Tabaxi

Tabaxi Traits

A tabaxi character has these traits.

Ability Score Increase. Tabaxi are nimble and friendly. +2 Dexterity, +1 Charisma
- Alignment: Tabaxi tend toward chaotic alignments, as they let impulse and fancy guide their decisions. They are rarely evil, with most of them driven by curiosity rather than greed or other dark impulses.
- Size: Tabaxi are taller on average than humans and relatively slender. Your size is Medium. Height 4' 10" +2d10". Weight 90 lbs +Height Modifier x2d4 lbs.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
- Darkision: You have a cat's keen senses, especially in the dark. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
- Speed: Tabaxi speed is 30 feet.
- Feline Agility: Your reflexes and agility allow you to move with a burst of speed. When you move on your tum in combat, you can double your speed until the end of the tum. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you move 0 feet on one of your turns.
- Cat's Claws: Because of your claws, you have a climbing speed of 20 feet. In addition, your claws are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength or Dexterity modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
- Cat's Talent: You have proficiency in the Perception and Stealth skills.
- Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.

Tabaxi

We had a tabaxi come through once, a few winters back. She kept the taproom packed each night with her stories and spent most days napping in a chair in front of the fireplace. We thought she was lazy, but when Linene came around looking for a missing broach, she was out the door before I could blink an eye.

-Toblen Stonehill, innkeeper

Hailing from a strange and distant land, wandering tabaxi are catlike humanoids driven by curiosity to collect interesting artifacts, gather tales and stories, and lay eyes on all the world's wonders. Ultimate travelers, the inquisitive tabaxi rarely stay in one place for long. Their innate nature pushes them to leave no secrets uncovered, no treasures or legends lost.

Personality

A tabaxi might have motivations and quirks much different from a dwarf or an elf with a similar background. You can use the following tables to customize your character in addition to the trait, ideal, bond, and flaw from your background.

The Tabaxi Obsession table can help hone your character's goals. For extra fun, roll a new result every few days that pass in the campaign to reflect your ever-changing curiosity.

Tabaxi Obsessions

Tabaxi Quirks

History of the Tabaxi in Faerun

In the Forgotten Realms, tabaxi hail from Maztica, a realm located far across the ocean west of the Sword Coast. The tabaxi of Maztica are known for their isolation, and until recently they never ventured from their homeland. The tabaxi say little of why that has changed, though rumors persist of strange happenings in that distant land.

Wandering Outcasts

Most tabaxi remain in their distant homeland, content to dwell in small, tight clans. These tabaxi hunt for food, craft goods, and largely keep to themselves.

However, not all tabaxi are satisfied with such a life. The Cat Lord, the divine figure responsible for the creation of the tabaxi, gifts each of his children with one specific feline trait. Those tabaxi gifted with curiosity are compelled to wander far and wide. They seek out stories, artifacts, and lore. Those who survive this period of wanderlust return home in their elder years to share news of the outside world. In this manner, the tabaxi remain isolated but never ignorant of the world beyond their home.

Barterers of Lore

Tabaxi treasure knowledge rather than material things. A chest filled with gold coins might be useful to buy food or a coil of rope, but it's not intrinsically interesting. In the tabaxi's eyes, gathering wealth is like packing rations for a long trip. It's important to survive in the world, but not worth fussing over.

Instead, tabaxi value knowledge and new experiences. Their ears perk up in a busy tavern, and they tease out stories with offers of food, drink, and coin. Tabaxi might walk away with empty purses, but they mull over the stories and rumors they collected like a miser counting coins.

Although material wealth holds little attraction for the tabaxi, they have an insatiable desire to find and inspect ancient relics, magical items, and other rare objects. Aside from the power such items might confer, a tabaxi takes great joy in unraveling the stories behind their creation and the history of their use.

The Cat Lord

The deity of the tabaxi is a fickle entity. as befits the patron of cats. The tabaxi believe that the Cat Lord wanders the world, watching over them and intervening in their affairs as needed. Clerics of the Cat Lord are rare and typically access the Trickery domain.

Fleeting Fancies

Wandering tabaxi are mercurial creatures, trading one obsession or passion for the next as the whim strikes. A tabaxi's desire burns bright, but once met it disappears to be replaced with a new obsession. Objects remain intriguing only as long as they still hold secrets.

A tabaxi rogue could happily spend months plotting to steal a strange gem from a noble, only to trade it for passage on a ship or a week's lodging after stealing it. The tabaxi might take extensive notes or memorize every facet of the gem before passing it on, but the gem holds no more allure once its secrets and nature have been laid bare.

Tinkers and Minstrels

Curiosity drives most of the tabaxi found outside their homeland, but not all of them become adventurers. Tabaxi who seek a safer path to satisfy their obsessions become wandering tinkers and minstrels.

These tabaxi work in small troupes, usually consisting of an elder, more experienced tabaxi who guides up to four young ones learning their way in the world. They travel in small, colorful wagons, moving from settlement to settlement. When they arrive, they set up a small stage in a public square where they sing, play instruments, tell stories, and offer exotic goods in trade for items that spark their interest. Tabaxi reluctantly accept gold, but they much prefer interesting objects or pieces of lore as payment.

These wanderers keep to civilized realms, preferring to bargain instead of pursuing more dangerous methods of sating their curiosity. However, they aren't above a little discreet theft to get their claws on a particularly interesting item when an owner refuses to sell or trade it.

Tabaxi Names

Each tabaxi has a single name, determined by clan and based on a complex formula that involves astrology, prophecy, clan history, and other esoteric factors. Tabaxi names can apply to both males and females, and most use nicknames derived from or inspired by their full names.

Clan names are usually based on a geographical feature located in or near the clan's territory.

The following list of sample tabaxi names includes nicknames in parenthesis.

- Tabaxi Names: Cloud on the Mountaintop (Cloud), Five Timber (Timber), Jade Shoe Qade), Left-Handed Hummingbird (Bird), Seven Thundercloud (Thunder), Skirt of Snakes (Snake), Smoking Mirror (Smoke)
- Tabaxi Clans: Bright Cliffs, Distant Rain, Mountain Tree, Rumbling River, Snoring Mountain

Frey

The frey are a subrace of tabaxi that strongly resemble upright domestic cats in their morphology. They are strong-willed and clever, and quick and tenacious in a fight. Frey take little part in the politics of the Realms, as they remain mostly unknown to the humans who live alongside of them. They are intensely curious and are foremost in the exploration of magical sites, the undercities of urban areas and even the underdark. They place great stock in the reclamation of lost areas.

Physical Description

Frey resemble domestic cats that walk upright upon two legs. Their ears are longer and more pointed than other cats, and are tipped with long tufts of fur. Frey have adapted to the upright posture by developing longer fingers and opposable thumbs, allowing them to manipulate objects as easily as other humanoids.

Frey are small creatures, standing on average three feet tall (2' 8" + 2d4") and weighing 30-40 pounds (30 lbs + height mod lbs). Frey do not need to wear clothes but most wear some sort of raiment. Nearly all frey wear long leg wrappings that go up to their hips, allowing them to wade through puddles and mud without getting their fur wet. On their upper bodies, frey do not often wear shirts but instead dress themselves in leather harness, belts, packs or other utility garb.

Though small, frey can be dangerous fighters that move with uncanny speed and coordination. Their most common tactic is striking and retreating without ever giving an opponent a chance to swing at them. They prefer small, well-made blades and almost never carry shields.

Frey reach adulthood at 13, middle age at 25, old age at 37, and venerable at 50.

History of the Frey in Faerun

Once upon a time, the goddess Sharess was the goddess Bastet, the cat goddess of fertility and mother of Anubis, the guardian of the dead. Before she was Bastet, she was Sekhmet, lion-goddess of war, vengeance, disease, the desert wind and the crafts of medicine and bone-setting. She was the mother of pharaohs, wife of Ptah the creator and the Eye of Ra, set to guard the sun-barge against the serpent Apophis in its nightly journey through the gates of the moon. In her ascendancy, she was served by powerful sorcerer-priestesses who practitioners of both powerful arcane and divine magics and by mighty warrior-priestess who practiced the magical arts and the ways of warfare.

The sorceresses of Sekhmet almost always took a cat as their familiars. Even those who did not practice the arcane arts were often granted the services of a temple cat, and so the city temples of Sekhmet, and later Bastet, often housed large colonies of cats, both magical and mundane. Even to this day, the few priestesses who keep alive the memory of the glory days of Sekhmet are served by magical cats, gifted to them by the goddess Sharess. They call themselves Celebrants of Sharess and they give themselves over to hedonism and violence that pays tribute to the modern day Sharess and the fallen Sekhmet.

But as Set gained ascendancy, faith in the Mighty One, Mistress of Dread waned until she became Bastet, a sensuous temple goddess. Ra and other male deities took over her portfolio of warfare. Eventually, her aspect of fertility goddess was subsumed by Hathor. Bastet fell even further and became Sharess, a lesser deity, outcast by her own pantheon. She fled to far distant Calimshan. Her temples were abandoned or overrun, and her priestesses dispersed. Some fled to Calimshan to keep the worship of Sharess alive. Some fled to nearby Rashemen, where the Hathran witches took them in. Some remained in Mulhorand, keeping alive the memory of Sekhmet and Bastet as best they could.

In the old, abandoned temples, the colonies of cats remained, touched by the divinity of their mistress and the sorcerous powers of those humans that served her. It was long after the fall of the goddess, in the ancient temples whose stone was seeped in power that the cats began to walk upright, to speak, to look upon the pictures and bas-reliefs on the walls and to rewrite their history and practice their own magic. As the power of even Sharess waned, the temples in Rashemen emptied and those in Calimshan fell into disuse. And in these places, too, the cats began to Awaken.

Personality

Frey are rarely interested in politics or power. They are not driven by a need to control or rule, but by a single encompassing and defining quality: curiosity. The whole of a frey's existence is driven by a need to see what is around the next corner, hidden behind the locked door, or lost in caverns beneath its feet. It is impossible to tell what will capture the interest of a frey, but once its curiosity is piqued, not much - including great risk to its own life - can dissuade it from its course. Though often foolhardy or careless, frey are careful planners and cunning strategists if involved in a pursuit that draws their attention.

The other main driving aspect of this race is their fierce independence. Frey are normally loath to join any organization or large group. They have no use for those who give them orders or tell them how to live their lives, and a frey goes to great pains to demonstrate its independence. They might openly defy an order given to them by a lord or guard just to keep their pride intact, often getting away with it based only on their overwhelming charm. At the same time, they are a remarkably social race and love the company of all different sorts. Frey are very loyal to those that win their friendship, giving their lives up in defense of a comrade without a second thought. At heart, frey are a chaotic race, prone to great feats of good or evil.

Religion

The frey have their own interpretation of the temple friezes and bas-reliefs. They generally care little for human gods and worship their own pantheon of cat gods, who are often more feline than the frey themselves. Chief among the pantheon is Mother Lucindara, the Allmother, progenitor of the race and goddess of knowledge. It was she who first came to sentience and lifted up her children to join her. She is often depicted as a great calico cat, her coat black like the night sky and strewn with stars and suns and clouds. Her eyes burn golden like twin suns.

Also in the pantheon are the First Litter, the first of Lucindara's children born to sentience, but still more feline than the frey. They number four: two brothers and two sisters.

Eldest among them is Kaitul Nightstalker, goddess of silence and darkness, she of the light foot and swift bite. Her coat is the black of deepest night and her yellow eyes glow like the harvest moon.
Next is orange-furred Tangaloor Taleseeker, god of lorekeeping, music and luck. His eyes are green as summer grass and it is said that the history of the frey is written in his fur.
Next and strangest of the First is Aravel Winterpaws, white sorceress and goddess of winter snow. Her curiosity knows no bounds and her blue eyes seek the truth in all things.
The youngest of the First is --- Firewarden, guardian of his people and stalker of their enemies. His coat is striped like the Ancients and his golden eyes can see all dangers.

More distant than the Allmother and her First Litter are the Ancient Ones, great cats in the forms of tigers, lions and leopards. Among the frey, they are revered as the powerful predecessors to their kind, but not worshiped because of their lack of true sentience. Among the wild tabaxi, larger and more savage cousins of the frey, they are held in higher regard than even Mother Lucindara.

Language

Frey have their own language that is difficult for other races to enunciate. It is marked with yowls, rolls of the tongue and the occasional hiss. Frey that have lived with other races for a long time learn to converse in the common tongue and have translated their names into something pronounceable by other races.

The written frey language is complex, whimsical, and elegant, with a pictographic set of characters that half represents the sounds and half the meanings of the words. Frey are bound by their culture not to teach their language to other races. Frey, both written and spoken, is used primarily by the frey as a means of communicating without being understood by other races.

Adventurers

Frey make apt rogues and bards, and at times become frightening sorcerers if they feel the call. Frey fighters are uncommon, but dangerous due to their quickness. Those that become rangers usually use the urban ranger starting option. Frey rarely take cats as animal companions or familiars; though the great cats can be used for higher level animal companions. The frey's more feral cousins prefer to become rangers or druids.

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