Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

 So... Spelljammer Confirmed?

Today's new Unearthed Arcana introduces several new playable races. The nature of these races would seem to point toward Spelljammer, D&D's over-the-top science fantasy setting, getting a release.

(Figures right after I've gotten Starfinder. Oh well, we'll see if I can mash the two together or something).

The races presented are the Astral Elf, the Autognome, the Giff, the Hadozee, the Plasmoid, and the Thri-kreen.

I'm not going to go into exhaustive detail here, but I'll touch on each.

Astral Elves are presented as a full race, though they seem to function more as a subrace of normal elves (though with the new ability score rules.) Notably, their trance also allows them to gain new weapon and tool proficiencies, though I wonder if that will be a thing for elves in the 5.5 PHB in 2024. Their main thing is that they can regain health when succeeding on a death save, and they learn a bonus cantrip.

Autognomes are constructs - which is a bit surprising after Van Richten's wound up rolling back the hybrid creature types. But this isn't a hybrid - it's just construct. There's a special dispensation to allow Cure Wounds, Spare the Dying, and Healing Word to work on them, but it doesn't mention other healing spells that don't work on constructs. However, casting Mending will also allow you to expend hit dice as you would during a short rest (Mending takes a minute to cast, so it's still not great for combat healing.)

Giff, the martial hippo-people as seen in Mordenkainen's, are fairly simple. You have a swim speed, and you count as large for what you can carry. You also get advantage on all strength checks and saving throws. And you can reroll 1s with melee weapon attacks once a turn. Clearly built for melee.

Hadozee are simian-like people with flying-squirrel membranes that allow them to glide, and they have a climbing speed.

Plasmoids are oozes - that's right, a playable ooze race. You're basically a big amoeba, and you can change your shape and form in various ways (though you still look like an ooze.)

Finally, Thri-kreen, as seen in the Monster Manual, are actually of the Monstrosity type. You have an adaptive camouflage, an extra set of arms (which can wield light weapons), and telepathy.

These are by far the most out-there playable races we've seen for 5th Edition. It also makes me very excited that a Spelljammer campaign setting is looking more and more likely. Again, having just gotten Starfinder and digging through its systems, I am feeling just the slightest bit of buyer's remorse (I should emphasize that it's no fault of Starfinder - I just think my players will almost certainly prefer to use Spelljammer given their existing familiarity with D&D's 5th Edition). Still, this book is probably the better part of a year off, so we'll have to keep an eye out for its official announcement.