Oculus

All Seeing Eyes

An oculus is a humanoid that is much different from the average creature. An oculus’s entire body is a single eye with a pupil that can be moved to anywhere on its body, allowing it to see at any angle. An oculus’s body, however, appears to have a neck, arms, hands, legs, and feet just like any other humanoid.
Oculi do not have bodily orifices, such as ears, mouths, noses, or others. They experience taste, sound, and smell through a shallow and near-imperceptible membrane that surrounds their bodies, detecting and interpreting subtle stimuli. Oculi feed by absorbing nutrients through this membrane from bacteria and other microorganisms. An oculus can also “eat” more traditional foodstuffs by slowly absorbing the nutrients through contact with its membrane.
Each oculus has a uniquely colored iris surrounding its large pupil, often with a myriad of intertwining colors. Other than body size and shape, these unique irises are the only way to tell individual oculi apart.
An oculus, while aware of bodily harm, does not experience pain as other creatures do. When an oculus’s body has sustained enough damage, it will immediately enter a repair state that acts similarly to another creature’s unconscious state. For this reason, physical torture tends to be ineffectual on oculi. Extreme, widespread, or irreparable bodily damage, however, will kill an oculus just as easily as any other humanoid.

Watchful Hive

Oculi tend to live in underground cave systems in which they carve out structures to use as homes and defensible positions. However, due to their ability to telepathically communicate near-instantaneously, a group of oculi, called a watch, develops a sort of hive mind. This hive mind causes them to be extremely efficient and unified in purpose when creating structures, allowing a watch to create elaborate and highly functional structures with incredible efficiency.
Oculi, when living in large groups, very rarely venture from their cave system. They are a very self-reliant species that neither depends on nor offers aid to other races. They are aware of the value of gold and treasures for the purposes of the rare interaction or trade with other cultures, but have no use for such things within a watch.

Intelligent Design

Oculi live extremely long lives when left alone, and reproduce asexually when a watch determines more bodies are needed. This reproduction occurs as a mitosis lasting nearly a century, during which the “parent” decides the evolutionary form its offspring will take. In this way, a watch can regulate a balance of the roles required by oculus society.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Oculi have no need for names in their society as the individual becomes caught in the tide of the many other oculi in the watch. When an oculus leaves its watch, though, and learns to live as an individual, it tends to adopt a name from the first culture it encounters. This name might not even be one used by other creatures; it might just be a pleasant-sounding name of an object.

Oculus

Ability Score Increase Your Intelligence score increases by 2.

Size Medium

Speed 30 ft

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Age Oculi reach maturity only a few days after their mitosis is complete, and can live for nearly 2000 years.
Alignment As creatures of a heavily structured and deeply self-reliant culture, most oculi are lawful neutral.
Size. Oculi can range from 4 feet to nearly 6 feet tall, depending on their evolutionary function, and weigh an average of 140 pounds.
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.
Eye Open Oculi do not need to sleep, but must enter a resting state for 8 hours to benefit from a long rest. You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as though you were awake.
Oculus Perception Whenever you make a Wisdom (Perception) check using sight, you add double your proficiency bonus to the check, even if you are not normally proficient.
Telepathy You can speak telepathically to creatures within 60 feet of you. For a creature to understand your telepathy, you must share a language. You perform the verbal components of spells by broadcasting them to all creatures within range of your telepathy.

Subraces

Oculus Adjudicate

An oculus adjudicate is the type of oculus most friendly or neutral visitors will meet upon discovering a watch. They are the builders and primary decision-makers of oculus society. They are the most common type of Oculus for the purposes of construction and diplomacy. Oculus adjudicates tend to be taller and spindlier than the other oculus forms.
Ability Score Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Evolutionary Builder You are proficient with your choice of mason’s tools or tinker’s tools.
Judging Eye. You are proficient in the Insight skill. You add double your proficiency bonus to Wisdom (Insight) checks you make to determine if a creature is lying.

Oculus Inquisitive

An oculus inquisitive’s primary role is to venture to the world outside the watch, discovering uninhabited cave systems to which a watch can expand, checking for outside threats, and keeping peace with neighboring societies. Most cultures consider oculus inquisitives to be the primary form of oculi since they are the form most commonly seen on the surface world. Oculus inquisitives tend to be smaller in stature than the other evolutionary forms, but are well built for travelling long distances.
Ability Score Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Evolutionary Explorer You are proficient with your choice of calligrapher’s supplies or navigator’s tools.
Inquisitive Eye. You are proficient in the Investigation skill. You double your proficiency bonus on Intelligence (Investigation) checks you make to find traps and secret passages.

Oculus Vigilant

The oculus vigilant’s duty is the protection of the watch. They tend to be found most commonly standing guard at the defensible locations and parapets oculi build when carving into a cave system, and as such are rarely seen outside a watch. Unlike the other oculus forms, oculus vigilants are large and bulky creatures with a thick membrane that thickens and hardens into plates as the oculus ages. This gives the oculus vigilant the appearance of wearing armor, especially near the end of its natural lifespan. These plates, however, are not stuck in place, and the oculus vigilant can move them at will in order to feed and move its pupil around.
Ability Score Your Strength score increases by 1.
Evolutionary Warrior Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level.

Languages. Oculi can’t physically speak, but communicate telepathically. They can “speak,” read, and write Common and one other language of your choice, usually the language of a society near to the watch into which you were born.

Oculi Watch

The Mountains of The Bonelands