Three cousin species known as sneaks and scoundrels, the varnote are small but deft folk who can easily make themselves a comfortable living in the cracks of society. Though many think of them as criminals and thieves, the varnote are an earnest people who gladly take care of their communities and help those in need.
More Than Kin, Less Than Kind
Often grouped together, the varnote are actually three separate species, distant cousins in the same way
Leonin and
Tabaxi are.
The fluffy and nimble roccail are excellent climbers and have especially dexterous hands. Many find work as artisans or scribes, but there've always been stereotypes about roccail pickpockets and lockpicks. The meffi have a sleek appearance, but are most known for the powerful gaseous odor they're able to spray, an evolutionary relic of a time when they had to avoid predation. The deedill have a homely appearance and often receive sneers and sideways glances, but they're devoted parents and have a remarkable ability to slow their heartbeat to nearly still.
Older generations of varnote tend to keep to their own kind, ignoring other varnote or speaking about them as if they're as distant a species as kenku. Younger generations often mingle more, finding community and friendship among one another.
Fitting in the Cracks
Varnote have unseemly reputations among the larger species of the world. Much of this is based on fiction, like the popular hooded roccail thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, and whose adventures have spanned a series of seven novels and dozens of stage plays. The unfortunate truth, however, is that most varnote find themselves pushed to the outskirts of a society and do whatever they must to survive and feed their families, including turning to a life of crime. In larger cities, many varnote street gangs can be found hanging out in alleys or industrial areas, looking for easy marks or shipments of goods that can quietly go missing. Some take to making forgeries with their skilled hands, while others simply run a business without care for what the local laws say. The small size of varnotes allows them to quickly and quietly disappear when trouble arises.
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Fluff
Table intro
table
Names
names intro
Female Names: Ceres, Eos, Minerva, Nike, Rhea.
Male Names: Apollo, Atlas, Helios, Somnus, Vulcan.
Traits
Your varnote character has the following species traits:
Ability Score Increase
Your Dexterity score increases by 1, and your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Age
Varnote live slightly shorter lives on average than other species.
Alignment
Varnote lean towards chaotic alignments.
Size
Your size is small.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Claws
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Sticky Fingers
You gain advantage on Investigation checks when looting bodies or piles of junk. You also gain proficiency in the Sleight of Hand skill.
Nimble Movement
You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.
Language
You speak Common and Critteran.
During character creation, select one of the following subspecies of varnote and apply those traits to your character.
Roccail
What most species think of when they hear "varnote", the roccail have a charming appearance; with bushy fur and long fuzzy tails, triangle ears, stripes, and masks of different fur colors. They have remarkable dexterity - giving them skill in craft, climbing, and archery; or seedier skills like lockpicking and pickpocketing. Their fur colors come in browns, greys, reds, whites, and blacks, and are often mixed and arrayed in different patterns. Roccail can often spot where another's family is from by the arrangement of stripes on the tail, or colors of their mask.
Ability Score Increase
Your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Clamber
You gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. To use this climbing speed, you cannot be wearing heavy armor and must have at least one free hand.
Meffi
Meffi are easy to spot. They're long for their size, with slim limbs and stark coloration - black on the front, white on the back. They have long, bushy tails that measure almost the length of their bodies, and short ears and snouts. Many a meffi actor or actress has used their striking appearance as an asset. Meffi are best known for their unusual, and gross, ability to spray a noxious gas from their rears. This ability is a leftover of evolution, a skill from an earlier age before sapience. Today, it's only used in rare circumstances, mostly to disorient foes in combat or lose them during a chase.
Ability Score Increase
Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Noxious Defense
You know the Poison Spray cantrip.
Deedill
Rather peculiar in appearance, with long narrow snouts, naked tails, and beady eyes, the deedill look like relics of an earlier age of the World. They're known for their large families - often having more kids at once than a
Lagombi does. It's common to see a deedill mother out shopping with twelve little babies sitting in a backpack. When under threat, a deedill can slow its heart rate to nearly a standstill and flop over as if it's dead. This skill came in handy in ancient times of predation, and in modern times can be more of an annoyance than asset.
Ability Score Increase
Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Feign Death
You gain proficiency in the Deception skill. In addition, once per encounter when your HP drops below half, you can play dead and fall prone. Enemies and attacks will ignore you until the beginning of your next turn.
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