Description

You are a dark elf, with unique physical traits and adaptations to your traditional environment. Your heritage manifests in your appearance, demeanor, and abilities, making you stand out among other mortals.

Powers

Ability Score Bonuses

Gain ancestry bonuses of +2 to Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma.

Nightvision

Your eyes reflect red light, visible when light is shone upon you in the dark. Like a cat, your eyes have a retroreflective layer that enhances your nightvision, both by increasing the amount of light captured by the retina, and by sensing the temperature change caused by thermal infrared. The latter is not so much "IR vision", because it has virtually no angular resolution; the organ tells the brain "I'm looking at something hot" or "I'm looking at something cold". The brain can use this information to hyperfocus on an area that seemed to be uninteresting in the visual field, further enhancing nightvision.

In other words, neither you nor any natural creature can see in total darkness visually, because that's not what "see" means, D&D. But you do have really good nightvision.

Effects:

• Creatures in dimness do not necessarily gain concealment against you. If both of you are in dimness (i.e. there isn't a bright light washing out your vision), you can see them clearly.
• Total darkness still causes total concealment. However, even in total darkness, if a creature with significant body heat (such as a human) is in your direct cone of vision, and within 30 ft, you get the distinct sense there is warmth in that direction. This can be caused by any heat source, but you have enough experience to know "human warmth" vs "molten iron warmth" or "candle".
• If you spend more than one minute in dimness or darkness, then suddenly enter daylight, your IR-sensing organ overloads, causing temporary blindness (Con DC 15 ends). This can also be caused by smaller artificial lights targeted specifically to blind you, in which case the DC is given by the spell itself. When the effect ends, your eyes have adapted, and temporarily turned off the IR sensing. If you instantly go into darkness again, your nightvision takes several rounds to come back.

Magical Metabolism

Some dark elves live underground, some live in mystical forests where it's always night, but they're all called "dark" for a reason: they don't usually live in typically sunlit environments. As a result, they likely do not have anywhere near as much traditional cropland for nutrition, and certainly not the same types of crops. Instead, they have evolved to be able to metabolize a wider variety of foods, including fungi, lichens, and even carrion. They can also subsist on magical energy, which is abundant in their environments. This gives them a unique advantage in survival situations where food is scarce.

Additionally, you have the ability to metabolize magic itself. In most fantasy worlds, magic is a pervasive field, available in the air, underground, in the water...literally everywhere. Mages absorb this "mana" to power their spells, and even non-magical people sometimes mildly sense gross changes in the pervasive mana field. Dark elves, in particular, passively absorb this energy to power their cellular activity. Outside an antimagic field, you get about half your BMR in nutrition every day passively.

Effects:

• Minor effect: most fungi that are toxic or neurally active to humans are edible and nutritious to you. There can still be specific fungi invented for your campaign setting that specifically are toxic to dark elves, but likely your character would know these on sight.
• Major effect: Thus, you only require half the usual amount of sustenance a human of your weight would. You can survive much longer than a human when fasting--at least twice as long, but even longer as your calorie needs decrease with weight loss but your mana absorption remains constant.
• Major effect: if you have an Energy source from a spellcasting class, you can choose to metabolize that energy instead of using it for your class powers. One point of any class' Energy is the equivalent a square meal; three will sustain you on a day of moderate exercise or less.

Relevant Feats

• Arcane Magic Taboo: You come from a culture where arcane magic is forbidden, either to everyone, or to all but a chosen few (in which case, you aren't one of those few). You cannot learn powers from the Arcanist class (although other magical classes are possible). However, you are resistant to all arcane magic; for any given hostile arcane spell affecting you, choose either advantage on the save, or resistance to the spell's damage (if any). If you receive a beneficial arcane spell, you must roll an appropriate save (per the DM) to attempt to negate it, but can gain the benefit if the save fails.

Alternative Ancestries

Certain dark elven subcultures, such as the noble drow of the Underdark, undergo a process of binding infernal energy to a young elf (usually a child or even infant) to create a new dark elven ancestry. This is not a demonic possession, but merely the infusion of an amount of infernal essence into the body. It is sufficient to cause the elf to grow taller and more robust than normal, and to gain substantial ability scores, innate magical powers, and a longer lifespan. However, the process is extremely dangerous, and many infants do not survive it. Those who do are have an obvious mark: their eyes glow with a faint red light, visible even in well-lit conditions, quite distinct from the retroreflective red glow of normal dark elven eyes.

This will be implemented as a separate ancestry (if/when I feel like it).