Zygan

Zygan are creatures with two souls. One of the few human offshoots not related to the spellplague that created the Manitari and Changelings, they are a rare sight regardless of what region they hail from.
A zygan is created when an exiled or lost Oneirite avoids dissolution and death by entering into the womb of a pregnant human or elf woman. The shadow bonds with the budding soul of the child, and the two beings forever occupy the same space. When the child is born, their features have been changed by the union.

Basic Information

Anatomy

They are slimmer, their skulls are slightly stretched back, and their features are more smooth and symmetrical than their human and elf counterparts. Their hair tends towards extreme coloration: fiery ginger, pure white, glossy black, etc. and their skin follows suit with extremes in the gray, white, black, and purple colorations.
The most striking difference between a zygan and a normal human being is in their eyes and teeth. As a being physically occupying the space of another, their eyes have two pupils and their mouth has two rows of teeth, which can bite and chew independent of one another. By carefully syncing their movements, they can hide these features for a time, and the oneirite can cause their own eyes to glow with a soft red or blue bio-luminescent light, hiding the uncanny effect of the dual pupils and trading it for another.

Biological Traits

Zygan average slightly taller than other humans: around 6'2. They are two beings occupying the same space, which means two full physical bodies slightly out of sync with each other. Doctors listening to their heart will hear a staccato four-count heartbeat, their voices can sometimes take on a dual-tone timbre, and their breath will sound like two people separately.

Growth Rate & Stages

Zygan grow and age at about the same rate as humans.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Zygan do not do well in isolation. In addition to food and drink, they require social discourse for nourishment, gaining sustenance in the castoff psychic energy of good conversation.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Zygan tend to go by three names. Like all humans, they adopt a family or clan name upon adulthood. Additionally, they have the name that their human or elf parents gave them, and also the name of their oneirite.
This "dream name" has little in the way of convention, often being nearly impossible to pronounce.

Common Dress Code

While the human or elf portion of their mind is a normal, reality-based mental being, the oneirite is every bit as much of a gibbering lunatic (from the humans' perspective) as it was in The Dreamlands. This lends itself to sudden flashes of creativity, and zygan tend to be at the cutting edge of fashions. That is to say, they dress strangely and often loudly, and sometimes it catches on.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

While asleep, zygans experience the abandoned lives of their oneirite in the form of fragmented dream-memories. These can include wars and nightmares, but more often they are fond memories of unique architecture and wild celebration.

Common Taboos

Zygan may disagree with a course of action that their oneirite is pushing them towards, but they go out of their way to avoid offending it. Like it or not, they are bound together and if the relationship becomes untenable there are little in the way of happy separations.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Elves hate zygan with a religious passion. Zygan from the elf lands usually made it into human lands in the arms of their mothers, fleeing for fear of a violent mob.
Greenskins likewise despise zygan despite not producing any. They find the idea of their psychic vampirism to be utterly horrifying.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Humans

Origin/Ancestry

The Dreamlands

Zygan

Ability Score Increase +1 Wisdom, +1 Charisma, +1 Chosen attribute

Size Medium

Speed 30 ft.

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• Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom and Charisma scores both increase by 1. In addition, one ability score of your choice increases by 1.
• Age. Zygan develop physically at the same rate as humans do and have similar lifespans.
• Alignment. Zygan have two alignments, one for themselves and one for the spirit tied to them.
• Dual Mind. When you make a Wisdom saving throw, you can use your reaction to gain advantage on the roll. You can use this trait immediately before or after you roll, but before any of the roll's effects occur.
• Mental Drain. As a bonus action, the Zygan can direct his Oneirite counterpart to lash out. The attack bonus for this assault is the Zygan's Charisma modifier + proficiency bonus. The damage is 1d4+Cha psychic damage. A critical hit does 3d4+Cha of psychic damage instead. The victim experiences headaches and possibly hallucinations, but requires an Insight DC 15 roll to determine that it was an attack and from where. A successful attack against a sentient creature counts as a full use of rations and can heal one point of exhaustion.
• Mind Link. You can cast Message at will.
• Severed from Dreams. Zygan sleep, but they don’t connect to the plane of dreams as other creatures do. Instead, their minds draw from the memories of their oneirite while they sleep. As such, you are immune to magical spells and effects that require you to dream, like the Dream spell, but not to spells and effects that put you to sleep, like the Sleep spell.