Homebrew Changeling UA (Tweaked) Species Details

A changeling can shift its face and form with a thought. Many changelings use this gift as a form of artistic and emotional expression, but it’s an invaluable tool for grifters, spies, and others who wish to deceive. This leads many people to treat known changelings with fear and suspicion.

  • Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 2. In addition, one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.
  • Age. Changelings mature slightly faster than humans but share a similar lifespan — typically a century or less. While a changeling can transform to conceal their age, the effects of aging affect them similarly to humans.
  • Alignment. Changelings tend toward pragmatic neutrality, and few changelings embrace evil.
  • Size. In their natural forms, changelings average between 5 to 6 feet in height, with a slender build. Your size is Medium.
  • Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet

Race features:

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, but not so much that your size changes. 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 a creature 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.

Changeling Instincts.
You gain proficiency with two of the following skills of your choice: Deception, Insight, Intimidation, and Persuasion
Changelings can shift their forms with a thought. Many changelings use this gift as a form of artistic and emotional expression. It's also an invaluable tool for grifters, spies, and others who wish to deceive. This leads many people to treat changelings with suspicion.

A Hidden People.
Wherever humans live, changelings reside also; the question is whether their presence is known.
Changelings are born to one of three paths.
  •  A few are raised in stable communities where changelings are true to their nature and deal openly with the people around them
  • Some are orphans, raised by other races, who find their way in the world without ever knowing another like themselves
  • Others are part of nomadic changeling clans spread across the Five Nations, families who keep their true nature hidden from the single-skins. Some clans maintain safe havens in major cities and communities, but most prefer to wander the unpredictable path of the god known as the Traveler.

Masks and Personas.
In their true form, changelings are pale, with colorless eyes and silver-white hair. It is rare to see a changeling in that form, for a typical changeling changes their shape the way others might change clothes.
A casual shape—one created on the spur of the moment, with no depth or history (this is called a mask). A mask can be used to express a mood or to serve a specific purpose and then might never be used again.
However, many changelings develop identities that have more depth. They build an identity over time, crafting a persona with a history and beliefs. This focused identity helps a changeling pinpoint a particular skill or emotion. A changeling adventurer might have personas for many situations, including negotiation, investigation, and combat.
Personas can be shared by multiple changelings; there might be three healers in a community, but whoever is on duty will adopt the persona of Tek, the kindly old medic. Personas can even be passed down through a family, allowing a younger changeling to take advantage of contacts established by the persona's previous users.

Changeling Names.
A changeling might use a different name for each mask and persona and adopt new names as easily as they change faces.

The true name of a changeling tends to be simple and monosyllabic; however, there are often accents to a changeling's name that are expressed through shapeshifting, something single-skins will likely miss.
So, two changelings might have the name Jin, but one is Jin-with-vivid-blue-eyes and one is Jin-with-golden-nails. Changelings have a fluid relationship with gender, seeing it as one characteristic to change among many. Changeling Names: Aunn, Bin, Cas, Dox, Fie, Hars, Jin, Lam, Mas, Nix, Ot, Paik, Ruz, Sim, Toox, Vil, Yug


Sources:  Xanathar's Guide to Everything, World Anvil, DnD5e Wiki

Changeling UA (Tweaked) Traits

A fey or humanoid race with a natural ability to shapeshift, making them effective as actors, spies and criminals

Ability Score Increase

Your Charisma score increases by 2, plus an additional ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Age

Changelings mature slightly faster than humans but share a similar lifespan — typically a century or less. While a changeling can transform to conceal their age, the effects of aging affect them similarly to humans.

Size

Changelings are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Change appearance

As an action, you can transform your appearance or revert to your natural form. You can’t duplicate the appearance of a creature you’ve never seen, and you revert to your natural form if you die.

  • You decide what you look like, including your height, weight, facial features, the sound of your voice, coloration, hair length, sex, and any other distinguishing characteristics. You can make yourself appear as a member of another race, though none of your game statistics change. You also can’t appear as a creature of a different size than you, and your basic shape stays the same; if you’re bipedal, you can’t use this trait to become quadrupedal, for instance. Your clothing and other equipment don’t change in appearance, size, or shape to match your new form, requiring you to keep a few extra outfits on hand to make the most compelling disguise possible.
  • Even to the most astute observers, your ruse is usually indiscernible. If you rouse suspicion, or if a wary creature suspects something is amiss, you have advantage on any Charisma (Deception) check you make to avoid detection.

Changeling Instincts

Thanks to your connection to the fey realm, you gain proficiency with two of the following skills of your choice: Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion.

Unsettling Visage

When a creature you can see makes an attack roll against you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the roll. You must use this feature before knowing whether the attack hits or misses. Using this trait reveals your shapeshifting nature to any creature within 30 feet that can see you. Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Divergent Persona

You gain proficiency with one tool of your choice. Define a unique identity associated with that proficiency; establish the name, race, gender, age, and other details. While you are in the form of this persona, the related proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses that proficiency.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and two other languages of your choice.

 

 
Black_Jack_

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