The Ultimate Race Creator by Andrew Engelbrite with Jeremy Connal for LootTheBoss

In the spirit of full disclosure I was provided a review copy of this supplement for a full and honest review.

This is 335 pages containing everything you need to make any kind of race for any kind of setting use D&D5e with an actually incredibly balanced 10 RP point systems with positive and negative attributes to allow for the most specific and varied, or simple and functional race you can imagine, and many beyond your comprehension. An easy to follow process with clear advice and a cornucopia of options at each stage. With addition aiding to adding lore, a system for random race creation, a pet creation system, 48 prebuilt races using this system that truly show the diversity and range of supplement. I can’t recommend it more strongly for DMs and players alike!

I do have something to say about the naming conventions of supplements and bundles likes these, which I’m sure you can guess, but I’ll leave that at the bottom of my review*

Please see my in-depth view and own creations below.

So What Is This?

“This is the ultimate race creator! It’s designed so that YOU can design any 5e playable race that you can possibly think of, with this book you can be anything, really anything.” This honest and impassioned introduction tells the tale of that “deflated” feeling you feel when you have an idea for a character, but the race and rules don’t support it, and how they have created this tome to make anything and everything possible, so we can all stay...flated? “By tapping into the original design philosophy of the 5e core races, we’ve put together over a thousand racial traits encompassing EVERYTHING we can think of. We balanced these abilities against those of the core races and boiled everything down to a simple modular points system. No more constraints, if you can imagine it, you can be it.” This is definitely a mission statement I can get behind!

For GMs

This part of the introduction reassures DMs that balance has been at the core of this book, and they know the fear of wildly overpowered homebrew that makes DMs swear and players pout when they don’t get it, as well as drawing attention to the Red Flags section, which contains things that DMs may want to veto for their own games. More on that later. This ‘I got you dawg’ section also makes the very salient point that race creation is not just for player characters, and with the tools within DMs make their own races for their own worlds (which can inspire so much more on its own), which can be a wonderful thing to offer a new player coming to your table.

For The Players

This section truly appeals to the players that want to make particularly bizarre creations, going at it real hard with a casual, “How about a draconic undead cyborg with chainsaws for hands?” While also tempering the players that have had their heart set on creating something specific, be it “pandafolk...cute, fearsome, or imaginative creation you’ve had your heart set on.” The point is there’s a whole lotta choice and balance, but also choice, “nearly endless creation possibilities”. There’s even “48 featured races... built using the Ultimate Race Creator” for inspiration and ease. Take the sage advice, “Have fun, go nuts, become that character you’ve always wanted to be.”

Table of Contents

Thorough and easy to peruse with sensibly ordered steps and subcategories. Something I would say rhat PDF is in desperate need of is a digital table of contents, but as the steps from one to the next it’s not the nightmare it could be of Engelbrite had gone for the jazz Jackson Pollock method of layout some rulebooks and supplements strive to achieve.

The Ultimate Race Creation (URC) Method

This method uses a 10 point Racial Points (RP) to create a “race that will be balanced to play alongside the core [5e] races” using the various traits and weaknesses. These trait categories are Ability Score Increase, Age, Alignment, Size, Mobility, Senses, Offensive, Defensive, Magic, and Language. One of each of these traits must be chosen at each stage, unless something specifically states otherwise, with miscellaneous traits to pick if there are any RP left over. There’s even a cleanup step to explain how to turn the chosen traits into a race ready for rolling.

Subraces

A step by step process shows how to create subraces by omitting certain steps from the parent race and adding them to the specific subraces, as well as allowing for replacement traits as necessary.

Transforming Races

This process adds a number of different transformation triggers and reminder to save points to be spent on the transformed form. I’m going to be making my own Werebear of Sebs race (Werebearious Sebsious) as I go through this review, so this is going to be important for me. (Actually, this will be by second attempt at this race as I got overexcited and missed the golden rule: exactly one trait must be picked from each of the main steps!)

Monstrous Races

This sidebar contains the point ratio for regular Adventurering (base), Advanced, Monstrous and Epic-Tier Races for creating races with abilities above and beyond the norm for higher level games, as well as giving the opportunity to create some awesome monsters and BBEGs. This is definitely something I will come back to as a DM to create weird and wonderful monstrosities!

Another great sidebar, I’ll include in full here, addresses the fact that the URC is focused on mechanics and that the aesthetics are up to the creator:

But What If I Want Polka-Dots? The Ultimate Race Creator is designed to fully encompass any functional traits that affect game mechanics you might need to describe your new playable race. What it doesn’t do is fully describe your race’s appearance. Feel free to include any cosmetic features that you decide are important to your new playable race. We put some flavour and fluff into a lot of the racial traits but if that just doesn’t match the idea in your head you always have the power to change it! The racial points are tied to the mechanics, fluff and flavour are free game!

Ability Score Increase

This has been a hot topic recently with a lot of folx putting forward the idea that ASIs shouldn’t be tied to Race, rather Class instead, and while I do agree with the specialisation, rather than homogenous Race ASIs, they variety arrayed here definitely gave me some food for thought.

Here you find 14 different ways of setting up the ASI for your race, ranging from the Deeply Flayed +2 to one attribute and -2 to a second for -3RP, through multiple variations on the standard bonus of +3 spread over 2 or more attributes coming in at 0RP, all the way to Greater Versatility +2 +1 +1 for 4RP and the expensive, but effective Jack of All Trades +1 to EACH attribute for 9RP.

There are also choices for those with subraces with 4 core and 5 subrace options.

I’m making my own Werebear race (Werebearious Sebsious) and I’m factoring in my chronic conditions and ability with folx, so I’m going for Deeply Flawed with a +2 Charisma -2 Dexterity (I considered Constitution , but we Spoonies are a resilient, yet slow and clumsy lot, so Dex was the obvious choice) putting me at -3RP

Age Traits

There are over 50 choices in this section, all of which cost 0RP, which is only fair as there is already a huge variance within the core races. There is everything you could ever want here, from setting your own exact maturity and lifetime and those barely making it to 20 summers to those reaching 3,000 and all manner of reasons why a race might be functionally immortal, unliving or even the lifespan of a race not yet being known, as well as everything in between.

For Werebearious Sebsious I was going to go with the somewhat grim and realistic, Less Time Than Most, but this is fantasy and I love the name:

Longbeards. Your kind mature at the same rate as humans but are considered young until they reach the age of 50. On average, your kind live about 350 years 0RP

Alignment Traits

This is where the idea of ‘Race’ has, rightly taken the most criticism with the ‘Evil’ Drow and ‘Savage’ Orcs often being brought up. Like a lot of DMs these days, I don’t have races that are all inherently one thing or the other. Some might sway to Lawful , Chaotic or even Evil, but Good can be found in all races. The URC has the entire spectrum and combination for all manner of reasons with over 50 philosophies and perspectives, all coming on at 0RP. These are described with the magic words, “tend to” and “lean towards” that, as with the prevailing modern opinion, shows the URC is open to variance of morals within a race.

For Werebearious Sebsious I went with:

Wistful Freedom. Your kind love freedom, variety, and self-expression, so they lean strongly toward the gentler aspects of chaos. They value and protect others’ freedom as well as their own, and they are more often good than not. There are exceptions, those exiled into the Underdark have been made vicious and dangerous. Such exiles are more often evil than not. 0 RP

Size Traits

These over 50 traits rage from the Miniscule 2-3 inches 1-2 ounces (Diminutive) for 0RP, all the way to the Astronomical 28-30 feet averaging 30,000 pounds (Gargantuan) at whopping 14RP, and every height, width and breadth in between. There are variable sizes, Swarms (as a whole or ruler of), scaled down versions of other races and even a synchronised collaboration of different individuals making up a whole. Also, included are the Customizable Size Traits, which show the parameters within each trait, enabling a size group to be chosen for customising your race within those bounds. The sizes from medium down are 0RP and increasing RP the larger they get.

Special rules for playing Swarms, Diminutive, Tinyarge, Huge and Gargantuan are included, which seem perfectly in line with the creature sizes and traits from the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, as well as comparing relative spells such as Enlarge, and include a system for various sized weaponry, who can wield it as what and how it works. The effort that has been put into staying in line with official material and allowing for advantages and disadvantages to balance each category is seriously impressive.

For Werebearious Sebsious I’m going with:

Sturdy Build. Your kind are around the same size as humans but considerably heavier. You average between 5 and 6 feet tall and average about 800 pounds. Your size is Medium. 0 RP

Movement Traits

There are over 100 movement traits to choose from covering absolutely anything and everything you can think of! You wanna swim? How about fly!? Sorry you’ll have to be more specific, are we talking small wings, spectral flight, drone flight, fire jets or are you simply held up by divine will!? You can shimmy, shake, burrow, slide, have lots of legs. Are you, perchance, made of jelly? It really feels like everything you could possibly think of is covered in this mind-boggling array of possible ways of perambulating.

These mobility traits also help round out the shape and design of your race, their composition, limbs, wings, moving parts, biological, magical, mechanical or otherwise. I absolutely love the depth and spectrum of movement that has been considered in this section and how it informs the physical design. This also lends itself to certain bonuses, such as Agile Claws giving you walking, climbing and natural weapons or arm ambulation giving bonuses to strength checks and saving throws because of everyday being a skipped leg day.

I could seriously go on and on about how much I love the choices provided, including options that allow for the inclusion of disabilities, because 1) remember we exist, play and want to be represented too and 2) the URC is also great way to create unique NPCs too. But on to my choices.

So the Werebearious Sebsious is transforming, so I need to pick a Base Movement Trait and a Hybrid/ Bear Movement Trait for later, so for my base:

Slow. Either by simply having shorter legs or a lack of motivation, your kind move slower than the norm. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. – 2 RP

And for my Hybrid/ Bear trait:

Determined But Slow. Your kind are slower, but move with steadfast purpose, easily surmounting the obstacles in your path. Your walking speed is 25 feet, and you have a climb speed of 25 feet. – 1 RP

Sense Traits

There are 70ish sense traits to choose from ranging from seeing time-travellers, sensing pollen, smelling evil or the dead to multiple heads, all manner, configuration and effectiveness of eyes, antenna, and sense organs and orrifi, as well as all the various senses creatures might have such as web sense and the unsleeping extra head of a Hydra.

For the Werebearious Sebsious I went for something that reflects my chronic conditions, but with a positive fantasy twist for my base trait:

The Feeling of Storms. Your kind can feel the oncoming weather as an ache in your joints or hair standing on end. You receive a premonition 8 hours before any major weather event and can accurately predict the size and severity of any oncoming weather events. 1 RP

While I went with some classic Werebear for the Hybrid/ Bear trait:

Scent. You rely on your nose to catch the scent of your quarry. You make Wisdom (Perception) checks relating to smell at advantage. 1 RP

Offensive Traits

There are well over 100 offensive traits from pacifism and playing, through using all manner of limbs, claws, Jaws, suckers, fangs, tails, to swiping through portals, laser eyes, various clouds, elemental and eldritch forms, and absolutely everything in between or conceivable, as well my personal favourites, a haunted weapon in which you are an Undead Construct that ‘wields’ themselves and CAN OF BEES “Bizarrely, inexplicably, your kind always seems to have a can of bees.”

For my base I didn’t choose one as my Werebear is a simple humanoid-looking person:

No Offensive Trait. You have no innate offensive trait. Remove this trait in the Cleanup Step. 0 RP

Hybrid/ Bear:

But with my hybrid/ bear form I decided to with Big Meaty Claws because of big ole bear claws and, despite only doing it once, I absolutely loved having big ole acrylic nails for my Pride a few years ago.

Big Meaty Claws. Your kind have large muscular crushing claws. You can use your claws to make unarmed strikes, if you hit with them, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d10 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. Your claws are ill-suited for delicate work and you make all Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) checks at disadvantage. 3 RP

(Wookie claws, these are not)

Defensive Traits

Well over 100 defensive traits, with simple weaknessss, resistances and immunities laid out for easy perusal, followed by everything from Brittle to Phoenix Resurrection, through all manner of adaptive, magical, integrated, bestowed or other defensive traits, not to mention the ability to be a Lush Plant or Innately Invisible.

My base is another reflection of my real life chronic conditions:

Weak Immune Systems. You are vulnerable to poison damage. -1 RP

Hybrid/ Bear:

Went for something relatively classic Werebear.

Arcane Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. 11 RP

Magic Traits

This sections contains all manner of magical traits of all manner including an extended Draconic Ancestry table, all manner of magical abilities, Cantrip Traits, granting the knowledge of one or more Cantrip, Spell Sets, granting a set of specifically flavoured spells that increase through levelling, Racial Spells, which are a selection of 20 new spells created with races in mind, ranging from Cantrip to 2nd level with full description and class specifications, adding some fascinating, utility and disgusting magical additions.

Language Trait

I imagine my Werebears living in woods and being on good terms with Halflings, possibly even having a working relationship with some Halfling farming communities for protection in return for food, especially before hibernation.

Lingual Explorer. You can speak, read, and write Common and Language. Choose a Language, you may not select Druidic, Primordial, or Thieves Cant with this trait. 0 RP Halfling.

Miscellaneous Traits

This is the section for anything and everything else, and I do mean anything, as it opens with the image of a humanoid scientist with a rotary telephone for a head; an example of Absurd Resemblance. There are over 100 misc traits from something as simple as having the equivalent of a Feat or a skill bonus, as with Appealing giving +2 to Charisma (Persuasion) checks through traits that resemble misc traits of various creatures and races, such as the Aasimar’s Healing Touch and all manner of various physical and/ or internal construction, as with Joey Pouch or Futuristic Lights to the weird, whacky and wonderful, want to natural produce something nutritious and try to convince your allies to eat it? How about photosynthesis? Did you want to be the host for smaller creatures under your control? Oversized Endowment..?

Also, included are Fundamental Proficiency Traits, granting one or more specific or choson proficiencies, Specialisation Traits, which “are essentially a tax, they allow you to select an additional trait from specific trait categories at an increasing cost. This is an effort to combat “min-maxing” but also allowing players to specialize a race if they want to make a race with all of the senses, or bristling with natural weapons” essentially allowing you to spend RP to make more than one choice in previous categories. Then you have Alternate Damage Traits, which the book describes wonderfully, “what if you wanted to say, make a flaming claw attack? Or bite somebody in the soul with spirit teeth? The following traits allow you to do just that.” Next are the Transformation Triggers, which will be essential for my Werebear.

So for Miscellaneous Traits I went with a few interesting choices that spoke to me, my conditions, my love of animals and of course the Werebear:

Hibernating. Your kind are native to environments where one or more seasons are unlivable, forcing you to prepare for a long sleep tucked away from the elements. You can enter a state of hibernation by consuming an amount of food equal to your body weight. Entering this state requires at least an hour of uninterrupted gorging. While in this state you are unconscious but require no food or water. You may remain in this state for a number of months equal to your Constitution modifier without suffering penalties for dehydration or starvation. You can choose to remain in this state for the maximum time allowed, or you can choose to rouse yourself after a set amount of time you decide upon before entering hibernation. Other creatures or environmental stimuli can also wake you but you are otherwise unable to wake yourself. 1 RP

Seasonal Rhythms. Your kind are especially attuned to the changing of the seasons. You gain one of the following bonuses depending on the current season: Seasonal Rhythms Season Bonus Cold Season Your instincts tell you to eat hardily and store up energy for winter, if you are allowed to eat your fill, you gain 1 additional hit die to spend recovering hit points during short rests every 24 hours. Rainy Season In stormy seasons, you tend to become more skittish and alert, you gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity checks made to determine Initiative order. Harvest Season You become particularly amorous during this time and gain a +2 bonus to Charisma (Persuasion) checks. 2RP

Trusted by Nature. You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill. 1 RP

Voluntary Transformation. Another form waits for your kind’s command to emerge, but that power is taxing and must be used tactfully at the right moments. You may transform voluntarily using an action. Your transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. Once you transform, you can’t transform again until you finish a long rest. With this transformation trigger you must select at least 6 RP on transformation traits. – 2 RP

This trigger has criteria that need to be met, but I have easily spent more than 6RP on transformation/ hybrid/ bear

Cleanup Step

This step takes you through all the choices, underlined or italicised text, which are generally choices you will have made such as a specific ability scores or secondary abilities, getting rid of RP costs, cutting redundant traits, like my Werebear’s base no offensive trait. Next we have the optional renaming of traits, adding of creature type (which is optional and Ignores mechanical benefits), there’s a whole informative and sensible paragraph about the creature type that makes things very clear. Then we’re dealing with cleaning up duplications and stacking attributes nicely.

Red Flags

This section is more for the DMs. “[URC] set out to allow players to make anything and everything, but we understand that there are some things that just don’t fit in every campaign. [URC] want to make this book easy to tailor fit to suit your unique campaign.” These “red flags” are compiled into the following four categories: Size, Flying, Information and Technological Traits for DMs ease.

That is the incredibly comprehensive and easy to follow method! I will leave my Werebear (Werebearious Sebsious) at the end of the review.

Ultimate Random Race Creator (URRC)

This is a full 13 step process with all different manner of tables to roll for random creation with astronomical possible permeations, which is going to be a fun tool to play with for inspiration and creating all manner of bizarre creations.

Flavor, Fluff and Lore

This section takes you through the elements and details needed to create background lore for your race. This is broken down succinctly here: “Fundamentally, players need to know 4 things: the race’s appearance, their behaviour, their culture, and their adventuring motivations. For a fully realized race, write a paragraph or 2 for each of these sections.” There are expanded information on appearance, behaviour, culture, adventuring motivation, story, race names, history, quirks, and TLDR, to give you all the information you need to create detailed background lore.

Lore Generator

In a very similar way to the URRC the Lore Generator has tables going through each step and an extensive adjective table. Roll some dice and see what comes out the end. I can’t wait to use this to come up with some bizarre inspirational backgrounds.

The Ultimate Pet Creator

This section opens with a notes on creating your own Familiars and Advanced Familiars, with the latter being the Warlock Pact of the Chain Level Familiars, as well as including Advanced Familiar as a Feat that anyone able to cast Find Familiar has access to. This is followed by notes on creating your own Ranger’s Companion. These breakdown as Familiars having 4RP and, Advanced Familiars and Companions having 8RP to spend.

The creation method mirrors the race creation with many of the similar options available to races, but on a smaller scale with the adorable example of a Microsphinx.

Augments, Mutations, and Magic Items

The Magic Item section takes you through a seven step method for creating items of all kinds, including cursed, converting the traits throughout this supplement into magic item trait and/ or curse.

Mutations and Curses follow a similar method with the severity of 1-8 that can be chosen or rolled, a trait category and apply the chosen or rolled trait as a mutation or curse

Augmentations on the other hand, sucker or tendril, are bought or booned traits with a full explanation of the process, as well as a full table of RP, component cost, suggested service price and, the arcana and medicine checks required.

Racial Backgrounds and Feats

These are a collection of 20 new backgrounds and 20 new feats! These are all tied to a “race” prerequisites. The backgrounds come with full background information, skills, languages, equipment, features and traits (or refer to an appropriate existing background for traits). They range from Chosen One to Deep One with Feral, Fey Outcast, From the Future and Mad Scientist, and many more. The Feats work in a very similar manner and range from Alien Technician with Intelligence bonus, exotic weapon choices and vehicle proficiencies to Fey’s Comic Relief with Charisma boost and being able to diffuse situations with a joke, and many other weird, whacky and useful Feats with the extremely varied Sudden Mutation, which allows a chosen trait worth 4RP (excluding ability scores).

Featured Races

Okay so this section contains 48 new races created using the URC method at 10RP. There’s so much variety here really showing off the range of possible creations from “Ancient statues from the beginning of the world found buried and still compelled to obey their instructions from the ineffable will of the gods of creation” through “Aquatic half-goblins half-sharks that terrorize the seaside, though for some their curiosity overtakes their hunger and they take up the adventuring life” to “voyagers escaped temporal war and journeyed far, now they quietly insure the stability of the time stream, as powerful masters of time and space.” The rest I’ll let you discover got yourself, but just think how much a supplement of 48 playable races would go for on its own!

Ultimate NPCs

These are 10 ready to go unique NPCs with full statblocks, backgrounds and advice, seeds and hooks for using them in your games, all created with the URC method. They include an explorer cursed/ gifted new life as a bear-plant, an ooze scientist that somehow has managed to complete their doctorate, Frank... and a self-appointed “world’s greatest pirate” who often replaces his body parts with or eats the booty from his dungeon delving an piracy, among others.

Finally, there is a full list of thanks to their backers, supporters and credits: Loot The Boss (@LootTheBoss) Lead Writer: Andrew Engelbrite (@AEngelbrite) Supporting Writer:Jeremy Connal Lead Artist: Rachel Maduro (@RachelMaduroArt)ll Supporting Artist: Nick Carry

Something that came to me, as I was reading through the alignments, and is a theme running through all the traits and choices, is the fact that every option has just the right amount of flavour to be inspirational seeds for races, obviously, but monsters, myths, cultures, gods, adventures. This is a supplement packed with flavour and ideas that I will definitely be coming back to for inspiration when building worlds and adventures, as well as races.

The art throughout is as varied as the creation options from thoughtful sketches to big silly pieces, but are all are quality and truly convert the cornucopia within this supplement.

I can’t say enough good about this immense supplement. With this you’ll never need to look for new races, monsters, NPCs, BBEGs, Magic Items, Familiars, Companions and more ever again! It’s absolutely chocked full of awesome options that will satisfy the most bizarre predilection and randomizers for those throwing caution to the wind. Not to mention the 48 races, 10 NPCs, and examples of all manner of things along the way. It’s very simple to use, but so extensive it’s taken me a long, long time to wrangle this review because of the amount of things and potential crammed into this one supplement.

I’m genuinely shocked at the consistency, quality, range and depth of the options and the accessible nature of the explanations and steps. This is an absolute marvel!

*I have to address the problem all creation methods and compilations of fantasy ‘races’ have in their naming conventions, which often come out as sounding like some kind of Nazi eugenics manual. The Ultimate Race Creator is not alone on this, only recently I commented on Jack Smith’s Master Race Bundle, which is a fun collection of varying fantasy races and, not the collected writings of various white supremists you think. His response on the DMs Guild page acknowledges the issue, “[I] thought “Huh, Master Race Bundle sounds fine. Nothing wrong with this.” And only later did I realize my mistake. Future iterations will likely have a different name!” I don’t really have an answer to this besides moving away from the term race for species or ancestry, though ‘race’ is such an ingrained aspect of D&D and many TTRPGs which makes things tricky. I would advise at least moving away from the superlative race combo in titles in the future. Engelbrite addresses this in the brief interview below**.

Please enjoy this brief interview with Engelbrite, the lead writer:

S: So my usual opener is your inspiration, but that’s answered in the intro, so I’ll ask if you have any fun stories of your human Wizard who thought they were an Ogre Magi?

E: The campaign with my “Ogre” magi was sadly short-lived but our GM had a fun way to work my madness into the plot. I was secretly contacted by an evil deity (the primary BBEG) and made some deals to “awaken my true self”. So I gained some secret demon power and in a particularly nasty combat I as a frail little wizard, charged the enemy and bit out its jugular vein. I still remember the pleading from my party to stop when I announced that I ran up and tried to bite the enemy, and their horrified shock when it worked.

S: You mention the modular nature of 5e made things easier, it really seems this modular nature is why there is such a homebrew/ DMs Guild/ Drivethru RPG boom at the moment. Can you tell me what you found the most easy and what ended up being the trickiest in terms of balancing and keeping the universality?

E: For keeping balance, everything that had a solid comparison in an existing race was very easy to balance once I boiled everything down. I’d say the hardest thing to keep balanced was the potential for min-maxing. Keeping it divided into categories did most of that in check but I had to be constantly aware of potential stacking on a single ability or strategy and I tried hard to make sure that maxing one thing out would be GOOD, but didn’t invalidate other race options.

S: What are your favourite trait options?

E: As for my favorite traits, I absolutely love the swarming options and the multi-headed traits. In writing you sometimes see “group” characters, like the trio of scheming triplets or the constantly arguing two-headed giant. I love the roleplaying potential of those kind of characters and I wanted to make sure every variation of that concept was achievable. Also the mimic traits, because who wouldn’t want to play a mimic?

S: Can you share any of your favourite races and characters you’ve built with this system and what bizarre abominations have been spawned from the awesome Ultimate Random Race Generator and if they have, how they’ve inspired you?

E: As for my favorite races, I’m actually playing a Medozan (jellyfish person) in our current game. I’m a bit of a marine biology geek and I love roleplaying this very alien mysterious creature who’s just vain and wants to collect pretty baubles. [Plus] it has one of my favorite flying traits, I took a long time to make a flying speed that would feel like ephemeral floating rather than say bird flight.

For bizarre abominations Chris Zito of the Unexpectables has done a few twitch streams of rolling up races on the random creator. I particularly like the “Time Snakes” and the “Hover Slugs” they rolled up.

S: Was there anything you would like to comment on the name of your supplement and the unfortunate way it can be taken due to the history of far right politics?

**E: As far as the weird connotations on the word “Race”, we did worry about that when creating the book. The word “race” though is so built into 5E that we felt that trying to work around it would just add a layer of confusion. Our conclusion was that people can see it as political if they want to, but we just want to make vampire squids and hyper-intelligent fire squirrels.

Werebear (Werebearious Sebsious)

Ability Score Increase: +2 Charisma -2 Dexterity

Age: Mature as Humans. Young until 50. Live to about 350.

Alignment: They lean strongly toward the gentler aspects of Chaos and they are more often Good than not.

Size: Your kind are around the same size as humans but considerably heavier. You average between 5 and 6 feet tall and average about 800 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed: Slow. Your base walking speed is 25 feet

Senses: The Feeling of Storms. Your kind can feel the oncoming weather as an ache in your joints or hair standing on end. You receive a premonition 8 hours before any major weather event and can accurately predict the size and severity of any oncoming weather events.

Defences: Weak Immune Systems. You are vulnerable to poison damage.

Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Halfling

Seasonal Rhythms. Your kind are especially attuned to the changing of the seasons. You gain one of the following bonuses depending on the current season: Seasonal Rythms Season Bonus Cold Season Your instincts tell you to eat hardily and store up energy for winter, if you are allowed to eat your fill, you gain 1 additional hit die to spend recovering hit points during short rests every 24 hours. Rainy Season In stormy seasons, you tend to become more skittish and alert, you gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity checks made to determine Initiative order. Harvest Season You become particularly amorous during this time and gain a +2 bonus to Charisma (Persuasion) checks.

Trusted by Nature. You are proficient in the Animal Handling skill.

Voluntary Transformation You may transform voluntarily using an action. Your transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. Once you transform, you can’t transform again until you finish a long rest.

Hybrid/ Bear Form

Speed: Your walking speed is 25 feet, and you have a climb speed of 25 feet.

Senses: You rely on your nose to catch the scent of your quarry. You make Wisdom (Perception) checks relating to smell at advantage.

Offensive: You can use your claws to make unarmed strikes, if you hit with them, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d10 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. Your claws are ill-suited for delicate work and you make all Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) checks at disadvantage.

Defences: Arcane Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

I imagine my Werebears living in woods and being on good terms with Halflings, possibly even having a working relationship with some Halfling farming communities for protection in return for food, especially before hibernation.