Homebrew Burdendain Species Details

Burendain (or Bearfolk as they are often known among others) largely hail from the cold forests of the subcontinent of Thurinvald. Many venerate the Primal Spirits, believing that these mysterious forces gave them the gifts of speech and sentience. Others end up in the service of gods of community and law, such as Bahamut. They rule most of southwestern Thurinvald in a kind of feudal system, with each city-state swearing to a Baron. From time to time, the idea of a King is raised to unite them, but it has not manifested to date.

Burendain are large of build and broad of shoulder, with longer legs than most normal bears (although shorter by proportion than many other humanoids). Their massive paws nevertheless have dextrous fingers with only vestigial claws, but their jaws pack as much bite as the average bear on four-legs. They are covered in thick fur that comes in a variety of colors, with black, white, brown, ivory, red, and gold being the most common. Some have lighter colors on the muzzles, and many have blazes of different colors across their chests, over the bellies, and/ore across their backs. Some believe that these markings hold a clue to the burendain's destiny, but others scoff at the notion.

Although burendain value community, they don't possess a great attachment to immediate family as many other races do. Burendain are the epitome of "it takes a village", and their cubs are as likely to find meals and sleep in the houses of neighbors as they are to find them in the home of their birth. Although there's always some respect for one's sire and dam in thanks for giving birth, a burendain's found family are as important as any blood relative. They often use the term Ava for someone of any gender who is as important to them as a parent, and the term Kaba for someone not of blood that they consider a sibling. There is no formal concept for adoption in burendain society, as cubs belong to the community, and a burendain will often give themselves an honorific to denote the place they call home.

Burendain Names

Cubs rarely have given names, instead being bestowed a nickname by their community. When they undergo their coming of age ritual as teens, they choose a name for themselves. Throughout their lives, they're often given to taking special names that speak of their traits or deeds.

Cub Names: Bee, Belly, Freefoot, Frost, Leaf, Loam, Moss, Salmon, Snatcher

Male Names: Aryor, Brunn, Drumm, Grudd, Lludd, Muth, Orbor, Tharn, Thuinn, Yarnar

Female Names: Ayana, Branna, Hudi, Kaya, Menda, Orono, Shada, Thuri, Valka, Vonna

Trait Names: Brightsong, Diregrowl, Fearnaught, Gembright, Gorgonsbane, Thunderclap

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.

 

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 & Weight table in the Player's Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.

Burdendain Traits

As a burendain, you have the following racial traits.

Creature Type

You are a Humanoid.

Size

Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Bite

You have a fanged maw that you can use to make unarmed strikes. When you hit with it, the strike deals 1d6 + your Strength modifier piercing damage, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

Natural Armor

You have tough skin that isn't easily cut. When you aren’t wearing armor, your AC is 12 + your Constitution modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.

Keen Smell

Thanks to your sensitive nose, you have advantage on Wisdom (Perception), Wisdom (Survival), and Intelligence (Investigation) checks that involve smell.

Powerful Build

You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Bear Hug

You have Advantage on checks to initiate and maintain a grapple. In addition, at the start of any opponent's round that you are grappling, you do bludgeoning damage to them equal to your Strength modifier (minimum 1).