Homebrew Spirithost Species Details

 

Hers was a kind of unerthly beauty that rresisted the very confines of reality--her hair so airy that is flowed if defiance of gravity, her skin so fair that it could be seen right through, I knew not if she was alive--or if I was, given the circumstances--but very little of that mattered for the first few moments, shich seemed to stretch on for eons.
--Jethro Meddlitt, gnome Wizard, meeting a spirithost

Half-immaterial and half-flesh, spirithosts are the eerie, spectral, humanlike residents of the Border Ethereal. Though often confused for specters, ghosts and other incorporeal undead, psirithosts are very much alivem as much as their shifting, partly-material bodies allow.

Spectral Sons and Daughters

The Ethereal Plane is generally thought to be lifeless, exclusivelythe domain of restless, incorporeal undead and other translent souls. While it is true that there are no creatures native to that plane, the Border Ethereal has its fair share of adopted inhabitants, such as blink dog, phase spider and spirithost. The latter is the only humanoid to hail from this desolate plane, and might be considered its only true descendant.
      though most spirithosts reside on the Material Plane, they can step sideways into the Ethereal naturally, allowing them to bypass physical obstacles, and can see into the Ethereal effortlessly, allowing them to navigate both planes at once. They can even communicate with the dead directly, a feat few mediums take lightly.

 

Branded Undead

Though their bodies resemble those of ghosts--slightly transculent, glowing from inside with a pale, while light--spirithosts are not undead. Far from it:  they are born, grow old and die, and can even raise children. 
      Despite this, most spirithosts are wrongfully believed to be undead, their eerie, spectral forms too similar to ghosts for the layman to differentiate. Many a well-meaning but ignorant cleric has tried to turn or banish a spirithost, to no avail. To avoid such conflict, spirithosts often avoid large, unfamiliar towns, or disguise their ethereality from others.

 

5th edition inherits some problematic terminology for "race" as a game concept. We prefer the term "ancestry" as an alternative and encourage you to use it in your campaigns, but have opted to use the old terminology in this book for compatibility with other core rules.

Spirithost Traits

Your spirithost character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increase by 1, and any other ability score of your choice increases by 2.

Age

Spirithosts do not experience time in the same way as most mortal creatures. As a result, even though they mature in their teens, their lives can stretch on for hundreds of years.

Alignment

Though some spirithosts are evil, most are simply chaotic, harboring a deep distrust for institutions that so readily brand them as undead.

Size

Spirithost stand as tall as humans, usually around 5 to 6 feet tall. However, their slightly ethereal form is only loosely affiliated with gravity, weighing half as much as a similarly-sized human.
Your size is Medium.

Speed

Spirithosts move gracefully, as if drifting through water. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Ethereal Vision

Your supernatural nature grants you superior vision. While you are on the Material Plane you can see 60 feet into the Ethereal Plane.

Incorporeal Movement

You can move through other creatures as if they were difficult terrain. You can also move through solid objects, but your partially-material form cannot pass through more than one foot of stone, one inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.

If you end your movement occupying the same spot as a solid object or creature, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy and take force damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved.

Ethereal Nature

You can go twice as long without eating, drinking or breathing without penalty.

Spirit Speech

You can cast the spell speak with dead, without using spell slot or material components. You can only ask one question of a corpse when you cast this spell in this way. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Translucence

As a bonus action, you can magically turn invisible until the start of your next turn or until you attack, make a damage roll or force other creature to make a saving throw. Creatures which can see into the Ethereal Plane can see you normally. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.