and become the seed for a new grove of their kind.
Alignment. The personalities that fertilize a blightgrove are usually twisted, selfish, and obsessive. As such, blights tend toward neutral evil.
Size. Blights grow from small saplings into tangled, humanoid masses. Your size is Medium. You can use an action to change your size to Small by shedding excess plant matter. You can return to Medium size when you complete long or short rest.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Natural Camouflage. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) rolls when you are obscured by foliage.
Plant Food. You do not need to eat normal food. You can drink a day's supply of water from the soil and air by resting for an hour, unless your surroundings are totally arid. You can still eat or drink normally if you wish.
Tremorsense. Your roots allow you to detect nearby vibrations. You have tremorsense out to 30 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan. Whatever their alignment, blights who grow beyond rabid plants learn the tongue of the fey.
Subrace. Blights grow in many kinds of tainted soil. Choose one of these subraces.
Good Vibrations
A creature with tremorsense can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius, provided that the creature and the source of the vibrations are in contact with the same ground or substance. Tremorsense can't be used to detect flying or incorporeal creatures.
Tremorsense is an unusual feature for a PC to have access to. These are some suggestions for how to manage it in your games:
Details. Tremorsense can be used to determine detect location, numbers, size, and weight, but it can't relay information about a creature's appearance, or how it's armed.
Limits. Tremorsense can't detect anything that isn't moving. A padded surface, like a thick plush rug, or an area filled with vibrations, like a chariot race track, is lightly obscured to tremorsense.
Perception. Tremorsense does not automatically detect and interpret every vibration in range. It is just another sense, and still relies on Perception to detect stealthy creatures or small details.
Branch Blight
Broad and powerful, the branch blights grow in great groves of tainted land, crushing interlopers without mercy. Proud of their sturdy frames, the branch blights bellow canopy-shaking warcries and regard smaller races as weaklings who seek shelter beneath their boughs.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2.
Branch Arm. You can use a free hand as a club or quarterstaff, which you are proficient with.
When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the thunderous smite spell once on this weapon, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Needle Blight
Quick-witted and swift, needle blights spread far and fast, forming small colonies of tainted plants. Curious and solitary to a fault, needle blights unearth every secret passageway and forgotten cave near the sites they sprout.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Darkvision. You have superior vision in dark and dim Conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Needle Arm. You can use a free hand as a dagger, which you are proficient with. You can throw this dagger as a spray of needles, and do not lose it when you do so.
When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the hail of thorns spell once on this weapon, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Vine Blight
Cunning and patient, vine blights spring from a greater mass of tangled creepers fed on lingering power. Determined never to display weakness or sentimentality, vine blights favor ambush tactics and have no problem fleeing from a fight.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity and Wisdom scores increase by 1.
Creeper. You have a climbing speed of 30 feet.
Vine Arm. You can use a free hand as a whip, which you are proficient with.
When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the ensnaring strike spell once on this weapon, and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Art Credit:
Gabriel Devue
Chitine
“There are spiders whose bite can cause the place bitten to
rot and to die, sometimes more than a year after it was bitten. As to why spiders do this, the answer is simple. It's because spiders think this is funny, and they don't want you ever to forget them.”
Arachnid bandits spill from the canyon's sheer rock walls, demanding tribute at arrowpoint from those who cross its swaying silk bridge. The city's kingpin is a four-armed exile from the depths, who rules his underworld from a warren of sewers. A small town eagerly awaits the autumn bazaar, when stalls spill nightly from a cave mouth to offer fine silks, strange fungi, and other fruits of the dark.
Many Hands Make Light Work
In the damp and lightless belly of the world, wicked elves once labored to create new breeds of slave. They wove together hopeless captives and nocturnal beasts, seeking a servant adapted to the lightless caves they called home.
With the blessing of their fell goddess, these experiments gave birth to a hybrid of elf and spider, a race of weavers and crawlers named the chitine. Piercing the dark with faceted eyes and navigating cramped tunnels with four-armed agility, the chitine spread throughout the empire that created them as messengers, miners, and menials.
This slavery was not to last. Discontent brewed in anarchistic arachnid cells and isolated bursts of violence, culminating in a violent uprising that left cities aflame and chains broken.
Some chitine liberated elven forts for themselves, while others fled retaliation, weaving silk-coated homes in any dark crag or shadowed forest that would house them. Now their origins are a dark memory, fuel for grudges and a fable for hatchlings. Now the chitine are free.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Tangled Web
The spiderfolk's hybrid origins result in a great variety of features. Some have hairless, oily skin, while others are coated in short and bristly fur. Some have two large, faceted eyes, while others bear multiple pairs of black beads.
Only a few aspects remain consistent: four long, ape-like arms, a pair of sharp mandible fangs used for weaving and biting, and a short, wiry build. Those chitine that enjoy the wealth of civilization may develop a paunch, but fat seldom spreads across the rest of their body.
Each chitine can naturally weave silk, working spinnerets and silk-glands hidden in its mouth. This is the material from which the spiderfolk make clothes, homes, and so much else. Even young chitine are practiced weavers.
Welcome to my Parlor
Each chitine is capable of creating its own shelter, and their culture is no less individualistic. Once slaves, now free, the chitine are deeply suspicious of even the most benevolent central authority, and prize self-sufficiency above all.
The spiderfolk take pride in the quality of their homes, clothes, and tools. To borrow from another is an expression of trust and (usually private) intimacy. Only fresh hatchlings are exempt, for chitine do not raise their own young.
Most chitine are thoroughly devout, in their own way. They regard the propiation of vengeful, malevolent gods to be a matter of daily survival, as natural as foraging, and consider deities of compassion or charity to be tricksters.
The goddess-mother who sponsored the chitine's birth has the most universal sway over the spiderfolk. Her chosen messengers are monstrous half-spirits called choldrith, far more spider than elf, born rarely into an ordinary clutch.
Most chitine raise these creatures as prophets, but those who fear her gaze burn the eggs before they can hatch.
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Chitine adventurers are most often found in common cause against the drow, helping slaves escape or striking against strongholds. Others strike out on their own, seeking to establish a grander legacy than mere independence.
Chitine Names
The chitine (pronounced "kie-tin") language has diverged from elven into its own dialect, but still employs the flowery, syllable-laden names of that fey tongue. One notable difference: long vowels are replaced by mandible clicks, approximated by translators with a clucked tongue.
Chitine traditionally have neither family nor clan names, but instead bear a calendar name derived from the events of the year they hatched. All chitine born that year are "siblings", and bear the weight of its tidings for good or ill.
Chitine Male Names: Elaj'on, Craw'rin, Ilig'lor, Kelk's, Luh'ce, Na'ven, Olon'lis, Petz'ros, Sylj'on, Zinyd'rk
Chitine Female Names: Aral'na, Caiqir'lle, Faec'ne, Heles'tra, Iars'tra, Presh'na, Qiz'rwyn, Ulaban'se
Clutch Names: Kery'n (Bloodshed), Ghaat'il (Exodus), Usk'che (Firedeep), Durm'sta (Junglefell), Ahnv'e (Longnight), Blal'tha (Sporebloom), Alud'la (Tiderise), New'tik (Weeping)
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Chitine Traits
Your chitine character has several bizarre traits that set them apart from natural races.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Strength score increases by 1.
Age. Bodies ravaged by experimentation, chitine lack the extended lifespans of their elven ancestors, and usually live no longer than 80 years. However, they reach adulthood around 13 years old, and can independently scavenge by the end of their first year.
Alignment. Strongly independent, even destructively anarchistic, chitine tend toward chaotic evil.
Size. Chitine are usually around 4 feet tall, with stringy builds that average 85 lbs. Your size is Small.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a climbing speed of 30 feet.
Climbing Claws. You have an extra pair of arms tipped in sharp claws. These secondary hands cannot perform fine manipulation, including using items or performing somatic components, but can be used to climb, grapple, or lift objects without occupying your primary hands.
When you perform an unarmed strike with these claws, your attack gains the Finesse property and inflicts 1d4 slashing damage.
Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
Superior Darkvision. Your subterranean, elven heritage grants you superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Weaver's Art. You can use your spinnerettes as a set of weaver's tools, which you are proficient with. You can naturally produce the materials to create silk items.
Starting at 3rd level, you can cast web without expending a spell slot, but must complete a long rest before you can do so again. Your spellcasting ability for this spell is Dexterity.
Web Step. You cannot be slowed or restrained by webs.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Undercommon.
Throwbacks
Some among the chitine display uncommonly strong elven features, and even lack the ability to weave. The natural magic these throwbacks develop in its place is mistrusted, railed against by choldrith priestesses as a spiritual failing. Reliant on others for home and clothing, throwbacks are normally outcasts among their kind.
Throwback chitine lose the Ability Score Increase, Weaver's Art, and Web Step features. Instead, they gain the following two features:
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1.
Underdark Magic. You know the dancing lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the faerie fire spell once per day. When you reach 5th level, you can also cast the levitate spell once per day. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Sensitive Souls
This version of the chitine does not include the Sunlight Sensitivity trait, as it is often difficult for DMs to handle and varies wildly in applicability.
If you want to play a spiderfolk truly plagued by sunlight (suitable for an Underdark native), you can include the following additional traits as a pair for your chitine character:
Bound Attack. Once on your turn, you can gain advantage on your attack roll if your target's speed has been reduced to 0 feet.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Dragonborn
“No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith.”
A roar echoes across the morning mountains, calling a clan of scaled men and women to prayer. The defensive line of dragon-kin stand ready, fangs bared and halberds raised, before a flood of elemental power spills forth into the enemy charge. A lone minstrel makes her way from town to town, reptilian horns draped with jewelry from her many admirers.
Kin to Dragons
Born in the primordial age from the eggs of dragons, the humanoid dragonborn were shaped by draconic gods to serve as soldiers in a war for all creation, alloying the best traits of dragons and the mortal races.
Millenia later, these proud and mighty drakelings still endure, forming tight-knit clans bound by honour and inheritance. Some clans serve the gods that forged them, or worship true living dragons. Others live according to their own proud creed, acting as fearsome mercenary bands or isolationist lords of their own communal lairs.
Storied across the world, dragonborn are a rare sight, and often met with awe or fear when they venture among the other civilized races. Such a reaction does not disquiet them. It is only natural, when faced with a dragon's majesty.
Mighty Wyrms
Dragonborn resemble nothing less than humanoid dragons. In ancient times they were said to possess the same wings, tails, and vibrant hues as true dragons, but many dismiss this as bragging. If it were ever true, the generations since have stripped them of their spare appendages and dulled their leathery scales to shades of tan, rust, grey, and green.
Tall and broad, the dragonborn are blessed with immense strength, and have hands and feet that more resemble talons than conventional hands. Many have crests or stripes that match the pure color of a true dragon, but only a few are fully clad in the brightness of their ancestors.
Dragon's Pride
The clans of the dragonborn stem from a history older than some continents, and occupy a religious devotion among their members. To embarass oneself is awful: to embarass the clan with poor conduct is a disgrace beyond measure, worthy of exile or execution.
Dragonborn prize perfection and drive, regarding even a slight flaw in handiwork or behavior as an unforgiveable embarassment. Failure is intolerable, and a drakeling will push itself past the point of reason to avoid it. If this proves insufficient, grueling training or penitence follows.
The constant need to improve drives every dragonborn, a pursuit hampered by the difficulty they face in asking for help. Only clanmates and worthy comrades can be approached for aid, and even then only in private.
Lords of Earth and Sky
The only legitimate reason for a dragonborn to join an adventuring band would be at the clan's direction, but many set out independently to avenge wounded pride or protect their clan against unseen threats, and return to a warm welcome or utter disgrace depending on their success.
Mavericks among the dragonborn might seek adventure to as an escape from shame, or simply abandon their clan to be free from its expectations.
Dragonborn Names
Dragonborn have personal names given at birth, but they put their clan names first as a mark of pride. A childhood name or nickname is often used among clutchmates as a descriptive term or a term of endearment. The name might recall an event or center on a habit.
- Male Names: Arjhan, Balasar, Bharash, Donaar, Ghesh. Heskan, Kriv, Medrash, Mehen, Nadarr, Pandjed, Patrin, Rhogar, Shamash, Shedinn, Tarhun, Torinn
- Female Names: Akra, Biri, Daar, Farideh, Harann, Flavilar, Jheri, Kava, Korinn, Mishann, Nala, Perra, Raiann, Sora, Surina, Thava, Uadjit
- Childhood Names: Climber, Earbender, Leaper, Pious, Shieldbiter, Zealous
- Clan Names: Clethtinthiallor, Daardendrian, Delmirev, Drachedandion, Fenkenkabradon, Kepeshkm olik, Kerrhylon, Kimbatuul, Linxakasendalor, Myastan, Nem monis, Norixius, Ophinshtalajiir, Prexijandilin, Shestendeliath, Turnuroth, Verthisathurgiesh, Yarjerit
Art Credit:
Kelli Renae Cairns
Dragonborn Traits
Your draconic heritage manifests in a variety of traits you share with other dragonborn.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age. Young dragonborn grow quickly. They walk hours after hatching, attain the size and development of a 10 year-old human child by the age of 3, and reach adulthood by 15. They live to be around 80.
Alignment. Dragonborn are usually lawful but tend to extremes of morality, making a conscious choice for one side or the other in the cosmic war between good and evil.
Size. Dragonborn are taller and heavier than humans, standing well over 6 feet tall and averaging almost 250 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Draconic Ancestry. Choose one type of dragon from the Draconic Ancestry table, which influences your other racial features as shown. If a racial feature requires a saving throw, the DC is (8 + your Charisma or Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus).
| Dragon | Damage Type | Feature | Breath Shape (Save) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black | Acid | Amphibious | Line (Dexterity) |
| Blue | Lightning | Darkvision | Line (Dexterity) |
| Brass | Fire | Darkvision | Line (Dexterity) |
| Bronze | Lightning | Amphibious | Line (Dexterity) |
| Copper | Acid | Mountainous | Line (Dexterity) |
| Gold | Fire | Amphibious | Cone (Dexterity) |
| Green | Poison | Amphibious | Cone (Constitution) |
| Red | Fire | Mountainous | Cone (Dexterity) |
| Silver | Cold | Mountainous | Cone (Constitution) |
| White | Cold | Darkvision | Cone (Constitution) |
Draconic Resistance. You have resistance to the damage type associated with your draconic ancestry.
Lair Heritage. You have the feature associated with your draconic ancestry:
- Amphibious. You can breathe both air and water, and gain a swimming speed of 30 feet.
- Darkvision. You can see in dim light as if it were bright light out to 60 feet, and in darkness as if it were dim light.
- Mountainous. You gain proficiency in the Athletics skill, and a climbing speed of 30 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Draconic.
Subrace. The draconic blood of the dragonborn expresses itself in a number of ways. Choose one of these subraces.
Elemental Dragonborn
You have developed the famed elemental breath of the dragons. Often, such dragonborn bear throat-wattles or colored crests, or exhale sparks elemental power.
Dragon Breath. You can use an action to exhale energy in the form of a 15 foot cone, or a 5 foot wide and 30 feet long line. Every creature in this area makes a saving throw.
A creature takes 2d6 damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on success. The damage increases by 2d6 when you reach 5th level (4d6), 11th level (6d6), and 17th level (8d6).
Your draconic ancestry determines the shape, damage type, and saving throw of your breath weapon. You must complete a short or long rest before you use it again.
Fearsome Dragonborn
You carry within yourself the mighty presence of the dragons, to be unleashed in a terrifying roar. These dragonborn are often horned, or have burning eyes.
Dragon Fear. You can use a bonus action on your turn to unleash a draconic roar, forcing every creature of your choice that can see or hear you within 30 feet to make a Wisdom saving throw.
A creature that fails this save becomes frightened of you for 1 minute. The creature can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself if it succeeds.
You must finish a long or short rest before you use this feature again.
Scaled Dragonborn
Your skin resembles the mighty armor plating of true dragons. It is craggy and impenetrable, often carved by your clan with ritualistic designs.
Dragon Hide. Your scales harden. You can calculate your AC as 13 + your Constitution or Dexterity modifier while you are not wearing armor, or if the armor you wear would grant a lower AC. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
Dragon Claws. You are proficient with your retractable claws, which you can use as sickles. Starting at 5th level, these claws deal an extra 1d4 damage of the type associated with your draconic ancestry.
Winged Dragonborn
You bear the wings of the dragons, a pair of limbs with a scaled membrane extending from your shoulders. These dragonborn are lithe, and often sport a small tail for balance.
Dragon Wings. You have a flying speed of 30 feet, which you can only use on your turn. Any armor you wear must be adapted to your wings.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Gnolls
“Listen!” said the Boy. “Where I come from there is no more fear. But there is a roaring and a bellowing and a cracking of bones. And sometimes there is silence when, lolling on your thrones, your slaves adore you.”
A sudden ambush accompanied by cackling laughter. Bodies stripped from battlefields in the night. Vicious, iron-willed assaults that scatter shieldwalls in a howling charge. Looming, hunched figures draped in rags, cutting a swathe through bustling markets as their snouts sniff at exotic treats. A dark heritage, unforgotten and unashamed.
Eaters of the Dead
Tall, hunched, and tough as old boots with much the same odour, gnolls resemble little more than stooping, bipedal hyenas. Also called hyenafolk and cacklefiends, their race has won few friends, and looks for none.
Gnoll fur is short and bristly, and ranges through greys and browns to fine golds, usually speckled by spots or cut through with stripes. A longer mane of hair runs down a gnoll's spine from the center of its brow, often dyed or braided.
A gnoll's jaws can crush bone and dent metal, and any broken teeth quickly regrow. If a gnoll grins, it might as well be drawing a blade from its sheathe.
Demonic Footsoldiers
Gnolls are unnatural creatures, engineered from hyena stock to serve as the footsoldiers of a demon prince, and the mark of their terrible origins still lingers on the whole race.
Every aspect of the gnoll species can be traced back to their role as Abyssal conscripts, from their swift growth and short lifespan to their natural aggression and constant hunger. Yet when their master fled into the Infinite Layers, they were abandoned without a backwards glance.
Few gnolls are sentimental enough to feel shame over these origins. Many still worship their demonic creator as a great ancestor, but even those who outright reject his works feel no particular redemptive urge.
Power from the Pack
Gnolls were bred to be soldiers, and without that structure quickly dissolve into packs of vicious nomads. Only those who maintain a brutal hierarchy can form a society of their own, however fascistic and warmongering.
Wracked by endless hunger and natural aggression, gnolls require their leaders to weather near-constant probing for weakness. A gnoll ruler may surround herself with cronies, but she will only respect a rival.
This mentality causes friction when dealing with cultures where a mere bloodline or scrap of paper demands respect. Even the formal titles employed by other races are usually regarded as preening; gnoll rulers adopt them for foreign dealings with some embarassment.
Female and male gnolls differ little in any regard, though the former tend to be somewhat larger, and are usually regarded as better-suited to command.
Scavenger's Soul
The gnoll's appetite for flesh is perhaps their most infamous trait. Gnolls strip battlefields clean, often snacking on fallen friends and foes even as they appropriate their gear and valuables or collar the living as slaves.
Some packs consider their appetite a way to honor the dead, but most gnolls are just unsqueamish recyclers without an ounce of sentimentality. They seldom discard anything, and prefer to repair or reuse what they can.
Gnolls are utilitarian and mercenary, and consider honor or glory to be nonsense ideas. They value results over reputation, and material pleasures over moral satisfaction.
Gnoll Names
Young gnolls attract nicknames like flies, the best of which survives to adulthood. These names are unisex and Abyssal, with hard opening consonants suited to snarling muzzles.
Gnolls do not have family names, but those who join a larger warhost or foreign pack usually adopt an epithet to distinguish themselves. These often seem self-deprecating to outsiders, playing to the gnollish sense of humour.
Male or Female Gnoll Names: Dagnyr, Dhyrn, Ghasyri, Ghyrryn, Gnara, Gnasc, Hyra, Lhoryn, Lhyra, Nny, Sorgnyn, Shynzi, Shyrla, Synta, Tarnyra, Tyrno, Toryc, Yrgna
Gnoll Nicknames: the Blind, Crawler, the Earkeeper, the Faithless, the Hobgoblin (don't ask), the Lady, the Nobody, the Pawn, the Redbreast, Sorrow, the Third, Three-Claws
Gnoll Traits
Your gnoll character has certain traits stemming from its demonic taint and scavenger heritage.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2.
Age. Gnolls rarely live longer than 30 years, but mature to adulthood in their first few years, and show no signs of age until a sudden collapse in their last year of life.
Alignment. Gnolls tend toward Chaotic Evil. They respect personal proficiency over grand structures, and have no problem with casual cruelty. A gnoll likes to know where they stand in the pack, and their probing of these limits is often mistaken for senseless aggression by other races.
Size. Gnolls normally stand between 7 and 8 feet tall, even in their characteristic hunched posture, and weigh around 300 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Bite. You are proficient with your bone-crushing bite, a simple melee weapon that deals 1d6 piercing damage.
Brutal Politics. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill, a fundamental aspect of any gnoll hierarchy.
Carrion Eater. You have immunity to disease, well-used to consuming mouldering corpses and worse. As part of a short rest, you can bolster your vitality by feeding on the corpse of another creature. When you complete the rest, you regain hit points equal to the creature's hit die + your Constitution modifier. Once you use this feature, you must complete a long rest before you can use it again.
Darkvision. Your demonic blood grants you superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Abyssal. Gnolls are born with an instinctive grasp of the tongue of demons.
Subrace. There are many variants of the gnoll, as their race adapts quickly to different roles and environs. Choose one of these subraces.
Cult Gnoll
As a cult gnoll, you were not born naturally, but created through fell magical rituals. A common practice among tribal followers of Yeenoghu, but regarded as a desperate measure in more stable gnoll societies, your heritage makes you aggressive and unbalanced, quick to laugh or snarl.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Rampage. When you score a critical hit or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on your turn, you can use a bonus action to move up to half your speed and make a bite attack.
Spotted Gnoll
As a spotted gnoll, you are cunning and subversive, able to easily mimic others. A race adapted to the savannah, the spotted gnoll has a reputation for banditry and barter. The packs of Shaar in Faerun are spotted gnolls, as are the Flotsam swamp-dwellers of Dragonlance.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Butcher's Lure. You know the minor illusion cantrip, and can cast it without components. You can only use it to create illusory sounds, but other creatures have disadvantage on checks to determine they are illusions. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.
Trickster. You have proficiency in the Deception skill, and know one extra language of your choice.
Tearer Gnoll
As a tearer gnoll, you are swift and decisive, a predatory scout. Also known as strand gnolls, the tearers have longer, darker coats than their kin, often deliberately matted into dreadlocks. The Hordelands of Faerun are populated by nomadic tearer gnolls, as is the Desolation in Dragonlance.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Chaser. Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.
Snapping Jaws. Your bite gains the Finesse property, and you can use it for two-weapon fighting as though it were a Light weapon held in one hand.
Goblins
“Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world... for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them.”
A great wolf settles down as its master approaches; it could snap up the goblin in one bite, but it has learned to fear the whip and love the reward. Sour-skinned raiders creep into town, headed for the black market with wagons of living chattel. A vicious assassin half the height of a human lashes out with poisoned daggers, darting back between the legs of her mercenary comrades.
Vicious Little Beasts
Infamous across the world as slavers, raiders, and criminal nuisances, goblins are the smallest and weakest of the goblinoids. By necessity, they are also the most creative and cruel. Far from the disciplined martial culture of hobgoblins or the thuggish self-assurance of bugbears, the average goblin is a born opportunist, a coward willing to gamble what little it has on the chance of improving its lot.
There are few things weaker than a goblin, so the tiny terrors learn to get their kicks in wherever possible. A goblin likes nothing more than seeing a giant trip and fall, and will happily dig a traphole to help it on its way. More assertive goblins learn to bully and manipulate those stronger than them, the goblin equivalent of deft leadership.
Slave Drivers
Goblins are small and scrawny humanoids with batlike ears, greasy scrags of hair, and sharp needle teeth. Their hairless skins range in hue from burnt red through to bright green, and they sport broad noses in a variety of shapes, most commonly snouts or hooks.
A goblin's beady eyes are blessed with excellent night vision, which they use as night-raiders and cave-dwellers. They tend toward dark, tightly clustered homes, where they can more easily escape large predators and angry guards.
Incaution and brutality mean that the death rate among goblins is tremendous, matched only by their prodigious birth rate; goblin matriachs bring forth whole litters in the time it takes for a single human to enter the world.
Life is Cheap
Goblin society is brutal and indulgent, founded on the idea that every goblin is owned by another. A goblin tribe is a pyramid of slaves, growing steadily in status and value, with the autocratic ruler of the tribe collared only by the gods.
A goblin's caste dictates their value (in every sense), and is nigh-impossible to escape. From irreplaceable artisans and shamans to the scavengers and farmhands at the bottom of the heap, each caste relishes the opportunity to dominate its lessers, and even the lowest goblin will lord it over the tribe's tamed animals and foreign chattel.
Life is cheap and power is precious, a philosophy that has given goblins a reputation as heartless beast-tamers and slave-breakers, for whom no deal is too underhanded or cheap. It's one they relish.
Lonely at the Bottom
Goblin adventurers are rare, and most commonly feature as mercenaries without a tribe of their own, willing to act as a guide or footpad for coin. Such hirelings wield expertise like a club, anxious to ensure that they are indispensable.
Others have reasons beyond greed for leaving their tribe. Criminals who were slandered by a rival or stole a valuable item may be exiled (or flee, more likely), seeking refuge as a bottom feeder among other races.
Lower-caste goblins have little to lose by fleeing, and those who survive the world beyond can find the freedom to grow and change (and acquire slaves of their own). Similarly, those goblins who convert to a foreign god must depart the tribe before their heresy is found out.
Goblin Names
Goblins are born in large litters, and do not receive names until adulthood. At this point they are given a name by the head of their caste. It is the only gift they are ever likely to receive, and often comes with a double-edged meaning.
The name of a goblin's tribe is separate from its own, unlike the communal clan or family names of other races.
Male Goblin Names: Brak, Brokko, Frik, Graf, Grom, Odgit, Razdunk, Sazsel, Skarsnik, Snargit, Tekzik
Female Goblin Names: Bliztik, Grezzlik, Grikkin, Grulsik, Kosko, Pisarek, Revilgaz, Screetch, Shekka, Snagla, Tinnit
Goblin Tribe Names: Batwing, Grotag, Lavastep, Manag, Redface, Spiderbite, Tuktuk, Unkul, Wolfward
Art Credit:
Defiance Game Studio
Goblin Traits
Your goblin character has a number of features born from the bullying savagery of its heritage.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age. Goblins reach adulthood at age 8, and typically live up to 60 years.
Alignment. Goblins are typically neutral evil, as they focus on their own needs above all else, and balance order and freedom as twin aspects of domination.
Size. Goblins are between 3 and 4 feet tall and weigh between 40 and 80 pounds. Your size is Small.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You have improved vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Nimbleness. You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.
Subjugation. You have learned to dominate those weaker than you, be they subordinates or beasts. You gain proficiency in your choice of the Animal Handling or Intimidation skills.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.
Subrace. Goblins exist in several varieties. Choose one of these subraces.
Plains Goblins
Perhaps the most widespread variety of goblin, these squat slavers build abusive empires and vicious bandit camps on the back of forced labor and opportunistic backstabbing. Their skin tends toward sour yellows, but the plains goblins welcome all under their banner; the more bodies the better.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Hasty Escape. When another creature hits you with an opportunity attack, you can use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your AC against that attack, potentially causing it to miss.
Slaver Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the net, spear, war pick, and whip.
Cave Goblins
Infamous for their enthusiastic and destructive creativity, green-skinned tinker goblins are often expelled from their subterranean homes to wander the road as peddlers, or conscripted into the workshops of warlike kingdoms. Blessed with natural intelligence and a lack of common sense, only a high birth rate keeps cave goblins from going extinct.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Clever Device. You have proficiency with tinker's tools. You can use these and spend 1 hour and 10 gp worth of materials to construct a Tiny device (AC 5, 1 hp). A character can use this device to cast druidcraft, prestidigitation, or thaumaturgy with the Use an Object action, producing a set effect chosen from those cantrips upon creating it: clean an object, light a candle, amplify the user's voice, and so on.
You can maintain a number of these devices up to your proficiency bonus at once, and a device stops functioning after 24 hours away from you. You can dismantle the device to reclaim the materials used to create it.
Industrial Hazards. You have resistance to acid damage.
Ash Goblins
Those goblins that dwell near volcanoes have a stretched build and a dour temperament, with long spindly arms that are used to clamber up trees and crags. Their skin ranges in color from clay brown to slate blue and is studded with nodules of bone. This distinctive appearance results from a foul diet that includes ground-up, magically-infused rock.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Brachiation. You have a climbing speed of 30 feet.
Grit. You have resistance to psychic damage. In addition, you can calculate your AC as 11 + your Constitution or Dexterity modifier while you are not wearing armor, or if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Hobgoblins
“The Way of the Warrior is found in death. Whenever one must choose between life and death, you must move toward death. There is no other answer. Advance with determination.
To say that dying is foolish if it occurs before achieving one's goals is the flippant attitude of sophisticates. Everyone wants to live. Everyone has plans for the future. But to choose life over your goals is nothing but cowardice.”
Banners wave like clouds and drums rumble like thunder as the army marches forth, keeping perfect step on pain of death. A blood-red exile scowls at the undisciplined revelry on display in the tavern, nose flushing blue as his new comrades drag him in. The lone warrior holds his post, swinging a goblin blade and refusing to give an inch of ground even while the uncountable horde engulfs him.
Way of the Warrior
Militaristic beyond compare, hobgoblins are proud to live (and hope to die) as part of a glorious, endless conquest. Their culture is one of strict order and hierarchy, where rank and proper conduct trump all other considerations, including practicality and compassion.
There is no finer thing than to be a hobgoblin, no greater cause than the commands of their mighty legions, and no nobler end than dying to uphold the clan's honor. These are the values drilled into every hobgoblin since birth.
To be a hobgoblin is to present an iron face to the world, for while failure can be redeemed with revenge, weakness is a disgrace beyond measure.
Better Red Than Dead
Hobgoblins are the middle children of the goblinoid races. They have the same pointed ears, wide mouths, and prominent snouts as their cousins, but stand only slightly shorter and broader than most humans.
Beetling brows provide a reputation for scowls that is only partly deserved, while thick hair and prominent canines give rise to such nicknames as "the red wolves of war".
Hobgoblin skin ranges from vibrant yellows to dark reds, with a texture like soft leather and extremities that flush blue when impassioned. Those hobgoblins with permanent flushes are thought to be blessed in spirit and virility.
No Quarter Given
Each hobgoblin nation is a legion, governed by military hierarchy. Each hobgoblin clan is a regiment, contributing to, guided by, and competing within the traditions of their legion. Orders are to be followed without qualm, and glory – won through art, construction, discovery, but above all victory – is to be their highest aspiration.
Hobgoblins take pride in their race and history, and defend its honor with relentless fury. Other species are considered unrefined, but hobgoblins are skilled at presenting a polite, if coldly stoic, face to the world. Otherwise, the inevitable cycle of interregimental revenge would tear legions apart.
Hobgoblin worship is focused on the clan's fallen soldiers. Greater heroes receive more specific tribute, and even the goblin gods are worshipped as exceptional warriors who died with such glory that they reached the divine planes.
Cry Havoc
While martial training and a civilized reputation makes hobgoblins the most common goblinoid adventurers, few are ever happy about it. Exiles banished for compassion or cowardice struggle through a world overrun by flippant chaos, while the bitter survivors of lost legions grudgingly seek mercenary work or fight to earn a new rank.
Some hobgoblins must stoop to adventuring as part of their legionary duties. The experience inevitably changes them: many are left discomfited by how much they've come to respect their barbaric comrades.
Hobgoblin Names
Hobgoblin names are similar to those of dwarves, consisting of a given name and a clan name in that order. However, a hobgoblin's rank and role are far more important. 5th-Rank Spear-Leader Meraav Naph Taal would place full emphasis on her title over her name.
The absence of a rank is a silent, implicit badge of exile and shame, and such hobgoblins are left feeling naked. Those forced to work outside of a conventional hierarchy often awkwardly wrangle whatever rank they can.
Hobgoblin Female Names: Bauchana, Baatu, Ekhaas, Hulaguu, Maazike, Meraav, Seighee, Vorooke
Hobgoblin Male Names: Chaghain, Dagii, Drazen, Galtai, Haruuc, Jiirix, Kamvuul, Leemen, Oaan, Rhaano
Hobgoblin Clan Names: Buk Haara, Dar Kuun, Fel Maash, Ghal Daar, Mar Guul, Naan Ven, Nor Ekh, Tai Khaal
Hobgoblin Traits
Your hobgoblin character has the following racial traits, the product of harsh training and goblinoid heritage.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength, Dexterity, Constitution and Intelligence scores increase by 1.
Age. Hobgoblins mature at the same rate as humans but have somewhat shorter lifespans. Only rare hobgoblins exceed the age of 70, though it's considered preferable to die in the field.
Alignment. Hobgoblin society is built on fidelity to a rigid, unforgiving code of conduct that stresses their superiority above all else. As such, they tend toward lawful evil.
Size. Hobgoblins are between 5 and 6 feet tall and weigh between 150 and 200 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Hobgoblin Superiority. You have one superiority die, which is a d6. You can spend this superiority die on the trait granted by your subrace, and regain it when you finish a short or long rest. You can use this superiority die interchangeably with any granted by a class feature.
Warrior Culture. You are proficient with light armor, shields, and two martial weapons of your choice.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.
Subraces. Hobgoblins take pride in the uniformity of their race, but each legion drills its children with a different sense of the undeniable virtues of the hobgoblin. Choose one of these subraces.
Conquerer Legion
Your legion was an edifice of competing officers, either a warmongering nation or an army in search of a home. You were trained in displays of careful refinement and martial skill, the better to impress superiors and devastate enemies.
Arts of War. You gain proficiency with one musical instrument or gaming set of your choice.
Hobgoblin Prowess. You learn two maneuvers of your choice from among those available to the Battle Master archetype (Player's Handbook, pp. 73). If a maneuver requires your target to make a saving throw, the saving throw DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength or Dexterity modifier (your choice).
Imperial Legion
Your legion was more settled than most, using slave labor to administer a land rich in resources. With neighbors too strong or distant to easily assault, you were taught to uphold the pride of your race above all.
Perfect Discipline. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.
Hobgoblin Dignity. When you make a Charisma check, you can spend your superiority die and add the number rolled to the d20 roll. You can do so after seeing the initial d20 roll, but before the DM describes the result.
Vigilant Legion
Your legion was plagued by foes, whether rebellious vassals or treacherous rivals, and lived as much on pride as food. You were taught that constant vigilance and tireless dedication were necessities in a world that conspired against you.
Implacable. You need only four hours of sleep each day, and can spend up to four hours keeping watch during a long rest.
Hobgoblin Readiness. When you roll initiative and are not incapacitated, you can spend your superiority die and add the number rolled to your result. You can do so after seeing the initial d20 roll, but before the DM describes the result.
If are surprised when you use this feature, you can act normally on your first turn.
Kobolds
“Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself... In spite of the pain, his first feeling was one of relief. There was nothing to be afraid of any more. He was a terror himself now and nothing in the world but a knight (and not all of those) would dare to attack him. He could get even with Caspian and Edmund now...”
Screams echo through the dungeon corridors, those injured by trap-shrapnel slowing their comrades as an ambush is launched from hidden corridors. A scaled god slumbers amidst its treasure, waking to find a fortress dug around it and hissing hosannas sung in its name. An underclass of reptilian laborers spills from the sewer gates each night, shunned and cursed as they navigate the night with wide cave-dweller's eyes.
A World of Giants
Small and slender, kobolds have thick digitigrade legs ending in clawed feet, bodies covered in smooth scales, and a lithe tail that sways back and forth as they move.
A long, snub-nosed snout lined with sharp teeth continues this reptilian theme, and though most kobolds have vestigial horns, crests, or ear-like flaps of skin, it would be extreme flattery to compare one to a dragon.
Flattery a kobold would encourage, for a great and terrible tyrant lurks within each of their tiny frames. The kobold's draconic ego has warred with its survival instincts for millenia, and though they've developed a reputation for cowardice and groveling submission, there are few things crueler than a kobold with the advantage.
For the most part, however, kobolds content themselves with admiring power from outside, burnishing it like a golden cup and basking in its reflected glory. A kobold's admiration is hard to shake, once won, and blinding in intensity.
Be the dragon. And if you can't, love the dragon.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Slaves to the Dragons
Kobolds believe themselves true children of the dragons, born from drops of their blood at the dawn of time. Indeed, most kobolds are possessed of an instinctive awe of the great drakes, and serve their every whim with a religious fervor. Many of the elaborate dungeons that guard dragon nests began with a simple kobold tunnel.
Kobolds admire strength even outside dragons, adopting new idols from the mighty and the cruel. Sphinxes, krakens, hydras, and even stranger monsters can win a kobold's undying devotion, finding themselves co-opted into a role of patron and guardian in exchange for sycophantic service.
Some kobold adventurers strike out from this role, resenting these monstrous gods. Others simply tag along, idolizing a fellow adventurer as dauntless and powerful.
Diggers of Dungeons
Kobolds live in patrilineal clans called gens, led by the oldest of the brood in the absence of a dragon. Each kobold has their own specialized role which they guard jealously, even against co-operation or assistance.
Though kobolds place absolute faith in their superiors, they are more stand-offish with peers, and old comrades hardly hesitate to sacrifice each other for the gens. Perhaps due to their origins as draconic servitors, kobolds greatly respect established rules, no matter how arbitrary. This can lead to odd conflicts if a gens is assimilated into a larger society.
Male and female kobolds do not differ in size, though other races can distinguish female dragonspawn by their shorter horns and wider hips.
Something to Prove
A kobold's admiration is fundamentally rooted in envy, however good-natured. Each kobold is acutely aware of their own weakness, and so they seek to hide in numbers, impress others with pomp, and take pains to repay any slights when they have the chance.
This, more than their hatred of gnomes (shared by many civilized beings) is the reason for their scarcity in urban society. Kobolds don't forgive or forget, and their wrath is unreasonably vicious... when they feel safe to unleash it.
Kobold Names
Kobolds usually have short, snappy names, with the dizzying heights of two syllables reserved for females. Anything longer is far too presumptuous.
All kobolds in a gens share the same second name, one signifying their clan. It usually refers to their home or master, though gens are known to adopt names given by their enemies if they find them suitably fearsome.
Male Kobold Names: Arx, Dok, Dron, Eks, Erit, Gar, Gon, Hox, Irt, Kin, Molo, Ram, Rung, Sik, Sniv, Tes, Urak, Varn
Female Kobold Names: Ancal, Driri, Ett, Galax, Hisil, Kashak, Katla, Lak, Ohsoss, Rezzic, Rotom, Sagin, Tintag
Kobold Gens Names: Bloodstone, Cliff-Watcher, Copper Scale, Drakeguard, Gate Watch, Gnomefoe, Owl Tamer, Red Foot, Swampsnake, Treestump, White Fang
Kobold Traits
Your kobold character has certain traits stemming from its draconic aspirations and reptilian ancestry.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age. Kobolds mature quickly, and can live to be "great wyrms" more than a century old. However, many kobolds perish before they reach the end of their first decade.
Alignment. Kobolds are self-obsessed and vindictive, but tend toward extremes of devoted loyalty and obsess over rules. They therefore tend toward Lawful Evil.
Size. Kobolds are between 2 and 4 feet tall and weigh between 25 and 35 pounds. Your size is Small.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You are born to life in tunnels, granting improved vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Dungeonborn. You've needed to disarm traps and make your way into sealed spaces almost since birth. You are proficient with thieves' tools.
Naturally Stealthy. You can attempt to hide even when you are obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Draconic. Kobolds pass down the tongue of dragons through their clans.
Subrace. Kobolds follow their masters wherever they go, and as a result have been blessed, bred, and beaten into a variety of specialized breeds. Choose one of these subraces.
Sensitive Souls
This version of kobolds does not include the Sunlight Sensitivity trait, as it is often difficult for DMs to handle and varies wildly in applicability.
If you wish to play a kobold truly shy of sunlight (particularly suitable for a tunnel kobold), you can include the following additional traits as a set for your kobold character:
Opportunism. Once on your turn, you can gain advantage on your attack roll if your target was hit with a melee attack since the end of your last turn.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Cliff Kobold
Also known as urds, these kobolds are blessed with draconic wings, which bear aloft bodies even more slight than a normal kobold, with curved snouts and whiplike tails. Some gens of kobold develop this trait naturally, after generations spent dwelling in mountainside caves and hollow cliff faces.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Gliding Wings. You have a flying speed of 30 feet, which you can only use during your turn. Any armor you wear must be adapted to your wings.
Hoard Kobold
A few proud gens of kobold are bred directly by dragons, or burrow so deeply into an extreme environment that draconic ancestry is forced to the fore. These kobolds are stouter than most of their skinny race, and tend toward brightly colored skin and pronounced crests.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Draconic Resistance. You have resistance to one damage type of your choice: acid, cold, fire, lightning, and poison.
Hoard Hauler. Your carrying capacity doubles. This does not affect the maximum weight you can lift, push, or drag.
Tunnel Kobold
The most common variety of kobold, known for occupying dungeons or digging out their own. Inventiveness is a prerequisite of surviving in such environments, and the tunnel kobold's wide eyes, large paws, and flared nostrils let them live deeper in the darkness.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Cunning Ploy. You can use your action to distract every enemy within 10 feet of your current position. Until the start of your next turn, the first attack roll made against each of these creatures has advantage. You must finish a short or long rest before using this feature again.
Superior Darkvision. Your darkvision has a radius of 120 feet.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Kuo-Toa
“We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.”
The wet gurgling songs of an aquatic cult echo up from the moonlit bay, praising the virtues of fantastical gods. Bound up in rubbery leathers and drinking from a hefty waterflask, the fishman fishmonger trundles into town with his prodigious morning's catch. Bulbous eyes stare from the river at a passing caravan, webbed fingers gripping tightly onto spears in preparation for an ambush.
Comfort In Madness
A race of fishlike humanoids, the kuo-toa were long ago driven from mainland lakes and coasts by the expansion of younger, more aggressive races.
Forced to the dark corners of the world and tormented by the monsters that dwelled there, the kuo-toa were scattered, broken, and driven mad. It took centuries to reform their society around a solid seabed foundation of faith.
Faith in what isn't always entirely clear, but those friendly to the kuo-toa today know them as waterbound tribes of eccentric spiritualists. Others consider the fishfolk (or deep ones, or murlocs, or dagonians) to be mad raving menaces to anyone who encroaches on their ill-defined territory.
The Hand of Divinity
The spiritual potential of the kuo-toa made them perfect prey for dark entities that feed on the thoughts of living beings. Minds cracked open, they developed otherworldly senses that allowed them to escape their tormentors.
Unable to repair their shattered sense of reason, the kuo-toa turned to blind faith, adopting or inventing a dizzying array of gods and taboos that could protect them from this terrifying new world, their collective psyches endowing superstition with real power.
Attack of the Fishmen
Squat fishmen with slimy skin and broad heads occupied mostly by a wide mouth and two bulbous eyes, the kuo-toa are considered repulsive by most human races. Indeed, their own concept of romance mostly involves marinating in a spawning pool, rather than actual courting.
Kuo-toa societies revolve around their gods, whether the tyrannical theocracies of the Underdark or the patchwork pantheons of the island-dwelling fishfolk. It is a rare kuo-toa that will deny a deity worship, even if their strictures clash with their personal morality or desires. As a result, many of the darker tales of kuo-toa spring from those who were gulled into worshipful submission by an elder horror or demon.
Though not evangelical, the kuo-toa eagerly invite those nearby to join them in their rituals, that they might share the blessings and protection of one god or another. A kuo-toa who insists on arranging the party's boots into a holy symbol before bed is simply being helpful.
Those kuo-toa who find themselves living in another society usually form their own self-contained enclaves bound by a distinct set of traditions, opaque to the outside world.
The Search for Meaning
Kuo-toa adventurers are most often driven by the mighty faith common to their entire race. Following an edict or prophecy or dream that they believe stemmed from their god, these prophets leave their homes behind in search of a goal that could be vague or maddeningly specific.
Other kuo-toa adventurers are simply apostates, cast out by their clade for adhering to a heresy that clashes with their own dogma. Seeking the truth behind their theology, or (more rarely) abandoning religion in favor of the material pursuits that can be won by daring adventurers, such as treasure, authority, or mystical power.
Kuo-Toa Names
Kuo-toa names usually resemble sharp cries or shushing whispers, often taken directly from the noises most often made toward a particular spawn as it matures.
Kuo-toa spawning rites make determining familial descent nigh-impossible, and kuo-toa seldom take true surnames. Instead, they refer to themselves as children of their favored god. In isolated tribes, this might be a single shared deity. In multicultural cities, two kuo-toa in the same house might happily take the titles of Moradin and Lolth.
Kuo-Toa Names: Arggl, Brakbrak, Dobuul, Druud, Floonl, Klahl, Nakki, Pooldool, Plakni, Srapp, Shuushar, Yooyu
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Kuo-Toa Traits
Your kuo-toa character has various innate characteristics, bred into it by its mad and squamous ancestry.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. Kuo-toa reach physical maturity within 5 years, and mental maturity by the end of their first decade. They seldom live longer than 50 years, however.
Alignment. Kuo-toa are superstitious and gullible, but have little in the way of genuine empathy. They tend toward Neutral Evil.
Size. Kuo-toa grow to be between 4 feet and 5 feet tall and weigh an average of 160 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swimming speed of 30 feet.
Amphibious. You can breathe air and water.
Blind Faith. You can cast the augury spell, but only as a ritual.
Superior Darkvision. You have wide pelagic eyes, granting improved vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Otherworldly Perception. You can sense the presence, but not the location, of any creature within 30 feet of you that is invisible or on the Ethereal Plane.
Slippery. You have advantage on checks to avoid or escape from being grappled or restrained.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Undercommon. The kuo-toa co-opted the tongue of their most frequent partners in trade and war, the drow.
Deep Kuo-Toa
One of the cultures that call the Underdark their home, the deep kuo-toa are the most widespread and powerful (relatively) of their race, serving an array of incomprehensible divinities. These fishfolk often seem oddly bloated, with smooth and rubbery skin. Hidden away in the dark, they rely on blind faith even more keenly than most.
Recommended Backgrounds: As a deep kuo-toa, you are likely to be an acolyte or hermit.
Island Kuo-Toa
The kuo-toa most commonly accepted as civilized trading partners, these eccentric island dwellers are broader than the average fishfolk, with colorful dorsal fins and bright, gleaming scales adorned by religious tattoos. Their extensive and rickety lagoon towns are packed with babbling life.
Recommended Backgrounds: As an island kuo-toa, you are likely to be an sailor or guild artisan.
River Kuo-Toa
Viciously territorial after centuries of persecution, the cavebound camps of the river kuo-toa are known for turning to banditry. More tenacious than their cousins, with rough, dull scales and wiry frames, these kuo-toa use the water to launch gargling ambushes on caravans and trespassers.
Recommended Backgrounds: As a river kuo-toa, you are likely to be an outlander or soldier.
Sensitive Souls
This version of the kuo-toa does not include the Sunlight Sensitivity trait, as it is often difficult for DMs to handle and varies wildly in applicability.
If you wish to play a dagonian truly plagued by sunlight (particularly suitable for a deep kuo-toa), you can include the following additional traits as a set for your kuo-toa character:
Aquatic Ambush. You gain advantage on weapon attacks made against creatures without a swim speed while you are both submerged.
Sunlight Sensitivity. While in sunlight, you have disadvantage on attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Minotaurs
“In the Minotaur’s world it is far easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of cracked ice, than to accept tenderness and return it.”
A bloodthirsty warrior charges a shield wall, horned head lowered as he bellows a contemptuous challenge. Proud raiders gamble aboard their ships, betting rich spoils in elaborate games and dares. A great beast stands tall within the temple of a mighty cult, worship and offerings heaped onto her broad shoulders.
Head of a Demon
Born into the world by forbidden rites that melded powerful horned beasts with the intelligence of civilized species, the race of minotaurs is proud and domineering, assured of their superiority over lesser, merely natural races.
The cults that perform such rituals raise their bestial champions as caged totems, monstrous weapons fed on blasphemers, but minotaurs are seldom content to be merely a tool. Those who escape forge their own paths and alliances, and from such stories are born the founding myths of horned half-beast kingdoms.
Minotaurs regard their natural drive to conquer as something to be mastered, a hunger that consumes the weak. Only those who harness their arrogance and ambition with a strict code of honor can truly achieve greatness.
Arrogance and Mastery
Minotaurs are blessed with supreme confidence, raised to be deeply competitive. They seldom accept a loss, and will often make excuses for defeat. Minotaur etiquette therefore tries to redirect disputes with games, puzzles, and other trials. A game's rules are particularly useful for channeling this bullishness, and most minotaurs follow a personal code or familial code to guard against their own fury.
Treachery is not unknown to minotaurs: a strict personal code need not comply with any wider view of morality. Still, cheating is considered deeply suspicious, a display of poor self-control that speaks ill of the bull's other abilities. While some bull-nations worship power unspoken, others proudly proclaim that might means right, running their society on a system of open contests and subtle plots.
Bestial Urges
Minotaurs vary widely in appearance, incorporating features from a range of horned beasts into a humanoid form. Bovine creatures are by far the most common template, but hooves or feet, the number of fingers, and the presence of a muzzle all depend purely on its proud ancestry.
One common factor is a minotaur's violent temperament. In addition to a strict code of behavior, each minotaur culture develops communal ways to bleed off this anger: berserk performances, passionate festivals, and even simple pit fights. Others resort to hermitage and ritual, regarding bloodthirst as something to be ruled, not satisfied.
Aloof, Not Alone
The adventuring life is perfect for a minotaur with something to prove. Questants try to outdo their ancestors, young bulls are bound into unwise oaths, and hoofed nobles venture forth to settle bets and dares. Those who break the mould tend to be mercenaries or missionaries, rejecting the brutish honor-code of their home for better or worse.
Firstborn minotaurs raised in the shrines of horned gods have less diverse attitudes. Some are loyal to their home, sent forth as agents of prophecy or revenge. The rest fled from holy captivity, escaping their labyrinth homes in search of something greater.
Minotaur Names
Minotaurs usually name their offspring after themselves, or a great hero in their ancestry, whose code the young minotaur must strive to uphold. Clan names work similarly, inherited from whichever horned paragon first forged the bloc.
Minotaurs raised by a cult tend to take its name, or the name of its leader, in place of a family name. Those with an even bigger ego than normal (or less attachment to those who raised them) will take the name of its god, instead.
Male Names: Asterion, Beliminorgath, Cinmac, Dastrun, Edder, Galdar, Hecariverani, Kyris, Tosher, Zurgas
Female Names: Ayasha, Calina, Fliara, Helati, Keeli, Kyri, Mogara, Sekra, Tariki, Telia
Clan Names: Athak, Bregan, Entragath, Kaziganthi, Lagrangli, Mascun, Orilg, Sumarr, Teskos, Zhakan
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Minotaur Traits
Your minotaur character possesses traits reflecting its bestial power.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2.
Age. Minotaurs reach adulthood at around the same age as humans, but a mature minotaur shows no sign of aging until the day it drops dead. Due to their unnatural origins, this time may come at age 40 or age 140: each minotaur simply does not know how long it might live.
Alignment. Their brutal physicality and disdain for weakness causes most minotaurs to trend toward evil, while their codes of honor or cult lore dispose them toward law.
Size. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Mighty Horns. You have a pair of powerful horns that grant you advantage on the Strength (Athletics) check to shove another creature. You can also use these horns as a war pick. You are proficient with this weapon, and it does not occupy your hands.
Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Rushing Trample. If you take the Dash action, you can use a bonus action on that turn to attempt to shove a creature.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common.
Subraces. A minotaur's origins have a great impact on their prowess. Choose one of the following subraces.
Labyrinth Minotaur
Many minotaurs are born from dark rites and animal-cults sponsored by the demon lord Baphomet, whose form they share. Transformed warriors or newborn half-bull children are raised as guards by these bloody cults. Those that escape are often agoraphobic, or deeply mistrust religion.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Darkvision. Demon blessings grant you superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Labyrinthine Recall. Whenever you make a Wisdom or Intelligence check that requires you to recall a passage you have travelled, you add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Abyssal.
Reaver Minotaur
These minotaurs formed their own society, escaping from the warpits that birthed them to establish an island haven on the principles of strength and honor. Disputes are settled in bloody combat and public contests, oaths are held inviolate above all, and betrayal is regarded as the darkest of crimes.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Conquerer's Virtue. You gain proficiency in the Athletics and History skills.
Sea Reaver. You gain proficiency with navigator’s tools and vehicles (water).
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Giant and one other language of your choice.
Sacred Minotaur
Not all minotaurs are the product of dark, secret cults. Those minotaurs reared by more acceptable faiths will sometimes bear the heads of horned beasts other than bulls, with fur of their god's sacred color. Taught from birth that they are the very image of their god, such minotaurs can be overbearing company.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Divine Presence. You gain proficiency in your choice of the Intimidation or Persuasion skills.
Sweep Aside. If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to attempt to shove a creature away from you.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Celestial.
Art Credit:
Paizo Publishing
Naga
“Buddha sat cross-legged for seven days, experiencing the bliss of freedom. Out of season arose a great cloud, bringing seven days of foul weather, so Mucalinda, the naga-king, left his home and circled Buddha seven times with his coils. He spread his great hood over Buddha's head, thinking to guard him against cold and heat, gadflies and mosquistoes, wind and sun, and the bites of lesser serpents.”
The delegation arrives on exquisitely-painted barges, its members slithering down the gangplank laden with gifts of rare medicine. Criminal prisoners are enraptured by the swaying dance of the river god's scaled adherents, unaware of the fate that awaits them. An archer draws back an arrow, strong tail wrapped around the trunk of her arboreal perch as her friends spread out below.
Kingdom of the Snake
Serpentine ancients with a history dating back to the oldest gods, the naga were gardeners of the primordial world. Great golden cities rose from the living rock, magic and science were molded as one, and early humans sought to emulate the serpent's power with horrific rites.
In the modern day these snakefolk have largely retreated from the world. Practicing a simpler, harmonious way of life, they have become equal parts revered myth and scaled bogeyman. Also known as lamia and dracaena, the naga balance patience and fascination, drawn inexorably to meddle and partake in the fleeting joys beyond their nest.
Serpent's Tongue
Enormous serpents with arms, expressive faces, and vaguely humanoid torsos, the naga are lithe and intelligent. Most naga feature broad hoods and snakelike snouts: the males have wider hoods and less elongated faces. Though not fully ectothermic, the scaled naga enjoy warmth when resting.
Naga move by swaying in an upright, undulating "dance", and accelerate by lowering their upper body to quickly writhe forward. Naga clothing is therefore light, and concentrated on the upper body -- the tail is occupied only by ornaments.
In the Balance
Naga are invested in harmony, above all things: balance of body and mind, desire and logic, earth and water, world and person. They see life as a series of symmetries that must be carefully guided into a sustainable equilibrium, where everything depends on everything else.
Even enemies or tragedies must be accepted as part of this balance, acknowledged and compensated for without anger. In practice, the search for harmony is seldom smooth. Naga quickly take to bad habits and addictions, and are often enchanted by the exotic novelty of other races, convinced that their life's imbalance is caused by the absence of some vital missing piece.
Snake in the Grass
The adventuring life is one of virtue for the naga, who can use it to practice personal balance under extreme circumstances, or seek to right some fearful assymetry that is poisoning the land itself.
Others are less selfless. No few naga are convinced that their race should return to its old place atop the world, while a naga frustrated by the placid philosophies of her nest might slither away to really make a difference. Young naga are often enticed to see the world by nothing but the sheer indulgent novelty of two-legged, warm-blooded races with a thousand different songs and spices.
Naga Names
Naga names are given on birth, and make extensive use of sibilance: harder sounds are associated with female names, and are rare even then.
As children are raised communally, seldom knowing their specific parents, a naga has no family name. Instead, they take a nest name referring to the constellation or omen under which they were born, tutored by those who have been fated to face similar trials on the journey to balance.
Naga Male Names: Akalash, Dazhmaar, Dejhasha, Karathresh, Naszjak, Ohraaki, Raksakas, Shahadei, Shalzuuru, Takshaka, Vaszuki, Yamaatha
Naga Female Names: Azshara, Graathslan, Kiiyoha, Myiah, Maafnasha, Radjavaa, Salmissra, Sthevess, Stheino, Szaalah, Vajz, Yharaali, Zenathaar
Naga Nest Names: Ajzagharor (Dragon of the Dawn), Dhatedhuaan (Rising Smoke), Dothail (Two Bullocks) Kaantha (Forked Path), Khajaana (Treasure Trove), Rashikshu (Apprentice), Ryaala (Chalice)
Art Credit:
Naga Traits
Your naga character's serpentine nature grants it the following traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age. Like humans, naga reach adulthood in their late teens. They show no signs of aging beyond that point except for growing longer, so in theory, a naga could live well over a century.
Alignment. Most naga pursue a neutral alignment, tending toward good or evil only if they abandon some aspect of the search for balance in favor of a more selfless or selfish view.
Size. Naga stand about 5 feet tall when upright, but the total length of their bodies, head to tail, ranges from 10 to as much as 20 feet. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Blindsight. You have blindsight within 5 feet of you, so long as you can taste and smell.
Constricting Tail. You have proficiency with your sharp fangs and long tail, simple melee weapons that deal 1d4 piercing and 1d6 bludgeoning damage, respectively. You can use your tail to grapple a creature without occupying your hands, and can make and control this grapple with Dexterity (Acrobatics) instead of Strength (Athletics).
Serpentine. Your long, legless body gives you a crawling speed of 40 feet while prone. The prone condition does not give creatures within 5 feet of you advantage on their attack rolls, but you cannot perform somatic components on a turn when you use your crawling speed. Any armor must be adjusted to suit your tail.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Naga. Some ancient nations of Naga speak Celestial or Draconic, instead of a language of their own.
Subrace. A few distinct sects of naga exist. Choose one of these subraces.
Fang Naga
With smooth, matte scales in natural hues from bone white to leaf green or sandy yellow, the fang naga are found in blistering desert-towns and steaming jungle-cities. A natural desire to experiment makes them skilled apothecaries, often approached as poisoners or court medics.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Dripping Fangs. Your fangs can inflict poison damage instead of piercing damage. You gain proficiency with the poisoner's kit.
Serpent's Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.
River Naga
Native to deep rivers and vast lakes, the river naga are soft-spoken and spiritual, with bright scales that shimmer like polished metal. They typically prefer fresh water, though seadwellers with brightly crests are known to populate ancient underwater cities of coral and gold.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
River Serpent. You can breathe air and water. Your crawling speed also provides all the benefits of a swimming speed.
Water Magic. You know the shape water cantrip (Xanathar's Guide to Everything, p. 164). You speak Aquan.
Witch Naga
Swamp-dwellers whose smooth dark snake-bodies have a slick, wet sheen, the witch naga employ illusions and trickery for both defense and entertainment. Unlike their kin, these serpentfolk possess "hair" of sorts: flexible strands of muscle hang from their heads, writhing like living serpent locks.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Natural Gambler. You have proficiency with one gaming set of your choice.
Swamp Glamor. You can cast the disguise self and enthrall spells at will without expending a spell slot. Starting at 3rd level, you can project a mien of horror or beauty: you learn the hold person and suggestion spells, and can cast one of them once without requiring material components or a spell slot. You must complete a long rest before you do so again. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Art Credit:
Square Enix
Orcs & Half-Orcs
“O people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you were not guilty of great sins, God would not have sent you a punishment like me.”
Horns blare as a hulking warband descends on a village, burning whatever they cannot seize. A child hits a sudden growth spurt, her broad shoulders and awkward frame inviting cruel nicknames from former friends. The questing knight strains against his enemy's blade, gray muscles bulging as he proves his virtue and strength.
Scourge of God
At the dawn of time, the gods divided up the world. The gods of the elves claimed the forests and seas, the dwarven gods seized the mountains and caves, and the human gods laid claim to the fields and plains. The orcish gods alone were left bereft, their children condemned to wander forever.
This is the first story of the orcs, often interwoven with tales of divine war or trickery, and it drives a culture that combines brutal, rapacious meritocracy with devotion to a dizzying array of gods. The orcs have divine license to claim all that the world denied them, from land to luxury, and those unwilling to fight them off deserve only contempt.
Among the more infamous aspects of orcish vitality is their ability to interbreed. While some races are known to create occasional hybrids, orcs seem almost universally fertile, capable of producing children with humans, dwarves, ogres, elves, demons, and more besides. This biological quirk is the origin of many dark stories concerning orcish warfare, not all of them untrue.
Muscle And Might
Orcs are tall humanoids with broad and heavy frames layered by bulging muscle and thick fat. Orcs are known for high cheekbones, pointed ears, heavy brows, and flat noses, but the most iconic orcish characteristic is a powerful, wide jawline, set with prominent tusks that curve upwards and may even protrude over the upper lip.
Orc skin ranges between shades of grey, from pale ash to dark slate. Tribes that have heavily interbred with other races may develop subdued hues of tan or green.
Half-orcs often inherit brighter shades of hair, eyes, or skin from their non-orc parent, with softer features and less exceptionally broad frames. However, they fully share in the notorious drive and vitality of their cousins, combining it with greater natural patience and attention to detail.
Suffer What They Must
Within orcish culture, it is the duty of the strong to educate and improve the weak. In most tribes, this manifests as relentless bullying and extracting tribute until the weaker party learns to stand up for itself or dies.
This is an attitude that plays poorly on a political stage, where orcish heralds dismiss the grievances of pillaged villages as the fault of their own complacency. Their own misfortune justified similarly: their many gods love them, so it is only natural that they test and punish their weakness.
Half-orcs form a resentful subculture in most lands, where they are presumed to be thugs and face stigma over the crimes, real or supposed, of their parents. Some defiantly adopt fragments of orcish culture, while others loathe and deny their ancestry at every turn.
Fear the Strong
Half-orc adventurers seldom stand out except in the most conservative regions of the world, but full-blooded orcs have more trouble moving freely. Some find it easier to adopt a "human name" and accept the paper-thin facade of being a half-orc, but in militant border-towns or sheltered cities even the sight of a visiting orc might cause a panic.
While orcs are welcome as mercenaries, orcish adventurers are often driven by some divine mission or prophecy, or are impetuous youths who have abandoned tribe or home to prove themselves in the world.
Orc Names
Orc tribes absorb elements from a tremendous variety of cultures, including the naming schemes of their current neighbours. The styles of orc names therefore vary greatly between generations.
An orc's family name refers to some great ancestral feat, such that founding a new family requires an act of similar renown to establish its patriarch or matriarch. An orc tribe generally takes the name of its ruling family.
Male Orc Names: Feng, Gell, Griggor, Henk, Holg, Imsh, Keth, Krusk, Mhurren, Ront, Shump, Thokk, Yaisog
Female Orc Names: Baggi, Bel, Draka, Emen, Engong, Kansif, Larga, Myev, Ownka, Sutha, Vansi, Volen, Yevelda
Orc Family Names: Bladebreaker, Demonbane, Firefist, Godson, Queenshand, Riverspite, Shatterspear, Wolfbrother
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Orc Traits
Your orc character has various natural abilities stemming from its powerful build and violent upbringing.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2.
Age. Orcs reach adulthood at age 12 and live up to 50 years.
Alignment. Orcs respect strength and prolificacy above all else, and believe weakness must be stomped out lest it infect an entire tribe. As such, they tend toward chaotic evil.
Size. Orcs are usually over 6 feet tall and weigh between 250 and 300 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Orcish. Orcish long ago adapted the Dwarvish alphabet to its own purposes, and is similarly full of hard consonants.
Subrace. Orcs have spread far and wide. Choose one of these subraces.
Mountain Orc
Defensible terrain is the primary concern for any orc tribe that establishes a nation of its own, for orcs see every neighbour as a rival to be tested or conquered. Proud and powerful, these orcs offer divine tribute on a colossal scale. The warlike northern orcs of Faerûn are mountain orcs, as are citizens of the Pomarj Empire in the Greyhawk setting.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Menacing. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill.
Savagery. You can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee attack.
Steppe Orc
Eons ago the orcish people were denied a home, and many tribes attribute a sacred signifance to nomadic life. Without a permanent home, these orcs are even more attuned to the gods that watch over them wherever they go. The gray orcs of Faerûn's Moonsea are steppe orcs, as are the isolationist Shadow Marches tribes in the Eberron setting.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Aggression. At the start of each of your turns, you can move up to 10 feet toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. This does not cost you any movement.
Nomadic. You gain proficiency in the Survival skill.
The Seed Is Strong
The majority of half-orcs are not first generation hybrids, but can trace their ancestry through orcs, humans, elves, dwarves, ogres, and any number of other races. "Half-orc" refers primarily to a child with clear orcish ancestry, whether a true hybrid or the result of genetics skipping a generation or two.
The extent to which orc-blood manifests itself in a child varies wildly. Some half-orcs can pass as bulky ahumans, elves, or dwarves with poor dentistry, and may use the game traits of that race instead of a half-orc. Others exemplify the blood of their orcish parent, and can use the game traits of orcs.
Half-Orc Traits
Your half-orc character has certain traits deriving from its orc ancestry.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
Age. Half-orcs mature a little faster than humans, reaching adulthood around age 14. They age noticeably faster and rarely live longer than 75 years.
Alignment. Half-orcs are often inclined toward chaos by a troubled upbringing and poor temperament, but only those raised among orcs have a particular inclination toward evil.
Size. Half-orcs are somewhat larger and bulkier than humans, and they range from 5 to well over 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Versatility. You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and two other languages of your choice. Half-orcs who were not raised by an orc parent seldom feel compelled to learn Orcish, but often become itinerant workers or mercenaries who pick up several tongues.
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Revenant
“Every day, without fail, food was left in the little antechambers; the commissaries of the dead occupied a large part of the palace. Presumably they enjoyed it; they never complained, or came back for seconds. Look after the dead, said the priests, and the dead would look after you. After all, they were in the majority.”
The city rustles with the passage of the dead, embalmed skin creaking over the old bones of an unliving aristocracy. A shallow and unmarked grave erupts with wet earth as a pale hand bursts forth, clawing for freedom, for revenge. The paladin rarely doffs her armor, and never removes her bandages, but her comrades understand: they just ask she doesn't try to help with the cooking.
Night of the Living Dead
Not all of the undead are mindless corpse-puppets. It is possible through secret rites to achieve a state of intelligent undeath, the soul bound forever to its body in the moments before death. The necropolitan societies that permit this process become monuments to eternity, where the living and dead exist side by side.
Other revenants rise naturally, driven from the grave by a terrible grudge or divine command. These intelligent undead are barred from the afterlife until they find closure: kings whose tombs were desecrated, sages murdered on the brink of discovery, heroes returned to face an ancient enemy.
Skin and Bones
A revenant is an animated dead body; those supernaturally preserved by the circumstances of their undeath seem cold and pale, absent the little sounds and sighs and twitches that mark any living creature.
Most of the undead decay normally, however. Such revenants must seek the services of an undertaker-priest, or putrefy and rot until the flesh leaves their bones entirely. They favor masks, full-face helmets, veils, or other means of hiding their grisly appearance, and often use pomanders to disguise even the mildest musty smell.
Dim light glows in every revenant's eyesockets, regardless of whether any eyes still sit there. The same animating force allows them to speak clearly without lips, a tongue, or even vocal cords, producing a slight echo with each word.
Death's Doorstep
Most natural revenants are driven by obsession with an oath they swore or grudge they bear: only a conclusion will allow them to move on. Particularly old revenants honor long-dead cultures and pray to departed gods, confusing any who listen with their perspective on ancient history.
Necropolitan culture is highly traditional, calcified by eons of aristocracy who value only their own wisdom. It also tends to be materialistic; necropolitans rejected the promises of the gods in favor of earthly immortality. Its rulers can partake in few sensory pleasures, but the joys of power, knowledge, and treasure dominate necropolitan society.
You can take it with you, after all.
An Awfully Big Adventure
Those revenants drawn from the grave by an ancient curse, the call of the gods, or simple unrelenting willpower are seldom found anywhere but the path to adventure. It is the very reason for their existence.
The undead necropolitans are more likely to adventure in search of dark knowledge or marvellous wealth to fund their eternal lifestyle, or pay back whatever debts they owe for it. Others find a new lease on life after death, and seek to wander the world they never saw while alive.
Revenant Names
A revenant's name is not changed by death, though some adopt false monikers out of shame, or to hide the fact that they're "named after" an ancient hero.
Necropolitans are often named for their ancestors, to curry favor with past generations. This can lead to confusing stacks of undead as time marches on: Garth, named for Agartha, named for Agatha, named for Agata III, II, and I, named for the Agate Dynasty, and so on.
In more extreme cases, a necropolitan nation may only grant a name to the dead: the living are fleeting, and those who pass on without earning eternity are hardly people at all. Mortals receive only pet names or even numbers, and are expected to abandon all ties upon their demise.
Art Credit:
Nintendo
Revenant Traits
Your revenant character is changed by its unliving nature.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Age. As the living dead, revenants are not born and do not age, though less well-preserved ones may rot into ambulatory skeletons or even fall to dust over time.
Alignment. Revenants are often left bitter and inclined to evil by all they've lost. Just as many, however, see unlife as a second chance to do good.
Size. Revenants remain the same size in death as they did in life, but are -- for obvious reasons -- often much lighter. Your size is Medium or Small.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You stare with eyes not of this plane, and can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Dead Body. You do not need to eat, drink, or breathe, and you have resistance to necrotic damage.
Immortal Soul. Your vital spirit means you are considered a living humanoid for all purposes, but spells which specifically detect undead creatures reveal you as such.
Unkillable. You do not fall unconscious when you fall to 0 hit points. Instead, you are incapacitated and rendered prone until you regain at least one hit point. In addition, if a spell would have the sole effect of restoring you to life, the caster does not need material components to cast it on you.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one standard language of your choice, retained from life.
All You Zombies
The above traits apply to all revenants, whose racial differences are nullified by the veil of death. A revenant dragonborn cannot breathe fire from an embalmed throat, and an undead dwarf is not slowed by her dead flesh. At the DM's option, you may play one of these variant revenants:
Flesh Golem. You are a stitched construct given life by primal energies. You lose necrotic resistance, and gain lightning resistance.
Spectre. You are an unquiet spirit in a dead shell. You lose the Unkillable feature, but can use an action to leave your body as though you had cast the astral projection spell. You must finish a long rest before doing so again. Your projection exists in the ethereal plane, not the astral plane, and cannot move further than 1 mile from your body. When you end the spell, you can return to any Medium or Small humanoid corpse you are touching (including your old body): this is your new body, although your game traits (other than size) do not change. Any gear remains on your old body.
New Background: Necropolitan
You were born into a necrocratic society, where citizens treated life as a prelude to an eternity of death. Zombies labored in stinking farms, withered scholars sat at dusty desks, and the fossilized ruling class only grew with each undying generation. You might be a corpse-in-waiting, or have spent a lifetime working to buy your second life.
- Skill Proficiencies: History, Medicine
- Tools: Disguise Kit
- Languages: One of your choice
- Equipment: A set of fine clothes, a vial of perfume, an hourglass, and a belt containing 5 gp.
Feature: Embalming
You know various tricks for patching up mouldering relatives, or your own rotting body. You can always tell how a dead body would have looked in life, and can use a disguise check to temporarily restore its living appearance and scent.
Suggested Characteristics
| 1d6 | Personality |
|---|---|
| 1 | I'm fascinated by the beauty of death. |
| 2 | I make sure to triple-check my accounts at all times. |
| 3 | I've got a very specific cosmetics routine. |
| 4 | I constantly bring up stories of my undead ancestors. |
| 5 | I speak softly, so as not to stretch my skin. |
| 6 | I'm terrified by the idea of the afterlife. |
| 1d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tradition. The weight of history is upon me. (Lawful) |
| 2 | Eternity. I will pay any price to avoid death. (Evil) |
| 3 | Fleeting. I enjoy every moment: it won't last. (Chaotic) |
| 4 | Service. It is my duty to give back. (Good) |
| 5 | Honor. My ancestors are watching. Literally. (Lawful) |
| 6 | Wisdom. I want the knowledge of the ancients. (Any) |
| 1d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | I'm indebted to a powerful member of the undead. |
| 2 | Every member of my family is dead. I still visit them. |
| 3 | I murdered an immortal, and they bear a grudge. |
| 4 | A friend was exorcised abroad, and I seek revenge. |
| 5 | I was adopted as a living child by a revenant mentor. |
| 6 | I need to win immortality for my dying parent. |
| 1d6 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | I crack extremely morbid jokes. |
| 2 | I treat the living like inexperienced children. |
| 3 | I'm eager to share my knowledge of death. |
| 4 | I sneer at those who accept their demise. |
| 5 | I'm completely unbothered by touching corpses. |
| 6 | I consider it normal to smell like decay. |
Art Credit:
Sahuagin
“I waited for dusk and ebb tide, then embarked, heading east. East, across the night seas. East, borne on the naked backs of murdered men... Stomach filled with raw meat; gull blood caked upon my chin, I drifted on towards Davidstown. My home was there. Nothing would take it from me.”
The night watch dozes and ship planks creak as shark-kin pirates haul their dripping bodies aboard, spears and teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Fish and pearls and oils are rowed into the docks each morning, unloaded by tattooed sea devils with muscles like wet stone. A bounty hunter greets the dawn by tipping a canteen over his finned head, sighing with relief as his rough hide glistens.
Sea Devils
Along coastal waters, inland seas, and vast archipelagos, the sharklike sahuagin are figures of caution at best. Those who come in peace are hunter-merchants or deadly privateers, while less friendly sahuagin are nightmarish raiders who break the surf on foggy nights.
Many ports form profitable alliances with the sea devils, accepting the inevitable violence at drinking halls or crowded docks as the price of business and safety. The sahuagin themselves dismiss mere complaints.
You cannot stop moving forward. If you stop, you die.
Armed to the Teeth
Piscine humanoids whose rough skin ranges between green and gray, sahuagin have broad forearms and powerful upper bodies with little fat. A dorsal fin sprouts from their head or back, and a powerful, finned tail swings behind. Dark eyes and a thin-lipped mouth packed with sharp triangular teeth complete the selachian resemblance.
The shark-kin are oddly prone to mutation, from armored or rubbery skin to extra limbs, fins, and organs. One sahuagin snout might resemble a shark's head, while its brother's face could be flatter, almost human in structure.
Sahuagin distinguish sex by scent, but females have sharp patterns and a rougher hide. A mature sea devil continues to slowly grow its entire life, and might someday exceed 9 feet.
Feeding Frenzy
The sahuagin are driven by a firm sense of purpose. Words are cheap, but action is respected. Tribes are divided into castes, assigned by augury or merit, and it is the duty of each sahuagin to be an exemplar of its role.
A sahuagin's mutations are living proof of this purpose, direct tweaks from the divine. To deny destiny is repulsive, and contrary feelings – whether boredom, doubt, or compassion – are thought of as base animal urges. The sahuagin keep such things shameful and private.
This sense of fate runs deep, for the sahuagin people are convinced that the ocean itself is their manifest destiny. Those who stand in the way of this conquest, especially the hated sea elves, are petulant blasphemers.
Fish Out of Water
A variety of sahuagin become adventurers, from well-armed privateers to fate-scorned exiles and sorcerous mutants. All, however, believe that destiny called them to adventure.
Adventurers of other races often share this certainty of purpose, which sahuagin appreciate. Those less sure – or clearly wrong – are troubling: a shark-kin friend will try to put such comrades in their place, or push them toward their destiny, whatever they believe it to be.
Sahuagin Names
As with many races, sahuagin names are split between feminine and masculine, though this reflects the shark-kin's role rather than its sex. Tribe names usually sound similar to those surface-dweller give to ships, a mixture of convenient translation and cultural cross-contamination.
Sahuagin make sure they know the name of any group they join, for a sahuagin's name reflects their current tribe or affiliation, not the family that birthed them. A sea devil named Kaipeno, acting for the Seven Suns Trading Coster, would call himself "Kaipeno, of the Seven Suns".
Sahuagin Masculine Names: Akamu, Ekewaku, Hopokai, Iokepam, Jinbai, Kisakom, Lopak, Mako, Tamsin, Velok
Sahuagin Feminine Names: Akena, Haleili, Iekihua, Konanei, Lahual, Lonana, Makani, Pahuahi, Tia, Wikolua
Tribe Names: Bold Melora, Cythera, Departing Joyful, Ebon Pearl, Lord Dagon's Revenge, Old Tooth, Shaari Baron, Red Kelp Fall, Thunder Child, White Wave
Art Credit:
Sahuagin Traits
Your sahuagin character has several piscine, predatory traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2. Your choice of your Constitution or Wisdom scores also increases by 1.
Age. Sahuagin age at the same rate as elves, but consider longevity an ill omen; the purpose of life to fulfil one's destiny, so an aged sahuagin must be dissolute, despised by the gods, or possessed of a strange fate indeed.
Alignment. Sahuagin believe that everything has a place in a greater scheme, and pursue it without compromise, qualm, or compassion. As a result, they tend toward lawful evil.
Size. Sahuagin average 6 to 7 feet tall, with powerful upper bodies and long, broad arms. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. You have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.
Amphibious. You can breathe air as well as water. However, you need to drink twice as much water each day to avoid suffering exhaustion.
Bite. You are proficient with your flesh-shredding bite, a simple melee weapon that deals 1d6 piercing damage.
Bloodscent. Whenever you make a Wisdom (Perception) check to detect blood, you are considered proficient in the Perception skill. If you are already proficient, you add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
Darkvision. Your jet black eyes grant you superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Red Frenzy. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can bite a creature as a bonus action. On a hit, you gain advantage on your bite attack rolls against that creature for 1 minute, or until it is reduced to 0 hit points. You cannot willingly move away from that creature during this time. You must complete a short or long rest before you use this feature again.
Sahuagin Mutation. Your race is prone to mutations, and you bear one feature chosen from the Sahuagin Mutations list. At the DM's option, you can choose to be an Unfated Sahuagin: you must roll 1d10 when you complete a long rest, losing your current mutation and gaining the one associated with the result.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Aquan.
Sahuagin Mutations
| 1d10 | Name | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Deepchild | Your dark hide marks you as a native to abyssal waters. Your darkvision has a range of 120 feet, and you are naturally adapted to cold climates (Dungeon Master's Guide, Chapter 5). |
| 2 | Elfskin | You are of the malenti, and can cast the alter self spell at will, without expending a spell slot. You can only use the Change Appearance option, and only to take an elven shape. You cannot imitate a specific creature. |
| 3 | Fourarm | You have four arms, and can interact with one extra object for free on your turn (Player's Handbook, pg. 190). If you make an attack with a two-handed or loading weapon, you cannot benefit from a shield until the start of your next turn, even if another feature allows you to ignore these properties. |
| 4 | Hammerhead | You are always alert to danger, even when when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking). |
| 5 | Knifejaw | Your jaw distends and whips oddly. Your bite is a finesse weapon. You can treat it as a light weapon held in one hand for two-weapon fighting. |
| 6 | Mistfisher | Your head-fin is a slick tendril that pulses with bioluminesce. You know the dancing lights cantrip. |
| 7 | Quickfin | Your webbed hands are even wider than normal. You have a swimming speed of 40 feet. |
| 8 | Scalescar | You have tough, fishy scales, and can calculate your AC as 12 + your Constitution or Dexterity modifier while you are not wearing armor, or if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit. |
| 9 | Toothfriend | Twitching catfish whiskers ensure you are always under the effects of a speak with animals spell, but only for creatures with a swim speed. |
| 10 | Whaleback | Your powerful, bulky build means you count as one size larger to determine your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. |
Art Credit:
Shardminds
“And thus it came to pass that the Silmarils found their long homes: one in the airs of heaven, and one in the fires of the heart of the world, and one in the deep waters.”
The gemstone dancer performs with impeccable grace, his every move dazzling the crowd with refracted light. Within a cave of glowing quartz, crystalline guardians meditate on the secrets held by each facet. A lone figure struggles from a steaming crater, angular limbs still forming as she gathers newborn thoughts into a desperate warning.
Beauty From Disaster
It is a fact of magic known even to the layfolk that crystals have power. Precious stones are perfectly suited to absorbing the arcane energy that permeates the world, and the purest expression of this magic is the shardminds.
Intelligent and analytical, these gemfolk are born from disturbances in the magical weave; the aftershocks of divine intervention, magical disasters, and aberrant invasions. Such snarls literally crystallize in the material realm, forming a new shardmind.
Born fully-formed, and imbued with knowledge absorbed from the cosmos itself, new shardminds are well aware of the disaster that birthed them. While a few may choose to simply flee, most take it as a pre-destined purpose, a responsibility placed on their shoulders by the very cosmos.
Clear As Crystal
Shardminds are creatures of pure mentality. With no flesh separating thought from action, they behave under a reflexive, almost naive purity of logic, and many have trouble parsing metaphor or even dishonesty. Moreover, the gemfolk tend toward extremes of emotion. A shardmind that is needled by its companions will not get annoyed, but instead remains calm until it becomes genuinely enraged.
Though birthed by anomaly or disaster, shardminds are quick to seek meaning in everything. Many obsessively dedicate themselves to a specific field of study, convinced it holds deep truths. A shardmind always tries to seek explanations for the events around it, and if no reason can be found becomes dismissive or even angry.
Those shardminds who lose faith in the rational nature of events often seem depressed, focusing on abstract knowledge to insulate themselves from the world.
Diamonds Are Forever
Each shardmind is a construct of countless gems, bound into humanoid form by a nervous system of arcane force. Blind to hunger, thirst, or pain, they live at a remove from the physical: out-of-body experiences are common amongst shardminds. Though their wounds glow with leaking energy, short of violence a shardmind is utterly immortal.
While most shardminds are singular creatures created by unlikely accidents, cosmic events can create whole bands of shardminds, and older gemfolk often experiment with imbuing crystal with life of its own. Shardmind communities are small, and usually hidden in contemplative hermitage.
Hidden Gems
Shardmind adventurers are not as uncommon as their low numbers might suggest. A shardmind spawned by unusual circumstances is inevitably drawn to explore and understand the nature of its birth, and will soon find itself caught up in any adventure that results.
Older shardminds may still be driven by their birth, or simply seek to perfect their chosen art or science, exploring obscure styles and lore with the help of their comrades.
Still other shardminds may decide to leave a hidden commune, seeking to pursue a particular theory with data cultivated from outside. Of these, a few even become enamoured with a world of constant puzzles and paradox.
Shard Names
Shards are telepathic and clear-minded, and their names generally resemble distinct, chiming sounds. If translated into mortal tongues, they form a curious and sometimes clunky descriptor, often involving color or some physical quality paired with a more abstract concept.
Those who join larger societies dominated by other races may pick up nicknames and titles, a process most shards welcome as an expansion on their original name.
Shardmind Names: Blunt Artisan, Caprice of Yellow, Emerald Tower, Furious Singer, Helpful Shadow, Instigator in Onyx, Kindly Sharpness, Perfected Blade, Quiet Canyon Blade, Seven Fires, Viridian Dice, Wheel of Blazing Light
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Shardmind Traits
Your shardmind character is a being of living crystal, which grants it a number of unusual abilities.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 2.
Age. Shardminds are immortal, and coalesce from their crystal homes fully-formed, both mentally and physically. It can take years for them to reach emotional maturity, however.
Alignment. The majority of shardminds admires goal-oriented, orderly processes, but are less affected by the end result. They tend toward Lawful Neutral.
Size. Shardminds vary massively in build, and are unconstrained by the proportions of other races. They tend to be slender and angular, anatomy bulging in odd places where crystals clump together. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Crystal Mind. You have resistance to psychic damage. You know the message cantrip, and can cast it without material, somatic, or verbal components.
Living Gemstone. You do not need to breathe, drink, or eat, and you are immune to disease. Instead of sleeping, you must absorb ambient magic for at least 4 hours each day, during which you enter a dormant state as your limbs stiffen and small crystals form across your body.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Terran. Though not elementals, shardminds learn the tongue of the stones from which they form their bodies.
Subrace. The circumstances that birth a shardmind determine its makeup, as well as the shape of its destiny. Choose one of these subraces to reflect this.
Arcane Shards
Some shardminds form from extreme concentrations of magical energy, coalescing in the aftermath of magical experiments or unnatural disasters. These smooth gemfolk shimmer like blown glass and show even less emotion than most of their kind, disdaining material concerns.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Arcane Reflection. You are constantly under the effects of a detect magic spell.
Chthonic Shards
Born from disrupted leylines and natural disasters, these shardminds are jagged and raw, with broad bodies that often incorporate clusters of other minerals. The chthonic shards are slow to trust, and avoid outsiders who would threaten the sanctity of their holy quarries.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Crystal Eruption. You can use an action to cause mineral shards to pierce the ground for 20 feet around you. That area becomes difficult terrain, and creatures suffer 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet they travel across it. You ignore these spikes, which crumble into dust after 1 minute. You must complete a long rest before you use this feature again.
Gate Shards
The gate shardminds are born from planar intrusions that disturb the mortal realm's magic. These brightly colored, angular shards are fiercely principled, and fizzle with energy when agitated. Many are said to be born from fragments of a divine crystal gate, constructed to hold back the Far Realm.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Shard Swarm. As a bonus action, you can dissolve your body and magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
Lunar Shards
From moontears to starstones, the earth is littered with rocks fallen from the heavens. Imbued with shining light and mystic power, these celestial visitors birth iridescent shardminds. Such gemfolk are even more oddly proportioned than their terrestrial kin, and trade focus for erratic enthusiasm.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Darkvision. A native of the lightless void, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Moonlight. You know the light cantrip, and can cast it without any components, but can only target your own body.
Crystal Gems
To play a somewhat different kind of Shardmind, replace its subrace with these features:
Ability Score Increase. One ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Gemstone. Your body is a projection, created by a magical gemstone. You can use an action to dissolve your body, transforming into a tiny gem with AC24 and resistance to all damage. You retain your senses, but have speed 0 and cannot take actions except to cast the message cantrip or return to your shardmind form as an action. If you fall to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to enter this form instead of falling unconscious.
Art Credit:
Emrah Elmasli
Thri-Kreen
“Once you get into the desert, there’s no going back,” said the camel driver. “And, when you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward. The rest is up to Allah, including the danger.”
The desert wind whispers across a camouflaged carapace, fanning a campfire's glowing coals as the insectoid warrior keeps watch. Loping down from rocky cliff faces with casual grace, the click-click traders bear baskets of rare wasteland herbs into town, antennae twitching eagerly. An alien voice echoes in the mind of a mercenary scout, warning him away from the sacred crystal shrines of the mantis warriors.
The Faceless Desert
Also known as mantisfolk, clickers, mants, and simply kreen, the thri-kreen are an insectoid race of mantis-like humanoids who roam the deserts and wastelands of the world. Hunters and guerillas, the kreen are respected and feared by those who dwell near their hunting grounds.
The kreen are not given to emotional displays, and what sentiment they do show is obscured to other races by their impenetrable body language. To most, they seem as empty and merciless as the desert, leaping from the sands to wreak havoc or slay a monster before vanishing as quickly as they came, caring nothing for what is left in their wake.
In some ways, it's not far from the truth.
Friends and Family
Many races divide the world into "us and them". Few do so as sharply as the kreen, who actively shun contact with those outside of their tightly-knit hunting packs, even fellow kreen. Many mantisfolk have trouble considering outsiders to be "people" at all, much less individuals worthy of concern.
Instead, each thri-kreen pack treats the world around them as a solipsistic garden, to be cultivated or trimmed as suits their needs. If goods are desired, they will protect merchant caravans from the hazards of the desert. If outsiders enroach on their hunts, they will turn on those same traders without a word of explanation or warning.
Mantis Warriors
The thri-kreen have no great respect for mighty structures or long-held laws. They adapt to harsh circumstances rather than seeking to change them, and work around insoluble problems with a flexibility of thought that can unnerve those more steadfastly attached to particular traditions.
Few mantisfolk place any value on material goods. Money, tools, and accessories can be very useful, even attractive, but those who are genuinely convinced of an object's worth are regarded as mildly insane for having inanimate packmates.
A Worthy Pack
While it's rare for the isolationist clickers to integrate into a larger culture, they do make for frequent guides, traders, and mercenaries. Those who truly settle among other peoples range from packless nomadic criminals to lone survivors of an overambitious hunt, from stranded ex-slaves to young mantisfolk determined to satisfy their curiosity.
Most kreen who settle into a foreign culture do so alone, and must try to form a new pack, willing or otherwise, from those around them. This process is often awkward, as the thri-kreen is forced to deal with the bewildering tendency of its non-kreen packmates to care about events and people far beyond their immediate social circle.
As ever, the kreen must adapt to new circumstances. A thri-kreen's friendship can seem distant or overprotective by turns, but its loyalty and value is never to be underestimated.
Kreen Names
Kreen names are dry clicks, buzzes, and rustles, suited to the mandible jaws of the mantid nomads. Translating such names reveals a hidden and flowery poetry at play.
These names are not gendered, and include have no family names, for the kreen focus entirely on those close to them. There is only one of each kreen, after all; why should there be any need to differentiate further?
Those kreen who find themselves in a larger society must sometimes adopt a family name for formal purposes. Most simply take the name of their closest non-kreen companion, a seemingly intuitive decision that can lead to confusion and embarassment on the latter's part.
Thri-Kreen Names: Chak-tha, Chit'al, Drik-chkit, Gulnik, Kacht-ta, Kat'chka, Kiktul, Klaktuk, Krik, Pak'cha, Pik-ik-cha, Pok, Ptekwe, Tak-tha, Tal'tich, Tilnak, Tik-tik, Ze-ra
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Thri-Kreen Traits
Your thri-kreen character has several inherent abilities that help it survive as a nomad in the harsh desert.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age. Thri-kreen grow quickly, moulting their childish carapace, and reach adulthood at age five. However, their average life expectancy is just 30 years.
Alignment. Thri-kreen value freedom above power, and prefer tightly-knit groups to grand societies. They tend toward Chaotic Neutral.
Size. All thri-kreen share the same light, slender build, though their expected height varies between 4 to 7 feet tall depending on the tribe. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 35 feet.
Extra Arms. You have four arms, which can carry items normally and allow you to interact with one extra object for free on your turn (Player's Handbook, pg. 190). If you make an attack with a two-handed or loading weapon, you cannot benefit from a shield until the start of your next turn, even if another feature allows you to ignore these properties.
Sleepless. You don't need to sleep, and can stay awake constantly without penalty. You receive the benefits of a long rest even if you spend eight hours engaged in light activity.
Standing Leap. You can always jump as though you made a running start of at least 10 feet. When you take the Dash action, you double the distance you can jump that turn. Each foot you clear on a jump still costs you a foot of movement.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Thri-kreen. The thri-kreen language is incomprehensible to outsiders, a mixture of mandible clicks and antennae twitches that only a dedicated linguist could mimic.
Subrace. Thri-kreen have spread across the deserts of the world, developing into a diverse array of mantisfolk. Choose one of these subraces.
Bandit Kreen
The so-called mantis bandits stand under 5 feet tall, with a thick set of upper arms. Proud, belligerent, and very visually-focused, they link packs to form warbands which can prey upon outsiders or extort tolls from those crossing the desert, their allegiances marked by shifting carapace-banners.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Chameleonic Carapace. You can change your body's color to match your surroundings, allowing you to hide when lightly obscured by terrain. In addition, you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) rolls if you have not moved since the start of your last turn.
Nomad Kreen
Towering over most civilized races at around 7 feet tall, with hides cast in shades of yellow and brown, the nomadic thri-kreen are wanderers and traders, the shepherds of the sand. Ever-curious and blessed with nocturnal vision, they explore the desert and its borders for novelties at all hours.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Darkvision. Your jewel-like faceted eyes grant improved vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Nomad. You gain proficiency in the Survival skill.
Praying Kreen
The emerald mystics of the praying thri-kreen are named as such for their practice of meditating near spots of spiritual significance. Their pilgrimages leave them isolated, but the praying kreen are more prone to displays of emotion than their kin, easily caught up in the surrounding mood.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Natural Psionic. You know the mage hand and message cantrips, and cast them with no components. The spectral hand you create with mage hand is invisible.
Art Credit:
Dre'Qhari
Tieflings
- “All beasts are happy, for when they die,
- Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
- But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
- Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
- No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
- That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.”
Damning whispers and vicious rumors follow the old family on the hill, who trucked with demons long ago. A young woman curses her inheritance as she draws a hood over curved horns. The daring courtier makes a scandalous stir, with eyes aflame and a tongue as barbed as his tail.
Bad Blood
Everything has a price. This is the lesson learned by proud emperors, who sold the souls of their subjects for one more victory. By desperate merchants, who made promises that should never have been kept. By unwise sages, who signed away their lineage for tidbits of knowledge.
Condemned for some ancestral sin, tieflings are born into bloodlines ravaged by ancient pacts or divine curses, branded from birth by fiendish essence. The scions of wicked houses and survivors of damned kingdoms, tieflings endure a foul reputation they never earned.
Hounded and feared, the mistakes of the past hang heavy over the tiefling race. Their inheritance is darkness, one that their greatest heroes defy time and again.
Inherit the Earth
Tiefling skin ranges across normal human tones, from savannah dark to winter pale, as well as bloody reds, ashen greys, bruise blues, and stranger hues. While most tieflings have a largely human shape, some exhibit hooved or clawed feet, scaled skin, bony protrusions, membranous wings, forked tongues, or pointed ears.
All share a few features, however. Eyes of one solid color, with an unnatural gleam. A thick tail, four or five feet long, that coils and sways. And horns – curved or straight, large or small, ridged or smooth, many or few.
Tieflings are accompanied by less physical deformities, such as the smell of brimstone, a twitching shadow, or an unnatural reverberation of the voice. These omens do little to endear them to the common folk.
Dance with the Devil
Actual tiefling nations are rare, the splintered relics of pact-ridden empires. Those hellbred with common origins often form a diaspora, scattered across the world but bound by shared suffering. More isolated bloodlines are the issue of lone hubristic nobles or depraved arcanists.
Whatever their history, tiefling families are insular by necessity, teaching children to be suspicious of kindness and loyal to proven kin, ready to pack up their lives and flee the moment disaster strikes. Tieflings are an easy scapegoat for failed harvests or sudden fires, and many are left orphaned or confined to slums.
At times, the tiefling curse will emerge in a family that had long-forgotten its dark roots. Such unfortunate babes are often abandoned at temples or orphanages, and raised to hate what they are.
Highway to Hell
Despite their small numbers, a sizeable portion of tieflings become adventurers. Already used to a life of unpredictable danger, they seek the truth behind their hellbred history, or an escape from the judgement of strangers. A great many dream of a chance to win fame and fortune, to overturn the fear and hatred their bloodline bequeathed to them.
Tiefling Names
Tiefling families who take perverse pride or find bitter honor in their ancient oaths use names of fiendish origin, passed down through generations. As a result, children desperate to reject this dark legacy often adopt new, fresh names that express a concept or virtue they hope to uphold.
Others are simply named according to the mortal customs of their homeland – or whichever will accept them.
- Male Infernal Names: Ammon, Balam, Dantalion, Forneus, Gusion, Halphas, Ipos, Malax, Naberius, Ronove, Zaleus
- Female Infernal Names: Agaris, Berith, Decarabia, Forasis, Gremory, Hanni, Kimaris, Leraje, Sitri, Vapula
- Abyssal Names: Coogalach, Ele'orto, Jaga-Sorr, Ommoyt, Paugna'r, Quachil, Tegoth, Nuog, Yaq-osha
- Virtuous Names: Art, Clarity, Creed, Glory, Hubris, Lord, Patience, Rebel, Solace, Temerity, Vanity, Wisdom, Zakat
Art Credit:
Wizards of the Coast
Tiefling Traits
Tieflings share certain racial traits as a result of their ancient fiendish descent.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age. Tieflings mature at the same rate as humans, but can live a little longer. Those who linger past a century age poorly.
Alignment. Tieflings are said to be innately spiteful, but most are simply embittered by prejudice. Evil or not, their independent drive inclines many toward a chaotic alignment.
Size. Tieflings are about the same size and build as humans, not including their horns. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. Thanks to your infernal heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light.
Hellish Resistance. You have resistance to one damage type of your choice: cold, fire, or poison.
Unholy Aura. You know the thaumaturgy cantrip.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common, and your choice of Abyssal or Infernal.
Subrace. The touch of fiends lingers uncomfortably in mortal flesh, with a variety of results. Choose one of these subraces.
Bladelings
Your bloodline sold themselves into the ancient wars between demon and devil, or heaven and hell. They were reforged into living weapons, skin thorned with shards of bone or metal.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Barbed Skin. You can calculate your AC as 12 + your Constitution or Dexterity modifier while you are not wearing armor, or if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.
At the start of your turn, any creature grappling or being grappled by you suffers 1d6 piercing damage.
Living Armory. You can use an empty hand as any light melee weapon you are proficient with, without impeding normal use of the hand. Weapons with the thrown property can be hurled as a bone spike, without being lost.
Menacing. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill.
Stormlings
Your bloodline was once spirited into hellish realms, marked by demon-wings that extend from your shoulders or lower back and bear you aloft on unnatural winds.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma and Wisdom scores increase by 1.
Wicked Wings. You have a flying speed of 30 feet, which you can only use during your turn. Any armor you wear must be adapted to your wings.
Curselings
Your bloodline called dark power upon and into themselves, resulting in progeny with strange and disturbing gifts listed only in forbidden texts.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma and Intelligence scores both increase by 1.
Blasphemous Secrets. You gain proficiency with one skill of your choice: Arcana, Investigation, Religion.
Cursed Legacy. You choose a cursed legacy, and learn the cantrip associated with it. You learn another spell at 3rd and 5th level. You can cast each of these spells once as a 2nd-level spell, without expending a spell slot or material components. You must complete a long rest before you do so again.
You can use Charisma or Intelligence as your spellcasting ability for these spells.
| Legacy | 1st level | 3rd level | 5th level | 1d10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blight | chill touch | ray of sickness | blindness/deafness | 1 |
| Discord | vicious mockery | thunderwave | shatter | 2 |
| Filth | acid splash | grease | web | 3 |
| Gloom | dancing lights | fog cloud | darkness | 4 |
| Hellfire | firebolt | hellish rebuke | flaming sphere | 5 |
| Lies | friends | charm person | suggestion | 6 |
| Nightmare | message | sleep | phantasmal force | 7 |
| Pride | guidance | unseen servant | levitate | 8 |
| Rime | ray of frost | armor of Agathys | hold person | 9 |
| Shadows | minor illusion | disguise self | invisibility | 10 |
Madness of the Abyss
At the DM's discretion, a player who wishes to enjoy a more chaotic experience can choose the Chaos legacy for a Curseling Tiefling.
You do not receive set spells. Instead, roll 1d10 for each spell offered by the Cursed Legacy feature when you complete a long rest. You gain that spell from the table until the end of your next long rest.
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