Homebrew Wood Woad Species Details

A wood woad is a powerful plant in humanoid form invested with the soul of someone who gave up life to become an eternal guardian.

Born of Sacrifice. The ritual to create a wood woad is a primeval secret passed down through generations of savage societies and dark druid circles. Performing the ritual isn’t necessarily an act of evil, if the victim-to-be has entered into a bargain that requires it to be a willing sacrifice.

In the ritual a living person’s chest is pierced and the heart removed. A seed is then pushed into the heart, and it is placed in a tree. Any hollow or crook will do, but often a special cavity is carved out of the trunk. The tree is then bathed and watered with the blood of the sacrificed victim, and the body is buried among the tree’s roots. After three days, a sprout emerges from the ground at the base of the tree and swiftly grows into a humanoid form.

This new body, armored in tough bark and bearing a gnarled club and shield, is at once ready to perform its duty. The one who performed the ritual sets the wood woad to its task, and the creature follows those orders unceasingly.

Pitiless Protectors. A wood woad has a hole where its heart would be, just as does the body of its former self, buried in the earth. Those who become wood woads trade their free will and all sense of sentiment for supernatural strength and a deathless duty. They exist only to protect woodlands and the people who tend them. A wood woad’s face is void and expressionless, except for the motes of light that swim about in its eye sockets. Wood woads speak little, and when not being called upon to take action, they root themselves in the earth and silently take sustenance from it.

Uprooted by Immortality. Like a tree, a wood woad needs only sunlight, air, and nutrients from the earth to go on living. Because they are undying, some wood woads outlive their original purpose. The site a wood woad guards might lose its power or significance over time, or those whom it was assigned to guard might themselves die. If it is freed from its specific duties, a wood woad might roam to find another place of natural beauty or fey influence to watch over.

Wood woads are drawn to creatures that have close ties to nature, and that protect and respect the land, such as druids and treants. Some treants have wood woad servants by virtue of age-old pacts with druids or fey that performed the rituals, while others acquire the services of freed wood woads that find renewed purpose in the domain of a kindred guardian.

Characteristics of the Wood Woad

Creature Type
You are a Plant

Size
Your size can range from Small to Large, but is most commonly Medium

Languages
The Wood Woad remembers the languages it knew in life like Common. It also fully understands Sylvian and can only speak in Sylvian or Druidic

Wood Woad Traits

The Wood Woad is grown with these abilities.

Plant Camouflage

Due to your body being made of wood, you can blend in easier when are surrounded by your vegetative peers giving you advantage with stealth. You disguise yourself as a log or a stump, a hunk of wood laying still.

Barkskin

Being born from wood and seed, your trunk is sturdy and Resistant to Piercing and Bludgeoning, but a sturdy and thick trunk means more kindling and lumber making you Vulnerable to the heat and lashes of Fire.

Tree Stride

You can tap into the druidic magic you were created with you can sink into a tree like your heart was. Going inside of a tree 5 feet from you, you can transport yourself magically through the root system into another tree 60 feet away and emerge out of it smoothly. You must spend 10 feet of your movement to properly sink into the tree, and due to the roots being the method in which you magically travel, both trees must be at least the size of Large.

Plant Speech

Due to your wooden and druidic nature you can freely talk to Plants and vegetation, drawing back to languages pure primal roots

Regeneration

As a bonus action you can regain 1d4+half your level (round up), as long as you have not taken fire damage this turn. This ability uses charges equal to your proficiency bonus, and regains them on a short rest.