Dryad

Dryads are magical, fey creatures who embody the spirit of a tree. Once a tree has grown in a sacred grove for a century or more, a dryad may emerge, fully formed, to serve as the grove’s protector and friend. Occasionally, such beings wander from their groves, perhaps because another dryad has emerged to protect the grove.

Dryads have the form of a young human or elf, but their hair looks like green, red, or golden leaves and their smooth skin resembles green, golden, or brown bark.

Ancestral Traits

Your dryad character has several distinctive traits gained from your arboreal fey ancestry.

Age. Dryads grow slowly, taking nearly 100 years to reach maturity. Once they have, however, they can live for a thousand years.

Size. Dryads are roughly human in size and weight. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base speed is 30 feet.

Fey Creature. Your creature type is Fey.

Natural Camouflage. Your tree-like appearance allows you to blend into natural environments. You have advantage on all Stealth rolls made while in forests, swamps, jungles, and similar environments where trees grow.

Oaken Form. Dryads are made of living wood, with skin of smooth bark. When you aren’t wearing armor, your AC is 12 + your Dexterity modifier. You can use this score to determine your AC if worn armor would leave you with a lower score. You may benefit from a shield as normal.

Speaks for the Trees. Dryads still know the secret language of the natural world, though they can no longer hear it whispered back to them. You can communicate simple ideas to beasts and plants as if they shared a language, though you cannot understand them.

Cultural Traits

Dryad communities are usually situated among the trees in which those of dryad ancestry grew to maturity. As such, their cultural practices largely revolve around the trees – their growth, their changing leaves, their flowering, and so on. They celebrate when a new tree sprouts, and when a sapling first buds, or a young tree first flowers or fruits, and they memorialize when an elder tree dies and falls, thanking it for returning its energy to the soil and community.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 2 and your Constitution by 1.

Alignment. Dryads and the communities that grow around them are defined by the love of nature, but some of their number can be as fickle as the weather. Others, however, are as steady and stable as an old oak. Even so, they tend toward goodness or neutrality and away from evil.

Forest Magic. You know the druidcraft cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the goodberry spell once. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the entangle spell once, without requiring the material component. You regain the ability to cast these spells when you finish a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Steward of the Wood. You have proficiency in the Nature and Animal Handling skills.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

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