Weird Revisited: Different Dwarves for 5e

Relevant to my earlier post on vanilla fantasy...

The Tolkien-inspired, Nordic-derived dwarves of standard D&D aren't the only dwarven subraces out there. There is another dwarvish tradition: a more folklore and fairytale one. The dwarves of the Country of Yanth in the Land of Azurth are that sort of dwarf.

Compared to the average D&D dwarf, they tend to be more social and affable. They are fond of good food and drink and are renowned brewers. While they may be miners or metalworkers, they are not as oriented toward these tasks as others of their race, and are just as likely to loggers, woodworkers, or farmers.They have no more love or precious metals or jewels than humans.

Unless otherwise noted, the folkloric dwarf subrace has the traits of the standard dwarf.

Art by Jerad S. Marantz

Ability Score Increase. Wisdom increased by 1.
Lucky. Like a Halfling's.
Size. Folkloric dwarves vary more in height than other dwarven races. Most are medium, but a few are under 4 foot and so small.
Dwarven Combat Training. They eschew the battleaxes and hammers employed by other dwarves, but are handy with the axe and short sword.
Tool Proficiency. Their choices for proficiency are smith's tools, brewer's supplies, cobbler's tools, woodcarver's tools, or cook's utensils.

Weird Revisted: The Secret Life Stages of Elves

This post from 2016 is more recent than my usual revisits, but I had forgotten about it, only coming across it while looking for another post and thought it was worth a reshare...

What humans mistake as different tribes or clades of elves are actually different stages in their millennia long, perhap endless, lives.

Wood elves are elven adolescents. They rebel against their parents and go to live in bands of others of their age. They throw racuous parties in the woods and experiment with intoxicants. They are capricious, emotional, and cliqueish. Their tribes run the gamut between Woodstock and Lord of the Flies.

High elves are elven adults. They interact most with other species and are responsible for the maintenance of elven civilization. It is in this age cohort that the immortality of elves begans to take its toll, however. Elven brains are not structurally that different from humans. They do not have the capacity to hold countless centuries of memories. Their initial compensatory mechanism is monomania. Elves develop a strong interest that narrows the array of factual information they must recall and provides constant reinforcement for the things they find important. Some become swordsmasters, some master artists or craftsmen, some archmages.

For some elves this is enough, and they grow more skilled, more focused, and stranger, until they become almost demigods in their chosen vocation. These are the Gray.

Others, though, are not able to maintain such focus. Something akin to dementia sets in. They become forgetful, and paranoid. As they begin to lose their past--lose themselves. They find only intense linger long. These are the drow, the dark elves.

Dark because of the darkness that consumes their minds; dark for the deeds they commit to hold on to self and not slip into endless reverie. They go to live in the dungeons of their kind to pursue intense pleasures and horrors or simply howl or cackle in the darkness. These elders are feared by other elves. They avoid them and will not reveal their relationship to them to non-elves.

Weird Revisited: Anti-Elves

This post first appeared in 2017...

Drow as "elves but evil" has been done. Let's take a cue from Otus's ink-blot, living shadow rendition, and say that they are the arcane Evil Twins of elves. Maybe not quite Bizarro World duplicates, but close. They look like photographic negatives of some elf, somewhere, sometime. (It is quite possible that if a specific elf and anti-elf come into contact there will be an explosion, Or, they will untie into a single, transcendent being and leave this plane. In an explosion.)

Anti-elves live underground in ultra-controlled, industrial, technolgical environments because they hate nature. They want replace it all with a machinery hellscape like Apokolips. The only reason they haven't yet is because they hate the sun, too, and are forced to live underground. They're working on that one.

Anti-elves are profoundly unmagical. All those magical abilities listed in a drow stat block have a technological basis. No surface creature can steal a anti-elf device and make it work because their bio-energy polarity will just disrupt it and make it nonfunctional after a use or two.

Ant-elves don't believe in gods, meaning they accept the existence of tiresome things other races call gods, but they think them ridiculous impediments to their own purposes and would never worship them. All sacrifices you might see them make are strictly translactional. Any temples are really just fanclubs--an anti-elves are the sort of crazy, obsessive fans that are very likely to progress to stalking and murder.

Our Elves Are Different

Tired of the same old elves? Here are some alternatives takes that can just be used to reskin the fluff in most editions, though 5e might require some slight ability tweaking.

Changelings
Elves are too busy pursuing their own idiosyncratic interests to do things like raise kids or maintain a society, nations or settlements beyond loose associations. They plant their children in households of other species. When they reach a certain age, they are drawn to seek out their own kind who magically impart elven "history" and "culture" to them, then send them off to do their own thing.

Homo Superior
Elves are the next evolutionary step in humankind. At puberty, their elvish breakout occurs, manifesting in one of several basic ways, analogous to elvish "subraces." Sometimes persecuted by human societies, they tend to form outcast communities in out of the way places.

Runners
Elvish civilization is centered around a sealed enclaves where young elves live in hedonistic splendor. Old age is unknown either due to voluntary suicide or voluntary exile at a certain age. All elves encountered in the wider world are older outcasts.

Viral
Elvishness, or rather the idea of elvishness, is a magical virus of a sort. Those infected first began to act "elvish" then develop half-elvish traits followed by full elvish traits. This often causes a radical shift in personality.

Observers
Elves are visitors from another world. They come the campaign setting for scientific observation or perhaps recreation. Their interstellar societies strict rules do not allow them advanced technology, nor does it allow them to describe too much about their place of origin. Th existence of magic and their innate aptitude for it was a surprise.

Probes
Elves are the sensory organs/interface modules (or perhaps drones or robots) of vast nonhuman intelligences. They are craft to explore the world and have experiences their colonial minds cannot. Elves have autonomy and independent thought, but they always know themselves to be parts of a whole.

Bgtzlian [5e Race]

In the DC Universe, Bgztlian are human-like beings inhabiting a world that occupies the same location as Earth, but at a another vibrational plane. All Bgtzlians possess the ability to become incorporeal. Here's a "Phantom Folk" race for 5e based on them:

Bgtzlian Racial Traits
Ability Score Increase. A Bgtzlian can improve one ability score of their choice by 2 points and another by one point.
Age. Same as humans.
Alignment. Any.
Size. Bgztlians are Medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. Bgtzlians can speak, read, and write Bgtzlian and Common.
Phasing. As a bonus action, a Bgtzlian can become incorporeal, either entirely or only a part of their body. While incorporeal their movement becomes flight, and they move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. They takes 5 (1d10) force damage if it ends its turn in side an object. They are immune to nonmagical damage while entirely incorporeal. Anything nonliving they are carrying or wearing becomes incorporeal as well, but they are unable to manipulate any new objects, or make attacks or cast any new spells.

Imskian [5e Race]

In the DC Universe, Imskians are denizens of the 30th (or 31th Century) native to the planet Imsk who have the ability to shrink. Shrinking Violet of the Legion of Super-Heroes is an Imskian. No reason Imskians (or something similar) can't show up in a fantasy world, though.

Imskian Racial Traits
Ability Score Increase. An Imskian can improve one ability score of their choice by 2 points and another by one point.
Age. Same as humans.
Alignment. Any.
Size. Imskians are Medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. Imskian can speak, read, and write Imskian and Common.
Shrinking. Using a bonus action, an Imskian can reduce their size to Tiny (in game terms, though actually height may vary). Returning to normal size also requires a bonus action. Their clothes and equipment carried on their person shrink as well. Their weapons do 1d4 less damage (minimum of 1) at the reduced size. Imskians have a disadvantage on Strength checks and saving throws when decreased in size, but an advantage on Stealth checks. They can can attempt to hide even when obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger. Their Armor Class is increased by one at their shrunken size.

Cymrilians [5e race]

The country of Cymril lies at the center of Seven Kingdoms and its green crystal-spired capital is the greatest city and unofficial capital of the alliance. It's people are descendants of the Phandre, masters of sorceries and rulers of Old Phaedra, until a rebellion instigated by the Orthodoxist faithful. Many Phandre were put to torment, but most of the wizards fled like beetles exposed beneath an upturned stone. In the wilderness they founded Cymril.

The Cymrilians are counted among the Talislantan races of men, so the standard human 5e racial options could be used for them. However, I think something like these variant human subtypes probably fit the Talislantan millieu better. Unless otherwise noted, treated them as human in particulars.

Cymrilian Traits:

Ability Score Increase: Intelligence score and one other ability score increases by 1.

Size: Cymrilians are taller and leaner than human average, with most around 6 feet in height. Medium.

Skills: Gain proficiency in one skill.

Magical Aptitude: Though not all Cymrilians are wizards, all possess at least a small magical facility. Each knows one cantrip of the player's choice from the wizard list. Intelligence is the spellcasting ability for it. 

Languages: Cymrilians can speak, read, and write Low Talislan and High Talislan.

Subrace: Choose one of following subraces.

Koresians

Typically just called Cymrilians, they are the dominant group in society. They have pale green skin and hair, and golden eyes.

Ability Score Increase: One ability score increases by 1 point.

Magical Society: Gain proficiency in Arcana.

Languages: Koresians can speak, read, and write ancient Archaen.

Tanasians

Tanasians are the exiled descendants of the former Phandre ruling caste and make up less than two percent of the Cymrilian population. Some have been raised in exile by families perhaps yearning to regain their former glory. Others may have gone to live in the wilderness, abandoning what they seen as the folly of their ancestors and political intrigues. Tanasians physically resemble Koresians.

Ability Score Increase: One ability score increases by 1 point.

Skills: Traditionally raised exiles gain proficiency in Arcana, while dissenters gain proficiency in Athletics and Survival

Languages: Traditionally-raised Tanasians speak an additional language, likely one related to their place of exile.

Pharesians

Make up about three percent of Cymrilians. They are voluntary exiles and nonconformists, owing to historical prejudice against the lime green of their skin. Many become itinerant peddlers of talismans and arcane parephenalia.

Ability Score Increase: Wisdom score increases by 1 point.

Skills: Gain proficiency in Perception and one other skill.

Jaka from Talislanta [5e Race]

Art by P.D. Breeding-Black

Jaka are humanoid species with features resembling both wolves and panthers. They are covered in sleek black fur and have silver-gray manes. They hail from the beast-haunted wilderlands of Yrmania, particularly the area of the Brown Hills.  With a reputation as peerless trackers, Jaka easily find work as scouts, guides, and hunters of both men and beasts.

Jaka Racial Traits
Ability Score Increase. A Jaka's Dexterity increases by 2, and Wisdom increases by 1.
Age. Jaka reach adulthood around age 12 and typically leave to around 80.
Alignment. Most Jaka are neutral.
Size. Jaka are Medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Languages. Jaka can speak, read, and write Low Talislan and are fluent in Wilderness Sign of the Talislantan tribes folk.
Darkvision. Jaka have a cat’s keen senses especially in the dark. They 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. Jaka can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Natural Tracker. Jaka have proficiency with the skills Survival and Perception.
Scent Marking. As a bonus action, a Jaka can mark one creature it can see within 10 feet. Until the end of the Jaka's next long rest, its proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check to find the marked creature, and the Jaka always know the location of that creature if it is within 60 feet. A Jaka can’t use this trait again until it finishes a short or long rest.
Sixth Sense. Jaka have the uncanny ability to sense danger, or even potential danger within 30 feet. They cannot necessarily discern the type, location, or degree of danger, but they know it is there on a successful check of their Passive Perception (Wisdom). In cases where they are actively looking for threats they have an advantage on their Perception (Wisdom). They are particularly sensitive to magic and add 5 to their Passive Perception checks if magic is involved and +2 to their active checks.
Jaka Weapon Training. Proficiency with the shortsword, shortbow, and spear.

Cactoid [5e Race]

I figure a desert world under a blood-red sun should have a cactoid race. This is based on the Cactacae from the Mieville's Bas-Lag novels as presented in Dragon #352.

Cactoid Traits
Ability Score Increase. A Cactoid's Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Alignment. Cactoid tend to be lawful and neutral.
Size. Cactoid are medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Powerful Build. Cactoids count as one size larger when determining carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Plant Hardiness. Cactoids have advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance against poison damage
Tough Hide. Cactoids have a natural +1 bonus to their Armor Class.
Spines. The spines covering a cactoid's body allow them to do an 1d4 points piercing damage while grappling.
Languages. Cactoids speak Common and their own language.

D&D Races Alien Reskinning

I bought these Japanese alien figurines about four years ago. Looking at them yesterday, I though they might make good new skins for for D&D races.

Elves = Gray
There both fan favorites with all the mystique.

Gnomes = Hopskinville Goblin
Magical little pranksters.

Halflings = "Apache" Alien
Their both child-like and cutesy, I guess. Not so sure about this one. (I actually don't know what alien this is supposed the represent. It looks like a Neonate, but the name "Apache" is odd.)

Goliath = Voronezh Alien
Giants!

Dwarf = Frog Alien
Let's break the Dwarf/Beard connection once and for all. I suppose the Roswell Alien as pictured would be an alternate.

Tiefling = "Triglia" Alien
He's demonic looking!

Hohmmkudhuk and Hwaopt

I presented these two races for 5e about a year ago, but since then I've colored the images by Jason Sholtis so I felt like I should highlight them again:

The smelly and scholarly hwaopt.

And the subterranean craftsmen, the hohmmkudhuk.

Anti-Elves

Drow as "elves but evil" has been done. Let's take a cue from Otus's ink-blot, living shadow rendition, and say that they are the arcane Evil Twins of evils. Maybe not quite Bizarro World duplicates, but close. They look like photographic negatives of some elf, somewhere, sometime. (It is quite possible that if a specific elf and anti-elf come into contact there will be an explosion, Or, they will untie into a single, transcendent being and leave this plane. In an explosion.)

Anti-elves live underground in ultra-controlled, industrial, technolgical environments because they hate nature. They want replace it all with a machinery hellscape like Apokolips. The only reason they haven't yet is because they hate the sun, too, and are forced to live underground. They're working on that one.

Anti-elves are profoundly unmagical. All those magical abilities listed in a drow stat block have a technological basis. No surface creature can steal a anti-elf device and make it work because their bio-energy polarity will just disrupt it and make it nonfunctional after a use or two.

Ant-elves don't believe in gods, meaning they accept the existence of tiresome things other races call gods, but they think them ridiculous impediments to their own purposes and would never worship them. All sacrifices you might see them make are strictly translactional. Any temples are really just fanclubs--an anti-elves are the sort of crazy, obsessive fans that are very likely to progress to stalking and murder.

The Mighty

Art by Jack Kirby

In the Country of Sang in the Land of Azurth, there are those born among the human tribes and city-states that have abilities beyond those of other mortals. These are the Mighty.

No one knows why the Mighty are so gifted. Some believe they bear the blood of the Ancients, who had mastered mastered sorcerery and science to make themselves superhuman, while others think that they are specially chosen by forgotten gods. Often Mighty individuals will appear as normal humans until some sort of fateful trial or challenge, but these experiences are merely the catalysts of change not the source of their power.

Mighty Traits:

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age. The Mighty live somewhat longer lifespans as mundane humanity, perhaps a bit over a century, but the mature at the same rate.
Alignment. The Mighty may be of any alignment.
Size. The Mighty are powerfully built and generally tall (6 to 7 feet, or sometimes more). Your size is Medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Athletic Prowess. You have proficiency in the Athletics skill.
Superhuman Endurance. You can focus your will to occasionally shrug off injury. When you take damage, you can use your reaction to roll a d12. Add your Constitution modifier to the number rolled, and reduce the damage by that total. After you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Strength Beyond Mortals. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Fearlessness. You have advantage on saves against fear.

Art by Bruce Timm

New Azurthite Races

I've had Volo's Guide to Monsters for months now, but I haven't really considered the new races in it and whether they have a place in my Land of Azurth campaign. My consideration of the core book races was here, though some of those (like the Dragonborn) I've reconsidered since. It's always theoretical until they actually show up in the campaign.

Aasimar: Humans empowered by guardian angels reminds he a lot of the Golden Age comics concepts like the Marvel family, but also Johnny Thunder, and Kid Eternity--all very appealing. Of course, their opposite number the Tieflings have been reskinned as Demonlanders.

Firbolg: These guys could be used as is. I might go less fairy tale creature and more hairy hominid with them and reserve them for the Country of Virid.

Goliath: These guys will live in the Dragonspine Mountains and in the desert Land of Sang.

Lizard Folk: There are certainly Lizard Folk, but I haven't worked out their deal exactly and how they differ from the Dragonborn.

Tabaxi: One of the things insisted upon by characters within the setting is that there are no Cat Folk--except that one of the PCs has met two! This is one of the mysteries that may play out in the campaign.

Alchemical Dwarves

The Dwarves of desert Country of Sang are not like the Dwarfs found elsewhere in the Land of Azurth or any other worlds. Most noticeable, they appear to be made of metal, one of the seven metals of antiquity, and they metals character informs that of the dwarf made from it. The dwarves of each metal are identical to each other, or very close to it.

Dwarves of Gold are the wise and just rulers.
Dwarves of Silver are the Priestesses, Keepers of Mysteries.
Dwarves of Mercury are the cunning mages and tricksters.
Dwarves of Copper are the healers and tenders of home and hearth.
Dwarves of Iron are the soldiers and warriors.
Dwarves of Tin are merchant, traders, and seneschals.
Dwarves of Lead are the labors and workers.

The Weird Life Cycle of Elves

What humans mistake as different tribes or clades of elves are actually different stages in their millennia long, perhap endless, lives.

Wood elves are elven adolescents. They rebel against their parents and go to live in bands of others of their age. They throw racuous parties in the woods and experiment with intoxicants. They are capricious, emotional, and cliqueish. Their tribes run the gamut between Woodstock and Lord of the Flies.

High elves are elven adults. They interact most with other species and are responsible for the maintenance of elven civilization. It is in this age cohort that the immortality of elves begans to take its toll, however. Elven brains are not structurally that different from humans. They do not have the capacity to hold countless centuries of memories. Their initial compensatory mechanism is monomania. Elves develop a strong interest that narrows the array of factual information they must recall and provides constant reinforcement for the things they find important. Some become swordsmasters, some master artists or craftsmen, some archmages.

For some elves this is enough, and they grow more skilled, more focused, and stranger, until they become almost demigods in their chosen vocation. These are the Gray.

Others, though, are not able to maintain such focus. Something akin to dementia sets in. They become forgetful, and paranoid. As they begin to lose their past--lose themselves--they find only intense or traumatic memories linger long. These are the dark elves.

Dark because of the darkness that consumes their minds; dark for the deeds they commit to hold on to self and not slip into mindless reverie. They go to live in the dungeons of their kind to pursue intense pleasures and horrors or simply howl or cackle in the darkness. These elders are feared by other elves. They avoid them and will not speak of them to nonelves.

Serpent Men in the Garden

"In those days the serpent went upright like a man, nor was he exactly nonhuman in shape, but his beauty was a different from a man's as day is from night. He was lithe and gorgeously scaled and by standards a supremely handsome, supremely male creature."
- C.L. Moore, "Fruit of Knowledge"

In my post on the demi-humans of the pre-Flood world. I forgot the Serpents. As you may recall from the temptation of Eve in the Book of Genesis, Serpents had limbs and come talk Sounds like a Howardian Serpent Man to me.

Getting cursed by God and loosing his limbs suggests (to me at least) variable levels of snake-ness among later serpent descendants--something like the Yuan-ti. Conflation with the Snake Men of Masters of the Universe is done at your own discretion.

Demihumans of the Antedilluvian Age

Ever noticed how the Biblical Old Testament is reminiscent of Epic Fantasy (or more precisely, epic fantasy often tends to echo the Old Testament)? Can't get your Tolkien without your demihumans, though.

Nephilim

"It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children."
- Book of Enoch, Book of the Watchers

Enoch is of course not part of the recognized Biblical canon for most, but this passage really just expands on Genesis 6:4. Historical the term was glossed as "giants," so D&D goliaths would work, but that may be a too literal reading. They're demigods so half-Celestials? Tieflings? Keeping Tolkien in mind, the race that stood between supernatural beings and mundane men, were elves, so I think elves presiding over the pre-Flood world fits nicely. They can be taller than humans in true Tolkienian fashion, too.

This is not necessarily a new view. The internet tells me that the late thirteenth-century South English Legendary and some Icelandic folktales explain elves as angels that sided neither with Lucifer nor with God.

Children of Cain (Qéní)
Cain (Qayin) may be glossed "spear," but it is a cognate to a mid-1st millennium BC South Arabian word meaning "smith." Cain's descendant Tubal-cain is described in Genesis 4:22 as a "forger of all instruments of bronze and iron." Perhaps the Mark of Cain was the stature and coarse features of his dwarven descendants? Ray Winstone as Tubal-Cain in Noah has the beard, too:

Lilu
Lillith is now considered the first wife of Adam, but the term was originally glossed in Hebrew text translations as "night monster" or "night creatures" and appears in a list of animals in Isaiah 34:11. The term (likely the name of a demon) derives from the Akkadian lilitu which was the female version of the lilu demons. Perhaps the lilu creatures of the night are goblinoids with Lillith being the Goblin Queen?

Hwaopt

Art by Jason Sholtis

Hwaopt are reptilian humanoids from a distant world. They have large eyes and their dorsal surfaces have tubercules and spines marked with splotches of drab colors. They have adapted to a trogloxenic existence, with the largest group dwelling in and maintaining a vast, library cave system, which may be the greatest repository of knowledge in the know world.

As their vocation would suggest, hwaopt are bookish creatures--to the point pedantry in the eyes of many. Their tendency to verbose lectures on obscure topics is minor social deterrent to other species compared to their odor.  Hwaopt use chemical signalling as part of their communication with others of their kind, but non-hwaopt often find these pungent scents unpleasant.

Hwaopt are generally nonviolent, perhaps even cowardly in the estimation of other races. This is not true of their degenerate, brutish relatives, the troglodytes.

Hwaopt Traits
Ability Score Increase. A hwaopt's Intelligence score is increased by 2 and Wisdom is increased by 1.
Alignment. Hwaopt tend toward lawfulness.
Size. Hwaopt are medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. Accustom to life underground hwaopt can see 60 feet within dim light as if it were bright light, and darkness as if it were dim light for 60 ft.
Odor. Hwaopt scent glands deliver subtle chemical signals to other hwaopt. They can tell if another individual of their kind has been in a room or other enclosed location (60 ft. area) within an hour and make a DC 12 Perception to determine their general emotional and health state and whether it is an individual they have encounter before. Open areas, a lot of air movement, or other strong scents generally make this impossible. Other races tend to find hwaopt scents unpleasant, so they wear masking perfumes when they plan to be around other species in close quarters. Creatures with a keen sense of smell must make a DC 12 Constitution check or be poisoned until their next turn. A creature who succeeds their check is immune for 1 hour.
Languages. Hwaopt can speak and read the Common language of humans. They also speak their own tongue, a language whose grammar is notoriously difficult to master. Their scholar tendencies provide them one extra language.

Go Ape with 5e

As presented in the original films, the apes are fairly un-ape-like in characteristics (because of course, they are played by people in masks, but that’s beside the point). Taking what we see on screen and what we are told of ape history as true, we may assume they have been genetically modified/selectively bred to something closer to a australopithecine morphology. They don’t possess the long upper limbs and associated strength, relatively stronger jaws, or opposable great toes of modern apes.

Ability score increase. +1 to any two abilities of their choice.
Speed. The apes of POTA are more bipedal than extant apes, but their foot structure still doesn't appear to be as optimized for upright walking as a humans, and they tend to have a stooped posture. Base walking speed is 25.
Grounded. For whatever reason, apes are less susceptible to illusions and mind control. They have an advantage on saving throws to resist such attacks or attempts at subterfuge.
Keen Nose. Proficiency in smell-related Perception checks.

Subraces/Subspecies:

Chimpanzee
Ability score increase. +1 Intelligence.
Studious. Gain proficiency in either one Intelligence or Wisdom skill, or a tool proficiency.

Gorilla
Ability score increase. +1 Strength.
Menacing. Gain Intimidation proficiency.

Orangutan
Ability score increase. +1 Charisma.
Knowledge Keeper. Gain proficiency in one Intelligence skill.