Play a Dhampir, Hexblood, or Reborn With Rules From Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft!

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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

lineages in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

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.

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