Astrals

Astrals possess an immortal soul that cannot be destroyed. They have lived countless lives, although they don’t retain all of the memories from each. Instead, they get glimpses of their past lives as flashes of inspiration.

Astrals have colorful green, blue, or purple skin tones, accentuated with gray, white, or black patterns. Their eyes have no discernible pupil or iris.

Descendants of Celestials

The first astrals were celestials that willingly gave up their divine powers. These progenitor astrals wanted to live among mortals, either for love or to break free from their eternally unchanging lives. In doing so they lost most of their powers, but retained their immortal souls.

Since then, the act of becoming an astral has also been used as a punishment. These celestials are stripped of their powers and cast out from their domain, cursed to live an endless existence, unable to return to their old form. These astrals are known as the Fallen.

Endless Reincarnation

The soul of an astral is never destroyed. Instead, the astral is reincarnated into a new body with limited memories of their past life. Astrals have no control over where and when they reincarnate, but they generally keep the same body or physical characteristics.

When an astral dies, their body fades away into a swarm of scintillating, dancing lights that disappear into the sky. When an astral reincarnates, these lights reappear and grow into the shape of the new astral. Because astrals are ageless, they always reincarnate at the same apparent age.

Forgotten Time

Astrals have a history that stretches back many generations.

They can’t recall all of their past memories, but some things stick with every reincarnation. Astrals become custodians of forgotten customs and history.. As an astral, you might remember cities and deities that have been lost to time. You might know the true history of how a kingdom came to be, or cataclysms the world has forgotten. To an astral, the past and present are one and the same.

Astral Names

Astrals have a unique naming convention. At the end of each of their names is a number, indicating how many cycles of rebirth they have gone through:

Example Names: Simulutumum-3, Elurite-6, Sanopsim-15, Taldro-140.

Astral Traits

You gain the following abilities as an astral.

• Ability Score Increase. You gain a +2 and +1 bonus to two different ability scores of your choice, or +1 to three different ones.
• Age. Astrals are ageless and can’t die of old age.
• Size. An astral’s size is Medium.
• Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• Dual Type. You have two creature types: humanoid and celestial. You can be affected by a game effect if it works on either of your creature types.
• Reincarnate (Minor Feature). Your immortal soul is destined to reincarnate itself forever. You cannot be turned into an undead. When you die, you will eventually reincarnate somewhere else, at some time in the future, with little to no memories of your past life. In most cases, this means the character is gone for the rest of the campaign unless brought back to life by the raise dead spell or similar magic. If your body has dissipated, you can still be targeted by the raise dead spell and similar magic that requires a body. In this situation, an object that was used by you frequently, like clothing or a favored weapon, can substitute for your body.
• Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Celestial.

Major Features

Choose two of the following major features. You can exchange one major feature for two additional minor features.

• Astral Resistance. You gain resistance to radiant damage and necrotic damage. When you take radiant or necrotic damage, your next attack or spell deals additional damage equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum of +1). Multiple sources of radiant or necrotic damage don’t increase the damage further.
• Celestial Majesty. While your current hit points are equal to your hit point maximum, you have advantage on all saving throws.
• Endless Reincarnations. When you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you can roll a d6 and add the result to your total. You can use this ability after rolling the d20, but before finding out whether it succeeds or fails. After you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. The die increases to a d8 at 6th level, a d10 at 11th level, and a d12 at 16th level.
• Recollection. You are able to access some of your training from your previous lives. Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you can choose one skill or tool and gain proficiency in it. This proficiency lasts until you choose a new proficiency with this ability.

Minor Features

Choose one of the following minor features, or three if you only chose one major feature.

• Been Around. You have proficiency in the History skill.
• Celestial Knowledge. You have proficiency in the Religion skill.
• Combat Training. You have proficiency with two weapons of your choice.
• Divine Resistance. You have resistance to radiant damage.
• Fluent. You can speak, read, and write two additional languages of your choice.
• Recalled Knowledge. When you make an Intelligence check related to a previous reincarnation, you can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the ability check. You can recall a number of previous incarnations equal to your proficiency bonus. Decide what your previous incarnations are when you use this ability. When you gain a level, you can replace a known incarnation with a new one. Examples include burglar, gladiator, professor of history, etc.
• Trained Tools. You have proficiency in two tools of your choice.
• We Go Way Back. When you meet an Npc for the first time, you can declare that you know each other. Roll a Charisma check to determine what their last impression of you was. The DC for this check equals 10 + your proficiency bonus (because higher level characters are more likely to have annoyed someone in their adventuring career). On a success, you left a positive impression. On a failure, you left a negative impression. On a failure of 5+, they hate you. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.