D&D 5E Ideas for Custom Races (using the upcoming Tasha's Cauldron rules)

[Urriak Uruk]

So I just listened to the most recent Dragon Talk, where Jeremy Crawford described some of the new rules for races that will be released allow with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. The most interesting thing I heard (as a lore nut) was that you could take these rules and use them to make your own race, or your own "one-of-a-king" character.

Now, when I heard that, I made this custom table. Essentially, it takes most of the released races and organizes them to show what combinations are available, which combinations don't have an answer in D&D lore, and which do but aren't released. I primarily used the Forgotten Realms wiki as a resource here, but you can apply those as a baseline for your own ideas!

Green means there is no lore answer (and you can make one up or ban it), yellow means there is a lore answer (at least for FR), and italics means it isn't released for 5E.

Now, I don't personally think there should be an answer to each of these combinations, but I do think the new Tasha's rules can allow you to try some out! A tortle for example with fiendish ancestry is completely out-of-scope in the PHB, but these rules allow you to try out strange combinations like this.

 

[Istbor]

There is a Dwelf you say? Strokes beard Interesting...

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Gnome + Giant = Spriggan ?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Personally, I find that with Dragon, Fiend, Celestial or Genie, I feel like they should all be sort of the same.

Like, a Gnome and a Genie is still a Genasi, these rules only allow us to actually create a Gnomish Genasi more easily.

 

[Weiley31]

This was the first thing that came to mind immediately once they started talking about the Lineage system. Alot of the basic stuff is already there. And then any special abilities they come with, like cantrips or spells, come online at certain levels just like it does now.

 

[robus]

All I can say is, humans are the Kirk in this table... They like to get it on...

 

[DnD Warlord]

I hope this is all possible I do feel that the rules may not be able to live up to this.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

All I can say is, humans are the Kirk in this table... They like to get it on...

Either that, or pretty much every race looks at human and thinks "I'm getting a piece of that!"

 

[GreenTengu]

Why no Hobgoblin on this list?

Naturally I want a half-Hobgoblin, a Half-Fiend Hobgoblin, a half-Celestial Hobgoblin, a Hobgoblin/Elf crossbreed and a Hobgoblin/Orc crossbreed.

 

[MGibster]

How about ideas for how these new races fit into the campaign world? As a DM, I feel a bit pressured to allow any of the official races to be used in the games I run. And it's not because my players are jerks, but they've spent money on these supplements and I certainly want them to have a good time playing the game. Since 5th edition started, I've only restricted racial choices in one campaign, Curse of Strahd, where I limited player options to the PHB because I felt many of the other available options were inappropriate for the setting. While I think it's a great idea to have a decent set of tools to build new races with, I have the sinking feeling that I'm going to feel additional pressure to allow players to create whatever race they want to play for similar reasons.