beings before deciding compared race

Aarakocra

Species Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

A winged people who originated on the Elemental Plane of Air, aarakocra soar through the sky wherever they wander. The first aarakocra served the Wind Dukes of Aaqa—mighty beings of air&mdash

At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical race. If you select a fantastical race, follow these additional rules during character creation

Githyanki

Species Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

cultivated over eons in the Astral Plane. Now all githyanki can use their psychic bond with that plane to access splinters of knowledge left behind by beings who travel, live, and die among the silver

astral clouds. Githyanki who reside in the Astral Plane can live indefinitely. Creating Your Character At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical

Giff

Species Spelljammer: Adventures in Space

Giff are tall, broad-shouldered folk with hippo-like features. Some have smooth skin, while others have short bristles on their faces and the tops of their heads. As beings of impressive size and

divine beings who created giff have likewise been forgotten. Their titanic petrified bodies drift on the Astral Sea, isolated and unrecognizable in their current forms. Although they don’t realize

Hadozee

Species Spelljammer: Adventures in Space

branch. Today, hadozees are sapient, bipedal beings eager to leave behind the fearsome predators of their home world and explore other worlds. In addition to being natural climbers, hadozees have feet

glide. Hadozees wrap these wings around themselves to keep warm. Creating Your Character When you create your D&D character, you decide whether your character is a member of the human race or one

Deck of Many Things Legacy

Magic Items Basic Rules (2014)

30 feet of you. The fighter is of the same race as you and serves you loyally until death, believing the fates have drawn him or her to you. You control this character. Moon. You are granted the

apply it. The Void. This black card spells disaster. Your soul is drawn from your body and contained in an object in a place of the GM's choice. One or more powerful beings guard the place. While your

Human Legacy

Species Basic Rules (2014)

xenophobic, in general their societies are inclusive. Human lands welcome large numbers of nonhumans compared to the proportion of humans who live in nonhuman lands. Exemplars of Ambition Humans who

seek adventure are the most daring and ambitious members of a daring and ambitious race. They seek to earn glory in the eyes of their fellows by amassing power, wealth, and fame. More than other people

Kobold

Species Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

Underdark near the lairs of the earliest dragons. In some lands, kobolds serve chromatic or metallic dragons—even worshiping them as divine beings. In other places, kobolds know too well how

, their cry resonates with draconic power. Creating Your Character At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical race. If you select a fantastical

Ability Checks

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

creature’s efforts. In a contest, the ability checks are compared to each other, rather than to a target number. When you call for a contest, you pick the ability that each side must use, deciding

crowd, lie to someone convincingly INTELLIGENCE CHECK VS. WISDOM CHECK If you have trouble deciding whether to call for an Intelligence or a Wisdom check to determine whether a character notices

How and When to Use the Tables

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Xanathar's Guide to Everything

, they don’t occupy a specific place in that process. You can use some of them early on — for instance, it’s possible to determine your parents and other family members immediately after deciding your

character’s race — but you could also wait until later in the process. You might prefer to establish more facts about your character’s game identity — such as your class, ability scores, and alignment — before supplementing that information with what’s offered here.

Humanoids and the Gods

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

cataclysmic shift to replace him. With that in mind, consider the role of the gods in your world and their ties to different humanoid races. Does each race have a creator god? How does that god shape that

race’s culture? Are other folk free of such divine ties and free to worship as they wish? Has a race turned against the god that created it? Has a new race appeared, created by a god within the past few

Autognome

Species Spelljammer: Adventures in Space

Autognomes are mechanical beings built by rock gnomes. Sometimes, because of a malfunction or a unique circumstance, an autognome becomes separated from its creator and strikes out on its own. An

, determined to find a greater purpose. Creating Your Character When you create your D&D character, you decide whether your character is a member of the human race or one of the game’s

Plasmoid

Species Spelljammer: Adventures in Space

Plasmoids are amorphous beings with no typical shape. In the presence of other folk, they often adopt a similar shape, but there’s little chance of mistaking a plasmoid for anything else. They

you create your D&D character, you decide whether your character is a member of the human race or one of the game’s fantastical races. If you create a character using a race option

Creating a Race or Subrace

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

Creating a Race or Subrace This section teaches you how to modify existing races, as well as create new ones. The most important step in customizing or designing races for your campaign is to start

with the story behind the race or subrace you wish to create. Having a firm idea of a race’s story in your campaign will help you make decisions during the creation process. Ask yourself several

Dark Elves (Drow)

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide

history, many believed that all drow were beings of inherent and irredeemable evil. In truth, most drow do align with evil, engaging in torture, slavery, murder, and other nefarious activities in the

of these few heroic drow have tempered some people’s opinions toward the race, although the appearance of a dark elf on the surface remains a rare event and a cause for alarm. Many drow in Faerûn hail

Burning Sugar

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Journeys through the Radiant Citadel

through the structure’s roof. Workers race toward the building as smoke billows through the roof and doors. A character who succeeds on a DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana or Religion) check suspects that the

leap up nearby columns and race along the thatched reed roof. A half dozen workers have fallen into the sinkhole and struggle to clamber out. The mill is in chaos as a dozen workers make

Quickling

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Volo's Guide to Monsters

owe their existence — and their plight — to the Queen of Air and Darkness, the dread ruler of the Gloaming Court. Once a race of lazy and egotistical fey, the creatures that would become the

curse gave quicklings their amazing speed but also accelerated their passage through life — no quickling lives longer than fifteen years. They race themselves to death, and scheme as fast as they run

Nylea's Influence

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mythic Odysseys of Theros

Compared to the other gods, Nylea’s goals are modest. She wants only to keep the natural world free and healthy, shepherd the seasons through their yearly cycle, and enjoy the beauty of the land. But

her, she might well wipe away all the poleis and larger communities, leaving only scattered tribes of mortals to live in an enforced balance with nature. She isn’t out to eradicate sapient beings

Orc Culture and Beliefs

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Volo's Guide to Monsters

around them, and the priests of a tribe are entrusted with the responsibility of identifying these signs and omens — both good and bad — and deciding how the tribe should react to them. As a race, orcs

A Race Divided

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

A Race Divided Once we followed in Corellon’s footsteps, but we strayed from that path. For our whole existence, we pay penance for a misstep. It is just? Mayhap not, but when is love just? Is loss

through no matter which form the entity took. Corellon loved wholeheartedly, broke oaths without reservation, and took pleasure from every encounter with the other divine beings of the multiverse

Goblin Legacy

Species Volo's Guide to Monsters

. Beast Masters and Slave Drivers Goblins know they are a weak, unsophisticated race that can be easily dominated by bigger, smarter, more organized, more ferocious, or more magical creatures. Their god

traps, snares, and nets to catch the unwary, and when their hunting patrols encounter other beings, they always look for ways to capture their foes instead of killing them. Goblins that run up against

Kobold Legacy

Species Volo's Guide to Monsters

they were demigods — mighty beings of divine descent. This isn’t a casual sort of worship or lip service; kobolds are awed in the presence of a dragon, as if an actual avatar of a deity

at the actions or deeds of other races. They aren’t forgiving of other races, and they enjoy nursing their hatred until they get a chance to wreak revenge on a creature or a race that has wronged

Orc Legacy

Species Volo's Guide to Monsters

everywhere in the world around them, and the priests of a tribe are entrusted with the responsibility of identifying these signs and omens — both good and bad — and deciding how the tribe should

react to them. As a race, orcs have no noteworthy universal social traits, but some commonality does exist in the crude written communication that all orcs employ and in the way that they use

Worshiping Klothys

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mythic Odysseys of Theros

young world of Theros was the godlike race of titans, born from the same swirling chaos as the world itself. Before any order could be imposed on the world, the titans had to be contained. Kruphix and

. Walkers of Woe. The nightmarish creatures known as woe striders are said to be products of Klothys’s punishment. These beings descend from an age when some mortals learned to unshackle themselves

Aarakocra

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Monster Manual (2014)

race of elemental beings called the vaati, which once ruled many worlds. A creature known as the Queen of Chaos arose and initiated an interplanar war against vaati rule. To combat the threat, seven

Seven Things to Know

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Eberron: Rising from the Last War

necessities. Advances in magic item creation have led to everything from self-propelled farming implements to sentient, free-willed beings created in artificers’ forges. With the aid of rare crystals

humans and lycanthropes, a union that grants them limited bestial abilities and feral instincts. The warforged are a constructed race created during the Last War, seeking to find its place in a post

The Mortal Realm

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mythic Odysseys of Theros

The Mortal Realm Compared to most worlds of the Material Plane, the mortal realm of Theros is small. The known world is barely two hundred miles across, with unexplored wilderness beyond. And some

are home to the Returned—zombie-like beings who have escaped the clutches of the underworld at the cost of their identities. The lands around these cities are bleak and barren, as if the Returned

Dwarves of the Multiverse

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

Dwarves of the Multiverse Like any race, dwarves display a wide array of skin tones, hair colors, and other physical traits. Adding to this diversity, they have a variety of cultural identities from

largely by how they perceive outsiders and how much of a threat those outsiders might pose. Hill Dwarves. Most of the dwarves on Oerth are hill dwarves. Compared to the mountain dwarves, they have a

World-Shaking Events

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

. The lost resource might be a precious metal, a species of plant or animal that held an important place in the local ecology, or an entire race or culture of people. Its absence causes a chain

mineral resource (gems, metals, ores) 5 A type of monster (unicorn, manticore, dragon) 6 A people (family line, clan, culture, race) 7 A kind of plant (crop, tree, herb, forest) 8 A waterway (river

Glasya

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

encompass the complexities of the strange relationships formed by beings of immortal evil. Coin Legions Taking a cue from the sword, shield, and dreg legions into which the devils’ armies are

Material Plane. They have one critical advantage compared to their mortal contemporaries: Glasya’s knowledge of the law. She knew that in many cases, procedures that devils observed and obeyed as laws

Githyanki

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Monster Manual (2014)

race. When their leader Gith perished, she was replaced by her undead adviser, Vlaakith. The lich-queen forbade worship of all beings except herself. Of all their enemies, the githyanki most hate

Daughters of Sora Kell

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Eberron: Rising from the Last War

possess powers far beyond what’s usual for their kind. They are creatures of legend, beings who have defeated many of the greatest heroes of Galifar. Sora Katra is the voice of the Daughters

and prosperity, they could become envoys of the Daughters in the Five Nations or help to fight their enemies in Droaam. A character of a monstrous race could even become a warlord of Droaam. Even if

Monsters

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Sage Advice Compendium

attacks of ghouls and ghasts don’t appear to have proficiency bonus added in. Intentional or mistake? Intentional; it’s a ghoul/ghast thing. They’re exceptionally bad at biting, compared to their claw

, supernatural beings. Does the movement from a dragon’s Wing Attack legendary action draw attacks of opportunity if it moves out of reach? Yes. Wing Attack does not protect the dragon from opportunity

Modifying a Class

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

firmly in the world by associating the class with a particular race or culture. For example, you might decide that bards, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards represent the magical traditions of four

any new option you add should be compared to existing options to make sure it’s no more or less powerful, yet remains distinctive in flavor. Like anything in class design, be prepared to playtest your

Deck of Many Things

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Dungeon Master’s Guide (2014)

. The fighter is of the same race as you and serves you loyally until death, believing the fates have drawn him or her to you. You control this character. Moon. You are granted the ability to cast the

. Your soul is drawn from your body and contained in an object in a place of the DM’s choice. One or more powerful beings guard the place. While your soul is trapped in this way, your body is

Deck of Many Things

Compendium - Sources->Dungeons & Dragons->Basic Rules (2014)

the service of a 4th-level fighter who appears in a space you choose within 30 feet of you. The fighter is of the same race as you and serves you loyally until death, believing the fates have drawn

Void. This black card spells disaster. Your soul is drawn from your body and contained in an object in a place of the DM’s choice. One or more powerful beings guard the place. While your soul is trapped

D&D Beyond

Search Results