Homebrew Bloodbeast Species Details

OVERVIEW 
Bloodbeast are a race that live in 2 forms; being able to fluently switch between an animal and a humanoid. They bear a special rune that resembles their animal on their eyes. They often wear this rune on their armor and clothing. Bloodbeasts in their humanoid form have sharp ears and are shorter, average around 5 ft. Their eye color can be anything, and their skin colors are black (like pitch black), dark brown, brown, red-brown, red-tan, dark tan, tan, and white (like pure white). Their hair is thicker and doesn’t grow out long, and has color ranging from black to brown, and they can also have dark red hair. Pure-white Bloodbeasts often have golden hair as well. Bloodbeasts usually live in the lusher parts of the Quoya desert and the lower mountain areas of Koryaz desert, in small groups of cabins that are made mostly of wood and rock. When their language was first devolving, bloodbeasts took inspiration from the giant's language, resulting in a smooth and fast language with some harsher pronunciation. Bloodbeasts developed at around the same time as elves and dwarves. 

HISTORY 
 The Bloodbeasts that lived in mountain areas became allies with the giants, while the ones that lived in deserts, knowing the strength of giants, started taming earth elements to add to their forces. Bloodbeasts soon became a powerful race, divided into 2 kingdoms- the kingdom of Valaron, which housed the mountain Bloodbeasts, and the kingdom of Esfur, which had the desert Bloodbeasts. The kingdom of Esfur used swift combat and illusion magic, while Valaron had wizards and powerful fighters. They were growing in power faster than the other races at the time, and the elves started seeing them as a threat. Though Bloodbeasts are truly named Incartha, they are called Bloodbeasts by many races who hate them, in which the term bloodbeast comes from when bloodbeast shift into there other form, there body breaked dwon then reabuilds itself. Many sun elves and Avariel (winged elves) teamed up and joined the side of Esfur to eliminate the mountain Bloodbeasts. But the elves completely misunderstood the power of giants and bloodbeasts working together. In a short span of time, the elves and Esfur were forced to surrender and give up much of their riches and land. But once the elves left their side, Valaron and their giant allies pushed on to finish them off. Esfur stood not much of a chance, and were defeated quickly. But they did stop there- they went on to try to find and kill them all. But the remaining Esfur were excellent tricksters, and convinced them that their king was a desert Incartha, getting him executed. In these few days of panic, everyone that could attack Valaron did- all types of elves, monsters, lizard folk, goblins, and groups of changelings. But the Incartha fought valiantly. They fought with everything they had, one tearing down 100. The giants sent some aid, but not enough. Eventually, they were overtaken. The Incartha scattered, but still mostly lived my mountains. Gaints are usually fond of them, their old alliance mostly still existing. They hold huge grudges against elves, and smaller grudges against Lizardfolk, goblins, and changelings. Over time though, the Incartha started to rebuild. Small groups of them formed and they rebuilt towns, and even created a small castle on top of the mountains named “Frostridge”. Incartha have spread out thought the forgotten realms, but most people don’t know of their existence. But in most big wars in history, there has always been a couple of Incartha fighting against the elves and or with the giants. And as they grow, the people of Faerun can only hope that the Bloodbeasts aren't going to strike back to reclaim what was once theirs... 
 

Bloodbeast Traits

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Speed

Incartha have a 30ft base walking speed. Despite their slightly smaller size, Incartha are just as quick as most humanoids. 

Size

Most Incartha are just higher than 5ft, making their size medium, though particularly small bloodbeasts can be small. 

Age

Incartha don't really age and aren't very venerable to sickness, so most bloodbeasts live until they are killed in battle. This is one of their major strengths that made them develop quicker; wisdom was rarely lost. 

Alignment

Incartha are usually bitter towards society, especially elves, but they get along quite well with dwarves. Most of them just do what they feel like doing, making them usually chaotic.

Languages

Incartha speak Arthic, the main language of incartha, a smooth and fast language with some Gaint-ish aspects, and they also speak common. 

Ability Score Increase6

+2 wisdom, +1 constitution 

Beast Shift

Incartha are able to fluently swap between animal and humanoid. Unlike druids, who can wild shape into an animal for a certain amount of time, Incartha lives as both an animal and a humanoid. When they do this, their body breaks down and rebuilds itself into another form. Choose any animal that is ½ challenge rating or lower. As a bonus, you can turn into that animal, or turn from that animal into your humanoid form. You choose this animal when you first create your character, and you can’t change it. While in animal form, you retain the ability to talk the languages and cast spells. You keep your intelligence score, and you keep your charisma and wisdom scores unless the animal has a higher one, in which you use that. Your strength, dexterity, and constitution scores turn into the animals. When you level up, you also increase your health in your animals' form by their hit point dice, and when you increase your ability scores you do this for the your animal form as well. You also keep things like feats and other abilities like extra attack in beast form. When you shift, your armor won’t shift with you, unless you perform simple enchantments that almost all incartha know that takes 1 hour and 5 silver pieces. When you do this, your armor will shift to fit your beast form. The rune in your eyes will also be on your animal form’s eyes, although you can make the rune disappear and reappear whenever you want. HOW HEALTH WORKS: when switching between animal and human form, you subtract the total amount of health you have lost and applied that loss to your other health. If this is enough to render you unconscious, you just drop down to one hit point, but when you switch back, you stay at one hit point. 

Resilience

Incartha are resilient to all sorts of poison and sickness. You gain resistance to poison damage, and you have advantage on constitution saving throws against poison and sickness. 

Regeneration

Having the ability to shift into another creature and back, you can use this ability to regenerate quicker. You can roll double the amount of hit dice to heal yourself during a short rest, and you only need two successful death saving throws to become stable.