Millstone85
2019-04-18, 07:17 AM
If 5e were to publish new races alongside the psion and psychic-warrior classes, what would you like to see?
Here is my selection.
https://i.imgur.com/N0cEhXa.png
Elan
No relation with our favourite bard. :smallsmile:
An elan is the result of a ritual in which the soul of a humanoid is transferred to a psionically-made body. This new vessel is an idealized version of the original body, yet one that often falls into the uncanny valley. An elan does not age but can be killed, collapsing into a puddle of ectoplasm.
Details vary by edition and setting. The soul might have to be specifically human, which I find needlessly restrictive but would be in line with aasimar, genasi and tieflings. The ectoplasm thing could be 4e-only, but I really like it.
As a playable race, elans satisfy the itch to play a character who has achieved immortality. Furthermore, the transformation might have come at the expense of a part of their mind, i.e. class levels, which they are now trying to reacquire, allowing a "do-over" kind of character.
Shardmind
Psionics often involves crystals, doesn't it (http://www.giantitp.com/Images/CafePress2013/Psionics.png)? So here are hundreds of small crystals self-assembled into a humanoid shape, sometimes slipping free to play the Ioun stone around it.
4e Nentir Vale lore was that all these crystals were shards of the destroyed Living Gate, but their origin could be imputed to any other cosmic structure. My take would be to have them come from cracks in a crystal sphere.
Where the warforged is a man-made construct, the shardmind is a construct of alien origins. This race also plays on the theme of being a fragment of something greater, with the desire to rejoin and restore it. Some shardminds hunt their brethren Highlander style, believing this to be the way to gather the lost energy.
Foulborn
This race would include aberrant humanoids such as:
a daelkyr half-blood
someone left with incomplete illithid ceremorphosis
a beholder's terrible nightmare about being human
the escapee of a ritual to summon a star spawn
etc.
Because I like the Far Realm and creatures that may or may not be related to it.
Here is my selection.
https://i.imgur.com/N0cEhXa.png
Elan
No relation with our favourite bard. :smallsmile:
An elan is the result of a ritual in which the soul of a humanoid is transferred to a psionically-made body. This new vessel is an idealized version of the original body, yet one that often falls into the uncanny valley. An elan does not age but can be killed, collapsing into a puddle of ectoplasm.
Details vary by edition and setting. The soul might have to be specifically human, which I find needlessly restrictive but would be in line with aasimar, genasi and tieflings. The ectoplasm thing could be 4e-only, but I really like it.
As a playable race, elans satisfy the itch to play a character who has achieved immortality. Furthermore, the transformation might have come at the expense of a part of their mind, i.e. class levels, which they are now trying to reacquire, allowing a "do-over" kind of character.
Shardmind
Psionics often involves crystals, doesn't it (http://www.giantitp.com/Images/CafePress2013/Psionics.png)? So here are hundreds of small crystals self-assembled into a humanoid shape, sometimes slipping free to play the Ioun stone around it.
4e Nentir Vale lore was that all these crystals were shards of the destroyed Living Gate, but their origin could be imputed to any other cosmic structure. My take would be to have them come from cracks in a crystal sphere.
Where the warforged is a man-made construct, the shardmind is a construct of alien origins. This race also plays on the theme of being a fragment of something greater, with the desire to rejoin and restore it. Some shardminds hunt their brethren Highlander style, believing this to be the way to gather the lost energy.
Foulborn
This race would include aberrant humanoids such as:
a daelkyr half-blood
someone left with incomplete illithid ceremorphosis
a beholder's terrible nightmare about being human
the escapee of a ritual to summon a star spawn
etc.
Because I like the Far Realm and creatures that may or may not be related to it.