The Blargy Blog

Without just copying and pasting everything here, the Forgotten Realms wiki has ecology lore on the killoren. When I mentioned the Races of the Wild book, I linked that to the original 3.5 design so you could compare this version with that one, if you wanted to. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job in keeping it close to the original, while balancing the aspects to each other.

As before with my entries, there’s no real “official” way to judge how powerful a creature is. There are definitely a lot of 3PP supplements and homebrew out there, which I tend to have to use as a guide. For this, I used the updated Detect Balance Plus, which did both 2014 5e and 2024 5.5 breakdowns on the same spreadsheet. This worked out to be around 32 points, which is close to where the elf and gnome sit. I was thinking of doing more, as dragonborn, goliath, and warforged are even more powerful, but ultimately decided against it. You'll notice this species doesn't have darkvision, which is rare in current day D&D, but a lot of fey like the changeling, fairy, and centaur do not.

Now, let's talk stats.

I'd forgotten how bare bones 5.5e design is. You're defaulted to a narrow choice of alignment and age, available languages are determined by DM, and your ability scores are now determined by your Background.

Killoren

Creature Type: Fey Size: Medium (about 5–6 feet tall) Speed: 30 feet

As a Killoren, you have these special traits.

Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Manifest Nature's Might. After you finish a Long Rest, choose one of the options below. The manifested aspect lasts until you choose a different one with this trait. Here are the aspect options: Aspect of the Ancient. Your hair becomes snow white and your eyes turn sky blue. You have Expertise in the Intelligence (Nature) skill, gain resistance to Psychic damage, and are immune to the Charmed condition. Aspect of the Destroyer. Your hair and eyes turn coal black. When you hit a target with an attack roll and deal damage to it, you can also deal 1d6 Radiant damage to that target. The damage increases by 1d6 if the target is an aberration, construct, fiend, humanoid, ooze, or undead. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest. Aspect of the Hunter. Your hair and eyes turn forest green, and your skin color becomes an earthy-tone brown. When you roll Initiative, you can add your Proficiency Bonus to the roll. In addition, you gain proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills if you don't already have it, and you have Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom (Perception) checks.

Naturalist. You have proficiency in the Animal Handling, Nature, or Survival skill.

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As before with my entries, there’s no real “official” way to judge how powerful a creature is. There are definitely a lot of 3PP supplements and homebrew out there, which I tend to have to use as a guide. For this, I used the updated Detect Balance Plus, which did both 5e and 5.24 breakdowns on the same spreadsheet. This worked out to be around 43 points. For the Pathfinder 1e race, it's using the Race Guide, and comes to 14 RP.

Yeti (PF1e) -Racial Traits- Ability Score Modifiers (Specialized) +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int (1 RP) Type Monstrous Humanoid (3 RP) Size: Medium (0 RP) Darkvision 60 ft. (-- RP) Speed 40 ft. land, 20 ft. climb (1 + 2 RP) Natural Armor +1 (2 RP) Offense Claw 1d6 (2 RP) Immunity Cold (Cold Subtype) (4 RP) Vulnerability Fire (-2 RP) Camouflage Arctic (1 RP) Languages Common and Aklo (0 RP)

Total = 14 RP

Yeti (D&D 5e) As a yeti, you gain the following traits. Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1. Age. Yeti reach maturity around age 12 and rarely live longer than 80 years. Creature Type. You are a Monstrosity. Size. Yeti stand between 6 and 8 feet tall and average about 360 pounds. Your size is Medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 35 feet, and you have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray. Claws. Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you can deal slashing damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier. Cold Immunity. You are immune to cold damage. Natural Armor. When you aren’t wearing armor, your base AC is 12+Dex. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor. Winter Camouflage. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made in snowy terrain. Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Yeti.

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Of course, the question that has to be asked is, would I allow a player to use this in a game, especially a winter themed one? And the answer is, quite likely, yes. I'd actually go even further and design some homebrew racial feats. Namely, I'd want to replicate the paralysis gaze and freezing cold aura if you're grappled or hit from a melee attack (whether the claw or a melee weapon). In Pathfinder, the latter is incredibly easy to replicate because of the suli race and its Elemental Assault trait, which adds an elemental damage type to melee attacks and unarmed strikes.

And for anyone who's seen the original Rudolph Christmas special, I might even create a feat called Bumble's Bounce, to reduce the amount of damage the yeti takes from fall damage. However, I'd never go so far as to make the PC large size in 5e. If the player wanted that, there are spells and subclasses that allow you to do that. Pathfinder, we'd probably do the route that Dreamscarred Press did with a PF1e version of Savage Species monster levels, and at the tail end allow the creature to reach Large size. Being that big permanently has its own drawbacks too, which the player would need to be careful of. For 5e, I'd probably have it be that you can take a feat that allowed you to become Large a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, as a bonus action, for 1 minute each use, no concentration.

EDIT: I'll also add that if you feel the 5e version is too much, and wouldn't be allowed at your table because of it having cold immunity (much like the yuan-ti used to have poison immunity), you could always revise it to be closer to the Fizban's Treasure of Dragons chromotic dragonborn, where you have cold resistance at the start, and at 5th level gain Chromatic Warding: "Starting at 5th level, as an action, you can channel your draconic energy to protect yourself. For 1 minute, you become immune to the damage type associated with your Chromatic Ancestry. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest."

Since the module has you play as drider or drow, if you wanted to be a scorrow, this module wouldn't technically allow for it. However, it's actually pretty easy to make a drow into a drider with what's already available. Also, talking to my players, and other people online, there are a lot of people who prefer to play as tiefling. Unfortunately, there's no official playable tiefling option in this scenario, and no tiefling drow hybrid race or monster outside of the draegloth. I've seen argument that a cambion can be created by any humanoid, not just humans, so that could be argued, and there's also a hydrid drow/bugbear 3PP release that I found for one of my players who ran through the Way of the Wicked adventure path. There are quite a few drow hybrid races, but the majority of them are 3PP, so today I'll just be covering two official monsters from D&D, and who you how to convert them to 5e with a few simple additions to the base race.

To make a scorrow, take your standard drow and make the following changes:

Change the Darkvision to 60 feet from 120, and remove Sunlight Sensitivity.

Remove the drow's Weapon Training.

Rename Trance to Unihemispheric Sleep. You still don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep, but need more than 4 hours of rest.

Add the centaur's Equine Build and Hooves. Rename Hooves to Stinger and increase the damage to 1d6 piercing instead of 1d4 bludgeoning.

Add the grung's Standing Leap.

Add the 2024 dwarf's Stonecunning.

Change your Creature Type from Humanoid to Monstrosity. Add "You are also considered a drow for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be one." allowing you to take drow feats.

Removed the drow's Drow Magic.

Add a new ability called Scorpion Empathy. You can cast animal friendship an unlimited number of times with this trait, but you can target only scorpions with it. You also have advantage on Wisdom (Animal Handling) checks you make to influence them.

You might be surprised at just how balanced this actually is. It's obviously more than your standard drow, but it has its own weaknesses by comparison, especially the inability to cheat resting hours and lack of magic. It's "point cost" is less than most of the newer playable races.

To make a draegloth, take your standard drow and make the following changes:

Remove the drow's Weapon Training.

Remove the drow's Trance.

Change your Creature Type from Humanoid to Monstrosity. Add "You are also considered a drow and a tiefling for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be one." This allows you to take drow and tiefling feats.

Remove Sunlight Sensitivity.

Add a thri-kreen's Secondary Arms.

Admittedly, this is less balanced when compared to the scorrow, but Secondary Arms is considered fairly busted to just about any other ability in the game. Not having Trance is still a problem though, and unless the drow and scorrow, you still need to sleep and can be affected by the sleep spell.

Ever thankful to the D&D Forgotten Realms Wiki for consolidating all of the information onto one site for easy reading and linking.

For the drow-dragon, this is probably the easiest conversion possible. The drow-dragon is just a regular shadow dragon (whether you use the 2014 template or 2024 monster) with the elf subtype in brackets, and the metallic dragon's 2014 Change Shape ability to turn into a drow. The reason you want that version and not just the spell is because of the subtype aspect. You are a dragon that can take elf feats like Elven Accuracy and use elven specific equipment and anything else with "elf" as a prerequisite. In older editions, you had the Elf Blood trait where you counted as an elf for all purposes, including bane weapons and the ranger's Favored Enemy.

There's also a variant of this species, called the Half-Deep, that aren't a shadow dragon, but rather a deep dragon, and that existed back in AD&D 2nd, where the drow's skin was more of a deep maroon instead of the jet black or almost deep purple we're used to seeing. Depending on the lore you've read, they were similar but still different in appearance to the drow half-fiends that exist, which had more of a vibrant red skin tone.

For the zekyl (or zekylyn = plural), the easiest way to do this on the DM's side of things is to just add the half-dragon template to NPCs, but revise it so that the template grants necrotic damage and resistance instead of the standard chromatic and metallic options.

For the player's side, however, it's a little trickier and needs some DM fiat. Without using much homebrew, a topaz dragonborn reflavored to have drow features works, and you might be able to convince the DM to allow you access to a homebrew feat that'll give you the drow's spells, similar to the Fey-Touched feat.

Image is taken from the Mr Rhexx video, so I'm not sure who did the art.

For the purposes of this entry though, we're going to convert the version of the half-shadow dragon drow on page 4 of the Dragons of Faerun Part 3 web enhancement City of Wyrmshadows.

This version of the race loses the spellcasting ability of regular drow for the breath weapon and resistance of the shadow dragon. In older editions, that meant dealing negative levels, but in 5e that means necrotic damage.

Like previous conversions to 5e, I used the Detect Balance Plus spreadsheet, and use the 2014 rules for ability scores, but you're welcome to use the Tasha's rules to choose any stats to gain bonuses.

This is up there for being one of the most expensive races I've done. It doesn't have the natural armor that you'd see on lizardfolk or the tortle, which admittedly is on the original design of the zekyl, but for the most part it's kind of pointless since actual armor tends to be better. Some creatures lose their natural attacks, and we haven't seen any yet in 2024, but the claws dealt more damage than the bite for this race, so I wanted to keep them. I made sure to keep them at 1d6 since the 1d4 ones typically aren't used. I do wish I could have given the resistance to paralysis and magic resistance that the 3.5 version had, but that would have been far too much. Also, while the picture shows wings, the version I based this build off of says only specific bloodlines gain flight. Maybe you can convince the DM to give you the UA feat of Dragon Wings and revise the requirements. As it is, this borders on the power dynamic of the bugbear, fairy, shadar-kai, satyr, and Fizban's dragonborn for points. It'd be higher, but the sunlight sensitivity balances things out.

Zekyl/Zekylyn Species 5e

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma scores each increase by 1. Age. Zekylyn age at much the same rate as drow, reaching adulthood at the age of 100. They live much longer than drow, however, often exceeding 950 years. Alignment. Like most drow, zekyl are vicious and dangerous, and are more often evil than not. Creature Type. You are a Dragon. You are also considered a drow for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be a drow. Size. Your size is Medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 ft. Superior Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. Breath Weapon. When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of your attacks with an exhalation of magical energy in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC = 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus). On a failed save, the creature takes 1d10 necrotic damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage. This damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10). You can use your Breath Weapon a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Claws. Your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself. Frightfully Vigilant. You have proficiency in the Intimidation and Perception skills. Necrotic Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic damage. Trance. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trance-like meditation, during which you retain consciousness. Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of the attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight. Languages. You can speak, read, and write Elven, Draconic and Undercommon.

The monster this time around is the tome lizard. It's a tiny imp looking dragon that have an odd attraction to books, namely magical texts, and much like a cat (although compared more to raccoons), enjoys shredding them up. Their intelligence lacks, so they can't read, but they do possess an odd sixth sense and desire to seek out whole collections of tomes that it would then use as both a food source to line its nests. Strangely enough, wizards use them as Improved Familiars, as they make decent territorial guardians for the very tomes that they may destroy or protect, depending on the day. What's funny/interesting about their lore is that they will protect a wizard's spell book, but that there was a 5% chance that for each spell a wizard added to the spell book, the tome lizard might go berserk and shred the book. For that reason, most scholars and wizards tend to attack these creatures on sight, often hunting them for their ink sacks, containing enhanced ink that tends to last eons.

Statblock generator courtesy of Monstershuffler.

Originally, this creature was a CR 2, but for 5e that's far too high for a familiar, especially a Pact of the Chain Improved Familiar, so I purposely brought it down to be closer in line to the imp and pseudodragon. Just an overall fun creature to add to the game.

As always, if you like what I do, whether it’s monster conversions, adventure path add-ons, or race builds, I have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who would like to support me monetarily, especially now that I’m racking up medical bills. There is no pressure or obligation to do so. A like and/or a share would also be appreciated just as much. It lets people know I exist out there.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.

And because I learned that there's the potential that posting homebrew could get you in trouble should a particular company wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I'm going to be add this addendum now that it's been released. Just want to be safe.

My choice for this entry is Krynn's own feeder. For those not familar, Krynn is the world of Dragonlance. The creature is a diminutive dragon that looks like a dagger, and can be found in the Bestiary of Krynn and Dragons of Krynn.

Feeders are described as "dagger-sized dragons who appear like said weapon but with a pommel shaped like a dragon's head. Their 'blade' is a blood-sucking proboscis, and is actually a common ingredient for wizards designing weapons which cause magical bleeding. The feeders were created by Takhisis as a cruel jest to sow paranoia; feeders will often lay dormant, appearing much like normal weapons before seemingly coming to life and stabbing their owner to death. In spite of this origin the chromatic clans feel no love for them, believing them to be pathetic pretenders and vermin to be destroyed."

Original 3.5 stats and image from Bestiary of Krynn.

This creature fascinated me as the image shows it breathing fire, yet the stat block itself doesn't have that. I decided to add it in regardless, and also gave it the spell nondetection to help hide it even better.

For me, I was telling an acquaintance and fellow DM how it could be fun to see this creature to used as an "intelligent weapon" ala a hexblade warlock. Jeremy Crawford has said in previous interviews that we should just reflavour subclasses instead of relying on exact subclasses. This was essentially him referencing the fans asking for a draconic patron for warlocks and WotC's push back that overlapping subclasses could overshadow current ones (ie. the draconic sorcerer). Instead, he suggested using a moonstone dragon and taking the Fey patron. Therefore, using that logic, this creature would work in the similar vein for a Hexblade patron. Maybe the feeder is actually a fragment of a greatwyrm (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons). You could play around with the idea at least.

The stat block is for the 2014 5e rules.

Statblock generator courtesy of Monstershuffler.

If I'm able to, I'll try my hand at doing another entry for Dragon Week. It'll just depend on how my recovery goes.

As always, if you like what I do, whether it’s monster conversions, adventure path add-ons, or race builds, I have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who would like to support me monetarily, especially now that I'm racking up medical bills. There is no pressure or obligation to do so. A like and/or a share would also be appreciated just as much. It lets people know I exist out there.

As before with my entries, there’s no real “official” way to judge how powerful a creature is. There are definitely a lot of 3PP supplements and homebrew out there, which I tend to have to use as a guide. For this, I used the updated Detect Balance Plus, which did both 5e and 5.24 breakdowns on the same spreadsheet. This worked out to be around 38-39 points, which is around where the aasimar, eladrin, gem dragonborn, reborn lineage, autognome, thri-kreen, and revised yuan-ti sit. I'll preface that it seems powerful, but it's a matter of what you get out of the deal. The dryad's spells aren't going to break the game in any way, and are strictly utility.

Dryad Species/Race 5e As a dryad, you gain the following traits. Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1. Age. Dryads reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, and reach adulthood around the age of 35. They can often live to be 750 years old. Alignment. Typically good aligned, but like most fey, dryads enjoy the chaotic side of things. Creature Type. You are a Fey. Size. Your size is Medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. Magic Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells. Woodland Blessing. You know the druidcraft cantrip. Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the speak with animals spell with this trait. Starting at 5th level, you can also cast the speak with plants spell with it. Once you cast either of these spells with this trait, you can't cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these using spell slots you have of the appropriate level. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells when you cast them with this trait (choose when you select this race). Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common, Elven, and Sylvan.

Dryad Racial Feat

Charms of the Dryad Prerequisite: Dryad Your innate charms flourish. You gain the following benefits:

Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 1, to a maximum of 20.

You learn the animal friendship spell and charm person spell. You can cast each of these spells without requiring a material component, and without expending a spell slot. Once you cast either of these spells in this way, you can't cast that spell in this way again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these spells using spell slots you have of the appropriate level. The spells' spellcasting ability is the ability increased by this feat.