Farling
Farlings are a race that comes from beyond the material plane, though few are certain where. While humanoid in shape, they are immediately distinguished from mortal races. They have a slender build, large eyes, and tendrils in place of hair. Their strange nature and inherent psionic abilities make them easily feared, but they tend to be far more friendly to mortal races than most of that which comes from the beyond.
Farlings tend to be blue to purple, but can be more exotic colors, or even have strange and exotic colorations and patterns in some cases. The nature and location of their creation results in little consistency of exact appearance, though they will often have some traits of their progenitor (such as sharing an eye or skin coloration).
Adaptable Mind
A Farling are exceedingly adept at picking social cues and cultural norms, and despite their strange appearance can easily fit into a tolerant society, but often maintain exceedingly strange senses of humor and behavior, fully aware of its oddity, sometimes even playing up their alien nature. They enjoy seeing the reactions of other creatures to strange circumstances, even if they have to cause those situations.
Memory and Aging
Farlings age by gaining memories. They do not biologically age, but have the ability to make permanent crystalized memories, and age roughly one day each time they do. Young Farlings make these memories a dozen times a day, aging rapidly while absorbing new information at an incredible rate, while aging Farlings become more selective in what they choose to remember. If they do not commit some memory in this way, their memory tends to be still somewhat better than a human, but they view these memories as transient things that will be eventually forgotten.
Nature and Biology
Farlings do not have a gender, though those that travel among other races may associate with one. They have a generally androgynous and alien apparence. They are capable of forming strong emotional bonds, though some (particularly younger ones) will find the idea of gender and the associated customs hilarious (potentially inappropriately so based on the culture). Farlings that exist for hundreds of years and absorb thousands of memories can create a new Farling, traveling to realms of mind and thought, and psionically willing them into existence.
A newly created Farling is often left to experience the world on their own shortly after the creation, left with associates or friends of its creator (hopefully that it has made arrangements with) who will then move on, seeking to let the new Farling develop on its own, often seeking to not influence their experiences more than necessary.
Taking care of a young Farling can be exhausting due to the rampant curiosity and inquisitive nature rapidly consuming new experiences and memories, but their inquisitive nature causes them to age exceedingly quickly. A young Farling can fully absorb up to ten memories a day, aging exceedingly fast. It is usually not long before they seek to wander broader environments, and set out into the world.
Farlings are not aquatic, but are unusually suited to it, often finding water quite comfortable and are natural swimmers.
Dark Reflection
Some Farlings become addicted to acquiring memories, and particularly savor those from other creatures. While a player character can only absorb memories from a willing creature, some stories tell of Farlings that have fallen into evil ways, ripping and devouring the memories from mortal creatures compulsively devouring their memories until nothing is left, savoring the exotic memories they discover.
Quirks
| d6 | Quirks |
|---|---|
| 1 | You ask blunt personal questions of strangers. |
| 2 | You go to great lengths to try strange food. Your definition of food is unusually broad. |
| 3 | You don't like to sleep in the same place twice. |
| 4 | You place as little value on other's names as your own, calling them whatever springs into your mind at the moment.. |
| 5 | You like to occasionally sing. Telepathically. |
| 6 | You love to absorb particularly dangerous memories. |
Names
Farling don't have traditional names, identifying each other through psionic projections of certain thought patterns. Those that interact with members of other races will adopt an assumed name, running the gambit from common and boring to outlandish and absurd. Their name often reflects the culture they most interacted with when finding they needed a name that could be made with sounds.
They rarely place great importance in their name, occasionally changing it or accepting a new nickname without much thought, as they don't particularly associate the name with themselves - to them, that's merely what people call them.
Farling Names: Blue, Dustin, Jonny, Lulu, Newbie, Pattern, Purple, Rey, Sala, Stripes, Squid, Thomas, Uanqor, Quentin, Yara, Yldel, Wis.
Completely random.
If it seems like these names are random, it is because they are. There is no pattern to Farling names beyond the nature of creatures naming them, sometimes being simply descriptive.
Traits
As a farling, your character has the following traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score, Wisdom score, and Charisma score all increase by 1.
Age. A Farling ages by absorbing memories. Each time they permanently absorb a memory, they age roughly one day. A young Farling can absorb dozens of memories a day, aging rapidly. Once reaching adulthood (a process that often only takes a decade years), the rate at which they can absorb memories begins to slow, they become more selective, aging far slower.
Old Age
If a Farling can die of old age is unknown. They become far more selective about absorbing memories as they grow older, often losing their curious nature and becoming withdrawn from society after absorbing thousands of memories, ruminating on what their have experienced.
Alignment. Farlings show little consistency in alignment, and are shaped by the circumstances and background. Their curious and impulsive nature often leads younger members of the race to exhibit chaotic tendencies.
Size. Most Farlings stand between 5 and 6 feet tall, with a slighter build than humans. Your size is medium.
Aberration. Your creature type is Aberration, rather than humanoid.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. You have a swimming speed of 20 feet.
Languages* You can speak, read, and write Common, Deep Speech, and one extra language of your choice.
Adaptive Intuition. You gain proficiency in Insight, and have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) ability checks to determine social cues or cultural customs.
Psionic Mind. You gain the Telepathy Discipline of the psion, though cannot use the Alternate Effects unless you gain this Discipline from another source. If you gain this Discipline from another source, you gain 1 additional psi point.
Crystalized Memory When you learn or experience something, you can fix that memory, making it a permanent memory you can always remember with crystal clarity. This memory can be anything that occurs within a 1 hour span (it can be as short as a fleeting sensation, or as long as 1 hour of events).
Once you do this, you cannot do so again until you complete a long rest. Absorbing these memories is how a Farling ages, and you age one day for each memory you absorb in this way. You can absorb a memory from a willing creature via your telepathy in this way.
Broad Horizons. You have resistance to psychic damage. If you would take psychic damage from a critical hit and have not used your Crystallized Memory for the day, you can choose to absorb that damage as a memory, taking no damage.
Skill Absorption. Your rapid ability to learn new skills has grants one proficiency in one artisan tool and one skill of your choice. At your GMs discretion, if your game allows for the training in tools and skills, you may gain proficiency in them twice as fast using your Crystalized Memory feature daily.
Variant Farling
At the discrection of your DM, the following is an intended feature of Farlings that can be added in place of Skill Absorption. This is a recommended feature to allow additional options, but may not be suited for all games due to interacts with other custom rules at some tables:
Alien Mind. When you gain the Spellcasting or Psionics ability from any class or feature, you can change the associated ability score to your choice of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. Any time that class references the previous spell casting ability, you can replace it with your selected score (for example, if you are playing a Psion and change its associated ability score to Charisma, Empowered Psiosnics would add Charisma instead of Intelligence).
Alien Possibilities
This feature is very unique. It means that Farlings can play classes in new ways, and multiclass in ways that would not normally work, opening unique doors and possibilities that other races cannot share.
If combining these rules with ones that allow for the relocation of ability scores, one should be careful to not unlock an option that may be unexpectedly potent. Work with your GM when combining homebrew and variant rules.