u/Square_Rich_4328

TL;DR: I need help coming up with a homebrew falcon hybrid transformation for one of my players.

During our sessions, the group ended up in the hometown village of one of the players, the Fighter Arcane Archer: Rael. Rael is an elf, but due to his backstory and overall personality, together we created his village as a wood elf society. However, a long time ago, they ended up worshipping Malar (the evil god of hunting, stalking, bloodlust, and bestial savagery), with a particular focus on hunting and bestial savagery.

Because they are still elves, I wanted to maintain their high level of education and some focus on scholarship and knowledge. In the village lore, the elves are so devoted to hunting that there is no prey left in the surrounding forest; only predators survive. They selectively breed animals to make them more feral and stronger in worship of Malar.

My player already knew all of that, but I added something extra: the village had a rite of passage, a very deadly one, where someone had to hunt a great predator, bring it back, and, using existing knowledge while developing their own understanding, create a ritual to transform themselves into a lycanthrope of the animal they hunted. Basically, you would become a lycanthrope through an arcane-focused transformation. It was a mystery that the party solved along with all the other drama, and it was actually pretty fun. Almost every NPC had its own transformation that reflected their personality.

Now we’ve had a time skip, and Rael, the fighter, wanted to go back to his village and undergo the rite of passage, which I had told him beforehand he could do.

We did a one-on-one session of him tracking the falcon (which is being buffed by Malar), and he is about to face a deadly encounter all by himself. If he survives — and I told him beforehand that he could lose his character — I want to reward him with a transformation. I saw some homebrew content and really liked Pointy Hat’s take on lycanthropy, but it feels more aimed toward ground animals. I feel like a falcon hybrid would be able to fly.

Does anyone have a homebrew that worked well, or could you help me with ideas on how to make it balanced?

TL;DR: I need help coming up with a homebrew falcon hybrid transformation for one of my players.

During our sessions, the group ended up in the hometown village of one of the players, the Fighter Arcane Archer: Rael. Rael is an elf, but due to his backstory and overall personality, together we created his village as a wood elf society. However, a long time ago, they ended up worshipping Malar (the evil god of hunting, stalking, bloodlust, and bestial savagery), with a particular focus on hunting and bestial savagery.

Because they are still elves, I wanted to maintain their high level of education and some focus on scholarship and knowledge. In the village lore, the elves are so devoted to hunting that there is no prey left in the surrounding forest; only predators survive. They selectively breed animals to make them more feral and stronger in worship of Malar.

My player already knew all of that, but I added something extra: the village had a rite of passage, a very deadly one, where someone had to hunt a great predator, bring it back, and, using existing knowledge while developing their own understanding, create a ritual to transform themselves into a lycanthrope of the animal they hunted. Basically, you would become a lycanthrope through an arcane-focused transformation. It was a mystery that the party solved along with all the other drama, and it was actually pretty fun. Almost every NPC had its own transformation that reflected their personality.

Now we’ve had a time skip, and Rael, the fighter, wanted to go back to his village and undergo the rite of passage, which I had told him beforehand he could do.

We did a one-on-one session of him tracking the falcon (which is being buffed by Malar), and he is about to face a deadly encounter all by himself. If he survives — and I told him beforehand that he could lose his character — I want to reward him with a transformation. I saw some homebrew content and really liked Pointy Hat’s take on lycanthropy, but it feels more aimed toward ground animals. I feel like a falcon hybrid would be able to fly.

Does anyone have a homebrew that worked well, or could you help me with ideas on how to make it balanced?