So I'm really wanting to homebrew up some options for playing on the plane of Bablovia in MTG's setting for the set Unstable, considering entries in the Plane Shift series only come about following a release of a corresponding Art of Magic: the Gathering artbook, and those are only made for Standard-legal sets. While Fiora and Kylem so far are not featured in Standard-legal sets, it's possible for them to in the future, while Bablovia will not. I want to make it playable in D&D, but keep most of the silliness.
My primary difficulty is the Crossbreed Labs. Where races are concerned, the Order of the Widget has its Cyborgs (people with mechanical parts who collectively try to improve themselves in impractical ways; make toast on the go by making a toaster part of your arm, for example) and quite simply enough, Warforged could be called Cyborgs and replace their trait stating they don't need to eat or sleep. Agents of S.N.E.A.K. are Humans more obsessed with trope-y spy gadgets than actual work of being spies, the League of Dastardly Doom are primarily Human villains with henchmen, some of which are Brainiacs (creatures with one or more brains affixed to their heads via scientific containers; preeetty sure they should be monsters/NPCs) the Goblin Explosioneers are Goblins (I have the urge to give them the Halfling trait Lucky due to their cards having an in-game identity with dice-rolling) and the Crossbreed Labs are Humans who through science (primarily beakers and test-tubes of strange liquids) aim to become the perfect combination of animal-people in an effort to become their "true selves".
My first guess was to tweak the Simic Hybrid race from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica into a part animal part human race that included other animal-types, but the options available (and darkvision being built-in and not a choice) made it a bit difficult. Then I thought, if the personal goal of a member of the Crossbreed Labs is to become their ideal combination of animal and their base race, then it should be a goal they can strive towards throughout play, not built-in as a race. Since all the factions on Bablovia are concerned with gadgets and tech, I decided to go to Backgrounds giving them some custom starting "magic items" and the means to more easily craft certain kinds befitting their faction.
From there I started with looking into equipment, something that works LIKE, say "Helm of the Owl" - while wearing and/or attuned: gain darkvision, gain a beak/peck attack, and can't be surprised in combat... but the Crossbreed Labs imbibe magical-chemical serums to undergo these changes, so my current goal is to homebrew Potions that offer permanent animal-based traits, (and actual animalistic physical features for roleplay purposes) but on only one part (or parts in the case of both arms or both legs) of the body, as equipment does. I could really use a bit of guidance on how to balance Potions that each have a single animal in mind, but each time a Potion is consumed, it offers the player a fixed number of traits based on what part of their body they choose to alter.
So I'm really wanting to homebrew up some options for playing on the plane of Bablovia in MTG's setting for the set Unstable, considering entries in the Plane Shift series only come about following a release of a corresponding Art of Magic: the Gathering artbook, and those are only made for Standard-legal sets. While Fiora and Kylem so far are not featured in Standard-legal sets, it's possible for them to in the future, while Bablovia will not. I want to make it playable in D&D, but keep most of the silliness.
My primary difficulty is the Crossbreed Labs. Where races are concerned, the Order of the Widget has its Cyborgs (people with mechanical parts who collectively try to improve themselves in impractical ways; make toast on the go by making a toaster part of your arm, for example) and quite simply enough, Warforged could be called Cyborgs and replace their trait stating they don't need to eat or sleep. Agents of S.N.E.A.K. are Humans more obsessed with trope-y spy gadgets than actual work of being spies, the League of Dastardly Doom are primarily Human villains with henchmen, some of which are Brainiacs (creatures with one or more brains affixed to their heads via scientific containers; preeetty sure they should be monsters/NPCs) the Goblin Explosioneers are Goblins (I have the urge to give them the Halfling trait Lucky due to their cards having an in-game identity with dice-rolling) and the Crossbreed Labs are Humans who through science (primarily beakers and test-tubes of strange liquids) aim to become the perfect combination of animal-people in an effort to become their "true selves".
My first guess was to tweak the Simic Hybrid race from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica into a part animal part human race that included other animal-types, but the options available (and darkvision being built-in and not a choice) made it a bit difficult. Then I thought, if the personal goal of a member of the Crossbreed Labs is to become their ideal combination of animal and their base race, then it should be a goal they can strive towards throughout play, not built-in as a race. Since all the factions on Bablovia are concerned with gadgets and tech, I decided to go to Backgrounds giving them some custom starting "magic items" and the means to more easily craft certain kinds befitting their faction.
From there I started with looking into equipment, something that works LIKE, say "Helm of the Owl" - while wearing and/or attuned: gain darkvision, gain a beak/peck attack, and can't be surprised in combat... but the Crossbreed Labs imbibe magical-chemical serums to undergo these changes, so my current goal is to homebrew Potions that offer permanent animal-based traits, (and actual animalistic physical features for roleplay purposes) but on only one part (or parts in the case of both arms or both legs) of the body, as equipment does. I could really use a bit of guidance on how to balance Potions that each have a single animal in mind, but each time a Potion is consumed, it offers the player a fixed number of traits based on what part of their body they choose to alter.