Cephallid

"This one will develop a chronic disease later in life, this one will have a deformity in its beak. This one however feels different, it will become a great figure during its life. We must preserve this little one" - Cephallids deciding the fates of their unhatched eggs

## About

Cephallids are humanoids that live in the warmer waters of Polistralya.

Not a lot is known about the Cephallids since they prefer to stay underwater where few creatures can see them, their natural enemies are the Sahuagin and the Locathah.

Cephallids are humanoid, with skin that is rubbery and slick, like that of an octopus or squid.

After the eggs are laid and fertilized, the parents eat most of them, until only a few remain, which eventually hatch a few weeks later. From this point, cephallids take ten years to reach adulthood, though they can live to be upward to 70 years old.

The parents use their psionic insight to see which eggs will hatch into the best specimens of Cephallid, this is to preserve the quality of the race's genepool.

## Physical description

The colors vary from purple to gray to green. To heighten the cephalopod connection, Cephallids have tentacles extending from the bottom half of their heads, behind which lurks a sharp beak of a mouth, making them appear something like a human with an octopus for a head. The Cephallid’s tentacles are one to two feet long and prehensile, and they use them to bring food to their concealed mouths. Beyond that, they are thin and relatively tall, with long, spidery fingers.

## Culture

Cephallid communities are fundamentally influenced by those among them who are of Cephallid ancestry. And many of those individuals carry with them an unusual perspective on reality, inherited from their forebearers and their close proximity to the arcane.

Outsiders tend to find Cephallid communities to be eerie, preternatural places, full of strange practices and unsettling folk.

To be fair, most Cephallid communities are odd in the extreme, though they are not necessarily malevolent.

Rather, they are as often idiosyncratic and unusual as they might be disturbing.

Many other Cephallid villages simply want to go about their relatively mundane lives in peace, even though they sing strange, atonal songs to their children and dance unnatural jigs in silence at their seasonal ceremonies.

## Traits

* **Ability Score Increase**. Your Intelligence score increases by 2 and your Constitution by 1.
* **Age**. Cephallids are born in watery pools of slime from eggs that their parents jointly secrete in a process that others would consider disturbing.
* **Alignment**. Those who grow up in Cephallid communities are often more in tune with the disorder of the Outer Realms. Thus they lean toward the choatic sides.
* **Size**. Cephallids are the same size and weight as humans. Your size is Medium.
* **Speed**. 25ft. on land and your swimming speed is 30ft.
* Concealed Beak. Hiding behind the face tentacles of a Cephallid is a sharp beak, which you can use to make unarmed attacks. On a hit, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier.
* **Head Tentacles**. Cephallids have four to six tentacles growing from the bottoms of their faces, with which they can grapple foes within five feet. You can make an unarmed attack with your head tentacles. On a hit, you successfully grapple your foe and can bring them in for a beak bite as a bonus action. The target’s escape DC equals 8 + your proficiency modifier + your Strength bonus.
* **Dried out**. The slimy mucus covering the bodies of Cephallids will dry out in the sun, you have disadvantage on Athletics, Acrobatics and Stealth skill checks when in direct sunlight.
* **Amphibious.** Cephallids are amphibious due to living both in and out of the water, mostly at night.
* **Eldritch blast cantrip**. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Hideous laughter spell once per day with this trait. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the alter self spell once with this trait. Because you use psionics to create these effects, you do not need to use any spell components when casting these spells and Intelligence is your spellcasting ability. You regain the ability to cast these spells with this trait when you finish a long rest.
* **Eerie Intuition**. Those who grow up among the cephallids become used to their uncanny ability to tell what might be bothering someone. You have proficiency in Insight.
* **Languages**. You speak, read, and write Common, Aquan and Deep Speech.