Revision as of 00:51, 25 February 2023

Cephalids

Cephalids are humanoids with octopus-like heads. Their colouration varies between pinks, browns, blues and purples, and the various patterns on their body can shift and discolour according to their mood. They have small tentacles on their face, rarely longer than 50 cm (1 1/2 ft), that they can manipulate as easily as their fingers.

They are well known for their strong work-ethic, curiosity and skill with small mechanical contraptions. Not long after they spawn from their tide-pool they have a strong urge to seek out civilization. Well known amongst those that live near the sea or brackish water, they're quickly accepted by a nearby family, as adopting a Cephalid is believed to bring luck and wealth to the household (and village). The young Cephalids bond easily to anyone and grow up extremely loyal to their adopted family and friends. They are generally well-liked because of their honesty, as it takes a lot of practice for them to have any form of control over their skin-patterns, that tend to change to follow their mood.

Cephalid Traits

Characters with the Cephalid heritage share the following traits:

Age. Cephalids are born in watery pools of slime from eggs that their parents jointly secrete in a process that some non-cephalids find disturbing. After the eggs are laid and fertilized, the parents eat many of them, until only a few remain, which eventually hatch a few weeks later. From this point, cephalids take ten years to reach adulthood, though they can live to be upward to 70 years old.

Size. Cephalids are the same size and weight as humans. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your Speed is 30 feet.

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 cannot discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Amphibious. You can breathe air and water.

Three hearts. You have advantage on death saving throws.

Fine tentacle manipulation. Your face tentacles are extremely dexterous and can be used for fine manipulation. You gain advantage on checks requiring fine manipulation for which you can use your tentacles, like picking locks, surgery, and creating small mechanical or clockwork contraptions. Cephalids create many specialized tools that fit on or over their tentacles.

However, these tentacles mean that you cannot wear any hat or helmet that covers your face.

Cephalid Gifts

In addition to traits found in your Cephalid heritage, select one of the following gifts:

Call of the Ocean

Some Cephalids feel the call to return to the ocean, spending most of their time in or around the ocean and adapt quickly growing fins between their toes and fingers. Their skin will slowly take the colours and patterns of their environment too.

Like a duck takes to water. You gain swimming speed equal to your movement speed, and you ignore all naturally created difficult terrain in or under water. Your darkvision increases to 120ft underwater.

Natural camouflage If you have at least a round to adapt to your surroundings, you gain an expertise die on Stealth checks that rely on the opponent's sight.

Call of the Creator

Other Cephalids get the urge to create or increase their ability in one specific trade, quickly becoming Masters in their chosen field!

The Touch of the Master. Choose one tool, and one skill with which you are proficient from: Engineering, Performance or Medicine and gain a specialization die for that tool and skill. If you aren't proficient, you gain proficiency instead of a specialization die.

The Eye of the Master Fine control over your skin allows you to one-up those that try to use it to read your emotions. You have advantage on Deception checks in face to face confrontations.

Call of the Mind

Your mind finds most trades too mundane and hankers to figure out the secrets of the universe. These Cephalids tend to choose either the arcane arts or find hidden powers within... Sometimes something ancient will even tell them some horrible secrets of the universe.

You know one cantrip of your choice from the sorcerer spell list. At 3rd level, choose one 1st- or 2nd-level sorcerer spell, which you can cast once without any material components; you must finish a long rest in order to cast the spell again using this gift. A 1st-level spell chosen this way can be cast as if using a 2nd-level spell slot. Your spellcasting ability for this trait is the same as the ability score used in the spellcasting class in which you have the highest level, or Charisma if you have no levels in a spellcasting class.

Paragon Gifts

When you reach 10th level, you regain some of your ancestral powers and can choose one Paragon gift from the following list:

Call of the Old One

Cephalopod Regeneration Once per day, you can choose to immediately regenerate 4d8 + your proficiency bonus in lost hitpoints. If you are missing any body parts the lost parts are restored after 5 minutes. If a severed part is held against the stump, the limb instantaneously reattaches itself. This ability requires a long rest before it can be used again the next day.

Non-Euclidian Geometry It came to you in a dream, a secret that allows you to create geometry that breaks the 5th postulate of Euclidian geometry. You can create objects and structures that mere mortal minds cannot seem to fully comprehend. Non-cephalids have a disadvantage on Engineering, Investigation, Perception and Survival checks inside such a structure or when otherwise interacting with such an object. If large enough it is near impossible for non-cephalids to escape such a structure without at least some guidance of the creator.

source: Mostly user: Lord Byte, but some Traits have been based on an image of a page of someone else's Cephalid race. If that's you, let me know!