Homebrew Chwinga Species Details

Chwinga

Chwingas are tiny elemental spirits that adapt easily to any habitable environment. These gentle creatures protect nature, considering themselves as its humble custodians. Chwingas live inside plants, rocks, and springs far from civilization.

Chwingas resemble 6-inch-tall, animated dolls with mask-like faces, spindly limbs, and wild hair. They don’t have names and can’t speak.

Chwingas normally avoid other creatures, but they find the trappings of civilization fascinating. They puzzle over creatures that wear armor, carry weapons, use tools, and cook food. When a chwinga encounters one or more such creatures, its curiosity compels it to shadow them for a short time and observe them. If it takes a liking to a particular creature, a chwinga uses its cantrips to aid that creature, or bestows upon it a magical gift before departing. The features that attract a chwinga to a particular creature vary. A chwinga might like the way a certain creature walks or the way it combs its hair, or be smitten by its ability to play music or to eat copious amounts of food.

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.

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.

Chwinga Traits

As a chwinga, you have the following traits.

Creature Type

You are an Elemental.

Size

You are Tiny.

Speed

You have a walking, swimming, and climbing speed of 20 feet.

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.

Unusual Nature

The chwinga doesn’t require air, food, or drink. When it dies, it turns into a tiny pile of moondust, a cloud of glittering spores, a statuette resembling its former self, a chunk of ice, or a sponge shaped like a dodecahedron (DM’s choice).

Natural Shelter

As an action, you can magically take shelter inside a rock, a living plant, or a natural source of fresh water in that’s your space. You can’t be targeted by any attack, spell, or other effect while inside this shelter, and the shelter doesn’t impair your ability to see or hear. While in this shelter you can’t target any creatures with attacks, spells, or other effects. You can use your action to leave the shelter, reappearing in your original space. You can only stay in this shelter for one round. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Chwinga Charms

You know the druidcraft cantrip. Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the pass without trace spell with this trait, without requiring a material component. Once you cast pass without trace with this trait, you can’t cast it with this trait again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast this spell using any spell slots you have of the appropriate level.

Wisdom or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells when you cast them with this trait (choose when you select this race).

Telepathy

You have telepathy with a range out to 60 ft.