Homebrew Chian-Mao Species Details

The Chian-Mao are a hearty folk, coming from the far south of the sword coast, or Aerenal, or Qualinesti depending on if you're playing in the Forgotten Realms, in Eberron, or maybe even Dragonlance.

They fight well and hard, and drink even harder. Passing thorugh their agricultural villages in swamps and along rivers guarantees hearing loud folk music, swearing, and maybe even brawling depending on the day.

 

A Society Without Hierarchy

While in most places, there is usually some kind of king, mayor, or council keeping the whole place under control, the Chian-Mao essentially work without any official hierarchy. You don't do what someone says because they talk fancy, if you follow them it's because you're friends, or you respect their strength, or helly maybe they gave you some strong jiao, the hard, slightly sweet rice-liquor usually made by their produce.

 

Free Souls

A Chian-Mao's attitude to life is somewhere between that of a Dwarf and a Halfling. They respect strength, love drink, and pray often, but they detest the strong hierarchies that dwarves have. They often instead lend towards a semi-relaxed lifestyle. They do word hard and well on their farms, as you would excpect of an agricultural society, but they detest others telling them that they have to do it or that they have any real duties. They work because they want food and a bit of coin to spend at the end of the day. They much prefer drinking and singing, telling stories and legends, and just taking life at it's own pace. A normal Chian-Mao's day might start off with waking up and having a chow, then going to the rice or bamboo fields, going to a bar with shade during the strong midday sun,for an hour, having a drink and a bit of chow, going back to the fields during early afternoon and then playing games, singing, drinking, or brawling as a semi-official sport before a late dinner, and finally sleeping during the middle of the evening.

See they don't like working, and feel no real obligation, rather prefering what they usually do in their afternoons, but they are more than smart enough to realize that people need to do jobs.

 

A Simple Life

While on the topic of jobs, they don't really have many. They feel little need to have an advanced society, huge castles, or fancy weapons, and thus the extent of jobs in a Chian-Mao society might not extend beyond the regular farmers tending to their sheep, rice, bamboo, and vegetables, a tailor or two for clothes, a shop for things imported from larger societies in exchange from their staple liqours, a few barworkers and owners, and maybe a scant dozen in the really large ones growing spices, silk worms,  and other specialized products a society of thousands might require. But basically never larger than that. And such places grow kinda chaotic since they don't really have any officials or similar.

 

An Interesting Origin

Chian-Mao were originially fey creatures basically resembling panda bears, but slimmer and cleverer. They were tricksters, gifted with great magics and always up for pranks and parties. At one point, no one quite knows when, they suffered a curse making them far less powerful and banishing them from the fey courts and worlds, their only remaining ability being similar to the shape shifting of dragons, but less powerful. These now far less powerful Chian-Mao then *AHEM* bore offspring with humanoid creatures, often speculated to be possibly elves or some kind of halfling race. Why and or how the funky coconut party this happened has been explained in many folk stories, but chances are it was just a prank from some Chian-Mao to dump a weird looking, fuzzy, child on someone(Hey that is actually one of the folk stories. It's a precautionary tale about why not trusting strangers is a stupid idea since they were created from just one of those things).

Anyhow, the Chian-Mao have the black and white fur patterns of their ancestors, the general physique of an elf, although a bit taller, and the life attitude of a halfling.

Chian-Mao Traits

Your Chian-Mao character has it's culture and nature manifested in a few interesting traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your Constitution score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.

Tool Proficiency

You gain proficiency with the artisan’s tools of your choice: woodworker’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or chef’s utencils(It only shows other choices due to me not giving enough fricks to make a proper one).

Chian-Mao alestomachs.

You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage due to your system being built to handle almost toxic types of liqour(explained in the “Combat” section).

Weak Illusionists

You may cast the spell Disguise Self once per long rest without requiring components. Once you reach 5th Level, you may cast Alter Self, although only with the change appearance option, once every dawn without requiring components. The duration time for the spell has been increased to 1 week, but you may not cast Alter Self while the spell is already in effect.

Fey Ancestry

You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and can't be put to sleep magically.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Chian-Mao Sylvan. The chian-mao dialect is full of fluid sounds broken by a few sharp consonants. To our ears it's basically a faint chinese action when it bleeds through.

Age

Chian-Mao mature at the same rate as humans, but they’re considered young until they reach the age of 40. They may live as long as 600 or 700 years.

Alignment

Chian-Mao are generally on the chaotic side due to their fey nature, also often being good. There's not much room for ill-will in small societies such as theirs.

Size

Chian-Mao generally stand between 5 and 6 feet tall and average about 145 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor.