Homebrew Cephilia Species Details

Masters of disguise, and geniuses in their own rights, Cephilians are perfectly able to mimic another creature's appearance with their supernatural abilities of shapeshifting. Their rubbery skin molds and morphs to fill out a large shirt, and their pigments shift to copy patterns on the skin. 

The true form of a Cephillian is a bulbous head with eight nimble tentacles underneath. Due to their adaptations of mimicking four-limbed species, these tentacles have thinned and wrapped together to create limb-like structures... however, a talented Cephilian can unwrap their tentacles and use them for delicate tasks and nimble work, at the cost of strength and power. 

 

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.

Cephilia Traits

As a cephilian, you have the following racial traits.

Creature Type

You are an Aberration.

Size

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

Speed

Your walking, swimming, and climbing speed is 30 feet.

Boneless Flexibility

Thanks to your lack of a skeletal structure, you can squeeze in and out of spaces no less than an inch wide that a creature your size would normally be unable to fit into. You also get advantage on Dexterity Saving throws and Grapple Checks. 

Shapechanger

As an action, you can change your appearance and your voice. You determine the specifics of the changes, including your coloration, hair length, and sex. You can also adjust your height and weight and can change your size between Medium and Small. You can make yourself appear as a member of another race, though none of your game statistics change. You can’t duplicate the appearance of an individual you’ve never seen, and you must adopt a form that has the same basic arrangement of limbs that you have. Your clothing and equipment aren’t changed by this trait.

You stay in the new form until you use an action to revert to your true form or until you die.