Transform your 5E D&D Characters Through Lineages from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

June 23, 2021

Salutations, nerds! Today I’m looking at the Lineages for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons found in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. I’ve got a player in a weekly game I’m in who went with one of these lineages for their character. They didn’t tell any of us up front so we played several sessions assuming the character was human until he opened his entire head and bit a minion’s face off. I can already tell this is going to be a fun one.

What happened to your 5E D&D character?

First of all lineages are race options 5E D&D characters might gain through remarkable events. If you follow one of the lineages your character you probably started off as something else, as with the case of our friend Shark Bait. A lineage takes priority over the original race whether this choice is made during character creation or through a transformation that occurs during a character’s adventures.

You choose your character’s Ability Score Increases in the same way as Custom Lineages presented in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and that’s pretty interesting for starters. I really dig this level of customization. You also chose one other language in addition to Common unless a lineage replaces the character’s existing race. There’s also wiggle room when it comes to creature type with options beyond the standard Humanoid type, which can greatly affect some rules in the game.

Let’s see what the lineages in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft are all about, shall we?

“The lineages provided in this section represent a physical and magical transformation that alters you in fundamental ways. You can still appear as you once were, but you’ve changed in significant ways that might overwrite your once physical or magical capabilities. A dragonborn who becomes a dhampir, for instance, loses their connection to their draconic ancestry as the deathless power of vampirism surges through them. Once able to exhale destructive energy, the dragonborn now feels a powerful hunger inside, and their bite is now able to drain life. Some racial traits might remain after you gain a lineage, a possibility captured in the Ancestral Legacy trait. Keep this in mind when you explore the details of how you change after gaining a lineage subsequent to character creation.” — What Happened To Me? sidebar in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

Dhampir

Characters of this lineage are constantly hungry and sort of undead. This was our first clue about our friend in game, by the way. Detect evil and good? Well yeah, there’s an undead right next to you! (Our player was using the Unearthed Arcana version of the dhampir, where their type was both Humanoid and Undead. It was a really cool moment at table.)

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft includes a whole list of things your dhampir character might hunger for, so playing a psychic vampire is a completely valid option here. My friend went more ghoulish. The book also includes a variety of Dhampir Origins as suggestions what sort of macabre encounter gave your character their lineage along with a few specific examples for how to tie such a character to one of the Domains of Dread.

When it comes to traits a dhampir character is humanoid who moves a bit faster than the standard 30 feet and has darkvision. More interesting however are the other traits including not needing to breathe and having a climb speed with Spider Climb. Of course the dhampir also has a Vampiric Bite. This natural weapon deals damage and allows you to either regain hit points or gain a bonus to your next ability check or attack roll.

Hexblood

My understanding of this lineage is it’s almost Warlock: The Playable Race. Hexbloods are tied to hags. These 5E D&D characters have a lot of haglike traits and some magical benefits and might be on your way to becoming one.

Like it does for dhampir Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft includes a Hexblood Origins table with suggestions as to how your character gained this lineage through a bargain with a hag or other eerie force. One of the possible origins is excellent for a changeling in the original sense as in you’re a fairy swapped with a human at birth. There’s also guidance for creating a hexblood character whose origins are tied to one of the Domains of Dread.

Hexbloods get creature type Fey, which is already incredibly cool and lands this on my list of things to try on when I can. This is also a change from the original Unearthed Arcana where the hexblood lineage made a character both fey and humanoid except here the humanoid part is dropped completely and your character is only the fey type. A hexblood can be Medium or Small and has darkvision. Their signature trait allows you to hand someone a bit of yourself (including a nail or a tooth…ick!) and be psychically connected to them while they’re carrying it through telepathy and scrying. Apparently this missing part regrows during a long rest. Squick, squick, squick…and +1 reason to want to play this. Hexbloods can also cast disguise self and hex.

“Hags can undertake a ritual to irreversibly transform a hexblood they created into a new hag, either one of their own kind or that embodies the hexblood’s nature. This requires that both the hag and hexblood be in the same place and consent to the lengthy ritual—circumstances most hexbloods shun but might come to accept over the course of centuries. Once a hexblood undergoes this irreversible ritual, they emerge as a hag NPC no longer under the control of the hexblood’s player, unless the DM rules otherwise.” — Becoming a Hag sidebar in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

A reborn with a phantom limb takes aim. This image is reminiscent of Nehwon ghouls from Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar stories featuring Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, which is pretty awesome! Fafhrd has a relationship with a ghoul woman named Kreeshka in The Price of Pain-Ease. [Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

Reborn

We have the technology! We can rebuild him!

You died, or you were made of a bunch of other creatures who did. If you’ve ever wanted to play Frankenstein this is your chance. Reborn characters for 5E D&D have weird disjointed memories and a feeling of disconnect from the life they now live.

The Faded Memories of this former life linger on for the Reborn, who ruminate on their mysterious past rather than sleep. A table of Lost Memories serves to inspire the details of these before times and like the other lineages inside Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft there’s a Reborn Origins table with suggestions for the circumstances leading to how your character came to such a state plus ideas for tying the character to various Domains of Dread.

Most of the traits here are pretty standard including the creature type (humanoid) and walking speed. Like hexbloods a reborn character can choose to be Medium or Small. Because of the reborn’s Deathless Nature they have resistance to poison and advantage on saving throws against disease and being poisoned, advantage on death saves (wow) and don’t need to eat, drink, breathe or sleep. They also have a trait allowing them to add a d6 to any ability check using a skill by tapping into past memories, which is pretty cool to me. I’m adding the reborn to ye olde to do list, too.

Are you playing one of the lineages from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft in your 5E D&D games and want to talk about it? Really want to play one of these? Think they’re broken? Have a mighty need to push your glasses up your nose, sniff derisively at me and say, “Actually Frankenstein was the doctor not the creature.” Please, comment below or tweet me @Pyrosynthesis. And of course, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — Wary and confused, a reborn emerges after the infamous Apparatus of Mordent malfunctions. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft includes three lineages, which overshadow a 5E D&D character’s original race. [Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast]