Fell

Note: all fell characters have the type undead as well as humanoid.

The Shadowfell, Land of Death, is an echo of the Prime Material. The two realms are intrinsically tied, bleeding into one another, sharing shadows and fear. Mortality is defined by death, just as death can only exist if there has been life. This relationship between the planes has been a source of terror, wonder, scholarship, adventure, and mystery since the first mortals walked the Sundered Planes. In their fascination, some mortals have become more Fell than Material, further blurring the boundaries between them.

Dhampir

"You don't belong—"
"I don't belong anywhere! I'm too alive for my mother's court, too dead for the Order, and too different for this nothing town. I'm not trying to fit in, I'm just trying to do my damned job."

— From the banned play Life Between the Shadows

Both & Neither

Dhampir are mortals with connections to the hungry dead. Like ghosts or vampires, they have a powerful pull to drain essence and vitality from the living, though being mortals themselves do not depend on it for survival. This desire is a whisper in the mind, a tinge to the sight, a reflex constantly needing to be suppressed. Those who overindulge their thirst risk losing control and forever viewing others as prey. Those who resist might find exceptional ways of controlling their urges or suppress it through constant, molar-grinding restraint. In any case, temptation haunts dhampirs, and circumstances conspire to give them endless reasons to indulge.

While many dhampirs thirst for blood, your character might otherwise gain sustenance from the living. Roll on or choose an option from the Dhampir Hungers table to determine what tempts your character to feed.

A dhampir is most commonly created in an encounter with a vampire, but all manner of macabre bargains, necromantic influences, and encounters with mysterious immortals might have transformed your character. The Dhampir Origins table provides suggestions to how you came into your lineage.

Hunger & Thirst

Note: though dhampirs began life as another mortal ancestry, they retain none of that ancestry's stats and features, the fell magics having completely transformed them. However, they retain the cultural abilities they had before being changed.
Dhampirs look like the mortal they were before they were changed. Some may bear marks of their transformation, while others are indistinguishable from a fully living mortal. The only seemingly universal characteristic is a set of fangs of varying length and wickedness.
Age. Fell energies wreak havoc on mortal bodies, extending and reducing lifespan seemingly at random. Once you become a dhampir, you may have only a few years or many centuries ahead of you.
Size. You retain the size you were before you were transformed.
Speed. The shadows within you grant you surprising alacrity. Your base walking speed is 5 feet greater than your base walking speed before you were transformed.
Darkvision. 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.
Fell Resistance. The essence of the Shadowfell runs through your veins. You have resistance to necrotic damage.
Spider Climb. You have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. Once you reach 3rd level, you can move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings, while leaving your hands free.
Vampiric Bite. Your fanged bite is a natural weapon, which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient. Instead of using your Strength modifier for attacks made with your fangs, you use your Constitution modifier Your bite deals 1d4 + your Constitution modifier piercing damage on a hit. While you are missing half or more of your hit points, you have advantage on attack rolls you make with this bite.

When you hit a creature that isn’t a Construct or an Undead with your bite, you can empower yourself in one of the following ways of your choice:

• Regain hit points equal to the damage dealt by the bite
• Gain a bonus to the next ability check or attack roll you make; the bonus equals the damage dealt by the bite

You can empower yourself with your bite a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Dhampir Hungers

d8	Hunger
1	Blood
2	Flesh or raw meat
3	Cerebral spinal fluid
4	Esoteric humors
5	Psychic energy
6	A color from one's appearance
7	Dreams
8	Life energy

Dhampir Origins

d8	Origin
1	You are the reincarnation of an ancestor who was a vampiric tyrant.
2	Your pact with a predatory deity, fiend, fey, or spirit causes you to share their hunger.
3	You survived being attacked by a vampire but were forever changed.
4	A parasite inhabits your body. You indulge your hunger to sate it.
5	You loved an immortal and were willing to be transformed into a vampire to join them, but tragedy interrupted the transformation.
6	You are a diminished manifestation of an otherworldly being. Slaking your hunger hastens your renewal
7	You don't know your origins, but you were raised by vampires or other monsters.
8	A radical experiment changed your body, making you reliant on others for vital fluids.

Reborn

What is the cost of living again?

A Second Chance

The reborn have died. Unlike most other dead things, the reborn have returned to life in a myriad different ways. Roll on or choose an option from the Reborn Origins table to determine how your character gained their lineage.

Reborn suffer from some manner of discontinuity, an interruption of their lives or physical state that their minds are ill equipped to deal with. Their memories of events before this interruption are often vague or absent. Occasionally, the most unexpected experiences might cause sensations or visions of the past to come rushing back.

Rather than sleeping, reborn regularly sit and dwell on the past, hoping for some revelation of what came before. Most of the time, these are dark, silent stretches. Occasionally, though, in a moment of peace, stress, or excitement, a reborn gains a glimpse of what came before. When you desire to have such a dreamlike vision, roll on the Lost Memories table to inspire its details.

Ashes to Ashes to Ashes

Note: a reborn's culture is generally acquired after they have risen, but it's not unheard of for the body to retain the muscle memory of its original life.
Some reborn exhibit the scars of fatal fates, their ashen flesh, missing limbs, or bloodless veins making it clear that they’ve been touched by death. Other reborn are marvels of magic or science, being stitched together from disparate beings or bearing mysterious minds in manufactured bodies.
Age. Your undead nature means that you do not age and will not die in this way.
Size. Though you may have been one size in life, death can change a person. Choose small or medium for your size.
Speed. Your base walking speed is determined by your size: 25 feet for small and 30 feet for medium.
Darkvision. 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.
Deathless Nature. You have escaped death, a fact represented by the following benefits:

• You have advantage on saving throws against disease and being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage. You have advantage on death saving throws.
• You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
• You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.

Knowledge from a Past Life. You temporarily remember sporadic glimpses of the past, perhaps faded memories from ages ago or a previous life. When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 and add the number rolled to the check. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Reborn Origins

d8	Origin
1	You were magically resurrected but something went wrong.
2	Stitches bind your body's mismatched pieces, and your memories come from multiple lives.
3	After clawing free from your grave, you realized you had no memories except a single name.
4	You were a necromancer's undead servant for years. One day, your consciousness returned.
5	You awoke in an abandoned laboratory alongside complex designs for clockwork organs.
6	You were released after being petrified for generations. Your memories have faded, however, and your body is not what it once was.
7	Your body hosts a possessing spirit that shares its memories and replaces your missing appendages with phantasmal limbs.
8	In public, you pass as an unremarkable individual, but you can feel the itchy straw stuffing inside you.

Lost Memories

d8	Memory
1	You recall a physically painful moment. What mark or scar on your body does it relate to?
2	A memory causes you to shed a tear. Is it a bitter or joyful memory? Does recalling it make you feel the same way?
3	You recall a childhood memory. What about that event or who you were still influences you?
4	A memory begins with the voice of someone close to you. How do they advise you?
5	You recall enjoying something you can't stand doing now. What is it? Why don't you like it now?
6	A memory carries a vivid smell or sensation. What are you going to do to recreate that experience?
7	You faintly remember a place that couldn't possibly exist. What is this vision? How does it make you feel?
8	You experience a memory you're certain isn't your own. How does it seem unnatural? Could it be a glimpse of a past terror or something worse?