Auf
Halloween is coming up fast, and so are Halloween one-shots and themed sessions, so if you're looking for a new spooky character idea, look no further. Our first VRGR style 'legacy' race, the auf is a classic horror body-snatcher, letting you add some subtle spooky flavor to what might at first seem like a normal character. And honestly, even after spooky season has ended, who doesn't want to secretly be from outer space? If you're a DM looking to sprinkle in some sci-fi, the auf could be a great way to plant those seeds early, or when a player rolls a backup character. I'd tell you the sky's the limit, but you know, space aliens. Stay tuned for our common gray race, with expertise in Dexterity (Probing) checks. See you soon!
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Auf
She says he looks exactly like Uncle Ira, talks just like him, acts just like him – everything. She just knows it isn’t Ira, that’s all.
— Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jack Finney
Anxious countryfolk often guard their children at night for fear of them being stolen away by the fey, replaced by a changeling or an ‘auf’. While this is a rare occurrence, the concept has permeated the collective consciousness of rustic towns, causing all manner of strange happenings to be attributed to the fey. This is perhaps the best reason for the auf’s misnomer. In actuality, the phenomenon of aufs is attributable instead to some far realm entity that found its way into the material realm.
Aufs are microscopic beings that drift among the stars. They are rarely encountered, and only acknowledged by a handful of scholars due to their incredibly innocuous nature. Still, those who have encountered aufs, or rather the sudden loss of their relative as they knew them, can quite accurately describe the dramatic effect that these creatures can have on common lives.
Sometimes, these creatures make their way through the atmosphere, ever-so-often appearing on the material plane. When they do so, they find themselves in waterways and deposits, until they are ingested by the thirsty traveler.
Body Snatchers
Due to their infinitesimal nature, aufs require much larger bodies to survive on the worlds that they drift to. So, once ingested by a suitable creature, they travel to that creature’s central nervous system and begin to get to work.
Auf’s quite literally steal the bodies of other organisms. Their process, in comparison to that of the horrid illithids, is rather dull, unremarkable, and painless. Once ingested, an auf takes no more than five days to kill its host and appropriate their body, during most of which the subject has an intense fever and is thus unconscious, asleep, or otherwise not lucid. After this process, what was once a member of a household begins life anew.
Alien Beings
Members of the family will notice a sudden change in personality and mental ability, perhaps some sort of newfound clumsiness or sudden amnesia. While taking a body, an auf has access to its former occupant’s memories and inclinations, but may otherwise be uninterested in acting on them beyond its own self-preservation. Many auf’s will find excuses to leave the community of their body’s past life, though some may find a home to settle into and attempt to blend in.
Auf’s are not actively malicious. They simply seek to survive as they best know how. They have little interest in carrying out the desire of others, moreso finding their own reason to live in their new homeworld.
A body piloted by an auf may be subject to alien social behaviors, due to the auf’s poor understanding of the concepts or lack of interest in the culture that they find themselves in.
Pilots and Vessels
Aufs are one step removed from the body they inhabit. Thus, aufs can push those bodies to the absolute limit. They have a remarkable pain tolerance, as damage to the body is noticeable but not actually painful for the auf. They are rarely uncomfortable due to extreme temperatures, they can perform strenuous activities under considerable exhaustion and malnourishment, and they can perform feats of athleticism that would require the ordinary humanoid to stretch their muscles to the point of injury.
Auf Traits
Your auf character has the following traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.
Age. An auf lives for thousands of years among the stars with little to no contact with others. When they bond to a body, however, they adopt that body’s natural biological clock. The lifespan of the body they take continues its natural course, and both die when either dies.
Alignment. Most auf tend towards neutral alignments, being concerned with their own survival before all else.
Creature Type. You are an aberration.
Size. You are Medium or Small, depending on the size of the body you inhabit.
Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.
Ancestral Legacy. If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it.
If you don’t keep those elements or you choose this lineage at character creation, you gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.
Numbed Resistance. You have resistance to cold damage and fire damage.
Push It to the Limit. Starting at 3rd level, you can use a bonus action on your turn to push the body you inhabit to its biological limits and enter a state of heightened physical ability.
This state lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During it, your speed is doubled and you have advantage on any attack roll, ability check, or saving throw you make using Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. Additionally, you take your level + your proficiency bonus in necrotic damage at the end of each of your turns, as the body you inhabit begins to fall apart. This necrotic damage can’t be reduced in any way.
Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Sleepless. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.
Languages. You retain the languages of the body’s previous owner. In addition, you can speak, read, and write Common and Deep Speech.
Using an Auf as a Monster
Aufs do not always occupy the bodies of humanoids. They may find their way into a beast, monstrosity, or any other biological being with a central nervous system. To create the stat block of a body piloted by an auf, apply the following changes to the creature’s original stat block:
Its type becomes aberration.
+2 Strength
+2 Dexterity
+2 Constitution
-2 Charisma
It gains resistance to cold damage and fire damage.
It gains the Push It to the Limit trait.