New 5E races

[ewancummins]

Just a heads up; there are three new Ravenoft-esque races for 5e in UA.

'Gothic', at any rate.

Dhampirs, Hexbloods, and the Reborn.

Did one of you guys write these up?

[Five]

Thanks for the newsflash. I can still smell the ink...heh

Interesting choices and awesome options. Gives players a chance to really own their character's background and the listed options are varied enough to easily get the imagination going. Simple but sticky, especially the dhampir and reborn.

I always did love the concept behind dhampirs, and the hungers and origins list covers a lot of ground outside of the mainstream version. And it cleverly dances around the dead seed/womb issue that inevitably comes up. It's about all-inclusive as I've seen, and without the focus on mechanical superbeast. It smells...fresh.

As for the reborn, it's vague enough to include a helluva lot of brainpower. Revenant, golem, accident of birth or rejected by Death, it's a really cool haze that DM and player can figure out together and mod on the fly in a solo campaign within the group campaign . Nicely done! I'm picturing some poor bastard, tired and just beat down, jump off a cliff and get absolutely battered on the way down; a rare smile on their lips just as they get smashed on the rocks below. A single still picture of an otherwise forgotten dream fires up their life spark and they open their eyes, sit up, and mumble a curse before shuffling on to their next misadventure, eventually discovering friendship and all of the other stills from that beautiful-yet-addictive dream that keeps them putting one foot in front of the other. Yeah, shag it: PC's "death" lasts for 1d4 hours, and they get as many "lives" as it takes the DM and Player to tell/reveal the full story! Might get annoying for the other players at times, but they can have their characters leave a note on the body if they got to move on. Haha

[Mistmaster]

I always ruled that a Vampire who feeds himself abundantly (the equivalent of 20 whole medium humanoid) can function like he was alive basically revitalizing his seed; I suppose a woman vampire would need that amount of blood daily for nine months. Lazendrak Blood-Water (See QTR 26) can greatly reduce the amount of blood.

[Five]

I always ruled that a Vampire who feeds himself abundantly (the equivalent of 20 whole medium humanoid) can function like he was alive basically revitalizing his seed; I suppose a woman vampire would need that amount of blood daily for nine months. Lazendrak Blood-Water (See QTR 26) can greatly reduce the amount of blood.

Abundantly? Geez man. Hate to see them gorge....heh

So, if a vampiress were to draw up a Bathory-styled bath filled with water fetched from the Blessed Blood River, what effect would that have on her? Would a ritual soak also increase her fertility?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

So, if a vampiress were to draw up a Bathory-styled bath filled with water fetched from the Blessed Blood River, what effect would that have on her? Would a ritual soak also increase her fertility?

What about shower?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

I personally never liked the idea of more races than the "originals" presented in the various Player's Handbooks, mostly because I like low fantasy adventures and I always thought that any other race than the originals are made too powerful. I remember sharing stories decades ago with other people who played D&D and I remember how I would smirk when a guy I hanged out with was telling me stories about his drow dual class something and how powerful he was and... evil. It was the usual PC trying to betray or kill the rest of his "friends" characters. Also I like more the idea of characters be more real world based so that anything metaphysical, magical or whatever makes more impact in my opinion, the party I was playing with most mostly human oriented too, so when one player decided to play a demihuman it was something special. But this always depends on the campaign and how every player or DM prefers to play the game. There are some good ideas coming to my mind when I think of a character based in Unearthed Arcana, but if I would use any of these it would be for solo adventures, Players's Challenger's one player campaigns.

[Mistmaster]

I always ruled that a Vampire who feeds himself abundantly (the equivalent of 20 whole medium humanoid) can function like he was alive basically revitalizing his seed; I suppose a woman vampire would need that amount of blood daily for nine months. Lazendrak Blood-Water (See QTR 26) can greatly reduce the amount of blood.

Abundantly? Geez man. Hate to see them gorge....heh

So, if a vampiress were to draw up a Bathory-styled bath filled with water fetched from the Blessed Blood River, what effect would that have on her? Would a ritual soak also increase her fertility?

Yes, it would have that effect, but as a side effect she would be a bit more lusty and emotive then usual. A very rare being, a Living Vampire could be born by two Vampires of the same base species joining themselves in this very peculiar cicumstances. Usually it produce living beings with a very faint vampiric vibe.

[ewancummins]

I personally never liked the idea of more races than the "originals" presented in the various Player's Handbooks, mostly because I like low fantasy adventures and I always thought that any other race than the originals are made too powerful. I remember sharing stories decades ago with other people who played D&D and I remember how I would smirk when a guy I hanged out with was telling me stories about his drow dual class something and how powerful he was and... evil. It was the usual PC trying to betray or kill the rest of his "friends" characters. Also I like more the idea of characters be more real world based so that anything metaphysical, magical or whatever makes more impact in my opinion, the party I was playing with most mostly human oriented too, so when one player decided to play a demihuman it was something special. But this always depends on the campaign and how every player or DM prefers to play the game. There are some good ideas coming to my mind when I think of a character based in Unearthed Arcana, but if I would use any of these it would be for solo adventures, Players's Challenger's one player campaigns.

I'm not really into monsters as PCs in Ravenloft, with a few rare exceptions. Demihumans such as elves and dwarves are freaky enough.

I shared this news because I know some other guys here are big 5E fans and also like monsters/odd races as PCs.

Mistmaster has done great stuff with his alternate Ravenloft. These might work well for him.

[Leliel]

Frankly, I think all three make the darkness of their monstrous counterparts hit harder, not weaker. Especially since one of the suggested origins for a dhampir is...a vorlog.

Thus, a vorlog can become a mostly-normal, even heroic person... but one who becomes a killer trying to resurrect their sire doesn't want to. They have their souls and agency - they just don't want to move on from what was likely a toxic relationship they don't want to admit they're better without.

Same with hexbloods and reborn; hexbloods have to want to become hags (or whatever the male version is) in order to do so, and the fact that hexbloods aren't necessarily born that way adds a bit more horror than that awful cliche of "born bad" takes out - hags seek apprentices, and may trick humans into becoming hexbloods to drive them into the hags' arms, adding paranoia, creeping corruption, and a theme of monstrous agency to hags (see: The VVitch and Midsommar for examples of that last theme - how turning evil becomes very appealing if only evil seems to accept you). And reborn - yeah, sorry to say, but a reborn with an Intelligence bonus is way closer to the actual Frankenstein's Monster than flesh golem "violation of the divine, ergo evil" canon is. The Monster was evil because Frankenstein was a jackass who didn't like the way he looked - the hubris of not only creating life, but refusing to acknowledge this carries major responsibility. Thus, a true flesh golem that's gone evil where reborn exist really leans into the tragedy of what they are.

Which also offers a very Ravenloft twist; all three are weaker than their monster versions. In other words, the monstrous version is post-powers check.

[Mistmaster]

Reborn and Hexbloods are perfect for my Lamordia and my Tepest.

[ewancummins]

The Monster was evil because Frankenstein was a jackass who didn't like the way he looked - the hubris of not only creating life, but refusing to acknowledge this carries major responsibility.

"We thought because we had power, we had wisdom."

[Cromstar]

The Monster was evil because Frankenstein was a jackass who didn't like the way he looked - the hubris of not only creating life, but refusing to acknowledge this carries major responsibility.

"We thought because we had power, we had wisdom."

"[They] were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should."

But seriously, the relationship between Victor and his creature in that book has an insane level of depth to it.

[ewancummins]

"[They] were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should."

But seriously, the relationship between Victor and his creature in that book has an insane level of depth to it.

I'm a fan of the book.

I also like what we get in Ravenloft, with Doctor Mordenheim, who seems more like Hammer or Republic Films Frankenstein than the character from the novel.

Reborn and Hexbloods are perfect for my Lamordia and my Tepest.

I figured you'd like these.

[Five]

So, if a vampiress were to draw up a Bathory-styled bath filled with water fetched from the Blessed Blood River, what effect would that have on her? Would a ritual soak also increase her fertility?

Yes, it would have that effect, but as a side effect she would be a bit more lusty and emotive then usual.

Nice!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x0I6mhZ5wMw

[Five]

I personally never liked the idea of more races than the "originals" presented in the various Player's Handbooks, mostly because I like low fantasy adventures

Yeah, we're pretty much the same for the most part. Hell, our Ravenloft was more like medieval Masque than standard RL when it comes to PC races and classes.

The last time I've played a non-human character it was in our Dark Sun campaign (probably the only setting we played straight from the box, generally-speaking) where I played a half-giant named Braakus. Before that it was a Irda ranger in the Forgotten Realms named Calishad Darkoak (not sure if I added the last name later for a short story or if I added it back then), though at the time I had no clue what an Irda was as I never really got into Dragonlance outside of some of the books. The novels I mean. Dragonlance Adventures was always around when my buddy's older brother wasn't using it, I just never really went through it. It was Dragonlance heh. One of the guys wanted to port a Dragonlance mage/thief minotaur named Korr (I think it was) and I said cool, guess I'll be an elf. The DM said what about an Irda. I said what the hell is an Irda. He said they're like blue-skinned elves. I said, so they're elves then, just called irda. Yeah pretty much, but with blue skin. I said ok, I'll be a blue-skinned elf then. With a mohawk. Haha No idea about the whole shapechanging ability, their ogre history, or any of that other cool stuff. And for whatever reason I wasn't even pointed to the DA book...good times all the same.

Regardless of all that, I still do appreciate game options. Whether my table will use them as PCs, NPCs, unique encounters or whatever, it's always good to see what's laying about the workshop. Never know when we need to stay up and tinker...