D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

New free content from WotC - the latest 4-page Unearthed Arcana introduces six new races: astral elf, autognome, giff, hadozee, plasmoid, and thri-kreen.

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dnd.wizards.com

Looks like Spelljammer and/or Planescape is back on the menu!

 

[Demetrios1453]

I looked into the Elves of the Imperial Navy, they recruit from all Elven subraces except Drow and Sea Elves (which used to require water) and don't have one of their own subrace, certainly not one ties to the Astral Plane, so if it's for Spelljammer, that's a sign they majorly changed Spelljammer.

Or just altered their lore a bit and re-named them.

 

[dave2008]

Look at the races presented in Witchlight. This is the new format. They might expand on races in the revised PHB, but they might simply stick with what seems to be their new format.

I haven't pulled the trigger on that book yet.

 

[Mort]

I haven't pulled the trigger on that book yet.

If you like fey, fairy tale stuff it's good (wizard of oz, brothers grimm etc.) it's pretty good - I've liked what I read so far. If you prefer high fantasy LOTR or grim and gritty (though 5e is in short supply on that) - you might not like it.

Also, as an adventure it's PACKED. There is a lot to parse before running it properly for a group.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Hundreds of pounds is within “the range of heights and weights humans fall within.” Just sayin’. As for lifespan, A. I’ve never seen this actually matter in a game, except to trip up games who forget that thousands of years is actually only a couple generations for elves.

Moreover, exceptions based design is a thing. Just as they can make a construct race that can be healed with cure wounds, they can make a race that lives longer or shorter than humans, or that’s taller, shorter, lighter, or heavier on average than humans if they want to. We already see an example of how this will likely be done in the anniversary edition in the description for astral elves, which specifically says they live 750 years.

Ages can be pretty important. I had a late twenties genasi who got instantly aged 10 years (that module was a real nasty one). For species like genasi who live over a century, it's still a pretty major impact on their lives, but it's something they can deal with at least.

Take a guess what happens if you're a late twenties thri kreen or aarakocra who gets aged by 10 years....

 

[Weiley31]

A further though in favor of an Armor Arificer Plasmoid. One of the features of Arcane Armor is, "The armor replaces any missing limbs, functionally identically to a limb it replaces." And with Shape Shift, a Plasmoid can control how many if any limbs it manifests.

So it seems to me you can totally do a Krang where you're a blob with a head piloting a magic robot body. How's that for cool?

And there are Tortles.

 

[Bolares]

The sword is also slime. It's gooey.

Or! Slime whip!

The symbiote whip from Rising… @Charlaquin

 

[Charlaquin]

Note that all of these are "unless otherwise specified", such as the elves and autognomes in this very UA.

I am annoyed that they didn't give a height/weight for the Giff, since I always thought they were supposed to be bigger, on average, than humans.

Bigger on average than humans is still within “the range of heights and weights humans fall under.” I think that phrase is doing a lot more heavy lifting than people realize. The world’s tallest human in real life was 8’11”.

And I rather think that’s the point - to emphasize the range of possible variation in people’s sizes, rather than to focus so heavily on averages.

 

[Weiley31]

They wrote green wrong...

Evil Flubber exists. I just know it!

 

[Weiley31]

The symbiote whip from Rising… @Charlaquin

Plasmoids with the Symbiote options from Exploring Eberron.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Or just altered their lore a bit and re-named them.

You missed my point their was no Spelljammer Elven subrace, they came from regular Elven Subraces except for Drow, Sea Elves (who no longer have a water requirement blocking them), and I guess the Elven subraces that didn't exist yet (Pallid, Eladarin, Shadar Kai). Wild, Wood, Sun (High), Moon (High), etc... all could join the Imperial Elven Navy, the Imperial Elven Navy had no subrace of its own, so there is nothing to rename.