Homebrew Yautja Species Details

Alien Minds

The Yautja’s hunter nature comes through not only in their appearance, but also in how they think and Yautja experience a more limited emotional life than other humanoids. Like reptiles, their feelings largely revolve around Intimidation, aggression, and skill.

Yautja experience most feelings as detached descriptions of creatures and situations. For example, humans confronted by an angry troll experience fear on a basic level. Their limbs shake, their thinking becomes panicked and jumbled, and they react by instinct. The emotion of fear takes hold and controls their actions. In contrast, lizardfolk see emotions as traits assigned to other creatures, objects, and situations. A Yautja doesn’t think, “I’m scared.” Instead, aggressive, stronger creatures register to the Yautja as fearsome beings to be a Chance to challenge themselves. If such creatures attack, Yautja attack, fighting in retaliation. Yautja aren’t scared of a troll; instead, they understand that a troll is a Powerful, dangerous creature and react accordingly.

Yautja never become angry in the way others do, but they act with aggression toward creatures and structures that they could defeat in a fight or demolish easily and that can’t be dealt with in some other manner. They are aggressive toward prey they want to eat, creatures that want to harm them, and so on.

Pleasurable people and things make life easier for Yautja. Pleasurable things should be preserved and protected, sometimes at the cost of the Yautja’s own safety. The most pleasurable creatures and things are like Trophy’s and are for the Yautja to prove their challenging rights and keep their status of fearsome warriors.

 

Yautja lack meaningful emotional ties to the past. They assess situations based on their current and future utility and importance. Nowhere does this come through as strongly as when Yautja deal with the dead. To a Yautja, a comrade who dies becomes a potential source of food. That companion might have once been a warrior or hunter, but now the body is just freshly killed meat.

A Yautja who lives among other humanoids can, over time, learn to respect other creatures’ emotions. The Yautja doesn’t share those feelings, but instead assesses them in the same clinical manner. Yes, the fallen dwarf might be most useful as a meal, but hacking the body into steaks provokes aggression in the other humanoids and makes them less helpful in battle.

Utility and Survival

The Yautja mindset might seem unnecessarily cruel, but it helps them survive in a hostile environment. The swamps they inhabit are filled with a staggering variety of threats.

Yautja see little need to plan more than a season or so into the future. This approach allows them to maintain their current level of influence in the world, but it limits their growth. Many Yautja have no interest in developing writing, making long-term plans, or cultivating other methods to progress beyond their simple existence as hunters and gatherers, in rare situations Yautja live for the passion of creation.

 

Lizardfolk Personality

You can use the Lizardfolk Quirks table to determine a personality quirk for a lizardfolk character or to inspire a unique mannerism.

Lizardfolk Quirks

d8	Quirk
1	You hate waste and see no reason not to scavenge fallen enemies. Fingers are tasty and portable!
2	You sleep best while mostly submerged in water.
3	Money is meaningless to you.
4	You think there are only two species of humanoid: lizardfolk and meat.
5	You have learned to laugh. You use this talent in response to all emotional situations, to better fit in with your comrades.
6	You still don’t understand how metaphors work. That doesn’t stop you from using them at every opportunity.
7	You appreciate the soft humanoids who realize they need chain mail and swords to match the gifts you were born with.
8	You enjoy eating your food while it’s still wriggling.

The Yautja

The yautja’s name represents its dominant feature or combat style. Some Yautja who have suffered a severe wound may be called scar or torn, while a Yautja that rips its enemies apart with a blade may be called Sickle or Lash.

Yautja usually take names based on their class.

Yautja names: Scar, Blade, Wolf, Hawk, Sickle, Lash, Ghost, Wraith, Hunter, Glaive and Razor.

 

 

 

Yautja Traits

Your Yautja character has the following racial traits.

Age

Yautja reach maturity around same age as humans and live for 1000 years.

Alignment

Most Yautja are Lawful neutral. They see the world as a place of predators and prey, where life and death are natural processes. They wish to challenge themselves rather than surviving, and prefer to leave other smaller creatures to their own devices.

Size

Yautja are bulkier and taller than humans, and their colorful splotches and large forehead make them appear even larger. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swimming speed of 30 feet.

Bite

Your fanged maw is a natural weapon, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with it, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d8 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

Hold Breath

You can hold your breath for up to 15 minutes at a time.

Hunter’s Lore

You gain proficiency with two of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival.

Natural Armor

You have tough, scaly skin. When you aren’t wearing armor, your AC is 14 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.

Hungry Jaws

In battle, you can throw yourself into a vicious feeding frenzy. As a bonus action, you can make a special attack with your bite. If the attack hits, it deals its normal damage, and you gain temporary hit points (minimum of 1) equal to your Constitution modifier, and you can’t use this trait again until you finish a short or long rest.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common but have some trouble speaking common, there mouths lack the elegance of some words, they can speak, read, and write abyssal.