D&D 5E Playable Plant People

[Minigiant]

The Fungus People vs the Plant People would be a cool gimmick for a forgotten ruins adventure. Both hate the other. Both refuse to aid the adventurers unless they openly choose their side. Both worship the magic artifact in the ruin that the adventurers seek. The side you don't pick beat you with sticks made of themselves.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Which tends to be the other problem with "new" races: names that look like someone headbutted the keyboard. If you tell someone you're playing a "volodni' their response isn't going to be "oh a plant man".

It's just pseudo-Russian, isn't it? Looks like "Volodya" (a diminutive of "Vladimir") to me.

But yeah, I like my creatures to have more linguistic and folkloric roots, so to speak.

 

[Marandahir]

The Fungus People vs the Plant People would be a cool gimmick for a forgotten ruins adventure. Both hate the other. Both refuse to aid the adventurers unless they openly choose their side. Both worship the magic artifact in the ruin that the adventurers seek. The side you don't pick beat you with sticks made of themselves.

That would be really fun!

We could also go a bit farther or slightly differently and have them in an uneasy cooperation: the Plant people make food from the sun which the Fungus people need, but the Fungus people make food from the earth which the plant people need. The two have to trade their resources, but are constantly trying to cheat the measuring scales or otherwise swindle the other out of their resources for free.

I know, I just described Mycorrhizal relations. I'm a plant nerd, what can I say?

 

[Minigiant]

That would be really fun!

We could also go a bit farther or slightly differently and have them in an uneasy cooperation: the Plant people make food from the sun which the Fungus people need, but the Fungus people make food from the earth which the plant people need. The two have to trade their resources, but are constantly trying to cheat the measuring scales or otherwise swindle the other out of their resources for free.

I know, I just described Mycorrhizal relations. I'm a plant nerd, what can I say?

So what you're saying.

The Plant People live above ground. They use their leaves to produce high carbohydrate grain from the sun.
The Fungus Folk live underground. They use their hyphae to produce water filled seedless fruit from the soil.
They traded fruit and grain peacefully for centuries. They cheated each other but never actively used aggression to each other.

Then a magic artifact appears and destabilizes the two economies with it's endless light and water.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That would be really fun!

We could also go a bit farther or slightly differently and have them in an uneasy cooperation: the Plant people make food from the sun which the Fungus people need, but the Fungus people make food from the earth which the plant people need. The two have to trade their resources, but are constantly trying to cheat the measuring scales or otherwise swindle the other out of their resources for free.

I know, I just described Mycorrhizal relations. I'm a plant nerd, what can I say?

Rise of the Lichens!

 

[Wik]

Aw, man, the Killoren were awesome. One of my favourite 3e races, and the 4e wildings or whatever they were called were pretty neat too.

My favourite bit was the fact that they changed depending on the season; something that's happened recently in my own 5e game. A character is an awakened bear with hands and whatnot. The campaign hit winter, and while she didn't "hibernate", she did sleep a lot. And was super cranky. It added a LOT to the Role-playing elements of the game.

I'd love to see something like that for a plant creature.

Personally, I see no reason with just inventing something "whole cloth" for a game purpose... though a PC version of a shambling mound would be pretty damn neat too.

(as a side note, I played a myconid psionicist back in the 2e days. His name was Hassan, and he was a wandering spore person. He was super awesome.... so yeah, it can be done. Provided you're not too worried about violating "canon" and all that jazz.)

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Rise of the Lichens!

And to make matters worse, one of them gets bitten by a vegetarian werewolf and becomes a lichenthrope.

 

[Eltab]

It's just pseudo-Russian, isn't it? Looks like "Volodya" (a diminutive of "Vladimir") to me.

But yeah, I like my creatures to have more linguistic and folkloric roots, so to speak.

How familiar are you with Forgotten Realms? Everybody in the NE quadrant of the map (including Volodni) speaks a pseudo-Slavic language.

 

[Marandahir]

So what you're saying.

The Plant People live above ground. They use their leaves to produce high carbohydrate grain from the sun.
The Fungus Folk live underground. They use their hyphae to produce water filled seedless fruit from the soil.
They traded fruit and grain peacefully for centuries. They cheated each other but never actively used aggression to each other.

Then a magic artifact appears and destabilizes the two economies with it's endless light and water.

YES. There's a really cool adventure hook!

 

[Eltab]

The Unapproachable East campaign setting book for 3.5 Forgotten Realms included a write up on the Volodni.

I've been working on converting them to 5e but haven't gotten anything that I'm particularly happy with could probably do with some tweaking. Hard to know exactly which traits to worry about and which to let fall away.

For AL, I've been thinking about using a Wood Elf and CALL it a Volodni. There still is no way to become a plant. (Is there a 5e description of what that means, mechanically? I don't own an MM.)