Spark-Struck
The Ruh Halnari, as they're known in their own tongue, are distant relatives to the Salamanders of the Elemental Plane of Fire. They were formed from strange magic of the Fire Lords in trying to adapt their servants to other roles. The Ruh Halnari were used to interact with civilizations on the Material Plane. However, many chose not to return and the Fire Lords eventually wrote the whole thing off as a failed experiment.
The Ruh Halnari have many features they share with their distant cousins. Their body has an intense heat to it, though much less than those from the plane of fire. They are very tall, many reaching well over 6 feet tall and some as tall as 8 feet. They have a large tail typically colored a bright orange or red with deep brown or black striping. They are immune to all but the strongest of fires due to to their magical nature, though magical fire can overcome much of this protection.
On the Material Plane, the Ruh Halnari prefer warmer climates and tend to avoid an abundance of water as they have a natural fear of it. There are tribes of Ruh Halnari that travel together for comfort as much as safety, but many choose to travel alone.
Their arrival on the Material was met with welcome as by the nature of their original purpose they were meant to act as spokespeople for the Ifrit. As such, most countries and people are accepting of the Ruh Halnari, if not deeply fascinated in their presence.
The Ruh Halnari themselves enjoy the Material and travel often, preferring to act as traders and tellers of stories rather than settle in any one place. They are a curious people and often quite joyful. They are deeply fascinated with story telling and enjoy magical illusions and beautiful shows. Their stories often tell of lost people being found or lonely adventurers rescuing strangers.
Ability Score Increase
Your Strength score increases by 1. Your Constitution score increases by 2.
Speed
You have a walking speed of 30 feet.
Age
Ruh Halnari have inherited a long life from their distant cousins, typically living well over 500 years with some especially long lived ones living as long as elves.
Alignment
Ruh Halnari are typically neutral, preferring to witness and spectate the world rather than act upon it. Those who were unable to escape the Plane of Fire may lean more towards evil, influenced by the Fire Lords and their other servants.
Size
Your size is Medium. Ruh Halnari typically stand between 6 and 8 feet tall and weigh between 190 and 280 pounds.
Languages
You learn to speak, read and write Common and Ignan.
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. Your ties to the Elemental Plane of Fire make your darkvision unusual: everything you see in darkness is in a shade of red.
Heated Body
You are magically immune to nonmagical or environmental fire, and you have natural resistance to fire damage from magical sources.
Additionally, at 3rd level you may overheat your body as a bonus action. This lasts for 1 minute or until you dismiss it as a bonus action. While your body is overheated your melee attacks do additional fire damage equal to your proficiency bonus. A creature that touches you or hits you with a melee attack while within 5 feet of you takes fire damage equal to half of your proficiency bonus (rounded down). A creature can take damage from your Heated Body feature once per round. You regain use of this ability on a short rest.
Tail Whip
Your thick tail is a natural weapon, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with it, you deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier. Your tail counts as a free hand for the purpose of grappling.
Racial Feats
Obsidian Skin
Prerequisites: Salamander-Kin, 12th Level
You have strengthened your natural resistance to magical fire. You now have a natural immunity to all fire damage.
Seizing Tail
Prerequisites: Salamander-Kin
Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You have learned to manipulate your tail like your ancestors. After you take the Attack action, you can attempt to grapple an adjacent creature with your tail. When you have a creature grappled with your tail, you may attempt to restrain them by making another grapple attempt. If you succeed, they become restrained, and take 1d6 bludgeoning damage at the start of each of their turns.
Pyrokinetic Recovery
Prerequisites: Salamander-Kin
When you take this feat your Constitution score is increased by 1.
When you take fire damage you gain half the damage you resisted (typically one quarter of the damage inflicted on you) as temporary hit points. The maximum number of temporary hit points you gain from this cannot exceed your character level.
If you also have the Obsidian Skin feat, you regain half the fire damage you were immune to as temporary hit points as stated above. In addition, when you take a short rest you can immerse yourself in fire for the duration to regenerate. You can regrow missing limbs during this time and regain a number of Hit Dice equal to your Constitution modifier.
Credits
Ruh-Halnari (Salamander-Kin): A Tiny Living Room
Art: Hannah Davidson
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ legalcode.
Thanks!!
Thank you for checking out this race, I would love feedback if you have any. You can comment or message me on our Patreon.
A special thanks to: folks on somanyrobots' and KibblesTasty's Discord server
For their help in forming this race!
Hannah Davidson
For her adorable art for this race!
Shard Tabletop
I also made a Shard package for this content, which you can access here. Let me know if you have any comments on it on their Discord server (@CoolHandLuke140).
Change Log
V1.1
Changes to the feats, and to the tail attack. The tail now serves as a free hand for grappling. The tail feat was changed due to possible abuse by Monks or other unarmed attack builds. It now focuses on the grappling and I borrowed heavily from somanyrobots' Yuan-ti rework. Shout to him for his help on that.
Obsidian Skin has been moved to a 12th level feat. Fire immunity is pretty strong, but there are a few other avenues to get damage immunities starting at 10th level and up, so I moved this to the first ASI level for classes in that tier. Thanks to cartographersol for helping me come to that decision as well.
V1.0
First main release!
V 0.8
No notes right now, this is the first released version. The Ruh-Halnari (Salamander-Kin) was created to fit a very specific theme of a people that live in a fire-y landscape of heat and lava. I decided to go with Salamanders specifically because I was inspired by a great artist and their salamander witch, Silica. For obvious reasons I didn't include this art, but please check out Bumble Steak on their Twitter or Instagram, because their art is adorable.
So working back from that inspiration, I tried to figure out how mechanically these people would survive in such harsh environments and how one would make a race that closely resembles salamanders while still being within a reasonable power level for any table. This is my attempt at that!