Homebrew Forsaken Spirit (2024) Species Details

"Bound by chains unseen, caught between worlds, they walk among us."

The Forsaken are malevolent spirits that have been torn from the Spirit World and bound to the physical plane, forced into a cycle of existence between two forms: the ethereal and the material. Once powerful entities, vengeful ghosts, cursed spectres, or lost souls, they now walk Ama in incomplete bodies, seeking purpose, vengeance, or escape from their imprisonment.

Bound to a physical shell of their own making or by the one who brought them into the material world, the Forsaken are neither fully alive nor truly dead. In one moment, they may appear as an ordinary person, flesh-and-blood, albeit marked by eerie features or unsettling auras. In another, they can shed their mortal guise, taking on a spectral form to slip through the cracks of reality itself.

Some see their condition as a curse, others as a second chance.

 Two States of Being

 The Caged and the Unbound. The Forsaken exist in two states, shifting between them as needed as a Bonus Action.

• Caged Form (Physical) – A solid, corporeal body built from matter, shaped to resemble mortals. This form allows them to interact with the world as any other being, but it is an imperfect prison; cracks in their façade might reveal their inhuman nature. While in your Caged Form:

- You have a Walking Speed of 30 feet.

- You can physically interact with the world, including objects and creatures. 

- While in the presence of the Protection from Good & Evil spell, holy places, and burning incense, you have disadvantage on Charisma and Wisdom-based Ability Checks.

- If you are dropped to 0 Hit Points while in your Caged Form, you transform into your Unbound Form at half your max Hit Points. You then can not enter back into your Caged Form until it reforms 24 hours later.

• Unbound Form (Spirit) – A translucent, ghostly version of how you would appear in the Spirit World. While in your Unbound Form:

- You have a Flying Speed of 30 feet.

-  As a Bonus Action, you can switch between incorporeal and corporeal states of being and can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. You take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside an object.

- Once per Short Rest, you can interact with objects in the world by Possessing them. Causing you to vanish within the object for 10 minutes. You can attempt to Possess a creature. The targeted creature must make a contested Constitution Saving Throw to resist. On a successful save, the creature is immune to being targeted again for 24 hours. On a fail, you gain control of the creature for 1 minute. Possessed creatures can remake the Saving Throw at the end of their turn.

- While in the presence of the Protection from Good & Evil spell, holy places, and burning incense, you have disadvantage on Attack Rolls, any healing you gain is halved, and you may not become incorporeal.

- Dropping to 0 Hit Points in your Unbound Form forces you to disappear and enter within your bound object. You can only return if an unoccupied corpse is brought to your bound object, followed by a spell to bring the dead back to life.

 

The Chain of Binding

Each Forsaken is bound by a specific object or condition, anchoring them to the mortal world. This could be an item, an oath, or a lingering regret. If destroyed or resolved, their existence becomes unstable, potentially freeing them or dooming them forever.

Playing a Forsaken Spirit

Playing as a Forsaken means embracing duality, walking the line between spirit and flesh, freedom and imprisonment, vengeance and redemption. Do you fight for your place in the world, or seek to escape it? Do you embrace your spectral nature, or desperately cling to your mortal shell?

No matter the path, one thing is certain—the Spirit World is watching.

Forsaken Spirit (2024) Traits

Your Forsaken Spirit character has the following traits.

Age

Spirits are immune to the effects of aging.

Alignment

Most spirits take comfort in peace and order, tending toward law and neutrality. But some in their ageless boredom lean towards the mischievous or even malevolent.

Size

Your size is Small or Medium.

Speed

When in your Caged Form, your base Walking Speed is 30 feet. When in your Unbound Form, you have a Fly Speed of 30 feet.

Spiritual Resilience

Since spirits aren't living creatures, you have remarkable fortitude, represented by the following benefits:

• You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
• You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
• You are immune to disease.
• You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Grounding Rest

When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours meditatively while you tether yourself back to the Spirit World, rather than sleeping. In this state, you appear inert, but it doesn’t render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.

Languages

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

Past Life Experience

Retaining a sliver of what you were before, you pull from a distant memory, using this skill in a new form.

Inspire Emotion

While not capable of the mind altering feats a true spirit is capable of, Forsaken Spirits can still tap into their domain in a meek fashion, affecting a single person. 

You may cast the spell Suggestion up to your Wisdom modifier number of times per short rest. The DC uses your Wisdom stat spell casting DC.