Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft introduces all-new character creation options, including lineages. These can be used in place of a race at character creation or can replace your existing player character’s race mid-campaign. For example, your goliath orc could become one of the following: a dhampir who has vampiric qualities, a hexblood who has gained power after an encounter with a hag, or a reborn who has been changed by death.
Here’s how lineages work, an overview of your options, and ideas for building around a lineage.
Choosing a lineage
Each lineage has the Ancestral Legacy trait, which alters your racial traits:
Ancestral Legacy
If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.
If you don’t keep any of those elements or you choose this lineage at character creation, you gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
Source: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
Regardless of the level of your character, you can select a lineage (at your DM’s discretion). Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft offers an example for how applying a lineage works: A dragonborn dhampir would lose the ability to use their breath weapon but would gain the Vampiric Bite trait, a natural weapon that can heal the dragonborn based on the damage they deal.
Lineages in Van Richten's
Dhampir
Dhampirs are creatures who have an unnatural hunger and have been granted a portion of vampiric power. They have increased speed (35 feet), darkvision, no need to breathe, and a fanged bite.
These lineage traits come at a cost, however. Dhampirs hunger for blood, cerebral spinal fluid (like vampiric mind flayers), dreams, or something else. Overindulging can lead dhampirs to lose control, as their inner beast takes hold and sees prey where they once saw allies. Although it is possible to resist their urges, it is a difficult challenge for even seasoned adventurers.
Key dhampir traits
The following are the most notable traits of this lineage. Not all of the lineage's traits are represented below.
Spider Climb. No cousin to the vampire would be complete without the ability to walk along walls. At 1st level, you have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. At 3rd level, this lineage trait gets an upgrade, permitting you to move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings hands-free.
Vampiric Bite. When you want to restore hit points or just gain a bonus to your next ability check or attack roll, take a bite out of your enemies — or friends. Dhampirs gain a fanged bite as a natural weapon with which they are proficient in.
When rolling an attack or damage for your Vampiric Bite, you use your Constitution modifier instead of your Strength modifier. (Attacks made with your Vampiric Bite are made with advantage if you are missing half or more of your hit points.) The attack deals 1d4 piercing damage on a hit and, if you hit a creature that isn't a Construct or Undead, it can empower you in one of two ways: You can regain hit points equal to the piercing damage dealt or you can gain a bonus to your next attack roll or ability check, with the bonus equal to the piercing damage you dealt.
You can empower yourself in this manner a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, with all expended uses replenished after a long rest.
Building a dhampir
If I were to create a dhampir, I would create a male minotaur barbarian named Krannis. Minotaurs are intimidating as-is, so imagine one who can scale structures with ease using the dhampir's Spider Climb trait. Vampiric Bite is also a good fit for Krannis, as it scales off of Constitution — an ability score that is already important due to the barbarian's Unarmored Defense — and can grant a bonus to your next attack roll.
Krannis was created by a vampire lord who wanted an apex predator to defend her land from trespassers. After years of servitude, Krannis escaped with the help of strangers. He now spends his days fighting to protect the downtrodden in the hopes of redeeming himself for the time he spent viciously hunting down trespassers.
Hexblood
Hexbloods are people who have been infused with eldritch or fey energy or some form of witchcraft after encountering a hag. These people might have struck a bargain with a hag or drawn the eye of a hag for some other reason. No matter the encounter, hexbloods are changed by their lineage. Each hexblood has an irremovable living crown, among other physical characteristics that make their cursed nature evident. They also gain darkvision and a bit of the hag's power.
Key hexblood traits
The following are the most notable traits of this lineage. Not all of the lineage's traits are represented below.
Eerie Token. You can harmlessly remove a lock of hair, a nail, or one of your teeth to create a token that is imbued with magic until you finish a long rest. This token can be used for one of two purposes (each require an Action): You can send a telepathic message up to 25 words in length to the creature holding or carrying the token, as long as they are within 10 miles of you, or you can enter a 1 minute trance that permits you to see and hear from the token as if you were located where it is. While in this trance, you are blinded and deafened to your own surroundings. You can end the trance early without using an Action, and it automatically ends if you are incapacitated.
The token is destroyed when the trance ends. You can create a token once per long rest and you regrow any missing part used to create a token when you finish a long rest.
Hex Magic. Hexbloods gain access to two potent spells, disguise self and hex. You can cast each of these spells once per long rest using this trait. You can also cast these spells using any spell slots you have. When you gain this lineage, you choose whether your spellcasting ability for these spells is Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.
Building a hexblood
My hexblood would be a female triton bard named Ariela who fell in love with a human female who lives in a town that fears tritons. Wary of how she might be viewed if she visited her partner in the town, Ariela sought the aid of a sea hag who could make her appear as a human for a short time. The magic worked, and Ariela had a blissful visit to the town. But that bliss turned to horror as Ariela found herself changing into a hexblood in the days that followed.
Ashamed of her new form, Ariela fled, never to be seen again by her partner. Now in her older years, she uses her hexblood gifts to help others embrace who they are. It is her hope that others might never become so desperate as she was in her youth to gain the approval of others.
Reborn
The reborn are creatures who have died yet have not passed on to the afterlife. Science or magic could have brought them back. All reborn bear scars or other physical characteristics that reveal their undying nature. They might have the scars of a fatal wound or bloodless veins, for example.
Memories from their past life linger, too, and their bodies are unnaturally durable. Reborn have no need to sustain themselves with food nor sleep. They simply exist as a shade of their former selves.
Key reborn traits
The following are the most notable traits of this lineage. Not all of the lineage's traits are represented below.
Deathless Nature. Reborn gain a slew of benefits: You have advantage on saving throws against disease and being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage; you have advantage on death saving throws; and you don't need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. Magic can't put you to sleep, either, and you can complete a long rest in 4 hours.
Knowledge from a Past Life. A reborn can see glimpses from their past, assisting them in their new form. When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 and add that number to the number you rolled on the d20. You can do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. Expended uses of Knowledge from a Past Life are regained when you finish a long rest.
Building a reborn
One of the most commonly killed creatures in Dungeons & Dragons has to be the goblin. They are small, weak, and oftentimes treated as simple-minded. That is why I would love to play a reborn goblin fighter named Pincushion. He bundles himself up to hide the scars from when he was maimed by adventures. Evil in his former life, Pincushion now seeks to be a mostly honest goblin.
He still has an unsavory attitude about life, but he is happy to hunt beasts that threaten nearby towns — for a price. His greatest desire is to earn enough gold to build a small tower from where he can mock passersby.
Building a character with a lineage
The lineages in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft offer plenty of opportunities when building a character or modifying an existing one. Each can flesh out your character's backstory or — in the case of the reborn — allow you to bring back a beloved character who died. Have fun and discover what new dreadful adventures you can come up with by utilizing these lineages. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to beg my friends to let my minotaur-dhampir barbarian into their next campaign!
DeAngelo Murillo (That_DeAngelo) is a fourth-generation Mexican-American who helps bring more representation to the geeky community through storytelling, journalism, interviewing creatives, and more on his Twitch channel. In his free time, he enjoys harassing his peers into participating in TTRPG charity events with him and also dies quite often in video games.
Thanks for the writeup!
If you like lineages, I created 4 additional ones suitable for Ravenloft or any setting along with optional lineage rules.
Check it out here: https://dmsguild.com/product/357972/Van-Richtens-Libram-of-Lineages?affiliate_id=183912
Space is actually extremely cold, but because of the vaccum heat has a hard time leaving anything, which makes overheating a real problem in space despite the extreme cold, because it's just so hard to lose heat. If you were thrown into the vacuum of space, it would take more than a day for your body to actually freeze. A little bit of ice would appear on some parts of your body long before that though I think.
It doesn't say anywhere in the article that Hexbloods must be female. Also, your comment is so unoriginal. If you don't agree with something, cool, but don't be insulting. And read the article, rather than making up things to be insulted by, maybe?
This is cool, not sure my players will be into it, but certainly cool.
not the case in dnd, it varies from sphere to sphere, with realm space ie the forgotten realms actually being kinda warm compared to what one might expect
You totally should. It has a bunch of good stuff, especially the monsters. The monsters are awesome.
These are all awesome characters!
These character concepts are so fun! Well written and entertaining article!
Thanks!
Really cool ideas! I'd love to try out hexblood, and reborn actually sounds really cool as well. Thanks for the article! :D
You know, the only racial abilities that an Aarakocra gets are flight and Talons, so if your DM allows it, you can straight up give a massive buff to your Aarakocra character! And if You pick Dhampir, you basically lose nothing and gain a bunch of stuff! I kind of want to do this now. Apex predator birb time
No.
I had a Half-orc Ranger Hunter Barbarian named Feng in Tyranny of Dragons. He was charmed by a vampire and the rest of the party fled. He was subsequently turned by the vampire and killed the party's Cleric. The party was victorious and my vampiric character was slain leaving no body.
I'm bringing him back as a Dhampir in Ravenloft for a story of redemption. Can't wait to play!
After seeing Lineages done this way I kind of think that Aasimar and Tieflings should be done as a lineage instead of a general human/celestial or human/infernal combination.
I have actually seen a homebrew of that.
I like this new feature for horror based games. But, call me greedy, where are the werewolves?! And I don't mean shifters.
If you're playing under forgotten realms space rules I believe any character can survive in space
I have a reborn rouge goblin lol
This is all I want to play DnD as. Would be great to see something semi-official about it so more DM's might consider it.
Thanks for that, DragonSlayer9. It’s good someone actually read the comments, and gave feedback on them. Thanks!
Just to say, I made a new character. I made a Winged Tiefling - Dhampir. They are also a paladin, soon to be an Oathbreaker. Flying speed, climbing speed, fangs with Vampiric Bite, Spider Climb. . . it’s perfect to torment. . . I mean have fun with, my other players