What are some good thematic ribbon traits for a race?

[Greywander]

I've been touching up my undead race that I never actually finished, and the subject of today's post is the skeletal subrace, the skulgrim. For a while, I had a lot of trouble finding an identity for them beyond just "they're skeletons", but eventually settled on drawing some inspiration from the Latin American holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). One of the traditions for this holiday involves colorful skulls (calaveras) in various forms, such as face paintings, toys, art pieces, and even candy. So what I decided was that this skeleton race paints their skulls (and sometimes their whole skeleton) in bright colors and intricate patterns. One of the purposes of this is that it gives each one a unique appearance (whereas one skeleton looks pretty similar to another, if you're not an archaeologist), and thus can serve as a "face" that can be remembered and recognized. This makes a lot of sense for a civilization of undead, as it would help a lot with socializing.

The other aspect of these skull paintings is that they grant the skeleton a minor magical benefit. I thought this could be a fun way to get some interesting ribbon traits on your character. While each painting is unique, they are typically based on one of several motifs. Here are the motifs I have so far, and the bonuses they give:

Sun. Your eyes glow with a golden light. While in bright light, your figure has a soft golden glow, shedding bright light out to a radius of 5 feet around you, and dim light for another 10 feet. The bright light is sunlight.
Moon. In dim light or darkness your appearance changes to that of a vague, non-skeletal figure.
Star. White pinpoints of light glow within your eye sockets, allowing you to see and read writing, even in darkness.
Flame. Your body is pleasantly warm to the touch. As an action, you can light or snuff out a candle, torch, or small campfire by touching it.
River. You can create small, gentle currents in liquids by touching them. You can use these currents to propel yourself, giving you a swim speed equal to your walk speed.
Sky. You can create small, gentle breezes around you. You can use these breezes to increase your jump distance by 5 feet, and to fall an additional 5 feet before taking fall damage.
Mountain. You can climb difficult surfaces made of dirt or stone, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

My question is twofold: First, what do you think of these bonuses and motifs so far? So far, I have a trio of celestial themed motifs (sun, moon, and stars) and then the four elements. Would you change the bonuses for these? Second, what new motifs would you add to this? I have "flower" written down, but I'm not sure what bonus to give it, or how to expand that into another grouping of related motifs (perhaps a nature-themed one, with other motifs being things like "tree" or "beast"). I'd kind of like to have at least a dozen motifs overall, just so there's a nice spread in variety for RP reasons. It would be best if repeat motifs among NPCs were few and far between, to make it easier to the player's to remember who's who.

[Christew]

I think they are appropriate strength. Definitely in the ribbon band -- fun, thematic, generally not useful in combat. Very cool concept!

Some suggestions:
General
Flora -- crib from Druidcraft (tree/flower feel a bit tough to differentiate)
Fauna -- crib from Druidcraft or speak with animals racial features

Dia de Los Muertos related
Epitaph/Poetry -- Comprehend languages lite?
Mask -- Disguise self lite?
Family/Ancestry -- Speak with dead lite?

[Greywander]

Thanks, those are some good ideas. So far, I've added the following new options:

Flower. As an action, you can instantly make a flower blossom, a seed pod open, or a leaf bud bloom by touching it.
Tree. Your skeleton has a wooden appearance. While you remain still, you take on a tree-like appearance that can help you blend into certain surroundings. If you are in such surroundings, other creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to notice you.
Beast. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas with Small or smaller beasts.
Bird. You can mimic sounds you have heard, including voices. A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a successful Wisdom (Insight) check opposed by your Charisma (Deception) check.
Poetry. Instead of images, your calavera art is made up of poetic verse inscribed in intricate patterns. You may cast the illusory script spell at will and without needing to provide components. Choose whether to use Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma as your spellcasting ability score.
Mask. As an action, you can magically alter the appearance of your clothing, changing the color, fit, length, and various other minor aspects of your clothing. You can’t make one piece of clothing look like a completely different piece of clothing, e.g. turning a boot into a scarf. If you remove any clothing, it reverts to its original appearance after 1 minute.

I'm planning to add Family as another option, but I'm blanking on what to do for it. I considered allowing you to designate a person or people that you can communicate with (similar to the Tome Pact invocation that let's cast Sending, but it would be limited to once per long rest) or locate them. I considered having you revert to being humanoid instead of undead against certain effects, or allowing you to take on your living appearance temporarily. I considered being able to call up the memories of your ancestors, though I feel like that could be really hit or miss if none of your ancestors did or knew anything noteworthy.

[PhantomSoul]

I'm planning to add Family as another option, but I'm blanking on what to do for it. I considered allowing you to designate a person or people that you can communicate with (similar to the Tome Pact invocation that let's cast Sending, but it would be limited to once per long rest) or locate them. I considered having you revert to being humanoid instead of undead against certain effects, or allowing you to take on your living appearance temporarily. I considered being able to call up the memories of your ancestors, though I feel like that could be really hit or miss if none of your ancestors did or knew anything noteworthy.

Hm, maybe a more sibling-like or twin-like spin, so you can guidance and/or help an ally making a contested Charisma Check? Something vaguely in that line would still make it clearly non-Combat-focused, but probably give some feel that you two play off each other and have a history together that you can play off of more collaboratively. I think family could easily be more of the collaborative/supportive aspect, and it could be ported to your "chosen" family rather than strictly being a biological one. Maybe it's even failure-based, where you give a chance to recover from a failed check as a reaction or something like that.

[Christew]

Thanks, those are some good ideas.
My pleasure! The expanded list looks solid -- I was wrong on flower/tree, thematically distinct and interesting.


I'm planning to add Family as another option, but I'm blanking on what to do for it. I considered allowing you to designate a person or people that you can communicate with (similar to the Tome Pact invocation that let's cast Sending, but it would be limited to once per long rest) or locate them. I considered having you revert to being humanoid instead of undead against certain effects, or allowing you to take on your living appearance temporarily. I considered being able to call up the memories of your ancestors, though I feel like that could be really hit or miss if none of your ancestors did or knew anything noteworthy.
Hmm, the communication seems the easiest to implement but switching your type is a very compelling mechanic. If you could avoid making it too clunky, I think that could be really interesting.

Great stuff as always!

[PhantomSoul]

As a design decision aspect (very individual as a preference!), I usually like the player features to control their rolls rather than others' unless it's an important-feeling active ability. Mainly because it's easier for the player to remember than for the DM, but also because then the player gets some passive reinforcement of their design choices (rather than just having that effect hidden). So instead of giving disadvantage on perception to see you in some context, I'd default to advantage on stealth for you in those contexts. (That's not a hard and fast rule, and I myself have broken it when it helped with the feel of the ability.)


Hmm, the communication seems the easiest to implement but switching your type is a very compelling mechanic. If you could avoid making it too clunky, I think that could be really interesting.

Great stuff as always!

Oh, like a Thieves' Cant where you can communicate simple ideas to allies, nested into seemingly regular or irrelevant conversation? That could be fun.

[Greywander]

I added two more:

Family. As an action, you may touch a creature to mark them as someone close to you. You and each creature you mark are able to recognize one another, even if transformed or disguised or hidden by illusions, and likewise will notice the absence of the mark when faced with an impostor. You may mark up to a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus. You can end a mark at any time, no action required.
Eye. You can sense the presence of any creature within 30 feet of you that is invisible or on the Ethereal Plane. You can pinpoint such a creature that is moving.

That last one is actually a kuo-toa racial trait, found in the DMG, though I don't think kuo-toa are intended for players. It should be obvious that I've already used a couple racial traits or specific uses of spells (e.g. lighting a fire from Prestidigitation).

For the first one, I'm not sure if I thought of this first or if it came to me afterwards, but it reminds me a lot of the Alabasta arc from One Piece. In that arc, they know one of the villains is a shapeshifter, so they each mark themselves in such a way that they can be sure if they're the real deal or an impostor. Seemed like a fitting bonus for a "family" theme. Also note that nothing requires you to only use it on party members; great if you're anticipating that an important NPC might get replaced.


My pleasure! The expanded list looks solid -- I was wrong on flower/tree, thematically distinct and interesting.
For the tree one, I was kind of going for anything from "serene hermit meditating while being completely ignored by hostile wildlife" to Slenderman-esque "that's not a tree". To be fair, I think that can also describe druids as a whole pretty well, it's a shame so few people seem to go for the horror-themed "there's something in the woods" druid instead of the hippy druid.


As a design decision aspect (very individual as a preference!), I usually like the player features to control their rolls rather than others' unless it's an important-feeling active ability. Mainly because it's easier for the player to remember than for the DM, but also because then the player gets some passive reinforcement of their design choices (rather than just having that effect hidden). So instead of giving disadvantage on perception to see you in some context, I'd default to advantage on stealth for you in those contexts. (That's not a hard and fast rule, and I myself have broken it when it helped with the feel of the ability.)
This is a good point, but the effect ends if they move. Does that mean they would need to roll a new Stealth check? I guess either way someone's rolling a new check if they move, although a lot of creatures might be relying on passive Perception if they're not specifically searching for you, which means nothing needs to be rolled, you just apply a -5 penalty while you're standing still.

[MachineWraith]

This is a super cool concept and I'm probably going to steal it for my own game, haha

I would probably note for the Family option that the touched creature must also be willing.

[Greywander]

This is a super cool concept and I'm probably going to steal it for my own game, haha
Well, this is kind of specific to this particular race. I'm sure you could adapt the concept to use with a different type of creature, though some of the traits are undead-specific (though I guess it's actually just the Moon one that wouldn't work for a non-skeleton). If you find something useful here, though, go ahead and make full use of it.


I would probably note for the Family option that the touched creature must also be willing.
Good call, I updated that in the doc.

I also tweaked the Tree one to just give a +5 to Stealth checks, which should be easy enough. No need to roll a new check, you simply apply the +5 bonus while standing still, and revoke it when you move. The DM can always decide when a new check is called for, but this way at least it isn't mandatory (as it would be with advantage).

In total, I now have a whopping 15 different options. I didn't realize how much this was until I saw how much space it took up on the page; this one racial trait fills up an entire page and then some. It's the second longest racial trait among the various undead subraces, the longest being the possession ability for the ghost-like race (which has different rules for possessing corpses, objects, and living creatures). And yes, I've pretty much given up hope of properly balancing these, the best I can hope for is that the various weaknesses that each undead subtype has will be enough to keep them from overshadowing non-undead PCs.