Homebrew Barghest Tiefling Species Details

A subterranean folk, goblins can be found in every corner of the multiverse, often beside their bugbear and hobgoblin kin. Long before the god Maglubiyet conquered them, early goblins served in the court of the Queen of Air and Darkness, one of the Feywild’s archfey. Goblins thrived in her dangerous domain thanks to a special boon from her—a supernatural knack for finding the weak spots in foes larger than themselves and for getting out of trouble. Goblins brought this fey boon with them to worlds across the Material Plane, even if they don’t remember the fey realm they inhabited before Maglubiyet’s rise. Now many goblins pursue their own destinies, escaping the plots of both archfey and gods.

About Barghest:

Long ago, the god Maglubiyet—conqueror and then lord of early goblinoids—bargained with the General of Gehenna for aid. The General provided yugoloths, which then died in service to Maglubiyet. Yet when the time came to honor his part of the compact, Maglubiyet reneged on the deal. In vengeance, the General of Gehenna created the soul-devouring barghests to devour goblinoid souls.

The mission of every barghest, implanted in it by the General of Gehenna, is to consume souls. It eats these souls by devouring the bodies of those it kills, preferring goblinoids.

A barghest hungers for the day when it can complete its mission, return to Gehenna, and serve the General directly in his yugoloth legions, but it doesn’t kill goblinoids indiscriminately. By devouring the souls of goblinoid leaders and other powerful individuals, a barghest earns elevated status in the afterlife. Barghests typically keep their true nature secret, preying on the occasional lone goblin when the opportunity arises, until they reach adulthood and are capable of seeking out stronger prey. A barghest avoids contact with large, open fires.

Any conflagration larger than its body acts as a gateway to Gehenna and banishes it to that plane, where it is likely to be slain or enslaved by a yugoloth for its failure.

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.

Barghest Tiefling Traits

As a Barghest Tiefling, you have the following racial traits.

Creature Type

You are a Fiend. You are also considered a goblinoid for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be a goblinoid.

Size

You are Small in your Normal form and Large in Beast from.

Speed

Your walking and climbing speed is 35 ft. in Normal form and 45 ft. in Beast from.

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.

Fey Ancestry

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

Barghest Resistances

You are resistant to Cold and Lightning

Fire Banishment

When you start your turn engulfed in flames that are at least 10 feet high or wide, you must succeed on a DC 12 Charisma saving throw or be instantly banished to harmless Demiplane for 2 round or 1 Minute outside of combat. You are also vulnerable to fire damage.

Soul Feasting

You can feed on the corpse of a Fey or Humanoid you or your party has killed within the past 10 minutes. This feeding takes at least 1 minute, and it destroys the corpse. The victim’s soul is trapped inside you for 24 hours, after which time it is digested and the person is incapable of being revived. If you die before the soul is digested, the soul is released. While a soul is trapped inside you, any magic that tries to restore the soul to life has a 50 percent chance of failing and being wasted.

Beast Form

You transforms into your Normal small goblin-like form or back into its Beast form. Other than your size and speed, your statistics are the same in each form. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying is transformed into a saddle, barding and pack. You reverts to its Normal form if you dies, are rendered unconscious, or sleep. It takes a bonus action to transform and you can transform a number of times equal to you proficiency modifier. and regain uses of this ability on a short or long rest. While in beast form you gain resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks.