Homebrew Halfbaxi Species Details

Hailing from a strange and distant land where interbreeding between halflings and tabaxi is all too common, halfbaxi are miniature catlike humanoids driven by curiosity to collect interesting artifacts, adventure, gather stories, and lay eyes/paws on all the world’s wonders.

Ultimate travelers, the curious halfbaxi rarely stay in one place for long. Their innate nature pushes them to leave no secrets uncovered, no treasures or legends lost.

Exploring Misfits

Some Halfbaxi remain in their distant homeland, content to dwell in small, tight clans. These halfbaxi hunt for food, craft goods, and largely keep to themselves.

However, not all halfbaxi are satisfied with such a life. The Lord of Chance, the divine figure responsible for the creation of the halfbaxi, gifts each of his children with one specific feline trait. Those halfbaxi gifted with curiosity are compelled to wander; seeking adventure, treasure, stories and friendship. Those who are lucky enough survive this period of wanderlust return home in their final years to share news of the outside world. In this manner, the halfbaxi remain isolated but never ignorant of the world beyond their home.

Altered Values

Halfbaxi treasure knowledge rather than material things. A chest filled with gold coins might be useful to buy food or a coil of rope, but it’s not intrinsically interesting. In the halfbaxi’s eyes, gathering wealth is like packing rations for a long trip. It’s important to survive in the world, but not worth fussing over.

Instead, halfbaxi value knowledge and new experiences. Their ears perk up in a busy tavern, and they tease out stories with offers of food, drink, and coin. halfbaxi might walk away with empty purses, but they mull over the stories and rumors they collected like a miser counting coins.

Although material wealth holds little attraction for the halfbaxi, they have an insatiable desire to find and inspect ancient relics, magical items, and other rare objects. Aside from the power such items might confer, a halfbaxi takes great joy in unraveling the stories behind their creation and the history of their use.

Tinkers and Minstrels

Curiosity drives most of the halfbaxi found outside their homeland, but not all of them become adventurers. Halfbaxi who seek a safer path to satisfy their obsessions become wandering tinkers and minstrels.

These halfbaxi work in small troupes, usually consisting of an elder, more experienced halfbaxi who guides up to four young ones learning their way in the world. They travel in small, colorful wagons, moving from settlement to settlement. When they arrive, they set up a small stage in a public square where they sing, play instruments, tell stories, and offer exotic goods in trade for items that spark their interest. Halfbaxi reluctantly accept gold, but they much prefer interesting objects or pieces of lore as payment.

These wanderers keep to civilized realms, preferring to bargain instead of pursuing more dangerous methods of sating their curiosity. However, they aren’t above a little discreet theft to get their claws on a particularly interesting item when an owner refuses to sell or trade it.

Halfbaxi Personality

A halfbaxi might have motivations and quirks as halflings with a similar background. You can use the following tables to customize your character in addition to the trait, ideal, bond, and flaw from your background.

The Halfbaxi Obsession table can help hone your character’s goals. For extra fun, roll a new result every few days that pass in the campaign to reflect your ever-changing curiosity.

Halfbaxi Obsessions

d8	My curiosity is currently fixed on …
1	A god or planar entity
2	A monster
3	A lost civilization
4	A wizard’s secrets
5	A mundane item
6	A magic item
7	A location
8	A legend or tale

 Halfbaxi Quirks

d10	Quirk
1	You miss your tropical home and complain endlessly about the freezing weather, even in summer.
2	You never wear the same outfit twice, unless you absolutely must.
3	You have a minor phobia of water and hate getting wet.
4	Your tail always betrays your inner thoughts.
5	You purr loudly when you are happy.
6	You keep a small ball of yarn in your hand, which you constantly fidget with.
7	You are always in debt, since you spend your gold on lavish parties and gifts for friends.
8	When talking about something you’re obsessed with, you speak quickly and never pause and others can’t understand you.
9	You are a font of random trivia from the lore and stories you have discovered.
10	You can’t help but pocket interesting objects you come across.

Halfbaxi Traits

Your halfbaxi character has the following racial traits.

Lucky

When you roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 2.

Age

Halfbaxi have lifespans equivalent to halflings.

Alignment

Halfbaxi tend toward chaotic alignments, as they let impulse and fancy guide their decisions. They are rarely evil, with most of them driven by curiosity rather than greed or other dark impulses.

Size

Halfbaxi are comparable in height to halflings (usually between 3-4 feet tall) and relatively slender. Your size is Small.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

You have a cat’s keen senses, especially in the dark. 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 darkness, only shades of gray.

Cat’s Claws

Because of your claws, you have a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Dexterity modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

Cat’s Talent

You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.