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1d20ocs · 5 years ago

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Homebrew: the Furmulus race [WIP v1.0]

Alice blinked at the white rabbit, and the rabbit blinked back.

Well, no: Alice had seen rabbits before, and this wasn’t much of a rabbit at all. Rabbits were about four feet shorter and didn’t have any thumbs; they certainly didn’t wear frilly dresses like this rabbit-girl did. Rabbits also didn’t tend to hop out from nowhere, get right in a person’s face, and ask who that person was in plain Sylvan. Some fey might do that, but the fey Alice had seen before looked more like butterflies than bunnies.

“I’m a cat person, actually.” Alice answered, using humor to mask her surprise.

The rabbit-girl frowned at that. Her humanoid nose twitched as she looked Alice up and down. “No you’re not.”

“But I am.” came a voice from above.

Only a bit more beastly than a humanoid wearing costume ears and a tail, the furmuli are an animal-like culture of people native to the Feywild. They’re thought to have been created by a more powerful version of the Awaken spell, though they can’t make regular beasts into more furmuli, the original method and the knowledge of who had originally done it now lost to time.

On the shorter side and positively pastel, most every furmulus is friendly and personable, able to get along with all but the most evil of people. They’re simple creatures, caring more than careful, who work better working for someone else than being left unsupervised. Even so, families of them might be found off the beaten path nearly anywhere, perfectly happy with or without visitors.

Caution: they might follow you home.

Soft and Fluffy (Physical Description)

Furmuli all have very pale skin, and their eyes are never a dark color either; both are almost always warm hues between pink and yellow, though the eyes sometimes range toward blue. Oddly-shaped pupils aren't uncommon, though they're not common either. Their fur and hair are all the same thing, only a shade at most off from white; they'll never call themselves just white, though, meaning a furmulus colored the palest of lavenders would think of themselves as very purple.

All furmuli have animal-like ears and tails; what animal they resemble varies from person to person. Though the ears and tails always resemble a preexisting animal - typically some at least semi-domesticated land mammal - rather than being a shape all their own, the ears and tail do not necessarily match. The ears grow up from where most humanoids have their ears, sticking out of the tops of their heads from the sides, while the tail grows from the tailbone.

Every furmulus has black eyebrows and whiskers, the latter of which form a small number of lines across their cheeks, close to the skin and so not as useful as a typical beast's whiskers. They can’t grow facial hair over those areas, though mustaches and goatees can grow even on some women. Furmuli are furry practically from birth, with puberty not making them any hairier. They grow whitish fur over their chests, backs, and limbs; body shaving is very uncommon, with only the head (including the ears) and tail typically being styled by even the most fashion-conscious furmuli. Because whiskers are sensitive, cutting them is taboo and they are rarely touched outside of grooming.

Furmuli have rounded features, with no real sharp ends or edges, going from baby-faced to wrinkled over the course of their lives. They dress mostly in whites, reds, and golds, and most enjoy wearing complex frills and designs. They normally choose to dress like children regardless of their age, though they otherwise put an effort in to clothe themselves to match the cultures around them.

Domesticated (Personality)

Furmuli typically refer to themselves as animals (saying "that cat" instead of "that furmulus with cat-like ears"), and take to creative combinations of words to refer to their own combinations (a "cabbit" for cat-like ears and a rabbit-like tail, or vice versa). They might say they’re “furmuluses”, or otherwise play fast and loose with the intricacies of language, with a fondness for combining words in odd ways or simply inventing new ones and hoping those around them can follow along. Other furmuli always keep up with ease, so they don’t realize they’re doing it even when other races ask them to stop.

Family and familial love are the most important things to a furmulus, who would do anything to make their loved ones happy. They consider friendship or purely romantic love to be weaker forms of familial love, and would express any strong love in terms of family. They think of spouses the same as best friends or blood brothers, for example, with the romance between them being a personal matter.

Being native to the areas that put 'wild' in the Feywild, Furmuli have a naturalistic understanding of the world around them. Rather than worshipping any specific gods, they consider concepts themselves to have power; a furmulus might ask Trickery itself for help with a prank, or will Life to help heal an injury. Though they have nothing against cultures that speak to their concepts through entities, what deity or archfey chooses to reply to their requests isn't something most furmulus would think much about when using divine magic. It’s very possible that some patron deity, perhaps whoever made them to begin with, is looking out for their oblivious child race.

Although most furmuli would rather run away than face conflict, being cornered or witnessing others cornered will convince most furmulus to fight. They lack any beastly means of doing damage, but would do their best to end a battle with at least their words; they would rather resort to biting than give up and let someone they care about be hurt, but would really rather do neither. A furmulus could be tricked into needless violence or into letting something bad happen by inaction, but would be unhappy to find out they had done harm.

Sylvanian Families (Culture)

Furmulus culture is extremely collectivist; the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. They do not normally differentiate between different types of ones, and would be baffled or even offended by cultures where there are common people suffering while a small percent prosper. The ideal for the furmuli is a society with minimal internal conflict and maximum happiness, rather than a society with the most wealth or power.

Their communities are usually made up of a few clusters of families. They're usually governed by an individual or a small group, who are expected to make decisions themselves when it would be too tedious for everyone to vote on it. What their ruling class is called, and the other superficial elements of their society, depend on what other cultures they know of; those in the Feywild parody a court with a king or queen, though they’re just as likely to call that same leader a mayor or captain. Whatever words they use, their lives are filled with sharing, making sure everyone has enough of what its members can hunt, gather, or otherwise create from available materials.

Furmuli will farm or mine if living in a place with preexisting farmlands or mines, but will not cause large-scale change on their own. Whether natural or made by other races, furmuli take what they are given and don't fix what isn't broken, living in manmade structures and working in large industries among other races, or living outdoors and working with whatever resources they can survive on in their own corner of the world. Furmuli are very accepting of any outside influence or internal new ideas, not scrutinizing unless something contradicts their core racial values of everyone getting a share and no one getting hurt.

Although most furmuli can be found thriving alone or with other species, their way of life like any other does have its blind spots. Due to their beliefs on family being such a big influence, they have trouble with children who do not inherit their parents' important qualities, struggling to adapt if their queen's child is not a good leader herself. Furmuli who cannot always adapt can be overlooked in favor of the larger community, and can easily find themselves running away rather than being able to have the majority change for a smaller minority. The happy nature of most furmuli can seem fake, though it’s almost always genuine, because they value happiness so highly that they don’t want to express true negativity when it wouldn’t help the group to do so.

And Home Before Dark (Adventuring)

Furmuli enjoy learning magic for utility, and most would rather learn a damaging spell than how to damage with a weapon. The typical furmulus might know a spell or two to help them get around, such as Feather Fall, though most never go beyond that. Many of them are capable of becoming sorcerers, thanks to their mixed ancestry. There are a number of furmulus druids and bards, but a furmuli with any sort of martial training is extremely rare.

They like to explore, either in groups or alone, though most don’t venture too far and will return home often rather than spending long stretches of time far away. Those that become full-time adventurers typically have some problem at home, either that they’ve left to try and solve or left because they couldn’t; it takes something dire to convince a furmulus to be distant from who they love most. As such, a furmulus without a preexisting family is likely to settle down if they find a good place while travelling, or to determine that nice place is with a travelling companion and resolve to follow them anywhere.

Furmuli see other races as all generally people like they are, though they’ll have an easier time with anyone they’re more familiar with. If shown a tree and a goblinoid and asked which would be more likely to hold a conversation, most furmuli from the Feywild would assume the tree was a dryad before being sure of the goblin. They hold no ill will towards new races, simply taking a long moment to accept that something so unlike the creatures they met growing up are people at all. However, unlike most sheltered humanoids, they wouldn’t be surprised at all by the likes of tortles, or any mundane animal that happened to speak Common, since animals are what they’re the most familiar with of all.

Furmuli can reproduce with the same list of species that elves can. When reproducing with another race, the children come out resembling clones of one parent or the other. Any two furmuli can have children together, who then typically inherit the ears from one parent and the tail from the other, with a mix of their parents’ hues. Having only one child at a time is the most common for Furmuli, but they’re much more likely to have twins/triplets/etc. than most humanoids are.

Pet Names

Furmuli have a vaguely playful cadence to their names: a string of consonants or vowels never goes on for too long, despite their otherwise European flair, making it sound like someone made them up one syllable at a time. They have a given name, at least one family name, and anywhere from zero to three middle names; one middle name being the most common. Their names usually all sound interchangeable, except that firsts and middles tend to be shorter than the last names (which are usually only two or three syllables themselves), and few names end with a vowel. They usually call each other by their given names.

Those without family names seem very strange, as family is such an important thing to them. Adding more family names on the other hand is considered normal, if one grows to think of a group of friends as another family; though, after two or three, other furmuli might grow curious of the story behind them all, since it’s odd to ‘go through’ so many relationships so quickly. First or middle names being copied from other cultures isn’t typical, due to the fey-taught importance of having one’s own name, but added family names can be from anywhere.

Subraces

Furmuli can be most accurately divided into three groups; diurnal, crepuscular, and nocturnal. Though most of them stay up through the day and sleep through the night regardless of their nature, and though the Feywild does not have any clear way to measure day and night, what time they are suited for informs their personality and behavior.

A diurnal furmulus is much more likely than a nocturnal to be extroverted, with crepuscular being somewhere in the middle, all able to hold friendships but some more 'sunny' than others. (Male furmuli are typically more extroverted than females, though to a lesser extent.) Along with having a beast’s characteristics to match, daytime furmulus usually have coloration towards yellow while the nightly ones have bluish tones; those associated with twilight have reddish tints instead.

Furmulus Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 2.

Age. Furmuli reach maturity at age 7. The life expectancy varies based on their beastly characteristics, with larger animals usually living closer to 100 than the minimum of 50.

Furmulus age conversion:

Human age 0-25: x0.4

Human age 25-50: x0.6

Human age 50+: x0.75

Alignment. Furmuli are often either very lawful or very chaotic, with the same leanings throughout their whole community, and they are almost never evil. Being passionate is no reason for them to step on others’ toes, so a furmulus would say if so asked.

Size. Furmuli are typically between 4 and 5 feet tall, regardless of what size of animal their ears and tails resemble. Your size is Medium.

Height: 3'9” +2d8

Weight: 30 lbs. +(inches increased from 3'9” x1d4)

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Beastly Nature. You have two creature types: humanoid and beast. You can be affected by a game effect if it works on either of your creature types.

Oh My Ears and Whiskers! You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice, relating to your type of beast. For example, cats typically have talent in Perception or Stealth.

How Late It's Getting! A furmulus can take the Disengage action as a Bonus Action on each of its turns.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice, usually one spoken by your nearest non-Furmulus neighbors.

Diurnal Furmulus

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.

Speak with Small Beasts. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas with Small or smaller beasts.

Crepuscular Furmulus

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.

Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.

Nocturnal Furmulus

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

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.

Those with ears and a tail from two different animals can mix and match one ability score increase and one feature from the subraces above, as appropriate. Ability scores more often correlate to a furmulus’ tail, and features to their ears.

#Homebrew

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