- This D&D character is a centaur.
This D&D character is a tiefling.
It's the same D&D character.
We're talking mixed races, folks.
Let's go!
(shimmering bells)
This video is sponsored by the Dungeon Master's Guild.
You've probably heard of it,
DM's Guild is a community content program partnered
with Wizards of the Coast
where creators can legally use official D&D material
to create and share their own content for use with D@D.
You can find anything from one-off adventures
and collections of magic items or maps
to complete campaign guides for approved settings.
There are literally thousands of wildly inventive PDFs,
each one created to solve a problem
or open new doors in your game.
You can use the code ginnyguild
to save 15% on any DM's Guild content purchase
of $15 or more.
I'll put the link and the code in the description for you.
The best kind of sponsorship
is when I get paid to talk about something I already like.
In this case,
it's a book called "An Elf and an Orc Had a Little Baby,"
cannot think of a better title for a book,
by V.J. Harris and Adam Hancock.
I originally bought it in 2020,
when it first came out.
This is a hundred and thirteen-page rules supplement
that entirely replaces chapter two
of the Player's Handbook, the chapter on race.
Instead of choosing one race,
you choose the races of your parents and an upbringing.
All three of these things influence your ability scores
and traits, as well as offering up a ton of backstory seeds.
It's a platinum bestseller on DM's Guild
and even has a sequel out now,
same name, with a two at the end.
And after finally getting a chance
to create a character using these rules,
I can see why it's so popular.
(air whooshing)
- The story of how my parents met is like a fairy tale,
but not the happily ever after kind.
I mean the scary kind
that you tell children to keep them in line.
- If you're using the Player's Handbook,
you choose a race and that defines your characteristics.
In "An Elf and an Orc Had a Little Baby,"
this is split into two steps, parentage and upbringing.
Parentage is pretty simple,
you pick two races for the two parents.
The first book includes 35 parent races,
not just the core ones, like elf and orc,
but less common ones like loxodon, grung, tortle.
The second book includes a bunch more.
You can pick any two races, no restrictions.
You wanna play a Gnome Firbolg?
Do it.
You wanna play an Orc Kenku?
Live your dreams.
You wanna play a Merfolk Tabaxi?
Oh god, now I wanna play a Merfolk Tabaxi.
She's a con artist who scams wealthy nobles,
into sending her courtship gifts using portraits
of other maidens.
She's a catfish.
Each section includes a basic description of the race
and some brief information on what mixed creatures
with this kind of lineage might look like.
For example, any creature mixed with a centaur
is gonna have a centaur bottom half,
while the humanoid half will reflect the other parent.
Sort of like how any dog mixed with a corgi,
has the corgi shape and the other dog's coloring.
It's so cute.
There's even some fun lore around some mixed races,
like how mixed Kobolds are hatched out of eggs
if the mother is the Kobold parent
or how mixed halflings are sometimes jokingly called
quarterlings or "quarts."
For my character,
I picked Infernal and Centaur as her parents' races,
because of course I did.
Once you've picked your parentage,
each race has its own features you can choose from.
There are two options for centaur parents
and two options for infernal parents.
This allows me to choose between,
in the case of infernal parents, a character with darkvision
and hellish resistance, or a character with wings.
Wings seemed like a little much
when combined with an equine body,
so I went with the first option.
(air whooshing)
- My father, Gulzu.
An Incubus, and no, this isn't going where you think.
He wasn't really practicing anymore when he met my mother,
he was a teacher.
There's a school in Maladomini,
the seventh layer of hell.
Devils go there to learn to manipulate and bargain
and there's no better instructor than my father.
But teaching these promising young fiends,
inspired something in him,
the desire to pass on his knowledge to a child of his own.
(air whooshing)
- As for the centaur options,
I could pick a character whose centaur parentage,
makes her strong, giving her the charge attack
and increasing her carrying capacity
or nimble, giving her significantly increased walking speed,
and letting her attack with her hooves,
as slightly more powerful unarmed strikes.
I chose the latter.
(air whooshing)
- My mother, Cilestra, was left behind by her centaur tribe
and raised in the feywild.
If anyone could give devils a run for their money
when it comes to striking deals, it would be the fey,
but no one ever really believed a centaur
could truly master those skills.
Spite was a powerful motivator for her.
She was still young when some of the other fey dared her
to summon a devil and best him in a bargain
to prove her skills.
Young, and foolish enough to accept.
(air whooshing)
- Each parent also contributes to your lifespan, size
and walking speed.
In this case, she can expect to live to be around 105,
There are also a few traits that one parent defines.
For example,
being mixed centaur means that she's not a humanoid,
her type is fey, no matter what her other half is.
The mix and match appendix
and the second book give you even more flexibility
with parentage traits by using a point buy system.
You get a pool of 16 points,
meant to represent 8 from each parent,
and you can spend on specific traits
that cost anywhere from one to as high as 10 points.
These traits include things like darkvision, resistances,
natural armor and weapons
and even inherent spellcasting abilities.
This system is a little more complicated,
but way more customizable,
plus it allows you
to basically have your character take after one parent
more than another if you want.
Once you've picked your parents,
it's up to you to explain
how they came to bring your character into the world.
I have to say,
this is where my fanfiction background
really came into play.
I love figuring out how to put together an unlikely pair.
(air whooshing)
- The other fey helped with the summoning.
Gulzu immediately saw an opportunity to make a deal
and get what he wanted,
so he set his price as Cilestra's firstborn child.
Their negotiations were fierce.
She was far more difficult to confuse or trick
than your average mortal.
They went back and forth for days, then weeks,
and slowly, each found themselves enjoying the sparring
and each other's company.
In the end,
they reached a bargain they could both agree on:
marriage and a shared firstborn child.
That's me.
- The second half of the equation is upbringing.
This is "An Elf and an Orc Had a Little Baby's" response
to bioessentialism.
In short,
someone with Orcish blood might not be inherently strong,
if they were, say, raised as a noble in the lap of luxury.
They may instead be highly educated
and get a bonus to intelligence.
These are very similar to backgrounds,
but they specifically
address the sorts of ability scores
that are usually tied to race.
Some upbringings address training,
like the Acrobatic Upbringing,
which gives you bonuses to charisma and dexterity,
an increased jump distance
and proficiency in performance and persuasion.
Others address the geographic location you were raised in,
like the Sylvan Upbringing,
which gives you bonuses to wisdom and strength
and limited communication abilities
with beasts and plants.
And some of them are way more vague and flexible,
so that you can suit whatever kind of story
you wanna tell, like the Laborer Upbringing,
which increases constitution and another trait you can pick,
and gives you a skill
and a tool proficiency of your choosing.
I went back and forth on upbringings
for my tiefling centaur.
Between the two books,
there's an upbringing specific
to every individual level of the Nine Hells.
And of course, there are also upbringings
that lend themselves to being raised in the Feywild.
But in the end,
I chose an upbringing
that I thought would best suit the skills
that she was raised with.
(air whooshing)
I'm Lilix, short for Malixus,
which is a bit of an infernal mouthful,
but it's a family name on my father's side, of course.
His work kept him busy
and mom never really took to the hells,
so I spent my younger years in the Feywild with her,
learning all the ins and outs of fey trickery.
When I was old enough,
I started attending school with my father in Maladomini
to learn how the devils deceive.
- I chose the Incognito upbringing.
This one gives the character a bonus to charisma
and one other ability of my choice,
I picked intelligence.
It also gives them two proficiencies in deception,
insight, intimidation, or persuasion,
I picked deception and persuasion,
as well as common and another language of your choice,
in this case infernal.
If none of these upbringings,
quite suit what you're looking for,
you can use a point buy system just like the one you can use
for race to put together your own upbringing
with custom features.
For example,
if I wanted to customize Lilix's upbringing
to the backstory that I wrote for her more specifically,
I would have 16 points to spend.
I could take the "Legacy of Maladomini" feature,
which would give her the ability to cast thaumaturgy
and later ray of sickness for 4 points,
in reference to her infernal training
in the seventh layer of hell.
Each plus one ability score increase costs 4 points,
so a small increase to charisma and intelligence,
or a plus two to charisma,
leaves me with 4 more points to spend.
"Good with People" costs 3 points
and gives me that proficiency in deception and persuasion
that fits so well with her.
Language proficiency with common and infernal costs 1 point,
which means I'm outta spending money.
I could also swap some of these features out
for things that are more targeted at her Fey side,
like "Wild Intuition,"
which lets me add a d4 to animal handling and nature checks.
As you can see,
there are a lot of ways you can customize an upbringing
to really suit your intended backstory
or to maximize your abilities
and complement your chosen class.
(air whooshing)
- If there's a better way to build the perfect swindler,
I don't know it.
I am my parents' greatest artifice yet.
I've never actually been to the prime material plane,
but how much different can it be?
I'm ready to put all this training into practice
and I don't anticipate any obstacles that I can't hurdle.
(air whooshing)
- Lilix is just one example
of how you can take all the options
in "An Elf and an Orc Had a Little Baby"
and turn them into a completely unique character,
unlike anything you could build straight
from the Player's Handbook.
With 62 different parentage options across both books,
that's literally over 1800 racial combinations
without even thinking about the Upbringings.
If you're looking for an interesting way
to rethink your character builds
and inspire some out-of-the-box backstory ideas,
you really need to pick up this book.
There's a link to both the first book and the sequel
in the description.
And don't forget to use the code ginnyguild
to take 15% off your order of $15 or more.
And if you want to keep up with the latest releases
and deals at the Dungeon Master's Guild,
follow them on Twitter at @DMs_Guild.
By the way,
if you're looking for more DM's Guild products
to enhance your games,
I also did a video about a book full of rules
that help you bring domestic elements into your game,
from home ownership to marriage to running a business.
Weirdly,
I also created a con artist character for that video.
This may be something I need to examine in myself.
Check that video out right here.
- But also kind of the happily ever after kind,
'cause they really love each other