Homebrew Ging'ling Species Details

Self Sufficiency at its Finest             

Ging’lings fear most races of the surface world, due to their heavily scarred past. They have designed several methods to surface the subsurface world while maintaining their independence and avoidance of surface races. Most of the homes of this race are far underground, typically 100 feet or more below the surface. They are exceptionally proficient at hiding the openings to their cavernous underground dwellings. Only unsuspecting travelers have ever stumbled onto a Ging’ling hole; they don’t usually survive the fall that ensues.

     Ging’lings devised a way to farm underground, creating ways to grow surface crops deep underground. They dig holes to the surface and cover these holes to trap unsuspecting animals. The animals fall to their deaths, and the Ging’ling communities process them into food. These traps also have an unfortunate side effect of trapping unwary surface hunters.

     They have no use for the wealth or luxuries of the surface world. Everything they need, they learn how to create from the earth around them. They are exceptionally proficient in pottery, tinkering, and inventing.

Fear and Loathing in the Depths     

Ging’lings care not for the happenings of surface races, nor do they care when one falls into their traps. They have gained a taste for the flesh of living creatures because of the randomness of their trappings. They prefer animal meat, but they will not let a dead body go to waste.

     They have a distinct hatred for elven kind. The high elves of L’ordranel were the ones who created, sacrificed, and murdered their kind for the two centuries that their race has existed. They are trained at birth to recognize and kill any high elf of L’ordranel on sight. They tend to treat most other races with fear or indifference. Most interactions with other races depend on how the different races treat them.

Life, Creation, and Expectations     

L’ordranel wizards created Ging’lings in communion with dark lords from the nine hells. There is no knowledge about who these wizards colluded with, but it is common knowledge that this dark bloodline made its way into the Ging’ling race.

     Ging’lings are not considered evil by most who encounter them, but their bloodline has given them powers that seem darker than their uses. The Ging’ling race is only 200 years old, but the elders have honed their abilities to rival most surface sorcerers in power and strength.

     Dark bloodlines have given the Ging’lings a longer than average life span. Their eldest survivors are known to live around 130 years old. Because of their young lineages and short history, it is unknown how long they could live if left in peace.

Ugly and Cute at the Same Time     

L’ordranel wizards designed the Ging’lings with goblin and halfling features in mind. They are short like goblins but plump like midget halfling race. They have sharp teeth and long claws used for fighting and burrowing. They can hide these sharp features, when not fighting or digging, under their halfling features, making them appear like normal, but squat, halflings. Their ears are more extended, almost elvish shaped, and their eyes are adapted to see deep underground. Their skin tones are a blend of goblin and halfling, most appearing pale white, pale green, or pale gray. The dark bloodline shows in the eyes of these little creatures. Their eyes lean toward dark colors like deep violet, dark red, dark brown, and rare occurrences of black.

Cavernous Deep Dwellings               

Ging’ling homes consist of earth, stone, and mud. The village sorcerors have devised ways of shaping the soil and rock into homes, which are then topped by dried mud shingles. Ging’lings are incredibly adept at carving the earth into vast caverns that defy physics. These caverns, from an outsider’s perspective, appear that they could cave in at any moment, but they do not. These community caverns can last forever and are often trapped at all of the entrances. Most Ging’lings can burrow as fast as humanoids can walk on the land.

     Ging’ling communities consist of a council of ten elders and can have as many members as are in the area. The elders run the community and control all aspects of the community. These elders are sorcerors and shamans of distinguishable power. Schools exist in these underground communities and are utilized to teach the young about their sorcerous or shamanistic abilities. Those who are born without these innate powers either go to school to learn tinkering, crafting, invention, or to study books on magic that fall from unwary travelers.

Ging’ling Names                               

Ging’lings take their names from the books they read and enjoy. Their names have no semblance of order or meaning, much like their language. Because their education comes from the books collected from travelers or stolen from the vaults of their elven masters, their language is a mixture of several of the common styles. Many names amongst this race are common names heard among many of the surface races.

Ging'ling Traits

Your Ging’ling character is small but agile. Their abilities come from the result of their demonic and arcane creation.

Ability Score Improvement

Your Strength, Constitution, and Charisma scores are improved by 1.

Age

Ging’lings, similar to goblins, reach adulthood by the age of 10. They can live close to 150 years old.

Alignment

Ging’lings love their communities and their families but are extremely cautious of outsiders. Their hatred for the high elves of L’ordranel has tempered their ability to enjoy any other race. Even with their contempt for the high elves, they still try to treat others how they want to be treated and will respond to violence in kind. They lean toward chaotic neutral, and chaotic good when dealing with other races.

Size

Ging’lings range from 3 to 4 ½ feet at the tallest with stout halfling builds. Your size is Small.

speed

Your base walking speed is 25. Your base burrow speed is 30. Your swim speed is 10. Ging’lings are known to hate water in all of its forms. Some are even said to smell as though they have never taken a bath.

Darkvision

Ging’lings have accustomed themselves to the dark in much the same way their dark bloodlines have. You can see in dim light up to 60 feet as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light.

Tremor Sense

Ging’lings have tremor sense up to 30 feet.

Earthen Senses

Whenever you are underground, you can make an Intelligence check, with advantage, to know your depth and direction of travel.

Burrowing Stealth

At depths of 15 feet and lower, you have advantage on stealth checks while burrowing (Tremor sense negates this advantage check).

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Ging’ling (This is a broken version of elvish that even elves have trouble understanding).

(cannot mark Ging'ling in this section as there is no custom language option.)

Troubled History

Because of the Ging’ling races’ troubled beginnings, they get advantage on saving throws against being frightened (except spells cast by high elves that the character can see). They have gone through far worse things than any race should have to endure.

Ging'ling Nimbleness

You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.