Homebrew Astral Species Details

Unapproachably old natives from the Astral Plane, Astrals are strangers to these mortal lands – a new species, rarely encountered, alien in culture and thought. Those who’ve come here willingly are adventurous creatures with an explorative, curious, and often diplomatic bent. Other astrals are the victims of some kind of mishap which has sent them across planes to end up trapped and lost. Very rarely – they are exiles from their own kind – too dangerous and thusly expelled from their homelands.

In the common world of the prime material plane – Astral’s have no civilization or society to call their own. They are each of them an island unto themself, lost in a world quite alien to their own.

Astrals are very strange in appearance to mortals. They each appear as some kind of gemstone, though they move uncannily as if they were made of flesh and blood. Though they have humanoid features, with the correct amount of arms and legs, their faces are often as expressionless as the statues they seem to resemble.

Unwitting Outsiders and Unwilling Explorers

When an Astral reaches the prime material plane, no matter how it was that they got there, it doesn’t yet have the capability to form a solid body. Rather the Astral will wonder, invisible to all and on the outer edge of the border Ethereal Plane. It may take many years of wandering before the Astral gains the strength to fully materialize, called Becoming Attenuated. Before becoming fully formed, an Astral might temporarily force it’s will into this plane by becoming an Astral Mote, a tiny creature that can’t speak but can levitate and move about expressively. Eventually though, that willpower will expire and it will return to the border Ethereal. Only after an Astral has become strong enough will it fully form into its permanent Astral form.

Now they are explorers in this lonely land. They must quickly learn to adapt to so many new things: pain, fear, sorrow, fatigue, joy – from others and in themselves. They must learn life skills, how to socialize, what is dangerous and what is harmless. Who is friend and who is foe.

These are vulnerable times for Astrals. Many do not survive, and much to their chagrin – an Astral has become a creature with a soul in a way that’s different from how they were before. Because of this, an Astral that dies doesn’t return to the Astral Sea permanently – they are swept away by the sea and taken to one of the outer planes. Death is not a one way ticket back home.

Astrals who do survive often develop a personality – however quirky, strange, and possibly mechanical. Good Astrals tend to treat this as an opportunity to explore the new sensations granted to them, while evil Astrals tend to blame all those around for what has befallen them – the evilest Astrals were banished from their timeless kingdoms for a reason, and those reasons will soon become clear to the mortals who get in their way.

Strange Emotions

Astral’s don’t experience emotions in the same way as most. Being ageless and timeless creatures affects how they process things. Some Astrals seem almost emotionless. Those who were observers of mortals tend to behave this way. To them, outbursts, insults, and other fits of passion are meaningless things that pass quickly. It is difficult to turn these sort of astrals off their course, but this also means that when one of these astrals becomes angered calming their fury can be quite difficult.

Other Astrals, who don’t understand their environment they’ve been thrust into, are often confused by how sudden everything around them seems to change. Often Astrals who existed for literally millions of years without change might find they have new emotions they can’t control. A season for these creatures is but a moment, and when surrounded by mortals whose attitudes and feelings seem to wax and wane at the drop of a pin – these creatures can be frightening, confusing, and aggravating – sometimes even to the point of being infuriating and leading to violence.

Alien in Culture

Astrals, as the name might suggest, originate from the Astral Sea. Astrals come from bright kingdoms of formless light and life, timeless places where only thought has meaning. They experience reality completely differently from mortals, and when they become corporeal and take on a body, they must leave this world behind and adapt to a place of substance and diversity.

That isn’t to say that Astrals have no culture, it’s just that they experience things in a way that is very difficult for them to communicate to mortals, making them strange and difficult to relate to – often persecuted by those who do not understand them or their struggles.

Astrals are still individuals even before they take a mortal form, who pass cosmic moments in their own ways. Some of these Astrals, coined “Observers” by sages with little creativity, watch mortal creatures and observe them. These Astrals understand mortal habits and motives more than others of their kind, often even to a frightening acuteness that even the observed mortals can’t match.

Alien in Physiology

Astrals are mineral-like in appearance. By whatever fate, Gemstones embody the most timeless substances on the Prime Material Plane, and so it is what is most themself that an Astral’s form becomes. They have no organs or innards of any kind, and they do not bleed – but they do feel pain. The don’t need to breathe, but can’t normally survive in extreme cold or hot temperatures. A damaged astral cracks, and flakes and chunks of its body fall away. An Astral who falls unconscious becomes a grey crystal and falls to the ground. An Astral who dies — shatters… a strangely unnerving display that leaves nothing but a pile of shards where once was living being.

Astral Names

Astrals on the Astral Plane do not naturally have a name. Instead, they communicate their individual identities to each other through impressions and telepathy. When an Astral leaves it’s plane and becomes attuned, it may choose a name for itself if it’s lead to do so - or others it’s encountered might name it instead.

Astrals do not tend toward any single name convention. If they are named by their fellows, often it is a name that is significant to that culture or the color of their gem (such as “Azure” for a Sapphire colored Astral), or a nickname monicker (like “Sparkles”). If an Astral chooses its own name, it tends to lean toward similar virtue-style names that Tieflings favor.

Astral Traits

Your astral character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your Wisdom Score increases by 1 and Constitution Score increases by 2.

Astral Phazing

The astral can temporarily shift into the Astral Plane, which borders the Ethereal. They are in a completely different location: They can’t be seen, perceived, or interacted with in any way except by magic which follows them or retrieves them from other planes of existence. While an astral is here, they can move, interact with their possessions, and otherwise use their turns during combat and regain 1 hit point per turn spent in the Astral Plane. They can use an action to return to the Prime Material plane, though no matter how far they moved in the Astral, they return to the same location in the Prime. They can spend up to 1 minute in the Astral Plane, then the ties that keep them bound to the Prime Material Plane return them there – with or without their consent. You can use this feature once per long rest.

Strange Physiology

Astrals do not need to breathe, and are not affected by environments that are prohibitive to creatures that do breathe.

Gem Color

When an Astral becomes attuned to the prime material plane, they choose a gem color. This color replaces hair, eye, and skin colors.

Gem Resistance

Depending on the color of gemstone you choose, you can a weakness and a immunity to a respective type of energy.

Color		Immunity		Vulnerability
Red	=	Fire		Cold
Orange	=	Acid		Poison
Yellow	=	Lightning		Thunder
Brown	=	Thunder		Lightning
Green	=	Poison		Acid
Blue	=	Cold		Fire
Indigo	=	Force		Psychic
Violet	=	Psychic		Force
Clear	=	Radiant		Necrotic
Black	=	Necrotic		Radiant

Age

Astrals do not age. They don’t see age as a concept. Their true ages often number in the millions of years.

Alignment

Astrals tend to run the gamut of alignments, though their impressively long agedness, tends to lean them somewhere on the axis of neutrality.

Size

Astrals also can come in many shapes and sizes. You can choose whether your size is medium, small, or large.

Speed

Medium astrals have a base speed of 30’, while small 25’, and large 35’.

Expanded Senses

An astral can choose a particular extra sense that it has:

• Darkvision 60’
• Tremorsense 60’
• You can sense the presence of other astrals within 10 miles.

Body Morphism

An astral can control its appearance. It can change its basic body type, hair length, facial features, and physical build over 1 minute. They can change their size one category in any direction (small, medium, or large) over 10 minutes. An astral can use this feature to violate normal body parameters, such as arm and leg proportionality, symmetry, etc. Because of this, an Astral with the appropriate proficiency can wield weapons and armor normally not meant for them as long as they assume the correct form. An Astral always has can’t have more than two arms, two legs, or one head. An astral doesn’t need a head to live.

An Astral can produce its own weapons, and be proficient in them. The astral can produce a melee weapon of any type. The weapon has that weapon’s normal statistics, except that it is always made of Astral crystal and matches the gem color of the Astral. The weapon is attached to their body, so it can’t be disarmed.

An astral can choose to detach from it’s body one of these weapons. In which case, it loses 1 hit die and the weapon becomes a grey, dead crystal. Any creature can wield this weapon, though it shatters on on a natural dice roll of a 1, 2 or a 3 and can’t score critical hits. For an Astral to use the thrown property of a weapon it creates, it must detach the weapon first. An Astral recovers this hit die and the weapon regains its normal properties if it picks this weapon up or the weapon is destroyed. An astral can’t use this feature to exceed it’s maximum hit die.

Minor Telepathy

Astrals have no natural language, though some pick it up by observing mortals, and others are taught by their adventuring friends. Astrals can communicate effectively with any creature that has an intelligence of 10 through a form of telepathy. Unless the astral knows at least one language in common with a creature they’re trying to communicate with, their speech, voice patterns, and syntax comes across as very strange to any listener. An Astral can choose to communicate with just one person or broadcast at large. Even an astral who can’t communicate in common still understands it. This ability doesn’t give them the power to read minds, only to communicate to a creature projecting their thoughts willingly.

Limited Spellcasting

As an Astral, you are minorly attuned with the fabric of magic that stretches across the multiverse. This innate ability allows Astrals to cast from a limited pool of spells. At 1st level, they gain access to a 1st level spell that they can cast once per long rest. You gain access to more powerful spells at higher levels. At 3rd level you gain access to a 2nd level spell, at 5th level a 3rd level spell, at 7th level a 4th level spell, and finally at 9th level a 5th level spell - each of which can be cast once per long rest.

You can choose these spells from any spell list. All of these spells are cast at their base level: if you choose Lightning Bolt as your 3rd level spell, you can’t use your 4th level spell to cast it at a higher level. Likewise, if you play an Astral that has levels in a spellcasting class, you can’t use those spell slots to cast one of the spells prepared through this feature or visa versa.

On a long rest, you can change out as many of these spells to other spells of your choosing.