Homebrew Daemon Species Details

You have your eyes but see not where you are in sin, nor where you live, nor whom you live with. Do you know who your parents are? Unknowing you are enemy to kith and kin in death, beneath the earth, and in this life.

—Sophocles

And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you—it’s born with us the day that we are born.

—Homer, The Illiad

Daemons, sometimes called demigods, are the children of celestials and mortals. Their births are rare, as many mortals are not capable of carrying a celestial child, and their lives are usually short, as many of them rarely make it to the Settling age before an untimely death. These children are born with immense power that gives them great potential—for good or for evil. Some daemons spend their lives hunting down monsters to vanquish. Others use their destructive abilities to conquer and pillage. Whatever path they choose, daemons are rarely forgotten and often find themselves the object of many ballads.

Never Ordinary

While most people exist complacently somewhere between good and evil, content to putter along in their dull lives exhibiting neither great heroism nor dastardly villainy, a daemon is never ordinary to anything more than passing observation. They may indeed go many years at a time without doing anything noteworthy, but they infallibly either prove themselves the most selfless and noble of saints or the most depraved and demonic of persons. Being as they have a far greater capacity for good or ill than mortals, there is ultimately little in way of grey about their personalities. Your alignment cannot be neutral. (Must choose: Chaotic Good, Lawful Good, Chaotic Evil, Lawful Evil.)

Out of Place

There are few who can understand the strange dynamic a daemon has with their godly parent so for a daemon to seek out others of its kind is not uncommon despite the uniqueness of their kind. Of all the races that exist within the world, the aasimar are a people whom daemons feel the greatest connection towards. Their celestial origins, along with this shared sense of conflicted purpose, cause them to be largely understanding of each other. As such daemons feel the greatest sense of community in these societies. This sense often becomes lost to them in their early teens when they begin to manifest their own divine powers.

Chronicle

For as long there have been gods, there have been the half-blood children of them. Though often the result of a direct union of a deity and a mortal, different circumstance may cause a daemon to be born in another way. Daemons often grow to become great heroes or terrible villains. The tales of individual daemons are told in legend, that is their history. Such legends are Achilles, the hero of the great Trojan war; the famed Heracles and his many exploits; Karna, the son of the Sun god Surya; Bragi, son of Odin and so on. Each forged a legend of themselves through their great and not so great deeds and it is by the legends they live on.

Direct Link

In the way a cleric has a connection to his or her deity, a daemon has that same connection with a more personal touch. Whereas a god may be distant from their cleric only giving them occasional pushes in the right direction, a god may appear before their child in a more direct fashion to grant insights into their quests and may even perform miracles the daemon wouldn't be able to themselves. However, while there are daemon that are close enough to their godly parents to request such things, there are daemons who despise or even hate their parents as well as those whose godly parents haven't even acknowledged the divine blood that courses through them. Normally the first meeting of a daemon and their parent sets the tone for the relationship and it is up to your Dungeon Master to determine the nature of the relationship.

Deific Tell

Many beings, including yourself, have a connection to the celestial realm your godly parent makes their home. Particular beings or creatures can tell of the connection you and they both possess. Most the time these are celestial, fey, fiends or other creatures like a medusa or minotaur and their relationships with the divine will normally affect their relationship with you. For example, a celestial being that comes across you may react to you in a variety of ways given the deity that created them. They may see you like an angelic guide sees an aasimar and approach you with an interest, driven by a sense of responsibility or they may assist you in some minor way to allow you to continue to forge your own path while also gaining favor from your godly parent. However, on the other side of the coin, they may react violently to your presence as not all daemons are the spawn of good-aligned deity's and seek to smite you or deal with you in some other way. Fiends may try to use or trick you as part of an attempt to gain more power. Fey may find you simply be too interesting to pass up and mischievously follow you from place to place.

Daemon Names

Daemons use the same naming conventions as the native culture they were born into. A daemon born into and brought up in The Seven Havens of Mount Celestia would have a very different name to one brought up within a humble house in Waterdeep. The names of well-known demigods are as follows.

Male: Achilles, Arcas, Belleroph, Heracles, Perseus, Theseus, Romulus, Remus, Karna, Vali, Bragi

Female: Annabeth, Bianca, Draupadi, Diana, Elizabeth, Harmonia, Helen, Thalia

Daemon Traits

Daemons were never born to be average. Traits vary between offspring, reliant upon their godly and mortal parents, but you can expect these traits in a daemon.

Ability Score Increase

Your ability scores increase depending on your godly parents Divine Domain.

Age

Daemons reach full maturity in their late teens and the rest of their lifespan can go one of two ways: More powerful daemons Settle, meaning they stop aging and become immortal, in their mid-twenties. Less fearsome daemons continue to age normally and live to be a century old.

Alignment

Daemons are as varied as their mortal and godly parents, although they always feel a strong inclination towards the alignment of their godly parent.

Size

Daemons vary in height and built due to their humanoid parents coming from a variety of races. However, they usually appear within the taller ranges and stronger builds of their mortal side's race. Regardless of your position in that range or your parent's race, your size is medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Fated

The threads of fates unravel and tie themselves anew for a demigod. When you roll a 1 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can re-roll the die and must use the new roll.

Divine Domain

You are innately better than others in areas pertaining to your godly parent's divine domain. Choose an option from the Divine Domain Ability Score Increases that pertains to your godly parent's domain.

Divine Portfolio

Your godly parent has dominion over a specific portfolio. Choose an option from the Divine Portfolio Traits that pertains to your parent's divine domain. This must be the same as the option you picked for your divine domain trait.

Godly Parentage

Unswerving of will and unassailable of mind, you have advantage on saving throws against being charmed and frightened. In addition, you cannot be aged magically.

Mortal Parentage

Even though it is your godly parent that makes you special, you still have a mortal parent. While you don't receive any of the racial traits that your mortal parent has, your mortal parent must be humanoid and you physically resemble that race in its most epitomized form.

Portfolio Sense

Demigods have a limited ability to sense events involving their portfolios. You automatically sense notable events and minor events within 5 miles that involves your portfolio. When a demigod senses an event, it merely knows that the event is occurring and where it is. The demigod receives no sensory information about the event. For example, if a demigod of the nature portfolio was within 5 miles of a forest fire it would become aware of it and where it is happening. If it was 10 miles away it wouldn't have any idea but if that forest fire broke the seal on an ancient evil that their godly parent or some other nature god locked away you would become aware of it as well as the location of the site.

Languages

You can speak, read and write Common and all daemons have the innate ability to speak, read and write Celestial. Whether they discover this by meeting an angel or when a traveling aasimar got a peek at their scribbles as a child is, it is ultimately up to you. Celestial as a language sounds like a heavenly choir when spoken, and is written with a grace and fluidity that no mortal language has replicated.