Water genasi descend from marids, aquatic genies from the Elemental Plane of Water. Water genasi are perfectly suited to life underwater and carry the power of the waves inside themselves.
Their skin is often shades of blue or green, sometimes a blend of the two. If they have a human skin tone, there is a glistening texture that catches the light, like water droplets or nearly invisible fish scales. Their hair can resemble seaweed, waving as if in a current, or it can even be like water itself.
Genasi
Tracing their ancestry to the genies of the Elemental Planes, each genasi can tap into the power of one of the elements. Air, earth, fire, and water—these are the four pillars of the Material Plane and the four types of genasi. Some genasi are direct descendants of a genie, while others were born to non-genasi parents who lived near a place suffused by a genie’s magic.
A typical genasi has a life span of 120 years.
Creating Your Character
At 1st level, you choose whether your character is a member of the human race or of a fantastical race. If you select a fantastical race, follow these additional rules during character creation.
Ability Score Increases
When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.
Languages
Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.
Creature Type
Every creature in D&D, including each player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race tells you what your character’s creature type is.
Here’s a list of the game’s creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the cure wounds spell doesn’t work on a Construct or an Undead.
Life Span
The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries. If typical members of a race can live longer than a century, that fact is mentioned in the race’s description.
Height and Weight
Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.
Water Genasi Traits
As a water genasi, you have the following traits.
Creature Type
You are a Humanoid.
Size
You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.
Speed
Your walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.
Acid Resistance
You have resistance to acid damage.
Amphibious
You can breathe air and water.
Call to the Wave
You know the acid splash cantrip. Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the create or destroy water spell with this trait. Starting at 5th level, you can also cast the water walk spell with this trait, without requiring a material component. Once you cast create or destroy water or water walk with this trait, you can’t cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast either of those spells using any spell slots you have of the appropriate level.
Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells when you cast them with this trait (choose when you select this race).
Darkvision
You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.