Homebrew Deerfolk Species Details

An ancient race whose history has been lost to time, Deerfolk are a race of beings having common ancestry from Fey, much like elves and goblinoids. They are mainly found in the Feywild, though they occasionally wonder through or create and travel through planar rifts into the Prime Material Plane. Regardless of whether they're capable of casting spells or not, magic can be seen flowing within them should a spell or item be used to detect magic. The knowledge of what this ancient magic is is lost on the Deerfolk, though should a spell be aimed at them with the intention of causing harm, this ancient magic seems to shield the Deerfolk somewhat. Deerfolk tend to have generally calm demeanors and are fairly agreeable with anybody, though they're capable of showing a level of aggression towards aggressors that would put orcs to shame. For a race of almost strictly vegetarians, they have very sharp teeth, which are used to eat their main source of food, which is similar in consistency to flesh. Deerfolk are incredibly connected to nature and as such, tend to gravitate towards worshipping nature deities.

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. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.

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 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.

Height and Weight

Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player's Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.

Deerfolk Traits

As a deerfolk, 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.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 120 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.

Fey Ancestry

You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself.

Ancient Blood

Due to the ancient magic flowing in their veins, Deerfolk have a natural resilience against spells that aim to cause them harm. You have advantage on saving throws against spells.

Keen Senses

You have proficiency in the Perception skill.