Homebrew Addams Species Details

The Addamses are feared by many and understood by few. They are far from conventional, with many of their ideals and views on what is acceptable being flipped upside down. Black is a delightfully cheery color, hemlock is a scrumptious tea and garnish, lions make delightful house pets, and the best remedy for back pain is a bed of freshly sharpened nails. 

An Addams will show their appreciation to another with gifts of strange and curious objects, potentially dangerous foods, and offers of kindness that may startle those who would call themselves normal. 

All Addams know each other to some extent and they always treat any Addams as family. The Addams also share any money they possess rather freely, and many nobles are aware of the unattainable wealth that the Addams have amassed. 

Creepy and Kooky

Addams by nature are remarkably accepting and generous. Often times their generosity and kindness are met with suspicion or fear. Addamses have a different view of what is healthy and helpful than most other races. For example, a good amount of moonlight has the same health benefits that sunlight would have for Humans. Additionally, an Addams will not experience pain in the same way most races would, usually laughing off severe injuries and continuing to fight despite bleeding out. 

Because of this, Addamses will often try to be friendly and helpful to other races, but in the process appear demented and dangerous. In some cases the danger is very real. However, their hospitality does not go unnoticed by monsters and is actually welcomed with open arms. 

Addamses have found one way to garner trust among other races, Humans and Dwarves especially. Addamses all seem to have a great deal of money and savings stored away, and do not quite understand that some things don’t have much worth. An Addams may buy a wooden brush for several hundred gold simply because an obscure person from history supposedly held the brush once before. Of course, an Addams would also gladly give large sums of money away simply to make someone happier. They are often taken advantage of because of this fact. 

Their generous nature often evolves into Addamses ‘adopting’ individuals from other races who enjoy the lifestyle of the Addamses into their families. Within a year, all Addams are vaguely aware of the new addition to their family. Some speculate that this may be due to a mild psychic link between all Addams that even honorary Addamses gain eventually. 

 

Neither Man Nor Monster

It is said that Adamses are not truly mortal, but they are also not monsters. Some have compared them to the Kalashtar in the way that Addams may be a bridge between Monsters and Humans just as Kalashtar are bridges between Spirits and Humans. 

Addamses tend to look like pale, vaguely frightening humans. Some have odd traits like dark circles around their eyes, a hunch, slightly too wide smiles, pointed teeth, talons, a third eye, or even small horns. Although most have what an Addams would describe as a healthy pallid glow, some can have pale green, pale blue, or olive skin. Some may even have dark brown , ashen grey, pitch black, or tan skin tones, though these are rather rare. 

Many fear Adamses simply due to their appearances. Despite this, Addamses are still strangely pleasant and tend to take any negative comments towards their frightening nature is taken as a great compliment. They are often ignorant to the fears and the spurn of others. 

Gender is also a rather fluid concept to addamses. One fourth of addamses are borth with physical traits from both genders, and another fourth are born without any means of reproduction. Both of these sexes are referred to as Neutrals, effectively making a grand total of four potential, biological, sexes that an Addams can be. They are also not strangers to an Addams discovering they were not born the correct gender. 

Friends of the frightening

While Humans, Dwarves, and Halfings, among other races, tend to fear Addamses, monsters enjoy their company. An Addams is able to sit down and have a pleasant chat with a Demon, or even a nice cup of Henbane tea with a Beholder if they are so lucky. An Addams may even find these creatures more attractive than they would an Elf of high beauty. 

Like how some other races may be accepted into the family, so too can monsters, aberrations, undead horrors, fiends, and the like. No matter who an Addams weds, their child will always be a full blooded Addams. 

Addams names

Addamses tend to have names that reflect their gothic nature. They also may have a prefix to their name depending on the age which other addamses will add to their personal name when interacting with each other. All Addamses share the same last name. Addams. 

Those of the two Neutral Names have been known to be rather creative with their names, some even having multiple names if they present as different genders on different days.

Familial titles

Aunt (Middle aged or slightly older Female family member), Auntie (Middle aged or slightly older Female or Neutral family mamber), Cousin (A family member who is slightly older or the same age of any gender), Grandfather (An older male or Neutral family member), Grandmama (An older Female or Neutral family member) , Grandmother (An older Female or Neutral family member), Grandpapa (An older male or Neutral family member), Grandy (An older Neutral family member), Grannie (An older Female or Neutral family member), Uncle (Middle aged or slightly older Male or Neutral), Unty (An older male or Neutral family member).

Male Names

Aristotle, Blight, Canker, Cleaver, Droop, Edwin, Erasmus, Eustace, Fester, Gomez, Grizzly, Ichabod, Itt, Knick-knack, Lurch, Odd, Pubert, Pugsly, Slurp, Thing, Turncoat, Yoric

Female Names

Abigail, Abigail, Anorexia, Catastrophia, Cleopatra, Diandra, Elvira, Fern, Gretch, Melancholia, Minerva, Morticia, Noggin, Ophellia, Penelope, Phobia, Putrescence, Scrunge, Tish, Vampira, Vendetta, Wednesday

Neutral Names

Abigail, Anorexia, Aristotle, Ben, Bleak, Blight, Blip, Blob, Cackle, Caliban, Canker, Catastrophia, Cleaver, Cleopatra, Clot, Crimp, Diandra, Droop, Edwin, Elvira, Erasmus, Eustace, Fern, Fester, Gomez, Goop, Gretch, Gripe, Grizzly, Grope, Gru, Grunge, Ichabod, Itt, Knick-knack, Lurch, Melancholia, Minerva, Morticia, Noggin, Odd, Ophellia, Penelope, Phobia, Pubert, Pugsly, Putrescence, Scrunge, Slurp, Snort, Snozzle, Thing, Tish, Trin, Turncoat, Vampira, Vendetta, Wednesday, Yoric

Addams Traits

All Addamses are strange and mysterious. As an Addams you have the following traits.

Ability Score Increase

You gain a +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to Charisma

Age

 Addams age at nearly the same rate as Humans do, reaching maturity at the age of 20. Addamses can live to be nearly 300 years old.

Alignment

All Addamses are generous to a fault but have a different way of viewing things. Addamses tend to chaotic alignments with the bulk of Addamses being Chaotic Good. It is almost unheard of for an Addams to be Evil.

Size

An Addams can be anywhere from 4 to 7 feet tall. Your size is medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write common and Deep Speech. You can also speak Gibberspeech, which is a unique gibberish language whu=ich sounds like high pitched backwards speech. Gibberspeach can be understood by all Addams and any creature within 30 feet that the Addams wishes.

Addams’ Resilience

Your physiology as an Addams is greatly increased. You gain Immunities to Poison and Acid damage. However, you are vulnerable to Fire damage, Radiant damage, and Slashing, Bludgeoning, or Piercing damage from silver weapons.

The Addams’ Charm

You have advantage on Charisma based checks on Fiends, Undead, Monstrosities, Aberrations, as well as Minotaurs and Monstrous races as described in Volo’s Guide to Monsters. 

However, you have disadvantage on Charisma based checks on most Celestials, Fey, and Humanoids (Excluding Drow, Kalashtar, Shifters, Semic Hybrids, Warforged, and Kenku). On a failed Charisma based check, your frightening visage and overly friendly energy will come off in a very wrong way and the target will be frightened of you for 1d4 rounds. While frightened, the target will either run or attack recklessly at the DM's Discretion.

The Addams’ Honor

You are proficient with Rapiers, Daggers, and Handaxes. 

You also start with an additional 10gp.

Darkvision

As a denizen of the night and frequenter of creepy mansions, your eyes are accustomed to dark places. You can see in dim light within 30 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.

Creepy and Kooky

As an Addams, you are far from simply human. You possess some strange abnormality stemming from your unknown nature. At 1st level, roll a d10 or select a choice from the following table for an Abnormality. 

 

1-2: Spider climb, You can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

3-4: Lurking Stealth, You gain advantage on stealth checks while in a city, cemetery or crypt, or inside of a building. 

5-6: Silent Step, You can use a bonus action to teleport silently to a spot you can see within 60 feet of yourself. Once this ability is used it cannot be used again until you take a short or long rest. 

7-8: Beast Speech: You gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts as if under the effects of the Speak with Animals spell. 

9-10: Summon Swarm: Once per day, you can summon a swarm of creepy animals which will be friendly towards you and hostile to any creature that harms you. The Swarm will be summoned for one hour if not destroyed or dispersed before returning to the shadows. Roll a d10 to determine the type of swarm you summon. 

1. Swarm of Bats
2. Swarm of Spiders
3. Swarm of Wasps
4. Swarm of Rats
5. Swarm of Ravens
6. Swarm of Beetles
7. Swarm of Centipedes
8. Swarm of Rot Grubs
9. Swarm of Poisonous Snakes
10.  Swarm of Cranium Rats

Mysterious and Spooky

At 5th level, your strangeness becomes even more apparent, granting you another odd Abnormality. Roll a d10 or choose an option from the following table to determine your Abnormality.

 

1-2: Charged: You gain resistance to Lightning damage. In addition, you learn the Shocking Grasp Cantrip and once per day can cast Witchbolt. Charisma is your Spellcasting Modifier for these spells. 

 

3-4: To the Rack, You can use a Bonus Action to gain pleasure from pain and restore hit points when damaged by a hostile creature with anything other than Fire, Radiant, or silver weapons. You restore hit points equal to the amount of damage you would have taken plus your Constitution modifier to a maximum of half of your max Hit Points. After using this ability, you cannot use it again until finishing a short or long rest.

 

5-6: Ghoulish Might: You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. You also have advantage on Strength saving throws. 

 

7-8: Seance Summons: Once per in game week you may partake in a night-long ceremony to summon a Ghostly Familiar to your side. The ritual requires 10 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier.

 You gain the service of a Ghostly familiar. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range. The familiar has the statistics and actions of a Specter.

Your Summoned Familiar will have the same Alignment as you

Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. 

When the familiar drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. 

While your familiar is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it telepathically. Additionally, as an action, you can see through your familiar's eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.

As an action,  you can temporarily dismiss your familiar. It disappears into the Astral Plane where it awaits your summons. Alternatively, you can dismiss it forever. As an action while it is temporarily dismissed, you can cause it to reappear in any unoccupied space within 30 feet of you.

You can't have more than one familiar at a time. If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, the previous familiar will be destroyed.

Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell. Your familiar must be within 100 feet of you, and it must use its reaction to deliver the spell when you cast it. If the spell requires an attack roll, you use your attack modifier for the roll.

 

9-10: Dark knowledge: You have advantage on History, Religion, and Arcana checks involving the Occult, Monsters, and Torture.