Homebrew Awakened Skeleton Species Details

DEAD AND REBORN

Tipically having no lands to call their own, undead with an awakened sense of self are usually perpetual foreigners, wanders in a land and often a time not their own. Compounding matters, most mortal cultures carry within them an instinctual fear of death and the dead, and many associate necromancy specifically with dark tidings. This forms a wall of ( often well-­earned) prejudice and hatred that sentient undead find themselves up against, and many undead choose to hide their necrotic natures behind clothes, masks, and pungent perfumes when journeying into civilization.

Depending on composition, humanoid undead typically range a wide gamut from 20 to 300 pounds, and may possess empty eyes, a colored flame-like magical animus in their sockets, or harrowed, surprisingly mortal eyes burning with an inner fire. Hair (if they have it at all) is usually lank, dark, and wrought with grime and grave­-dirt that no amount of cleaning will fully remove.

 

SERVICE AND FREEDOM

Undeath is effectively immortality, a strong reason why many mortal spellcasters of a certain moral bent consider it a viable alternative to ac­tually dying. Still, it is not immortality without a price - senses and emotions dull, food and drink no longer have taste, and often an undead state comes alongside a subservience of will and un­thinking toil beneath a master who likely does not have the world's best intentions at heart.

Some undead are born into freedom, while others earn it or have it thrust upon them. Re­gardless, all undead that have freedom greatly cherish it, as the reminders of what could easily happen were they not fortunate enough to pos­sess free will abound throughout history. Many consider it their sacred duty to free other mind­less undead, or simply to dispatch them wher­ever they may be found. The reasoning is straightforward enough: a final rest awarded to all mortals is greatly preferential to eternal slav­ery to the likes of a short-sighted, megalomania­cal wizard. 

 

FALLEN HOME, FORGOTTEN PAST

For many awakened undead, the past is a distant homeland to which they may never return, hold­ing names and faces now partially-forgotten, and loves and lives as dead as they are. The anguish of this loss is enough to drive many mad, but others use this rage and pain as a source of power and drive, carrying them further on the road to whatever dark destiny awaits.

Frequently, entire countries, customs, and cultures an undead may be familiar with no longer exist, and the sentient dead behaves or speaks in an antiquated fashion because of this. It may be even more difficult than usual for such undead to relate to more modern

mortals, and typically these undead leverage what companions they may have to bridge this epoch-long communication gap. 

 

UNDEAD NAMES

Many undead that awaken into sentience prefer to keep the names they held in their mortal lives. For others, however, their mortal names are for­gotten or have lost meaning. These undead often adopt nicknames given to them by their former masters or present companions, and hold them to be as true as any other creature's birth name.

Examples of names given in this fashion may be seen, below:

Names: Rattlebones, Spore, Rotface, Raven, Bane, Carver, Drudge, Rook, Mort, Pale, Minion, Crumble, Shade.

 

Awakened Skeleton Traits

10 traits:

Ability Score Increase.

Your Constitution score increases by 1.

Dead Immortality.

You do not age. Given time, the necromantic energies that sustain you will heal most wounds you take at approximately the same rate as a mortal, and your hit dice function as normal.

Past Life

Choose another living race besides this one. Before your death, you were a member of this race and appear as an undead version of it. Your size, height, and movement speed are the same as a typical member of that race. You do not retain special movement speeds from this race (such as swimming or flying), and, though you may choose to have formerly been a member of a subrace of a particular race, you derive no benefits doing so.

Undead.

Raised from the dead as a being of undeath, you count as an undead creature for all spells and abilities that affect the undead. You are immune to disease and treat exhaustion as if it was one level less. You do not need to eat or breathe, but you can ingest food and drink if you wish. Instead of sleeping, you enter an inactive state for 4 hours each day. You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surround- ings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.

Darkvision.

Through the necromantic energy animating you, you are able to perceive with greater clarity that which lurks in the darkness. 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 can't discern color in dark- ness, only shades of gray.

Languages.

You can speak, read, and write Common and one language available to the race you chose for your Past Life.

Ability Score Increase.

Your Dexterity or Intelligence score increases by 2.

Bloodless

You are immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.

Bone pile.

When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. If you do, you reduce yourself to a pile of bones, render yourself prone, and are considered to be under a similar effect to the feign death spell. While subject to this condition, you are unable to move or take actions other than using an action to end this effect. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Bone to pick.

Whenever both of your hands are free (not including equipped shields), you may choose to use a free hand and a bonus action to remove one of your hands or arms. If you remove an arm, it counts as a weapon with the finesse property that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage, and you have proficiency with your arm while you wield it. If you remove a hand, it counts as thieves' tools or a similar set of simple tools while you hold it. In either case, removed hands and arms may be re-attached by using another bonus action.