Homebrew Awakened Dog Species Details
Good Boy or Ferocious Beast?
Dogs have different personalities when they are awakened depending on how they are treated before and after the awakening itself. A wild wolf might see themselves as a proud hunter; too powerful to be held down by a master, while a border collie might see themselves as intellectually equal to humanoids when awakened. It all depends on who the dog is and its environment.
Awakening
The Awaken spell itself describes an intimate ritual in which the caster grants an animal or plant intelligence and the ability to speak, usually a Bard or Druid but story-wise, this need not always be the case. The circumstances of your awakening could be entirely unique depending on the story you wish to tell. The Awaken spell is simply a basis for the existence of a talking dog and not the only acceptable case.
Awakened Dog Traits
Due to your primal canine instincts, you will have the following traits:Ability Score Increase
Your Strength score increases by 2, your Intelligence or Wisdom score increases by 1.
Age
Dogs tend to live short lives depending on their species such as a Chihuahua living up to 20 years while a Mastiff might live up to 8.
Alignment
Dogs alignment is solely dependent on their species and how they were treated when awakened but they usually tend to be good due to their originally domesticated nature.
Size
Dogs can be small or medium size depending on their species.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 30 ft.
Awakened Animal
Instead of being a humanoid creature, you are considered a beast. Any spells or features that affect beasts affect you and any spells or features that affect humanoids do not affect you.
Keen Hearing and Smell
You have advantage on Perception checks that rely on hearing or smell.
Bite
As an action, you may make a melee natural weapon attack against a creature. On a hit, the creature takes 1d6 piercing damage. When you hit a creature using this natural weapon, as a bonus action, you may attempt a shove action against that creature. Shove actions using this feature always treat you as a medium-sized creature unless your size category has magically increased such as through the use of the Enlarge/Reduce spell.
Hunting Stance
As a bonus action, you may choose to drop to all fours or go from standing on all fours to walking on your hind legs. While you are on all fours, your movement speed increases by 10ft, and you can only hold weapons by using your mouth. You cannot hold more than one weapon in your mouth, you cannot use your Bite racial feature while holding a weapon in your mouth, and you cannot hold a shield using your mouth. These effects no longer apply while you stand on your hind legs.
Languages
You can speak, read and write Common and one other language of your choice. Additionally, you can understand dogs, wolves, and other canine-like creatures and they can understand you.