A
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what is this
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rules for DnD5e to build a character that is a bug person. but, like, a giant (to us) bug that still looks and feels like a bug, instead of a humanoid with a bug head. think "Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time" instead of "DnD's Thri-kreen".
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how do i use it
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0. talk with your DM and let them know you want to play a bug person. send them this doc to look over
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1. when creating a character, go to the tab for the type of bug person you want to make
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2. start at the "Core" trait and choose your size and movement speed
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3. gain all of the Inherent traits for your type of bug person. these describe the ways that your body is different from that of humanoids.
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4. select 2 Major and 2 or 3 Minor traits (depending on your choice for movement speed). if you're stuck, consider using real life bugs as inspiration for your choices, or look for traits that have fun synergies
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5. congrats you are bug now \(°OO°)/
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(you probably also want to do some worldbuilding with your DM before campaign starts)
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---> all these are as-of-yet untested ideas, and should be agreed upon/modified with your DM (hi Ryan) before and during play as needed, just like any other homebrew <---
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why (tl;dr)
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underlying cause: i am a professional spider scientist and avid fan of bugs and other wonderfully weird invertebrate animals
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inciting incident: my dnd group wanted to play a Humblewood/Redwall-style (world of anthropomorphic animals) setting for our next campaign
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reaction: i demand to be allowed to play a bug person. i refuse to be a humanoid bug.
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problem: dnd (and all the homebrew i could find) is very attached to the idea that "person" is synonymous with "humanoid" (or human torso on animal body)
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consequence: i made my own rules
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consequence (ADHD): session 1 is in 4 days and i just finished these
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credits
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this document was made by me, Sebastian Echeverri (https://spiderdaynightlive.carrd.co/)
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to make it, i used:
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● various Dungeons & Dragons 5e source books (C) WotC (via 5e.tools)
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● inspiration from Monstrous Races by Tyler Kamstra
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● inspiration and many traits & descriptions from Custom Ancestries for D&D by RaisinBrawn
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● inspiration, a few more traits & descriptions, and the Major/Minor trait system from my DM's homebrew for our current campaign (idk if they want to post it publicly so no links)
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● inspiration from Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series (for real go read it)
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● inspiration from this specific piece of Children of Time fanart by Aldrich Hezekia (@kiabugboy). if you want to know what a spider person looks like to me, here it is.
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critical acclaim for "DnD5e_Actual Bug People"
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"Dang you went IN on this" - my DM
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"the spider traits are sick as hell I love this" - my DM
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"You could really make some very different spiders lol" - my DM
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"YO FUCK YES HELL YEAH WOW" - AJ Fillari
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why do bug ppl get so many features
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so, yes, most dnd race/ancestry options dont have so many "inherent" trait. but that is because each of those ancestry options dont have to describe how a humanoid body works--each entry doesnt have something like "in addition to speaking, your voice can create musical sounds".
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dnd assumes (reasonably) that readers know how a humanoid body works, and that they exist in a world that is designed around the need of a humanoid body. so a lot of the inherent traits ive given each type of bug ppl are about getting players familiar with playing as an unfamiliar body.
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this trait/phrasing/combination of traits seems OP or broken
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idk, probably? i tried but im sure theres some stuff i missed or didnt think of. but then again, you can already make tons of wildly broken stuff uses dnd's rules as written sooooo
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if there is anything that is actually gamebreaking or too exploitable, message me on social media and i'll fix it!
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creature type?
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i never really understood these categories from a taxonomic/biological perspective. they seem very arbitrary. so i genuinely dont know. probably "beast" or "monstrosity"??? thankfully these almost never come up (at least for my group) outside of like, one ranger feature here and there
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what about spells like Hold Person that specifically target humanoids
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my guess is that the intention behind those spells is that they target "people" (as in, inherently sapient creatures) and not "big monsters", so id recommend that you allow them to work on bug people.
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sign language?
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many bugs do make airborne sounds to talk to each other, but their mouths are usually not connected to their breathing systems in the way that vertebrates' are. so the syllables/sounds bits we use for speech would not be same as the ones that bug ppl use, and vice versa, although they could hear and understand them.
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i chose to imagine that in a world where both of these types of people exist, the common language would likely be a type of sign language, as this could be 'spoken' equally well by all.
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you can also just handwave this and say that in your game, bug people talk out of their mouths like humanoids; do what you want. i will say though, consider also including sign language as a type of Common in your game, cause like, that just makes sense.
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what about rules for other types of bugs
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expect a few soon-ish? i originally had spider-, insect-, and centipede- people (centi-people?) in mind, but wanted get at least some version of this out before the first sesion of my campaign. im gonna be playing a spider person, so i built those rules out first. decapod (crab/lobster) people (deca-people?) would be easy to do as well. very curious about how to adapt a velvet worm.
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why (rant)
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i want to play as a bug person that doesnt feel like just a humanoid wearing a rubber bug mask. i am deeply bored by the physicality of a humanoid, and the way that dnd “races” can feel like palette swaps (or really, racial caricatures), instead of uniquely different forms of life.
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there are very few rules/homebrew out there for doing this. Monstrous Races by Tyler Kamstra is the main exception⁠—and is really really cool!—but those statblocks do something slightly different (playing an Awakened pre-existing monster). I wanted to imagine a world with lineages of spiders/bees/centipedes/etc that evolved (or were created, insert your lore here) to be sapient, and exist alongside “normal” bugs in that world much in the way that humans do alongside other mammals.
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the idea is to create plausible ways for these “bug people” to have their own civilization and history, with extrapolation, speculative evolution, and inspiration from their real life biology, while retaining as much as possible the physicality and weirdness of being a bug.
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Itll vary from species to species, but basically theyll be larger versions of the real life bug, but with a few reasonable adaptations to align with the tasks and interactions expected from a DnD character:
- some sort of face-ish part of their body,
- at least 1 pair of appendages with dexterity similar to that of human hand,
- larger eyes to be roughly within the acuity that is assumed of other races/species in DnD,
- a slightly more upright stance or just the ability to assume that stance when desired
- some sort of endothermic physiology and metabolism within the range that is assumed of other races/species in DnD
- no major sexual dimorphism (at least, not that it impacts the game statistics of a character. visual differences are fine) or cultural discrimination based on sex/gender
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i thought bug meant just like, one specific subcategory of insect?
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so, words have contextual meanings. yes, Hemiptera is a family of insects sometimes called "True Bugs", but outside of that specific scientific context, there's a variety of different grouping of animals that get called bugs. here, i am using it to include all animals in the phylum arthropoda, so arachnids, crustaceans (including insects), myriapods (centi- and milli- pedes), etc.
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can i edit/remix/expand on this
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yeah go for it. change and/or choose what rules are fun and fair for you and your gaming group. you can go to File->Make a Copy to get a version you can edit
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if you make rules for a new type of bug person in the spirit of this thing, lemme know and i can link it here