Corinnguard
Hero
One of the things that I like about A5e's Dragonborn is the addition of the Essence Dragonborn. These Dragonborn have something of a druidic bent about them thanks to their Essence Dragon progenitors (who are tied to particular piece of land such as a mountain or a particular body of water). This got me to thinking about Earth Essence Dragonborn who are connected to sandy deserts.
For starters, I can see them having breath weapons composed of sand. They could have breath weapons of superheated sand (fire), flaywind sand (acid, a nod to 3e's Sandstorm book), desiccating sand (necrotic), charged sand (lightning), polluted sand (poison), frigid sand (cold, there are deserts in RL that do exist in cold climates) and sparkly sand (radiant, think of sand of fine, ground-down crystals). I haven't been able to figure out what kind of sand, real or otherwise, that could do Force, Psychic or Thunder damage.
While these Dragonborn could stick to one of the three Dragonborn gifts in the Adventurers' Guide, there are heritage gifts belonging to a couple other heritages that could work for them just as well. There is the Burrowing Claws gift from the Halfling heritage, the Acclimatized gift from the Orc heritage, and the Rockamouflage gift (sandy camouflage) of the Rockborn. So you could have a Dragonborn who can burrow through sand, who has no problem living in hot or cold arid conditions, or camouflage themselves against a sand dune.
I like the cultural trait Ethereal Umbra from the Dragoncult culture because I can easily see it where hitting an Earth Essence Dragonborn with this trait is like trying to attack a dust cloud. They are there and not there at the same time.
I think this creative take on the Earth Essence Dragonborn will work well with anyone who is playing a Berserker with the Tempest archetype. Think of such a Berserker wielding the power of a sandstorm by changing out the Lightning damage for one of the other damage types I mentioned above. You might be able to tweak the Stoneheart Sorcerer or the Stone Warden for something sandy.
For starters, I can see them having breath weapons composed of sand. They could have breath weapons of superheated sand (fire), flaywind sand (acid, a nod to 3e's Sandstorm book), desiccating sand (necrotic), charged sand (lightning), polluted sand (poison), frigid sand (cold, there are deserts in RL that do exist in cold climates) and sparkly sand (radiant, think of sand of fine, ground-down crystals). I haven't been able to figure out what kind of sand, real or otherwise, that could do Force, Psychic or Thunder damage.
While these Dragonborn could stick to one of the three Dragonborn gifts in the Adventurers' Guide, there are heritage gifts belonging to a couple other heritages that could work for them just as well. There is the Burrowing Claws gift from the Halfling heritage, the Acclimatized gift from the Orc heritage, and the Rockamouflage gift (sandy camouflage) of the Rockborn. So you could have a Dragonborn who can burrow through sand, who has no problem living in hot or cold arid conditions, or camouflage themselves against a sand dune.
I like the cultural trait Ethereal Umbra from the Dragoncult culture because I can easily see it where hitting an Earth Essence Dragonborn with this trait is like trying to attack a dust cloud. They are there and not there at the same time.
I think this creative take on the Earth Essence Dragonborn will work well with anyone who is playing a Berserker with the Tempest archetype. Think of such a Berserker wielding the power of a sandstorm by changing out the Lightning damage for one of the other damage types I mentioned above. You might be able to tweak the Stoneheart Sorcerer or the Stone Warden for something sandy.
