Homebrew Encantado (Dolphinoid) Species Details

 

Those Encantado…you have to watch out for them. They might cast that enchantment magic on you and pull you like puppets on a string, or they could tangle you in vines. They’re traders, kings and druids. They control the rivers and regulate the trade along the Ueyatl river. And to be honest…they’re kind of a pain. -Ixchotl, Tabaxi merchant 

 

 Origins:

Encantado come from the tropical regions of the Feywild, and embody the capricious nature of rivers. Seductive in their ability to attract settlers, who crave the clean water, trade, and resources a river can provide, and capricious with its fast currents and deadly nature. 

They came from the Feywild and entered into the mortal plane. They inhabit tropical rivers, especially the Ueyatl Suer, Pasotlenkoatl, Misto, and Topitsi rivers. 

As they spent more time in the material plane, they diverged. Some focused more on enchantment magic, illusions, seduction, and civilization, building small city-states, while the ones more in touch with their fey heritage focused more on nature magic. 

The city-states emerged as a result of the more civilization-focused Encantado, who would marry other humanoids, such as Grung, bullywugs, Cueyatl, Tabaxi, Lizardfolk, or Yuan-Ti, create communities, and eventually small kingdoms. These kingdoms are based around the river banks and islands inside and around rivers of tropical regions. 

Encantado Biology:

In their dolphin form, Encantado have the  “Fey” creature type. They are roughly 8-9 feet long and have a bright pink coloration. They readily navigate the underwater currents of the unpredictable river systems, whether they’re slow moving or rapids. Echolocation is paramount for navigating these tropical rivers. 

When they shapeshift into a humanoid form, they can only mimic humanoids small or medium sized, and they must be humanoids the Encantado has seen before. They shapeshift into a beautiful or handsome form of the humanoid, but can’t take various forms of a select humanoid. For example, they only have a single human form and can’t change it. They do not possess the species traits other than height. If they shapeshift into an elf, it doesn’t change their sleep pattern, for example. They shapeshift into a version of the humanoid that is beautiful to the humanoids, not themselves. Their shapeshifting is primarily a way for Encantado to mingle with land-dwelling humanoids. Their humanoid form always has a blowhole, which they cover up if they want to be discrete, but prominently display if they want to show themselves. When shapeshifting, if the encantado is missing a limb, so is their humanoid form. The encantado is a fey creature type in humanoid form as well. 

Culture:

The Encantado are a people torn between the wilderness and civilization.

Encantado Druids are either nomadic or build cities and towns that heavily incorporate elements of nature. Nomadic Encantado memorize and roam the tropical rivers that make up their environment, either in dolphin or humanoid form, and often act as guides for other peoples. They know secret routes to the Feywild and material plane, and every hidden temple. They silently purify the river water with their magic and curate the river ecosystem, ensuring that nobody destroys the environment. These nomadic bands are usually small family groups. They are usually rangers and Druids. They usually speak Dolphinoid, sylvan, Druidic, and common. The Dolphinoid language is comprised of clicks and whistles. 

Encantado cities inhabited by Druids incorporate buildings woven by living mangroves and trees, reeds, and fantastical nature-based architecture. Resembling forests and jungles more than cities, it would be easy to miss that people live there. The encantado live in the hollows of these huge plants, and often incorporate local peoples in their population such as lizardfolk, Tabaxi, yuan-ti or Grung. These cities have a focus on sustainability, animal husbandry, and subtle nature magic, emphasizing living in harmony with nature. They often have bitter rivalries with larger cities who leave behind focus on the Feywild and nature.  

The city-based Encantado are thought by their Druidic cousins to “have lost their touch with the Feywild”, but in reality, they’re more in touch with the other side of their fey heritage. They build large city-states along the river banks or in river-based islands, and have kingdoms of their own. Their fey-based magic is much stronger than that of the lizardfolk, Grung, or Tabaxi, and these groups flocked to them. These Encantado married to other species or amongst themselves, forming royal lineages. Their children are always encantado themselves. The encantado take the form of the dominant humanoid species in the region, or that of their spouse, should they not be the dominant humanoid species. Yuan-Ti, Kualikoatl, Lizardfolk,  Grung, and bullywug marriages are most common, usually for alliances. Kualikoatl are good-aligned yuan-ti who worship Quetzalcoatl, who has gifted them their emotions back, and Bahumut. Encantado prefer Kualikoatl over yuan-ti, but because Yuan-Ti are dominant over the Kualikoatl, marriages to yuan-ti pure bloods are more common in the northern encantado states, whereas lizardfolk, Grung, and bullywug marriages are more common in the south. 

These major cities differ in culture, but predominantly have a focus on trade, naval power projection, and magic as a common feature, in addition to the cultures of other species that have come to inhabit them. The Kualikoatl city-states have powerful river-based navies with wooden ships that patrol their territories and check for contraband and collect tolls. Their cities feature huge bazaars with spices, exotic woods, animals, and more; magic goods that only come from the Feywild. Illusion magic and enchantment magic muddles the brain and makes people see what they want to see. Huge stone temples dominate the center of these cities, where the Encantado praise the river itself, and incense flows freely throughout the city. 

Games are common occurrences. The Encantado delight in the spectacle of arranged naval battles, organized swimming races in canals in dolphin form, the subtlety of magical displays, and the tossing of rubber balls through hoops, with goods and honor on the line. Formal education is common, especially for the nobles, merchant class, and royal families. Art focuses on themes of illusions, enchantments, and nature, and can be extremely abstract.

The best way to describe an encantado city is intoxicating; visiting muddles the senses and makes one want to stay forever, to revel in delight, and submit to the authority of the Encantado monarch. Each city-state has their own specific focuses and specialties, but they all share these general overlapping traits. 

Encantado are primarily carnivores, and eat a wide array of meat-based dishes. Almost everything in their river system is fair game for them, from clams to crabs to fish, eels, even caimans and otters. Their dishes tend to be very elaborately prepared. Chocolate is sometimes consumed by royalty as a sign of their power. 

Religion:

Encantado worship a wide array of deities. 

The most prominent deities worshipped are Deep Sashelas, Trishina, Delphinus, Ben-Hadar, and the Dolphinoid Pantheon (check my other work on the Dolphinoids for context). These are deities of dolphins and water, representing primal aquatic forces. Encantado also worship fey entities and gods representing illusions and emotions, or luxuriousness.

Just as commonly, Encantado might worship the flow of the river itself, nature, and generally have a more primal, animistic outlook. Druids tend to have this outlook and build small shrines to nature in the wilderness. 

Large temples of stone are adorned with elaborate art and incense, evoking the feeling of rivers, drifting or fast moving currents, or even the ocean itself. Rituals are elaborate displays, and parades are common. 

 

 

 

Encantado (Dolphinoid) Traits

Your Encantado character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your charisma score increases by 2 and your dexterity or wisdom scores increase by 1.

Age

Dolphinoids reach maturity around age 15 and can live up to 70 years.

Size

Encantado mimic the size of other humanoids via their shape-changing ability. They can only mimic small or medium sized humanoids. In their dolphin form, they are considered medium sized. 

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swimming speed of 60 feet in dolphin form. 

Semi-Amphibious

You can hold your breath for 15 minutes at a time.

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 can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Echolocation

You have a blindsight of 120 ft when actively using echolocation. You can’t use your blindsight when deafened. You can use your echolocation as a bonus action after your initial attack. 

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common, Dolphinoid and Sylvan.

Shapechanging

The Encantado Fey can shape-change into a pink river dolphin, except the Beast creature type is replaced by the Fey creature type. The Encantado Fey, when in its humanoid form, still retains the Fey creature type, but it mimics the other nearby humanoid people groups as long as they are small or medium sized. While they mimic the other humanoids in appearance and size, they do not gain any special traits or knowledge, and they retain their alignment, hit dice, ability to speak, proficiencies, and their ability scores. In humanoid form, they have a tell-tale blowhole on their back. When shape-changing into a dolphin, the Encantado Fey absorbs the equipment, and gets it back when it shape-changes into humanoid form.

Spells

Encantado Fey are innately magical due to their fey heritage. Pulled between the art of magical seduction and enchantment and the world of nature, they tend to divide themselves between enchantment and illusion magic and nature magic. 

You know the Shape water cantrip and you know the Minor illusion cantrip. You also know the spell Charm person. Charisma is your spellcasting ability. 

Creature type

Your Creature type is Fey.