Ixilit
By human standards, ixilit are bizarre, fish-like creatures. They have two arm fins, a tail fin, gills resembling tentacles, large eyes, and a small squid-like beak. Their salamander-like skin can come in different pastel hues, with pink, blue, and yellow being the most common colors.
Ixilit live deep under the ocean and rarely interact with surface dwellers. Little is known about them, but they seem friendly enough.
Game Mechanics
Abilities
Vestigial Fins. Ixilit fins, being vestigial, are clumsy and weak. Ixilit have the lowest Strength and Dexterity scores of any race. A typical ixilit isn't even strong enough to lift their own body weight.
Open Minds. Most of an ixilit's strength comes from its mind—literally. They rely on telekinetics for moving about and telepathy for communication. Their superb spatial reasoning in particular contributes to their above-average Intelligence and Wisdom scores.
Alignment
Ixilit society is cooperative. They tend to be good or neutral, and are rarely chaotic or lawful.
Age
Ixilit take around 25 years to reach maturity. Your old age threshold is 150 years with an aging rate of 5 years.
Language
You are proficient in Ixian. Ixian is not vocalizable, but you can speak it using your Telepathy trait.
Speed
You have a base swim speed of 20 feet. Since your fins can't support your weight on land, you don't have a walk speed.
Darkvision
Your large eyes are adapted for the darkness of the deep sea. You have darkvision (60 ft.).
Ixilit
Size
Small
Small
Speeds
Swim 20 ft.
Swim 20 ft.
Old Age Threshold
150 years
150 years
Traits
Alien Influence. Your creature type is Humanoid, but you also register as an Aberration to abilities that detect aberrations.
Hold Breath. While out of water, you can hold your breath for 10 minutes.
Water Breathing. You can breathe only underwater.
Dormant State. Instead of falling unconscious when you sleep, you go into a dormant state. In this state, you are incapacitated, are vulnerable to psychic damage, and your only sense is mindsense (30 ft.). You can end the dormant state at the end of your turn (no action required).
Telepathy. You can communicate telepathically with creatures you can see out to a range of 60 feet. This telepathy is two-way, but requires a common language.
Empath. You are very sensitive to the psychic energy given off by strong emotion. You have advantage on Insight checks against creatures that are within range of your Telepathy trait. Additionally, you can cast detect thoughts once with this trait without components, using Intelligence as your spellcasting ability. You regain the ability to cast the spell in this way again when you finish a long rest.
Psychic Arms. You don't have arms, but you can manipulate objects with your mind as if you had three arms. Each arm can do anything a normal hand can do within a range of 30 feet, including receiving tactile input. You can't move an object more than 30 feet at once with the Interact action.
You don't drop something you're holding with a psychic arm unless an effect specifically says you do. For example, being incapacitated doesn't cause you to drop something, but being unconscious does.
Your psychic arms don't make physical contact, so they can't be used to deliver spells with a range of touch or similar effects. You can use a fin for such effects. You also can't use a psychic arm to make an opportunity attack, unless the arm is holding a weapon and a creature leaves the weapon's reach.
When you use a psychic arm to perform a task that would normally require a Strength- or Dexterity-based ability check or attack roll, use your Intelligence instead. Your Intelligence score is capped at 3 for this purpose. If you use two psychic arms for the task, your Intelligence score is capped at 4 instead, and if you use three psychic arms, your Intelligence score isn't capped.
Water Bubble. You can use one of your Psychic Arms to maintain a bubble of water around your head, allowing you to breathe in air.
Levitation. At the start of each of your turns, you can use one of your psychic arms to give yourself a hover speed of 20 feet until the start of your next turn. This hover speed has an altitude limit of 5 feet. If your altitude exceeds 5 feet while using this hover speed, you fall at a rate of 60 feet per round until your altitude is 5 feet unless you have another means of staying aloft.
Incapacitated
Incapacitated
Effects of This Condition
- You can't take actions or reactions.
- You can't maintain concentration.
- You can't speak.
Mindsense
Mindsense
Base sense: none
If you have mindsense, you know the location of thinking creatures within a specified range. A creature can be detected in this way if it knows at least one language, has an Intelligence score of at least -3, or is maintaining concentration. You can also sense whether each detected creature is maintaining concentration. Mindsense doesn't count as a form of sight, however.
Mindsense can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by a thin sheet of lead, 1 inch of any other metal, 1 foot of stone, or 3 feet of wood.
Detect Thoughts
Detect Thoughts
2nd-level divination
Components
V, S, M (a copper piece)
V, S, M (a copper piece)
Duration
Up to 1 minute
Up to 1 minute
Casting Time
1 standard action
1 standard action
Range
Self
Self
You gain mindsense (30 ft.) for the duration.
When you cast the spell and as a standard action on each turn until the spell ends, you can focus your mind on a particular creature that you can sense with mindsense to learn its surface thoughts (what is most on its mind at that moment). As a subsequent standard action, you can attempt to probe deeper into that creature's mind. If you probe deeper, the target must make an Intelligence saving throw. If it fails, you gain insight into its reasoning (if any), its emotional state, and something that looms large in its mind (such as something it worries over, loves, or hates). If it succeeds, the spell ends. Either way, the target knows that you are probing into its mind, and unless you shift your attention to another creature's thoughts, the creature can use a standard action on its turn to make an Intelligence check contested by your Intelligence check; if it succeeds, the spell ends.
Questions verbally directed at the target creature naturally shape the course of its thoughts, so this spell is particularly effective as part of an interrogation.
Hover
Hover
Natural Movement Modes: Flying
Other Movement Modes (+1 Cost): Sneaking
Other Movement Modes (+1 Cost): Sneaking
When you have a hover speed, you are immune to the prone condition.
Flying
Flying
Flying lets you move through the air. If you are knocked prone while flying, you fall.
Falling
Falling
When you begin falling, you immediately fall 60 feet. While falling, you drop another 180 feet at the start of each of your turns.
On impact, you take one size die of bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet you fell, to a maximum of 20 dice. You land prone unless you avoid taking damage from the fall, such as via the Break Fall reaction.
If you land in a creature's space, that creature must make a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw. It can choose to fail. On a failed save, the fall damage is split evenly between you and it.
Prone
Prone
Effects of This Condition
- The only movement mode available to you is crawling.
- You have disadvantage on attack rolls.
- An attack roll against you has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of you. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.
Ending This Condition
You can end this condition by standing up, which requires spending half of your walk speed when you move.
Causes of This Condition
Break Fall
Break Fall
Trigger: you land at the end of a fall
You attempt to land safely. Make an Acrobatics check. The fall damage is reduced by half the result of the check.
Sneaking
Sneaking
Sneaking is a special movement mode that you use at the same time as another movement mode. If you are hidden, sneaking allows you to maintain your Hide DC.
Swim
Swim
Natural Movement Modes: Jumping, swimming
Other Movement Modes (+1 Cost): Crawling, sneaking
Other Movement Modes (+1 Cost): Crawling, sneaking
When you have a swim speed, your unarmed weapons have the hydrodynamic property.
Jumping
Jumping
Jumping is a movement modifier that lets you clear gaps or obstacles. Instead of the usual movement cost, you must spend 1 foot of movement for every foot you jump vertically or horizontally (whichever is higher).
When you jump, perform the following series of calculations; don't round until the end. The resulting value is the maximum number of feet you can jump.
- Start with your passive Athletics. Alternatively, you can make an Athletics check and use the result instead.
- If you did not get a running start immediately before jumping, divide the value by 2. To get a running start, you must move in a straight line in the direction you want to jump for a number of feet determined by your size, as shown in the Running Start Distances table. The speed you use to get a running start must be the same speed you use to jump.
- To determine the vertical distance you can clear, divide the value by 2 again.
Running Start Distances
| Size | Running Start |
|---|---|
| Minuscule | 0 ft. |
| Tiny | 5 ft. |
| Small | 10 ft. |
| Medium | 10 ft. |
| Large | 15 ft. |
| Huge | 20 ft. |
| Gargantuan | 25 ft. |
Swimming
Swimming
Swimming lets you travel in any direction through a liquid. While swimming, you don't sink and are immune to the prone condition.
Hydrodynamic
Hydrodynamic
A hydrodynamic weapon functions normally underwater.
Darkvision
Darkvision
Base sense: sight
Within a specified range, a creature with darkvision can see in dim light as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. The creature can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Light
Light
There are three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness.
A source of light typically emits bright light in a small radius and dim light in a larger radius; these distances are given in parentheses. For example, a fire that sheds light (20/40 ft.) produces bright light within 20 feet and dim light for another 20 feet beyond that.
Bright Light
Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.
Dim Light
Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.
Darkness
Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.
Obscured
Obscured
When vision in an area is hindered by smoke, darkness, or a similar phenomenon, the area is obscured. There are two degrees of obscurity.
Lightly Obscured
In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Perception checks that rely on sight.
Heavily Obscured
A heavily obscured area, such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage, blocks vision entirely. Nothing in that area can be seen.
Walk
Walk
Natural Movement Modes: Jumping, walking
Other Movement Modes (+1 Cost): Climbing, crawling, sneaking, swimming
Other Movement Modes (+1 Cost): Climbing, crawling, sneaking, swimming
If you don't have a walk speed, you are prone while on the ground. If you have a walk speed of at least 5 feet, you can spend half of it as part of a move to stand up from prone.
Walking
Walking
Walking lets you move in any direction across a non-vertical surface. There is no mechanical distinction between walking and running. If you are on land and lack a walk speed, you fall prone.