Steel Mirror
2017-01-01, 02:04 AM
Likho are perversions created by the Far Realm to wander among the mortal races, recording our society through genetically inherited racial memories which will be collected some day in the service of the coming of the Elder Gods. This is a race I created where a lot of influences came together under a single concept, the core of which was inspired just by the cool picture that I found. The name comes from slavic mythology, and the basic concept was to make something that thinks and acts in alien ways, looks alien, and yet is just relatably human enough to give it that odd uncanny valley sort of feeling. Kind of like a lot of the weirder depictions of fey in fantasy literature.
There are shades of the Asari from Mass Effect, Deva from 4E, cyclops, the aboleth (which I always thought was a cool monster, and there might be a link between these guys and that slimy race of masterminds), and I'm sure others as well. I always love to hear from people who are awesome enough to give my stuff a look, and especially so if you see anything that you think doesn't work, could work better, is overpowered, etc.
I also finally got my hands on a Volo's guide, so I'll be posting some more of my homebrew monster races now that I have more points of reference for balance. Thanks for reading!
Likho
https://s27.postimg.org/6r3kyzqmr/a_little_cyclops_by_hasabattle_d3c4h8w600.jpg
Artist Credit: hasabattle (http://hasabattle.deviantart.com/) on deviantart http://hasabattle.deviantart.com/art/A-little-Cyclops-201762896
The barmaid screamed and fell to the ground in the darkened alley, splashing in the muck and hitting the cobbles hard. The trio of men standing around her chuckled, giving off the foul stench of boozy breath as they exhaled.
“Aint never had me a sharp ears afore,” the dwarf among their number said, leering. He reached down to grab her dress as the pair behind him struck up a couple of cigarettes.
“Hi gentlemen! Lady ma’am!” chirped a cheerful voice which didn’t belong to any of the four. The men jumped in surprised, and the woman looked up in sudden hope. “Scuse me but, lady ma’am, are you with these men of your own free and consenting will?”
The three men parted, revealing a short, pale figure standing at the entrance of the alley. Strikingly, it had only one large eye in the center of its brow, and was wearing a close-fitting tunic which showed off slender legs and a long, graceful neck. The men stared dumbly at the figure. It smiled back with oblivious cheerfulness.
“A-a-a-a-are you serious?” the woman finally asked, disbelievingly.
“Well, I’ve learned not to make assumptions based on first impressions. Sometimes, there is a perfectly good explanation that you never thought of, so it’s best to look before you leap,” the figure said, striding further into the alley.
The men seemed momentarily nonplussed. The woman’s eyes darted back and forth between them, then she finally sputtered out, “No! I am not here because I want to be! These men attacked me!”
“Ah,” the cycloptic figure said gravely. “That means they are Evil.”
The tallest of the men finally moved. “Hey, you aint so bad looking yourself missy, if you ignore the screwed up eye thing. Howz about you’s-” he placed his hand on the newcomers shoulder, and it whirled aside with sudden speed, yanking his hand to throw him off balance and then kicking him brutally in the chin. Broken teeth flew and he collapsed, unconscious.
His buddy shouted and moved in to attack, and the newcomer let him stumble by to collide with the alley wall. A dagger appeared in its hand, and it slammed the weapon towards the clumsy drunkard’s outstretched fist with enough force to pierce the hand completely and sink four inches into the wooden wall beyond. When it stepped back, the drunk was pinned there by his hand, whimpering in agony as he tried to keep his arm absolutely still to prevent further pain.
“Why you damn-” cursed the dwarf, hefting a bottle to swing it with murderous intent. The figure turned and looked straight at him with its one blue eye, unblinking and intense. The dwarf fumbled the bottle out of his fingers and screamed, running gibbering deeper into the alley with urine dribbling down one leg of his trousers.
The one-eyed figure wiped its hands and returned to the mouth of the alley as suddenly as it had come, to where a dapper firbolg man was waiting uncertainly. It called back to the barmaid as it went. “Send the city guard to collect these thugs! And stick to the major roads past midnight from now on, yes?” Then it took the waiting firbolg by the arm and spoke to him in excited tones as they both walked away into the city. “Now as I was telling you, this restaurant makes the most hideously disgusting dishes, and they are so awful that I find something uniquely revolting every time I go. Isn’t it great! I just know you’ll find it fascinating, too…”
Likho are maddening and probably mad, at least by the standards of most races. One-eyed and unhealthily pale in appearance, they also have no nose or nostrils and an androgynously graceful appearance. They are constant outsiders in society, yet have no real culture or community of their own. Scholars who specialize in such things theorize that likho were created due to the influence of an utterly alien place known as the Far Realm, though whether it was for a specific purpose or a result of the plane’s malignant chaos is perhaps unknowable.
An Alien Mindscape
A likho’s otherworldliness goes beyond the fact that it’s single-eyed stare and smooth, pale face can be seriously off-putting. Their entire thought process and motivations are difficult for members of other races to grasp.
For one, they seem to experience pleasure and pain quite differently from most races. Pain is unpleasant to a likho, but new sources of pain are a novelty and so might be greeted with more fascination than anguish. A likho who has never had a compound fracture, for example, might keep up a lively and excited commentary on the many new shades of agony it is experiencing even as it passes out from blood loss. Conversely, a likho who has been bludgeoned in many battles might be more upset at the boredom of experiencing it again rather than the damage being done when an enemy thumps it with a warhammer.
Things get even weirder when it comes to matters of morality. Likho find other races’ insistence on the existence of moral right and wrong to be fascinating but mystifying. Most likho have at least an academic understanding of morals, but this is pieced together from the memorization of various ethical codes and dim recollections of previous ancestors’ experiences, and likho have no intrinsic conscience. In many ways they resemble highly functioning amoral sociopaths, although they also have strong instincts to fit into society and so try to act according to local customs and morals (whenever it isn’t too inconvenient or they misinterpret such customs), even if they don’t feel their importance.
Though they are biologically intersex, some likho, especially those raised by a parent of another race, adopt a gender identity out of convenience or even sincere personal identification. Other likho may insist on non-gendered pronouns of various flavors, or consider such things trivial and leave it to others to use whatever pronouns they see fit. Still others will move back and forth between presenting themselves as male, female, or other based on their mood or whatever is advantageous at the moment.
Likho begin life as voracious seekers of new experiences. As they mature, however, they achieve a more nuanced understanding of the world, and their impulse to mimic behavior like altruism, love, hatred, or vengeance may develop into the actual things. Some likho never truly outgrow their madness, and simply displace their earlier ignorance with a maniacal fixation on the extremes of the morality spectrum. Such a likho might become a truly evil monster driven by the darkest of emotions, or a paragon of virtue so dedicated and pure that nobody could possibly live up to their strict definition of goodness.
The Long Memory
If those who claim that the likho are the result of Far Realm contamination are correct, then their bizarre reproductive biology is one consequence of such alien origins. Likho do not have sexes. Instead, each is capable of of reproduction with males or females of almost any intelligent humanoid race, and will either impregnate its partner (if the partner is sexually female) or carry the resulting child to term itself (if the partner is male).
The result of such a union, whether birthed by the likho or the other partner, is always a true-breeding likho rather than any sort of hybrid. This likho child inherits the experiences of both parents in the form of an ancestral memory which the newborn likho can dimly recall in times of need. In this way, a likho will pass not only its own memories on to its child, but also the memories of every individual in its direct ancestry. Thus every likho begins life with a long chain of racial memories from both likho and ancestors of many other races.
Likho are strongly compelled to be attracted to members of other races, especially those with unique skills, experiences, and accomplishments. Likho are not especially good parents, however, and often abandon the child either to the other parent or to the tender mercies of the world at large after only a year or so (at which point the child is about as developed as an 8 year old human). Even though a likho has only imperfect and intermittent access to its ancestral memory, this ability helps in making them self-sufficient extremely rapidly, and even likho raised by a caring parent will soon leave to wander the world, add to its experiences, and eventually sire more children itself.
A likho with one likho parent and one parent from another race is known as an ‘outbreed’. Very occasionally, however, two likho will have a child together. The resulting ‘back-breeds’ are considered disgusting by the rest of their kind, but display heightened mental powers.
Likho Names
Likho quite often choose eccentric names for themselves, especially those who are abandoned as children (and unfortunately, either or both parents often do abandon young likho). Likho who are raised by a parent of a different race might inherit a name typical to that race, though even these tend to get bored and choose a new one once they leave their home.
Chosen Names: Aine, Cril, Duryss, Ell, Emolument, Flicker, Gayne, Indra, Jay, Kay, Lyze, Munra, Ness, Offen, Plink, Rags, Tapper
Likho Traits
Likho are simultaneously emotive and difficult to read, thanks to their alien motivations and mercurial moods. They find other races’ behavior just as mystifying, though, and are on a constant quest to understand and explore.
Age. Likho mature quickly and live brief but eventful lives. They are mature at 6 and usually die before 30, though old age doesn’t actually become a health problem until 50 or 60 years of age.
Alignment. Likho often have difficulty understanding the concept of morality, though individuals may expend much energy attempting to emulate it. As such they tend to be neutral rather than good or evil, though almost all are chaotic.
Size. Likho are usually a little taller than 5 feet. Your size is medium.
Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.
Psychic Resistance. You have resistance to psychic damage.
Ancestral Memory. When you make an attack roll or ability check with a weapon, tool, or skill with which you are not proficient, you may choose to add your proficiency bonus to the result. You can use this trait before or after you roll, but before you learn the result. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once). You regain expended uses when you finish a long rest.
At your DM’s prerogative, you may also use this ability to recall facts of a past ancestor’s life which may prove relevant to situations you encounter during the game.
Otherworldly Eye. As a bonus action, choose one creature within 10 feet which can see you. It must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier) or become either frightened of or charmed by you (you choose the effect when you use the ability). At the end of each of its turns, it rolls again to remove this condition. Once the creature succeeds on a save, it knows that it was affected by your Otherworldly Eye.
The creature makes its save against the charm effect with advantage if you or your allies are fighting it. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Deep Speech.
Subrace. Likho born of one likho parent and one other parent are known as ‘outbreeds’. ‘Back-breeds’ are very rare and are born only when two likho have a child together for some reason.
OutbreedsOutbreeds may display a few subtle traces of their non-likho parentage, like tapered ears inherited from an elf or large lower canines from an orc, but these are small and overwhelmed by their likho inheritance, and will be lost within the next generation.
Ability Score Increase. You can choose to increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1.
Diverse Parentage. You gain proficiency in one skill, one simple or martial weapon, one tool, and the ability to speak one additional language.
Hybrid Vigour. When you suffer from exhaustion, you treat your exhaustion level as 1 lower for the purposes of determining its effects on you (as spelled out in Appendix A of the PHB). You also gain advantage on Constitution saves against magic.
Back-breedsLikho are naturally pale, but back-breeds are almost cadaverously pallid, with nearly translucent skin and a cloudy film over their eye as though they have a cataract (though their vision functions normally).
Ability Score Increase. Choose from among your Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma scores. One increases by 2, and another increases by 1.
Psychic Feedback. When you succeed on an Intelligence or Wisdom saving throw against magic, the caster of the spell or effect suffers an amount of psychic damage equal to half your level.
Whispers from Beyond. You know the message cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you may cast dissonant whispers once per day. When you reach 5th level you can also cast detect thoughts once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.
There are shades of the Asari from Mass Effect, Deva from 4E, cyclops, the aboleth (which I always thought was a cool monster, and there might be a link between these guys and that slimy race of masterminds), and I'm sure others as well. I always love to hear from people who are awesome enough to give my stuff a look, and especially so if you see anything that you think doesn't work, could work better, is overpowered, etc.
I also finally got my hands on a Volo's guide, so I'll be posting some more of my homebrew monster races now that I have more points of reference for balance. Thanks for reading!
Likho
https://s27.postimg.org/6r3kyzqmr/a_little_cyclops_by_hasabattle_d3c4h8w600.jpg
Artist Credit: hasabattle (http://hasabattle.deviantart.com/) on deviantart http://hasabattle.deviantart.com/art/A-little-Cyclops-201762896
The barmaid screamed and fell to the ground in the darkened alley, splashing in the muck and hitting the cobbles hard. The trio of men standing around her chuckled, giving off the foul stench of boozy breath as they exhaled.
“Aint never had me a sharp ears afore,” the dwarf among their number said, leering. He reached down to grab her dress as the pair behind him struck up a couple of cigarettes.
“Hi gentlemen! Lady ma’am!” chirped a cheerful voice which didn’t belong to any of the four. The men jumped in surprised, and the woman looked up in sudden hope. “Scuse me but, lady ma’am, are you with these men of your own free and consenting will?”
The three men parted, revealing a short, pale figure standing at the entrance of the alley. Strikingly, it had only one large eye in the center of its brow, and was wearing a close-fitting tunic which showed off slender legs and a long, graceful neck. The men stared dumbly at the figure. It smiled back with oblivious cheerfulness.
“A-a-a-a-are you serious?” the woman finally asked, disbelievingly.
“Well, I’ve learned not to make assumptions based on first impressions. Sometimes, there is a perfectly good explanation that you never thought of, so it’s best to look before you leap,” the figure said, striding further into the alley.
The men seemed momentarily nonplussed. The woman’s eyes darted back and forth between them, then she finally sputtered out, “No! I am not here because I want to be! These men attacked me!”
“Ah,” the cycloptic figure said gravely. “That means they are Evil.”
The tallest of the men finally moved. “Hey, you aint so bad looking yourself missy, if you ignore the screwed up eye thing. Howz about you’s-” he placed his hand on the newcomers shoulder, and it whirled aside with sudden speed, yanking his hand to throw him off balance and then kicking him brutally in the chin. Broken teeth flew and he collapsed, unconscious.
His buddy shouted and moved in to attack, and the newcomer let him stumble by to collide with the alley wall. A dagger appeared in its hand, and it slammed the weapon towards the clumsy drunkard’s outstretched fist with enough force to pierce the hand completely and sink four inches into the wooden wall beyond. When it stepped back, the drunk was pinned there by his hand, whimpering in agony as he tried to keep his arm absolutely still to prevent further pain.
“Why you damn-” cursed the dwarf, hefting a bottle to swing it with murderous intent. The figure turned and looked straight at him with its one blue eye, unblinking and intense. The dwarf fumbled the bottle out of his fingers and screamed, running gibbering deeper into the alley with urine dribbling down one leg of his trousers.
The one-eyed figure wiped its hands and returned to the mouth of the alley as suddenly as it had come, to where a dapper firbolg man was waiting uncertainly. It called back to the barmaid as it went. “Send the city guard to collect these thugs! And stick to the major roads past midnight from now on, yes?” Then it took the waiting firbolg by the arm and spoke to him in excited tones as they both walked away into the city. “Now as I was telling you, this restaurant makes the most hideously disgusting dishes, and they are so awful that I find something uniquely revolting every time I go. Isn’t it great! I just know you’ll find it fascinating, too…”
Likho are maddening and probably mad, at least by the standards of most races. One-eyed and unhealthily pale in appearance, they also have no nose or nostrils and an androgynously graceful appearance. They are constant outsiders in society, yet have no real culture or community of their own. Scholars who specialize in such things theorize that likho were created due to the influence of an utterly alien place known as the Far Realm, though whether it was for a specific purpose or a result of the plane’s malignant chaos is perhaps unknowable.
An Alien Mindscape
A likho’s otherworldliness goes beyond the fact that it’s single-eyed stare and smooth, pale face can be seriously off-putting. Their entire thought process and motivations are difficult for members of other races to grasp.
For one, they seem to experience pleasure and pain quite differently from most races. Pain is unpleasant to a likho, but new sources of pain are a novelty and so might be greeted with more fascination than anguish. A likho who has never had a compound fracture, for example, might keep up a lively and excited commentary on the many new shades of agony it is experiencing even as it passes out from blood loss. Conversely, a likho who has been bludgeoned in many battles might be more upset at the boredom of experiencing it again rather than the damage being done when an enemy thumps it with a warhammer.
Things get even weirder when it comes to matters of morality. Likho find other races’ insistence on the existence of moral right and wrong to be fascinating but mystifying. Most likho have at least an academic understanding of morals, but this is pieced together from the memorization of various ethical codes and dim recollections of previous ancestors’ experiences, and likho have no intrinsic conscience. In many ways they resemble highly functioning amoral sociopaths, although they also have strong instincts to fit into society and so try to act according to local customs and morals (whenever it isn’t too inconvenient or they misinterpret such customs), even if they don’t feel their importance.
Though they are biologically intersex, some likho, especially those raised by a parent of another race, adopt a gender identity out of convenience or even sincere personal identification. Other likho may insist on non-gendered pronouns of various flavors, or consider such things trivial and leave it to others to use whatever pronouns they see fit. Still others will move back and forth between presenting themselves as male, female, or other based on their mood or whatever is advantageous at the moment.
Likho begin life as voracious seekers of new experiences. As they mature, however, they achieve a more nuanced understanding of the world, and their impulse to mimic behavior like altruism, love, hatred, or vengeance may develop into the actual things. Some likho never truly outgrow their madness, and simply displace their earlier ignorance with a maniacal fixation on the extremes of the morality spectrum. Such a likho might become a truly evil monster driven by the darkest of emotions, or a paragon of virtue so dedicated and pure that nobody could possibly live up to their strict definition of goodness.
The Long Memory
If those who claim that the likho are the result of Far Realm contamination are correct, then their bizarre reproductive biology is one consequence of such alien origins. Likho do not have sexes. Instead, each is capable of of reproduction with males or females of almost any intelligent humanoid race, and will either impregnate its partner (if the partner is sexually female) or carry the resulting child to term itself (if the partner is male).
The result of such a union, whether birthed by the likho or the other partner, is always a true-breeding likho rather than any sort of hybrid. This likho child inherits the experiences of both parents in the form of an ancestral memory which the newborn likho can dimly recall in times of need. In this way, a likho will pass not only its own memories on to its child, but also the memories of every individual in its direct ancestry. Thus every likho begins life with a long chain of racial memories from both likho and ancestors of many other races.
Likho are strongly compelled to be attracted to members of other races, especially those with unique skills, experiences, and accomplishments. Likho are not especially good parents, however, and often abandon the child either to the other parent or to the tender mercies of the world at large after only a year or so (at which point the child is about as developed as an 8 year old human). Even though a likho has only imperfect and intermittent access to its ancestral memory, this ability helps in making them self-sufficient extremely rapidly, and even likho raised by a caring parent will soon leave to wander the world, add to its experiences, and eventually sire more children itself.
A likho with one likho parent and one parent from another race is known as an ‘outbreed’. Very occasionally, however, two likho will have a child together. The resulting ‘back-breeds’ are considered disgusting by the rest of their kind, but display heightened mental powers.
Likho Names
Likho quite often choose eccentric names for themselves, especially those who are abandoned as children (and unfortunately, either or both parents often do abandon young likho). Likho who are raised by a parent of a different race might inherit a name typical to that race, though even these tend to get bored and choose a new one once they leave their home.
Chosen Names: Aine, Cril, Duryss, Ell, Emolument, Flicker, Gayne, Indra, Jay, Kay, Lyze, Munra, Ness, Offen, Plink, Rags, Tapper
Likho Traits
Likho are simultaneously emotive and difficult to read, thanks to their alien motivations and mercurial moods. They find other races’ behavior just as mystifying, though, and are on a constant quest to understand and explore.
Age. Likho mature quickly and live brief but eventful lives. They are mature at 6 and usually die before 30, though old age doesn’t actually become a health problem until 50 or 60 years of age.
Alignment. Likho often have difficulty understanding the concept of morality, though individuals may expend much energy attempting to emulate it. As such they tend to be neutral rather than good or evil, though almost all are chaotic.
Size. Likho are usually a little taller than 5 feet. Your size is medium.
Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.
Psychic Resistance. You have resistance to psychic damage.
Ancestral Memory. When you make an attack roll or ability check with a weapon, tool, or skill with which you are not proficient, you may choose to add your proficiency bonus to the result. You can use this trait before or after you roll, but before you learn the result. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once). You regain expended uses when you finish a long rest.
At your DM’s prerogative, you may also use this ability to recall facts of a past ancestor’s life which may prove relevant to situations you encounter during the game.
Otherworldly Eye. As a bonus action, choose one creature within 10 feet which can see you. It must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier) or become either frightened of or charmed by you (you choose the effect when you use the ability). At the end of each of its turns, it rolls again to remove this condition. Once the creature succeeds on a save, it knows that it was affected by your Otherworldly Eye.
The creature makes its save against the charm effect with advantage if you or your allies are fighting it. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Deep Speech.
Subrace. Likho born of one likho parent and one other parent are known as ‘outbreeds’. ‘Back-breeds’ are very rare and are born only when two likho have a child together for some reason.
OutbreedsOutbreeds may display a few subtle traces of their non-likho parentage, like tapered ears inherited from an elf or large lower canines from an orc, but these are small and overwhelmed by their likho inheritance, and will be lost within the next generation.
Ability Score Increase. You can choose to increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or two ability scores of your choice by 1.
Diverse Parentage. You gain proficiency in one skill, one simple or martial weapon, one tool, and the ability to speak one additional language.
Hybrid Vigour. When you suffer from exhaustion, you treat your exhaustion level as 1 lower for the purposes of determining its effects on you (as spelled out in Appendix A of the PHB). You also gain advantage on Constitution saves against magic.
Back-breedsLikho are naturally pale, but back-breeds are almost cadaverously pallid, with nearly translucent skin and a cloudy film over their eye as though they have a cataract (though their vision functions normally).
Ability Score Increase. Choose from among your Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma scores. One increases by 2, and another increases by 1.
Psychic Feedback. When you succeed on an Intelligence or Wisdom saving throw against magic, the caster of the spell or effect suffers an amount of psychic damage equal to half your level.
Whispers from Beyond. You know the message cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you may cast dissonant whispers once per day. When you reach 5th level you can also cast detect thoughts once per day. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.