Border Genasi of the Para- and Quasi-Elemental Planes
Those touched by the influence of the elemental planes of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water are rare, but known to the prime material worlds as the genasi. Very few know, however, that there are other elemental planes that rest between those four and also between those four and the positive and negative energy planes. These are the para-elemental and quasi-elemental planes and very rarely, there are genasi who have been shaped by their primordial energy.
Unlike the typical genasi, para-elemental and quasi-elemental genasi are not usually the result of mingling between planar entities like genies and mortal races of the Prime Material. The natives of the para-elemental and quasi-elemental planes are often far too alien for that. Instead, a para-elemental or quasi-elemental genasi is usually the result of mortal races coming into contact with extreme elemental forces that can transform their bodies and souls so profoundly that the effects can even manifest in later generations.
Genasi Traits
Your genasi character has certain characteristics in common with all other genasi.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2.
Age. Genasi mature at about the same rate as humans and reach adulthood in their late teens. They live somewhat longer than humans do, up to 120 years.
Alignment. Independent and self-reliant, genasi tend toward a neutral alignment.
Size. Genasi are as varied as their mortal parents but are generally built like humans, standing anywhere from 5 feet to over 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Primordial. Primordial is a guttural language, filled with harsh syllables and hard consonants.
Subraces. In addition to the four major subraces of genasi detailed in other, official sources, there are the para-elemental genasi of Ice, Magma, Ooze and Smoke and the quasi-elemental genasi of Lightning, Mineral, Radiance, Steam, Ash, Dust, Salt, and Vacuum.
Ash Genasi
At the farthest reaches of the Cinder Wastes on the Plane of Fire, there is a blasted and broken expanse that is now only the tortured memory of a once great conflagration. The fires no longer burn and what remains are only broken, scorched ghosts of civilization caked with ash and soot. No one remembers what happened here, but now this land is touched by the Negative Energy Plane and forms the borderlands of the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Ash. And these blasted ruins are home to the desperate descendants of a failed uprising against the efreet slavers of the City of Brass. Forced into exile, these bloodied revolutionaries hid within these soot-covered ruins, slowly changed by the cold, dead ash that sapped the heat from their bodies. Generations later, they have become the ash genasi, and their hearts still burn with the only fire found in these wastes, a desperate, hungry fire that calls for justice.
Ash genasi are nearly invisible in their soot-dusted ruins, their skin colored in shades of gray, sometimes in gradients or patchy patterns. Their hair and eyes are also gray, from a pale pearl to the darkest coal. Their skin is cool and dry compared to most mortal races and their touch often leaves light traces of ash behind. Their hearts, however, burn with fire; glowing orange-red in their chest, visible through their sooty skin. If an ash genasi is exposed to flame, it can even stoke this fire, and their veins and arteries glow orange through their flesh.
Ash genasi have long cultural memories about the failed uprising and the exile that created them. They have never given up their fight, no matter how desperate their current lives might be. As a people, they speak of a mythical promised land called the Emberheart, where cinders burn eternal even in this lifeless ash. Until they find the Emberheart, each ash genasi carries that flame in their own hearts as surely as they carry on their fight. As a people, ash genasi are doomed yet unbroken rebels and even those that have left their homeland still bring their fight with them. They despise slavery and exploitation and chafe against authority no matter where they are found, and those ash genasi who take up an adventuring lifestyle tend towards the causes of paladins or the powerful bloodlines of sorcery.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Darkvision. You have darkvision up to 60 feet.
Body of Ash. You have resistance to cold damage.
Heart of Embers. When your current hit points are below half of your hit point maximum, your body trails cold, life-stealing ash. You gain +1 to your Armor Class as your body becomes vaguely incorporeal at its edges and any melee attacks you make also add 1d4 necrotic damage. If you are reduced to 0 hit points, you may make a desperate attempt to steal life from another. You may use a reaction to make a melee spell attack against a target within five feet. If you hit, they suffer necrotic damage equal to your level and you heal a number of hit points equal to half of your level. Your spellcasting ability for this is Charisma.
Soul of Flame. When you take fire damage, you may use a reaction to gain temporary hit points equal to half of the fire damage suffered. These temporary hit points do not change your Heart of Embers ability, as they are not considered actual hit points. Once you use this ability, you may not use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Crystal Genasi
[Editors Note: A very special thank you to my friend Em, who worked with me to create the crystal genasi, plays a wonderful one named Ell in my Planescape campaign, and really encouraged me to put together this whole project. You can find her and her charming artwork of Ell and many other characters at https://www.twitter.com/etruffery]
Where the Elemental Plane of Earth nears the humming energy of the Positive Energy Plane, the dirt and stone gives way to expanses and caverns of crystals and gemstones infused with the power of creation. Mystics and arcanists prize these crystals for their ability to focus psionic power or to provide life to inanimate constructs, but prolonged exposure to this plane can have radical effects on the mortal body. Those who are not killed outright as their bodies fail to cope with the influx of energy are transformed into something else. They become crystalline plane-touched and can even pass down this nature to future generations in the form of crystal genasi.
A crystal genasi's body is made of a flexible, organic, crystalline material that can move like a typical mortal form but is otherwise very alien. Crystal genasi features tend to be colorful and vivid. Their eyes twinkle in the light and their hair is vaguely translucent. Their skin is opaque and is usually either very pale and opalescent or dark and shimmering, but just below the surface of this skin, their bodies are composed of a luminous gemstone-like material.
Crystal genasi are alien, but curious. Their penchant for not quite understanding most beings and their desire to study them and learn might be mistaken as aloof or cold, if crystal genasi were not also generally very positive and friendly. Instead, they typically come off as genuine, curious, and perhaps a bit clueless about how the people of the multiverse behave. Crystal genasi who go into adventuring often do so to learn more about people outside their plane and they tend towards paths that possess arcane magic or psionic talent.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Alien Mind. Because your mind is so strange and compartmentalized, you have resistance to psychic damage.
Shiny. Infused as they are with positive energy, crystal genasi can channel that energy through their crystalline bodies and focus it into a blinding shimmer. They may cast the light cantrip at will, but the range is Self, as they are only able to cause their own crystalline bodies to sparkle and shimmer. At 3rd level, they may cast the blindness spell at 2nd-level without any need for components or a spell slot. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell. Once a crystal genasi casts blindness with this ability, they may not use it again until they complete a long rest.
Crystalline Body. Though crystal genasi do bleed (a colorful, shimmering blood), they are capable of sealing off parts of their bodies and even removing them without grievously wounding the whole. As a reaction when struck by a critical hit, you may negate the critical damage, turning it into a normal hit. Once you use this feature, you may not use it again until completing a long rest. Additionally, as an action, a crystal genasi can detach pieces of their body without causing themselves damage. The exact benefit or detriment of doing so is left to the DM's discretion; removing a hand might make it easy to escape being bound, but also impossible to wield a two-handed weapon. Assuming the crystal genasi does not lose their separated body part, they may reattach it during a short rest. If a crystal genasi does lose a detached body part, they may only replace it by obtaining crystal from the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Mineral. If they somehow lose more than half of their body this way, a crystal genasi immediately goes to 0 hit points but is stabilized and unconscious until brought in contact with the positive energy-infused crystals of their native plane.
Dust Genasi
The Elemental Plane of Earth is an unimaginably massive mountain erupting from the volcanic Fountains of Creation below, its ever-growing mass of earth and rock riddled with labyrinthine caverns and tunnels that cannot be mapped by mortals. The peak of this mountain stretches into the cold, hungry, starless void of the Negative Energy Plane, which erodes the mountain into nothing over eons. Within the summit of this endlessly enduring mountain are the vast subterranean libraries and museums of the dust genasi. Here they catalog all of the histories of the multiverse before those civilizations are inevitably reduced to dust.
The dust genasi claim to be descendents of mortal visitors driven by a need to preserve history and knowledge, but were changed by the entropy of the Negative Energy Plane touching their home. Regardless of their origins, they are distinct beings now. Their skin is a pallid, slate-grey and their eyes are milky and clouded, sightless from birth. Their hair is deep black, but greys with age, and their fingers are often stained with the fast-drying metallic ink they use to chronicle countless histories in their tomes that they can read by touch. Around them, the air is always filled with tiny, almost unnoticeable, motes of dust.
Dust genasi are quiet and pensive. They understand that all things are finite and will eventually become dust, but the gravity of that knowledge humbles them. While all things end, it is a dust genasi's duty to chronicle or preserve their memory as long as possible. This does not mean that all dust genasi are passive; some of their kind understand that evil must be hastened to its end so that good can grow and they endeavor to both defeat this evil and make sure lessons are recorded from its existence. Some dust genasi leave their underground libraries to seek out histories to record or artifacts to preserve, roaming the planes to make sure someone remembers how the multiverse's many civilizations lived. These adventuring dust genasi tend to be wizards, though some are rogues of a mastermind or inquisitive bend. And there are even some dust genasi who maintain monasteries devoted to knowledge, serving as monks of the Cobalt Soul (see the Tal'dorei Campaign Setting).
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
The Whispering World. Your eyes are clouded and you are blind. But the dust whispers the world to you. You have blindsight in a radius of 15 feet around you. Beyond that, you have tremorsense in a 120 foot cone in the direction you are facing. Beyond 120 feet, you are truly blind, but your hearing is keen and you make Perception (Wisdom) checks that rely on your hearing with advantage. You are immune to the blinded condition, but if you suffer the deafened condition, attack rolls you make have disadvantage and attack rolls made against you have advantage.
Memories in Dust. The dust that remains remembers what it once was and it speaks to you. Whenever you make a History (Intelligence) check about an object you are touching or a location you are standing in, you have advantage on the check. On a very successful roll, you will even receive visions of past experiences of this object or location, though these visions are based in every sense except sight.
The Ephemeral Record. When you dream, you can tap into figments of histories not your own, of worlds and people past. When you complete a long rest, you may choose a skill or tool proficiency or a language you do not know. You are now proficient in it until you complete another long rest, whereupon it fades from your mind. If you were already proficient in that skill or tool, you have expertise. While you are proficient in this skill, tool or language, you may also experience memories or mannerisms not your own, foreign to your time, culture, or usual personality. You may choose another skill or proficiency after completing your next long rest, or you may choose not to receive this bonus proficiency for the day, but you may not choose the same language, skill or tool proficiency after consecutive long rests.
Ice Genasi
The Para-Elemental Plane of Ice beckons to the hardiest explorers of the multiverse: a seemingly endless wall of ice that reaches up out of the coldest reach of the Plane of Water, stretching miles into the sky before vanishing into unceasing blizzards. To scale this ice and reach the Precipice is a trial said to have thwarted even demigods, but the natives of this plane--and yes, there are natives--care little for this fool's errand. Carved into the ice are entire civilizations, subterranean cities under frozen domes, and great, furred megafauna that migrate through the massive ice tunnels. Delve deeper still and one will find an entire frigid sea buried under the ice, where great bergs bob in the lightless depths and immense deep sea predators glow to lure their prey. But somewhere in between the frigid sea and the relentless blizzards, you will find the stoic ice genasi. Their songs say they are born of souls thawed after being trapped in the ice and they gather in frozen cave cities where only mystical coldfire burns, as open flame is anathema to them.
Ice genasi are sharp-featured and regal, their poise straight-backed and their every movement slow and precise. Their skin and hair are white or the palest blue and they shimmer whenever light falls on the ice crystals that cling to them. An ice genasi's eyes are a single, solid color and lack the distinction of sclera, iris, or pupil. It is said the color of their eyes varies with where the ice genasi is born, with ice genasi born closer to the Precipice having pale blue eyes and those born deeper near the frigid sea having pure, black eyes.
The Para-Elemental Plane of Ice is merciless and unforgiving, and as such strength and fortitude are valued in ice genasi society. But theirs is a beautiful, noble strength and a culture of art, song, and philosophy has bloomed in their cavernous homes. Those that venture beyond their home plane into the multiverse often find it to be crude, dirty, and chaotic in comparison, which has given ice genasi the reputation of being haughty, aloof, and pretentious. That said, brave and duty-bound ice genasi are treasured in most places, and many roaming ice genasi can make a good living as a sellsword fighter or ranger guide.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Of the Endless Ice. Ice runs through your blue blood, but flame is vile and cursed. You have immunity to cold damage. However, you also have vulnerability to fire damage.
Brace of Winter. Upon reaching 0 hit points, your wounds freeze over, your blood ceases to flow, and your heart and breath slow as your body retreats to a chilly hibernation. You automatically stabilize at 0 hit points and do not need to make death saves, but you will not regain consciousness until you are healed to at least 1 hit point. Once you have used this ability, you may not use it again until you have completed a long rest.
Rime Blessed. If you finish a long rest under the open sky or near a large amount of water (in liquid, frozen, or vapor form), you will awaken to find your skin covered in filigree patterns of crystalline ice known as the blessing of the rime. You gain temporary hit points equal to 5 + half your character level (round down). As long as you have some of these temporary hit points remaining, you may use a reaction when hit by a melee attack to inflict cold damage on the opponent that hit you equal to the number of these temporary hit points you lost in their strike. You may not gain the blessing of the rime if you take your long rest within 20 feet of a persistent, large, open flame--such as a campfire or bonfire--or are sleeping in subtropical or warmer temperatures (though deserts at night get cold enough to support the blessing). Any remaining temporary hit points from the blessing expire when you finish your next long rest, though if the conditions are met, you may refresh them when you awake. The temporary hit points granted by the blessing of the rime may not stack with other sources of temporary hit points. If the amount of temporary hit points granted by the blessing of the rime is greater than the other source, the other source has no effect. If the other source is greater, the blessing of the rime fades and is replaced by this other source.
Lightning Genasi
On the fringes of the Boundless Blue of the Plane of Air, within a brooding sea of thick clouds large enough to swallow a kingdom in darkness, floats a machine the size of small city, a machine of endless wire coils and vast spinning turbines. The machine, called Corona by the djinn who discovered it, is bathed in the soft glow of ionized air and charged plasma and crackles with constant arcs of lightning. Though none know who or what built Corona or for what purpose, two startling discoveries were made: first, within the labyrinthine machine is a flickering tear in the plane that connects to the Positive Energy Plane, and second, beings of pure electrical energy live on Corona: the lightning genasi.
In their natural form, lightning genasi are beings of electrical energy and ionized plasma. But djinni artisans and air genasi artificers discovered long ago that they could inhabit constructed bodies and animate them. Over the millennia since, the lightning genasi have improved upon these designs, crafting bodies of insulating glass and conductive metals such as brass, silver, copper, and gold. Now they inhabit humanoid works of art with full range of motion, each one decorative and distinct in its own personal ways.
Lightning genasi are systemic thinkers, determined to understand unfamiliar places and peoples and make sense of the multiverse around them. They are logical and orderly, but are not devoid of emotion. They are often driven by an endless curiosity and sometimes a sudden but deep attachment to the soft, fleshy beings they meet and learn from. Lightning genasi that leave Corona in their bodies of artifice are guided by a voracious need to experience, analyze, and understand everything. As adventurers, they tend towards the structured arcane arts as wizards or artificers, applying their knowledge and experience to shape the world around them.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Awakened Artifice. Your body is a construction of arcane artifice imbued with life energy. You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and are resistant to poison damage. You do not need to eat, drink, or breathe. You are immune to disease. You do not need to sleep and magic cannot put you to sleep.
Low Power Mode. 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 your unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal. When you complete a long rest this way, choose one of the following two abilities, Surge or Witch-Fire. The ability selected is present until you choose to exchange it for the other ability at the completion of another long rest.
Surge. You gain the shocking grasp cantrip. You also gain advantage on Initiative checks. You may use a bonus action to overclock the arcane mechanisms of your body for 1 minute. During this time, you gain +2 to your Armor Class and +10 feet to your movement speed. When the ability ends (or if you use another bonus action to end it early), you gain a level of exhaustion. Once you have overclocked your constructed form this way, you may not do so again until you complete a long rest.
Witch-Fire. As a bonus action, you may cause your body to glow, casting dim light in a 10 foot radius around you. You can maintain this glow indefinitely, but by using another bonus action, you can expel the glow from your constructed body, where it becomes a cloud of luminous plasma floating in the air for 1 minute. This cloud emits dim light in a 10 foot radius around it and has its own movement speed of 30 feet in any direction on your turn, but your body and the cloud must remain on the same plane or the effect ends. While this cloud is present, you can sense the surroundings around the cloud using blindsight in a 30 foot radius around the cloud, but Perception checks and Dexterity saving throws made by your construct body are made with disadvantage and your body's speed is halved. The luminous cloud is insubstantial, but cannot pass through solid material, though it can pass through small openings, holes, or even cracks in a surface. The cloud cannot be damaged, but a dispel magic spell will immediately end the effect. You may end the effect early by using a bonus action.
Magma Genasi
Angrily rising into the scorched sky between the peaks of the Elemental Plane of Earth and the vast Sea of Fire on the Elemental Plane of Fire are the volcanic mounts known as the Fountains of Creation, or the Para-Elemental Plane of Magma. The mountains here regularly explode with pyroclastic flows of superheated gas, thunderous flaming boulders, and deadly-hot magma. Most mortals who visit the Fountains of Creation perish, their bodies consumed in the volcanic earth and flame. But rarely, and miraculously, a handful survive, becoming something between mortal and elemental. They and their descendants become magma genasi, their bodies and souls infused with the power of volcanoes.
Magma genasi typically have dark, rough skin in tones of slate gray, earthen brown, or obsidian black. Lines of orange-red criss-cross their flesh where the veins bearing their superheated blood glow through. A magma genasi's eyes are red, orange, or yellow and their hair is typically either ashen gray, dark black, or bright red, though many shave their heads to avoid the risk of their hair catching aflame in their homelands. Their skin is warm to the touch, in what would seem feverishly so to those not native to the Fountains of Creation.
Often caught between the cruelty of the dao and the tyranny of the efreet, magma genasi carry chips on their shoulders and short fuses. Because of their temperment and their abilities, they make poor slaves, and the efreet and dao have been known to wipe them out in order to claim their volcanic homes. As a culture, the magma genasi bear deep anger and have short tempers and they will not suffer those who threaten them. Those who leave the Fountains of Creation to become adventurers struggle to keep their fury in check and can often be found on the front lines of any battle, where they vent this rage against those who have earned it.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Darkvision. You have darkvision up to 60 feet.
Blood of the Volcano. Whenever a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack, your superheated blood burns the attacker back. The attacker takes fire damage equal to half your character level, rounded down (minimum of 1 damage). Once per long rest, as a reaction to taking damage from a melee attack, you can choose to erupt, forcing everyone in a five foot radius to make a DC13 Dexterity saving throw or take 2d10 fire damage. On a successful saving throw, they take half damage. If you are struck with cold damage, you may not use either feature of Blood of the Volcano until the end of your next turn.
Molten Grasp. The fire that burns within you gives you the ability to start fires with a touch. As an action, you can magically ignite a flammable object you touch with your hand. At 3rd level, once per long rest, you can cast the spell heat metal, but with a range of touch.
Mist Genasi
In a remote region of the Elemental Plane of Water, a massive, crackling sphere of light rests in the sea, a gate to the Positive Energy Plane. The water around the sphere churns and roils, and a great maelstrom swirls for miles as the sea is drawn into the radiance. When the water meets the gate's energy, it flash-boils, filling the sky above the maelstrom with thick clouds of steam which rise and cool into a vast canopy of clouds and mist that occasionally glows with soft colors. Mortals who approach the sphere are almost always irrevocably destroyed, unable to contain the vast energy the sphere radiates. Sometimes, though, the emitted energy from the sphere mixes with the steam to give birth to something new: beings who exist halfway between form and fog, the mist genasi.
Mist genasi have skin, hair, and eye tones in pale and soft-hued colors. Combinations of pale gray, soft blue, lavender, and pink are common, as are swirling patterns on their skin or gradients of color in their hair. Most mist genasi wear their hair long and loose or in voluminous curls, with the ends trailing off into strands of mist and fog. Some, but not all, mist genasi have pointed ears, ranging from subtle points to long, swept-back ears where the points trail into mist.
Mist genasi live on floating, crystalline islands teeming with greenery, shrouded and secluded within the clouds and fog. This allows them to live largely peaceful, contemplative lives, and the ephemeral nature of their surroundings encourages an ascetic outlook. Some mist genasi long to see what lies beyond the mist, however, and set out across the planes. Among those mist genasi who become adventurers, their calm and thoughtful demeanors often lead them to become clerics or monks.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Unclouded Vision. Your vision is never obscured by fog or mist and you have advantage on saving throws against charm and illusions.
Soothing Presence. Your calming presence can bolster your allies. You can use an action to touch a charmed or frightened creature and calmly speak reassuring words to them (the creature must be capable of understanding your language). Doing so allows them to immediately make a new saving throw against the effect at advantage. Once you have used this ability, you must take a long rest before using it again.
Of Mist and Fog. The elemental mists are as much a part of your nature as your mortal form. Once per long rest, you may cast the spell fog cloud, without any components needed. At 3rd level, you can cast the spell misty step once per long rest.
Ooze Genasi
Between the Elemental Planes of Earth and Water lies a vast expanse of sludge and muck. Closer to the Plane of Earth, the mire is a thick and threatens to entomb anyone who travels through it. As the expanse nears the Plane of Water, it thins out to a slimy, acidic sea. Most mortals exposed to the primordial forces of Ooze do not survive to tell the tale, leaving only preserved remains buried in the muck. But those who do are often changed, leading to the creation of ooze genasi.
The appearance of an ooze genasi can vary, but all have a slimy outer "skin" and soft, malleable bodies. Some have skin tones of rich, deep brown, while others shimmer in almost-translucent blues and greens. Often, their eyes are the same color or similar to their skin tone and their "hair"--if they have it--is merely an extension of their slime-coated bodies.
Ooze genasi are expressive beings, both proud of their self-reliance and bitter at their lot in life. Whether they are broody or dramatic, an ooze genasi wears their heart on their sleeve. Those that end up in an adventuring life tend to fall in with a bad crowd, using their natural talents as thieves, pirates or other "scum."
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Acid Resistance. You have resistance to acid damage.
Amphibious. You can breathe air and water. Additionally, you can breathe even in murky sludge-filled environments.
Slippery. Your coating of slime makes you remarkably hard to pin down. You have advantage on any check to escape grapple or restrained conditions. You also have advantage on any check to escape any physical bonds.
Semi-Amorphous. Your skin, musculature, and skeleton are all much more flexible than those of a typical humanoid. You may squeeze into any space large enough for a creature two size categories smaller than yourself and you suffer no penalties squeezing into a space large enough for a creature one size smaller than your own (see Squeezing into a Small Space on page 192 of the Players Handbook). This ability does not extend to your possessions and gear; those must be able to fit through the smaller space on their own or be left behind.
Radiance Genasi
Typically obscured by the haze and smoke that hangs in the furnace sky of the Elemental Plane of Fire, a strange, twinkling satellite orbits the plane along an unpredictable route, a source of great concern to the astrologers in the City of Brass. The efreet call it the Wandering Lamplight and the azer know it as the Starlit Engine, but to the residents that live upon and within the mysterious satellite, it is known simply as Beacon. It is a small moon of steel and brass clockwork built to contain a pulsing core of flickering light: a permanent gate to the Positive Energy Plane. Within and atop this clockwork cage, towering buildings of metal and glass have been erected, illuminated by glass globes and tubes filled with glowing gases. Dozens of different species from the Plane of Fire and beyond have made their home here, but perhaps the most mysterious residents are the only natives of Beacon: the radiance genasi who emerge from the satellite's core.
Radiance genasi have black or dark purplish skin covered in splotches, stripes, or patterns of glowing, luminescent light. Their hair, like that of fire genasi, sometimes seems made of fire itself, but a radiance genasi's hair glows with pale, soft pastel colors in stark contrast to their dark skin. The irises of their eyes also glow in a similar fashion, sometimes but not always the same color as their hair. In fact, the rare radiance genasi has eyes of two different colors, or eyes that slowly and continuously shift in the color of their glow.
Most radiance genasi live out their entire lives on Beacon, at home in the urban canyons and shifting clockwork of the satellite. But particularly ingenious and curious radiance genasi find the way elsewhere, sometimes to the City of Brass far below and sometimes farther out across the planes. No matter where they end up, radiance genasi are always quick-fingered, fleet of foot, and crafty. They are sometimes drawn to a life of adventuring simply because they cannot stand still, and those who take up this life often become rogues, artificers, or monks of strange, esoteric philosophies.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 1.
Darkvision. You have darkvision up to 60 feet. In darkness, radiance genasi can see by sensing the ambient radiance in objects and creatures, which is invisible to most.
Speed of Light. Your base walking speed increases by 10 feet.
Flickerfire. As an action, a radiance genasi can charge up their bodies with radiant energy, enveloping themselves with a flickering glow and causing disorienting after-images to hang momentarily in the air as they move. This ability lasts for 1 minute and during that time the radiance genasi does not provoke attacks of opportunity when they move outside of a hostile creature's reach. They may also move through a space occupied by a hostile creature, though this movement counts as difficult terrain. When they move through a space occupied by a hostile creature this way, the hostile creature takes radiant damage equal to half the genasi's level (round down). No matter how many times the radiance genasi moves through a single hostile creature's space in a single turn, they only suffer this damage once per turn. The genasi may, however, move through multiple hostile creatures' spaces and each one suffers this damage separately. Once they use this ability, a radiance genasi may not use Flickerfire again until completing a long rest.
Salt Genasi
One may think of the Plane of Water as an endless sea, but there is a place where even the sea dies, and that place is the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Salt. This strange place begins with a beach covered in the salt-crusted bones of countless sea creatures, including the immense bones of unimaginable leviathians of the depths. Inland from the beach is a vast salt flat, empty and desolate except for some scattered settlements eeking out survival. Rarely, a towering obelisk of crystalline salt juts out at an angle from the gray-white flats, offering the barest respite from the elements. It is said if you travel far enough across the flats, you will reach a stark-white crystal cliff, a jagged wound in the multiverse beyond which is oblivion: the Negative Energy Plane.
The Quasi-Elemental Plane of Salt is known for its ability to preserve life on the razor's edge of death. It is said that if a desperate and mortally-wounded being travels here, they will live on for ages, never healing, but never perishing so long as they remain. The doomed souls who embrace this cursed immortality often wander the salt flats alone for eternity, but some rare few have co-existed for a time and created lineages of new natives of the Salt: the salt genasi.
Salt genasi appear humanoid, but as if all color has been bleached from their bodies. Their hair, eyes, and skin all tend to be white or gray, and their skin and hair always shed tiny grains of salt which shimmer and twinkle in the sunlight. Though most could pass as human, some retain features of their doomed and immortal progenitor and may have slightly pointed ears, scales, or other evidence of their lineage. The salt flats are lonely and grim and salt genasi are not naturally social, so they can often come off as blunt, stubborn, or sarcastic to outsiders. But they are natural wanderers and determined survivors and many seek out other planes and lands that are more hospitable, offering up their talents to planeswalkers as wasteland rangers or strange druids of desolation.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Dessicate. You gain the ability to cast the Dessicate cantrip (see below). Your casting ability for this cantrip is Wisdom.
Stubborn Perseverance. You gain proficiency in Survival. If you would gain proficiency in Survival again from another source, you now have expertise in Survival. When you make a saving throw to avoid exhaustion, do so with advantage. If you would automatically earn a level of exhaustion, instead you can make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw, ignoring that level of exhaustion on a success.
Not Today. When you are reduced to 0 Hit Points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a Long Rest.
Dessicate
Necromancy cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: S,M (a dash of salt)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Artificer, Druid, Warlock, Wizard
Your touch draws the moisture from living things. Make a melee spell attack against the target. If you hit, you inflict 1d10 necrotic damage and the target cannot regain hit points until the start of your next turn. If your target is a plant, it is vulnerable to this damage. This cantrip has no effect on constructs or undead.
This spell’s damage increases by 1d10 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).
Smoke Genasi
[Editors Note: The inspiration and initial design/mechanics for this version of smoke genasi came from Anna Landin, a friend, a talented artist, and a player in my Planescape campaign. She has an excellent Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/annalandin and can be found on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/AnnaLandin.]
For millennia without end, djinn and efreet raiders cross the border between the Elemental Planes of Air and Fire to raid each others' holdings. These battles leave only smoldering embers, furnace-hot winds, and thick smoke, which serve as camouflage for the next incursion. These choking clouds are deadly to most mortals, but to those who adapt and survive, the Para-Elemental Plane of Smoke offers hidden sanctuary, shifting schemes, and powerful secrets. Over the ages, these survivors have been shaped by this border plane into the smoke genasi.
Smoke genasi are humanoid in form, though they sometimes manifest the barest traces of their original lineage. Some appear largely human, but others may have small horns, slightly pointed ears, or small, soft scales as a faint reminder of a progenitor that adapted to the Smoke. They almost universally have dark skin, varying from jet-black to soft gray, and many smoke genasi have gradients of these shifting skin tones across their bodies. Some rare smoke genasi have reddish-orange and dimly luminous freckles on their faces or skin, and even those who do not have been known to brand themselves with glowing marks as a form of self-expression. Their eye color varies from light and smoky irises that are barely distinguishable to a dark and unreadable black. No matter their eye color, though, when they are in full darkness, their irises glow a dim red-orange, like dying embers. Smoke genasi hair is often dark and comes in every style and texture, though it is common for the tips of their hair to drift off into formless smoke that trails subtly behind them as they move. Smoke genasi have the smell of smoke that clings to them at all times, sometimes varying with their mood between wood smoke, a pleasant incense, or the terrible odors of a greasy oil fire or burning flesh.
These natives of the Smoke are generally charming and attractive, but are also typically seen as untrustworthy. The Border Plane of Smoke is full of layered schemes and shifting alliances of convenience and the smoke genasi are adept at saying just the right things, even when you would be inclined not to believe them. Not all smoke genasi are so self-serving, but even the most genuine smoke genasi's words come with a certain seductive quality that makes others question their intent.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Darkvision. You have darkvision up to 60 feet. Smoke genasi see in the dark by sensing the heat in their surroundings and when in full darkness, their eyes glow reddish-orange like smoldering embers.
Smoke and Mirrors. You can cast the spell misty step without requiring a spell slot or components. Once used, you cannot use this ability again until completing a short or long rest.
Dissipate. Touched by the elemental substance of their home, a smoke genasi's body is less solid than those of other races. As a reaction when hit by a weapon attack, you can choose to dissolve into smoke and let the attack pass harmlessly through you. Once you use this ability, you may not use it again until completing a long rest.