Homebrew Foundling Species Details

I followed her out into the woods. I promised I'd keep her safe, but then I saw them. The hags grabbed her and all I heard was the screams. I ran after my knees stopped knocking together, and when I looked back, there was another hag. Gods! I wish I could forget, but it looked like Amaliel for just a moment, then it cursed my name!

- A farmhand the day before he was found ripped to pieces

 

Foundlings are born under foreboding signs that mark their lot as one of strife and torment. The beautiful, eerie daughters of hags, they are raised by parents who find them disturbing around children who grow jealous of them as they mature into adults. Shunned and feeling out of place, they wonder who they really are and where they come from. Their isolation makes the call of their mother all the more seductive and by the time they learn the truth, it is often too late.

Delicately Beautiful and Unsettling

Pale skin and hair like fine silk serve as a setting for doe-eyes of mismatched color. Foundlings possess grace and beauty that is the envy of their peers, though their gaze is unsettling to many. They are petite and delicate, ranging from just over four and a half feet tall to just under five and a half feet and weighing between 85 to 125 pounds.

Foundlings are almost always pale, unless their father was of particularly dark coloration. Their hair appears in shades of black, dark blue, silver, or red. Their eyes are always of different colors, with at least one being a jewel-tone blue, green, or purple and the other being brown, hazel, green, blue, grey, purple, or black. Many find their gaze to be unsettling. They favor simple garments in subtle hues that avoid bringing more attention to themselves.

A Dire Fate

None know how long a foundling may live. Many fall prey to their hag mothers and are turned into hags themselves. Some die young, either the victims of frightened mobs that kill them in the mistaken belief that they are the cause of some disaster or the harbingers of misfortune or the victims of their mothers' rivals seeking to take away a source of potential power.  Some take their own lives out of despair from the torment they receive from those that do not understand them or to end the whispers that are calling them and driving them to madness. Those few that survive past their first years of adulthood find a world where they are ever adrift. None who know the signs want the spawn of a hag in their town or village to attract unsavory characters and vicious monsters seeking them for their own ends. Those that do not often drive foundlings away when strange and unfortunate things occur that are seemingly connected to the strange newcomer.

Those very few that find a place to call home often find that their mothers' agelessness has given them another curse, eternal youth. Foundlings do not seem to age after reaching their twenty-first year. Those that do find a home and stay for more than a decade or two find that their neighbors and friends begin to gossip and spread rumors of how they have managed to stay so young. Accusations of witchcraft and dread necromancy often drive them from their homes or rile up the mob that burns them or drowns them. Even the oldest foundling eventually finds her end, almost always violently.

A Talent for Magic and Fey Blood

Most foundlings are drawn to the magical arts, but even those that choose other paths can cast a few spells, the legacy of their vile mothers. Many foundlings, when they find a place that will at least tolerate them, become herbalists and healers for the small settlements they have taken up residence in. They tend to shun larger towns and cities, preferring to live in smaller villages and hamlets that lay near old forests with strong connections to the realms of the fey.

Fey of many types find themselves drawn to foundlings out of curiosity and some foundlings that have sought out solitude in the woods find their homes become the focus of a bridge between the feywilds and the material world over the years. Others may be visited by curious sprites and fairies in their travels or during their forays into the wilds for supplies that they need for their craft.

Exploration and Adventure

Foundlings take up adventuring in hopes of finding a home and a family that will accept them. While some seek out power for protection or, thankfully, more rarely revenge, most do not care for the treasures they find other than what security they can bring. The sole exceptions to this is items of magic and tomes of knowledge, both of which foundlings find almost irresistible. Thanks to their eternal youth, foundlings always find wonder in new discoveries or unseen vistas.

KIND-HEARTED AND HAUNTED

Foundlings are often kind-hearted and compassionate, despite their mothers' nature. Those that do become evil often do so more out of anger and jealousy than any ingrained aspect of their nature. Those that manage to get behind a foundling's defenses find a steadfast friend willing to help however she can. The hardships they endure in life, however,  make them cold and aloof as a way to avoid being hurt.

When a foundling becomes an adult, their mother begins to call to them, promising the answers they seek. Those that ignore the call or heed it then escape, find their paths haunted by agents of their mother, Unseelie fey and magical beasts sent to retrieve the wayward daughter. Those that heed the call more often than not find themselves with no escape and suffer a night of terrible torture at the hands of their mother and her coven that twists them and makes them like the hags performing the ritual. Some manage to retain a shred of their former selves and refuse to complete the transformation by eating a child and die of their wounds. The others go through with it, forever putting themselves beyond redemption and beginning their new life as a hag and a member of their mother's coven.

 

Foundling Names

Foundlings are named by their adoptive parents, who are the same race as their doomed fathers most of the time. Their names follow the traditions of adoptive parents, though humans will sometimes give foundlings elvish sounding names.

Foundling Traits

Your foundling character has a number of abilities and traits thanks to their hag parentage.

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and you Charisma and Intelligence scores increase by 1.

Age

Foundlings reach physical maturity at the age of 16 and cease to physically age at 21.

Alignment

Foundlings are often kind and compassionate, but hide behind a wall of detachment. Most are neutral or neutral good with a rare few exceptions being evil.

Size

Foundlings range from under 4 and a half to barely 5 and a half feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

Part of your mother's legacy is your uncanny vision in the dark. 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.

Keen Senses

You have proficiency in the Perception skill.

Fey Ancestry

You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed.

Magic in the Blood

Foundlings possess their mother's aptitude for magic and have a small number of innate spells. For determining Spell Save DCs and Spell Attack Bonuses, they use their Charisma modifier. Foundlings can choose three of the following cantrips: Control Flames, Dancing Lights, Druidcraft, Gust, Light, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thaumaturgy

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.