Heroes of Shadow: Vryloka

While this excerpt has a bit of flavor content for all the races that will be featured in Heroes of Shadow, it also showcases the racial features of the vryloka, meaning that we now know what to expect out of both of the new races (assuming revenant doesn't see any radical changes). In short, they're humans infected with vampirism, making them similar in concept to tieflings or shifters.

• +2 Charisma, +2 to either Strength or Dexterity
• Speed 7
• Low-light vision
• +2 Perception and Stealth
• Blood Dependency: When bloodied your healing surges heal you for less. Ouch.
• Human Heritage: You get a racial bonus to pretending to be human.
• Living Death: You're both alive and dead, and get to pick how an effect applies to you in case it matters.
• Necrotic Resistance: 5 + 1/2 your level.
• Vampiric Heritage: You can swap out class utilities for racial ones (two of which are also shown).
• Lifeblood: Once per encounter when you kill or bloody an enemy, you can shift your speed, gain temporary hit points, or gain an attack bonus for a turn.

The two featured racial daily utilities are unnatural vitality and bloodwolf form. The first triggers if you kill a nonminion enemy, and gives you a bonus against death saves and ongoing damage, as well as allowing you to ignore many of the basic needs of mortals, such as eating, breathing, and sleeping. It lasts until you take an extended rest, which makes it a good thing to do as soon as you are able to. The other one only lasts for an encounter, and lets you change into a shadowy, wolf-like form. In wolf form, you gain darkvision and a hefty skill bonus to Athletics, Perception, and Stealth, and can ignore difficult terrain. On the downside you can't attack, but you can switch back and forth throughout the encounter. I dunno, this seems pretty limited.

It's an interesting race that puts in a minor penalty, which is something that hasn't been seen since the shade (also in this book). I'm curious as to how far WotC will go with this sort of thing. It's not a huge deal, and I don't mind setbacks so long as they don't invalidate a race from going into a class. Like, this makes them only slightly less than ideal for a defender class, though I'd say lifeblood makes up for it. What I'd hate to see are extremes like the halfling from 3rd Edition, which basically made it impossible to be a fighter or barbarian.