Creature Type: Abberation

Size: Medium (about 4–7 feet tall), Small (about 2–4 feet tall), or Tiny (2 or less feet tall) chosen when you select this species

Speed: 35 feet

You can reshape parts of your body into unnatural weapons. As a bonus action, you may extend or retract these weapons. While retracted, they are indistinguishable from a normal humanoid’s anatomy, allowing you to blend into society without drawing suspicion. When extended, your natural weapons count as simple melee weapons with which you are proficient.

• Aberrant Maw. Your mouth splits into rows of jagged, uneven teeth that count as a natural weapon. This bite deals 1d4 + your Strength modifier piercing damage on a hit. While you are missing half or more of your hit points, you have advantage on attack rolls made with this bite. When you hit a creature that is not a Construct or Undead with this bite, you regain hit points equal to the piercing damage dealt. You can regain hit points in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
• Claws. Your fingers elongate and harden into razor-sharp claws that count as natural weapons. Your claws deal 1d6 + your Strength modifier slashing damage on a hit, and you may use them to make unarmed strikes.

  All Alternates possess a unique dietary restriction. While the specific hunger varies between individuals, it always requires either active hunting or some level of assimilation into society to satisfy.

  An Alternate may consume normal food as a temporary substitute, allowing them to stave off their true hunger for a limited time. However, this food provides no lasting nourishment. An Alternate can survive for a number of weeks equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum of 1) without feeding on their proper source of sustenance. At the end of this period, the Alternate must feed on their true hunger or suffer the consequences determined by the DM.

   Bit of an explanation on how exactly an Alternate's diet affects their life.

Life Energy: This hunger is the most broadly destructive. Alternates that feed on life energy drain vitality itself, weakening living creatures simply by proximity. Plants may wither, animals grow skittish, and people feel fatigued in the Alternate’s presence.

• Direct feeding is accomplished through physical contact or damaging a creature with their natural weapons trait, rapidly draining stamina, health, and vigor. Creatures subjected to prolonged feeding may age prematurely or die outright, leaving behind unnaturally lifeless remains.

Flesh or Raw Meat: Alternates with this hunger require flesh to survive. Cooked food and preserved meats provide no nourishment. These Alternates are commonly found near wilderness areas, battlefields, slums, or anywhere death is frequent. Feeding is accomplished by consuming raw flesh directly, typically after killing or scavenging a corpse, though some Alternates integrate into society as hunters, butchers, adventurers, or executioners to mask their needs. They can still store flesh, they just can't do anything to the meat to make it stay preserved for longer, nor can they cook it.

Blood: Alternates that feed on blood typically operate on the fringes of society, preying on isolated individuals or animals. Feeding requires the Alternate to wound a creature and drink its blood, usually through the use of it's natural weapons. While animal blood can sustain an Alternate temporarily, sapient creatures provide far greater nourishment, often influencing the Alternate’s hunting behavior and preferred environments.

Psychic Energy: Alternates that feed on psychic energy gravitate toward cities, towns, and other densely populated areas. They passively absorb trace amounts of emotional and mental energy simply by coexisting among other creatures, drawing sustenance from ambient fear, stress, joy, or despair.

• Alternatively, an Alternate may actively feed by grappling a creature and attacking it with their natural weaponry, draining concentrated emotional and psychic energy directly from the target. This method is far more efficient, but often leaves the victim emotionally numb, traumatized, or catatonic.

  As an action, you can change your appearance and your voice. You determine the specifics of the changes, including your coloration, hair length, sex, height, and weight, and you can change your size between Medium, Small, and Tiny. You can make yourself appear as a member of another race or as a mundane creature of an appropriate size, 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.

  Alternatively, you can use this feature to transform into a nonmagical object of Medium, Small, or Tiny size. When you do so, your equipment merges harmlessly into your body for the duration of the transformation; this is the only way this feature can affect your equipment. The object you become must be a simple shape, such as a sphere, cube, or rectangular form, and it is always uniformly jet black in coloration, regardless of the material it resembles. While transformed into an object, you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made in dim light or darkness.

  Your clothing and equipment are otherwise not changed by this trait. You remain in your chosen form until you use an action to revert to your true form or until you die. Your true form is a humanoid mass of jet black goo.

  Due to your composition as a supernatural entity, you have resistance to Acid and Necrotic damage. In addition to that, you are immune to the diseased condition.