Homebrew Wood Woad Species Details

Born of Sacrifice. The ritual to create a wood woad is a primeval secret passed down through generations of savage societies and dark druid circles. Performing the ritual isn’t necessarily an act of evil, if the victim-to-be has entered into a bargain that requires it to be a willing sacrifice.

In the ritual a living person’s chest is pierced and the heart removed. A seed is then pushed into the heart, and it is placed in a tree. Any hollow or crook will do, but often a special cavity is carved out of the trunk. The tree is then bathed and watered with the blood of the sacrificed victim, and the body is buried among the tree’s roots. After three days, a sprout emerges from the ground at the base of the tree and swiftly grows into a humanoid form.

Pitiless Protectors. A wood woad has a hole where its heart would be, just as does the body of its former self, buried in the earth. Those who become wood woads trade their free will and all sense of sentiment for supernatural strength and a deathless duty. They exist only to protect woodlands and the people who tend them. A wood woad’s face is void and expressionless, except for the motes of light that swim about in its eye sockets. Wood woads speak little, and when not being called upon to take action, they root themselves in the earth and silently take sustenance from it.

Uprooted by Immortality. Like a tree, a wood woad needs only sunlight, air, and nutrients from the earth to go on living. Because they are undying, some wood woads outlive their original purpose. The site a wood woad guards might lose its power or significance over time, or those whom it was assigned to guard might themselves die. If it is freed from its specific duties, a wood woad might roam to find another place of natural beauty or fey influence to watch over. 

Wood woads are drawn to creatures that have close ties to nature, and that protect and respect the land, such as druids and treants. Some treants have wood woad servants by virtue of age-old pacts with druids or fey that performed the rituals, while others acquire the services of freed wood woads that find renewed purpose in the domain of a kindred guardian

Wood Woad Traits

Your Wood Woad character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age

Wood Woads are immortal

Alignment

Being created for the purpose of protecting the forest, and having little regard of society, Wood Woads tend toward lawful neutral.

Size

Being part plant, and having the soul of a humanoid, you have the size of medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a climbing speed of 30 feet.

Grown Shield

You speed up the process of growth one, or both arms, and grow a shield. This process takes a bonus action. You lose the ability to use the hand until you dismiss the shield as a bonus action.

Photosynthesize

When you take a long rest, and are in contact with earth and soil, you instead only need 4 hours. You still need a full 8 hours if you are not in contact with the earth.

Plant Camouflage

The wood woad has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks it makes in any terrain with ample obscuring plant life.

Strong Arm

As a bonus action, you wrap your arm around any weapon. The weapon can not be removed from you unwillingly, unless you are dead. If the weapon is two handed, you can still wield it with one hand. All other rules still apply. You can use this trait at the same time as the grown shield trait.

Natural Armor

You have tough, bark skin. When you aren’t wearing armor, your AC is 13 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.

Languages

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