Welcome to Marinos!

Think of outer space, then fill it with vast quantities of salt water. Then reduce the scale, so that planets are close enough together to sail between. Then invert the planets, turning them into hollow spheres of air surrounded by water with glowing antigravity suns in the middle pushing everything away from themselves. Then scatter islands throughout the edges of the spheres and create hollow tubes snaking between the “planets.” Then populate the world with people and animals and monsters and magical beings of air, earth, fire, water, light, and darkness. That’s Marinos.

This is an oceanic world filled with islanders, sailors, merchants, fishers, hunters, inventors, and undersea peoples. Scattered with the remains of naval empires and filled with wonders and adventure, it’s a world of life and death, creation and destruction, all hanging in the balance.

Marinos is perpetually in the golden age of seafaring, for there is always more to explore. The burgeoning population spurs quests to find new spheres to inhabit. And one can always dive deeper into the dark depths of the ocean, where magic, wonders, monsters, and terrible perils await (along with absurdly massive and deadly pressures).

People traverse the seas in majestic sailing vessels, harnessing the wind to go forth upon the waters. They also ride in altered sea creatures fitted to become living submarines. And aquatic peoples such as Makos and Duskino dolphins have an even easier time exploring the ocean.

Technological advancements thus far include advanced sailing vessels, augmented creatures, clumsy steam power, and gunpowder. The bows and arrows of the past have been discarded in favor of firearms that don't require as much training and muscle to use, though experts may prefer the old ways when in need of silence.

Marinos is metaphysically situated at the hub of a set of interconnected worlds called the Nexus. Eight cosmic forces of good, evil, order, and chaos exert their magical influences on Marinos through intermediate dimensions known as Impressions.

Most people on Marinos feels the call of one of the Impressions of the eight Outer Planes. These Impressions are the passionate and violently primal Stormcome, the vivacious and verdant Prism, the peaceful and nurturing Veil, the radiant and everpresent Mirror, the mysterious and ghostly Echo, the patiently entropic Timewear, the malicious and militant Shadow, and the terrifyingly consumptive Muffle Impressions. This connection between a person and a plane is called a Draw. Many people are Drawn to planes that match their personalities, while some are connected to Impressions that stand for everything they hate.

The planes are always just around the corner, just within reach, changing the world based on their natures. The power of the Outer Planes is what gave mortal life (and death) as we know it to Marinos and made it the place it is today. Now it has its own magic and properties, a result of the amalgam of the world’s own magic and the elemental and cosmic influence of the Outer Planes and their Impressions...and the ancient dreamers of many worlds.

Table of Contents

There is no automated way to do one so it will be the last thing done. Table of contents coming to you no time soon.**

The Folk

Marinos’ common peoples suitable as player characters are collectively known as the Folk. There are certainly intelligent beings who are not Folk, such as dragons, uplifted animals, spirits of the planes, some elemntals, and various miscellaneous monsters, but Folk are what you think of when you say the word "people." They encompass various species, magical lineages, and arcane creatures, often humanoid and on a similar size scale to humans (especially in the case of playable species) but not necessarily so. Humans make up about 35% of the land based, humanoid population. Most of the other humanoid species resemble animals more closely than humans, but just as humans are related to other apes without being Beasts, the other sapient races share many things in common with each other that they don’t with their closest taxonomic relatives- this shared essence of culture, crafting, language, abstract thought, and society is what makes them Folk.

The common races are all definitive species, but some race options are members of various species affected by the same magic or parentage rather than comprising unique biological clades. These are marked with an asterisk, and gain some benefits from the base species through a feature called a “template.” Template choices are found at the bottom of the Folk section.

Nationality is often (but not always) more important in interactions than species in Marinos.

Homogriffs

Avian mortals of air and tranquil skies, Homogriffs possess keen minds. Distinctly birdlike, they have unique humanoid anatomy. Their forelimbs are a combination of trailing wings and arms. The hand and wingtip emerge from the same wrist. The hands have two fingers and a thumb, each ending in small dull talons. The legs are scaly and taloned. The beak is slightly curved, somewhere between a parrot and a bird of prey, and varies in length and shape. Males come in bright blues, greens, and yellows with striated patterns; some have varying degrees of brown. Females are usually brown like a sparrow, sometimes with hints of color on the head and wings. Leucistic (white) individuals are not uncommon. The tail is short and blunt. The eyes are large, bright, and intelligent.

Homogriffs move like birds, but thoughtfully, as though weighing the prospects of each step. This gives them a serene aspect. Quiet and introspective, Homogriffs are usually reassuringly calm, though some have an anxious streak. While polite, they are aloof and take a long time to make friends. They are usually introverted. More likely to be downhearted than bitter, they are not always the happiest people, but are easily made content. Homogriffs cherish family and knowledge. They would much rather be poor than ignorant, and much rather be ignorant than friendless.

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

Age. Homogriffs live about as long as humans.

Alignment and Draw. These birds are strongly predisposed to lawful and good alignments. They are usually Drawn to the Veil, Mirror, Echo, or Timewear Impressions.

Size and Type. Standing about five feet tall with a ten foot wingspan, your size is medium, but you only weigh 40 pounds due to your hollow avian bones. You count as Folk.

Speed. Your walking speed is 20 feet.

Homogriff Names

Homogriffs take their names from the Auran language. Personal names are typically gender specific; some names can be used for males or females; babies have “chick names” for use during childhood until the true name is given as a coming of age ceremony. Family names are passed down through the males, except in Gemwater, where it is the females who pass on the family name.

• Male Names: Oerano, Tasho, Alion, Feanotova
• Female Names: Dia, Rhena, Savonna, Lia, Toreva
• Gender Neutral Names: Lashonna, Disiva, Alionis, Respin
• Chick Names: Tik (Baby), Pin (Little), Seeby (Smush), Nori (Sweet), Feebi (Heartbeat)
• Family Names: Averhorn, Nahaera, Elonnis, Denastre, Phoril, Sehonni

Homogriffs Around the World

Humans

Humans are varied and make up a good portion of the populace of Marinos. As likely to wage war as they are to plunk down and start a family, they’re unpredictable in numbers, unless you know history, and then they are at times the most predictable beings in the world.

Legends disagree on their origins. Some say Humans and Tabaxi entered the world from a realm beyond the Nexus, and are its guests. Others say Humans were the first to live here, and the other mortal species were once humans. Whatever the case may be, they’re here to stay.

One problem for Humans is that they have no instinctual language. Their languages morph and evolve too fast for some longer lived beings to keep track of, mutating in ways unheard of in the fundamental languages. For this reason they have taken up Aquan just like the other mortals of the world.

The major Human languages in the region are Caspian, spoken by Frostreach Humans (Caspians); Sikenese, spoken by the native Human cultures of Gemwater; Tishan, spoken by those from Gemwater or Vasha whose lineage traces back to the latter sphere, and Germasko, spoken by the mercantile and nomadic group of the same name.

Ability Score Increase. One of your ability scores increases by 2, and the rest increase by 1.

Age. Humans reach early adulthood in their teens, but finish maturing in their 20’s. They live less than a century. Average lifespan varies by area. Where wars ravage the land or resources are scarce, humans may be lucky to get to 30. Where medical assistance and goods are plentiful, they can make it to 70 or 80 with relative ease.

Alignment and Draw. Humans are, if one thing only, varied.

Size and Type. Humans vary widely in height and build, ranging from barely 5 feet to tall to well over 6. Your size is Medium. You count as Folk.

Speed. You have a walking speed of 30 feet.

Skillful Adaptability. You have proficiency in a skill of your choice and with a tool or weapon of your choice.

Languages. You know Aquan, any language of your choice, and one human language of your choice. Humans make use of a variety of tongues, as they have no inherent language like other beings. Their languages evolve quickly and fluidly, much to the confusion of those born with the knowledge and eventual ability to speak and understand their own tongue. You may learn a language other than a human language, but it should reflect your upbringing.

Tishan Names

Tishans are given a first name at birth. Names ending in “a” usually go to girls and those ending in “on” or “in” are typically masculine. It is considered acceptable to give a child any name, however, whatever the ending, and most names are gender neutral. They earn a title-name before reaching

adulthood. This is chosen by the parents, the grandparents, the neighborhood, the children themselves, or the local ruler, depending on the family and culture. It is always based on some interesting and unique “accomplishment,” which ranges from saving half a dozen kids from a fire to landing upside down in a well and getting stuck there for a week. A dozen or more words relating to the accomplishment are decided upon, then traditionally anywhere from two to five of the words are randomly selected and put together to form the title-name. These names are often absurd sounding. By a quirk of tradition, twins and triplets are required to have the same title-name. In recent times many name-choosers have begun to choose the order, such that the title names portray the story behind them more clearly. Lastly, the mother’s family name is placed before the father’s family name as a double-moniker. Only the last part of the double-moniker is passed to successive children. This pair of family names is usually only listed for legal purposes.

• Personal Names: Vecca, Davish, Ravishon, Fegor, Lado, Tidanov, Orvo, Scirnia, Nashia
• Title-Names: Five Drops in the Bucket, Relentless Beetle-Scourge, Runs Toward Trouble, Feather-Ring Trident, Provincial Monarch Crimson Flag, Survival Game, Honored Laborious Loser, Dip Scissor Iron Tail, Firesong in the Red Lightning, Hippo Chaser Splash Rip
• Family Names (need two): Dorniva, Scrildashin, Nidarazot, Sambine, Rhinh, Vearnhard, Seenava

Sikhenese

The Sikhenese are the native Humans of Gemwater, a verdant sphere of blue oceans, swashbuckling adventure, beautiful green isles, exotic cities, and violent storms. Proud of their heritage, the Sikhenese come from diverse cultures and keep track of their ancestry. Before the Nasty Little War, the different groups often squabbled and fought, but once they had a common enemy, they became relatively united even while maintaining their cultural diversity. The main thing they disagree about is politics; diverse unity is important to the Sikhenese after the war, but nobody can agree on how to be unified.

Sikhenese Names

Sikhenese surnames come first, followed by gender specific personal names. A single tribe may have a few unique surnames associated with it. Even though they only keep the father’s name, the Sikhenese are obsessed with ancestry to the point of beating Rakishas, and each keeps a detailed, waterproof book detailing their ancestry from both parents.

• Surnames: Tanala, Laedo-Aedo,
  Naveno, Yarrin Sena, Sceen Vala,
  Faerionel, Tidersan
• Female Personal Names: Veena,
  Laera, Sheena, Lovill, Sora,
  Kitta-Vi, Vaelin, Sevriel, Ni
• Male Personal Names: Eno-Sill,
  Ravin, Rilio, Tiko, Nev, Faden,
  Colo, Faziquel

Caspians

The Caspians of Frostreach are occasionally called Vikings, and adopted that name from a small group of Humans from another world that, according to myth, intermarried with the people they found when they accidentally arrived in this frigid portion of Marinos. Caspians and others in Frostreach have advanced motors and steam technology, but it runs on Sparkstone, a filthy resource found only in that sphere. The skies are polluted there for a reason.

Frostreach is a place of volatile politics and whirlwind formation and dissolution of nations. Caspians are typically very patriotic, sometimes to the point of nationalism, and those who leave Frostreach to live in other regions often become zealously enthusiastic about the countries they join.

The inhabitants of Frostreach value ambition, loyalty, honor, shrewdness, and boldness, and tend not to think about the future more than eighty years ahead of them or the past more than a century back. Caspians are taught from an early age to take calculated risks for anticipated rewards, to live up to high expectations, and not to back down. This cultural standpoint can result in courageous behavior, but also war and intense foolhardiness.

Caspians are taller and broader than other human ethnicities (in order to survive the harsh and freezing climate) and have lighter skin due to the feebler sunlight. They typically have brown or light blue eyes and have hair in a variety of reds, blonds, and browns, generally straight or wavy. The men are often extremely hairy... and the women are renowned for their full beards (an exaggerated reputation, as “only” about a fourth of them possess this feature). When they travel to warmer places, these women often (but not always) shave their beards.

Frostreach weather fluctuates with little rhyme or reason, but mostly, it’s cold, and only getting colder over time of late. Caspians are used to wearing a lot of clothes, and even in warmer spheres tend to retain these habits as much as possible because of modesty standards. Caspians find the dress habits of the Sikhenese distasteful or scandalous, and the Sikhenese find Frostreach standards stifling.

These people speak Caspian with a variety of accents.

Germasko

The Germasko are a nomadic, seafaring group who travel on huge communal houseboats as merchants. Others live on the backs of massive, peaceable, surface dwelling aspidochelone (dragon turtle islands). They breed livestock, interact with the sapient Duskino dolphins frequently, act as interpreters and go betweens, and trade goods from far off lands. Those who live on land often work in monetary industries, offering loans and bank accounts. In general nobody likes them, but everybody needs them.

There’s a saying in Vasha; “A king who hasn’t read history is like a sea nomad who doesn’t know how to swim.” A similar variation from Gemwater involves calling someone who lacks the wherewithal or skill to thrive in their chosen profession a seasick Germasko, though that expression is more inflammatory. The Germasko have a love-hate relationship with the ocean, the source of their livelihood and an ever present danger. In general it leans toward love though; while others at sea might feel homesick, to many Germasko, the sea is their homeland. They are renowned for their diving and swimming skills, and even more so for their sailing and negotiating.

The Germasko, due to their typical professions and the difficulty of gaining the trust of suspicious outsiders, are often polite and charming. They typically combine shrewd diplomacy and manners with a joyous zealousness for life; life on a Germasko ship is far from boring. Part of that is the threat of storms, but these sailors create their own excitement. The Germasko love celebrations, music, and dancing, and celebrate any and every occasion with all of the above. Even a pleasant evening is a cause for music. Large ships generally have a dedicated musician to keep the sailors entertained as they work. Dances range from passionate frenzies of rhythmic intensity to peaceful waltzes. The Germasko by necessity get their sea legs from an early age, but passengers are still regularly shocked to see them dancing almost without mistake while the boat heaves nauseatingly in a rough sea.

A few Germasko are born “Dragon Whisperers” or “Traskador Eskadav” in their language. This is a good thing, given how many dragons and serpents inhabit the waters. It’s also good for those Germasko who live on aspidochelones. A handful of aspidechalones are quite violent, and it takes a dragon whisperer to know. The dragon goes where it wishes, but might veer off course a bit for a dragon whisperer it likes. Aspidochelone are spirits of earth, water, and fire given dragon form, and are volcanic; it’s good to have somebody around who knows when it’s time to temporarily ditch the “island.” They also need to dive underwater to mate and to lay eggs… Needless to say, Germasko who live in “turtle villages” rebuild from the unsteady ground up often. Nonetheless, it’s typically a symbiotic relationship, as they are used to change, benefit from a home no creature in its right mind would dare to attack, and can assist the dragon medicinally.

The Germasko have rounded faces and small hands, and their eyes lean down towards the center of their faces. Their skin tones vary greatly, but most have light skin that tans easily and intensely. Their curly hair comes in shades of brown, black, and red and typically turns at least partially gray at a young age. Their eyes are gray or nearly black.

Other Human Ethnicities

While the previously described human ethnicities are the most common, numerous others exist as well. Dorio humans are the native people of some of the branches of the Vasha-Gemwater tube. The Vanskrit of Rannadon make their living from the Salt Gash Lake. Several human tribes live in the majority minotaur Gorim Jungle, and their languages are completely distinct from both Tishan and Minotaur. The Dimriminivale dwell on one set of islands in Gemwater and are adamant in their assertion that they are not Sikhenese, though their language is related. The Caipsocan live in carved glacier fortresses in Frostreach. Minorities exist in each sphere, and are often seen as threats or inferior people by the majority ethnicities living there. Some maintain their traditional homelands in isolated or well defended regions, others are nomadic, and yet more have been driven from their typical habitations over time and forced to live in squalor or assimilate.

You are free to play a character from one of the previously mentioned ethnicities, or another from your imagination. Distinct cultural groups can be as small as a few hundred people. Assume you know a common human language from the surrounding area, but if you run into a member of your ethnicity and they have a special language, you will be able to understand and communicate with them as appropriate.

Human Alternative Traits

A small number of humans display traits different than those given for the species. When you create a human character, you have the option of using either of the two following sets of traits, which replace the human racial traits given above (size, type, and age unchanged unless noted). These alternative racial traits are not eligable for the Ability Score Flexibility option presented in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

Misa

Once there was an island. There were mice on that island, as well as people. But that’s not the point. The story really starts the day invaders came into the land, terrible monsters and their armies. They landed during a great storm unlike any seen before, but the waves bothered them not at all. They were after the people and would have ignored the vermin. But whenever the people of the land were captured or tied up or struck with nets, the misa came along and gnawed the ropes to shreds, setting them free to fight. As the frenzy of battle filled the lightning laced sky with the sounds of pain and war, as blood and rain soaked the ground, as towering waves pummeled the cowering coast and destruction reined, as the terror and anger of the inhabitants and the brutality of the invaders reached its climax, the veil between Marinos and the Stormcome was torn asunder and the influence of the Axis of passion, violence, and bravery seeped into the world, specifically the vermin. They were transformed, no longer mere dainty rodents, no longer timid. Standing about three feet tall and gifted with ancient weapons from deep below the battlegrounds of the Tempest, the misa charged courageously into battle to rescue their former tormentors. Together they beat off the titans and won a surprising victory.

That’s the legend anyway. Today they’ve spread across Marinos, their fiery chutzpah and willingness to fight anything giving them a reputation as a brave and adventurous, if sometimes overzealous and foolhardy, people. Anyone who makes the mistaken assumption that a misa is nothing more than a cute ball of fuzz will generally find themselves challenged to a duel, given a stern talking to about history, or graced with an expression full of distaste and a tail swish as the misa walks away, not deigning to respond.

Fond of snacks and tidbits, misa love friends, family, home, and a nice dry nest, but they also have a taste for adventure and journeys, and even the most homebody misa likes to go on short trips to new places and to explore every nook and cranny of the neighborhood or island.

Misa look like mice or rats, depending on subrace, except that they stand on two legs and are digitigrade. They have long tails (which they are quite vain about), and fur in shades of brown, tan, gray, black, and occasionally white. Their eyes don’t have much white to them, but nonetheless possess a keen spark of intelligence and curiosity. Unlike most other humanoids, misa feel no need to wear clothes except for                 decoration and utility. Their fur makes this less awkward           than it could be. Misa often wear some combination of hats,       capes, ear piercings, tail rings, regular rings,                                           feathers, and other decorations.                                                     They prefer functional clothing to be                                             as comfortable as possible, but                                                           when necessary, they’ll don                                                             the most unpleasant armor.                                                           Misa go barefoot if the                                                                     temperature allows it, but they                                                       enjoy the adventurous feel of                                                         boots.

Misa are small, and the lightpaws at least are generally polite. Until challenged or endangered (or until they see somebody else challenged or endangered) they are pleasant and relaxed. They are typically the first to stand up to bullies and tyrants, however, and more likely to become adventures than their stature and cute faces would suggest. Any child who’s been around them knows that, when disaster strikes, it may be better to hide behind a mouse (or rat) than a warrior. These intelligent rodents come in two varieties. The most common, the lightpaws, are blessed with extraordinary fortune. The other, the verminkin, are cursed by the Shadow Impression but very resilient. Both are brave and often goodhearted; the lightpaws are bold and brash while the verminkin prefer sneaky tactics and more underhanded cunning.

Misa Names.

Misa are given names out of their own language or pleasant combinations of words from the languages around them. Traditional Misa names are gendered; word-names aren’t gender specific but may be chosen according to a culture’s ideas of what words and concepts sound feminine or masculine. The family name is a sort of squeak unpronounceable to other races. When a legal family name must be put into a writing, one is typically chosen from the surrounding cultures.

• Male Traditional Names: Tagalo, Reepicheep, Vackadin, Despereaux, Dasherpor, Naradock, Niskator, Raskafor, Damaski
• Female Traditional Names: Snip, Tiskafina, Fedotatota, Hearthafell, Heatherdamaski, Fidita, Affernet, Tiska-Tiska, Pikicheepa
• Word Names: Wolf, Thunderbolt, Tumble-Daisy, Trouble, Winter-Bell, Tiger-Stripes, Firedancer, Ribbon-Tail, Petunia, Seafoam, Cloud, Danger, Pinecone

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity increases by 2.

Age. Misa mature at around 11 years old and live up to 40 or 50 if they’re lucky, but they fit a lot into their short lives.

Alignment and Draw. Brave and willing to fight for others, kind and chivalrous, misa tend strongly towards good alignments. Passionate emotions and the typical Draw to the Stormcome Impression influence them toward a chaotic alignment. They are also commonly Drawn to the Veil, and verminkin may be tied down to the Shadow Impression.

Size and Type. Misa are Small, standing about 2 ½ to 3 feet high. They weigh around 40 pounds. You count as Folk.

Speed: Your speed is 25 feet.

Brave. You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Cheek Pouches. You can hold up to a cubic foot of material in your cheekpouches, which can be placed inside or removed with an object interaction. Spitting everything out on the ground doesn't take an action.

Nimbleness. You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan and Misa.

Subrace. Two varieties of Misa exist, the typical lightpaw and the cursed verminkin.

Lightpaw

These are typical, scrappy Misa, homely creatures of light and courage.

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.

Lucky. When you roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.

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.

Verminkin

By far the less common subrace, verminkin misa are cursed by the influence of the Shadow Impression, and Drawn to it far more often than other misa. They tend less toward chaos than others of their species, and tend to be more sensible, sarcastic, and rough than lightpaws. Those who are good aligned are less flamboyantly and overdramatically so than the average lightpaw. They possess more beastial, ratlike features, such as curved nails, mangy fur, and long, protruding teeth. They are larger and tougher, and willing to feed on the most vile offal. They are inured to the effects of their diets and to other illnesses and poisons. Despite their nasty reputation and diminished liveliness, they inherit more good sense than the average lightpaw. Intermarriages result in half of the offspring being lightpaws and the rest verminkin, but never intermediates.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution increases by 1.

Ratkin Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws against poison and disease, and you have resistance to poison damage.

Darkvision. You have standard 60 ft darkvision.

Natural Weapons. Your dirty claws and nasty, massive yellow teeth are natural weapons with which you are proficient. They deal 1d6+ your Strength modifier of piercing damage. You don’t need hands free to use your teeth as weapons.

Minotaurs

Passionate people of impressive physique, minotaurs are driven by emotion and ambition. Prone to outbursts of passion or fury, these bull-like humanoids are met with a wary eye for their violent and impetuous reputations. This stigma is only half deserved, as a minotaur is as likely to knock you out cold with an exuberant thump to the back as a hammer to the head. Warriors, laborers, hunters, sportsmen, adventurers and guards, they crave excitement and fear nothing more than boredom. These people are competitive, brash, and ambitious, driven by a bottomless desire to outdo themselves and those around them.

Minotaurs look like humanoid bovines, though they aren’t closely related to regular ungulates. They are unusual creatures, anatomically speaking, in that they have both cloven hooves and meaty four fingered hands. They are covered in brown, gray, black, or cream colored hair. Those who trace their ancestry to Frostreach have shaggy fur, while those from Gemwater and Vasha have shorter coats. Both males and females sport impressive horns for fighting and looks. They also have a taste for meat no cow in its right mind would ever dream of.

Despite their unpredictability and lack of gentleness, minotaurs are extremely family oriented creatures. This manifests in a surprisingly group oriented mindset, unusual honor codes passed through generations, and even their naming conventions. They take to romance with a zeal that perhaps surpasses even that of humans, from whirlwind romances to passionate long term relationships.

Baby minotaurs are cute, but they are also born able to walk, run, and brawl. Young minotaurs (and minotaurs in general) regularly survive accidents that would kill other people. Fragility is not an issue, and they forget that other species are not as durable as they are. Minotaurs love kids, and enjoy the company of children of all species, but have to remember to be gentle. Minotaurs who don’t fall into cycles of violence (as they can be a very violent species) retain a childlike playfulness throughout their entire lives.

With a fondness for seafaring, Minotaurs take to the oceans to fight, explore, trade, pillage, thrill seek, conquer, go monster hunting, or some combination of the above. Even the most mercantile Minotaur ship is armed to the teeth with trigger happy pugilists just dreaming of the day they’ll get a chance to show up some pirates. Unfortunately, no pirates in their right mind would ever take on a ship full of minotaurs.

There have been plenty of minotaur empires throughout history, but they never last long. Internal strife and bickering tear apart the conquerors within a couple generations while their amicable tendencies cause them to take up with the natives, plunk down, and form new settlements. While the initial violence may never be forgiven, minotaurs are surprisingly benevolent in their rule for a few reasons. First, societal injustice deeply offends most minotaurs. Ingrained in the heart of a minotaur’s psyche is a driving love of freedom. It would never cross any but the vilest minotaur minds to withhold much dignity even from the weakest and most downtrodden opponent. Second, the last thing any spoiled minotaur wants in life is to spend his or her free time wading through bureaucracy when there are spoils and parties to

Drowned

The ocean, for all its life giving properties, is also a thing of swift, silent, and deadly annihilation, the effects of the Muffle Impression. Those who drown in the darkness of the pressing saline waters leave the Nexus without a trace, bypassing the Echo Impression and the Memory forever. That’s why they call it Davy Jones' Locker; it locks their secrets away with their lungfull of water. Nobody really knows what happens next. Maybe the soul moves Beyond immediately. Those of some religions say that the soul ceases to be, or never was to begin with, but these are the pessimists. The only thing everyone can agree with is the simple fact that the skeletons of the drowned are washed up on shore, bones from who knows what people, from who knows what ocean, from who knows what era. You could ask the bones, but crawling up on shore is the first thing they remember.

Do they have their own souls? Or are they the spirits of the drowned themselves, cursed with incurable amnesia? Nobody knows, least of all the Drowned.

Treated with suspicion, distaste, morbid fascination, or indifference by most, it’s hard for Drowned to adjust to their new lives among the living. They never have a childhood, as, unless the unfortunate owner of the body when living was young, they inherit the mind and body of an adult, complete with language...and a voice. A living voice,

that pauses as though to take a breath, sings, intones, laughs, and weeps without tears, devoid of muscles, a voice box, or a set of lungs. It’s disconcerting to say the least, and feels off even to the owner of the voice. Drowned move with muscles they don’t have, meet people’s gaze with eyes they will never know the color of, and think with brains they’ve never possessed. Those unlucky enough to “inherit” a memento, such as a ring or snapped off half of a manacle, may spend many hours a day pondering who they are.

Gender is a bit complicated for the Drowned, as they don’t marry, reproduce, or have hormones. Some have a sure sense of gender, either because of shreds of memory left over from their transformation, hints from their personality, or because of definitive gendered form in their skeleton. Others are not really sure if their bodies were male or female. Most passively acknowledge that they are gendered, without knowing (or always caring) which.

Drowned are undead, but not because of any dark curse. The only other fact of their origin, agreed upon by most scholars, is that the Drowned exist as the Echo Impression’s all out attempt to preserve some memory of the obliterated stories of the victims of the sea. However, the gloominess or loneliness of their predicament and the very fact that they are dead can Draw them to the Shadow Impression. They are also often Drawn by the Echo or Muffle Impressions, probably because of those dimensions’ involvement in their creation. And many take a shining to the Prism, seeking a new start and a new life, whatever the old may have been. Similarly, the Veil offers solace and comfort to what can be a very lonely unlife.

They never have Reflections or Shadows; these parallel denizens of the Shadow and Mirror realms perish simultaneously and in similar fashion to the people they parallel, only to reincarnate as the unasked for companions of another living being as they have for eons.

Despite their troubles, the Drowned are powered by a counterintuitive hope, one which most can’t think of a reason to explain. They are stubborn in pursuit of normalcy. And the ill opinions of others sharpen their wills to a fine edge, like a blade on a whetstone. Perhaps because of their vulnerability and lack of family, Drowned are also protected by the Veil Impression, the source of their hope. For this reason they are sometimes Drawn to the Veil Impression of the Haven.

Drowned maintain some of the abilities their bodies had in life. Minotaur Drowned have horns, for example, and lightpaw misa Drowned are still mysteriously lucky.

Live Scrimshaw

People with a phobia of drowning pay special tattoo artists to cut them open and inscribe their bones with scrimshaw ID's. Drowned may get scrimshaw for decoration.

Iguanas

Tranquil, peaceful semi aquatic reptiles with a love of warm coastal seas, Iguanas are the hippies of Marinos, hospitable and deeply in tune with nature. They abhor violence and their societies boast a wealth of folk medicine stretching back thousands of years. They make it their business to help anyone who comes to their home. Usually content to live their entire lives on a single island or coast, they are fantastic guides to their native locals. They have a fondness for beauty of all sorts and possess an rustically artistic flare. Iguanas are seldom very materialistic, not because they don’t like things, but because they find deep satisfaction in simple and common items and experiences. Iguanas savor every positive experience with relish and love friendship and peace. They are good neighbors, never invading or stealing unless they are forced to for their own survival. While not inclined to take over new lands, they will fight fiercely for their homes against all manner of threats, whether beast or army or cosmic force.

Iguanas have a hard time being aggressive or assertive, but are unflappable. If you yell at an Iguana, accuse her of something she didn’t do, spit on her face, she’ll probably just blink, turn around, and leave to go hang out someplace nicer. Only when that doesn’t work do they resort to harsher methods. Such as a good talking to. And after that doesn’t work, maybe then they’ll get some help. If one Iguana didn’t work, maybe twenty will. Or grumpier people, in the absence of other Iguanas. Prompt, radical action is saved for physical danger or threats to the home.

Strictly vegetarian, Iguanas find the meat eating tendencies of other species repulsive. The one exception is Redeye Iguanas, who have a taste for the stuff. Carnage! Disgusting. Those rebels, those (shudder) omnivores. Nasty. Sit down and enjoy a nice salad like the rest of us! These tropical lizard people do have communal meals, but they get most of their nutrition as they go, wandering, stopping to admire a nice flower, eating said flower, admiring its taste...

The surest thing to drive Iguanas away from their homes is overpopulation, stirring them to explore. The other things bound to make them travel are the lasting bonds which unite distant colonies. What’s more fun than going on a voyage to visit your second cousin twice removed for several weeks? Especially when you haven’t seen her in years? And especially when you bring a passe of friends, none of whom have ever met her? You’re sure they’ll like her too.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 2. Iguanas are keenly in tune with nature and the emotions of others.

Age. A slow moving, slow aging species, Iguanas can easily live two or three hundred years.

Alignment and Draw. A fondness for tradition and agreed upon values pulls these reptiles towards law, while a loathing for harmful or stifling conventions tugs them toward chaos. Iguanas love nature and the sea, and find it easy to adjust to disaster and change. Fiercely protective of friends and family, careful to steward natural resources for future generations, gentle and conflict averse, Iguanas are most often neutral good. They are usually Drawn to the Veil Impression of the Haven, but find the lush liveliness of the Prism appealing as well. Most find the Mirror too rigid, and the neutral and evil planes too callous or destructive.

Size and Type. Standing between 4 and 6 feet tall, your size is medium. You count as Folk.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.

Friend of Earth, Sky, and Sea. You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill. Iguanas are so finely attuned to nature that they learn to commune with some of its vassals. Choose one animal language from the language section. You have studied and interacted with this type of animal so many times that you can communicate with them as per Speak with Animals. You mimic their body language and understand their secret tongues. This knowledge is not something that can be taught; only learned and felt. On account of your intimate knowledge of their strategies and tricks, you also gain proficiency with one skill having something to do with the instincts or lifestyle of the animal, such as Stealth for snakes or Acrobatics for songbirds. You also gain proficiency in one similarly appropriate tool, such as mason’s tools for burrowing mammals or flutes for songbirds.

(Optional) Cold Blooded. This negative feature is optional. Nonplayer iguanas are poorly suited metabolically to survive the cold, but PC’s are exceptional people. Some players enjoy having a weakness. If you are one such player, feel free to take this trait. You have disadvantage on saves to avoid exhaustion from cold climates.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan and Kizaku. Kisaku is a lilting but firm language that draws from the elemental tongues, which these reptile people find easy to learn.

Subrace. Choose a subrace from below: Marine, Basilisk, or Redeye.

Basilisk

Fast and impetuous, Basilisks are daring and love stunts and displays. These adrenaline junkies serve as scouts and performers, sportsmen and messengers. They are best known for their ability to run on water for short distances. They have large feet, wavy fins, head crests, and bright colored scales, usually green.

You have a lot of experience trying something dangerous. “Hey get back here don’t be stupid noooooooooo” is basically your middle name. Basilisks have shorter average life expectancies than other Iguanas for obvious reasons.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.

Lightning Dash. Your land speed increases to 35 feet.

Run on Water. As long as you take the Dash action on your turn, you can run across the surface of a liquid so long as it is not too rough (or sticky, like sap). You fall into the liquid as normal should you stop moving or end your turn without getting out of the water. You can’t start running on water more than once per turn, and you can’t run on a liquid you’re already submerged in.

Redeye

Most Iguanas are connected to the elements of earth and water, with a weaker tie to air, but Redeyes have a very strong bond to fire in addition to these connections. It roils through their veins, toughening them and filling them with passion and energy. Argumentative and fond of meat, Redeyes are much more confrontational than other Iguanas. That may not be saying much, but it’s something.

Iguanas consider Redeyes abrasive, annoying, and arrogant, and usually the Redeyes don’t care. Most Iguanas ignore the nasty criticisms of others. Redeyes disdain the nasty criticisms of others, and often the useful ones too. Other Iguanas hate to admit it, but the Redeyes can be charming and win lots of friends. They are more likely to adventure than other Iguanas. Deep down redeyes are still very similar to others of their species; while they can be abrasive, they are usually deeply empathetic and protective.

Prone to bluffing, boasting and fighting, these fiery reptiles tend to bicker among each other. Colonies of Redeyes tend to be raucous and full of drama. But their silver tongues can be useful for uniting the group and conducting diplomacy (a task they are well suited for, if they would just figure out when to shut up). They are resistant to fire and can fling it as well as they can take it, making them good warriors and sorcerers. Bold and stubborn, they are hardy and tough.

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma increases by 1.

Alignment and Draw. Redeyes take sides when it comes to law and chaos. Naturally this makes them argue more fiercely with each other. While impetuous, they are still typically well meaning and good aligned. The rare evil Redeye may find the Muffle or Timewear Impressions appealing. Redeyes in general are Drawn to the Stormcome Impression as often as the Veil or the Prism.

Fire Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage on account of your flame retardant scales. Most Redeyes are overconfident about playing with fire as a result.

Playing with Fire. You know the Produce Flame cantrip. Choose a mental ability score at character creation as your spellcasting ability. Whenever you are concentrating on this spell, you can ignore the Cold Blooded trait if you have it.

Iguana Names

Iguana names come in two forms: personal names and nature names. A baby Iguana, when he hatches, is given a personal name, and later in his life chooses a nature name that represents his personality. At that point he chooses what to introduce himself as. Some Iguanas don’t find a suitable nature name until they are adults, or even old aged.

Male Personal Names: Nizo, Avua, Jonzu, Lo’vua, Renuki, Nooshu, Deevu, Actu

Female Personal Names: Shia’lo, Onooa, Ishi, Viayo, Siki, Guenaco, Senza, Vani

Nature Names: Tuju (Stone), Shia-wia (Waving Grass), Shiati (Ocean Wave), Oolamon (River), Taganako (Thunder), Enovia (Breeze), Li-oovana (Shadow)

Teneshiki

The majority of air breathing folks live in the spheres, but not the Tenishiki. These merchants, designers, performers, gardeners, weavers, and artists are native to the network of filaments between Vasha and Gemwater. While the main tube is in most places miles wide, the smaller capillaries and nodes coming off of it are often as little as a thousand feet wide, tapering down to unstable veiny tips several feet in diameter.

Not all capillaries are habitable, and some are unstable, have inhospitable climates, display bizarre gravity, are completely dark, or otherwise are problematic. But the Tenishiki have gotten good at finding islands in the tubes where they can thrive, and their in depth knowledge of the area gives them a military advantage allowing them a fighting chance to fend off intruders despite their small size.

Gifted with instincts appropriate for life in the tubes, some Tenishiki emigrated about 150 years ago to the Gemwater Frostreach tube, which, while more circuitous, has fewer islands and fewer capillaries. They can also be found coexisting with the Germasko on their mercantile ships sometimes, or occasionally on islands with Iguanas, but they rarely settle down in any of the spheres otherwise.

Best known for manufacturing and selling beautiful and vivid dyes, Tenishiki also cultivate fruit, breed exquisite ornamental fish, compose and teach music, find collect and sell fine magical spring waters, go on trips as tourists, engage in wildly fanciful and fleeting hobbies, chase colorful birds, steal valuables from visitors, build tropical resorts, guide explorers, act as diplomats, and design aesthetic architecture with no functional purpose except to act as giant prisms or attract songbirds.

Driven by fancy and whim, Teneshiki view the world through a lens of colors. Songs have colors. All Twitchlings have synesthesia in some capacity. Emotions have colors. Art and music are necessary for daily existence. Flowers are worth more than money and colorful animals are worth all the money in the world. Their use of language is very evocative and typically employs visual descriptions and references as part of metaphors, poetry, and instead of adjectives. “You must be feeling terribly burgundy today.” “My adventure was green and wholesome.” When insulting each other, they use colors. A specific branch of Tenishiki humor that nobody else understands or appreciates is No’kora Na, which as far as anyone can figure out is akin to silent, purely visual puns based on the color of art, illusions, and objects.

In the presence of an overjoyed Teneshiki, the colors of the world around them brighten, while a miserable Twitchling sucks the color out of everything around them until they and their surroundings are starkly monochromatic. Tenishiki can see many more colors than humans can, and when communicating with each other they supplement their speech with mildly hallucinogenic pheromones that induce the experience of witnessing colors that add meaning to the conversation or relationship.

Tenishiki are magical by nature, and in areas deprived of magic become listless. They can conjure the most beautiful dyes and spray blinding flashes of multicolored light from their hands.

Speed. Your walking speed is 25 feet, and you have a swimming speed of 15 feet.

Spellcasting. You can cast the Color Spray spell once per long rest at a spell level equal to one half your character level, rounded up (maximum 9th level). Choose a mental ability score at character creation to be your spellcasting ability for this spell, which you can cast without material components. Most Tenishiki cast this spell as a burst of blinding rainbow light, but for Achromatics it is more of a silvery flash. You can also cast the spell using any spell slots you have, in which case its level is equal to that of the slot.

Weave Colors. As an action, you can create an obviously illusory flash, pattern, or image of light that fits within a five foot cube within 5 feet of you and lasts for one round. Alternatively, you may, as an action, alter the color of a Small or smaller portion of an inanimate object or regular plant, or create a colored effect on its surface. This change lasts for 1d4 minutes. By spending 10 minutes imbuing the colors into the object, you can make the change permanent. You can do the same on larger objects, but it takes longer. By spending 1 hour in concentration (as though you were concentrating on a spell), you can magically create a liter of dye of any color you choose.

Emotional Telepathy. Through the magical, psychic release of feelings, sensations, and colors, you can silently project simple emotional information such as fear, joy, affection, or disgust to creatures of your choice within 30 feet that are capable of experiencing emotions. Typically, this means they must have an Intelligence score of at least 2, but certain creatures, such as constructs that lack self awareness, may not be capable of receiving such communications even if they have higher Intelligence scores. Recipients have no ability to communicate back in turn unless they also have this ability or a different form of telepathy.

Resilient. You have advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic, a useful defense against the strange and mystical environments of the tubes.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan and a language of your choice.

Mako Names.

Mako names are typically taken from the Abyssal language. When translated, even “nice” names can sound filthy, based not on surface dweller sensibilities but on Mako tastes. And unlike Humans, who generally pick positive names for their young, Makos feel no such compunction; a nice name won’t have any impact on its bearer’s life, nor will a negative name. Mako parents choose positive names when they feel like it, but unpleasant ones are believed to help the bearer become strong and brave. Oftentimes, the name comes in a semi prophetic dream, just before a Mako’s young hatches. Makos also don’t have family names, caring nothing whatsoever about ancestry or being remembered by future generations. Loyalty is all that counts.

Male Names: Mordakos (Carrion), Wargiris (Friend), Rash-Morian (Cornered), Edokai (Unconquered), Panitak (Forest), Dakaton (Hostile), Venatos (Maimed), Hashlaq (Excellent)

Female Names: Vorial (Sunlight), Vorp (Ruthless), Gaska (Eel), Norgai (Dismal), Vespirorg (Happy), Navishesh (Smirking), Jodikai (Whiplash), Tajirog (Glutton), Jokidov (Fang), Gashick (Curiosity), Moradi (Blood)

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Intelligence by 1.

Age. Makos mature at around 16 and usually die before the age of 50, but can live to 150. A short life well lived is better than a long life squandered, as the Mako saying goes.

Alignment and Draw. Makos lean toward a neutral alignment and a wide variety of Draws. They seldom are Drawn to the Veil, as its niceties seem unrealistic to them.

Size and Type. Larger than humans, but still Medium. You count as Folk.

Speed. With your amphibious build, you have a walking speed of 25 feet and a swim speed of 30 feet.

Amphibious. You can breathe in air or water and count as a deep sea creature for purposes of aquatic adventure.

Acclimatized. You are immune to the effects of environmental cold, and treat frigid water in the same way other creatures would treat extreme cold in the air. You need not drink so long as you eat a diet rich in wet food that is not too saline, such as fresh fish.

Blood Magic. Once per short rest, you may cast either the Cure Wounds or Healing Word spell, but you take irreducible necrotic damage equal to that which you heal a creature of. Choose a mental ability score at character creation as your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Partial Sleep. You remain alert to danger while sleeping naturally, as though you were awake, and can travel at a slow pace as you rest. Interruptions still result in loss of rest benefits.

Natural Weapons. Your teeth are natural weapons, dealing 1d6+your Strength modifier of piercing damage. You are proficient with them and don’t need a hand free to use them.

Darkvision. Accustomed to the darkness of the deep ocean, you have standard darkvision.

Mako Weapon Training. You gain proficiency with the trident, spear, javelin, and net.

Shark Scenting. Makos have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made underwater that rely on smell.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan and Abyssal.

Selkies

Sons and daughters of the sea, Selkies are shapeshifting fey who slip human bodies into living sealskins to become creatures of water. Enchanting beings of captivating supernatural beauty, those who see them are awed by their allure whether or not they understand what they see. Selkies are torn between land and sea. The ocean is their true home, where they are free. They are drawn there by longing. The land is rest and tyranny, and they are drawn there by curiosity. There they may fall in love with humans, compounding their conflict. Or, worse, a human who beholds one at a distance and falls into selfish romance may sneak up and capture the precious sealskin, binding the Selkie to his or her will. A Selkie will stop at almost nothing to get it back, even if it takes years. The best way to keep a Selkie is to let her go. She’ll head to the ocean and disappear into the brine. And then if you’re worth keeping she’ll always come back. When you kidnap a Selkie by stealing her sealskin, she’ll always find a way to get it back. If you burn it, with no incentive to stay she’ll leave you and you’ll be cursed forever by the sea. If you don’t, when she finds it, she’ll disappear into the brine. And she’ll never come back. You’re not worth keeping. Some Selkies are manipulators, using their raw charm and otherworldly glamor to sway the destinies of nations and change the world forever according to their whim. Some wreak vengeance on those who hurt them. Some look for love on land or upon the sea. Some sing songs to the lonely coastlines. Some haunt deep trenches, always on the run from the creatures of the deep. They are chaotic and unpredictable, with little interest in domination or the greater good. Something wild dances in a Selkie’s soul, something that can never be tamed. Selkies wander; that combined with their magical nature can drive them to adventure. Females are most often targeted by humans, and may need to flee from obsessive lovers, slave traders, or anyone else who might hold them captive through their sealskins. Selkies sometimes like to have a home base but don’t like to possess much and prefer to live a freewheeling life. Wards of the ocean, Selkies have a supernatural tie to it. They are highly sought after sailors, as the ocean seems to fawn over them, easing a ship’s passage.

Selkie Names

Selkies take fleeting and changeable names from other cultures based on whimsy or chosen by others for use on land. They also have truenames in Sylvan, which they tell only to those they trust.

Male Names: Airic, Brendon, Cadvan, Enoves, Kelvyn, Pryderi, Soren

Female Names: Ardena, Evelina, Fianna, Idelisa, Muriel, Nareena, Oriana, Rowena, Yva

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma increases by 2, and your Wisdom by 1.

Age. Selkies would live about 120 years if they spent all their time on land, but their aging is slowed by regular visits to the sea. By returning to the sea often a Selkie greatly prolongs his lifespan, perhaps by 50 years or more. Those who spend their entire lives in the ocean live even longer. But to a Selkie, for the sake of experience every year of life spent on land is worth twice that of a year in the sea, and they feel as though they are missing something if they don’t get to spend part of their lives above the water.

Alignment and Draw. Selkies are strongly chaotic at heart, following instincts and urges others have a hard time understanding. They are at times passionately emotional, and other times utterly serene. Typically they are Drawn to the Stormcome, Veil, or Prism.

Size and Type. You count as a fey with the shapechanger subtype, and are about the size of a human in human and seal forms.

Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet. You have a swim speed of 20 feet. You count as an aquatic creature for purposes of underwater adventuring (like many marine creatures, you need not drink water so long as you eat a diet of fresh fish).

Darkvision. You have standard darkvision.

Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Hold Breath. You can hold your breath twice as long as a human could.

Selkie Magic. You know the Shape Water or Druidcraft cantrip (your choice at character creation) and can cast it at will. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Speak with Animals spell at will, but only on oceanic animals such as seabirds and fish. At 5th level, you can cast the Suggestion or Gust of Wind spell (your choice, but not both in one day) once per longrest. You can only cast Gust of Wind at sea. You can cast them both with spell slots as well, but Gust of Wind still only at sea in this way. Choose a mental ability score at character creation as your spellcasting ability for these spells. Selkies share an intimate bond with nature and its creatures, and their beguiling charm allows them to influence people as well.

Sealskin. You were born with a sealskin, a living part of you. Usually silvery and silky smooth, a sealskin is a Selkie’s most important belonging, if you could call a part of your body a belonging. Usually worn like a cape or held when not in use, a Selky might store it someplace safe now and then, but some are a bit careless. You can easily disguise it as a fur cape, or store it in your backpack, but you start to feel uncomfortable if it is confined or compressed for too long.

You can spend one minute donning your sealskin, so long as you are not encumbered. Equipment disappears under your sealskin and can’t be accessed until you take it off. Should you die in seal form, your equipment magically appears in the nearest unoccupied spaces. While in it, you are transformed into a seal. Your human anatomy shifts extradimensionally to snugly fit into the stubby torpedo shaped body, and you gain the following traits. You can doff your sealskin in the same amount of time it takes you to don it. Nobody else can shapeshift using your sealskin.

• Your swim speed increases by 20 feet, or becomes equal to your human walking speed if that is greater.
• You can hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to 15 plus three times your Constitution modifier.
• You become immune to the ill effects of normal environmental cold, in air or in water.
• You gain a bite attack that deals 1d6 plus your Strength modifier of piercing damage, and you are proficient with it.
• You have flippers instead of hands, can only speak in Sylvan, and have a walking speed of 10 feet, no matter what your usual walking speed is. This speed can’t be increased.
• You can speak and understand Selken, the animal tongue of pinnipeds, otters, and manatees, while in this form.

Lost Sealskin. If you lose your sealskin for any length of time, you lose the Sealskin trait and gain the ability to give yourself advantage on any die roll two times per long rest before knowing the result. Selkies who have lost their sealskins need a will of steel to get through life. Regaining your sealskin inactivates this trait and returns use of the Sealskin trait to you.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan and Sylvan.

Rakishas

In the coldest depths of winter wasteland, where nobody else in Frostreach wants to live, dwell the Rakishas. These lupine humanoids are covered in yellowish white, silver, blue gray, or black fur. Tough and cold in expression, with yellow or icy blue eyes, Rakishas are surprisingly some of the most hospitable and understanding people in the sphere. Underneath their stoic demeanor lies the loyalty of a wolf and the playfulness of a puppy, which emerge in the presence of trusted friends and on rare occasions when there is plenty to eat.

Compassionate and determined, Rakishas are respectful of life, but when they do decide that something has to be killed to feed or protect the family, they are merciless and tactical, dealing as swift and painless a death as they can. Herding and hunting come naturally to them; they are strictly carnivorous, eating anything from caribou and muskoxen to polar bears and mammoths.

Rakisha culture is rich and ancient; their music and arts are simple but deep and eloquent. They sing by howling in musical harmony and have perfect pitch. Rakishas are fond of beauty in a withdrawn and dispassionate way. They keep detailed track of their ancestry, down to personal details about progenitors from hundreds of years ago. Most Rakishas choose a patron ancestor when they reach the age of 12 and honor the ancestor in a philosophical manner. Religious Rakishas typically believe in reincarnation, which to them is a depressing concept as life is very hard. Some tribes have traditions venerating spirits or taking the ancestor tradition to another level as religious worship.

Rakishas are devastating in combat, but whenever possible they are slow, analyzing, and patient. Opportunities are few and perils are innumerable in the wastes, and a wolf can’t afford to be unaware of one or make a mistake.

Once upon a time these wolf-folk were hunted for their pelts, but that went poorly for the hunters more often than not. Eventually the Rakisha tribes forged a curse that ruined anyone who owned such a pelt. Nowadays, they stay out of the way of everyone, and everyone stays out of the way of them. Nobody wants the land they want anyway.

When creating a Rakisha character for use outside of Frostreach, think about what drew them out of their insular society and into the wider disapproving world.

Ogres

Big. Dumb. Noisy. Stupid. Destructive. Clumsy. That’s what most people think of ogres, but...well, mostly they’re right. But they’re not the monsters they used to be, freed from a curse that made them servants of the lower planes by a wizard everybody thought was mad.

Zina the Oddball was convinced ogres were unlike goblinoids, kobolds, and orcs in that they had ghosts in the Echo Impression while the other monsters didn’t. She spent two decades devising a magical formula, another decade collecting the ingredients, and five minutes uttering the spell and performing the ritual. And then all the ogres in the entire world got a headache and wondered what they were doing with their lives, an uncharacteristically philosophical question as the species goes.

The ritual was completed during the Dark Days of the Great War, freeing the ogres just as the sinister warlords of the Doom Axis needed them most and helping to turn the tide.

Who knows if Zina was right or if she made herself right by changing the fundamental nature of ogres. The ogres still smash and rampage and some are still pawns of the Doom Axis. But now they work on ships, as bodyguards, as unskilled laborers, pulling carts, playing sports, living in mortal cities, causing mayhem, and eating constantly.

Ogres love to eat. They always bring a snack in their pockets, perhaps a dead pig or a squashed pumpkin. And when they don’t bring a snack, they. Will. Find. One. Hopefully not your prize goat you keep in the front yard.

These hulking beings get along well with minotaurs, who also love to eat and are unfazed by noise, celebration, and brawls. Most other folks steer a very wide berth.

Dragonborn

“You grow frail and sick as you weather the years. We are dragons. Age only serves to make us stronger.”

Ambition burns through the veins of every dragon, a ceaseless craving for power, majesty, and the glittering glory of a growing hoard. A metallic dragon might be happy to rule a majestic peak in a wilderness, sleeping for decades and shaping the realms of dream, giving wisdom to visitors or driving them off with deadly breath. Chromatics hunger for fame, and seldom turn down infamy, using their might to change the course of mortal affairs for better or worse. Gem dragons covet secrets and magic. A dragon’s overpowering majesty, awe inspiring and terrifying presence, unfettered physical might, and wellspring of inner magic allow it to shape the world as it sees fit.

Some dragons covet more, however. And each dragon knows that, with meditation, a ritual, or perhaps even a simple wish, it can convert its draconic essence to immense magical power, at the cost of the form and might it has known for its whole life. This process, which varies from dragon to dragon, is called the Bloodsong. Dragons are loathe to even consider trading their already powerful abilities for different power and becoming regular mortals in body and in soul, so it is a rare process.

Thus the dragonborn entered the world. They are the descendants of world shaping sorcerers of immense power who traded unimaginable longevity and strength for depths of flexible magical power, desperate wishers who burned through power for a reality altering desire, and even dragons who turned their life force into raw immortality. A bit of that magic still runs through their veins, sometimes emerging as sorcery, and each broils with the elemental breath weapons and ambition of their predecessors.

Dragonborn are highly mutable. Many are tailless, others have short tails, a few have long ones. Some are plantigrade, a few digitigrade. They are typically wingless, but rarely have vestigial wings in shapes reminiscent of those of their dragon ancestors. Dragonborn have 17 distinct morphs corresponding to each type of true dragon, along with infinite adminctures. About a fourth of dragonborn of mixed lines are born displaying an obvious similarity to a metallic, gem, or chromatic dragon species (or sometimes moonstone dragons and the chromatic adjacent deep dragons), while the rest tend to posses more muted colors and general dragonish features. Many dragonborn lack a distinct visual similarity to a specific type of dragon, as they have mingled together over eons, but dragonborn of more recent draconic heritage are often vividly similar to their ancestor.

Dragons find the presence of dragonborn disturbing (or at least offputting), as most cannot imagine why any dragon would give up its splendor to become mortal, and they hate the idea that it could happen to them by force if they are unlucky enough.

Not all dragons who become dragonborn do so through the Bloodsong. The bottomless ambition of dragons and the nosiness of chromatics can get them in deep trouble with other powers, especially the planes, and rarely a dragon may be cursed to lose its mighty form and become a mere mortal with no special powers.

When making your dragonborn, consider how closely their ancestry ties them to true dragons. Was one of their parents

or grandparents a dragon once, or is that tie more distant? Are they proud of their magical heritage, or bitter that their ancestors caused them to be born into a frail humanoid body when they could have been great wyrms? Did you perhaps even begin life as a true dragon, and if so, why did you give that up, and for what? Or was it taken from you?

Deep Dragonborn

Deep dragons are closely related to the chromatic dragons, and are also known as purple dragons. Dragonborn with ties to deep dragons often have dull ebony or dark purple scales, smell fungal, and prefer the dark more than others of their kind.

Draconic Resistance. You have resistance to psychic damage.

Breath Weapon. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of your attacks with an exhalation of magical energy in a 15 foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC=8+ your Constitution modifier+ your proficiency bonus). A creature takes 1d10 psychic damage, halved on a successful save. This damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).

You can use your breath weapon a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Sinuous. Squeezing doesn't take you extra movement.

Toxic Warding. Starting at 5th level, as a bonus action, you can channel your draconic energy to protect yourself. For 1 minute, you gain resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against poison and disease. If you already have resistance to poison damage, you gain immunity to poison damage and the poisoned condition for the duration. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again until you complete a long rest.

Moonstone Dragonborn

Moonstone dragons are creatures of dream and ride the edge between the Material, Etherial, and dream planes. Dragonborn with ties to moonstone dragons have scales of translucent green or white and manes of soft fur.

Draconic Resistance. You have resistance to radiant damage.

Breath Weapon. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of your attacks with an exhalation of magical energy in a 30 foot line that is 5 feet wide. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC=8+ your Constitution modifier+ your proficiency bonus). A creature takes 1d10 radiant damage, halved on a successful save. This damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).

You can use your breath weapon a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.

Dream Breath. At 5th level, you gain a second breath weapon. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of your attacks with an exhalation of magical energy in a 15 foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Constitution saving throw (DC=8+ your Constitution modifier+ your proficiency bonus). On a failure, a creature becomes incapacitated until the start of your next turn, and doesn't recall anything that occurs within that interval afterward.

Once you use your Dream Breath, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest.

Song Dragonborn

Song dragons are rare metallic dragons who spend vast quantities of time in humanoid form. They are lovers of music, masters of subterfuge, and exclusively female. Dragonborn displaying characteristics of song dragons are extraordinarily rare and always biologically female, often with shimmering scales like anodized titanium and prominent head frills.

Dragonborn with song dragon heritage use the abilities of metallic dragonborn, but with a thunder ancestry.

Bloodweres

The first hundred and twenty one bloodweres were created in a glass cauldron through a vile ritual involving the blood of a thousand sacrificial scent hounds, dozens of fine cast iron chains, the ashes of a burnt magical map, a stone from the Entropy Axis, a charge of lightning, hot tar fresh from a cursed tarpit, the tears of a dictator, and shredded leather made of human skin. The sorceress Noshinna Several Whisper was responsible for this act; she was the iron fisted tyrant of Nozonn eight hundred years ago after the deposition of Emperor Tashindoma (orchestrated by her). Seeking to rid the earth of her last surviving enemies, she created a new lineage of beings created to follow her to the death.

Bloodweres experience little emotion, but derive great pleasure from order. Engendered for their loyalty and lack of empathy, they crave honors bestowed upon them by those they respect. Living by a code of often legalistic honor, they have a hard time seeing beyond the demands of duty and command.

Bloodweres are happy to follow the orders of those they owe loyalty to, but despise being bound by any other chain of command. Prone to obsessively bowing and scraping to a single individual, they are stubbornly independent in the face of all other structures.

Half of the first generation of bloodweres was female, and the rest were male. But Noshinna created them with the intention that they would die out after she was gone, knowing she would get two generations out of them. Three quarters of bloodwere offspring are male, making it incredibly difficult for the species to propagate. While a human couple need only have three surviving children to contribute to population growth, bloodweres must have at least five on average. Evidently they were more resilient than the sorceress realized, as they never went extinct as planned. Stubborn and determined, bloodweres remain rare but proved capable of surviving and even slowly increasing in number, despite the stereotype of the callous Bloodwere incapable of forming a loving relationship.

Wildbloods

There are many intensely magical and intelligent elementals and fey in the world and the planes. Those that can shapeshift or already have humanoid forms may fall in love with mortals, producing hybrid children. Such children may also come about from influence to powerful magic during their mother’s pregnancy (or in the egg, for Iguanas and Homogriffs), or be born to bloodlines marked by otherworldly heritage. A child may also be burdened by mystical curses, touched by their blessings, or imbued with the magic of their very presence.

All true dragons can shapeshift, and they may intermingle with mortal bloodlines or imbue other creatures with a degree of their magical essence. While such unions can produce half dragons, the difficulty of passing on draconic features to non-draconic offspring means that Wildblood children are more common.

Wildbloods aren’t tied together by any consistent classification; it is a blanket term to describe any person displaying the telltale signs of an otherworldly heritage. The Homogriff daughter of a shapeshifted thunderbird and the mysterious boy raised by a blue dragon may both have lightning powers, but that is where the similarity ends.

When you create a Wildblood character, choose a heritage: air, darkness, earth, feral, fire, forest, ice, light, storm, toxin, or water. Your heritage gives you mild magical powers and a unique appearance while likely reflecting your immediate ancestry and circumstance.

Think about your heritage. Perhaps you’re the son or daughter of a dragon or thunderbird who took on humanoid form for a time. Maybe you’re related to a naturally humanoid elemental such as a djinn. Maybe your mother was blessed by a phoenix, or you were born during an eruption or terrible storm. Or is your family descended from a mysterious fey, and you were the first in generations to bear the mark of their power?

Wildbloods are an anomaly; many people have heard of them without meeting one. In cities, they attract only slightly less attention. They earn the stares of passerby, whether openly or surreptitiously. While they appear mortal their otherworldly heritage is self-evident in altered skin textures and colors, glowing veins of magma, unusual fins, crystal claws, metal horns, dragon scales, feathered hair, leafy brows, glowing eyes, frosty rhymed hands, and the like. What did your family think of you when you were born? Were you expected, hoped for, a shock, an outrage, a blessing, or a freak? How were you seen in your community?

Wildblood Names

Wildbloods typically are given names by a mortal parent, though they may receive one instead or in addition to by their magical parent. Some may earn nicknames based on their appearances or powers.

Template. You gain the template feature (see templates, below, and make your choice before continuing). You gain the traits associated with the template youpick, which reflect a sampling of the abilities of the species you come from.

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma increases by 2. With their magical natures, involvement with powerful beings, odd histories, and connection to forces of creation and destruction, wildbloods are often sorcerers, warlocks, and bards. Needing silver tongues to be accepted as regular people (or ascend into positions of leadership), they often have high Charisma.

Age: Wildbloods have similar life spans to their mortal parents, but age a bit slower. Interestingly, it can take up to a decade for a wildblood Echo of elemental ancestry to appear in the Echo Impression, leading to the superstition that wildbloods have no souls.

Alignment and Draw: The term Wildblood doesn’t even correspond to any particular type of creature, and the possibilities are too vast to make a blanket statement.

Recognizable. Due to your very unusual appearance, you have disadvantage on all checks to disguise yourself or blend in with a crowd without magic.

Bonus Language. You know a language of your choice (one that most likely relates to your otherworldly heritage).

Innate Magic. Your subrace grants you some number of innate spells you can cast: at will for any cantrips listed, and once per long rest for any leveled spells once you reach the specified levels. You can also cast these spells using any spell slots you have of the appropriate level or higher. Choose a mental ability score at character creation. That score is your spellcasting ability.

Subrace. Choose from any of the options below.

Air

Lighter and of slighter build than average members of their mortal species, these wildbloods are always accompanied by a refreshing breeze. Soft of step and light on their feet, an air heritage wildblood may be kind and unimposing as a gentle breeze or fierce and volatile as a whirlwind. They may be descended from thunderbirds, seafaring fey, genies, or even Stormcome spirits.

Backwind. Your walking speed (and flying speed, if you have one) increase by 5 feet.

Breath of Life. You are immune to effects that would require you to breathe in dangerous substances, as your bond to the sky lets you unconsciously filter the air and receive only what you want.

Caustic

A burning handshake, corroded fingers, tears that sizzle when they hit the ground, or eyes the colors of a hotspring may give these wildbloods away. Perhaps descended from a black or copper dragon, an elemental of volcanic hotsprings, a Timewear spirit, or bitingly ruthless fey, they can be painfully sarcastic, ruthless as a dictator, keen as a razor, or incorigeable pranksters.

Caustic Nature. You have resistance to acid damage. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against being swallowed.

Darkness

Easy to miss in a patch of shade and often tricksy and cunning, these wildbloods are descended from mischievous fey, fiends from the Lower Planes, creatures of shadow, and black or deep dragons. Their heritage displays itself in dark eyes, wispy hair made of shadows, or hands that drip with shade.

Superior Darkvision. You have standard 120 foot darkvision.

Sunlight Senstivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.

Shadow Step. Once per short rest, while in darkness, you may teleport up to 10 feet as a free action on your turn.

Trickery. Choose Deception, Sleight of Hand, or Stealth at character creation. Whenever you make a skill check with the chosen skill, you may add 1d4 to the result. At 5th level, choose for the bonus to increase to 1d6 or for the 1d4 bonus to apply to a second skill from the list.

Earth

Sturdy and strongly built, these wildbloods are tougher than their mortal parents. With cracked and rocky hides, crystal horns, unusually heavy bodies, tears made of dust, or other telling features, these Wildbloods are born from elementals of islands, swamps, and sea floors, certain gem dragons, or fey of the earth.

Toughness. At 1st level and every level thereafter, your hit point maximum increases by 1.

Feral

With animalistic eyes or ears, clawed hands, sharp teeth, quilled skin, a scaly hide, beastial tail, wild hair, or just a general scruffy look and unforgettable musky odor, these wildbloods are descended from truly wild fey, primeval dragons, Prism celestials, or even the legendary Beast Lords themselves.

Tongue of the Wild. Casting Speak with Animals does not require your concentration. Additionally, the spell allows you to speak with beastial, unaligned monstrositities such as owlbears and griffins, at your DM's discretion.

Wild Whisperer. Whenever you make an Animal Handling check, you may add 1d4 to the result. At 5th level, the bonus increases to 1d6.

Natural Weapons. Choose piercing, slashing, or bludgeoning damage at character creation. You have natural weapons, such as claws, horns, or fangs, that deal 1d6+ your Strength modifier of the chosen damage type. You are proficient with them. If you already have natural weapons, their damage die increases by 1 size instead.

Fire

Eyes flickering with flame, skin radiating heat, hands curling with wisps of dark smoke, hair covered in ash, these wildbloods may be born on volcanic islands or near oceanic vents. One might be the child of a polymorphed red, gold, or brass dragon, or a fey being of summer. Some may even be related to a fiend or a fiery celestial. They can be fiercer and more independent than their mortal parents, often ambitious and capricious. At their worst they may be cruel and greedy; at their best, stalwart allies of their friends and those in need. Some are warm and friendly as a winter hearth.

Kin to Flames. You have resistance to fire damage and immunity to the ill effects of breathing in smoke and volcanic gas.

Forest

Leaves in their hair, branchy antlers, mossy skin, perpetual komorebi flickering across their skin, a smell of flowers, or bark clawed hands give away their heritage. These wildbloods are often descended from floral fey like dryads, or Prism or Veil spirits, but who knows, maybe you're even a treant cursed to live in humanoid form?

Wild Strider. You can ignore non-magical difficult terrain caused by plants and fungi.

Wild Instincts. Choose Nature or Survival. Whenever you make check using the chosen skill, you may add 1d4 to the result. At 5th level, choose one: the bonus increases to 1d6, or the 1d4 may be added to the other skill also.

Ice

These wildbloods may have frost rimed hands, silvery eyes, claws or teeth of ice, icicle spikes, or freezing breath. They may be stoic and distant as a glacier, sarcastic as a Timewear fiend, or as friendly as a silver dragon.

Cold Resistance. You have resistance to cold damage.

Light

Glowing eyes, hair of sunlit fog, runic gemstones embedded in skin, or flickering bioluminescence give these wildbloods away. They may be descended from Mirror spirits, sun birds, summery fey, or crystal dragons. They range from stern and noble to mirthful and lighthearted to dogmatic and arrogant.

Made of Light. You have resistance to radiant damage.

Fast as Light. Each of your flying, climbing, swimming, or walking speeds are 5 feet greater.

Storm

Tempestuous, bold, and brave, with static electricity making their hair or feathers fly and hands that shock. They may manifest the quickness of lightning or the awe inspiring quality of a thunderstorm, and are often descended from thunderbirds, lightning dragons, or Stormcome spirits.

Brave. You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Lightning Resistance. You have resistance to lightning damage.

Toxin

Maybe fangs dripping with green venom, skin the color of a poison dart frog, an acrid stench, or hair strung with nightshade flowers gives it away. These wildbloods may carry the magic of green dragons, fey that embody toxic emotions and behaviors, or elementals of swamps or volcanic gases. They can be clever, sardonic, hateful, or playful.

Toxic Resilience. You have resistance to poison damage, and advantage on saving throws against poison and disease.

Water

Water heritage wildbloods might be short and stocky with finned appendages, have elongated snouts for catching fish and water repelling scales, have eyes with clear lids, possess skin with patterns like light rippling through water, or have feathers like a seabird, depending on the parent species. They can be descended from marids, selkies, deep scions, water nymphs, aquatic dragons, or a miriad of other beings of watery magic.

At Home on Land or Sea. You have a swim speed of 30 feet, or you can add 10 feet to an existing swim speed.

Amphibious. You can breathe underwater. If you can already, you can always treat water depths as 2 miles shallower for the purposes of pressure.

Templates

Some race/species options allow you to play as a regular mortal twisted by extraplanar influence, drowned and then returned to new life as an undead, or born from a non humanoid parent. Others let you play as a dark or light simulacrum of a worldly creature. If you play as one of these, pick an origin species and gain its template features. You gain the subtype of the template species, such as human or minotaur. You gain the traits associated with the template you pick, which reflect a sampling of the abilities of the species you come from.

Origin Species. At character creation, pick an origin species (and subrace as appropriate): Human, Misa (lightpaw or ratkin), Minotaur, Iguana (marine, basilisk, or redeye), Homogriff, Mako, Selkie, Tabaxi, Teneshiki, Rakisha, or Ogre. (Bloodweres are impervious to such magical influence and thus do not have a Template Option, though they can maybe turn into Drowned, in which case you can just use the Human Template as there is no way to tell the difference).

Note 1: Important: You cannot use an ability score increase granted by your template for a score already increased by your race/species.

Note 2: If a template references a trait and doesn’t explain it, reference the race option for your origin species to find the details.

Note 3: Unless the template or race says otherwise, you count as Folk.

Origin Features. You gain one or more traits as determined by your origin species.

• Human. Speed: 30 feet. Size: Medium. Languages: You know Aquan and a human language of your choice. Ability Score Increase: You gain +1 to two ability scores of your choice (not an ability score already increased by your race). Traits. You gain proficiency in a skill of your choice. Alternatively, you gain a language and a tool or weapon of your choice.
• Misa. Speed: 25 feet. Size: Small. Languages: You know Aquan and Misa. Racial Traits. You gain the Brave trait, and one or two traits depending on your origin subrace. Autumnal or Lightpaw. You gain the Lucky trait. Ability Score Increase. You gain +1 to Dexterity or Charisma, your choice. Ratkin. You gain the Darkvision and Natural Weapons traits. Ability Score Increase. You gain +1 to Dexterity or Constitution, your choice.
• Minotaur. Speed: 35 feet. Size: Medium. Languages: You know Aquan and Minotaur. Ability Score Increase: You gain +1 to Strength or Constitution, your choice. Racial Traits. You gain the Relentless Endurance and Natural Weapons traits.
• Iguana. Speed: 30 feet, swim 30 feet. Size: Medium. Languages: You know Aquan and Kizaku. Racial Traits. You gain the Friend of Earth, Sky, and Sea trait for speaking to a type of animal and gaining a tool proficiency, but not the two skills. You also have one or two traits determined by your subrace. (If you want it, you also gain the optional Cold Blooded trait.) Marine. You have the Hold Breath and Bonus Language traits. Ability Score Increase: +1 to Wisdom, Charisma, or Intelligence, your choice. Basilisk. You have the Run on Water trait. Ability Score Increase: +1 to Wisdom or Dexterity, your choice. Redeye. You have the Playing with Fire trait. Ability Score Increase: +1 to Wisdom or Charisma, your choice.
• Homogriff. Speed: 20 feet. Size: Medium. Languages: You know Aquan and Auran. Ability Score Increase: You gain +1 to an ability score of your choice. Racial Traits. You gain the Flight trait, without the speed increases at later levels.
• Tenishiki. Speed: 25 feet. Size: Small. Languages: You know Aquan and a language of your choice. Ability Score Increase: You gain +1 to Dexterity or Charisma, your choice. Racial Traits. You gain the Weave Colors, Semiaquatic, and Emotional Telepathy traits. At 3rd level, you gain the Teneshiki’s Spellcasting trait.
• Mako. Speed: 25 feet, swim 25 feet. Size: Medium. Languages: You know Aquan and Abyssal. Ability Score Increase: You gain +1 to Strength or Intelligence, your choice. Racial Traits. You gain the Darkvision, Amphibious, and Natural Weapons traits. Special. You cannot choose this template as a Drowned- unless you Reincarnate into it! Makos don’t drown.

Reincarnate in Marinos

When cast in this world, Reincarnate does not have the options presented in the player's handbook. Instead, roll 1d4 until you get a 1. The number of times rolled is the result of the spell based on the table below. If a result lists subraces, repeat the process to determine a subrace. If you roll more than the number of results possible, the result is the first listed.

Additionally, if you have a template race, you keep your race, switch templates, and stop at 11.

1. Human- 1) Tishan 2) Sikhenise 3) Caspian 4) Germasko
2. Minotaur
3. Homogriff
4. Misa- 1) Lightpaw 2) Verminkin 3) Autumnal
5. Iguana- 1) Marine 2) Basilisk 3) Redeye
6. Makos
7. Teneshiki
8. Tabaxi
9. Dragonborn- 1) Chromatic 2) Metallic 3) Gem 4) Deep 5) Moonstone
10. Rakisha
11. Ogre
12. Selkie
13. Bloodwere
14. Lo'Kua (see Appendix A)

Part 2: Classes

Bard

Hand of the Axis (1st level)

At first level, you become a conduit, willing or not, of one of the 8 Impressions- specifically, of your Draw. Choose Mirror, Veil, Prism, Stormcome, Muffle, Shadow, Timewear, or Echo. Your choice grants you an expended spell list you can use as an addition to the regular cleric spell list.

Muffle

Shadow

Timewear

Echo

Mirror Domain

The Shining Axis opposes evil through inefficient bureaucratic warfare. It is a good plane, but its goodness is tarnished by legalism and internal disloyalties. Nonetheless, clerics of the Mirror Impression are given powers of light and reflection to work against the forces of darkness.

The Shining Axis is the transformed Day Axis of an ancient era, which was a plane of conquest and absolute authority that burned all opposition to cinders. Reborn, it now stands against tyranny and injustice, but is so afraid of the possibility of lapsing into old habits that it partially paralyzes itself with rules and regulations. Nonetheless, its agents work to promote healthy societies that benefit all their citizens, to root out corruption, and to stand against the encroachments of the Shadow Impression. Despite its mystical grandeur, it encourages humility and clear headed self awareness, seeking no honor for itself.

Silence Domain

The Muffle Impression tries to drown the world in a blinding flash of terror and blood. It utilizes surprisingly organized tactics, and the font of its hate and force is limitless. At times the Axis of Silence tries to bend people to its will, usually people with bitterness and rage in their hearts. It fills them with power and sets them to its tasks, driving them through dreams and horrific visions.

This is not a nice domain. Most given its power fall to ruin, commit terrible acts of violence, or hide themselves away forever. The Axis of Silence is good at picking people who embrace its dark plans or crumble to pieces under the weight of its malice. Once in a while, however, a Silence Cleric goes rogue and uses their powers against the plane of sudden annihilation.

Sudden Onslaught

Starting at 6th level, your ambushes become even deadlier. You have advantage on attack rolls against surprised creatures. Additionally, your attacks are critical hits on rolls of 19 or 20 against creatures that haven't taken a turn yet in combat.

Divine Strikes

Starting at 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon attacks with planar energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 necrotic or cold damage. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

Hideous Nothingness

At 17th level, you become a swift harbinger of unseen death. Your walking, flying, swimming, and climbing speeds (if you have them) increase by 15 feet. You have advantage on Stealth checks and initiative checks. You can cast Blindness/Deafness at will. As a bonus action in combat, you can cast Blindness/Deafness against a creature that has not yet taken a turn.

Additionally, whenever you cast Blindness/Deafness, you can choose to have both the blindness and deafness options take effect. You can do this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

Entropy Domain

The Entropy Axis wants nothing for itself. It wants a process. It wants that process to be carried out in the proper ways. It wants that process to be brought to a perfect end. That process is metaphysical entropy and the end is a dead world of struggle and bleak ruination, devoid of beauty, stripped of variety, unchanging, and vested with only the crudest, meanest forms of life and culture.

Its agents are either convinced that the world is doomed anyway and that they might as well get rewarded in their short life, or they don’t care one way or another about their descendants and will pay any price for the smallest gain, so long as that price never affects them during their lifetime.

Those who have been unwittingly turned to the Axis’ purposes include big business executives using up the world’s resources to increase their own riches, corrupted bureaucracies that prioritize order and the way things have always been to creating positive change, and anyone who has given up hope and would rather rest than fight for something better.

Entropy clerics’ preferred tactics are to wear down their enemies slowly and to force them to waste time. They are chosen from easily corruptible people, often those who have been squandering the resources of the world or making long term sacrifices for short term gain. Sometimes the Entropy Axis makes mistakes, however. Those who resist the call find themselves inexplicably hindered by all the people described in the previous paragraph, and if they don’t get the hint, agents of the Axis may come to punish, enslave, or end them, preferably after trying to bribe them first.

Entropy Unbound

Able to awaken in reality a vision of the future the Entropy Axis desires with its cunning and wicked essence, you gain the following benefits at 17th level:

• You stop aging.
• Objects of your choice within your line of sight are vulnerable to all damage.
• Your enemies are afflicted by apathy and a sense of doom, and their bodies become as fragile in your presence as their minds have always been. Whenever you force a creature to make a Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma, or Constitution saving throw to resist a spell, you may expend a spell slot one level higher than that of the spell to give each targeted creature disadvantage on its first save against the spell. The spell gains no additional effects from being cast at a higher level.

Shadow Domain

The Axis of Doom aims to conquer all of existence. More patient than the Axis of Silence and hoping to succeed far before the Entropy Axis could ever hope to accomplish its goals, the Doom neither wants total destruction nor to be left with a living wasteland. Rather, it eagerly covets all the liveliness and diversity of the worlds. It is a force of greed and malice and arrogance that has set out to strangle existence in its iron fist. It isn’t a personal force, but it is most accurately embodied in the Lord of Darkness and other beings of conquest, slavery, dominion, tyranny, and abuse.

The warlords of darkness from this plane know they cannot win using brute strength. Instead, they use strength to supplement politics, trickery, magic, and lies, working behind the scene to turn nations and planes of existence against each other. When the Entropy Axis does this, it is to leave the world a despairing ruin. It wants nothing but a process and its completion. When the Axis of Doom tries its hand at such schemes, it does so to soften everything up for a final battle. And it certainly wants something. It wants everything.

What forces can’t be manipulated into working towards the Axis’ goals are cowed into submission, terrified into silence, lulled into apathy, or destroyed. The Shadow Impression tempts and tricks people into becoming its pawns, and works through terror tactics to melt its worst enemies into nothing.

Most Shadow Clerics have been turned into pawns through one of the above tactics. Those who haven’t yet, the Shadow Impression drives into ruination if it can.

Haven Domain

The Veil impression embodies rest and sanctuary for the hunted. Its clerics are usually chosen for their virtue and humility, or in the hopes that they will change based on the influence of the plane. Clerical power is vested in needy communities rather than those already well taken care of.

Haven domain clerics generally act to prevent violence and destruction and to protect innocents from those who would hurt them, hiding them, guiding them to safety, or casting spells on them to keep them safe.

Prism Domain

The Prism is a force that seeks to restore and renew everything in the world in an endless cycle of glorious rebirth, ousting outdated customs and replacing them with fresh ideas, destroying anything ruined or decaying and replacing it with brilliant new features, taking death and filling the void with new life. This dimension’s followers include elementalists, good aligned druids, rebellious smiths, many artists with an eye for beauty, well meaning political dissidents, and others who strive to make the world better by making it uncomfortable. Those who “walk the Iris path” tend to walk a fine line between freedom and sensibility, however, and can be corrupted by emotion. Prism clerics are usually changeable as the wind, flexible, unpredictable, and passionate. They are selected from the population for their empathy or zeal.

Channel Planes: Freedom Call

Starting at 2nd level, you can liberate those around you from all that would bind them. As an action, you spend a use of your channel divinity, present your planar symbol, and call forth a wave of radiant color that washes over creatures within 30 feet of you. For one minute or until you lose concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), all creatures (including enemies) within 30 feet of you are immune to being charmed, turned, frightened, having their alignment changed forcefully, or compelled to do anything against their will. Such effects are suppressed for the duration if already in effect, so long as affected creatures remain in the colorful aura. Creatures also have advantage on saving throws against being grappled, incapacitated, paralyzed, petrified, restrained, or stunned while in the aura.

Channel Planes: Color Smite

At 6th level, presenting your planar symbol, as an action, you call down the wrath of creation upon a creature within 30 feet. The targeted creature makes a Constitution saving throw. It takes 2d10 damage plus an amount of damage equal to your cleric level of a type of your choice (other than necrotic, psychic, or force) on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. If it fails its save, it is also blinded until the end of your next turn. You can cast a cleric cantrip with a casting time of 1 action as a bonus action before your turn ends.

Divine Strike

You gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with planar energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 cold, fire, lightning, acid, poison, thunder, or radiant damage (your choice) to the target. At 14th level, this increases to 2d8 extra damage.

Paragon of Creation

At 17th level, you are one with the chaotic, feral beauty of the Prism Impression. After a long rest, you can surround yourself with one of the following auras. Auras glow with bright light for 10 feet and dim light for another 10 feet when active. You can activate or dismiss an aura as a bonus action. It ends at the end of your next long rest, when you must pick a different aura.

• Magma Aura. You have resistance to fire damage and are immune to taking exhaustion from or having your speed reduced by cold. You are immune to ill effects from mundane smoke. Your weapon attacks deal an extra 1d8 fire damage.
• Water Aura. You have resistance to cold damage and are immune to taking exhaustion levels from heat. You also gain a swimming speed equal to your walking, flying, or climbing speed and the ability to breathe underwater.
• Stone Aura. You gain a +1 bonus to AC and ignore difficult terrain created by earth, or stone, or mud.
• Storm Aura. You have resistance to lightning and thunder damage. You are immune to being pushed by wind or having your concentration broken by bad weather, including weather related spells. If you have a flying speed, it increases by 10 feet.

Dreamspinner

A spellcaster imbued with the magic of Marinos itself, tied to its cosmic origins as a world of dreams that the spirits of sleepers of many worlds used to unknowingly visit every time they went to sleep. Tied to the fey that were once lords of the dreaming of the multiverse before Draws, before the outer planes were born and the celestials and fiends came into being and became the shepherds and overlords of the segmented realms of dream.

Unlike the clerics of Marinos, Dreamspinners aren't tied to any particular plane, and often don’t even have Draws. Instead, they travel freely between any of the dream planes they wish, or dream in the Ethereal Plane, where the remnants of the wild dream spirits survive, waylaying dreamers on their way to their Drawn planes, spinning incomprehensible adventures of whimsy and absurdity and joy and terror as they have done for all of time.

Since Dreamspinners use a shard of the deep magic of the original Marinos lodged within their soul rather than continually drawing from the plane itself, they are arcane rather than divine casters. They are rare- eddies and fragments of primal Marinos are nothing more than essences; most of that magic is long gone.

Due to their ties to primal Marinos, Dreamspinners also have access to some water magic as well.

Creating a Dreamspinner

First, make Wisdom your highest score, followed by Dexterity if you want to be hard to hit or Constitution if you want to be tougher and excel at concentration saving throws. Choose the hermit background. Then, prepare the cantrips Mind Sliver, Thaumaturgy, and Minor Illusion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Class Features

As a dreamspinner, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points

Hit Dice: 1d6 per dreamspinner level

Hit Points at 1st level: 6+ your Constitution modifier

Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d6 (or 4) + your Constitution modifer

Proficiencies

Armor: none
Weapons: Clubs, daggers, quarterstaffs, sickles, light crossbows, slings
Tools: 1 musical instrument or painter's tools
Saving Throws: Wisdom, Intelligence
Skills: Dreaming and choose 2 from Arcana, Nature, Animal Handling, Insight, Perception, Deception, Intimidation, and Performance

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• a) 2 daggers, or b) a quarterstaff
• a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts, or b) any simple weapon with which you are proficient
• a) an entertainer’s pack, or b) an explorer’s pack, or c) a scholar’s pack
• A mystical focus
• The first item you ever pulled out of a dream (roll on the trinkets table in the PHB, pick one, or make up your own)

The Dreamspinner