Dullahan

History

A dullahan is a type of fey creature born of the Unseelie Court. Dullahan resemble undead due to their headlessness, but both head and body are kept alive by a fey curse. Inclined to travel by Unseelie magic and their own appearance, grim folklore sprung up about them over time. Dullahan are created by Unseelie Fey when they decapitate a humanoid, often as part of a dark ritual. Newly created dullahan are able to retain most of their personality of their humanoid self, but memories of their past life is mostly forgotten. Only a few dullahan manage to remember a memory from their past life often due to a trigger or a lasting impression the body will never forget. Dullahan are also capable of producing offspring, the newborn in question becoming undoubtably a dullahan with characteristics of the dominant race from both partners.

Life of a Dullahan

Since they resemble most normal humanoids so strongly, most dullahan are fully capable of integrating themselves into society more so than most tieflings, half-orcs and dullahan who resemble tieflings and half-orcs. The differences they do possess are minimal until their headless nature is exposed. Showing their headlessness in public is viewed as off putting at best, sometimes creepy. Sometimes dullahan are compared to undead, viewed negatively to holy places and organizations, other times monster hunters or guards get called to the scene as a misunderstanding of dullahan. Due to this, dullahan hide this trait very easily by reattaching their heads onto their bodies. To save further unwanted attention, some also prefer professions that allow them to travel and live nomadic lifestyles or to hunker down and live like a hermit. Regardless of profession, dullahan tend to have an approachable or unapproachable demeanor; which happens to work in hiding their headless nature by either making friends or turning people away.

In Fear of Gold

A side effect of being "topless" and versatile with their head, dullahan have a built in instinct to fear gold as a countermeasure by the Unseelie Court to control them in the Feywild. in the Material Plane, while no one controls dullahan, thier feebleness to gold is distracting, even harmful. Despite the downside, many dullahan circumvent payment problems by asking to be paid in valuable gemstones or even platinum, depending on profession. Of course, there are organizations that hunt dullahan out of fear or ideals, likely aware of the race's weakness and using gold plated weapons to efficiently kill dullahan.

Physical Appearance

Dullahan resemble humanoids with either pale grey or pale blue skin. Their eyes are black, but their iris can be any color. A dullahan's hair can be any natural color of the race they originate from, but is frequently black, gray, or white. While a dullahan's head is separated from their body, an ethereal non-lethal flame forms on top of their wounded neck. This flame is invisible to the naked eye and can only be perceived by magical means. The flame serves as an indicator to help both body and head to find each other when separated over great distance, though this connection can be severed by divination blocking effects.

Dullahan Names

Dullahan names tend to resemble the race or parents they were born from. If they were created rather than born, they were likely given an appropriate name by their creator. Very rarely does a dullahan recover a fragment of their past life, inheriting their previous life's name.

Dullahan Traits

Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma increases by 2 and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Age: Whether they were created or killed by dark magic or born through reproduction, dullahan mature at the same rate as humans, but live far longer and stop aging. Dullahan that were born become adults when they reach 20 years and can live for 300 years.

Alignment: Dullahan tend toward neutral alignments as they believe death comes equally to everybody at their own pace and also to avoid being ostracized as monsters.

Inherited Attributes: Determine the race you were in life or born into life. You have that race's size, base walking speed, and languages. You still resemble that race.

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.

Fey: Your creature type is Fey, rather than hummanoid.

Frightening Persuasion: You have proficiency in either the Intimidation or Persuasion skill.

Unseelie Magic: You know the Toll The Dead cantrip. Once you reach 3rd level you can cast find steed once per long rest. The mount conjured is considered a fey creature. Additionally the steed can be dismissed into your shadow as an action, acting as a pocket dimension from a find familiar spell, and can be retrieved as a bonus action.

Once you reach 5th level you can cast knock once per long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Unseelie Tongue: You can speak, read, and write Sylvan.

Transplant Consciousness

Prerequisites: Dullahan

The body of a dullahan is a mysterious curse that remains with plenty of secrets for one to manipulate and discover. One such ability is to become someone else entirely.

Over the course of 30 minutes, you preform a ritual to bind yourself to a head within 5 feet of you, the ritual ends if you move more than 5 feet away from the head. you can bind to multiple heads equal to your Charisma modifier, not including your own head. If you attempt to bind to a new head that exceeds your maximum limit, you can choose to break a binding to one of your existing heads, not including your own head. You can only bind to a head if it's size and sex is the same as yours. By completing the ritual, the head no longer decomposes while you are bound to it and gain the following features:

• You can spend 30 minutes to transfer your consciousness to a different head. You can do this during a short rest if applicable. Doing so changes the head's skin pigment, eye and hair color to match your existing body and head. Alternatively, you can choose for your body to match the pigments of the current head.
• You gain insight into the general characteristics of the head's life, allowing you to mimic the person in both voice and mannerisms. You gain advantage on Charisma checks when passing yourself as a different person.