A very unusual UA dropped today: Gothic Lineages. These are sort of playable races, but also sort of a new thing. As we've seen with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, one of the big changes to the way that playable races work in 5E is that a lot of things have been de-coupled from them. You get to choose your ability score improvements and can customize languages and other cultural traits that might not apply to you if you, say, were raised in a different culture.
The lineages here are Dhampir, Hexblood, and Reborn.
Dhampir is a sort of half-vampire, and here I'll note one of the interesting aspects of this new system: character can have multiple creature types. For instance, Dhampir are both Humanoid and Undead. This means that Cure Wounds and such spells still work on them because of the humanoid part, but they'll also be affected by Turn Undead. Anyway, Dhampirs get darkvision, the ability to walk on walls and ceilings, and a bite attack that can heal them or give them advantage on a future roll (limited to PB.) (For a prominent Dhampir character, see Marvel's Blade).
Hexbloods are basically Changelings, except not the Eberron kind. Instead, these are people created or altered by Hags. As such, they count as both humanoid and fey, and get advantage on saves against charm effects, as well as darkvision. They get Disguise Self and Hex, as well as the ability to pull a hair or tooth or nail from their body, which they can give to another person to communicate with them or to spy on an area if they leave it behind somewhere. Hexbloods have a weird appearance, including a crown that rests upon their head that cannot be removed.
Reborn are people who have come back from the dead. Like Dhampir, they are both undead and humanoid, or they can be construct and humanoid, though this is a broader sort of "woke up in a grave" kind of situation, or they might have been an undead minion of some necromancer who regained their consciousness (for the WoW fans, this would be a great way to make a Forsaken character in D&D,) or you might be a sort of flesh golem, stitched together from multiple people. Reborn get darkvision, as well as advantage on death saves and against poison (and resistance to poison damage) as well as no need to eat, drink, or breathe. You also don't need to sleep, but have to spend 4 hours as part of your long rest in a motionless state, though you remain conscious. You can also add a d6 to ability checks that use a skill a number of times equal to your PB per long rest, representing lost knowledge from your former life coming back to you.
So.
First off, I think these are awesome, and create a new facet of character creation that isn't totally covered by simply making a playable race (even if these sort of take the same place, as I understand it.) I think a good sign for a player option is when my mind lights up with character concepts that I immediately want to play.
But let's also consider the following:
One of the other recent UAs was a pair of gothic subclasses - the Undead Patron for Warlocks and the College of Spirits for Bards.
They did say 2021 would see some classic D&D settings getting campaign setting books.
So, there's a Ravenloft book coming, right? There has to be.
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