Homebrew Gearforged Species Details

“My body might be by design, but that means not that I am a machine.” Bastion said. “The soul is what matters, not the shape of the vessel.”

“What makes you think you have a soul?” Elmet said.

“What makes you think you do?”

 The advent of the new god Zeppeli brought forth great change, but no change greater than the birth of the Gearforged. A gift to the dwarves of Drukar to give them an edge against the gnomes of Gnottingham who had received the boon of black powder. Gearforged helped pave the way for Drukar's journey into innovation, be that in the mining sector, crafts, art and magic. 

Born en Masse

All Gearforged in Avestra are born in mighty vessels known as Forges of Life. These forges are fuelled by an immensely powerful magical artifact known as a Zeppeli Heart, power cores funnelling magical energy directly from Zeppeli's own Divine Thread. This power core is what infuses the Gearforged with their souls, making them true living beings.

One with All

All Gearforged are born constructed from a fusion of organic and inorganic materials. Muscles of wood-like fibres coiled around a skeleton of iron power their movement. Steel armor plates on some, gold filigree on others depending on their purpose. Whilst their initial designation determines their look at birth, Gearforged have developed a unique and powerful ability. Gearforged are able to assimilate any solid organic material unto themselves to reinforce or reconstitute their limbs, internals or aesthetics. A Gearforged who's lost their arm are capable of grafting a fallen log or a broken slab of stone to their shoulder, where Zeppeli's gifts take the reins and configure the new attachment to resemble and replicate the function of what it is replacing. Not only can they replace limbs, they're capable of shifting their entire internal construction to restructure their abilities or potential, while some merely use this ability to make a statement and stand out from the crowd. 

Although they were manufactured, Gearforged are living humanoids. Resting, healing magic, and the Medicine skill all provide the same benefits to Gearforged that they do to other humanoids.

Gearforged Personality

The warforged were built to serve a purpose. For most of their existence, Gearforged had a clearly defined function and were encouraged to focus purely on that role. However, their sentience bred uniqueness, and as their personalities grew, Gearforged began to put a higher stake on individuality and expressionism.

Gearforged delight in exploring their feelings, their freedom, and their relationships with others. They use their ability to shift their construction to boldly take on an identity they're truly comfortable with and encourage all others to do the same.

The typical warforged has a sexless body shape. Some warforged ignore the concept of gender entirely, while others adopt a gender identity.

Gearforged Quirks

Gearforged often display an odd personality trait or two, given how new they are to the world. The Gearforged Quirks table contains example quirks.

Gearforged Names

Gearforged are often assigned designations at the time of their emergence from the Forge of Life, but this is merely a semantic necessity until they choose to name themselves or are named by someone close to them. Most Gearforged will choose a name that closest relates to the ideals they hold closest to themselves, be that a personality trait or physical traits. Whilst others will adopt nicknames given to them by others as a sign of respect.

Geaforged Names: Anchor, Admiration, Arlo, Banner, Bastion, Blade, Blue, Bow, Cart, Chisel, Church, Crunch, Crystal, Dagger, Dancer, Dent, Five, Glaive, Hammer, Iron, Love, Lucky, Mace, Oak, Onyx, Paint, Pants, Pierce, Red, Rod, Rusty, Samaritan, Scout, Seven, Shield, Slash, Smith, Spike, Temple, Vault, Wall

Gearforged Traits

Your Gearforged character has the following traits. A few of the traits give you a choice; consider how your choice reflects the purpose for which your character was built or how they have chosen to develop themselves.

Ability Score Increase

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

Your class’s “Quick Build” section offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You’re free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised above 20.

Age

A typical Gearforged is between two and thirty years old. The maximum Gearforged lifespan has no upper limit, provided they perform constant and diligent upkeep, as they are still subject to wear and tear. You are immune to magical aging effects.

Alignment

Most Gearforge embrace freedom and expression, tending toward chaos and good. But some live content with the position in society with which they've been assigned.

Creature Type

You are considered both a Humanoid and a Construct for the purposes of effects that target either creature type.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Constructed Resilience

You were created to have remarkable fortitude, represented by 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.

Nightvision

Created to operate in any light level, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You have Darkvision up to a range of 120 feet. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of green. However, if you directly perceive a sudden drastic change in light level (such as viewing direct daylight or being subject to a spell that creates a light source) you are blinded until the end of your next turn as your eyes adjust.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.

Sleep State

When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours in an inactive, motionless state, rather than sleeping. In this state, you appear inert, but it doesn’t render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.

Functional Integration

You have the ability to integrate manufactured or organic material into your form, altering your skills and abilities. You gain proficiency in a tool or instrument of your choice, you can change this choice over a long rest.

Overclock

At lv5 you gain the ability to, once per long rest, overclock your core to gain bonuses based on what driver you have. Every time you use this ability following its first use before a long rest, you gain a level of exhaustion. The effects granted by the overclock last for a number of minutes equal to your Constitution Modifier.

Advance Driver:

You overclock yourself in order to move at a blinding speed. For the duration, you receive the possible benefits:

• Your speed increases by 10 ft.
• You can take the Dash action as a bonus action.

Guard Driver:

You overclock yourself in order to protect yourself and your allies. For the duration, you receive the possible benefits:

• You can use a bonus action to gain temporary hit points equal to 1d6 + your Constitution Modifier.
• As a reaction, when an ally within 10 ft. of you takes damage, you can transfer these temporary hit points to them before they take the damage.

Surge Driver:

You overclock your internal components in order to imbue your attacks. For the duration, you receive the possible benefits:

• As a bonus action, you imbue yourself with elemental power for the rest of the round. When you damage an enemy, they take additional damage equal to 1d4 + your Constitution Modifier. You choose the damage type between Cold, Fire, or Lightning each time you activate this ability.