What is Kalashtar?
It is a role-playing action game. Kalashtar is the human who sheltered the benevolent Quori who escaped the Dreaming Dark. Over time, this connection became inextricable. In part due to the number of Kalashtar, which is far greater than the number of good-aligned Quori, the spiritual essence of every Quori is distributed among many Kalashtar, known collectively as a lineage.
The Quori is a renegade race resulting from the marriage of a human race with a spirit from the plane of dreams, called the Kalashtar. Many Kalashtar are compassionate, wise people who care deeply about others. The Kalashtar are haunted by the conflict of their otherworldly spirits, and it is clear that they belong to another universe.
How are Kalashtar born?
All Kalashtars bond to one of the 67 rebel quotes who escaped Dal Quor during the exodus. Kalashtars give their names a continuation of their ancestor’s name: Lanharath, whose ancestor is Harath. The Quori have gendered spirits inherited by their Kalashtar babies, for they give birth to nature of the same gender as their parent.
The Kalashtars are capable of interbreeding with humans and half-elves; if the gender of the Kalashtar parents matches the child’s, the child inherits the bond and is born a Kalashtar.In other cases, it fits the parent’s race. They possess distinct racial characteristics, including their distinctive appearance, which stem from how the quori touched their bodies and souls. No such thing exists as a “half-Kalashtar.”
Where do the Kalashtar live?
Sarlona is home to the Kalashtars, who live in Adar, a forbidding, mountainous region on the southern portion of the continent. Kalashtar exists in Adar; however small their numbers are, and Kalashtar’s those found in Khorvaire are even smaller.
Many Kalashtar prefer to be reclusive and stay in the temple-keeps of Adar; however, a few ventured into Eberron because they felt led to do so. Some Kalashtar leave to escape the Dreaming Dark, and others wish to end the siege on Adar by the Riedrans.
What is Kalashtar’s Culture?
Each Kalashtar is bound to a query spirit from the dream realm Dal Quor that generally feeds on the psionic energy from dreaming mortals. Quori and anything from the quasi-real world of Dal Quor has a hard time existing within the material plane, so they must take refuge in mortal minds.
Many quori have done this in service to what they call “The Dreaming Dark,” a shadowy lord of nightmares that rules over Dal Quor. Their intentions are not entirely clear, but they’ve been working for thousands of years, and anyone could become an agent after merely having a bad dream. Most other Kalashtar work against the dreaming dark, though some follow “The Path of Light” that vows to fight the darkness in all its forms.
Beyond this eternal struggle, a typical large Kalashtar community would exist high in mountain top temples. The original Kalashtars were andaran monks that willingly bonded with quori refugees. Their children were born with fused souls, and the Kalashtar became something new rather than a mere vessel and passenger. Their formed culture is diligence, meditation, intellectuality, and inner conflict. Kalashtar strives to maintain control of their emotions, but their quori half still remembers the wild chaos of Dal Quor and aches deeply for it.
However, not all Kalashtar have the luxury of a traditional upbringing. Many Kalashtar exist throughout Eberron, and those orphaned or newly created may have little to no understanding about their spirit half. Those with no training may even see their telepathy and psionic abilities as a curse, their quori spirit always haunting their dreams just at the edge of their understanding.
Kalashtar is unique to the Eberron setting, so some of their lore and culture are inexorably tied there. However, if you plan on running a Kalashtar in another location, you may want to discuss options with your DM. The quori spirit can be replaced with any ghost or spiritual thing appropriate for the setting, as can the “dreaming dark” with any demon or other dark forces.
How does Kalashtar appear?
Kalashtar looks more or less human. They often have slightly more angular features and are usually tall and thin but otherwise pretty standard. Most Kalashtar dress and act like monks, which goes well alongside their measured and unemotional demeanor. Kalashtar isn’t unfeeling, but several generations’ worth of monastic traditions are ingrained within them.
When they get fully focused or emotional, their otherworldly half shows through. When a Kalashtar embraces an emotion, their eyes glow, and you can see the faintest outline of their quori spirit hanging onto them like a glimmer or a shadow. The quori spirit itself is a being of dreams; they are generally invisible but can look like literally anything, though they seem to gravitate towards creatures with many eyes and legs.
When you make a Kalashtar character, please spend some time designing the Kalashtar and their quori spirit. Playing a Kalashtar means essentially playing one character with two personalities. Figure out how these two halves interact. Are they cohesive most of the time, or are they split? Are their motivations the same? Where do they disagree? Was your Kalashtar raised in a temple to commune with their spirit, or did they grow up on the streets without guidance?
Kalashtar Names
Like the rest of the Kalashtar, their names come in two halves. The first half of a Kalashtar name is their prefix, or rather their human half. The last half is the name of the quori spirit that resides inside them. Both halves of their name tend to be 1-2 syllables and are all typically gender-neutral.
Kalashtar orphans and those who never learned to commune with their spirit will have human names common in whatever culture they were raised in.
Quori Spirit Names: Derra, Ghas, Nere, Ozen, Rai, Silk, Reth, Shara, Tai, Tash, Ulad, Zon, Zoss.
Kalashtar: Biyaulad, Chizon, Durreilk, Hiztash, Khulad, Konari, Telishara, Tozoss, Vonere, Zederra,
What are Kalashtar’s traits?
Your Kalashtar character has the following racial traits and racial bonuses.
Ability Score Increase: Your Wisdom score increases by two, and your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age: Kalashtar mature and age at the same rate as humans.
Alignment: The noble spirit tied to a Kalashtar drives it toward lawful and reasonable behavior. Most Kalashtar combines strong self-discipline with compassion for all beings, but some Kalashtar resist the virtuous influence of their spirit.
Size: Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Dual Mind: You have an advantage on all Wisdom saving throws.
Mental Discipline: As a psychic warrior, you have resistance to psychic damage.
Mind Link: You can speak telepathically to any creature you can see, provided the animal is within several feet of you, equal to 10 times your level. You don’t need to share a language with the creature for it to understand your telepathic utterances, but the animal must be able to understand at least one language.
When you’re using this trait to speak telepathically to a creature, you can use your action to give that creature the ability to speak telepathically with you for 1 hour or until you end this effect as an action. To use this ability, the animal must see you and be within this trait’s range. You can give this ability to only one creature at a time; giving it to a beast takes it away from another animal who has it.
Severed from Dreams: Kalashtar sleep, but they don’t connect to the plane of dreams as other creatures do. Instead, their minds draw from the memories of their otherworldly spirit while they sleep. As such, you are immune to spells and other magical effects that require you to dream, like a dream, but not to attacks and other magical effects that put you to sleep, like sleep.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common, Quori, and one other language of your choice.
Most of the Kalashtar abilities are pretty simple, but a couple needs careful consideration to figure out their actual utility. Let’s go through them one by one and what they’ll mean for your next character.
Ability Score Increase: Classes only really utilize one mental ability score, so the bonus to both Charisma and Wisdom is a bit awkward. You’re best off shooting for a class that uses your more significant Wisdom bonus, such as Clerics, Druids, Monks, or Rangers.
Age: Standard human age, nothing special.
Alignment: Kalashtar have a good-aligned spirit whispering in their ear, so they’re bound to be good unless they rebel hard against their upbringing.
Size: Normal medium size.
Speed: Average, not a penalty at most minor.
Duel Mind: No frills, no conditions, just straight permanent advantage on all your Wisdom saves, which is one of the most common saving throws. This ability is solid and straightforward; make a mark next to your Wisdom saves, so you remember and enjoy neigh-immunity to a lot of spells and magical powers.
Mental Discipline: Psychic damage isn’t widespread, but damage resistances are excellent. Try to remember you have it when it comes up.
Mind Link: I find many players misunderstand this ability at first, so while this is expressly telepathy, you have a few hoops to jump through.
Firstly, until you use an action to enable it, other creatures can’t talk back to you telepathically. That means that the mind link works well for secret conversations works fine if you have time to burn, but it’s rough using it in combat unless you’re just talking one-way without receiving. If you want to have a mind link during battle, your best bet is to activate it every hour so that it’ll be active once the fighting starts.
Secondly, the mind link doesn’t work for creatures that don’t understand at least one language; you can’t send thoughts, nor can they.
Finally, at early levels, you’ll have to hug close to your allies to use mind link; once you get to 6th or 7th level, though, it’ll usually cover an entire battlefield.
So, with those limitations in mind, what good is it? Well, it works wonders for passing information silently. Intense situations where you need to be very careful with your data, the silent conversation can be invaluable. It requires line of sight, so talking through walls and barriers is a no-go. However, the arcane spell eye can bypass the whole sight problem at high levels.
Languages: Common plus any language is nice; grab whatever you think will be relevant in your campaign. Quora is sadly an infrequent language even in Eberron and doesn’t exist elsewhere, and it’s unlikely ever to come up.
How are Kalashtar’s built?
Kalashtar stats are a tad strange since you’re gaining bonuses to two mental abilities. Any class that uses either Wisdom or Charisma is a good start, but since 5e is so forgiving, there aren’t any wrong choices. If you’re interested in optimizing your character, look at the following for some build ideas.
LUNAR DREAMER
Kalashtars already have a +2 bonus to Wisdom which is ideal for druids, but their mind linkability is perfect. Mind link doesn’t care about your shape and doesn’t have any verbal or somatic components, so you can use it freely while in your animal form. Circle of the Moon druids significantly benefit from mind links as they spend a lot of time in animal forms, and blowing away that speech barrier solves many problems.
LUCID DRUNK
A Kalashtar monk is already a flavor win, and that +2 Wisdom bonus is exactly what they need. Not many monks can benefit from that +1 Charisma bonus, though; that’s where the Way of the Drunken Master comes in. While drunken masters don’t explicitly need Charisma, they gain Charisma (Performance) proficiency and are incentivized to use it.
DREAM REALM WARDEN
Rangers may be mainly martial, but they still greatly benefit from the Kalashtar’s +2 bonus to Wisdom. Most don’t care about their Charisma score, but the unearthed arcana Fey Wanderer sure does, as it needs the high Charisma for numerous checks. Mind link also gives a ranger a ton of more sneaky opportunities as they stalk the shadows silently.
Physical Qualities of Kalashtar
Kalashtar, which in Quori means “wandering dreams,” first came to Eberron 1,000 years ago. They went as a renegade group from Dal Quor to escape religious and philosophical persecution. Agents of Dal Quor, known as the Dreaming Dark, hunted them until the group’s leader, Taratai, finally found an audacious way to escape Dal Quor. She convinced Adaran monks to accept a permanent fusion of their souls with the renegade quori. From that synthesis came Kalashtar, and as a result, Kalashtar today looks similar to the monks who served as the first willing vessels.
The monastery where the sixty-seven humans became Kalashtar was a refuge, so the people living there were diverse. Kalashtar have thus retained a diversity of appearance, possessing the same variety of skin, hair, and eye colors found among humans. They are usually slimmer and taller than humans, although short or stocky Kalashtar exists.
Kalashtar physically develops at the same rate as humans and has similar life spans. At first glance, a Kalashtar child passes for humans, but a few minutes of observation reveals the critical difference. All Kalashtar have a graceful, peaceful, and severe manner because of the fragment of quori soul found within them. While human children run, laugh, and play, Kalashtar children, engage in meditative exercises, martial training, and telepathic conversations as adult Kalashtar. For a Kalashtar, growing up is a physical process, not a mental or emotional one.
Conclusion
Kalashtar’s characteristics are balanced, commanding, compassionate, contemplative, disciplined, graceful, insightful, intellectual, spiritual, thoughtful.
Most Kalashtar remain in the temple-keeps of Adar, so any Kalashtar traveling around Khorvaire probably has a good reason for doing so. A Kalashtar might be driven by a desire to break the Riedran siege of Adar or could be on the run from the Dreaming Dark.
The typical Kalashtar is contemplative and serene. They are compassionate and friendly but in a cerebral way. Perhaps due to their conjoined souls’ turmoil, Kalashtar keeps a tight rein on their emotions. A Kalashtar demonstrates camaraderie with a wry grin and an offhand remark rather than a backslap or a coarse joke.
The fragment of the quori soul in a Kalashtar recalls the escape from Dal Quor. Kalashtar, on the run from the Dreaming Dark, is suspicious, although they always try to keep polite and kind behavior. They work to combine their human halves’ thoughts and sensibilities with the strange, intangible memories of their quori souls. Kalashtar flirt with madness. Occasionally, a Kalashtar’s serene countenance drops to reveal crazed and baffling behavior that is inappropriate or even dangerous.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is it possible to play as a Kalashtar in DND?
Being a Kalashtar isn’t just about the backstory. There are many benefits. With Kalashtar, you get a boost to Wisdom and Charisma, along with a score of your choice, as well as some defensive abilities because you have a dual mind with the Kalashtar spirit inhabiting your body.
2. Are Kalashtars playable?
In Eberron, the Kalashtar are humanoids who have been merged with spirits from another dimension. In Eberron: Rising from the Last War, Kalashta is a playable character race.
3. Kalashtars belong to what class?
The Kalashtar stat spread is +1 CHA and WIS, as well as +1 other ability score. This means that they won’t be outmatched by the casters of the other classes: Clerics, Druids, Warlocks, Sorcerers, Bards, Paladins, and Ranger. A dual mind can significantly reduce the effects of mind influence.
4. What is the primary purpose of a Kalashtar?
The Kalashtar cannot at all communicate directly with their certain quori spirits. When they dream, they may connect with that spirit as part of their instincts. Kalashtar is gifted with minor psionic abilities and is protected from psychic attacks thanks to this connection.
5. Darkvision 5e is Kalashtar’s?
This is dark vision. A lycanthrope’s excellent idea in dim and dark conditions comes from their lycanthropic heritage. In the dim light, you can see as if it were brighter light within the distance of 60 feet of you, and in pitch black, as if it were much dim light.
