Hedge

Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Hedges take longer to mature than most other races, reaching adulthood around 20 years. They also live for a long time, with many reaching 120 years or more.

Hedges are compassionate, empathetic, and diplomatic, tending towards good alignments. They also favor neutral alignments, as hedges have a great respect for the balance of nature.

Hedges have short, rounded body shapes, standing between 3 and 4 feet in height, and weighing between 40 and 70 pounds. Your size is Small.

Your base walking speed is 25 feet.

You have a burrowing speed of 15 feet. You are capable of burrowing through soil, but are unable to dig through anything more substantial with just your clawed hands.

The backs of hedges are covered with spiny quills, which makes it impossible for hedges to wear armor. These quills provide exceptional protection, there­fore you have a base armor class of 14 + your Dexterity modifier. Even though you can't wear armor, you can still benefit from the armor class bonus provided by shields so long as you are proficient with them.

You can use your action to curl up, exposing attackers to a wall of your toughened quills. While curled up you cannot move, attack, or cast spells with somatic components, and your base armor class becomes 19. You cannot benefit from any Dexterity bonus to armor class while curled up, but you can still use shields.
Any creature that misses you with a melee attack while you are curled up takes 2d4 points of piercing damage from your sharp quills. If a creature hits you while you are curled up, you are knocked prone in your space at the end of the turn. You may uncurl yourself at any point during your turn.

You have a deep connection to the magic of the Wood. You know the druidcraft cantrip. Additionally, you can cast animal messenger as a 2nd level spell once with this trait, and regain the ability to do so after a short or long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas with creatures of the beast subtype that represent insects, spiders, worms, and other creepy crawlies, regardless of their size.

You can speak, read, and write Birdfolk and Hedge.