History Characters / RaidersOfTheSerpentSea

* CombatTentacle: The hafgufa can use its tentacles and mouths to restrain and eat surface dwellers.

!!Young Serpent
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 3 (spawn), 8 (young)

!Creatures
[[folder:Playable Races]]
!!Beastborn

* BeastMan: A beastborn strongly resembles the creature it once was, though no matter its original size, it has grown or shrunk to roughly human height, like an animal that has simply decided to walk upright.
* ChildOfTwoWorlds: Though curious about the raiders they admire, beastborn are also deeply attached to their own kind, and the struggle to belong to both groups can be hard.
* UpliftedAnimal: Once an ordinary animal living a content life in the forests, seas, or skies of Grimnir, the beastborn became enamored with raiders, their villages, their ships, and gradually, day after day, they started to act like them, become them.

!!Grim

* DiscardAndDraw: After each long rest, a grim decides whether you are driven by cruelty or hope. Each drive provides different benefits, and you lose the benefits of the previous drive when you change drives.

!!Tallfolk

* GentleGiant: The tallfolk's gentleness belies their great size, but those that anger them always reap consequences.
* NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: When an Ironwood witch in giant form consorts with an actual giant, there is a chance the offspring are tallfolk or grimtrolls instead of normal giants.

!!Tuss

* {{Mutants}}: Tuss, who have the blood of the Yoten flowing through them, are always born to human mothers and indistinguishable from other newborn babies. The only difference that becomes apparent as they age is that they are generally stronger, healthier and more successful than their cohorts.

!!Wicker

* EasilyDetachableRobotParts: During a long rest, a builder wicker can add and remove limbs: two additional legs, a tool arm, a shield arm or a spiked arm.
* PlantPerson: The wicker are unusual constructs made from wood, though they are clearly separate and apart from the natural world.
* WeakToFire: Being made from wood, wicker are vulnerable to fire.

[[folder:Creatures of Grimnir]]

!!Everlasting Beast
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralGood

* ResurrectiveImmortality: When an Everlasting beast is killed, its body slowly regenerates, and it resurrects itself within 24 hours of its death.
-->''In the early years there were many of them, wandering out of the forests and offering themselves to us. Hungry as we were, we slaughtered them. And yet, each morning they arose anew! It was a miracle.''

!!Huldra
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 6
->'''Alignment:''' LawfulEvil

* GreenThumb: A huldra can conjure ironwood roots from the earth to restrain foes.
* LittleBitBeastly: Huldra are almost supernaturally attractive humanoids with beast-like features, such as long tails and cat-like ears.
* ToServeMan: Huldra never hesitate to ambush weaker foes, have a fondness for flesh of any kind and take most any opportunity to consume other creatures.

!!Ice Ripper
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 10
->'''Alignment:''' Unaligned

* BarrierWarrior: When caught, an ice ripper can create a wall of ice in front of it, separating it from the attacker.
* StealthyColossus: Despite their size, these massive monstrosities are ambush predators, striking from below and dragging their foe beneath the ice to be eaten.

!!Lindwyrm
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 10
->'''Alignment:''' TrueNeutral

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: In the absence of true dragons (the only official ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 5th Edition dragon that occasionally appears is the white dragon), lindwyrms are the dominant species of dragon in Grimnir. Unlike many other dragons, lindwyrms do not tend to have lairs or acquire treasure. Instead, they live for the hunt and move often.

!!Mountain Bear
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 4
->'''Alignment:''' Unaligned

* BearsAreBadNews: A mountain bear stands almost 20 feet tall and is often mistaken for a giant. These bears fear very little, and few raiders have survived encounters with them.

!!Shaggy Aurochs
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 3
->'''Alignment:''' Unaligned

* BrutishBulls: Wise raiders know to steer clear of these mercurial beasts, for they are easily triggered to stampede. When this happens, shaggy aurochsen become as chaotic and unstoppable as a landslide.

!!Sleipnir

->'''Alignment:''' NeutralGood

* OnlyTheChosenMayRide: Sleipnir are near impossible to tame and do not understand why other horses accept domestication. They alone decide whether they will carry others, and even if they accept a rider, the sleipnir are unlike any other riding horse. They will refuse to be mistreated and are likely to leave if this happens.
* VertebrateWithExtraLimbs: Unlike standard horses, sleipnir have eight legs.

!!Tomte
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 3
->'''Alignment:''' Any

* HouseFey: The tomte are small fey that live hidden among mortals. In the evening, they wake and tend to the chores their mortal companions have not completed. They are generally kind, if treated well—homesteaders know to leave out thimbles of mead or baked goods for them. If mistreated or abused, they will pack up, knock over a few chairs, and depart for a more appreciative family.

!!Valkry
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 5
->'''Alignment:''' LawfulNeutral

* NoBodyLeftBehind: When a valkry dies of old age, they simply vanish.
* ShieldBash: A valkry shieldmaiden can throw her shield as a ranged attack. At the end of her turn, the shield teleports back into the shieldmaiden's hand.
* {{Valkyries}}: Thonir's valkry watch for conflict across Grimnir. Those among the dead that are most skilled are taken from the battlefield to Valholl so they might feast at the Halls of the Slain.

!!Woolly Rhinoceros
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 5

* RhinoRampage: Woolly rhinos are aggressive herbivores that are seldom hunted by raiders since the effort and risk is seldom worth the result.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Denizens of the Underworld]]

* DarkIsNotEvil: Many of the undead of Grimnir serve a somewhat different role than they do in other worlds. While on the surface skeletons and zombies exist as dangers to the living, their existence is more nuanced. Many of the dead are agents of Hel and scour the surface world at her bidding. They gather information, they help her collect the unfortunate and forgotten, and they defend her interests—and those of Grimnir. Yet, despite this semblance of civility, the undead are still frightening and the raiders avoid them.

!!Cursed Knight
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 9
->'''Alignment:''' Any

* IRejectYourReality: Cursed knights are intelligent but can frame their reality in a way that aligns with their beliefs. While they can set traps and outwit opponents, they ultimately exceed best at deceiving themselves.
* TheUnfettered: Eventually an idea–or compulsion–forms in cursed knights, a twisted version of the duty they held in such high esteem during their lives. They take their ideals to the extreme and become a force of unbending destruction as they seek to make good on their twisted and distorted beliefs.
* WarriorUndead: These undead knights tend to return to the world of the living after a great and tragic conflict. They tend to adhere to the ideals they honoured in life, but the ideals become exaggerated and eventually twisted.

!!Draugr
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 6
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil

* TheOathBreaker: Most commonly, a draugr is created when a raider makes an oath that they later break. The breaking of the oath causes torment in the draugr, so much so that often they attempt to finish in death what they failed to in life. At other times they seek revenge against those that originally solicited the oath from them.

!!Helhest
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 4
->'''Alignment:''' Any

* PoisonousPerson: A helhest can breathe out a cloud of poison.
* RaisingTheSteaks: In life, helhests were horses with missing legs. They still behave like horses, staying in herds and readily coming to the defense of one another.

!!Kattakyn
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 4
->'''Alignment:''' Any

* RaisingTheSteaks: The kattakyn is an undead spirit that has manifested into a form that is vaguely cat-like.

!!Myling
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 9
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil

* GhostlyGoals: Mylings only fight in self-defence, and if an aggressor ceases attacking, they will respond in kind—they simply want a proper burial. Once it guides its victim to a graveyard, a myling detaches itself and watches, waiting for its victim to grant its final request.
* UndeadChild: Mylings are the phantasmal incarnations of the souls of children.

!!Pyrewight
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 8
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil

* AxCrazy: Pyrewights are pure vessels of violence, no matter the nature of the person they were in life. Only by hurting others do they, in some measure, and so very temporarily, diminish their own pain.
* SelfDuplication: In battle, a pyrewight can conjure a fiery shadow-twin of itself called a flameshade, which can only act when given a command from the pyrewight that summoned it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sea Monsters]]
!!Bladed Fish

->'''Alignment:''' Unaligned

* AbsurdlySharpClaws: These fish are covered with sharp, metal-like scales that inflict considerable damage to prey and anyone foolish enough to get too close to them.

!!Hafgufa
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 20
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil

* CombatTentacle: The hafgufa can use its tentacles and mouths to restrain and eat surface dwellers.
* TooManyMouths: A hafgufa has many mouths running along the entire perimeter of its body.
* TurtleIsland: The hafgufa, a sentient island, is an ambush predator, trying to trick terrestrial creatures into walking on its surface. Some even allow entire communities to inhabit them, selectively feeding only as needed.
* VacuumMouth: The hafgufa can violently suck air into its mouth in an attempt to pull creatures towards it.

!!Lyngbakr
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 12
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil

* MonsterWhale: The lyngbakr is a voracious, evil carnivorous whale that consumes vast schools of fish and even the occasional riverwhale. If a lyngbakr is particularly hungry, it might charge a longship fleet, or even risk attacking a pod of riverwhales.
* TurtleIsland: The surface of a lyngbakr resembles a mossy island covered in shrubs. If animals, including raiders, happen to explore its surface, it will dive, hoping to drown the interlopers and consume them at its leisure.

!!Riverwhale
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 8
->'''Alignment:''' Unaligned

* MonsterWhale: These sleek predatory whales hunt larger whales and other sea life, including raiders. Though they generally do not target longships, they have been known to bump into them, knocking some of the crew into the water so they might be snatched and dragged underwater.

!!Seerfish
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 4
->'''Alignment:''' Unaligned

* ChariotPulledByCats: Several of the largest seerfish can be harnessed to tow the floating town of Drifthall. Through magical means the völv guide and direct these seerfish and steer Drifthall across the sea.

!!Young Serpent
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 3 (spawn), 8 (young)
->'''Alignment:''' Any
----
* AcidAttack: Serpent spawn can attack by exhaling a line of acidic gas.
* SeaSerpents: Spawn of Ormur, young serpents are more than capable of destroying smaller vessels on their own and often hunt in small groups, making such encounters all the more fatal.

[[folder:Witches of the Ironwood]]
!!Grimtroll
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 9
->'''Alignment:''' ChaoticEvil

* HealingFactor: Grimtrolls they will regenerate all injuries not inflicted on them by psychic damage.
* HybridMonster: When an Ironwood witch in giant form consorts with an actual giant, there is a chance the offspring are tallfolk or grimtrolls instead of normal giants.
* TelephonePolearm: A grimtroll usually starts a fight by throwing a tree at the enemy, then tears out another tree and uses it to strike down the strongest looking opponent.

!!Ironheart Tree
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 5

* LifeDrain: When an ironheart tree siphons blood from an enemy, it heals itself for half the damage dealt.
* WhenTreesAttack: Ironheart trees are intelligent and can fight back against lumberjacks. Stand still too long and it'll drag you right under with their roots or it will eat you.

!!Ironwood Witch
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 4

* HorseOfADifferentColor: Other witches may use wolventrolls as mounts when attacking a settlement.
* HumanDisguise: Ironwood witches use their Witch Shape ability to adopt humanoid forms when necessary to infiltrate humanoid settlements—either to permanently take over and masquerade as important [=NPCs=], or to trick victims into trusting them before transforming them into ironthralls.
* SavageWolves: The wolventroll is a form that Ironwood witches wear, resembling a large dire wolf and capable of much greater carnage. When they gather in a war party, entire communities have vanished in the night, torn apart by the fangs and deadly magic.
* SpikeShooter: In brittlebone form, wolventrolls can fling bony fragments that shred flesh.
* TakeOverTheWorld: Witches believe that they are working to wrestle control of Grimnir from all other factions. The world belongs to the witches, not the raiders or the Baendur.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: In addition to pretending to be other humanoids, witches are also capable of transforming into a variety of powerful forms, depending on the required tasks. Favourites include becoming ropers to ambush enemieis important, and hill giants or frost giants when raw power is most important. They also have a specialised form, the wolventroll.
* WasOnceAMan: All ironwood witches were once human, elf, dwarf, or other.
* WickedWitch: The magic available to the ironwood witches gradually makes their limbs lengthen and narrow, their skin pale, and their hair thin and gray.

!!Witchbeetle Swarm
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 6

* SeeingThroughAnothersEyes: Any witch may see and hear what a witchbeetle sees and hears, as long as they are on the same plane of existence.

!!Witchgate
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 10
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil

* EnergyAbsorption: Whenever the witchgate is subjected to psychic damage, it instead heals itself equal to the damage dealt.
* PortalDoor: A witchgate connects to another witchgate on the same plane of existence, allowing instantaneous travel between two locations (while all six witches remain alive).
* PoweredByAForsakenChild: A witchgate is created from the sacrifice of six powerful ironwood witches and powered by their excess vitality. Nothing can be done to save the witches once they have been transformed in this way. They will persist as a vessel, to be used. Once their life force is extinguished, they die.

[[folder:Yoten]]

* HybridMonster: The Yoten are capable of breeding with numerous other creatures, which makes it difficult—but not impossible—to ascertain which creatures are true Yoten.
* StrongerWithAge: Yoten grow in power throughout their lifetime. Younger and weaker Yoten follow their more experienced brethren until ready to assert their own strength.
* TakenForGranite: Most Yoten turn to stone when they are slain. These cairns can be found throughout the Lost Lands and occasionally even in Grimnir.

!!Blood Shadow
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 16

* BloodyMurder: The blood shadow's blood, spilled or spat at enemies, pulses with necrotic energy.
* SavageWolves: Blood shadows are creatures of suffering, born from the torment inflicted upon captive wolves by their Yoten captors. No longer a wolf—or resembling any living creature—they maintain the pack-like instincts of their progenitors, except they identify the Yoten as their pack-mates.
* UndyingLoyalty: Blood shadows do anything other Yoten command them to do, even sacrificing their own lives.

!!Corpse Swallower
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 13

* BlowYouAway: When corpse swallowers flap their wings, they create gale-force winds strong enough to shatter smaller ships or run larger ships aground.
* DeathFlight: Corpse swallowers grasp an opponent and fly away with them, dropping them far from help. If the fall does not kill the victim, the corpse swallowers swarm their target, seeking to quickly finish them off.
* FeatheredFiend: These Yoten appear to be massive bird/bat hybrids and in many ways they emulate natural birds, tending to form flocks, and nesting upon sheer cliff faces rising far above oceans and seas. But unlike birds, they delight in attacking and consuming humanoids.

!!Feeder
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 17
->'''Alignment:''' NeutralEvil

* FireBreathingWeapon: Payload: Inferno consists of special tubes and ignition modules, which allow a feeder to channel its acid into fiery attacks.
* HungryMenace: Anything feeders consume directly or indirectly helps replenish Muspell, and they are voracious eaters, capable of consuming anything.
* SiegeEngines: Feeders are effective at destroying enemy fortifications, and can be equipped with a powerful siege ballista.

!!Forest Strider
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 4

* BeastWithAHumanFace: The forest strider looks as if a madman grafted a human's face onto a giant centipede and then turned the pitiful creature inside out.
* InescapableNet: The forest strider can vomit forth spider-like webbing and fling it at foes to capture them.
* PoisonousPerson: Forest strider venom renders an otherwise healthy raider immobile in seconds.

!!Mus
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 18
->'''Alignment:''' Evil

* ExtraEyes: The mus have numerous eyes, which grant them many advantages.
* EyeBeams: When the mus focuses all its eyes on a single creature, the target is subject to a massive heatwave.
* MagmaMan: Mus are born from the lava that spreads from wherever Muspell emerges when it arrives in a world. Lava itself flows through the veins of their massive bodies.
* ShockAndAwe: As a reaction to being attacked, a mus can cause crackling energy to erupt from within it.
* WeatherManipulation: The mus can rapidly swing its swords in a circle above itself to create an atmospheric disturbance, grounding flying creatures and igniting flammable objects.

!!Yoten Devotee
->'''Challenge Rating:''' 7 (standard), 14 (advanced)