Homebrew Banshee Species Details

When night falls, unlucky travelers hear the faint cries of the forlorn dead. This woeful spirit is a banshee, a spiteful creature formed from the spirit of a female elf.

Banshees appear as forms that vaguely recall their mortal features. A banshee’s face is wreathed in a wild tangle of hair, its body clad in wispy rags that flutter and stream around it.

Banshees are the undead remnants of elves who, blessed with great beauty, failed to use their gift to bring joy to the world. Instead, they used their beauty to corrupt and control others. Elves afflicted by the banshee’s curse experience no gladness, feeling only distress in the presence of the living. As the curse takes its toll, their minds and bodies decay, until death completes their transformation into undead monsters.

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.

Languages

Your character can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish.

Creature Type

You are Humanoid

Life Span

Banshee’s live as long as the Raven Queen wills it so.

Banshee Traits

As a Banshee, you have the following racial traits.

Creature Type

You are a Humanoid. You are also considered an elf for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be an elf.

Size

You are Medium.

Speed

Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Blessing of the Raven Queen

As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. 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.

Starting at 3rd level, you also gain resistance to all damage when you teleport using this trait. The resistance lasts until the start of your next turn. During that time, you appear ghostly and translucent.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.

Sorrow Bound

A banshee becomes forever bound to the place of its demise, unable to venture more than five miles from there. It is forced to relive every moment of its life with perfect recall, yet always refuses to accept responsibility for its doom.

Once per day, when attempting to move or navigate beyond five miles of its grave site, the Banshee must make a DC 10 Wisdom Saving Throw or become magically lost, unable to find any sense of where it should be. The Banshee is considered Charmed for 1d4 hours unable to remember where it was going or move in a direction away from its grave site.

Beauty Hoarders

Banshee’s covet beautiful objects: fine jewelry, paintings, statues, and other objects of art. At the same time, a banshee abhors any mirrored surface, for it can’t bear to see the horror of its own existence. A Banshee that Glimpses it’s own reflection must succeed a DC 10 Wisdom save or be Frightened of itself for 1 minute.

Banshee Wail

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of your attacks with a horrifying scream of magical energy in a 30-foot line that is 5 feet wide. Each creature in that area must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the creature takes 1d10 Psychic damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage. This damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10). You can use your Banshee Wail a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Deathless Nature

    • You have advantage on saving throws against disease and being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
    • You have advantage on death saving throws.
    • You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
    • You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.

 

 

 

Previous Versions

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