The first greshnik were cursed by the saints for idolatry and the abandonment of a sacred pilgrimage. Considered unclean, their heirs still bear the mark of their forefathers’ trespasses; their bestial forms resemble bipedal crows or turtles. The turtle-like greshnik seek holy deaths; their crow-like kin spread ruination.
Vodniks humans who have become warped due to the proximity of the Old Ones who sleep beneath the seas. They possess a disquieting fish-like appearance and are most often found in Piskaro and along Krevborna’s coast. Entire families or villages can be transformed into vodniks when the corrupting reach of the Old Ones grows strong.
Svyatogora are the weakened descendants of the giants who walked the Nachtmahr Mountains when the world was young. They are diminutive by the standards of giants, but massive by the standards of man. They exude an aura of sullen melancholy, for they are a dying people doomed to extinction among the cold mountain passes of Krevborna.
Zmeya are tainted humans found among the folk who worship the demonic apostle Rakub in the Silent Forest. The black magic of Rakub’s cult forever changes them; they appear human, save for their forked tongues and snake-like eyes, but the personality of a zmeya tends toward serpentine coldness and cruelty. Zmeya do not regard each other with fellowship—an unhallowed impulse inherent to their twisted nature inclines them toward the slaying of kin.
Aschen are dead men and women who have been mysteriously returned to life to complete a task assigned to them by a divine force. The time allotted to finish their task is limited; their memories and sanity slowly erode until they become a hollow, mindless husk. Each aschen is gray skinned and marked by a bleeding black sigil that attracts the attention of fiends.
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Director's Cut
When you're designing a setting that combines the Gothic with fantasy, which ancestries are available is a big question to grapple with. Some people insist that the Gothic is a humanocentric experience. For example, the inclusion of the usual D&D races in Ravenloft is often counted as a demerit. (Though I would argue that the point of Ravenloft isn't primarily Gothic emulation; it's D&D with a Gothic repaint.)
My approach is to make space for nonhuman or inhuman ancestries that aren't typical fantasy fare in most cases. The greshnik are a good example of this; crow-folk and turtle-folk don't necessarily feel Gothic in tone at first blush, but make them victims of a saintly curse and we're back in Gothic territory. Also, I think the oddity of them adds a bit of the uncanny, which is a required element of the Gothic. In 5e, I'd use the stats for aarakocra, kenku, and tortles.
Dagonistes are pretty clearly influenced by Lovecraft's fiction, particularly "The Shadow Over Insmouth." I'd use the stats for tritons or water genasi.
I don't know why or how to explain it, but giants seem tragic to me. Thus the svyatagora. I'd use the stats for goliaths for them.
One of my favorite characters in recent memory was a zmeya. She was truly a cold-hearted bitch. So fun. The yuan-ti pureblood stats work just find for them.
The aschen came about as a way to return a beloved character back to life after their untimely death at a point in the game where resurrection magic was unavailable. We usually let the dice lie where they land when it comes to character death, but this character's story didn't feel concluded. So she was brought back, but changed. She was a human before death; when she came back to pursue her divine task she was a human with the aberrant dragonmark feat from the Eberron book. That's how I'd do aschen, until a more compelling alternative comes around.
