Wood Woad (5e Race)

Wood Woad

Physical Description

Cory Trego-Erdner

Wood woads have a generally humanoid shape, but their entire body is made of wood. Their limbs are made of flexible softwood that allow them to bend without breaking and more dexterity in movements while their torso and head are made of hardwood that allows them to take the brunt of damage. The wood woad’s arms may end with either a broad hand or a disk grown to resemble and function as a shield while their legs simply widen towards the bottom to grant them round feet that can grow roots into the ground while the wood woad rests. These plant creatures lack any neck with their head growing its helmeted covering directly out of the torso. In the center of the noggin is pitch black hollow with two small lights glowing as lights and eyes for the wood woad.

Over time, Many wood woads end up with lichen, fungi, or vines upon their forms. Whether they keep them or clean them off is up the wood woad’s master.

History

Wood woads are not born, but created in a sacrificial ritual of nature magic. Most that undergo it are willing, but it can be performed on unwilling participants with an increased risk of failure. As such, most mortals that undergo the transformation into wood woad are humanoid mortals with a deep connection to nature. The ritual of wood woad creation involved having the sacrifice’s heart cut out of their chest, implanted with a special seed enchanted by powerful druid or fey, entombing the heart inside a tree’s cavity, exsanguinating the body, burying the corpse underneath the tree’s roots, covering the bark in the victim’s blood, then waiting for three days. If the ritual was successful, a wood woad would excavate itself fully grown from under the tree, its form transformed. There it would wait to receive orders from the spellcaster that created it. Afterwards, some wood woads can eventually create seeds that will grow and sprout into new wood woads without the ritual

Attitude

Wood woads generally do not have a personality beyond adherence to their orders. If left to guard a location, a wood woad will never stop guarding it until the site or plant are destroyed. If left without any directives to follow, a wood woad will seek out other sources natural power like Fey Crossings, druid groves, or powerful individuals to update their current orders. Once a wood woad bonds to such a creature it will follow their commands in any way that does not do harm to the natural world or Feywild. Even without specific instructions, wood woads will act to prevent any unnatural damage to nature such as logging, magical corruption, and pollution.

Unlike most wood woads, you have somehow either retained or developed your own personality and free will. How much this causes you to deviate off normal wood woad behavior is up to you.

Wood Woad Names

Wood woad’s don’t have names besides the occasional Fey nickname meant to deride them. If you have retain memories of your past life, you might consider continuing to use it or, should you redevelop a new personality, pick some appropriate nature themed moniker. Maybe a type of tree. wood woads have no sex or gender, though you may keep or grow the latter.

Any: Ash, Dogwood, Hazel, Holly, Ivy, Juniper, Laurel, Linden, Rowan, Willow

Wood Woad Traits

Eternal wooden guardians of nature created by druids or Fey in bloody rituals.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. Wood woads are immortal.
Alignment. Wood woads tend to be lawful neutral servants of druids, Fey, or other sentient plants.
Size. Wood woads vary in height and build, usually from 5 to 7 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
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. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Druid Club. Whenever you deal damage with a melee weapon made of wood or an unarmed strike, the damage is considered magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances and immunities to damage from non-magical weapons.
Eternal Guardian. You do not need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. Instead you meditate deeply, remaining semi-conscious, for 8 hours each day.
Kindling. Whenever you take Fire damage greater than your proficiency bonus, expend a Hit Die of your choice without rolling or regaining hit points from it. After you take Fire damage, you cannot regain hit points until start of your next turn. If Fire damage reduces you to 0 hit points, you have disadvantage on death saving throws and cannot regain hit points until you are stabilized.
Photosynthesis. When you take a short rest while in direct sunlight or rooted into fertile soil and roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, the minimum number of hit points you regain from the roll equals twice your Constitution modifier (minimum of 2). You may also regrow all lost body parts if you spend 8 hours rooted in fertile soil in direct sunlight.
Strong Roots. As an action you may root yourself into soil. The soil must be at least 5 feet deep. While rooted, your movement speed is 0 feet and you are immune to being knocked back or prone. Uprooting yourself requires another action.
Tree Ring. You have proficiency with shields. As an action, you can transform one of your hands into a shield attached to your arm or revert the shield back into a hand. You drop anything the hand is holding. You cannot be disarmed of this shield unless the limb is cut off. If the shield is severed from you, it rots away instantly.
Tree Strider. You can use 10 feet of your movement to step magically into one living tree within 5 feet of you and emerge from a second living tree within 60 feet of it that you can see, appearing in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the second tree. Both trees must be Large or bigger. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. You may use this trait only once each turn.
Wood Armor. Your bark provides you a base AC of 16 (your Dexterity modifier doesn’t affect this number). If you are using a shield, you can apply the shield’s AC bonus as normal.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common, Druidic, and Sylvan.

Random Height and Weight

Base Height	Height Modifier*	Base Weight	Weight Modifier**
5′ 0''	+2d10	250 lb.	× (1d8) lb.
*Height = base height + height modifier **Weight = base weight + (height modifier × weight modifier)

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