Lycan

Dispersed to the northern and southern reaches of the world, and though divided, none are more connected to the world than the lycan. In the beginnings of the world, the Age of Air, the lycan learned the strength, wisdom, and cunning from the primal beasts of the lands. Taking on a bestial spirit as their own, lycan manifest the likeness of the beastform they inherit. Forming the Northern Pack are the werebear, werewolf, and werefox. The Southern Pack is held by the werehyena, werejackal, and werecat. Deeply tied to their sacred lands and holding to druidic rites, the lycan are a people of nature's ferocity and harmony. The lycan hold no seat on the Council of Arkyme.

Lycan Traits

Ability Score Increase - Your Constitution score increases by 2.

Age - Lycan reach maturity in their late teens and due to their deep ties to nature they live well into a century.

Alignment - The lycan people favor neutral alignments, as much like the cycles of nature they hold balance as a sacred tenet. Both law and chaos are echoed in the ways of the lycan.

Death - The souls of lycans pass into realms beyond due the devotion shown to the powers they served. Most hold to the joining of a soul to its nature, seeing themselves as imbued by the gods to dwell on the prime and pass on their spirit to sustain it.

Size - With their way of life lycan range in size and physique, but even in their human-like form they are often larger than humans, well over 6 feet in height. When shapechanged into Hybrid, your size and weight can change distinctly. Your size is Medium. Though when shapechanging in your Bestial form this is greatly altered. Your size becomes Large.

Speed - Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision - While in your Hybrid or Bestial form your lycan ancestry has granted you the ability to see in dim light up to 60 feet as if it were brightly lit. You can also see in darkness as if it were dim light out to the same range. Though you are unable to distinguish color, only shades of gray.

Keen Senses - While in your Hybrid or Bestial form you have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell.

Pack Tactics - You have advantage on attacks rolls against a creature if at least one of your allies is within 5 feet of the creature and that ally isn't incapacitated.

Shapechange - You can choose to use your Action to shapechange into a Hybrid of the lycan and human-like form or into a Bestial form, or back into your true form, which is human-like. Your statistics, other than the changes noted below are the same in each form. Any equipment you are wearing or carrying isn't transformed. You revert to your true form if you die.

Hybrid Form - You shapechange into a bipedal form, retaining your human-like frame, but taking on aspects if your bestial spirit. You gain a +1 to your AC while not wearing heavy armor and your walking speed increases by 5 feet. You can take the same Actions you would as in your true form. Most lycan stay in this form most of the time.

Bestial Form - You shapechange into a quadrupedal form, retaining only a scant likeness to a human-like shape, and attaining the heights of your bestial spirit. You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage made by nonmagical attacks and your walking speed increases by 10 feet. You have advantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution ability checks and saving throws. You are unable to wield objects, perform somatic components, or wear armor in your Bestial form unless made for this form. Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 slashing or piercing damage plus your Strength modifier.

Languages - You speak, read, and write Common.

Subrace - There are six subraces that are part of the lycan packs. Different traits and abilities are among them: The Werebear, Werefox, Werewolf and the Werehyena, Werejackal, and Werecat.

Bestial Spirits

In the Age of Air, where the peoples of Kyme claim their beginnings, titanic beasts of primal power roamed the world. These beasts, spoken of as the "First Hunters" by the lycan passed into legend. Legends to which the lycan hold as the origin of their shapechange. Passed down from these eons, tales are carved into the lycan dens of old. The packs still gather in these sacred places to seek wisdom, finding solace and protection in their depths. The bestial spirit a lycan holds to is fostered from birth, as within weeks a lycan child will manifest their shapechanging abilities under the guidance of the pack's druids. In accordance with their ways, the lycan's human-like form is one they retain, as they must never forget who they were before they found their strength in spirit. For lycan the hybrid form is what they feel to be a unity of nature and their collective will to survive as a people. Most lycan will stay in their hybrid form near perpetually, but among other peoples and in centers of civilization, they often shift to their human-like form. For a lycan to attain their bestial form they must endure trials outset by the elders of the pack, differing for the North and the South. The embodiment of their primal power, the bestial form of the lycan is viewed as a sacred part of their shapechange, and to be taken on only when life demands it. For the lycan their bestial spirit is a guiding aspect on how they might live their life.

Nature's Guardians

The lycan view themselves as nature's will made manifest, and this has guided them across the ages, yet nature, much like the lycan, is without mercy. In the Age of Water, when the waters that flooded the world teemed with eldritch horrors, the lycan rose up to protect nature from corruption. By druidic power and berserker savagery the lycan were the only people to truly fight back the spreading eldritch scourge. It is through the sacrifice of the lycan that nature was able to endure, and the regions of the world able to stave off the warping that so many suffered. Yet, as the lycan were diminished by their unending war, another threat rose to reign over the world. So came the Age of Fire when dragons ruled. The burning of the forests, the rending of the mountains, and the ruination of nature at the will of the Dragon Kings proved yet one more enemy of the lycan persisted. The shifting of the lands as dragons claimed them as their lairs, proved disastrous for the lycan people, and they were the choice prey for the dragons when the spirit took them. As the first rumors of the Ashbreak Rebellion spread, and as dragon after dragon was slain. The lycan seized upon the draconic and dragon alike, slaughtering all who had for so long made them the hunted and disgraced nature's power. For the lycan people, with the ascendance into the Age of Earth, for the first time since ancient days, the world is healing, and balance is once again possible.