Nymphs are fey who are manifestations of the natural world. Bonded to a specific geographical area known as their "ward," it is possible for a nymph to change their bond or even lose it due to disaster. While the latter case isn't necessarily lethal, it does make them more mortal in needing to eat and drink given that they normally derive sustenance from the location's essence. Nymphs aren't limited to just the female gender, and the book expands what a nymph is to dryads, naiads, and other fey classically associated with certain terrain types.
Most nymphs tend to be self-sufficient, able to live a comfortable existence in their favored wilderness locale. Nymphs who are not bonded to a particular place are known as wanderers, while nymphs who amass greater power and authority are known as nymph queens. Nymph wanderers are the presumed default playable option, and nymph queens are available as a feat tree optimized for domain management style of play. Nymph wanderers follow one of five major schools of thought known as glades, which seek to define their sense of self and how they relate to the world. Three of the glades have background options in D&D: they are cosmopolitans (seek out and eager to learn about non-fey cultures), naturalists (seek to understand and experience nature in all its forms), and wardens (seek something or someone else to protect after losing their ward). The backgroundless glades are explorers (motivated primarily by wanderlust) and philokalists (seekers of various kinds of beauty).
Nymph wanderers can be of any alignment, although ones of evil alignment are quite rare. With the exception of the hesperides subspecies, lawful ones are rare to a lesser extent. Nymphs tend to have moral codes that incorporate the natural world which most humanoids take for granted. For instance, a good-aligned nymph might define defenseless plants and animals as innocents and thus take pains to prevent their deaths that come from agriculture and industrialization.
Thoughts: I like how the ancestry incorporates fey of similar dispositions beyond just the classic forest-dwelling nymph. While such beings are often treated as distinctly different in both D&D and Pathfinder, there's enough overlap that I feel that this can work without violating a setting's "monster canon" too badly. Of the glades, the warden is my favorite in feeling the most original in concept.
As an ancestry, the nymph gets a boost to Charisma and one other ability score of choice, are medium size, have average walking speed, are fey instead of humanoid, have low-light vision in Pathfinder, and have Fey Ancestry like elves in D&D. The nymph's iconic Unearthly Beauty manifests in one of three ways at character creation, granting proficiency/training in a particular Charisma skill. In Pathfinder, they also get a related feat as a bonus feat, while in D&D they start play with expertise in that skill.
Nymphs have a wide amount of subspecies/heritages to choose from, being 8 in total. They are asteria (tied to stars and constellations, learn the Guidance cantrip), aura (tied to wind, immune to falling damage), dryad (tied to trees, can cast the Tanglefoot cantrip in Pathfinder and has a similar unique effect in D&D of summon a grasping vine to slow down/immobilize a single target), epimelid (tied to meadows, pastures, or orchids, can grow a magic fruit once per day/long rest that heals one who eats it), hesperid (tied to the light of sunset, can shrink a large object to be safely held inside a semi-translucent golden apple), lampad (tied to caverns, learns the Dancing Lights cantrip), maenad (tied to alcohol and poisonous creatures, take less damage from poison), and naiad (tied to freshwater bodies, are amphibious and gain a swim speed).
Thoughts: As can be expected, nymphs are very good for social builds. When it comes to subspecies, I do feel that asteria is going to be the most appealing from an optimization perspective, as Guidance is an amazing cantrip, and aura's falling damage immunity is pretty good as well. Epimelid's healing increases with level, although the once per day use makes it not good enough to substitute for Medicine in Pathfinder or actual healing magic in D&D. The hesperid, lampad, and naiad are the least appealing or most situational options: the hesperid's golden apple can be useful for smuggling gear, but it's very easily superseded by Bags of Holding and similar extradimensional magic. The lampad's Dancing Lights isn't as appealing as asteria's Guidance, and the naiad's amphibious nature is going to be dependent on how common aquatic environments are in the campaign.
Barring the Nymph Queen feat tree and Nymphtouched versatile species that are part of their own categories, nymphs have 42 feats in both D&D and Pathfinder. This marks them as the most well-supported ancestry in this book.
The initial 1st level feats focus on minor supernatural abilities befitting the nymph's role, such as Animal Speaker (choose a broad category of animals to be able to communicate with), Cavern Sight (lampad only, gain darkvision), Change Shape (can polymorph into a single specific humanoid form), Inspiration (grant another creature a token of favor, which grants them advantage/aid benefit on Performance and artisan's tools checks for 10 minutes), Guiding Star/Twinkling Star (asteria only, name differs by system, can summon a star while under the night sky which can guide the nymph to the target), Nuanced Beauty (gain the benefits of all three Unearthly Beauty abilities in 5e, or another type in Pathfinder), and Nymph Strikes (unarmed attacks deal increased and alternate damage depending on subspecies).
The 4th/5th level feats continue to follow this trend, including Aerial Assist (aura only, gains increased speed and Acrobatics bonus while flying), Ally Bond (can choose a single willing creature via a 24 hour ritual, can cast touch range spells on them up to 30 feet), Naiad's Celerity (naiad only, increased swim speed), Nymph Shot (gain a ranged unarmed attack whose damage type depends on subspecies), Plant Speaker (can speak to a specific type of plant), Tree Shaper (dryad only, can magically transform into a tree of Large size in D&D or Medium size in Pathfinder, can be done at will in Pathfinder but once per long rest in D&D), and Wanderer's Way (can cast Longstrider once per long rest/day, can cast it at higher level slots as you increase in level in D&D).
Most of the 8th/9th level feats include a specific subspecies or prior feats as prerequisites, representing their more potent abilities. They are Hesperid Magic (hesperid only, cast Faerie Fire and Disguise Self/Illusory Disguise once per hour/short rest), In Vino Veritas (maenad only, set up a party that makes it harder to lie for those who enter the area), Meld Into Nature (dryad/lampad only, can cast Meld Into Stone once per day, dyrads can meld into trees, D&D feats are separately named and specific to the subspecies) Nature's Fury (deals persistent damage when making a critical hit with the attacks granted by Nymph Shot/Strikes feats), Nature's Flight (asteria, aura, or hesperid, gain fly speed for 10 minutes), Plant Negotiator (+1 bonus on Make an Impression plants in Pathfinder, advantage on Charisma ability checks with plants and can cast Charm Person on plants as though they were humanoid and can cast such a spell once per long rest), Plentiful Orchard (epemelid, can create their healing fruit once per hour/short rest), Ward Token (can create a physical token that lets the nymph avoid starvation and thirst and only needs to sleep 2 hours a day, suffer exhaustion/fatigue if they lose the token), and Water Font (naiad only, can create 6 gallons fresh water once per hour in Pathfinder, or cast Create Food and Water but only water once per long rest).
The 12th/13th level feats start to see more powerful abilities and are quite wordy in their effects in both systems. They include Bacchanalia (maenad only, can cause allies to voluntarily enter a rage-like fury), Call Constellation (asteria only, can create stars to form a constellation in the area with damaging lines connecting them together as an AoE attack), Charming Beauty (can generate an aura once per day/long rest that imposes the charmed condition/improves creature attitudes who fail a Wisdom/Will save), Lampad's Weep (lampad only, an AoE attack that radiates sorrow, imposing the incapacitated condition in D&D or the slowed/can't use reactions in Pathfinder), Soothing Spring (creates a natural healing spring that restores hit points and heals the exhausted/fatigued condition), Tree Strider (dryad only, casts Tree Stride once per day), and Zephyr's Wrath (aura only, once per hour/short rest, creates a damaging AoE gust of wind that deals damage and forced movement).
The 16th/17th level capstone abilities are fewer in number, but include some potent high-level magical abilities. They include Amaranthine Beauty (use Charming Beauty once per hour/short rest), Fey's Shift (cast Plane Shift once per long rest/twice per week, but only between the Material Plane and faerie realm), Nature's Protection (reduces damage by 5 from a large variety of damage types), Nature's Wrath (large-radius AoE that transforms area into dangerous terrain befitting the nymph's subspecies, is selective-target damage and difficult terrain), Perpetual Wings (permanent fly speed), and Unfettered Flock (a multi-target Freedom of Movement in D&D, Unfettered Pack in Pathfinder).
There is one varying level feat: Fey Skin can be taken at 8th level in D&D and 13th level in pathfinder. It works the same as the Gremlin feat of the same name. There's also a feat tree that grants Druid/Primal spells to the nymph: they are Nymph Magic (1st level, learn 1 or 2 cantrips from the druid/primal list depending on system), Queen's Inklings (8th/9th level, learn a 1st level and 2nd level druid/primal spell), and Queen's Dweomers (12th/13th level, learn one 3rd and 4th level primal/druid spell).
Thoughts: As can be expected, a lot of these feats weigh heavily in favor of nature-based stuff, with some social stuff here and there. Nymph Strike and Nymph Shot are the only real feats that explicitly play upon physical attack types, and ironically don't have the finesse traits in either system save for a minority of subspecies: dryad but only in Pathfinder, hesperid, and maenad. Due to this, nymphs who aren't monks or the aforementioned subspecies that want to make use of Nymph Strike will need to specialize in Strength. As is to be expected for D&D, the lower-level feats are harder to justify taking in comparison to ASI and core options, save for Nuanced Beauty. Inspiration's bonuses/advantage on Performance checks might be good in conjunction with certain builds that utilize the skill, but otherwise is highly situational. When it comes to higher-level feats, Ally Bond can be good for nymphs who rely heavily on buff spells but want to stay out of the fray, Plentiful Orchard and Soothing Spring are helpful in granting more reliable healing to the party, the Nymph Magic feat tree can be a worthwhile dip depending on the spells chosen, Nature's Flight/Perpetual Wings are good for gaining flying speed, and Nature's Wrath is a great selective battlefield control ability. The 12th/13th level subspecies-specific feats can be good in granting powerful effects that can be used semi-frequently. Although in that case, the maenad's Bacchanalia won't be as useful in parties that rely heavily on magic over melee combat, given the rage-like nature prevents concentrating on spells. While there's still several weak and situational feats like Ward's Token and Fey's Shift, overall the amount of options on display look quite decent.
Our section on nymphs rounds out with two final entries. The first is the
nymphtouched, a versatile species much like the doppelborn. They represent non-nymphs who have a nymph parent or ancestor in their family tree. They often bear a more specific name in line with their subspecies, such as Winetouched for those with maenad heritage or Startouched for those with Asterai heritage. In some cases, people can have heritage of multiple nymph subspecies, although in game terms they only draw from one. As a playable option, Nymphtouched are represented as a feat of the same name in D&D or as a Rare heritage in Pathfinder. In D&D they gain +1 Charisma, the Fey Ancestry trait, and a nymph's darkvision…which I believe is a mistake, as nymphs don't have that by default. If a character already has one or both, they can increase one ability score of their choice by 1. In Pathfinder, they gain the nymphtouched and nymph traits on top of those from their ancestry, and gain the Unearthly Beauty ability. In both systems they are treated as nymphs for determining what feats they have access to, and choose one subspecies in which they are connected. They can further choose from one of 8 feats in line with one of the subspecies, which grant them said subspecies' iconic trait and also gain Unearthly Beauty in D&D. Pathfinder has a feat exclusive to that system, Nymph's Eyes, where they gain low-light vision.
A
Nymph Queen represents nymphs whose connection to the land grows so powerful that they can encompass entire regions as their bonded ward. While they often have similar power and privileges to mortal monarchs, a nymph queen's status isn't heritable, instead being the result of deliberate, consistent labor over a longer period of time. A nymph queen's ward can incorporate and annex the wards of regular nymphs. If they are willing, said nymphs become akin to subjects. Those who don't wish for this often have the queen either grow their ward around the existing nymphs' territory, or in rarer tragic cases result in violence and displacement of the weaker nymphs.
In both systems, becoming a Nymph Queen is represented as a feat tree, and in Pathfinder it's an archetype. The base Nymph Queen Dedication grants them 1 or 2 druid/primal cantrips depending on the system, proficiency/training in Nature, and choose a specific type of terrain representing that which they rule over. This last part more or less acts as the [Ancestry] Lore series of feats in granting them increased knowledge about said terrain.
Afterwards, all other Nymph Queen feats stem from this baseline. Claim Territory lets them stake their claim over an area of wilderness, and if there are those in the area who would be against the nymph's dominion they must be driven off, placated, or otherwise convinced. Securing a claim lets the nymph be able to communicate with and more easily influence natural and extraplanar creatures living within the terrain, can speak with animals and plants inside that terrain and who are more receptive to the nymph's requests, and the nymph's health is metaphysically linked to the terrain and vice versa. Queen's Court is a 7th/8th* level feat granting them a group of immaterial fey spirit advisors, which in D&D lets them swap out two skills per long rest to have expertise in, and in Pathfinder the spirits can help fulfill basic Requests and help the nymph do social activities more easily such as Gather Information. Queen's Senses is an 8th level feat in both systems, granting the nymph a vague sense of supernaturally befouled areas in their territory along with the general presence of natural and extraplanar creature types. Queen's Senses also lets them cast Clairaudience/Clairvoyance once per short rest/hour, but only within the boundaries of their territory.
*Class/Dedication feats are taken every even-numbered level in Pathfinder, so the 7th level prerequisite might be a typo.
There's also one feat specific to each subspecies, called "[Subspecies] Queen's Beauty." They are taken at either 12th/13th or 16th/17th level depending upon the subspecies. Basically, they emanate a selective-target 10 foot radius aura that is activated by an action in Pathfinder or a bonus action in D&D. The aura can impose a list of debuffs on those who fail a save within it, imposing debuffs of greater magnitude if they fail the save by a certain amount. For instance, a Lampad Queen's Beauty can rob a target of reactions or cause them to be confused/attack a random creature, while the Dryad Queen's Beauty reduces a target's movement speed or outright immobilizes them. A creature who succeeds on the save is immune to the aura for 1 minute. Focus Beauty is a 16th level feat that lets them focus this power on a single target within 30 feet.
Finally, there is a Nymph Queen Spellcasting feat tree. In D&D, they grant bonus druid spells much like the Nymph Magic feat tree, while in Pathfinder they grant basic/expert/master spellcasting benefits.
Thoughts: Much like the doppelborn, the nymphtouched is a good way for non-nymphs to gain some of the mechanical benefits of this chapter, and I can see them being easily reflavored to represent other characters with fey heritage. The Nymph Queen feat tree looks quite appealing for domain management style campaigns, and their ability to make use of animal, plant, and fey spirits as advisors and scouts works nicely with their more supernatural senses when it comes to being an attentive ruler. The main thing holding nymph queens back is that the D&D feats don't grant ability score bonuses. And given the fact that their abilities are limited to a single static area, this means that nymph queen won't be ideal for more mobile campaigns.
Thoughts So Far: While all of the ancestries in this book have a good number of detail, the nymph feels like it has a bit of favoritism in having more content overall. Said content has tight themes in regards to nature magic and social influence, but in expanding said nature beyond the cliche forest really opens them up to a wider variety of thematic archetypes. I can definitely see the nymph queen being tailor made for Kingmaker, and even without the ability score increases that feat tree has broad enough abilities that I can see a clever player making good use of them.
Join us next time as we review the oni, spirit rebels reincarnated into humanoid and giant forms!