Homebrew Cecaelia Species Details

Cecaelia are a subspecies of merfolk that possess the upper half of a humanoid and the lower half of an octopus. Uncommonly found within communities of standard half-fish merfolk, the Cecaelia are more commonly found in and near seas spanning the feywilds. 

With eight tentacles and a beak for their lower half, the Cecaelia are highly adept in the water, able to utilize their tentacles for dexterous tasks underwater, far surpassing a standard humanoid. On land, however, they require the use of all of their tentacles to support themselves and walk, because of the lack of skeleton in their lower-half. 

Creating Your Character

If you create a Cecaelia character, follow these additional rules during character creation.

Ability Score Increases

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one of those scores 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’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.

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 widespread languages to choose from. The DM is free to add or remove languages from that list for a particular campaign.

Creature Type

Every creature in D&D, including every player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters, including Cecaelia, are of the Humanoid type. Creature types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the text of the cure wounds spell specifies that the spell doesn’t work on a creature that has the Construct type.

Life Span

The typical life span of a player character in D&D is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure.

Height and Weight

Player characters, including Cecaelia, 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.

Cecaelia Traits

You have the following racial traits.

Creature Type

You are a Fey.

Size

You are Medium.

Speed

Your walking speed is 20 ft, and your swimming speed is 40 ft.

Amphibious

You can breathe both air and water. 

Fey Ancestry

You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Underwater Camouflage

Cecaelia have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made while underwater.

Tentacles

Cecaelia have eight tentacles instead of legs on the lower half of their body, which makes them extremely adept swimmers and incredibly dexterous underwater. They are, however, a fish out of water on land. Cecaelia require all eight of their tentacles to walk effectively on land, though at a slower pace than most land creatures.

When underwater, you gain a swim speed of 40 ft. You are also able to use your tentacles to interact with objects, such as a lever, or moving a rock up to 10 feet. They are not strong enough to wield a weapon, as you lack the manual dexterity and strength.
Also when underwater, you gain advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to grapple a creature. Regardless of being on land or underwater, you have advantage on Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks made to escape from being grappled.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 30 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.