Supernatural Gifts

Supernatural Gifts: Theros

Source: Mythic Odysseys of Theros

Most heroes of Theros have some kind of supernatural aid to help them achieve their goals. Often this aid comes from the gods, but some heroes might find their support from other beings, such as the sphinx Medomai, an oracle like Atris or Kydele, or a repository of mystical knowledge. Some heroes are born with supernatural power or born as a result of supernatural events.

A character in Theros begins with one supernatural gift chosen from those in this section. Work with the DM to decide where your character's gift came from. Is it tied to the god you serve? Was it the result of a fateful encounter with a sphinx or an oracle? Does it indicate the nature of your birth? Each gift's description also includes a table to spark your imagination as you think about your character's gift.

These supernatural gifts are intended for starting characters, but some might be bestowed by gods as rewards for remarkable deeds.

Anvilwrought

You were forged in the fires of Purphoros's forge. Your appearance bears a metallic sheen and visible joints. The Anvilwrought Characteristics table suggests details of your life or origins. Additionally, you gain the following traits.

Constructed Resilience. You were created to have remarkable fortitude, represented by the following benefits:

  • You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
  • You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe.
  • You are immune to disease.
  • You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep.

Sentry's Rest. When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours in an inactive, motionless state, rather than sleeping. In this state, you appear inert, but it doesn't render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.

Anvilwrought Characteristics

d6 Characteristic
1 An oread who works in Purphoros's forge is the closest thing I have to a parent.
2 Purphoros made me to serve him.
3 I was created decades ago and, fearing that I'm growing obsolete, recently fled Mount Velus.
4 Purphoros regrets my creation and wants to reforge me into something better.
5 Purphoros intended me to carry on his work by making even greater creations of my own.
6 Someone in Mount Velus implanted a terrible secret within me in order to smuggle it out into the world.


Supernatural Gifts: Wildemount

Source: Explorer's Guide to Wildemount

The magic that sustains Hollow Ones is a mystery. Most Hollow Ones are reborn after dying in Blightshore, suggesting that the spell-scarred nature of the land brought them back for an unknown purpose. Yet some beings find that, days after they died, they awaken, clutching to life, with only a terrible emptiness inside to remind them of their death.

In Blightshore, Hollow Ones are seen as a people like any other. They seem strange, but the adventurous and hardy folk of Blightshore are used to making allies with strange creatures. Elsewhere, Hollow Ones are indistinguishable from living creatures, save for the faint stench of necromancy that lingers about them.

The transition from life to becoming a Hollow One affects different people to different degrees. Some let their anger and regret consume them. Others use their second chance to become a brighter force in the world. However, all Hollow Ones are marked by their new existence: feelings of unease, dread or sadness cling to them like tattered rags of their past life.

The Dungeon Master has the option to allow a character created in a Wildemount campaign to be a Hollow One. Alternatively, a character who perishes in the course of a campaign might return as a Hollow One, created by the mysterious forces that scar the land.

Hollow One

As a Hollow One, the void left behind by your departed soul is filled with the strange magic of Blightshore. Becoming a Hollow One is a supernatural gift that bestows upon you the following traits.

Ageless. You don't age, and effects that would cause you to age don't work on you.

Cling to Life. When you make a death saving throw and roll 16 or higher, you regain 1 hit point.

Revenance. You retain your creature type, yet you register as undead to spells and other effects that detect the presence of the undead creature type.

Unsettling Presence. As an action, you can unsettle a creature you can see within 15 feet of you. The target has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes within the next minute. Constructs, undead, and creatures that can't be frightened are immune to this feature. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.



Supernatural Blessing: Fate-Touched

Source: Tal'Dorei Setting Reborn

Most lives and souls find their ways easily along the paths of fate and destiny, oblivious and eager to be a part of the history meant for them. Some souls, however, carry themselves with mysterious influence, the golden threads of their fate subtly guiding history as they pass. Events both magnificent and catastrophic often follow such souls, which take the form of great rulers and terrible tyrants, powerful mages, religious leaders, and legendary heroes. These are the fate-touched.

Few fate-touched ever become aware of their prominent nature. Without the confirmation of the gods themselves, few can know for certain that they bear this blessing. And this is as it should be, for people of renown and power grow easily jealous of those whose gifts outstrip their own. The surviving chronicles of the Age of Arcanum are filled with tales of magical hierarchs who enslaved those they took for fate-touched—or worse, attempted to extract the essence of fate from them by the most horrid means. Being touched by fate can be a blessing or a curse. It is most often those who bear the blessings of fortune who are remembered by history, while those cursed by fate are forgotten. Most cultures of Exandria have legends of those marked by ill fate simply by being born under the full light of Ruidus, the vermilion moon around which countless fell legends swirl.

Player characters and NPCs gain this blessing by having the GM grant it to them, gaining the Fortune’s Grace feature as a result. A character might receive the blessing as a gift from the gods, or as a temporary and surprising phenomenon when the campaign shifts into a story arc focused on that character. An NPC ally might bear this blessing to help them survive as the characters protect them from a terrible threat. A previously benign NPC might even become a power-hungry villain as they test the limits of their fate-touched gift.

Fortune's Grace

Your fate-touched essence can cause events to shift in your favor. When you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can choose to reroll the d20. You must reroll the die before the outcome of the initial roll is determined.

Alternatively, when a creature you can see makes an attack against you or makes a saving throw against one of your spells or features, you can force that creature to reroll the attack roll or saving throw.

If the roll that triggers the reroll is made with advantage or disadvantage, both d20s are rerolled. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.