Lamia - Player Race

Not to be confused with the sphinx-like creatures of the same name, The Lamia are a humanoid race with the upper body of a woman and a lower body of a long, powerful, snake-like tail. While most commonly born of a Lamia mother and human male, other father races are by no means unheard of, and Lamia with elven, dwarven, halfling, tiefling, and countless other humanoid bodies are known to exist.

A Communal Life

Lamia live in clans ranging from a dozen to hundreds of individuals, in which the eldest and wisest take the titles of clan elders. As all Lamia are female, they require male individuals of other humanoid species to reproduce, and do so just as a mammalian female, with a live birth. The male "stud" is shared throughout the clan, although elders typically possess first rights to copulation. Children born to a Lamia will always be Lamia, although their humanoid upper bodies usually bear features reminiscent of their fathers. Lamia rarely leave their clans, with those found outside usually being either exiles or survivors of some great calamity that stuck the clan. Traditionally, those exiled or in search of a new clan must find a suitable male to bring with them as a gift in order to be allowed entry into the community or have their exile rescinded.

Lamia Traits

Your mixture of humanoid and serpentine features grants you the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution and Wisdom scores both increase by 1. In addition, one ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Age. Lamia mature at a similar rate to their father's species, and may live for upwards of two hundred years, although few ever reach their third century.

Alignment. Lamia tend toward neutral alignments owing to their habit of living secluded amongst their own kind, although those that do leave the commune often adopt the alignment of their new homes.

Size. Lamia are slightly taller than humans, measuring 6 to 8 feet in height. Your size is medium. The unique anatomy of the Lamia however necessitates an extra 5 feet of slithering space behind you at all times for your long, muscular tail, which may stretch anywhere from 15 to 25 feet in length. You may at any time rear up on your tail to gain an extra 5 feet of vertical reach, but lose any walking speed while doing so.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30. You also have a swimming and climbing speed equal to your walking speed. On your turn, you may expend half of your movement-speed to coil up, removing the need for tail space behind you. Moving from this position or being forcefully moved reverts you to an uncoiled form.

Thermal 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. While in darkness, you perceive your surroundings in a thermal spectrum,

with living creatures and warm surfaces unhidden by magic or thermal camouflage appearing as heat signatures due to your pit organs, but you cannot otherwise discern color in darkness.

Serpent's Senses. Your forked tongue and pit organs are fine-tuned to living creatures, granting you the superior hunting abilities of a serpent. You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival), Wisdom (Perception), and Intelligence (Investigation) checks to track, spot or otherwise locate living creatures unobscured by thermal camoflauge or magic, and to follow their trails. Additionally, you have proficiency in the Survival skill.

Prehensile Tail. Your tail is a natural weapon which you are proficient with, which can be used to make unarmed attacks. If you hit with it, you deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier. Alternatively, your tail may be used to make an attack action to grapple a creature, following normal rules regarding grappling. If successful, the creature is left constricted by your coiled tail until they succeed on a contested grapple check to escape. A creature that ends its turn this way takes 1d6 + your Strength modifier bludgeoning damage, if you wish to harm it. You may not make unarmed attacks or initiate another grapple with your tail while it is being used to grapple.

Mesothermal. Owing to your limited ability to regulate your body temperature, you have disadvantage on saving throws against spells and effects that deal Cold damage, and have disadvantage on Constitution saving throws made to withstand environments of extreme cold.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Draconic, and one other language of your choice. This is usually Common, but Lamia from lands populated by other races may speak another tongue, such as Elvish, Dwarven, Orcish, etc.

Art Credit: In Chun Park

Lamia Names

As a largely secluded race, Lamia often possess uncommon and archaic names, with knowledge of new and fashionable ones coming primarily from their male captives. The forked tongue of the Lamia necessitates a unique pronunciation for many sounds found in the languages of the Forgotten Realms, and as such Lamia almost always speak with a distinct, exotic accent. All Lamia of a clan share a common clan name, and individual Lamia recieve a given name from their mother shortly after birth. Once they reach maturity, Lamia will adopt a professional title such as "The Huntress" or "The Weaver" depending on their skillset.

Common Lamia names include Aksoffi, Ansea, Astrika, Iasoffi, Kisseisa, Messeila, Nessis, Offiasa, Sagissa, Samedis, Sfahtis, or Sirofis.

Design Notes

I've seen a great deal of Lamia of all varieties floating around homebrew sites, but they all seemed to lack the care and detail necessary for a good homebrew player race. Some were also too blatantly monster-girl-esque, and I wanted to avoid that, and make this a race that would absolutely be viable in a serious setting, while also throwing reference to popular depictions of Lamia into the lore.

Ability Score Increase. Every Lamia I've seen has had Constitution as a stat improvement, and it just makes sense, given their size, weight, and scaled tail. Lizardmen receive a +2 Con and +1 Wis, and Wis makes good sense given the theme of expert hunters I was trying to propogate. The open +1 comes from the Lamia having a variety of father species- an orcish lamia may get +1 Str, Elven +1 Dex, etc., but I wanted to leave it open to the player to decide where to focus with their character.

Size. Size was the trickiest subject to approach. I looked to the Centaur for ideas, and agreed with the general consensus that the size of the creature should be determined by the 'active' part of their body, for Centaurs and Lamia this is the torso/head, the part that interacts with tools, weapons, objects, people, etc. Medium races fare far better for balance reasons anyway, and it wouldn't make sense for a creature with medium sized arms and torso to be wielding large, giant sized weapons. The extra 5 feet of space behind the PC gives the idea of having a large tail that needs room, but keeps mechanical issues minimal compared to blocking off a full 20 feet or something. I'm not settled on the "rearing up" portion, although it certainly is something snakes do, and helps add a little more flavor to the improved climbing speed.

Speed. I saw no reason to touch walking speed, and seeing as snakes are quite proficient at swimming and climbing, it made sense to buff those. Initially the climbing speed was 20, but with how niche it often is, I didn't see an issue with just rounding it out to equal the walking and swimming speed.

Thermal Darkvision. Makes sense for a predatory snake, and I think the infrared adds a bit of uniqueness to the dark vision, just like with the Fire Genasi. The advantage of having warm creatures show up as heat signatures is portrayed in the next trait.

Serpent's Senses. This and the tail are the Lamia's trait mainstays. Improved prey aquisition is intended to synergize with the wisdom bonus and tail grapple lockdown, while remaining distinct enough to not just be a reskinned Ranger feature.

Prehensile Tail. The primary mainstay of the race, it is intended to encompass not only mechnical aspects, but also roleplaying ones. The 1d6 damage die is the same as the lizardman bite or minotaur gore, so it's readily comparable to other natural weapons. The grapple adds another option, ranging from niche to core depending on your build. It also adds some nice roleplay value, I can imagine carrying off the angry dwarf in the party before he picks a fight he'll regret.

Mesothermal. I don't usually go for racial maluses, but this one seems rather widespread and respected for Lamia, and the disadvantage is a much less heavy-handed way to approach elemental vulernability than just taking double damage.

Languages. This could very well be changed to Common + Draconic, I was just looking to try something different. I'll wait for feedback.