Dhampir
Poised between the worlds of the living and the dead, dhampirs retain their grip on life yet are endlessly tested by vicious hungers. Their ties to the undead grant dhampirs a taste of a vampire’s deathless prowess in the form of increased speed, darkvision, and a life-draining bite.
With unique insights into the nature of the undead, many dhampirs become adventurers and monster hunters. Their reasons are often deeply personal. Some seek danger, imagining monsters as personifications of their own hungers. Others pursue revenge against whatever turned them into a dhampir. And still others embrace the solitude of the hunt, striving to distance themselves from those who’d tempt their hunger.
Dhampir Hungers
Every dhampir knows a thirst slaked only by the living. Those who overindulge their thirst risk losing control and forever viewing others as prey. Those who resist might find exceptional ways of controlling their urges or suppress them through constant, molar-grinding restraint. In any case, temptation haunts dhampirs, and circumstances conspire to give them endless reasons to indulge.
While many dhampirs thirst for blood, your character might otherwise gain sustenance from the living. Roll on or choose an option from the Dhampir Hungers table to determine what tempts your character to feed.
| d6 |
Hunger |
| 1 |
Blood |
| 2 |
Flesh or raw meat |
| 3 |
Cerebral spinal fluid |
| 4 |
Psychic energy |
| 5 |
Dreams |
| 6 |
Life energy |
Dhampir Origins
Dhampirs often arise from encounters with vampires, but all manner of macabre bargains, necromantic influences, and encounters with mysterious immortals might have transformed your character. The Dhampir Origins table provides suggestions for how your character gained their lineage.
| d8 |
Origin |
| 1 |
You are the reincarnation of an ancestor who was a vampiric tyrant. |
| 2 |
Your pact with a predatory deity, fiend, fey, or spirit causes you to share their hunger. |
| 3 |
You survived being attacked by a vampire but were forever changed. |
| 4 |
A parasite lives inside you. You indulge its hunger. |
| 5 |
Tragedy interrupted your transformation into an immortal. |
| 6 |
You are a diminished form of an otherworldly being. Slaking your hunger hastens your renewal. |
| 7 |
One of your parents was a vampire. |
| 8 |
A radical experiment changed your body, making you reliant on others for vital fluids. |
Dhampir Traits
You have the following racial traits.
Ability Score Increases
When determining your ability scores, you increase one of those scores by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or you increase three different scores by 1. You follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy.
Your class’s “Quick Build” section offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You’re free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised above 20.
If you are replacing your race with a lineage, replace any Ability Score Increase you previously had with these.
Creature Type.
You are a Humanoid.
Size.
You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you gain this lineage.
Speed.
Your walking speed is 35 feet.
Ancestral Legacy.
If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.
If you don’t keep any of those elements or you choose this lineage at character creation, you gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
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 discern colors in that darkness as shades of gray.
Deathless Nature.
You don’t need to breathe.
Spider Climb.
You have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. In addition, at 3rd level, you can move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings, while leaving your hands free.
Vampiric Bite.
Your fanged bite is a natural weapon, which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient. You add your Constitution modifier, instead of your Strength modifier, to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with this bite. It deals 1d4 piercing damage on a hit. While you are missing half or more of your hit points, you have advantage on attack rolls you make with this bite.
When you attack with this bite and hit a creature that isn’t a Construct or an Undead, you can empower yourself in one of the following ways of your choice:
- You regain hit points equal to the piercing damage dealt by the bite.
- You gain a bonus to the next ability check or attack roll you make; the bonus equals the piercing damage dealt by the bite
You can empower yourself with this bite a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Hexblood
Where wishing fails, ancient magic can offer a heart’s desire—at least, for a time. Hexbloods are individuals infused with eldritch magic, fey energy, or mysterious witchcraft. Some who enter into bargains with hags gain their deepest wishes but eventually find themselves transformed. These changes evidence a hag’s influence: ears that split in forked points, skin in lurid shades, long hair that regrows if cut, and an irremovable living crown. Along with these marks, hexbloods manifest hag-like traits, such as darkvision and a variety of magical methods to beguile the senses and avoid the same.
While many hexbloods gain their lineage after making a deal with a hag, others reveal their nature as they age—particularly if a hag influenced them early in life or even before their birth. Many hexbloods turn to lives of adventure, seeking to discover the mysteries of their magic, to forge a connection with their fey natures, or to avoid a hag that obsesses over them.
Heir of Hags
One way hags create more of their kind is through the creation of hexbloods. Every hexblood exhibits features suggestive of the hag whose magic inspires their powers. This includes an unusual crown, often called an eldercross or a witch’s turn. This living, garland-like part of a hexblood’s body extends from their temples and wraps behind the head, serving as a visible mark of the bargain between hag and hexblood, a debt owed, or a change to come.
Hexblood Origins
A bargain with a hag or other eerie forces transformed your character into a magical being. Roll on or choose an option from the Hexblood Origins table to determine how your character gained their lineage.
| d6 |
Origin |
| 1 |
Seeking a child, your parent made a bargain with a hag. You are the result of that arrangement. |
| 2 |
Fey kidnappers swapped you and your parents’ child. |
| 3 |
A coven of hags lost one of its members. You were created to replace the lost hag. |
| 4 |
You were cursed as a child. A deal with the spirits of the forest transformed you into a hexblood, now free of the curse. |
| 5 |
You began life as a fey creature, but an accident changed you and forced you from your home. |
| 6 |
A slighted druid transformed you and bound you to live only so long as a sacred tree bears fruit. |
Hexblood Traits
You have the following racial traits.
Ability Score Increases
When determining your ability scores, you increase one of those scores by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or you increase three different scores by 1. You follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy.
Your class’s “Quick Build” section offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You’re free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised above 20.
If you are replacing your race with a lineage, replace any Ability Score Increase you previously had with these.
Creature Type.
You are a Fey.
Size.
You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you gain this lineage.
Speed.
Your walking speed is 30 feet.
Ancestral Legacy.
If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.
If you don’t keep any of those elements or you choose this lineage at character creation, you gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
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 discern colors in that darkness as shades of gray.
Eerie Token.
As a bonus action, you can harmlessly remove a lock of your hair, one of your nails, or one of your teeth. This token is imbued with magic until you finish a long rest. While the token is imbued in this way, you can take these actions:
Telepathic Message.
As an action, you can send a telepathic message to the creature holding or carrying the token, as long as you are within 10 miles of it. The message can contain up to twenty-five words.
Remote Viewing.
If you are within 10 miles of the token, you can enter a trance as an action. The trance lasts for 1 minute, but it ends early if you dismiss it (no action required) or are incapacitated. During this trance, you can see and hear from the token as if you were located where it is. While you are using your senses at the token’s location, you are blinded and deafened in regard to your own surroundings. When the trance ends, the token is harmlessly destroyed.
Once you create a token using this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest, at which point your missing part regrows.
Hex Magic.
You can cast the disguise self and hex spells with this trait. Once you cast either of these spells with this trait, you can’t cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these spells using any spell slots you have.
Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells (choose the ability when you gain this lineage).
Becoming a Hag
Hags can undertake a ritual to irreversibly transform a hexblood they created into a new hag, either one of their own kind or that embodies the hexblood’s nature. This requires that both the hag and hexblood be in the same place and consent to the lengthy ritual—circumstances most hexbloods shun but might come to accept over the course of centuries. Once a hexblood undergoes this irreversible ritual, they emerge as a hag NPC no longer under the control of the hexblood’s player, unless the DM rules otherwise.
Reborn
Death isn’t always the end. The reborn exemplify this, being individuals who have died yet, somehow, still live. Some reborn exhibit the scars of fatal ends, their ashen flesh or bloodless veins making it clear that they’ve been touched by death. Other reborn are marvels of magic or science, being stitched together from disparate beings or bearing mysterious minds in manufactured bodies. Whatever their origins, reborn know a new life and seek experiences and answers all their own.
Faded Memories
Reborn suffer from some manner of discontinuity, an interruption of their lives or physical state that their minds are ill-equipped to deal with. Their memories of events before this interruption are often vague or absent. Occasionally, the most unexpected experiences might cause sensations or visions of the past to come rushing back.
Rather than sleeping, reborn regularly sit and dwell on the past, hoping for some revelation of what came before. Most of the time, these are dark, silent stretches. Occasionally, though, in a moment of peace, stress, or excitement, a reborn gains a glimpse of what came before. When you desire to have such a dreamlike vision, roll on the Lost Memories table to inspire its details.
| d6 |
Memory |
| 1 |
You recall a physically painful moment. What mark or scar on your body does it relate to? |
| 2 |
A memory brings tears to your eyes. Is it a bitter or cheerful memory? Does recalling it make you feel the same way? |
| 3 |
You recall a childhood memory. What about that event or who you were still influences you? |
| 4 |
A memory brings with it the voice of someone once close to you. How do they advise you? |
| 5 |
You recall enjoying something that you can’t stand doing now. What is it? Why don’t you like it now? |
| 6 |
A memory carries a vivid smell or sensation. What are you going to do to recreate that experience? |
Reborn Origins
Reborn might originate from circumstances similar to those of various undead or constructs. The Reborn Origins table provides suggestions for how your character became reborn.
| d8 |
Origins |
| 1 |
You were magically resurrected, but something went wrong. |
| 2 |
Stitches bind your body’s mismatched pieces, and your memories come from multiple different lives. |
| 3 |
After clawing free from your grave, you realized you have no memories except for a single name. |
| 4 |
You were a necromancer’s undead servant for years. One day, your consciousness returned. |
| 5 |
You awoke in an abandoned laboratory alongside complex designs for clockwork organs. |
| 6 |
You were released after being petrified for generations. Your memories have faded, though, and your body isn’t what it once was. |
| 7 |
Your body hosts a possessing spirit that shares its memories and replaces your missing appendages with phantasmal limbs. |
| 8 |
In public, you pass as an unremarkable individual, but you can feel the itchy straw stuffing inside you. |
Reborn Traits
You have the following racial traits.
Ability Score Increases
When determining your ability scores, you increase one of those scores by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or you increase three different scores by 1. You follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy.
Your class’s “Quick Build” section offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You’re free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised above 20.
If you are replacing your race with a lineage, replace any Ability Score Increase you previously had with these.
Creature Type.
You are a Humanoid.
Size.
You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you gain this lineage.
Speed.
Your walking speed is 30 feet.
Ancestral Legacy.
If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.
If you don’t keep any of those elements or you choose this lineage at character creation, you gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
Deathless Nature.
You have escaped death, a fact represented by the following benefits:
- You have advantage on saving throws against disease and being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
- You have advantage on death saving throws.
- You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
- You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.
Knowledge from a Past Life.
You temporarily remember glimpses of the past, perhaps faded memories from ages ago or a previous life. When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 immediately after seeing the number on the d20 and add the number on the d6 to the check. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
