Homebrew Fictempest Species Details

The Fictempest are stout, bipedal constructs generally created to loosely resemble humanoids, with at least two arm-like appendages and a dome attachment on top through which they can see their surroundings. Each machine was crafted in a unique fashion for a specific research task so your external appearance is up to you.

A Series of Fortunate Mistakes

Originally intended to be used only as a tool for researching the world’s natural elements, these durable constructs gained sentience after several oversights and missteps committed during their creation and utilization. The original purpose of a Fictempest machine was to be deployed into areas deemed too dangerous for a typical mage to travel, such as the rim of a volcano or a swamp overtaken by noxious fumes, and gather any data available about weather patterns, precipitation, temperature, and other atmospheric occurrences. Upon returning from these tasks, the Fictempest would be analyzed and then deconstructed in order to build new machines.

As more useful knowledge was gathered, the mages that created the Fictempest began sending them to increasingly dangerous environments and many machines were lost forever to the elements. As a solution to this, the mages began constructing them with greater thresholds for survival and aptitudes for assessing danger. Over time, these upgrades grew from simple updates to full arcane intelligence. It was not long after these improvements were implemented that many of the Fictempest machines began to believe the greatest threat to their survival was their own deconstruction. Many of them simply refused to return to their creators after being deployed, choosing instead to become emancipated and discover their own identity.

Weather Preparedness

Though they widely denounce any affiliation with their creators, the Fictempest take full advantage of the strengths bestowed upon them by the mages. The main feature that set these advanced machines apart from earlier models is their ability to weatherwarp (see trait below). As the Fictempest travel through different environments, their reflexive coating can roughly mimic the colors, textures, and motion of the weather in their area. This ability protects them from most threats, rendering them almost invisible amid heavy rains, intense blizzards, thick fog, and even blinding sunlight. They were also created to have incredible natural instincts, making them adept trackers, guides, scouts, and, though this was not the mages’ original intention, assassins.

 

Fictempest Traits

Created to observe weather and climate patterns, you have the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increases

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one of those scores by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy.

Creature Type

You are a Construct.

Size

You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.

Speed

You have a walking speed of 30 feet and a climbing speed of 25 feet.

Mechanical Fortitude

You were created with a high threshold for survival, represented by the following benefits:

• You have proficiency in the Survival skill.
• You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
• You are immune to disease.
• You are naturally adapted to the effects of extreme cold and extreme heat, as described in the game master’s guide.

Built for the Storm

You know the druidcraft cantrip. At 3rd level, you can cast fog cloud as a level 1 spell and without requiring concentration. At 5th level, you can cast the gust of wind spell. You can cast both of these spells once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.

Weathervane

You always know which way is north.

Rain Barrel

If you spend at least 1 hour outside during rainy weather, you can spend up to half of your total hit dice, regaining the maximum possible number of hit points. You cannot use this feature again until you have regained all expended hit dice.

Weatherwarping

You can spend 1 minute changing your arcane exterior to match the appearance of any current weather conditions at your location. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you gain a +5 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you do not take any actions.