Homebrew Chainfolk Species Details

Chainfolk are divine in origin, much like many mortal races, but accidentally rather than purposefully. When an ancient deity, its identity now unknown, broke free of his divine bindings, the scattered lengths of chain were blessed with sentience. Extremely rare, chainfolk now make their way in a world that has forgotten their origins and sees them as curiosities.

A chainfolk's body is made up entirely of lengths of chain. The chains are often of varying thickness and style, with some links the size of anchor chains and others as finely made as jewelry, but nearly all of it is constructed of a dark metal with a finish much like seasoned cast iron. Each has two links of chain that function as sense organs; these are often a different color than the dark iron of the rest of their bodies, giving them the ability to create something of a "face" on the front of their heads.

Chainfolk do not age, do not reproduce, and if "killed" the broken pieces reassemble into a brand new chainfolk with no memories of their former existence.

Creating Your Character

When you create your D&D character, you decide whether your character is a member of the human race or one of the game’s fantastical races. If you create a character using a race option presented here, follow these additional rules during character creation.

Ability Score Increases

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one of those scores 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’re free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised 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. 

Creature Type

Every creature in D&D, including every 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 option presented here 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 text of the cure wounds spell specifies that the spell doesn’t work on a creature that has the Construct type. (The chainfolk is a noteworthy exception because of its Divine Fluke trait.)

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—a fact noted in the description of the race in question. The body of a chainfolk is immortal, but its soul can be driven from its body by violence or accident, causing it to be inhabited by a new soul. 

Height and Weight

Chainfolk generally weigh twice as much as a human or halfling of the same size category.  They are not as dense as solid iron, because their bodies include a fair amount of space. 

Chainfolk Traits

As a chainfolk player character, you have the following traits.

Creature Type

You are a Construct.

Size

You are either Small or Medium.

Speed

Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Metal Body

You are made of lengths of celestial chain. While you aren’t wearing armor, your base Armor Class is 13 + your Dexterity modifier.

Amorphous Body

You can squeeze through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide, provided you are wearing and carrying nothing. You also have advantage on ability checks you make to initiate or escape a grapple.

Divine Fluke

If the mending spell is cast on you, you can spend a Hit Die, roll it, and regain a number of hit points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 hit point).

In addition, due to your divine heritate, you benefit from several spells that preserve life but that normally don’t affect Constructs: cure wounds, healing word, mass cure wounds, mass healing word, and spare the dying.

Metallic Nature

You have resistance to poison damage and immunity to disease, and you have advantage on saving throws against being paralyzed or poisoned. You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.

Amorphous Body

As an action, you can reshape your body to change your height and body shape, while remaining humanoid. You can wear clothing and armor made for a humanoid of your size, but since many forms of armor and clothing will not adapt well to wide changes, most chainfolk either wear loose-fitting clothes (or none at all) or else do not change their proportions often.

As a bonus action you can extrude a length of chain that’s up to 10 ft. long or reabsorb it into your body. You can use the chain to manipulate an object, open/close a door or container, or pick up/set down a Tiny object. The chain doesn’t have sensory organs, can’t attack, activate magic items, or lift more than 10 lbs.

Pyrrhic Resurrection

If you fail your last death saving throw, your consciousness departs.  1d10 hours later, your body reassembles itself and is inhabited by a fresh new soul, with no memories, skills, or experience carrying over from your old one. Spells to return your body from death will not work; this applies to <spell>revivify</spell>, <spell>raise dead</spell>, <spell>resurrection</spell> and <spell>true resurrection</spell>.  Only a <spell>wish</spell> can return you in your original body.  <spell>Reincarnation</spell> will work but you will no longer be Chainfolk.