Verdanor belongs to the elves who built Naath, but it is worked, walked, and defended by everyone who lives beneath the Verdwood's crown. When you choose a species, you choose how the world sees you at a gate, what the Wardens assume about you on the road, and which fires welcome you without a question.
Your species gives you a size, a speed, darkvision if you have it, and a handful of traits you will use every session. It does not decide your future — a dwarf can be a Lorekeeper, a goliath can be a guild scribe — but it shapes your first steps out of Naath. Use this chapter to pick the people you want to be.
At a Glance
| People | Size | Speed | Darkvision | Signature Gift |
|---|
| Human | Small or Medium | 30 ft. | — | Heroic Inspiration each Long Rest; one skill; one Origin feat |
| Elf | Medium | 30 ft. (35 ft. as Wood Elf) | 60 ft. (120 ft. as Drow) | Elven Lineage spells, Fey Ancestry, Trance, Keen Senses |
| Dwarf | Medium | 30 ft. | 120 ft. | Poison resistance, +1 HP per level, Stonecunning Tremorsense |
| Halfling | Small | 30 ft. | — | Brave, Luck (reroll 1s), Nimbleness, Naturally Stealthy |
| Gnome | Small | 30 ft. | 60 ft. | Gnomish Cunning, Forest or Rock Lineage |
| Dragonborn | Medium | 30 ft. | 60 ft. | Breath Weapon, damage resistance, Draconic Flight at 5th level |
| Tiefling | Small or Medium | 30 ft. | 60 ft. | Fiendish Legacy spells, Thaumaturgy |
| Orc | Medium | 30 ft. | 120 ft. | Adrenaline Rush (Bonus Action Dash), Relentless Endurance |
| Goliath | Medium | 35 ft. | — | Giant Ancestry boon, Large Form at 5th, Powerful Build |
| Half-Elf — Legacy | Medium | 30 ft. | 60 ft. | Fey Ancestry, two bonus skill proficiencies |
| Skeliri Elf — Verdanor | Medium | 30 ft. | 120 ft. | Fey Ancestry, Trance, Silk-Walker, Still-Watcher |
| Redfang Orc — Verdanor | Medium | 30 ft. | 120 ft. | Adrenaline Rush, Relentless Endurance, Bronthok Sure-Foot |
Choose Small or Medium where the species offers a choice when you create your character. Speed and darkvision flow straight to your sheet.
The City and the Coast — Humans, Elves, Dwarves
Human
You come in every shade and stature, broad or compact, and you are everywhere. Traders on the road to the Amber Steppe, clerks in the Merchant Guild's counting houses on Ledger Row, wardens on the Verdwood edge — humans are Verdanor's connective tissue. Your lives are bright and brief by elven standards, seventy to ninety years, and that urgency makes you resourceful. You pick up trades fast, fit into any company, and seize the moment when others hesitate.
Mechanically you are the most flexible people in the game: a free Inspiration when you finish a Long Rest, proficiency in any skill you choose, and an extra Origin feat. If you want to round out any build or roleplay the adaptable newcomer who learns Naath as you do, start here.
Elf
Tall, willow-limbed, and still in a crowd. Your eyes catch ley-light others miss, and your memory stretches centuries — the eldest among you remember when Naath's first roots were braided. Most elves live around Naath, tending the Grovefields and the Stillnet Groves, but your lineages point you in different directions. High elves carry Prestidigitation and later Detect Magic and Misty Step; wood elves move at 35 feet and know Druidcraft, Longstrider, and Pass without Trace; drow see 120 feet in the dark and carry Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire, and Darkness.
All elves share Fey Ancestry — advantage against being charmed — Trance, which lets you finish a Long Rest in four hours while remaining conscious, and Keen Senses in Insight, Perception, or Survival. You are the natural warden, scholar, or Seeker who watches while others sleep.
Dwarf
Stocky, stone-handed, and hard to move once you plant your feet. You stand four to five feet tall and live three centuries and more. Your darkvision cuts 120 feet through vault and mine. In Naath you keep the workshops of the Embergrove humming and the vaults under Ledger Row sealed; beyond the city you run smithies on the trade roads or hold fast in Spine of the World clanholds like Mithral Hall. Stonecunning lets you gain Tremorsense through stone as a Bonus Action, and Dwarven Resilience gives you poison resistance and advantage against the poisoned condition. Dwarven Toughness adds a hit point at first level and another every level after — you simply outlast.
If you want to be the anchor of a Seeker company — the one who senses a collapse before the dust falls and keeps standing when others drop — be a dwarf.
The Small Folk — Halflings and Gnomes
Halfling
You rarely top three feet, soft-featured and bright-eyed, moving through crowds as if the world were built for you. Halflings cluster in Naath's lower wards and market alleys — tea houses, presses, provisioning shops — and along the Reed Mazes of Selenmere where fen-halflings net eels in channels that swallow larger boats. Your gifts are subtle and lifesaving: Brave gives you advantage against fright, Luck lets you reroll a 1 on any d20 Test, Nimbleness lets you move through the space of larger creatures, and Naturally Stealthy lets you hide behind an ally a size larger than you.
You adventure because the road is generous and someone has to notice the trap before the tall folk trip it.
Gnome
Three to four feet of bright eyes, pointed ears, and restless curiosity. You live a century and a half and spend it taking things apart. In Naath, rock gnomes keep Undermarket workshops clattering with clockwork toys and Mending cantrips, while forest gnomes slip toward the Verdwood, speaking with beasts and weaving Minor Illusion. Gnomish Cunning gives you advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws — glamour simply slides off you — and your lineage shapes your magic. Forest gnomes always have Speak with Animals prepared; rock gnomes know Mending and can craft Tiny clockwork devices from Prestidigitation.
You see problems where others see danger, and you solve them with one hand behind your back.
Blood and Legacy — Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Goliaths
Dragonborn
Scales from iron-grey to jewel-bright, a crest of horn from brow to skull, eyes that glow faintly in the dark. You stand five to seven feet tall and carry every movement like a drilled soldier. Your draconic ancestry decides your look, your Breath Weapon, and your resistance — pick from Black, Blue, Brass, Bronze, Copper, Gold, Green, Red, Silver, or White. That breath replaces one attack with a 15-foot cone or 30-foot line, scaling from 1d10 to 4d10, usable a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus. At 5th level, spectral wings lift you at your walking speed for ten minutes.
Dragonborn have no single homeland in Verdanor. You are the caravan escort the Merchant Guild trusts through the Bronthok Reaches, the mercenary who answers to kin-clan rather than council, the wanderer who measures worth in kept oaths. Your heritage demands you prove it every day.
Tiefling
Horns, tail, and eyes that catch firelight. Bronze to violet skin, amber to sulfurous gaze — your blood remembers a bargain struck generations ago. Like humans you can be Small or Medium. Your Fiendish Legacy shapes your story: Abyssal gives poison resistance and Poison Spray into Ray of Sickness and Hold Person; Chthonic gives necrotic resistance and Chill Touch into False Life and Ray of Enfeeblement; Infernal gives fire resistance and Fire Bolt into Hellish Rebuke and Darkness. All tieflings know Thaumaturgy.
On the Sword Coast you are common enough in Luskan and Waterdeep to trade without a stare; in Naath the Guild watches tiefling artisans closely and the Wardens quietly track infernal echoes. Many tieflings journey to the Host Tower of the Arcane hoping to trace — or lift — the old curse. In the wilds beyond the Verdwood, the woods do not care about your horns, and that indifference is its own freedom.
Goliath
Seven to eight feet of granite-grey skin striped like stone, white or iron hair, and tattoos earned, never given. You stride at 35 feet and, from 5th level, can swell to Large for ten minutes, gaining advantage on Strength checks and another ten feet of speed. Your giant ancestry gives you a boon you can use a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus: cloud giants jaunt 30 feet, fire giants add 1d10 fire, frost giants add 1d6 cold and slow, hill giants topple, stone giants reduce damage with 1d12 plus Constitution, storm giants hurl thunder when struck.
Your clans keep the high ridges of the Hulderhorns and the crags of the Varnhollow Peaks, where air thins. You measure life — rarely past eighty — by what you do with it. On the trade roads you guard caravans and work quarries; with the Wardens you are the line that does not break. Stillness is the only thing you fear.
Orc
Six to seven feet, olive to grey-brown skin, ivory tusks curving from the lower jaw, and darkvision that turns moonless forest into hunting ground. Your life is short and hard — fifty is venerable — and every decade is earned. Adrenaline Rush lets you Dash as a Bonus Action and pocket temporary hit points equal to your Proficiency Bonus; Relentless Endurance lets you drop to 1 hit point instead of 0 once per Long Rest. You move like the road owes you nothing, because it doesn't.
Most orcs in Verdanor live outside the Redfang war-clans, working as outriders, quarry hands, and Warden scouts along the Amber Steppe and the Saltwash. You keep your word with ritual certainty and you are the last to leave when the plan fails.
Children of the High Country — Verdanor's Own
These two peoples exist only here. They carry the mountain's politics with them.
Skeliri Elf
Thin, rose-red to pale crimson skin, glossy black eyes that reflect no light, hair braided with silk, bone, and egg sacs. You are born in the web-laced chasms of the Varnhollow Peaks — the Webbreaker Creche, the Molt-Crypts, the hollow below Veinrest Knuckle — where the Broodmothers stretch silk between stone and your kin climb as easily as they walk. Silk-Walker gives you a climb speed equal to your walk and lets you ignore webs and web difficult terrain; Still-Watcher gives you Perception or Stealth; Trance and Fey Ancestry tie you to your elven cousins, but your 120 feet of darkvision is all chasm-born.
Naath regards you with scholarly fascination and deep unease. The Guild trades with you through intermediaries for cave-dyes and silk-thread, but no Skeliri has ever been seated in the Speaker's Hall, and Warden patrols meet your raiding parties with steel. Your code is silence, observation, and exact repayment — debt answered in gesture, not coin. Most Skeliri who become Seekers are exiles who broke the web of obligation and must spin a new thread beyond the peaks. Quiet, lethally precise, and at home where others will not look, you are an unnerving and invaluable companion.
Redfang Orc
Crimson skin stained by the iron waters and ash of the Bronthok Reaches, brands at brow and forearm still lifted from the shaman's iron. You build roughholds of bone, timber, and scrap on the shelves of Thunderpath Gorge and Varruk's Teeth, mustering at warcamps like Skorvul Crag. You keep the standard orc gifts — 120 feet of darkvision, Adrenaline Rush, Relentless Endurance — and add Bronthok Sure-Foot: advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks to climb, and no extra movement through rocky difficult terrain.
The Merchant Guild does not map the Reaches and the Wardens do not patrol them. Raiding parties strike caravans bound for the Amber Steppe, yet individual Redfangs who come to Naath's gates seeking parley are met with cautious tolerance — the Seekers hire you as scouts because only you know the deep shelves. Your word, sworn before clan shamans, is unbreakable; breaking it is exile with a single blade. Young Redfangs who leave to Seek carry that code with them, confusing allies with oaths spoken in casual chat and then never broken. Trust, once you give it, is absolute.
Half-Elf — A Legacy Heritage
Walking in two worlds. High cheekbones, slightly pointed ears, eyes of silver or sea-green. You live centuries, but you age faster than true elves — a bittersweet weight. In the 2024 rules you build the same story with the elf or human species; Verdanor keeps half-elf as a legacy for the mixed families of Naath, the caravan masters between Mirabar and Waterdeep, and the interpreters who bridge Guild and enclave.
Mechanically you see 60 feet in the dark, cannot be put to sleep by magic, have advantage against charm, and gain proficiency in two skills of your choice. In play, choose elf or human and flavor it as half-elven — the bookkeeping has changed, the story has not. The Seekers value you precisely because you belong everywhere a little and nowhere completely.
Choosing Your People
Ask two questions. First, where do you want to be at home? The streets and shrines of Naath favor elves, humans, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes; the high country claims goliaths, Skeliri, and Redfangs; the roads and coasts make room for dragonborn, tieflings, and orcs. Second, what do you want to do when the dice hit the table? For raw durability, pick dwarf or orc; for magic that grows with you, pick elf, tiefling, dragonborn, or gnome; for skill breadth, pick human or half-elf heritage; for mobility and daring, pick wood elf, halfling, or goliath; for mountain work, pick Skeliri or Redfang.
There is no wrong answer. Verdanor measures you by the thread you spin after you leave the gate.
