Stregoni

An Ancient and Noble Race cursed with the Hunger for Blood

The aristocratic stregoni settled on Erdos over eight millennia ago, but they hail from a distant and forgotten world. Originally a race of humanoids with wondrous divine powers, they are now afflicted by a dark curse of blood dependency (a ‘gift’ of Rael, the dark god of the ruby elves). Despite this setback, they adapted and flourished yet again, becoming one of the major races of Erdos. Their pre-curse ancestors—the Aldanelim Aeonians—are considered the pioneers of divine magic. Stregoni claim that clerics first appeared among them, before the gods bestowed this sacred gift to other peoples. Today, however, stregoni turn more often towards the arcane—in part because they feel the gods have failed them, though they are not anti-god zealots.

Pale Lords

Aside from some notable features, stregoni are physically identical to humans. Their skin is as white as snow (and not technically ‘pale’ despite their monicker) while their eyes have slit pupils like those of cats, and their colors range from yellow, orange, and red to gray or green. Their hair is either deep red, raven black, gray, white, or light blond. They have black fingernails and two pointy vampiric fangs.

Stregoni dress in elaborate and luxurious clothing, and all of them, from the greatest king to the least commoner, exude an aristocratic air. But even the tamest and noblest stregoni have something predatory about them.

Living Vampires

Though stregoni don’t take kindly to being called vampires, they are partly vampiric in nature due to their need to consume blood. However, they are not undead. They live and breathe and their hearts beat just like ordinary creatures, and with desires and vices common to all sentient beings. Stregoni are by nature nocturnal creatures, but the sun does not harm them. Those who live in non-stregoni settlements have learned to rest during the night and work in the light of day.
Stregoni require a certain amount of blood every day in order for their bodies to process food effectively. However, this blood needs not to be of a humanoid. In fact, most stregoni consider the notion as abhorrent as cannibalism. For that purpose, they use livestock as the prime source of blood. Stregoni warriors, however, have learned to accept that drinking the blood of their enemies is paramount to survival.
Adaptation to the Blood Curse has given the stregoni an unexpected gift; Blood Sorcery. Not to be confused with sorcerers born with the ability to cast arcane spells, Blood Sorcery is a unique form of innate spellcasting which enables stregoni to use the blood they drink to gain unique powers and abilities. It is from this ability that they came to be known as stregoni (sorcerers in the Aldanelian language).
Funeral rites are very important to the stregoni, primarily because there is a real need to burn the corpses of the dead lest they become vampires. Within stregoni settlements, there is always a form of Deathwatch—groups who check on the livelihood of people. There’s nothing worse than an old stregoni person to quietly die without anyone noticing, only to plague the community later as an undead. An undead stregoni is wholly corrupt and even his loved ones are nothing but prey.
As can be expected, stregoni are staunch opponents of any undead but reserve a special loathing for vampires. However, there also a few, particularly vile individuals, who intentionally kill themselves to become vampires.

The United Stregoni Nation

The term ‘Aldanelim Aeonians’—or simply aeonians—used to describe the pre-curse ancestors of the stregoni, is a bit of a neologism as they were in fact two separate nations, the Aldanelim and the Aeonians. Culturally similar but not identical, they were divided primarily by language. Over the centuries, and particularly after the Blood Curse, the two nations became more and more homogenized to the point where non-stregoni can hardly tell them apart.
This is exemplified in the formation of the United Stregoni Nation, in north-west Limoch. Commonly called Eranhein, after the name of its capital city, the USN is the largest and most influential stregoni kingdom. Its ruler, Queen Eliza Von Redlore, is considered the de facto sovereign of every living stregoni on Erdos. Even lesser stregoni states, geographically far removed from Eranhein, pay ultimate allegiance to the Queen and their rulers are dukes and grand dukes, but never kings.
The semi-independent dukedoms are usually in the form of city-states. Perhaps the most known of them is the city-state of Lordonor, in Athanor, ruled by the legendary Prince Damian Von Redlore, heir apparent to the Ebony Throne of Eranhein.
Stregoni states have a reverse timetable. Citizens there rest during the day and work during the night.

Stregoni

ability score increase: Your Constitution score increases by 2.

age: Stregoni reach physical maturity as fast as humans and can live up to be 300 years old.

alignment: Stregoni tend more towards law rather than chaos. They are generally neutral as a society, but individuals tend more towards goodness rather than evil.

Size: Medium

speed: 30 ft.

Languages: You can speak, read, and write Athanish, Aldanelian, and Aeonic. Stregoni tend to favor the language of their subrace, but they often use both interchangeably when they talk to each other. There is common wisdom that claims that when a stregoni wishes to sound authoritative he speaks in Aeonic, and when he wishes to sound more casual he speaks in Aldanelian.

race features:
Darkvision. Being nocturnal by nature, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Predatory Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.

Blood Curse. Whenever you receive a healing effect, you only regain half the amount of hit points (minimum 1) unless you expend a Hit Die when you receive the effect (you gain no healing from the Hit Die itself). This requires no action, but you cannot do it if you are incapacitated. Healing derived by expending Hit Dice after finishing a short rest is not halved by the stregoni blood curse.

Finishing a long rest restores all your hit points as normal. However, you do not receive any benefits from a long rest (including healing) if you have not fed with blood in the last 12 hours (a pint of blood suffices).

Like all living beings, you require food and water to subsist, but your ability to derive nourishment from those depends on keeping yourself fed with blood. In other words, you can suffer the effects of starvation or thirst even if you eat unless you consume about a pint of blood every day.

If you are killed and your corpse is not destroyed completely (burned, disintegrated, etc) then it animates as an undead evil vampire after 4 + 1d10 days.

Blood Drain. When you have grappled a creature, you can use a bonus action to bite and drain blood from it. The target must succeed on a Constitution save or suffer 1d4 + your Constitution modifier damage. The DC for this saving throw is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier. If the target fails this saving throw, you regain 1 Hit Die.

You can only target living humanoids and beasts, though your DM may make exceptions if it makes sense (like any monstrosity that would reasonably have potable blood). You can also feed from a freshly killed corpse provided you did not use Blood Drain on it in the past day. You only regain a single Hit Die from each corpse. You gain 2 hit dice if the corpse is large, 3 if it’s huge, and 4 if it’s gargantuan.
If you use this ability on a willing (or unwilling) Player Character, the target also loses a Hit Die in addition to the damage taken.
Drinking blood from a corpse that has been dead for more than 1 minute, or from any other source, counts as feeding for the purposes of the blood curse, but does not restore your hit dice. Only blood fresh off a living (of just deceased) creature contains the life essence necessary to restore your pool of Hit Dice.

Blood Sorcery. You can use your Hit Dice to fuel several magical abilities called Blood Sorceries, which are detailed at the end of the race’s description. You begin play knowing the Blood Healing Blood Sorcery and an additional one of your choice.
If your campaign uses the optional feat rules from chapter 5 of the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, your DM may allow you to choose an additional Blood Sorcery whenever your class enables you to gain an Ability Score Increase instead of that feature.

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Blood Sorceries

Blood Healing

You can use your action to heal your wounds. This Blood Sorcery enables you to spend your Hit Dice for healing as if you had taken a short rest. You can spend as many hit dice as your proficiency modifier with a single action. No additional bonuses can be added to this healing.

Blood Metamorphosis

You have learned how to manipulate the transformative properties of blood. You gain the following benefits.

• Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
• When a living humanoid or beast within 30 feet of you suffers slashing or piercing damage, you can use your reaction to use Blood Drain on them. You do not need to have the target grappled. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
• When you reach 3rd level you gain the innate spellcasting ability to cast gaseous form without any components and with you as the spell’s target by spending 2 Hit Dice. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
• When you reach 5th level you gain the innate spellcasting ability to cast polymorph without any components and with you as the spell's target by spending 4 Hit Dice. You can only turn into a Swarm of Bats, Swarm of Ravens, or a Swarm of Rats. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Hunter’s Speed

You can use the magic of your blood to enhance your speed. You gain the following benefits:

• Your Dexterity score increases by 1.
• Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.
• When you reach 3rd level, you can use a bonus action to grant yourself a surge of speed for up to 10 minutes by spending 2 Hit Dice. When you use this ability and then as a bonus action on each of your turns until this sorcery expires, you can take the Dash action. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
• When you reach 5th level you gain the innate spellcasting ability to cast haste without any components and with you as the spell’s target by spending 4 Hit Dice. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Might of the Dragon

You have mastered sorceries that augment your strength. You gain the following benefits:

• Your Strength score increases by 1.
• You can use your bonus action to grant yourself a surge of strength for up to ten minutes by spending 1 Hit Die. While thus enhanced, you have advantage on Strength ability checks and Strength saving throws and your attacks with melee weapons that use strength deal +2 damage of the weapon’s type. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
• When you reach 3rd level, you can further augment the effects of Might of the Dragon. While enhanced by Might of the Dragon, you can expend a Hit Die when you hit with a melee weapon that uses your strength to deal additional damage equal to your proficiency modifier. This damage is of the weapon’s type.
• When you reach 5th level, your attacks are further augmented. You gain advantage on your attack rolls with melee weapons that use your strength while you are enhanced by Might of the Dragon.

Bloodhound’s Awareness

You have learned how to enhance your predatory senses to a superhuman degree. You gain the following benefits.

• Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
• You can add your proficiency bonus twice on any Wisdom (perception) checks you make provided you don’t already have a feature or trait that does the same.
• When you reach 3rd level you gain the innate spellcasting ability to cast see invisibility without any components by spending 2 Hit Dice. Once you use this ability, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.
• When you reach 5th level, your enhanced awareness helps you fight wounded creatures you can’t see. When you attack a creature you can’t see that is not at maximum hit points, your inability to see it does not impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.

The Blood Curse

Five millennia ago, the elven god Rael instigated a plot meant to dethrone Theléa, the matriarch of the elven pantheon. Part of his plan was to depower the greatest allies of the elves at the time, the aeonians. And so the Blood Curse came to pass.
Overnight, the hapless aeonians discovered that ordinary food and water was not enough to sustain them—their metabolism mystically locked off—and they inevitably started dying from starvation. More horrible still was that after death, their corpses rose as evil undead and thirsty for the blood of the living; the original true vampires.
In the chaos that ensued, the survivors made a startling discovery. Taking a cue from the vampires, they discovered that consuming blood unlocked their biological functions and they were again able to subsist on food and water. After the Elfwar ended and Rael was defeated, the cursed aeonians sought help from the gods. But none could reverse the dark gift.

Related Organizations

• The Seekers