Homebrew Dryad Species Details

Travelers entering a forest might catch a glimpse of a slender form flitting through the trees. Warm laughter hangs on the air, drawing those who hear it deeper into the emerald shadows. Although most tales of dryads describe them as leafy, feminine forms, male dryads do exist as well.

Treebound

Powerful fey will sometimes bind lesser fey spirits to trees, transforming them into dryads. This is sometimes done as a punishment when the fey spirit falls in love with a mortal and that love is forbidden.

A dryad can emerge from the tree and travel the lands around it, but the tree remains their home and roots them to the world. As long as the tree remains healthy and unharmed, the dryad stays forever youthful and alluring. If the tree is harmed, he or she suffers. If the tree is ever destroyed, the dryad descends into madness. As a result, most dryads remain close to their own tree in order to protect it, acting as guardians of their woodland demesnes.

Rarely, however, some circumstance may push a dryad to leave its forest behind for a time in order to combat something that he or she sees as threatening their woodland home—and more specifically, their own tree. Such instances are unusual, typically requiring the threat to be either specifically directed at the dryad’s tree, or so large in scope that the entire forest would be in danger.

In a very real sense, dryads are creatures of the woods, and this allows them to speak with plants and animals, as well as teleport from one tree to another to lure interlopers away from their groves. If pressed, a dryad can beguile humanoids with her enchantments, turning enemies into friends, and they also know a handful of useful spells.

Lonesome Guardians

Since dryads are created rather than born, there is no real concept of a dryad society. Although in some instances they may interact with each other if they happen to inhabit the same woodland, it’s more common for a dryad to spend its time with
nearby animals and the trees, whom they regard as the wisest and most sacred of creations.

Given their attachment to forests, dryads do not often interact with other sapient races. They are more likely to find friends among elves, firbolg, and druids, usually treating others with suspicion or even fear.

One further hardship for a dryad among other civilizations are the concepts of firewood and timber. A dryad that sees a tree being cut down equates the experience to witnessing a murder. It can talk to that tree, hear its wisdom and ancient knowledge, understand how it nourishes the earth and is nourished in turn. As a result, dryads may sometimes commit desperate and wild acts to protect trees in ways that seem illogical to many other races.

Dryad Names

Most dryads have names that are fey in nature—some retain their old names from before their existence as dryads, although many do not remember their previous lives and instead choose new names, usually Elvish ones. (see pages 22-23 of the Player’s Handbook for examples). Given their lack of society, dryads have little use for surnames, but on the rare occasion when they choose one, it is usually a portmanteau of two or more words related to nature.

Dryad Surnames: Ashflood, Autumnbreeze, Bramblenight, Fernpath, Hollowgrass, Lillyleaf, Loamsoil, Oakroot, Rainflower, Riverbranch, Snowtrack, Springtree, Summerweed, Suntoss, Thistlebole, Thornmoss, Waterfield, Willowbush, Windseed

 

NOTE: This race is copy/pasted from Scales & Fur - A Race Folio v. 1.0

Dryad Traits

Your dryad character has a number of traits in common with all other dryads.

Ability Score Increase

Dryad's are charming by nature, and their generally long lives and natural view of the world have increased their wisdom over time. Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Age

So long as a dryad's tree survives, a Dryad can never truly die. A dryad lives as long as the tree to which he or she is bound, which may be hundreds or even thousands of years. 

Alignment

There is neither good, nor evil, in nature. There is merely the circle of life. By and large dryads tend toward neutrality, seeing the passing events of history as the simple course of nature. Things that go against nature—such as undead, blight, or hellish creatures—usually earn the hatred of dryads.

Forest Magic

You know the druidcraft cantrip. 

When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the entangle spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.

When you reach 5th level, you can cast the barkskin spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.

Your spell-casting ability for these spells is Charisma.

Speak with Beasts and Plants

A Dryad can converse with the denizens of the forest in which it lives. You can communicate with beasts and plants as if you shared a language.

Tree Stride

Dryads have an incredibly strong affinity with trees, and can with some expended effort can travel between them. You can use 10 feet of your movement to step magically into one living tree within your reach and emerge from a second living tree within 60 feet of the first tree, appearing in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the second tree. Both trees must be large or bigger. Once you use this ability, you must complete a long rest before you can use it again.

Fey Charm

As an action, you can target one humanoid or beast that you can see within 30 feet of you. If the target can see you, it must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + your Charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus), or be magically charmed, as if affected by the charm person spell. You can’t use this trait again until after you complete a short or long rest.

Treebound

Your life essence is bound to one specific tree. As long as that tree lives, so do you, but harm conferred upon the tree similarly extends to you. If your tree is destroyed, you immediately fall into crippling madness, as if affected by the feeblemind spell, except that only a wish spell can cure it.

If your tree dies and you do not bind yourself to a new tree within 30 days, you die, and a tree often grows where you fell or were buried.

It is possible for you to become bound to a new tree by performing a woodland ritual that takes one day. This involves stitching a piece of the new tree’s bark onto your skin (which merges with you over time), emptying an ounce of your blood onto the roots of the tree, and imbibing an elixir of forest ingredients costing 1,000 gp. It is often necessary for a dryad’s friends or companions to assist with at least part of this ritual, as the dryad may not be capable of comprehending what needs to be done, only feeling a deep and urgent need for it to occur.

Languages

Dryads can speak the language of the forest spirit, and that of the elves who so often inhabit their lands. You can speak, read, and write Elvish and Sylvan.