Remove ads by subscribing to Kanka or enabling premium features for the campaign.

  1. Races

Ophidian

Humanoid

"The reptilians are among us," the hushed voices in the corner of a dusty bar say. Everyone might suspect a local politician of being a snake, or a traveling con-man of having just a bit too much of a charming personality to be human. Little do they know, they could be right.

Ophidians are snakelike humanoids who can use their inherent abilities to hide amongst common peoples. Charming, devilish, and sly, an Ophidian has a way with words that can spellbind unwary listeners, and in extreme cases, manipulate and hypnotize victims into obedience.

An Ophidian is born resembling a normal human, and oftentimes, raised in ignorance of its identity as an Ophidian. It is in these formative years that an Ophidian learns to mimic human behavior, for in fact all Ophidians are born without the capability of empathy. By the time an Ophidian youth is of adult age, they are cruel and manipulative individuals on the inside, capable of violence and scheming, but on the outside, might present as soft-hearted, hospitable, or even downright philanthropic.

Ophidian Names
Ophidians have no naming conventions that differ from the humanoids they interact with, so as not to raise suspicion, however, most Ophidians develop a particular mononym as a moniker for use when in disguise, so that they may interact with criminal enterprises without compromising their identity. Some examples of notable Ophidian pseudonyms are thus: Severus, Calliope, Forsythe, Wellerman, The Stitcher, and Ningishzida.

Ophidian Traits
Ophidians are not all born equal, although all Ophidians share these traits.

Ability Score Increase
Ophidians increase their Charisma by 2, and their Constitution score by 1.

Age
Ophidians mature at the same rate that humans do, although their humanoid appearance seems to stay impossibly young for longer than it should, not showing signs of ageing past maturity for dozens of years, longer in the cases of particularly evil Ophidians.

Alignment
Without fail, in all circumstances, Ophidians are evil, although their motives may vary from Ophidian to Ophidian. However, in almost all cases, an Ophidian will do everything in their power to protect their identity as an Ophidian, and usually this will result in presenting as a good aligned character.

Size
Ophidians are medium size

Speed
Ophidian's have a walking speed of 30 feet.

Limited Shapeshifting
Ophidian's naturally have obviously snakelike features, that normally could be discerned at a cursory glance. Some have a forked tongue, some have slit pupils, and others have colored scales on their skin. All Ophidian's are born with the inherent and unconscious ability to naturally hide these characteristics through non-magical shapeshifting abilities. These abilities can only be used to resemble the humanoid that they appear to be at birth, and can not be used to disguise themselves in any way. However, it should be noted that most Ophidian's human faces would be considered generally beautiful by humanoid standards, and often have perfectly symmetrical faces.

Magical Deadening
Ophidians have magic resistance, granting them advantage on saving throws against magical effects. This DOES NOT APPLY to effects that would cause their shapeshifting ability to fail, such as Moonbeam.

Devil's Tongue
Once per day, as an action, an Ophidian may target a single humanoid and weave a string of words in an attempt to enrapture them. The target makes a Wisdom saving throw with a DC of 8+proficiency bonus+CHA modifier. Should the target fail, they are charmed by you for 1 minute. When a target is charmed in this way, they can only perceive the Ophidian using the ability, as if affected by the Enthrall spell. If the target fails this check by 10 or more, the target is charmed by you for an hour and will obey simple and non-life-threatening commands such as "Vote for this person in the next election" or "Purloin this item from that character." The charmed target will follow the commands to the best of their ability, believing the idea to be their own, and having no idea of being influenced by the Ophidian at all.
If the command should causes any type of danger to the target or any other creature, the charm will be broken immediately, and the target will realize that they were manipulated.

Bad to the Bone
An Ophidian is always evil, and for good reason. Ophidians have a horrific ability to draw youth from the pain and suffering of others. When an Ophidian commits an evil act, they may roll a d4 and subtract that many years from their current age, to a minimum of 20 years.










Selection Description

<Game stats for selecting this race>