Homebrew Shardmind Species Details

Psionic Fragments of Life

Shardminds are crystalline creatures consisting of hundreds of small shards of translucent green, white, red, or amber crystal assembled into humanoid form and animated by a force of pure psionic energy. Shardminds choose their forms to mimic the shapes of humanoids; some take on forms that seem more masculine, while others appear more feminine. A shardmind’s animating force glows dimly from within each of its component shards, emanating most brightly from where the eyes of a natural humanoid would be. This inner light sheds dim light in a shardmind’s space, but a shardmind individual can squelch the light with in an instant — in order to hide in the dark, for example.

The crystalline fragments making up a shardmind’s body are in constant, silent motion, almost like the circulation of blood. When a shardmind is stunned or unconscious, it might lose control of the tight mental reins that keep its body in humanoid form, a few shards slipping free into orbits around its body until the shardmind regains control.

Shardminds are living creatures only in the loosest sense. Their crystalline bodies require no sustenance, and they don’t breathe. They don’t need sleep, though they must still rest for six hours to gain the benefits of a long rest. They don’t have gender and don’t reproduce, but the shardminds alive today aren’t the same ones that sprang to life during the Dawn War. Shardminds say that the Living Gate shattered into countless fragments, and each time an awakened shardmind is killed, another one somewhere in the universe stirs to consciousness.

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 race, follow these additional rules during character creation.

Ability Score Increases

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score 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. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.

Languages

Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character.

Creature Type

Every creature in D&D, including each player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race in this chapter tells you what your character’s creature type is.

Here’s a list of the game’s creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the cure wounds spell doesn’t work on a Construct or an Undead.

Life Span

The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries. If typical members of a race can live longer than a century, that fact is mentioned in the race’s description.

Shardmind Traits

As a shardmind, you have the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increases

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score 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. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.

Age

Shardminds do not age. When they stir to conscious, they are fully matured. You are immune to magical aging effects.

Size

Your size is Medium. To set your height and weight randomly, start with rolling a size modifier:

Size modifier = 2d12

Height = 5 feet + 5 inches + your size modifier in inches

Weight in pounds = 200 + (2 × your size modifier)

Speed

Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Internal Light

You glow with an internal, soft light that emits out in dim light in a 10 foot radius. As an action, you can increase it so that you glow with bright light in a 10 foot radius and dim light in a 10 feet radius beyond that, or you can use an action to stop yourself from emitting light altogether.

Living Construct

Your creature type is construct and humanoid. You are a living construct and gain the following benefits.

• You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
• You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
• You are immune to disease.
• You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Crystalline Mind

The crystalized psionic nature of your body grants you limited ability to mentally communicate with another creature that knows at least one language within a 15-foot radius. This creature doesn't need to share a language with you but unless they have telepathy themselves they can only receive and respond but can't initiate or terminate a telepathic conversation. You must be conscious to use this trait and cannot telepathically communicate with multiple creatures at once.

In addition, you can fortify your mind against attack, forming a psionic crystalline defense. When you take psychic damage, you can use your reaction to roll a d10, and reduce the damage by that amount rolled. Alternatively, when a creature attempts to read your mind, or alter your memories, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on their effort, or advantage on yourself to resist. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Psionics Spellcasting

You know the mage hand cantrip. When you cast this version of mage hand, the hand is made of intangible but shimmering crystal fractals. You can cast the identify spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the detect magic spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the detect thoughts spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. You can also cast any of those spells using any spell slots you have of the appropriate level or higher.

Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells when you cast them with this trait (choose when you select this race).

Shard Storm

As a reaction when you are hit with an attack, you can loosen your mental grip on your physical form, turning into a swarm of shards. You have resistance to all damage while in this form, and you can immediately move up to half your base walking speed, reforming into your solid body at the start of your next turn. You can use this feature once per short rest.