Homebrew Awakened Undead Skeleton Species Details
Service and Freedom
Undeath is effective immortality, a strong reason why many mortal spellcasters of a certain moral bent consider it a viable alternative to actually dying. Still, it is not immortality without a price - senses and emotions dull, food and drink no longer have taste, and often an undead state comes alongside a subservience of will and unthinking service to a master who likely does not have the world's best intentions at heart.
Some undead are born into freedom, while others earn it or have it thrust upon them. Re gardless, all undead that have freedom greatly cherish it, as the reminders of what could easily happen were they not fortunate enough to pos sess free will abound throughout history. Many consider it their sacred duty to free other mind less undead, or simply to dispatch them wher ever they may be found. The reasoning is straightforward enough: a final rest awarded to all mortals is greatly preferential to eternal slav ery to the likes of a short-sighted, megalomania cal wizard.
Typically having no lands to call their own, undead with an awakened sense of self are typically perpetual foreigners, wanders in a land and often a time not their own. Compounding matters, most mortal cultures carry within them an instinctual fear of death and the dead, and many associate necromancy specifically with dark tidings. This forms a wall of (often well earned) prejudice and hatred that sentient undead find themselves up against, and many undead choose to hide their necrotic natures behind clothes, masks, and ungent perfumes when journeying into civilization.
Depending on composition, humanoid undead typically range a wide gamut from 20 to 300 pounds, and may possess empty eyes, a colored flame-like magical animus in their sockets, or harrowed, surprisingly mortal eyes burning with an inner fire. Hair (if they have it at all) is usually lank, dark, and wrought with grime and grave dirt that amount of cleansing will fully remove.
This is an edited version of the race posted on reddit by user u/the_singular_anyone
Awakened Undead Skeleton Traits
DeadAbility Score Increase
Your Constitution score increases by 1, and either your Dexterity or Intelligence increases by 2.
Undead
Raised from the dead as a being of undeath, you count as an undead creature for all spells and abilities that affect the undead. Instead of sleeping, you enter an inactive state for 8 hours each day.
You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
- You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, As well as saves for effects that would turn undead, and you have resistance to poison damage.
- You are immune to disease.
- You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
- You don’t need to sleep and don’t suffer the effects of exhaustion due to lack of rest, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
Dead Immortality.
You do not age. Given time, the necromantic energies that sustain you will heal most wounds you take at approximately the same rate as a mortal, and your hit dice function as normal.
Past Life.
Choose another living race besides this one. Before your death, you were a member of this race and appear as an undead version of it. Your size, height, and movement speed are the same as a typical member of that race. You do not retain special movement speeds from this race (such as swimming or flying), and, though you may choose to have formerly been a member of a subrace of a particular race, you derive no benefits from doing so.
Darkvision.
Through the necromantic energy animating you, you are able to perceive with greater clarity that which lurks in the darkness. 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 dark ness, only shades of gray.
Languages
You can speak, read, and write Common and one language available to the race you chose for your Past Life.
Skeleton
An animated figure made of dry bones devoid of flesh and muscle, you were likely raised by a nec romantic caster or dark, supernatural curse as a simple minion, completely without will and self knowledge. Something changed, however; per haps your master was slain, the land cleansed, or you merely awoke one day to fragmented memories of your previous life. Whatever the case, possessed of a fragmented sense of self
and newfound purpose, you struck out into the wider world to find a new destiny.
Facade
Your collarbones have been inscribed with magical glyphs that help you to blend in with society.
As a bonus action, you can tap the glyphs, causing an illusion of your past life to cover your skeleton and fill out your clothes as if you are alive.
Previous Versions
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10/15/2019 1:39:16 AM
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Coming Soon
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