 My name's Davy Chappy, and today it's time to take on the first real expansion to the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Volo's Guide to Monsters. More specifically, I'm gonna be going over the races featured in the book, give a little bit of background to them, and tell you all the stats needed to be the monster you were born to be. As always, keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion, so if you feel like Volo tells the story better than I do, feel free to leave a comment down below. Also, it is very important that I stress to you now that Volo's Guide is split up between new races and new monstrous races, because this video is gonna tackle the normal races that I wouldn't normally get a chance to talk about anywhere else. All of those beefy, swole boys that are listed in the Monstrous Races section of Volo's Guide will be tackled in their own dedicated video that'll encapsulate everything about that race's ecosystem, which would be downright impossible to cram into this video. So don't fret if I don't talk about certain races that came out of this book, because I will be doing videos on all of them. But, with that out of the way, let's begin. So, Volo's Guide to Monsters was a breath of fresh air to all those who enjoyed 5e, since before it came out, everyone was stuck with the big 3 books, and not much else saved the power of Humber when... the Skag, I guess. But, compared to the source books that came after, the Skag was pretty lacking in terms of content. Nevertheless, Wizards of the Coast heard our pleas for new material and gave unto us their only begotten book, filled with new monsters, new lore for big, classic monsters, and new races all statted out for you to play. It was like Christmas, where the only people who were on the naughty list were people who wanted to play the gnolls. Rip and peace, hyena boy. Now, all the playable races present in this book are, for some reason or another, exceptionally rare to see in the world at large. Normally, due to their race having an extremely seclusionist nature, or just because barely any of them exist. The only ones who break this mold are the monstrous races, who you will probably see a ton of on your adventures, only that they'll be fighting against you, so they're still very rare as adventurers, and have all the problems of literally nobody in their right mind willingly letting a damn orc into their city. Present company irrelevant. Of course, as I said in the intro, I'm only gonna be able to get to the non-monstrous races in this video, so let's jump right into D&D's first big 5e DLC, starting with the Acemar! Acemar are mortals with a single drop of angelic power running through their veins, and all that power is enough to shape their entire lives. The birth of an acemar is seen as a blessing, and from that very first moment onward, an acemar is driven by the will of the gods to strike down evil wherever they may find it. And when I say driven, that's both internal and external. Every acemar has an angelical diva that speaks to them, teaching them right from wrong, and will warn them of danger if the diva can see it coming. However, acemars have the free will that angels do not, meaning they aren't infallible and can be swayed to work against their diva's wishes. If their relationship strains too hard, the link between the two will break, and the acemar will fall, resembling the demons that they once sought to destroy. Mechanically, every acemar gets plus due to charisma, dark vision, resistance to both necrotic and radiant damage, the ability to both speak celestial and cast a light at will, and they can touch a creature to heal it in an amount equal to their level. After that, acemars have three subraces representing their flavor of divine influence that will grant them an extra power at third level. Protectors get a plus one to wisdom and can sprout wings once per long rest, during which time they deal extra radiant damage as well. Scourge acemars get a plus one to con and can deal radiant damage and an aura around them, and they also get the extra damage bonus. Fallen acemars increase their strength by one, and can activate a fear aura, as well as deal extra necrotic damage during that time. All acemars are in constant war between good and evil, and so both sides are constantly looking to them to fulfill their true destinies. Next, furbolgs are a happy old druid of creatures that want nothing more than to sit around in their forests and eat shrooms all day. Their entire lives revolve around keeping whatever forest they've inhabited safe and free from invaders, to the point where it actually becomes easy to tell if a colony of furbolgs are living in your forest, because the furbolgs will purposefully direct animals away from you and set every path you walk on right back on out of the woods. Of course, if you're a total druidic bro like them, they'll probably just ask you kindly to leave instead of using their druidic dickery, but if you very clearly have a malicious intent, furbolgs will skip the dicks and resort to flat out murdering you and everything you love in one big ambush. To assist them with their surprise murderous intent, furbolgs all get a plus two to wisdom and a plus one to strength can speak common, elvish and giant, as well as with beasts and plants, to which you also get advantage on talking to them. You get the powerful build trait because furbolgs are supposed to be large creatures, but wizards is too scared of big boys. You can turn invisible for a turn as a bonus action, and you can cast both detect magic and disguise self, with your version of disguise self also being able to shrink you down to the normal size of a medium creature. So, yeah, furbolgs are peaceful until they're not, and every single one of them wants you off of their lawn. And speaking of races that should be big boys, but wizards is too scared of large creatures, the Goliath is the obstinate adventurer that never stops rocking. Goliaths keep themselves secluded up on top of sneak peeks, and much like the heavy from TF2, people may mistake them for having big, soft hearts, but in reality, they are as hard on the inside as they are on the outside. Due to their terrible living conditions, Goliaths put a lot of value on their survival of the fittest mentality, and therefore don't consider weak and desperate people worth helping, since they clearly can't help themselves. Sick, elderly, handicapped, none of that matters. If you don't pull your own weight, you are as good as dead, and all the other Goliaths will treat you as such. The only thing keeping them near the neutral realm of alignment is their extreme concept of fair play, always wanting a level playing field between two groups, and so hating it when such a balance isn't kept, which is usually the biggest reason for a Goliath to come down from their mountaintops to pursue a stint as an adventurer. And speaking of adventuring, Goliaths get a plus 2 to con and a plus 1 to strength, proficiency in athletics, the ability to potentially shrug off a damaging hit, the powerful build trait, the ability to speak giant, and a natural affinity to very high and very cold climates. The damage reduction ability is pretty cool, but other than that, I mean, I guess if you're going up a mountain, you'll be useful, but this race gives me the same vibes of being too niche to be fun that the Ranger does. Not to say that you can't have fun anyways, because this is a role-playing game, but expect not to have the same tricks up your sleeve as your friends. Now, if you want a character full of tricks and silly role-playing abilities, the Kenku is the race that'll throw everything the DM has right back at him. Kenku's are hopeless copycats, copying speech, writing, plans, everything that they can't think up for themselves. The only thing that all Kenku have for themselves is their shared dream of someday being able to fly with this overwhelming driving force influencing much of their lives, from climbing on rooftops all the time, to stealing magic items that might have levitate on it, to serving under evil dudes who promise to take them into the sky one day. To assist with their one-track minds, Kenku get a plus-two to dex, a plus-one to wisdom, the ability to both copy any writing and to mimic any sound they've heard, the ability to understand both Common and Oren, and they get two proficiencies in either acrobatics, deception, stealth, and sleight of hand. Now, I want to make a note that making random noises into your microphone may sound fun for you, but please, please, please don't overdo it, and don't get too annoyed when people don't understand what you're saying. My last Kenku literally only said, Caw! And just accepted the fact that nobody knew what the hell I was talking about. And speaking of challenging roleplay, Lizardfolk are by and large my favorite roleplaying creature on this list, due to the nuance required to reliably get in the mindset of these cold-blooded thinkers. See, Lizardfolk are practically born without any emotion to speak of, only seeing the world in a purely reactionary way. They aren't scared of the mighty dragon looming over them, but they recognize that the dragon is too strong and dangerous for them to survive, and stay away from it. They don't feel anger for a comrade lost in battle, but they have to be aggressive towards the enemy, or else they'll suffer the same fate. They don't feel happy to have friends, but they know that having them will make their own lives more convenient. Hell, on that last note, they actually feel more inclined to be quote-unquote friendly to other races, because those other races are squishy meatbags that have no chance of surviving in the wild. A good example of a Lizardfolk's mind is that, when the party is traveling up a mountain, and an ally succumbs to the freezing cold during a blizzard, the Lizardfolk's first instinct will be, awesome, more food, now we all have a better chance at survival, but because Lizardfolk aren't pragmatic to the point of stupidity, they won't start cutting up their former ally, because they know that doing so will cause their other companions to get aggressive, and be less likely to help said Lizardfolk in the future. God, I want to play one so badly. Stat-wise, Lizardfolk get a plus two to con, a plus one to wisdom, the ability to construct weapons out of dead bodies, they can hold their breaths for up to 15 minutes, they gain two proficiencies in either animal handling, nature, perception, stealth, and survival. They have a natural armor of 13 plus decks, they can speak common androconic, and they have a natural weapon in the form of a bite, which gets an added bonus in that you can heal from the bite once per short rest. I really like it when natural weapons have a purpose outside of just existing for the sake of it, and the rest of the abilities just help the Lizardfolk mechanically play as alien as they think. So, we've had scalies and featheries, but now it's time for the main event, the Furries. To backseat our cat people, and they behave like cat people, and all of their mannerisms are in the service of them acting like cat people. They hunt and packs, travel around everywhere, get easily attracted by shiny things, and knock over everything on every table they see. They even have their own deity of the trickery domain, known as the Cat Lord, who I can only assume had somehow managed to break through the multiverse into our world and conquer the internet while we weren't looking. Seriously, this is the shortest description I can make, not due to my own laziness, but because the writers of the book practically just jammed every single cat stereotype in they could find, and now we have cat people. And these cat people get a plus two to decks, a plus one to Charisma, Dark Vision, Proficiency and Perception, and Stealth, a natural weapon in the form of claws that also allows them to climb, and the Fela and Agility trait that lets them double their movement speed and recharges whenever they spend a turn not moving. That last ability I feel should have been reversed, where they would get double movement once they spend a turn not moving, you know, like a cat getting ready to pounce, especially because the way it is now makes the ability one of the most easily spammable things in the game, but it is balanced out by high movement speed not really being overpowered, so the Tabaxia are pretty much just a good race for those players looking to play cat people. And finally, from the elemental plane of water and into the material realm, come the noble and militarized race known as the Tritons. The Tritons are the natural enemies of any foe that lives in the sea, fighting many wars to keep the water, and by extension the entire world free from the tyranny of Sahuagan, Kraken's, and other frightening fish. The only problem with Tritons is that since all of their countless victories come from the battles waged under water, nobody else has ever heard of them, leading to a lot of cultural whiplash, where Tritons act all mighty and holier than thou, and the most awesome thing ever, and they see the surface world as a bunch of bickering idiots that need to get their heads out of the sand and into the water. Obviously, this attitude does not translate well to most other races, who from their perspective just see a bunch of previously unknown fishfolk wander onto the shore and say, I protect you because you dumb. So, needless to say, everyone is not the best of friends. But stat-wise, Tritons are anything but a joke, having plus one to strength, constitution, and charisma, a swimming speed of 30 feet, the ability to breathe both air and water, the power to talk to fish, an affinity to the deep, crushing depths of the ocean, the ability to speak both common and primordial, and the power to cast fog cloud, gust of wind, and wall of water with their spooky magic wet powers. Tritons are obviously best suited for campaigns spent underwater, but they have enough utility to keep them going above water that you'll still have a good time, whether or not you're under the sea. But that'll about do it. Hope you enjoyed this video. Leave a like and comment if you did. Subscribe if you want to be a cool dude, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can slowly make my entire life revolve around D&D. Also, if you want to stay up to date on all of your Davy news, I keep a link to my social media in the description below. But yeah, Davy out.