It’s October, and in the USA, that means it’s time to get your spook on for Halloween. (And for stores to sell Christmas stuff.)
If you or a GM you love is planning a Halloween one-shot, we’ve got some special monstery lineages and heritages you can try to fill out your party.
Today is the scarith, a created lineage made of straw and wood. We are also showing off a typical heritage of the scarith, vassal ward.
Let us know what you might do with this in the Kobold Discord server. There’s potential for them to appear in an official capacity in the future!
Scarith
Scarith are artificial creatures consisting of spirits contained within constructed bodies. They are the products of magical experimentation, fell curses, or divine intervention. Though made creatures, they prioritize reproduction to pass on their knowledge and their essential selves. This requires powerful magic, which scarith either bargain for, or occasionally, learn themselves.
Though a variety of forms are possible, scarith are traditionally made of simple materials such as cloth, straw, and wood. In many cases, they resemble living scarecrows, but can be fit for other tasks such as agriculture, spinning, or manual labor. Their bodies are made loosely, allowing them to be flexible beyond standard Humanoid anatomy. Scarith can appear silly or frivolous, but they have a deeper thoughtfulness that sometimes allows them to plumb mysteries that escape the very wise.
Some scarith remember their former lives clearly, while others have only fragments or remember nothing at all. Whether they were Humanoids before, elemental spirits, fey, or less well-defined beings is partially a matter of their creator’s choice and partially a mystery. Some search for a way to escape from their construct bodies, some attempt to live their lives as before, while others relish their new forms, abandoning the constraints of their past.
In the wider world, scarith are sometimes the objects of pity or fear, but the scarith themselves feel no particular self-loathing or conflictedness. In fact, no self-image binds a scarith for long; they can drop one seeming and put on another as easily as changing clothes. Individuals have distinct personalities, but their sketchily remembered past gives them freedom to become who they need to be without concern for a foolish consistency or a hidebound philosophy. As they were made, so they feel free to remake themselves.
SCARITH LINEAGE TRAITS
Your scarith character has certain traits dictated by their lineage.
Age. The spirit trapped inside a scarith can be any age. A scarith is an “adult” at the moment of its creation, and as long as its body is intact, a scarith doesn’t age. However, the enchantment binding spirit to body breaks down eventually, often after 50 to 90 years.
Size. Your size is Medium. Your weight is 105 pounds on average as your body is made of straw, cloth, and wood.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
False Appearance. While you remain motionless and prone, you are indistinguishable from an inanimate scarecrow.
Hybrid Humanoid. Your spirit inhabits a humanoid body, making you primarily a Humanoid. However, your constructed body gives you traits in common with Constructs. You are immune to disease, and you are resistant to poison damage. In addition, you have advantage on saves against being paralyzed, petrified, or poisoned. In addition, you don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe. You don’t sleep, but instead enter a passive state where you are completely inactive but fully aware of your surroundings.
Floppy Body. Your body is extraordinarily flexible. You suffer no penalties for squeezing in a Small space, and you can squeeze into a Tiny space.
Radical Adaptability. You are so free in the moment that you are hard to mentally control. You have advantage on saves against magical charm effects.
New Heritage: Vassal Ward
Sometimes a strange found society springs up from among creatures housed together by outside will or circumstance. While this heritage could be used to suggest a society raised in benign serfdom, it more typically represents one formed by creatures accidentally trapped or protected by a greater power.
These might be creations stored by their creator, a god’s followers bound up in a demiplane, or a city magically trapped in a bottle on an archmage’s shelf. In all cases, the members of the society are protected from predation and happenstance. Their physical needs are provided for, but their lives feel stifled, lacking stakes or meaningful risks.
Members of vassal ward societies are highly refined, learning specialized, rarefied arts without outside influence. Their thoughts are so recursive that even their language becomes idiosyncratic, discernable only to each other in extreme cases. Finally, they have an unusual facility with hiding and escaping. Even though their society’s keeper might be well intentioned, vassal wards learn to keep their secrets, and the ones who escape are the best at going unnoticed.
Absconder. You have proficiency in the Stealth skill.
Accomplished. You have proficiency with one tool and one instrument of your choice.
Languages. You know Common and one additional language of your choice. Typical creatures of this heritage choose a language based on their keeper’s language. In addition, you have a distinct Vassal Cant that you share only with other members of your vassal ward society. When using it, you can speak or leave messages in this language and can only be understood by other members of your heritage.
New Background: Eldritch Seeker
You spent most of your life trying to uncover the darkest secrets of the universe, regardless of the consequences. Part scholar, part archeologist, part treasure hunter, your unshakable resolve to bring hidden knowledge into the light gives you a unique, though obsessive, view of the world.
Perhaps you were the sole survivor of an eldritch event, a foolish student who read a forbidden tome, an exiled researcher believed by all to be insane but who knows they know the truth. Whatever you were before is immaterial, your path is paved by your obsession and propelled by a fervent longing to understand the unknown.
Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from Arcana, History, Investigation, or Religion.
Additional Proficiencies: Learn two languages from Abyssal, Celestial, Draconic, or Sylvan, and gain proficiency with one tool of your choice that corresponds to your eldritch hunt.
Equipment: A hooded cloak, a backpack, a scholar’s tome of eldritch lore, a strange glyph etched onto a finger bone, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 15 sp.
Talent
The skills you’ve mastered come from dedicated and exhaustive training. Choose a talent from this list to represent your experience: Dungeoneer, Mental Fortitude, or Touch of Luck.
Adventuring Motivation
Eldritch seekers become accustomed to existing on the fringes of society, for their quarry lurks in the shadows. Something within you drives you to delve into mysteries most would shun. Consider how your inner secret, past tragedies, or the forbidden lore you hold now, shape your relationships and your motivations to continue your hunt for the unknown.
Adventuring Motivation
| d8 | Adventuring Motivation |
| 1 | What the voices say, I shall do. |
| 2 | I languish under a curse and search for a way to remove it through adventuring before I succumb to its vile corruption. |
| 3 | An accident brought me into contact with something from the Void. The world must be protected from that horror, and I adventure to make it so. |
| 4 | Only by adventuring can I understand the mysteries of the Labyrinth and be truly wise. |
| 5 | Nothing makes me happier than lording my knowledge over someone more ignorant. |
| 6 | If knowledge is power, then hidden knowledge is even more powerful. |
| 7 | Prophesies say I am to perform some heroic deed. I adventure to either escape or fulfill that prophecy. |
| 8 | I adventure to find eldritch lore that will cure my loved ones from a strange wasting condition. |
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