Skeleton, Variant (5e Race)

Skeleton

The room is silent, but somethings off. Bone plies lie around, but what caused this death? The remains rise to a stand and stare you down with blank expression. You think you know what happened.

Physical Description

From Elder Scrolls

Skeletons are the re-animated, completely decomposed body of a humanoid. The flesh has completely disappeared, leaving a bone structure magically held together, searching for the feeling of life once more, distorted in most ways. Skeletons make little noise vocally, but gesture ideas fairly well to communicate. They tend to echo creaking sounds from their bones as they walk and move, but are, on the majority, silent. Most skeletons bones are damaged in some way. Their eyes, or rather lack of, are deep black holes, as well as jaw openings, ear canals, etc. They tend to walk with a broken gait, not quite normal, however not zombie drag either. Their brows are said to be malleable and allow them to make glaring expressions and such.

History

Skeletons are risen sometimes by the unrest of their own souls, other times by the unrest of others. A rich baron followed a rigorous schedule to guarantee him immortality. As a result, he arose as a skeleton of his former self. In a war, a necromancer gathers the bones of the fallen to raise them as a mindless, enslaved army. Feuding families have spited one another with hexes or blood curses that would make the other side restless in death and rise as undead. The origins of skeletons span as long as humans have had the desire to control death. They are most commonly feared due to their usage by necromancers. In truth, they are all tortured souls.

Society

Skeletons are usually of a servile position in society. They do the bidding of the necromancers and serve in the massive armies of undead. There are little to no known village or stationary gathering of skeletons. Such a thing would likely be scattered by neighboring nations for fear of an undead uprising. Skeletons are often seen to be bad omens in and of themselves, as well as a staying reminder of hard times. They symbolize death after all, as shown in depictions of the plague and illness. The pirate flag uses their visage to enhance their infamy. However, there do exist some traveling duos or small covens of skeletons which are very close-knit. Perhaps they search for a haven where they may finally settle in their afterlife.

Skeleton Names

Skeletons are given names by those who reanimated them, or from their previous life if they remember what that name was. Few recall this name, save if they were reanimated by their own will. Others take genderless names from surrounding peoples.

Skeleton Traits

The reanimated completely decomposed corpse of a humanoid, usually
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2.
Age. Not counting their previous lives, skeletons can be nearly any age. Skeletons don't age, and won't die of old age until the magic keeping them alive collapses or their bones give away.
Alignment. Skeletons are usually neutral, though evil or chaotic skeletons are fairly common.
Size. Skeletons range from 4 to 8 feet in height, weighing 10% of their weight. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 20 feet.
Blindsight. You don't have eyeballs anymore, frankly. Instead, you now are guided by senses beyond, like detecting life faintly. You have a blindsight range of 60 feet. You are considered blind outside this range.
Undead Nature. You are a walking skeleton without flesh. Your creature type is undead instead of humanoid. As such, spells like cure wounds don't affect you, and you are immune to spells like crown of madness or dominate person because they specifically target humanoids. You are immune to poison damage, being poisoned, and diseases. You do not need to eat or breathe, and any food you do attempt to eat falls through in your jaw and into your rib cage. Rather than sleeping, you enter an inactive state for 6 hours each day. You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
Magical Creation. You are held together by magic. You are incapacitated while in the area of an antimagic field. If targeted by dispel magic, you must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against the caster's spell save DC or fall unconscious for 1 minute.
Inexhaustible. You don't need much of a break, having no flesh. You have advantage on Constitution saving throws against exhaustion.
Magic Affinity. You, being made of magic, know more about it than others a bit. You are proficient in the Arcana skill.
Languages. You can read and write Common and one language of your choice.

Random Height and Weight

Base Height	Height Modifier*	Base Weight	Weight Modifier**
4′ 9''	+4d10	30 lb.	× (1d4) lb.
*Height = base height + height modifier **Weight = base weight + (height modifier × weight modifier)

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(2 votes)

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