Homebrew Arbor Genasi Species Details

The breeze through the leaves, the calls of birds and animals, the mysterious forest—all of these things call to your heart. You wander freely and revel in the stillness of the woods. Company is enjoyable, but solitude is no less so. Arbor genasi descend from dryads, tree spirits that live in wild forests. Arbor genasi are born in heavily wooded forests and carry the song of the trees with them where ever they go.

Arbor genasi can be as various in appearance as the plants they resemble. From green, waxy skin to tough patches of bark. Mossy green hair to branches and leaves or thorns. Black eyes are common and many that embody flowers tend to give off a pleasant scent. Most find themselves invigorated by sunlight and many have voices like rustling leaves. 

Genasi

Tracing their ancestry to the genies of the Elemental Planes, each genasi can tap into the power of one of the elements. Air, earth, fire, and water—these are the four pillars of the Material Plane and the four types of genasi. Some genasi are direct descendants of a genie, while others were born to non-genasi parents who lived near a place suffused by a genie’s magic.

A typical genasi has a life span of 120 years.

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.

Arbor Genasi Traits

As an arbor genasi, you have the following traits.

Creature Type

You are a Humanoid.

Size

You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.

Speed

Your walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.

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.

Nature's resiliance

You have resistance to poison damage.

Tree Singer

You have the ability to communicate in a limited manner with plants and vegetation. You can communicate simple ideas and questions and they can respond in simple terms. You have advantage on all Charisma checks you make to influence them.

Breath of the Forest

You know the druidcraft cantrip. Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the entangle spell with this trait. Starting at 5th level, you can also cast the pass without trace spell with this trait, without requiring a material component. Once you cast entangle or pass without trace with this trait, you can’t cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast either of those spells using any spell slots you have of the appropriate level.

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