Invisible Fortress:Character creation

This page details the character creation rules for the Invisible Fortress campaign.

Race

Humans, Variant Humans, and any of the Dragonmarked Humans (Finding, Handling, Making, Passage, and Sentinel) are all available without restriction. If you are a Dragonmarked Human, you may create a character who is a member of one of the Great Houses of the Realm (you do not have to be a member of a Great House, but it is an option). Any mark can be part of any house, although certain marks are more common in some houses than others. See the Great Houses page for details.

Other races which you may select, and any restrictions or notes related to selecting them:

• Aasimar: You are a human infused with the essence of one of the First Age champions of the Unconquered Sun. If you choose the Necrotic Shroud option for your Celestial Revelation feature, your essence has been corrupted by the Shadowfell. The forces of the Realm will be hostile towards you if you are identified (most easily done via witnessing your use of Celestial Revelation), and will likely attack. Other humans may fear you, and humans sympathetic to the Realm may report you to authorities.
• Dragonborn: Dragonborn are very rare in the Second Age, but they do still exist. Standard Dragonborn and Chromatic Dragonborn are both options. For your Draconic Ancestry or Chromatic Ancestry feature, you may select Red and be from the south (a member of the Anklok tribe), Black and be from the west (a member of the Mosok tribe), Blue and be from the north (a member of the Pterok tribe), or Green and be from the east (a member of the Raptok tribe). Dragonborn generally worship the Unconquered Sun, and would venerate his champions from the First Age if they met one. Most humans will have never seen a dragonborn before, and their reaction to seeing you for the first time will vary widely.
• Air Genasi, Earth Genasi, Fire Genasi, Water Genasi: You are the half-blooded child of a human and an elemental. In addition to the normal Genasi races, you may also select Wood Genasi. A genasi would be an unusual sight outside a major city, but not an alarming one.
• Tiefling, Feral Tiefling: You are the half-blooded child of a human and a fiend. Although your fiendish parent would be suspect, human spellcasters summoning demons and devils for labor, entertainment, or... entertainment are not unheard of.
• Aarakocra, Bugbear, Centaur, Harengon, Kenku, Kobold, Leonin, Lizardfolk, Locathah, Loxodon, Minotaur, Owlin, Satyr, Tabaxi, Tortle, Yuan-ti: You are one of the beast-folk, created by one of the First Age champions of Luna (or descended from such a creation), as part of their grand plan to populate Creation with new races. Humans are likely to view you with suspicion, but humans living closer to the Feywild, where beast-folk are more common, may be used to your presence. Your creature type is both beast and humanoid, instead of its normal type.
• Shifter: You are a human infused with the essence of one of the champions of Luna. Humans will generally treat you similarly to beast-folk.
• Triton: You are either one of the citizens of the sunken city of Luthe (humans unfamiliar with Luthe will treat you the same as beast-folk), or else a member of the terrifying Lintha family of pirates (being identified as one of the Lintha will inspire fear, even far from the western oceans the Lintha call home).
• Any race which has the creature type Fey, or which has the Fey Ancestry trait, other than previously mentioned races: You are one of the Fey from the Feywild (perhaps a survivor from the Balorian Crusade lost in Creation), or the descendant of one. Humans will be hostile towards fey and severely mistrustful of their descendants if you are identified.
• Reborn (replacing any form of Human, Genasi, Tiefling, or Half-Elf): You are a human (or half-human) infused with the essence of one of the champions of the Unconquered Sun, Luna, or one of the Maidens of Destiny, or an essence of a champion of the Unconquered Sun which has been corrupted by the Shadowfell or the Nine Hells. Humans will treat champions of the Unconquered Sun (corrupted or not) the same as they treat Aasimar. Champions of Luna will generally be treated similarly to beast-folk. All champions of the Maidens of Destiny are employed by the Celestial Bureaucracy in some capacity, and are most likely members of either the Gold Faction (who support returning the champions of the Unconquered Sun to power) or the Bronze Faction (who support keeping Dragonmarked humans in power).

Ravages of Creation

Creation itself is mildly harmful to those who are "outsiders". Merely staying within Creation hurts.

At the end of a long rest, any creature with the fey creature type takes 1d8 psychic damage if they did not spend that rest in the Feywild or a Feywild pocket. A non-fey creature with the Fey Ancestry trait takes 1d6 psychic damage instead. Creatures with the Fey Touched feat take damage as though they were a creature with Fey Ancestry. Triple the number of damage dice rolled if the rest takes place within 1 mile of a Reality Engine.

Creatures with the Shadow Touched feat take 1d6 radiant damage at the end of a long rest if they did not spend that rest in the Shadowfell or in a Shadowfell pocket. Triple the number of damage dice rolled if the rest takes place within Yu-Shan, the City of Heaven.

If a fey creature takes the Fey Touched feat, the damage does not increase past 1d8. If a fey creature or a creature with the Fey Ancestry trait takes the Shadow Touched feat, or a creature takes both the Fey Touched and Shadow Touched feats, they can take both the psychic and the radiant damage after a single rest.

Level and multiclassing

At character creation for the beginning of this campaign, player characters will be level 5.

Multiclassing is permitted without restriction.

Ability scores

• Use point buy (33 points) to assign your ability scores. Note that this is greater than the number of points available for point buy within D&D Beyond. You will have to choose "Manual/Rolled" in order to enter your ability scores correctly.
• You may purchase ability scores above 15. Purchasing 16 and 17 cost 3 points each, 18 and 19 cost 4 points each, and 20 costs 5 points. (Yes, this means you can spend 28 of your 33 points to get an ability score at 20 before racial modifiers, or spend 19 points to get a score at 18 then add +2 from your race.)

See ability score arrays for a list of all possible ability score spreads with this point buy system, if you're not interested in calculating your array yourself.

Character details

Alignment

Any alignments are acceptable, but you must create a character capable of working with the party.

Languages

The following languages are spoken around Creation:

• Old Realm: The language of the First Age, magic, and the native language of most supernatural creatures.
• High Realm: The language of the Realm's aristocracy and modern scholarship.
• Low Realm: Common (if you would learn Common from any source, the language you learn is Low Realm). The trade language of the Realm. Due to the Realm's global power, it is the de-facto trade language throughout the world. Occasionally called "Earthtongue", especially outside the Realm.
• Rocktongue: Dwarvish (if you would learn Dwarvish from any source, the language you learn is Rocktongue). Dwarves are not playable as a PC race in this campaign, because an ancient geas prevents them from leaving their cities underneath the Imperial Mountain.
• Luthan: A butchered dialect of Old Realm, spoken by the inhabitants of the sunken city of Luthe.
• Flametongue: Native language for most people from the southern regions of Creation.
• Forest-tongue: Native language for most people from the eastern regions of Creation.
• Seatongue: Native language for most people from the western regions of Creation.
• Skytongue: Native language for most people from the northern regions of Creation.
• Riverspeak: A patios of Earthtongue, Flametongue, Forest-tongue, Seatongue, and Skytongue. Native language for many people in the Scavenger Lands, although the influence of the Realm in the region means many people also speak Low Realm and more scholarly types in the region may speak High Realm. The Scavenger Lands also plays host to many non-natives, so there are plenty of people living in the region with different native languages.
• Clawspeak: Druidic (if you would learn Druidic from any source, the language you learn is Clawspeak). A written-only language created by champions of Luna, which can be easily scratched into the bark of a tree using claws. While Clawspeak is not restricted to being taught to Druids, it is rarely taught to anyone who does not have claws and cannot grow them at will.
• Guild Cant: A more mercantile version of Thieves' Cant, taught to members of The Guild. Rogue PCs may substitute their Thieves' Cant knowledge for Guild Cant at their discretion, though Guild Cant is not restricted to Rogues.
• High Holy Speech: Draconic (if you would learn Draconic from any source, the language you learn is High Holy Speech). Native language of the Dragonborn. Occasionally called "Dragontongue".
• Aalu: Infernal (if you would learn Infernal from any source, the language you learn is Aalu). Aalu devils write their contracts exclusively in this language.

The fey in the Feywild do not speak in the same sense as creatures do in Creation, but they do communicate in strange ways. When a fey enters Creation, it assumes a form and one or more of the languages spoken in Creation. Creatures of the Shadowfell speak the same languages as those spoken in Creation.

There are also hundreds of tribal and barbarian languages spoken across the world, and secret codes used by various organizations.

Any D&D languages not mentioned above do not exist. If a feature would give you a D&D language that's not mentioned above, you many select any of the above languages instead. (Unnamed tribal/barbarian languages may be selected as well, but it is not generally recommended as they are almost guaranteed to not come up during the campaign.) Preferably, select a language which bears some kind of similarity to the language being replaced. For example, replacing Celestial with Old Realm would be an appropriate substitution. In D&D Beyond, adding languages which are not standard D&D languages must be done manually.

Backgrounds

All background features are allowed–including Lorehold Student, Prismari Student, Quandrix Student, Silverquill Student, and Witherbloom Student–although you are encouraged to create a custom background to fit the setting over the literal Strixhaven (or other setting-specific) backgrounds.

Locations detailed in the Invisible Fortress namespace on this wiki are largely focused on places that are common knowledge to many people in Creation, and which are likely to be directly relevant to the campaign. However, there is significant material on other locations available. If you would like to make a character hailing from a particular area and would like more information, do not hesitate to reach out to the DM.

Bonus feat

All characters select one racial feat for free, in addition to others feats you get normally (if there are multiple feats for your race, you select one of them). The racial feats are feats which require some particular race as a prerequisite:

• Dragonborn: Dragon Fear, Dragon Hide
• Elf: Elven Accuracy, Revenant Blade
• Elf (Drow): Drow High Magic
• Elf (High): Fey Teleportation
• Elf (Wood): Wood Elf Magic
• Genasi: Extra Manifestation (homebrew), Manifest Resistance (homebrew)
• Half-elf: Elven Accuracy, Prodigy
• Human: Prodigy, Die Hard (homebrew), Human Perserverance (homebrew)
• Tiefling: Flames of Phlegethos, Infernal Constitution
• any Small race: Squat Nimbleness

Instead of a racial feat, or if your race does not have a racial feat, you may select one of the following feats:

• Lightly Armored
• Moderately Armored (you must have light armor proficiency from another source)
• Heavily Armored (you must have medium armor proficiency from another source)
• Skill Expert
• Tough
• Weapon Master

If you create a Reborn character, you count as your original race for the purpose of selecting this bonus feat (so a Reborn Tiefling can take Infernal Constitution for their bonus feat, as an example). You also count as your original race for your level 4 ASI if you'd like to take multiple racial feats. Once the campaign starts, however, you no longer qualify for taking racial feats of your original race (so the Reborn Tiefling with Infernal Constitution would not be able to select Flames of Phlegethos at level 8). Reminder: Reborn characters for this campaign can only begin as Human (Prodigy, Die Hard, and Human Perserverance), Genasi (Extra Manifestation and Manifest Resistance, plus Squat Nimbleness if you are Small), Tiefling (Flames of Phlegethos and Infernal Constitution), or Half-elf (Elven Accuracy and Prodigy)

Equipment & currency

You are starting at level 5, and this will be considered a "high magic" campaign. As such, in addition to your standard starting equipment/gold, you get 500 gp, plus 1d10 * 25 gp, and one Uncommon magic item of your choice. (Don't forget to check 5e homebrew uncommon magic items!)

While the world does not use platinum, gold, electrum, silver, and copper, we will use the standard D&D currencies as an abstraction. If you are interested in currency used in-setting, see jade standard.