Homebrew Vastaya - Vesani Species Details

Vastaya are a group of sexually dimorphic races of various shapes and sizes. Their animalistic appearance depends on the location in which they adapted, and their animal spirit. However, disregarding distinctions between the tribes of land, sea, and air, there are three types of vastaya:

• "Animal-like" vastaya resemble other animals, but are bipedal or otherwise mildly humanoid.
• "Human-like" vastaya closely resemble humans, especially in terms of facial features, but still retain a modest level of animalistic elements: for instance, feline or foxlike ears, tails, or feathers.
• Shapeshifters retain either a human or animal appearance of their choosing, but they are able to shapeshift in and out of each form.

Each type of vastaya greatly differs from the others in appearance and abilities, but they are all in tune with the natural magic of the land to some degree. Some tribes are made up of various tribes coming together. What a child would look like would depend on the parents, the nature and amount of magic the child grew up near, the customs of the tribe it grew up in, and the child’s own personality - especially its connection to the various animal spirits.

While most vastaya need a supply of magic to thrive - they don’t need massive amounts of it and can go extended periods without magic (think of humans’ relationship to water). Vastaya tend to settle near the “springs” where magic comes into our world or near the invisible “streams” of magic that flow from these springs and snake through the world (comparable to ley lines). They can travel beyond though, just as humans don't all have to constantly live near fresh water rivers.

Most Vastaya have some ability to change shape. Most arrive a shape that is comfortable, reflects the animal spirits connected to their tribe, and their own personality (needs wants). They can change shape depending upon the availability of magic, amount of time required for the change, and in the depth of their connection to their ancestry (Vastayashai'rei).So it might take your usual Vastaya a few minutes to change the color of their cloak-- or a few hours to give themselves stylish new horns, while a radical change that might take them three days, totally exhaust them, and be hard for them to hold for more than a few minutes. Some vastayan are better, faster at shapeshifting than other Vastaya types thanks to their more powerful connection to magic and being attracted to an animal spirit that is good at changing. They could change their appearance dramatically in a few seconds and hold it for several days. The vastaya generally avoid looking purely human or animalistic because it's uncomfortable and not ideal for fighting. But this does mean they excel at spying and intrigue.

The race ages far more slowly and has far longer life spans than humans. Some have been said to live for thousands of years, while others, rumors and legends say, might be immortal. All true Vastaya individuals are at least about 180 years old. This is due to the fact that they spend most of their lives in places where time is more "fickle". Hybrids of Vastaya and human as well as their far-flung descendants may not share this trait.

Vastaya - Vesani Traits

As a Vesani, you have the following traits:

Ability Score Improvement

When determining your character’s ability scores, you increase one of those scores by 2 and increase a different score by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You’re free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised above 20.

Language

You can speak common and another language of your choice.

Limited shapeshifting

Most Vastaya have some ability to change shape. Most arrive a shape that is comfortable, reflects the animal spirits connected to their tribe, and their own personality (needs wants).

• As an action, you can change the color of you hair, fur, skin, eyes, etc... but cannot change the shape of any part of your body
• You can change the shape of your whole body by focusing for 8 hours on your shapeshifting, this can be done during a long rest. you cannot gain natural weapon from this (claws, fangs, etc...)
• Slight alteration of your body like gaining/loosing horns, tail, etc takes less time. the actual time it take is dependent on what change(s) you wish to make, the dm will then give a time frame that is fitting for them.
• You gain access to the alter self spell which you can cast once a day, the spell does not require concentration when cast that way.

Soul Feeding

The Vesani tribe has the ability to absorb the souls of others. This also includes the memories, as the Vesani experiences others' memories as if they were their own when soul-feeding. Young Vesani may have trouble controlling this ability and may grow dangerous if left unchecked. This tribe learned to craft sunstones to control their troubled memories.

As an action you can feed on the soul of an unconscious neutral/unwilling creature, or at anytime on a willing creature. When you start feeding on a creature roll a D20 and add twice your proficiency bonus, the DC for this check is 20. On a success you keep control of your powers and deal 1d4 psychic damage to the target and heal for that same amount of damage. Additionally You can then choose to learn once piece of information about the creature or an information the creature knew ex: (name, age, home town, etc...). You can choose to concentrate on the soul feed as if you were concentrating on a spell, for each minute you feed on the target roll another D20. The longer you feed on a person, the deeper the information you can learn about them (what information you can get is at the DM's discretion.)

On a failure, roll a d4. the target will take that many d10s of psychic damage. On a natural 1 the target instead takes 6d10 psychic and you heal for the damage dealt. Each D10 rolled counts as if you were soul feeding for one minute (ex: rolling 3d10 equals to having soul fed for 3 minutes), you then learn once piece of information about the creature or an information the creature knew according to the time spent as usual chosen by the DM. 

You can choose to fail this check. When willingly failing, the target always takes 6d10 psychic damage.

Charm

Vesani can control magical energies to enchant other to do their biddings.

You gain access to the charm person Spell which you can use once per day. At the end of the spell, the target does not know it was charmed by you.