Farspawn (5e Race)
Farspawn
If one were to map all the planes of creation, the far realm is that maddening un-place off the edge of the paper. Occasionally its strange dimensions intersect with reality, giving birth to aberrations that make a mockery of flesh and spirit. When permitted to be molded by the dreams of mortals, something akin to a humanoid is spawned.
Physical Qualities
Farspawn have dissociative morphologies culled from the self-image of living things– from pond-life to animals and humans. Adventuring farspawn are vaguely humanoid but may have multiple eyes, eyestalks, pseudopods, tentacles, chitin, mandibles and other photobiology. Their flesh might resemble the stuff of the material plane, but when wounded they might bleed fluid, color, sound, or an ooze of microorganisms.
Farspawn have no discernible genders. Those that are able to reproduce might do so by asexual budding or sporing, by impregnating other living creatures, or through other incomprehensible means.
Attitudes and Beliefs
Creatures tainted and born by the far realm are often seen as being chaotic, or evil. The truth is that they are largely uncaring, or oblivious to the nature of life on the material plane. Adventuring farspawns are more coherent in their interactions and are able to forge relationships with sentient creatures, but are usually Unaligned. Farspawn are often kept to the fringes of history, appearing in texts and recountings as monsters infiltrating societies for their own nefarious means... though more often than not, they were simply hated for their horrific appearances and alien existence.
Farspawn Communities
Their strange appearance always alienates them and often frightens communities into shunning them. Some farspawn have a strange, insidious force of personality that at its strongest can dominate groups of humanoids, with cults forming around them.
Whilst a farspawn's goals are often incomprehensible, alliances can be made where those goals coincide with those of other races.
Farspawn Adventurers
Farspawn favor the warlock, mystic or bard classes. Three sample farspawn adventurers are described below.
Azsh Azar is a farspawn great old one pact warlock. It was spawned when Gulach Azar, the violet eye, squirmed into the material plane and burst into a thousand buds. All the buds transformed into aberrant monstrosities, with the exception of one that became Azsh. It remains in contact with the pseudo-spirit of Gulach, from whom it receives its spells.
Skorraw is a farspawn mystic. It is the three-dimensional shadow of the sentient plane of the Squamous Garden as it intersects reality. It delights in mutating time and space with a mere thought, and quests to gain mastery over psionic energies.
De'Valf is a farspawn bard of whispers and the son of the Lord of the Discordant Harps. He seeks to produce new, impossible harmonics and is somewhat inconsiderate about their effects on his traveling companions' sanity.
Roleplaying a Farspawn
When creating a farspawn adventurer, here are a few points to consider.
- To be a weird entity from the far realm.
- To have no control over what abilities you have; to accept randomness in your destiny.
- To be aware that your character may find certain concepts or practices alien themselves.
Farspawn Names
As with their society, farspawn will take names from their host culture and are often named by their parent (assuming their survival of the union or birth).
Names: Eg-kr, Gnegotu, Lehu, Llanyi-zho, Lol-kib, Rus-cyiarusts, U'ibolen, Ushar-lamiho, Y'haligh, Zamatthammon
Farspawn Traits
As a child of the horrific and non-Euclidean denizens of the far realm, you can put your aberrant features to good use.
Ability Score Increase. Your Aberrant Ability Score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Age. Farspawn often outlive their mundane kin by centuries or even millennia, due to the otherworldly nature of their being. As each farspawn is so varied, roll a 10d10 and times the result by another 10d10 to get your maximum age, in years.
Alignment. Farspawn can be considered to be unaligned entities, however, by comparison to the standard creatures within the material plane they would tend almost exclusively toward chaotic alignments, reflecting the untamable and alien nature of the far realms.
Size. Farspawn generally range from just over 5 feet to more than 7 feet in height and weigh 80 to 260 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Aberrant Ability Score. The creatures of the far realms are as varied and as alien, as they come, it is only natural you are too. Number your ability scores one to six and roll a d6. The ability score that corresponds to the number rolled is considered your Aberrant Ability Score.
Aberrant Nature. While some farspawn may look as humanoid as they come they carry the otherness of the far realm within them. Your creature type is aberration.
Abhorrent Form. When you create your character, roll thrice on the Abhorrent Form table. These are your three racial traits. Reroll any if they are the same as another feature you already have.
Languages. You can speak, read and write Common and Deep Speech. Deep Speech doesn't have a script so it isn't written but spoken. The language sounds like the slow grinding of words upon each other with a ponderously slow cadence and a grating intensity that flares into heat from time to time when social friction becomes the greatest. It is said that the language focuses less on actual pronunciation and more on the evocative nature of the spoken words. If you can truly call it that.
Abhorrent Form Table
| d12 | Trait | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | All-Around Vision | You have multiple eyes or eye stalks either on your head or throughout your body. You proficient in the Perception skill, can see in all directions, and cannot be surprised. |
| 2 | Ceaseless Murmurs | Sound moves through your body differently than other creatures and you can easily create, amplify and emit those sounds once you've heard them. You can speak two other languages of your choice as well as mimic sounds and voices you have heard. A creature that hears the sounds you make can tell they are pale imitations of the original with a successful Wisdom (Insight) check opposed by your Charisma (Deception) check. |
| 3 | Telepathy | You can communicate mentally with another creature that knows at least one language within a 60-foot radius. This creature doesn't need to share a language with you but unless they have telepathy themselves they can only receive and respond but can't initiate or terminate a telepathic conversation. You must be conscious to use this trait and cannot telepathically communicate with multiple creatures at once. |
| 4 | Reality Warp | Reality seems to warp around you and behaves oddly, objects may lose or double their weight becoming weightless or extremely heavy, and those who try to warp reality further are harmed by it. Whenever a creature within 10 feet of you tries to teleport, you can force them to make a Constitution saving throw equal to 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier. On a failure, they don’t teleport, and take Xd6 psychic damage, X being your Proficiency bonus. On a success, they take half damage and can still teleport freely. |
| 5 | Tentacles | You have a tentacle or several tentacles that you can control allowing you to hold and interact with multiple objects. You have advantage on ability checks to grapple creatures and your reach increases by 5 feet when using a one-handed melee weapon. You cannot wield multiple two-handed weapons with this trait. |
| 6 | Chitinous | Under, in place of or in certain areas of your skin you have a durable shell-like plating that makes your hardier than most. When you aren't wearing armor, your AC is 13 + your Constitution modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield's benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor. |
| 7 | Alien Mind | Your mind is a strange unwelcoming place that latches onto foreign entities like a pathogen. When a creature attempt to read your thoughts, telepathically communicate or form some other mental bond with you, you become aware of the attempt, that creatures location and you can read their thoughts or communicate via the same method as if you had telepathy or had used whatever means they had to initiate this contact. |
| 8 | Eyes of the Void | Your eyes are entirely black, while this may be unsettling to some it does have its benefits. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against being blinded. |
| 9 | Paraconsciousness | The fears and lulls of this world are alien to you and often make little sense from your perspective. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened. |
| 10 | Fold Spacetime | You can perceive the flow of time allowing you to see the future to some degree and may fold reality to move elsewhere. You may add your proficiency bonus to your initiative bonus and as a bonus action, you may teleport 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. You regain use of your ability to teleport when you complete a short or long rest. |
| 11 | Malleable Flesh | Your appearance is largely blank and you may detail it and twist it to conform to your will. As an action, you can polymorph into any humanoid of your size that you have seen, or back into your true form. However, your equipment does not change with you. If you die, you revert to your natural appearance. You retain all of your normal statistics while in this form. You may use this feature once before you must complete a short or long rest to use it again. Additional uses beyond the first incur one level of exhaustion. |
| 12 | Alien Biology | You are immune to diseases, the poisoned condition and you have resistance to poison damage. |
Optional feature: Once per short rest you may switch one of your Abhorrent trait for another one by rolling a d12 and re-rerolling any result you already have, you may also use ability score improvements to permanently gain an abhorrent trait.
Random Height and Weight
| Base Height |
Height Modifier* |
Base Weight |
Weight Modifier** |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4′ 8'' | +5d6 | 80 lb. | × (1d6) lb. |
|
*Height = base height + height modifier | |||
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