Note: This race was inspired by a live showing of the “Irrelevant Show”, a Canadian comedy troupe, and is made with intent of being a transformative artistic work.
Background
Marlarkoids claim they are a space fairing alien species that landed on earth before the revelations, sometime in the very early 21st century. They took on human vestiges to walk among us for a short time before being forced to leave because of what is now only known as interspecies difficulties with some of their young ones, the rest of the details where official redacted both by human and Marlarkoids officials at the time. Despite this, they also claim they have visited earth occasionally over the decades leading up to the revelations, just to check up on the humans that interest them so much. Due to much stricter protocols, often they only came close enough to pick up current music that was being transmitted from the planet. On their last trip to earth, a tour company full of families found that their interdimensional drives on their vessel suddenly began to go haywire, sucking them towards Earth like singularity. Before they knew it, they had crash landed in the middle of Armageddon.
One would think that learning aliens from outerspace and not some other dimension would be a big deal for not just humans, but other species. But, many human scholars believe that the Marlarkoid story doesn’t hold up under inspection and accuse them of being nothing more than mutations whose bodies and brains were scrambled by the revelations. Other scholars have just simply shrugged off the alien story as being just another day in post-post-apocalypse. In the case of the legendary majister of the Rock, Waldorf the Groovy, he simply stated to a couple of Marlarkoid visitors, “welcome to the party.”
Society
According to their official history, an estimated fifteen Marlarkoid families and few dozen individuals survived the crash landing, with scattered life pods touching down all over the world. With no way of returning home in their one-way escape pods and human civilization collapsing like a house of cards during the revelations, they could do only one thing: Hide. And up to recently, they remained hidden from a scary world the best they could.
Marlarkoids live in small nuclear families. Since their population is scattered throughout the world, older Marlarkoids are careful to try to protect younger ones, most of whom are now second generation “earthers." However, this parental protection often leads to overprotection and micromanagement of their children’s lives. Naturally, younger Marlarkoid resent this helicopter parenting and go on the lamb quite frequently. While problematic, this has lead Marlarkoid families hooking up to make slightly bigger communities.
The largest known population of Marlarkoids is in Regina, Saskatchewan. There they live in underground structures partially crafted from psychic crystal. Many Marlarkoids try to make a conscious effort to visit St. Paul, Alberta (http://www.drevrpg.com/2015/05/relic-roadshow-3-st-paul-ufo-landing-pad.html)
in the hopes of a rescue ship landing there.
Other Marlarkloids have tried to find their way to New Mexico in the hopes of coming across Area 51, where some of their past human interactions have rumored to occur. Many of these Marlarkoids never return or return with never coming close to their destination.
Relations
Being accused of being delusional mutations caused by the revelations, has soured relations between Marlarkoids and some human settlements, thus they tend to interact with more open-minded folks. Their love of all things human has slowly turned into love of all things Halfling and Feylin. The former being kind, warm and open hearted to all. The latter being curious fanboys and fangirls much like Marlarkoids themselves.
Otherwise, they try to hide their true form from most of the normal species, and often find solace in hanging out with the less humanoid species that accept their true nature. Memories and horrible tales of observing the Necromantic Wars has made them apprehensive of Kamidavers, and any other Living Dead.
Adventuring
Young Marlarkoids often adventure to get away from their clingy relatives. Many Marlarkoids fall
into the old habit of being a tourist, setting out to collect souvenirs and pictures of this new alien world, sometimes just to annoy the elders at home. Other more mature Marlarkoids sometimes set out in hopes of finding a way back to their home world, and to confirm if their own history and memories are real. However, the greatest drive is to find other Marlarkoids for the essential purpose of hooking up and maintaining their sparse population.
Personality
The average Marlarkoid is curious, friendly and overly trusting, usually starting life as neutral good. As they age they have a bit of a controlling streak that comes out, making them typically lean towards lawful alignments. While they usually mean well, they will give their opinion on just about anything with the idea it will always be receive cordially. Otherwise they are, especially young ones, a bit naive and sometimes hard to take seriously because their quirky demeanor.
They are worried about being intimate with other races because as state their sacred texts “it could destroy the world.” The more likely issue is that they are not biologically compatible with any other species and to go beyond anything more than friendship would be counterproductive to maintaining their low population.
Then there is the notion that perhaps their own history and memories of being an alien species is some sort of biologically induced delusion. The clear majority of Marlarkoids discount this as nothing more than slander and at worst boarding on hate speech. Those that accept this notion beyond just as a what-if thought exercise, are almost always treated as villainous outsiders by other Marlarkoids. These isolated Marlarkoids almost always end up going a wee bit mad, often ending any agreement, with "oh yeah, I'm the evil one! Let me prove it!" Most of the time this angry sarcasm leading to very long monologue on the nature of the universe as they see it. Though on occasion it can lead to shockingly unmarlakoid actions.
Description
They are a thin, gaunt race with somewhat humanoid shape. They have a pair of foot pods and two pairs of tentacle-like arms that are prehensile. Their face has three eyes that are brightly colored that don’t blink in the human sense. But they do have nictitating membrane to protect from dust and objects, much like a shark's eyes. They have a slit of a nose and a small mouth loaded with small sharp teeth. They have ear hoodies that clamp down, and like most of their biology that points towards being evolved to survive harsh environment either in deserts or underwater.
As a Marlarkoid ages they sprout little cilia all over their green body and a long strand at the top of their head that looks almost like hair from a distance. As strange as this cilia hair is, their oddest unseen feature is a helium bladder deep in their body. Given some training, a Marlarkoid can manipulate the release of gas from this organ to perform a variety of weird actions, including a very limited form of flight.
They are also highly mutable, and while some general genetic patterns do exist, one Marlarkoid might be vastly different than another.
When it comes to attire, they prefer hoodies and long cloaks to hide their alien looks from folks who might mistake them as evil monsters in need of slaying. However, a sizable population in western Canada has taken to wearing cowboy attire.
Marlarkoid Traits
Creature Type: Aberration (you still have all the normal biological needs of a normal human, such as air, food, water, and rest).
Ability Score Adjustment: Pick one ability score of choice and increase it by 2 points, up to its normal maximum.
• • Talent Access: You may take talents from any species talent tree from a Drev 5e sources approved by the GM, you fulfill all the prerequisites, and a talent you pick does not specifically modify a species feature that you do not have. This accounts for the odd mutations Marlarkoids tend to have or develop over time.
• • Age: You reach maturity at around age 16, and tend to be considered middle age around 60, and live to about 120 years old. Most markarloid parents will hover and interfere with their children's lives until the child reaches age 30-40.
• • Size: Marlarkoids stand between 5 to 6 '6'' feet tall, but are filled with gas sacs and hollow bones, and only weigh 40 to 80 lbs. Your size is Medium.
• • Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• • Darkvision: You have Darkvision 60 feet, though Markaloids see in shades of green rather than greyscale in the dark.
• • Tentacles: You have two tentacles that can be used like extra arms, allowing you to have additional weapons drawn and perform different actions while your normal hands are currently armed. You still may only use one two-handed weapon or shield at a time, and your tentacles do not grant you additional slots for items (such as rings, gloves, or bracers) or extra actions without additional training.
• • Helium Bladder: Malarkoids have a weird internal organ that fills with helium they collect from breathing normal air. They may release the gas in "charges" for a variety of useful or comical effects. A Malarkoid has a number of helium charges equal to their proficiency bonus. All charges renew after taking long rest.
• n Bounce (1 charge): As a reaction to taking fall damage or landing at the end of a fall of 10 feet or more, you may spend a charge to trigger this feature. This activation allows you to half the final damage of your fall, and immediately jump (bounce) a number of feet equal to half the distance you fell. You will fall prone at the end of this bounce.
• n Buoyant (1 charge): As an action spend a charge, and you gain a swim speed of 10 ft. and will not sink under the surface of the water or risk drowning for the next hour, or until you become incapacitated. However, you cannot dive below the surface of the water unless you are carrying two times your normal carrying capacity or end this effect.
• n Break the Ice (1 charge): As a bonus action spend a charge as you allow a tiny bit of gas out to make your voice sound higher in octave or make odd gaseous noises for next 10 minutes. You may end this effect early as a bonus action if you wish. This will grant you advantage on Persuasion or Performance checks where comedy might be appropriate, but you will always suffer disadvantage to Intimidation checks for the duration.
• n Floaty (2 charges): As an action you spend two charges and gain flight 10 feet (hover) for 10 minutes, until you become incapacitated, or you end the effect early as an action. This only has a maximum altitude of 60 feet.
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