Homebrew Battlezoo Lamia Species Details

Deep in the wilderness, where the nightjars nest and the jackals prowl, there is a shrine. It is a very old shrine, built in an ancient style with pediments, columns, and porticos, though the elements have rendered the goddess’s face to mere suggestion. Inside, beneath a collapsed roof, is an inner sanctum, and in that sanctum are four reliefs, each telling a story.

The first relief tells of a great queen or high priestess. She was a favorite of the gods, blessed with wisdom, graced with beauty, and gifted with power, both secular and sacred. In her right hand, she holds a wand tipped with fennel and woven around with ivy, while in her left hand, she holds a knife, still sticky with blood. Upon her brow was a wreath of laurel leaves, with nine stars gazing benevolently down on her rule.

The second relief is badly damaged, and there are only fragments left. The queen has dropped her thyrsus wand and sacrificial knife, and the leaves of her wreath have fallen. A crime has occurred, a violation, something at once unspeakable and unforgivable. Among the few scholars who know of this shrine, there is great debate about the nature of the act. Was it some pollution of ritual, some shattering of divine taboo? Was it hubris to imagine that one so blessed by the gods might, in fact, be their equal? Was it a sin of the flesh, of forbidden and illicit love? Or was it perhaps, in light of what would come, an act of cannibalism, a blasphemous hunger that gave freedom? No one knows.

The third panel shows the queen, her face and hands bloodied (Her blood? Another’s?), before the altar of a temple—perhaps this very altar, in this very shrine. The goddess is present above the altar, but her face has been gouged out, her divine attributes chiseled away, rendering her anonymous to the ages. The queen’s expression is ambiguous. There may be remorse in those cold, marble eyes, or perhaps fury, or fear. Certainly, there must have been hatred. The goddess has raised a hand and, from it, ushers a dreadful mist, a curse given form and shape. The final panel shows the queen transformed, but she is queen no more. Her crown is long gone, her jewelry torn away. She is monstrous now, her lower body a thing of serpentine coils, but worse is her face. There is a terrible hunger on the former queen’s face and blood upon her lips and teeth, now many and sharp. Around her, other monsters creep, smaller, lesser children of the curse, half human and half beast, and all bearing on their faces that terrible, cruel hunger. The queen’s name is chiseled beneath the first panel. Lamia. The queen is dead, in all likelihood—although with such great and hoary monsters, that is never certain— but her curse lives on, and so do her children. Taking their name from their progenitor, lamias are a species of supernaturally altered creatures, half-human, half-beast, cursed with an uncanny hunger for the blood and flesh of sapient creatures. A few of their kind resist their cannibalistic urges, but most don’t bother.

You Might... • Loathe the very concept of gods, fate, or destiny. • Constantly struggle against your hunger with daily affirmations, displacement mechanisms, or other addiction-treating techniques. • Be prickly or insecure in social settings, expecting everyone to view you as a monster.

Others Probably... • Wonder if you’re sizing them up for your next meal. • Are careful about believing anything you say. • Avoid bringing up religious traditions or festivals around you.

Battlezoo Lamia Traits

Lamia Traits

Age

Lamias have natural life spans roughly equivalent to those of humans, though many lamias meet untimely ends at the hands of monsters, adventurers, or other lamias.

Alignment

By nature, lamias are both evil and chaotic, but those who become adventurers often endeavor to fight against their worst impulses.

Size

A lamia’s upper half is the size of a typical humanoid, while their lower half is that of an equally sized animal, typically a big cat or giant snake. Your size is Medium.

Speed

How quickly a lamia moves depends on the animal that makes up their lower half. If you’re a hunter lamia, you have a base walking speed of 35 feet. If you’re a lamia matriarch, you have a walking speed of 25 feet and a swim speed equal to your walking speed.

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.

Fang

Your mouth contains either rows of serrated teeth or a pair of vicious serpent fangs. Whenever you make an unarmed strike using your fangs, you can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls. Your fangs deal 1d4 + your Strength or Dexterity modifier piercing damage, instead of the normal damage of an unarmed strike.

Feeding

As an action, you can feed on the life force of a grappled, restrained, incapacitated, or willing creature within your reach. You can’t feed on constructs or undead. Make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the creature’s Constitution saving throw. If the creature is incapacitated or willing, you automatically win the contest. If you win the contest, the creature gains 1 level of exhaustion, and you become satisfied for 1 hour. (Being satisfied grants you no immediate benefit, but some lamia feats require you to be satisfied in order to use them.) Once you feed on a creature, you can’t use Feed on that creature again for 1 day

Hunger

You can’t focus on tasks as easily when you’re hungry. When you’re around a living sapient non-lamia creature and you haven’t been satisfied in the last 24 hours, your hunger peaks and you have disadvantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks due to the way your subconscious looks on the creature as food, and disadvantage on other ability checks requiring patience or a lengthy activity, as your hunger distracts you.

Half-beast

Depending on your heritage, you’re either a lamia matriarch or a common (non-matriarch) lamia. A hunter lamia has the lower body of a quadrupedal apex predator, in an arrangement something like a centaur. Most hunter lamia are based on big cats (lions, leopards, and so on), but hyena and wolf-based lamias are possible. Lamia matriarchs have the lower bodies of enormous serpents (or, very rarely, crocodiles or monitor lizards). Your choice of subspecies determines if you’re a hunter lamia or a lamia matriarch.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.