Aarakocra

As an aarakocra, you have certain traits in common with your people. Being able to fly at high speed starting at 1st level is exceptionally effective in certain circumstances and exceedingly dangerous in others. As a result, playing an aarakocra requires special consideration by your DM. Ability Score Increase Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age Aarakocra reach maturity by age 3. Compared to humans, aarakocra don’t usually live longer than 30 years.
Alignment Most aarakocra are good and rarely choose sides when it comes to law and chaos. Tribal leaders and warriors might be lawful, while explorers and adventurers might tend toward chaotic.
Size Aarakocra are about 5 feet tall. They have thin, lightweight bodies that weigh between 80 and 100 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed Your base walking speed is 25 feet.
Flight You have a flying speed of 50 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor.
Talons You are proficient with your unarmed strikes, which deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit.
Languages You can speak, read, and write Common, Aarakocra, and Auran.

Basic Information

Biological Traits

Flight You have a flying speed of 50 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor.
Talons You are proficient with your unarmed strikes, which deal 1d4 slashing damage on a hit.
Languages You can speak, read, and write Common, Aarakocra, and Auran.

Civilization and Culture

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Aarakocra enjoy peace and solitude. Most of them have little interest in dealing with other peoples and less interest in spending time on the ground. For this reason, it takes an exceptional circumstance for an aarakocra to leave his or her tribe and undertake the adventurer’s life. Neither treasure nor glory is enough to lure them from their tribes; a dire threat to their people, a mission of vengeance, or a catastrophe typically lies at the heart of the aarakocra adventurer’s chosen path. Two other circumstances might call an aarakocra to adventure. First, aarakocra have historical ties to the Wind Dukes of Aaqa. Exceptional individuals honor that connection and might seek out the missing pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts, the remains of an artifact fashioned by the Wind Dukes long ago to defeat the Queen of Chaos’s monstrous champion, Miska the Wolf-Spider.
When plunged into Miska’s body, the chaos in his blood sundered the rod and scattered its pieces across the multiverse. Recovering the pieces means gaining honor and esteem in the eyes of the vaati who forged it and could possibly restore a powerful weapon for defense against the agents of elemental evil.
Second, aarakocra are sworn foes of elemental earth, in particular the gargoyles that serve Ogrémoch, the Prince of Earth. The Aarakocra word for gargoyle is loosely translated as “flying rock,” and battles between aarakocra and gargoyles have raged across the Elemental Planes of Earth and Air, occasionally spilling into a world on the Material Plane. Aarakocra on that plane might leave their colonies to lend aid to other humanoids committed to fighting earth cults and thwarting their efforts.

History

Never well established in Faerûn, aarakocra have only four major colonies: in the Star Mounts within the High Forest, in the Storm Horns in Cormyr, in the Cloven Mountains on the Vilhon Reach, and in the Mistcliffs in Chult. Those colonies established in the Star Mounts, closest to the Dessarin Valley, were ever a secretive and guarded people, only spotted during their flights over the High Forest. A cruel and rapacious green dragon nearly wiped out the population and scattered the survivors. These aarakocra and their descendants have sworn vengeance against the dragon and may be seen scouring the lands of the North and Cormyr for signs of their foe.
Their only remaining settlement lies on the slopes of the Star Mounts’ southernmost mountains. At the headwaters of the Unicorn Run, the Last Aerie is home to several dozen aarakocra. Recently, aarakocra elders detected changes in the prevailing winds that they regarded as a bad omen.
Unlike the aarakocra of other worlds on the Material Plane, the aarakocra of the Realms rarely travel to the Elemental Plane of Air.

Origin/Ancestry

Avian

Lifespan

30

Average Height

6

Average Weight

67