Out With the Old, Part 3: Races, The Odd Ones

All right, time for races, part two! Let’s take a look at some of the more nonstandard races in the world of Skies.

Demikind

Demikind are one of the rarest sights in Skies, the only half-race that exists. Demikind are half-celestial, with the other half of their heritage being pretty much any other playable race. (I’m not sure if undead or stoneforged would work, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.) Few celestials remain, and fewer still have children. But when they do, a powerful being is born. 

Demikind can detect lies easily, have limited flight, and resist necrotic damage. Encountering a demikind in the wild is quite a sight. To some, they exist only as rumors or legends. A player choosing a demikind would be treated as a celebrity, in both good and bad ways; they would draw attention wherever they went. People would try to best them at whatever they are good at, or beg them for healing or to answer their prayers (even though a demikind doesn’t have the power to do so).  

Shifter 

Shifters, one of my favorite races from Eberron, were plucked wholesale and dropped into the world of Skies. I added a cliffwalker subrace (which might have been in D&D 3.5) because I liked the idea of goat shifters that could climb ship masts with ease. 

Shifters are a race of humans blessed—or cursed, depending on your perspective—with an affinity for beasts. All shifters possess some beastly traits and can call upon and enhance those parts of them when needed. Shifters live on Mount Ancora and keep watch over the everlasting blizzard to ensure the demon hordes cannot make it through. Their close connection with nature allows them to draw on some of its magic. 

Stoneforged

Continuing with the Eberron influence, stoneforged are the Skies version of warforged. The stoneforged are automatons or golems created for war that came to life and had a will of their own. Stoneforged are a pretty powerful race, but I’ve never had a player pick one up. 

Now, those in Skies who create golems use different strategies so as not to accidentally create life. It is the stoneforged themselves who, from time to time, decide to create another of their number. Their forms typically take on characteristics suggestive of where they were made. Labor forms could be found in many places, but the elves in Empyrean created the envoy forms, and dwarves created most of the war-based forms to help fight off the demon hordes. Stoneforged do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe and they have a built-in AC of 17. They also get Sentry's Rest, which allows them to keep watch while they rest. Stoneforged also get to choose a trait depending on whether they were created to be a Crafter, Envoy, Laborer, or Warrior.

Undead

I initially had some issues with creating an undead race. How do you make another race that does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe—like the stoneforged—but that still feels unique? I came up with a pretty nifty feature (or found it somewhere and stole it, but it's been so long, I don’t remember). If you are undead, whenever you are dying, you stabilize at the start of your turn. If you take radiant or fire damage, the stabilizing trait doesn't function at the start of your next turn. Stabilizing is a powerful ability that makes an undead really hard to kill (as they should be). Adding a restriction also made it so they were not invincible. I thought about giving them the ability to drop to 1 hit point (HP) instead of 0, but orcs already had that (plus, this was cooler). The effect also tied in well into the lore of Hilen, where most of the undead are. 

Lady Tristessa and her high priests create the undead when a Hilen resident has done some great deed (or given a large enough tithe). Of course, the nobility benefit the most from this gift. Commoners receive the honor from time to time. One person in each generation of a family can receive the gift as long as there are other siblings to carry on the family name. Priests are not allowed to become undead. Undead are treated as VIPs in Hilen but otherwise do what they would have done normally (depending on the player’s preference). Because of Hilen’s relationship with the undead, Lady Tristessa passed an interesting law. Hilen is the only city where fire is outlawed. One must use magical sources of heat and light in the city, as fire is one of the few things that can permanently destroy an undead. 

Labrats

Labrats were basically the Simic Hybrids from Ravnica, a large magical city in Magic: The Gathering. Simic Hybrids were mutated super soldiers. 

Building on that idea, I created the labrats as humanoids who were magically experimented on by magi, fungorians (see below), or disgraced artificers. Labrats are mutated and have different physicalities and abilities. Unlike shifters, who could partially turn into animals, labrats have pieces of other creatures grafted on and integrated into their body. They are true monstrosities, and in the rare instance that one escapes their captors, the citizens of Skies shun them. However, labrats’ new abilities can be helpful for those who know how to put them to use; criminal organizations are known to employ the occasional labrat.  

Fungorians

Fungorians, a psychic mushroom people, are my most original race and the most unique in Skies. Whereas some of the other odd races are rare and hardly seen, the fungorians are well-known. The other races have had to learn how to live with them. 

Fungorians are a small to medium race. They have eyes with no irises and no mouths to speak from. They can only communicate telepathically. Some are bioluminescent and glow in the dark. Others emit poisonous spores. Their most unique trait ties into how they are born. When a fungorian dies, spores settle in their corpses, and their children grow from them. Thus, to be born, a fungorian’s parent had to die. However, all of a fungorian’s children keep some of their parent’s memories. A fungorian could travel to a place they have never been and recognize buildings and people simply because their parent had been there. 

Some new fungorians even pick up the same relationships their parents had. (This is a great way to write that “my fighter's brother who has the exact same stats comes to avenge him” event into the lore.) This ability, Ancestral Recall, allows a character to search their memories of a parent or even grandparent for a minute and gives them advantage on intelligence checks where applicable. Ancestral Recall was a more interesting ability when used for story purposes. 

I also created a race related to the fungorians called the lichenthropes… (Get it? Get it? Lycanthrope? But fungi-ish!) Lichenthropes were a bigger, stronger race that could blend in with their surroundings because of the lichen growing on them. Did I mostly make them for that joke? Yes, I did. Did anyone end up playing the joke race? No—surprise, surprise. But at least I know I'm hilarious, and now you do, too. 

What’s Next?

That’s it for the races for the time being. Next, we will discuss the classes, some of which were banned from play! Others had restrictions that aligned with my vision of Skies. In the next post, you will learn why I decided to go that route. See you there!