Homebrew Hippocampyte Species Details
Largely alien to general civilization, hippocampytes are parasitic lifeforms that require a sentient host to safely exist among the ranks of humanoids.
For good or ill, hippocampytes must infiltrate the ranks of general society to be able to blend in to carry out the assignments given to them by the groupmind leadership of their home. They do so by puppeting living or recently-living creatures. Some do so boldly, aggressively taking hosts and attacking blindly. Others, however, seek to understand this new world, and must remain hidden to do so effectively.
Strangers in a strange land, hippocampytes that make it to meet others are bold adventurers in their own right. Even though their goals are mysterious if not downright nefarious, they will still ally with other explorers or travelers in order to learn more about the expansive world around them.
Hippocampyte Traits
The miniscule parasite that is the hippocampyte itself has certain consistent traits no matter its goal.Ability Score Increase
You get +2 to one stat and +1 to another.
Size
You are a tiny creature, small enough to sometimes stealthily exist within the bodies of others.
Speed
You have a walking and burrowing speed of 5 ft, and a swimming speed of 25 ft as, in your base form, you are poorly equipped to moving around as others do.
Parasitic Puppeteer
You can take control of a larger creature in order to survive.
To take a host, you must prep a paralyzed, unconscious, or recently dead creature. The creature must be of Small, Medium, or Large size with an Intelligence of 7 or more, and it must speak a language. Prepping a host takes a minute, and if any point of the process is interrupted you have to start over.
Once prepped as a host, you can enter or exit your host as an Action. When in your host, you gain the Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Creature Type, one language of your choice, and any unique vision/perception of your host. Have your DM assign stats for the host, or roll 3d6 three times and assign each stat. You are forcibly ejected from your host body when your HP drops to zero. When you are out of your host body, either willingly or otherwise, you must return to it within a minute or the host body dies and is no longer useable as a host body for you.
You may use a host for 1d4+2 weeks, at which time your host body begins to reject you. Every day after this point, you make a Charisma saving throw (DC 15). On a failed save, the body begins to malfunction to the point of being largely useless. All d20 rolls are made at disadvantage.
A dead creature must have been dead for less than 5 minutes to become a host, and it can no longer be used as a host as soon as you exit it after that period. The body cannot begin to reject you, but will instead begin to decompose in 1d4+2 days, at which time all d20 rolls are made at disadvantage.
Telepathic Conversation
You can telepathically speak close-range. You can communicate to a creature within 30 feet of you as if using the Message spell without the Verbal or Material components. You do not need to share a language with the target to be able to communicate.
Abberant
Your creature type is aberration, rather than humanoid.
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