Homebrew Canid Species Details

Life for a canid is no simple task. They have grown up living in the wilderness, but want desperately to find homes in the civilizations that often mistake them for werewolves or gnolls. Canids are instilled with a sense of duty from birth and try hard to find work that suits them. It is not uncommon for them to take up a life on the road, and as long as a discerning eye recognizes they resemble dogs and not wolves or gnolls, canids find their way into the company of mercenaries and adventurers fairly often.

A Canid's Life

Small packs of canids make their homes in abandoned bastions of civilization spread throughout the world. They are careful not to desecrate old shrines or sacred sites, and often make attempts to clean out anything unsavory that has made its way their before. Many canids accept this nomadic lifestyle as their place in the world. These few tend to help maintain packs and ensure that the race isn't wiped out. These canids are few and have usually had some traumatic experience when approaching a settlement of other races in the past. Most have a wanderlust that is hardly containable and they are always seeking tasks or work. Though they aren't classically skilled artisan's, they are remarkably perceptive and often make superb guides and trackers.

The wanderlust causes many issues as well. The race is different from gnolls and werewolves, but resemblances do exist and the relatively sparse population of canids often leads to cases of mistaken identity. Packs that are discovered are often driven from their homes violently and single wandering canids usually don't stand much chance without significant luck. Those that do notice differences, note a more distinctly human lower body, a complete lack of claws, and softer facial features than werewolves or gnolls. Through their packs, distinct and utter hatred for gnoll-kind and werewolves tends to run rampant due to the discrimination faced by many packs.

Packs do what they can to keep in touch with any other pack they have met. It helps them reduce what they take from each other and offers opportunities to arrange marriages and partnerships that often lead to the formation of new packs. These practices have led to many packs having varied appearances and pups can even resemble relatives from generations past. This has also led to a sharing of knowledge they have learned from any settlement or civilization that would have contact with them.

Beliefs

In general, packs don't consider themselves attached to any one god. Some packs come to know about certain gods through their time in old abandoned shrines or places or worship and then they may pay homage to the deity for a time. This usually doesn't stick within the pack though, due to their tendency to split apart and the relatively short lifespans of canids.

Those same factors give canids a generally positive approach to life though. They consider every new day a blessing and a chance to find a job worth doing. They consider a hard sleep at the end of a long journey to be the reward for a job well-done and they often don't look for much beyond that. When they do, it is often because they believe there is some greater good to be done that might help raise the race of the canid above their hated gnoll cousins.

Trust Freely Given

One of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of the canid is their innate trust in the good of others. They are usually open to giving everybody at least one chance and often times aren't put off of a situation unless the experience goes extremely poorly. This makes them open to subterfuge and they can sometimes end up unknowingly aiding a cause they otherwise wouldn't support.

Capable fighters that have sullied their honor due to trickery will often times attempt to exact revenge with little thought to the harm that might come to themselves. These same canid make incredibly loyal friends and unshakable allies. They find that protecting others often prompts those individuals to return the favor. This quid pro quo is almost never used as a manipulation tactic. This is because canids are raised to see that form of manipulation as something that has harmed their race in the past. So even if work is scarce, a canid with friends will often adopt the role of protector to feel fulfillment.

Canid Traits

Your canid character has traits that have helped them survive their upbringing.

Ability Score Increase

Your wisdom score increases by 2 and your strength score increases by 1.

Age

Canids reach adulthood at age 14 and live an average of 70 years.

Alignment

Canids tend toward good. It is extremely rare that a canid is evil without intense coercion.

Size

Canids range in size from 4 to 7 feet with no difference between males and females. Shorter individuals weigh as little as 60 lbs and taller individuals weigh up to 270 lbs. Your size is medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 35 feet.

Bite

Your fanged jaws serve as a natural weapon that can be used to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with it you deal piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your strength modifier instead of bludgeoning damage that would normally be made with an unarmed strike.

Always Alert

Your character can't be ambushed. If awake, your character rolls initiative immediately against all enemies to determine when they will take their turn during the ambush round. If sleeping, your character awakens prone at the start of the ambush round and acts at the end of the ambush round. Initiative is then rolled to determine the order in which you act in subsequent rounds. You also have advantage on all initiative rolls.

Sharp Nose

Your keen nose allows you to detect smells that others simply can't. You have advantage on all ability checks that rely on smell.

Natural Tracker

You gain proficiency in the survival skill.

Languages

You speak, read, and write Common and Gnoll.