While those races contained in the Core Dungeons & Dragons books are the most familiar to many, there are other races equally capable of bringing forth heroes. In Hyrule, the land of the Zelda game series, three races stand apart: The Deku, the Goron, and the Zora. This page includes information on these beings as player races, including racial powers, feats, and background information.
Deku are plant-born beings, with skin like wood and a subtle, forgotten fey heritage. Their small stature and off-putting ways mean they often either stand out in a crowd, or blend into the forests and swamps they call home.
Gorons live deep within mountains, making their homes in the rocks they love to eat or rolling about the cliffs and snowdrifts. A jovial race, they love inventiveness and fealty above all else.
Zora swim in oceans and rivers, living beneath the surface of the water. When they bring themselves upon the land, they also bring a love for art and music.
Little plant people, fluttering on the wind
Abilities: +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma
Size: Small
Speed: 7 (Forest Walk and Swamp Walk)
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common, Elven
Skill Bonuses: +2 Nature, +2 Stealth
Fey Plant Origin: Your ancestors are plant creatures from the Feywild, and thus you are considered a Fey creature and a Plant creature for the purposes of effects related to creature type.
Plant Stride: You are well accustomed to thick foliage and muddy ground; you have Terrain Walk (Forest, Swamp). (see Monster Manual p. 283)
Natural Immunity: You gain a +5 racial bonus to saving throws against poison.
Fluttering Petal: You gain the Fluttering Petal racial power.
You bloom, and your short-lived flowers let you fly like a petal on the wind.
Encounter
Minor Action, Personal
Effect: Until the end of your turn, you gain a fly speed of 5. If you don't end your turn on a solid surface, you flutter to the ground without taking falling damage. If, while flying by this method, you are damaged in any way, you immediately halt your movement, fall, and take falling damage if applicable.
Deku are plant-people, scurrying about the dark wooded places of the world. Though they do not have all the abilities their fey plant ancestors might have, they can still grow, thrive, and even bloom in any environment, not just their native swamps and forests.
Play a Deku if you want...
To be a master of the dark, fruitful corners of the world.
To be a character in tune with all natural things.
To be a member of a race that favors the rogue, sorcerer, or bard class.
Deku tend to look like small shrubs or trees, with wooden skin and leaves where hair or clothing would be on most races. Their body shapes tend towards the rounded; Deku bodies are almost never angular or firm-looking, though a Deku with a soft, undefined body might still be quite strong and tough. Their feet and hands lack visible fingers or toes, but they can still grip the hilt of a weapon or stand tall with ease.
Their skin can vary from a vibrant brown to a dull gray, and their leaves can be green, brown, yellow, red, or any other autumnal color. Their eyes are almost always orange, with no visible pupils or irises. They tend to be very small, smaller than the average Gnome or Halfling.
Deku can live several centuries, like most fey creatures. As they age, their skin begins to turn dull gray and their leaves turn brown or black and begin to fall off. In advanced age, they become so stiff as to be difficult to move, until finally, they are rooted in place - nothing more than a normal bush or shrub with a surprising, but frozen, face.
Deku live in the swamps and forests of the world, making their tiny kingdoms in these natural places where other races rarely tread. They live in small villages, which they treat as kingdoms, and are ruled as such. They live shy lives, shunning all outsiders: they either hide when a stranger approaches, or confront and attack them. Still, for those who manage to befriend a Deku, the friendship is lifelong and accepting.
Deku are known for exploring their home forests and swamps, especially when forbidden to do so by a village king. Skipping along the surface of a lake or burrowing into the roots of a giant tree, these adventurous Deku are unafraid of both monsters and other civilized races; in this way, the plant-people come to meet outsiders and see their lands. They may then make their home in any spare flower-box or patch of dirt in cities of stone, or find a nice sunny spot to rest before continuing on their merry way.
Those Deku who live outside their ancestral glade or marsh are, of course, bold and unafraid, but not all are true adventurers - many are actually businessmen. Deku businessmen often cultivate their natural flight abilities, allowing them to transport their goods vast distances without the hassles that most other races would have to confront. Because of this, in most civilized lands the only Deku one might see is a businessman selling potions, real estate, or armor obtained from Goron forges - and in all cases, they have the reputation for hard bargaining, and selling exactly what an adventurer needs just before they need it.
Bouncy, capitalistic, confrontational, curious, exploring, flighty, shy.
(Space reserved for actual adventurers... I can hope!)
Strong and tough as the mountains, putting honor and community at the forefront
Abilities: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution
Size: Medium
Speed: 5
Vision: Normal, low-light
Languages: Common, Dwarven
Skill Bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 Endurance
Goron Heritage: Your healing surge value is equal to one-quarter of your maximum hit points + your Constitution modifier.
Rock Gourmet: You can eat rocks, metals, and other substances most races would find inedible. You cannot eat magic items.
Volvagia's Bane: You gain resistance to fire and falling damage equal to 5 + one-half your level.
Speed of the Avalanche: You gain a +1 racial bonus to Reflex.
Rolling Spike: You have the Rolling Spike Charge racial power.
While charging, you roll up into a ball and extend your spikes to skewer enemies.
Encounter
Free Action, Personal
Effect: Use this power when you make a charge attack. You may pass through enemy squares during your charge, but cannot end your move in an enemy space as per normal. You still provoke opportunity attacks during this move. Each creature whose space you enter during your movement is subject to the following attack.
Attack: Strength + 2, Constitution + 2, or Dexterity + 2 vs. Reflex
Hit: 1d6 + Constitution modifier damage, and the target is knocked prone.
Level 11: Constitution + 4, 2d6 + Constitution modifier damage.
Level 21: Constitution + 6, 3d6 + Consitition modifier damage.
Special: Choose Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity as the ability you use when making attack rolls with this power. This remains constant throughout your character's life and does not change the power's other effects.
Gorons are people of the rock, born from the mountain. They stick together through any hardship, conquering difficulties with a smile and a reckless avalanche of strength and enthusiasm.
Play a Goron if you want...
To be strong, optimistic, and have great fealty.
To roll through any obstacle.
To be a member of a race that favors the barbarian, fighter, and artificer classes.
Gorons are tall and strong, with muscular arms and broad chests - though many are also somewhat rotund, hiding their relatively small legs and feet from their own view. Their rock-hard exterior is dusty yellow-orange, but variations can range from the dark brown to the chalk-white. Instead of hair, the Goron's scalp and back are covered with pebbly scales, of a lighter color than the rest of their skin.
Goron life spans are comparable to those of humans.
Gorons make their home deep in mountains, either using natural cave formations or building their own. Though they may live in a hard-to-reach location, Goron tribes usually make an effort to extend trade routes to any nearby settlements. This life leads to a kind of open/closed dichotomy: While Goron tribes are accepting and open to outsiders of all kinds, they reserve many things only for members of their own tribe - access to secret or important areas, Goron techniques and skills, and the right to live in the caverns. It is possible for an outsider to become a full-fledged member of a tribe, but it is difficult, and generally requires making life better for the rest of the tribe in some permanent fashion.
Gorons are quick to aid one another, and base their personal sense of honor on their fealty to their tribe - a Goron who fails to come to the aid of another is quickly outcast. When faced with a problem, the typical Goron response is to try and crash straight through it: punch it, roll over it, or just fall on it from a great height. Many Goron tribes also make alchemical explosives and other useful reagents; trying an explosive is often the next step on a Goron's problem-solving checklist.
Gorons are quick to travel, and think little of leaving their mountain and their tribe; a Goron does not have to be in the same cave as their tribe, as long as they remain loyal in their hearts. They may simply travel to explore a nearby trading town, or to find a new cave with new rocks to eat and ores to forge, or simply to find a nice big hill to roll down. In this, as in all things, Gorons approach with exuberance and tenacity: they will enjoy the journey, and they will always be ready to roll over the next cliff on the horizon.
Affable, jovial, powerful, simple, unstoppable.
(Space reserved for actual adventurers... I can hope!)
Graceful sea-dwellers, slow to anger - but their power is as unstoppable as the tides.
Ability Scores: +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 (Swim speed 7)
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common
Skill Bonuses: +2 Arcana, +2 Nature
Zora Heritage: You gain the Aquatic subtype. This includes the ability to breathe freely underwater.
Unwavering Wave: You gain a +1 bonus to your Will defense.
Skin of the Eels: You have resistance to lightning damage equal to 5 + one-half your level.
Weapons of the Sea: You gain proficiency with the spear, javelin, longspear, and trident.
Electric Shield: You gain access to the Electric Shield power.
Zora Racial Power
With lightning reflexes, you bring your fins up to shield you, and you spark with deadly electricity.
Encounter
Immediate Interrupt, Personal
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, you gain a +2 power bonus to your AC and Reflex defenses. In addition, any enemy who attacks you in melee (including the triggering attack, if it was in melee) takes 1d6 + Wisdom, Intelligence, or Charisma modifier Lightning damage.
Level 11: 2d6+Intelligence modifier damage.
Level 21: 3d6+Intelligence modifier damage.
Special: Choose Wisdom, Intelligence, or Charisma as the ability you use when making attack rolls with this power. This remains constant throughout your character's life and does not change the power's other effects.
Graceful people of the waves, Zora see everything as either an art or the motion of water. While everyone else is defending the land from the forces of evil, the Zora are defending the water.
Play a Zora if you want...
To be lithe and cunning.
To be skilled in the ways of natural magic and the waters of the world.
To be a member of a race that favors the Avenger, Rogue, and Wizard classes.
Zora are taller than most humans, and perhaps a touch more slender. Their bodies are covered in smooth, clammy skin, usually a pale blue, but ranging through all colors - sea-green, salmon pink, even a dusky red are among the more common. They have no hair; instead, their heads trail back to a point, much like a tadpole's body - the skin there being darker in color than the rest of them. Zora also have fins on their arms, which can quickly change in size and toughness: from hand-sized and flowing, to shield-sized and rigid.
Zora have lifespans comparable to Elves. As they age, they tend to put on weight, to the point where you can identify an elder Zora by his girth making him largely immobile.
Zora live in caves underwater, preferring places with both above- and below-water sections. Waterfalls, tidal caves, and land-locked lakes can also hold Zora communities. Because of this, Zora are often somewhat insular while at home, though they have social grace enough to not openly distrust an outsider (less so if the outsider uses the underwater entrance). Zora away from home are somewhat more accommodating of other cultures, but may still feel that their amphibious ways are slightly better than those of land-bound people - but again, they are usually polite enough to not give voice to such things.
Zora are patrons of magic and art, and hold much respect and love for both. It is not uncommon to see Zora musicians, painters, and wizards held in equally high regard, and the two disciplines often intermingle in Zora societies. For Zora, most combat disciplines focus around grace and artfulness; combat is a dance, spells are notes in a song, and the powers of the gods are finely-crafted instruments. Those Zora given a task by their community take it quite seriously, as often seen in those who guard Zora leaders or holy places, but even they treat their execution of their duty as a subtle art form, not to be bragged about, but simply something to do well.
Amphibious, artistic, disciplined, graceful, insular, lithe.
(Space reserved for actual adventurers... I can hope!)