Dungeons & Dragons Officially Drops 5 New Playable Species For Free

Published Sep 14, 2026, 9:17 AM EDT

Bruno Yonezawa is a Gaming Senior Writer for Screen Rant. He's been practicing professional journalism for over 10 years, and is also a communications specialist. He's played games all his life and turned that passionate hobby into a passionate career, in an industry where he's worked as a writer, editor, analyst, and more.

Dungeons and Dragons has just dropped five new playable species for free for all players to use during their campaigns, and if you’ve finally grown weary of playing that traditional human fighter build, these new character options may be a breath of fresh air. There’s a lot going on with the popular TTRPG lately. Earlier in September, a new playable species in D&D, Duskling, was released for free as part of the monthly Drops system on Beyond. This brought back the 3.5e species, now updated for 5.5e rules. However, we’re getting even more playable species this month.

As was announced in a post on D&D Beyond, five new playable species have officially made their way into Dungeons and Dragons, and all of them are free to use right now. The new free species are part of the Underdark Options 2 playtests that are occurring on Beyond’s Unearthed Arcana platform. This means that they aren’t the final versions we’ll likely see come out in official books soon, but they are still very much playable and usable in your campaigns. In fact, Wizards of the Coast encourages player feedback on the platform.

The five new species arrive alongside three free playable subclasses in D&D, also themed around the Underdark. The species are: Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa, and Myconid. Deep Imaskari are descended from humans who have connected to the Unlight. While they don’t have Darkvision, they can generate light from crystals in their bodies, and with the light, even buff allies’ AC scores or Blind enemies. Driders are a monstrous mix between Drow and spiders, and it shows.

Driders have traits that are similar to Drows, like Darkvision and Spells of the Spider Queen, but they also get Spider Climb, like the Dhampir species in Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, and Web Walker. Illithidkin are humanoids who have been touched by the powers of the illithid, but not fully transformed via ceremorphosis. They retain special psionic powers, like Telepathy and Resistance to Psychic damage. Kuo-toa are fish-like humanoids that can swim pretty well and have access to a special type of Find Familiar spell.

The Kuo-toa’s version of Find Familiar allows them to add an extra trait to their familiar, making them have more resources at their disposal. Lastly, the fifth free species is the Myconid, a plant-type creature that is all about fungi. Myconids were already well-known, but became even more popular with the Myconid colony in Baldur’s Gate 3. This species has Darkvision, Telepathy, and can expel spores to give nearby creatures telepathy.

As a colony-based species, Myconids can also share a party member’s Skill Proficiency with the rest of the group. If you’re planning a heist, for example, Myconids could give everyone Proficiency in Stealth before you head out, for example. All specific details on these species can be seen on D&D Beyond. Alongside the Deep Imaskari, which synergize well with Paladins and Clerics, Myconids are likely the best new free species in Dungeons and Dragons, and I encourage you to test them out.