The Mano - A Shark Humanoid Race
I wanted to try my hand a creating a race but didn’t know where to start. There are so many official races out there and I didn’t want to create something that was just a re-flavoring of an existing race. To my surprise, there are very few water-based races; you’ve got the Locathah, the Triton and that’s it. The Mano was something I thought of doing after working on a shark/human creature earlier this month. It was easily adaptable to a character race, so I decided to give it a shot.
The names I’ve used for this race come from Hawaiian culture and myths. Names such as shark people, sharkins, and sharkfolk all seem boring and kind of silly. In my research for this, I enjoyed the Hawaiian legends and cultural importance that sharks have. Mano is the Hawaiian word for shark. Simple, direct, and easy to pronounce. Sure, it may not give you the mental image of a race of humanoid shark people, but it’s better than Sharkmen. Kamohoalii is the shark god in Hawaiian culture and one of the subclasses is named after him. I originally called the race Kamohoalii, but it’s quite the mouthful, so I switched to Mano.
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The Mano
The actual idea for this started while we were working on the Sahuagin Deep Dive. The sahaugin are real dicks, so I figured they would use dark magic to try and create a race of shark people they could order around. Sure, they can already use sharks as their minions, but sharks with hands are even better! Of course, the sahaugin never watched shark week, and the Mano were able to gain their freedom after a lot of bloodshed.
My vision of the Mano is that they are primarily pirates. It just seems to make sense to me, the Mano sailing the seas on their badass pirate ships, firing cannons and swimming to enemy ships to surprise an unsuspecting crew. I don’t want to limit people by thinking they can only be pirates since there are a ton of options for making this race interesting and unique. Pirates are cool, but a Mano Barbarian, hailing from the coastal regions, using his brute strength to crush his opponents sounds like a lot of fun too.
Mano Traits
I’m trying not to ramble on too much, so here are the traits in bullet point form:
Ability Score - Sharks are strong; +2 to Strength
Age - Did you know most sharks only live to 40 years old. Sure, some live to be 400, but most kick the bucket at what we consider middle age.
Alignment - Chaotic. Duh.
Size - Sharks, like humans, vary in size. Plus, WotC is strongly against races that aren’t medium, so medium it is.
Speed - On land, you are a little slower than your average bear. But you’ll swim circles around that holier than thou Paladin dressed in plate mail.
Amphibious - Yep.
Darkvision - If you don’t know what darkvision is by this point in your D&D career, be ashamed.
Frightening Teeth - Warm and cuddly sharks are not.
Shark Bite - You may not be able to bite a boat in half like the shark in Jaws but when you chomp down on someone, it will hurt.
Language - You can speak, read, and write Common, Mano & Aquan.
I added two subraces, based on the hunter shark and great shark found in the Monster Manual. I always find it hard not to overpower subraces, so they may not seem that strong when compared to other races. I think they are balanced and would be fun to play.
Hunter Mano (Hunter Shark)
Your shark side is that of the hunter shark, an agile and fierce shark that hunts in the deep waters of the ocean. It’s that agility that gets you a +1 to your Dexterity and proficiency in stealth. Their speed is unmatched by other Mano, even the great Kamohoalii, so your swim speed is now 60 feet. Hunter Manos will make good rogues and rangers
Kamohoalii (Great Shark)
You’re a really big tough motherfucker, taking hits but always moving forward. Your Constitution score increases by 1. You also get the aggressive trait since you’re not going to let your mortal enemy, the sahuagin, escape. Finally, big shark equals big teeth, and your bite now does 1d6 + your Strength modifier damage. The Kamohoalii are great barbarians and paladins.
So there it is, the Mano. As always, let me know your thoughts since constructive criticism only makes our products better!
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