New Player Race: Vessels

Vessels

Vessels, like so many other creatures in the worlds of D&D, are a direct result of overconfident spellcasters tinkering with the natural order in ill-advised ways. One such group of mages sought to modify humanity itself in an effort to create beings capable of serving as troopers with which to conquer the elemental planes in pursuit of power. However, as is often the case with such overambitious arcana, the project failed.

Even so, the mages' human test subjects were irrevocably altered. The mages had isolated the mortal essence which ties humans to the Prime Material plane, and removed it so that they could then instead be infused with the essence of an elemental plane, with the intent that they could then be sent safely to the associated plane to fight for their masters.

Half-Hollow Humans

Despite the failure of the ancient mages' project, most of the test subjects survived and were able to try and piece together some sort of life thereafter. As the ages wore on, they all passed away, but their alterations hide in their bloodlines and may surface unexpectedly when a new descendant is born. Thus, rarely, human parents will give birth to a startlingly altered creature.

A vessel's stature and build is basically the same as a human; the difference is primarily in their skin, and what lies beneath. The skin of a vessel is somewhat transparent, but instead of seeing flesh and sinew behind it, there is a cloudy blur. In a very young vessel, this subdermal murk is the color of a dark storm cloud. However, as the vessel reaches maturity, this color will shift and reveal the element to which they are attuned: reddish-orange if fire, light blue for water, yellow for lightning, or greenish-brown for earth.

Vessel Names

Due to being born to human parents, vessels are often given human names. However, it's not uncommon for human parents to panic and abandon their bizarre-looking child. Such children then end up with names bestowed by whoever takes them in, or perhaps even of their own invention as they try to make their way in a world in which they feel unique and alone.

Vessel Traits

Your vessel character has certain traits as a result of your unconventional origins.

Ability Score Increase. Vessels are as varied as their human families. Two ability scores of your choice increase by 1 each.

Age. Vessels mature at the same rate as humans.

Alignment. Although the primordial essence that's been magically infused into their bodies pushes them somewhat toward being chaotic, vessels might arrive at any alignment, often owing a great deal to how their families and societies responded to their uniqueness.

Size. Vessels are built much like humans. Your size is medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Elemental Affiliation. Choose an element: air, earth, fire, or water. Your body is attuned to this element, reflecting your heritage as a vessel created to hold that element's essence. You gain abilities depending on your choice:

Air. You gain resistance to lightning damage. You have a blurry yellow glow beneath your translucent skin, which is rather vibrant when you are well-rested and energetic but gets duller when you are tired.

Earth. You gain resistance to acid damage. The blur beneath your skin is brownish-green, and appears to swirl about like agitated clouds whenever you're not firmly planted on the ground.

Fire. You gain resistance to fire damage. You have a red-orange color visible beneath your skin, which flares brighter when you are impassioned, excited, or angry.

Water. You gain resistance to cold damage. You have a bluish blur under your skin, which seems to flow and shift in response to the movements of your body.

Elemental Siphon. As a vessel, you have a limited ability to absorb your affiliated element. Whenever you take damage of the type associated with your element, you can use your reaction to siphon the energy into yourself, taking no damage. Additionally, for the next minute after using this ability, the absorbed energy leeches out of you. Once per round during this time, you can deal an extra 1d4 damage of that type when you hit with a melee weapon attack or melee spell attack.

Once you activate this ability, you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.