The Starfall Galaxy is a crucible of cosmic forces, emergent technologies, and ancient mysteries. While your chosen ancestry defines your fundamental species and cultural background, some individuals possess an even more unique origin – a Versatile Heritage. These special heritages represent a profound influence, an unusual lineage, or a rare cosmic event that has fundamentally altered an individual, regardless of their base ancestry.
Versatile heritages offer an additional layer of customization, allowing you to craft characters that truly stand out, embodying a blend of different influences or a singular, extraordinary destiny forged by the galaxy's boundless wonders and dangers.
What are Versatile Heritages?
Versatile heritages are a unique type of character option that can be applied to any ancestry. They represent a significant, often supernatural or bio-engineered, modification to a character's fundamental nature. Unlike standard ancestry options which are specific to a single species, versatile heritages transcend racial boundaries, reflecting a broader cosmic phenomenon or an unusual twist of fate.
Think of them as a secondary, powerful heritage that overlays your primary ancestry, granting you distinct traits, abilities, and access to a unique set of feats that further develop your unusual origin.
How do Versatile Heritages Work?
When creating or advancing your character, you can choose to take a versatile heritage in addition to your chosen ancestry.
Choose Your Ancestry First: You first select your base ancestry (e.g., Android, Geodan, Oculon, Kashrishi). This determines your core statistics, initial ancestry feats, and fundamental biological or construct nature.
Select a Versatile Heritage (Optional): If you desire, you can then choose one versatile heritage. This choice grants you:
Specific Traits: Your character gains the traits associated with the versatile heritage (e.g., Prismeni, Rift-Touched). These traits often interact with other rules or abilities in the Starfall Galaxy.
Core Abilities: You immediately gain one or more unique abilities tied to your versatile heritage. These are often sensory, energetic, or physical manifestations of your unusual origin.
Versatile Heritage Feats: You gain access to a dedicated list of feats specific to that versatile heritage. When you gain an ancestry feat (at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level), you can choose to take a feat from your versatile heritage list instead of your base ancestry's list. This allows you to deepen your connection to your unique origin.
Versatile heritages add depth and flexibility, allowing for mixed ancestries (such as a Kashrishi with a touch of the Rift) or entirely new concepts (an Android infused with ancient Mana).
Mixed Ancestry Heritages
The galaxy has numerous metropolises where people from a wide variety of ancestries and cultures intermingle. Moreover, adventurers of all backgrounds and ancestries often find themselves thrust together and discover that from adversity can come common ground, and even love. As a result, the galaxy is full of people whose bloodline can be traced to at least two different ancestries. This section also describes how to create a custom mixed ancestry heritage when creating your own world.
Mixed Ancestries
You can choose a mixed ancestry to represent having two ancestral lines for your character. This doesn’t preclude having more than two ancestries in your genealogy, but you’ll need to work with your GM if you want to have more than two reflected in the rules. The possible combinations of ancestries are immeasurable.
Custom Mixed Heritage: You can work with your GM to create a mixed heritage for any ancestry. A custom mixed-ancestry heritage is an uncommon heritage. Choose an ancestry to tie to the heritage. You gain any traits of that ancestry and a new trait for your combined ancestry, similar to how the borai heritage grants the “borai” and “undead” traits. You also gain low-light vision if the ancestry tied to the heritage has low-light vision or darkvision. The heritage lets you select ancestry feats for the chosen ancestry in addition to those from your base ancestry. Future products will provide examples of different mixed ancestry heritages.
Uncommon Heritages
These heritages require GM approval before a player selects them, because their inclusion requires additional consideration for adventure design and campaign planning. These heritages possess some advantages over common heritages, or their lore considerations could put these characters at odds with other party members.
Aphorite: Aphorites were first forged by ancient, highly advanced civilizations, perhaps the pre-Rift Vaelen or a collective of powerful Cerebral Nexuses who sought to impose perfect order upon the nascent chaos of the galaxy.
Ardande: versatile beings whose flesh is intertwined with elemental organic matter and whose veins pulse with life-giving sap. They are as much elemental essence as they are mortal, embodying the tenacity, flexibility, and succor of the cosmos' living heart.
Borai: a versatile heritage representing a being simultaneously living and dead, a corpse reanimated by its own soul into something just barely sustained. They are not merely corporeal undead; their bodies function as living shells that protect their tattered, undead souls, making them a unique bridge between the mortal coil and the ethereal beyond.
Changeling: In the vast and mysterious Starfall Galaxy, where ancient cosmic forces and emergent technologies intertwine, some individuals are born with a dark, inherent connection to malevolent powers. These are the Changelings, children whose very essence is touched by the influence of manipulative Rift-Entities, rogue A.I. Constructs experimenting with life, or ancient, twisted Mana-weavers. They are born with an innate psychic resonance and the potential to hear a terrifying psychic Call.
Dhampir: These are the Dhampirs, the mortal offspring of powerful void-entities, psychic parasites, or rogue bio-engineered constructs that feed on life force or Mana. Dhampirs enjoy extended lifespans and an otherworldly charm, but their ghostly pallor and the unsettling nature of their parentage make their lives in humanoid societies difficult.
Ifrit: where primordial Mana-currents flow like rivers of fire through nebulae and volatile Rift-zones erupt with raw energy, Ifrit are born with an intrinsic connection to the essence of cosmic flame.
Oread: In the Starfall Galaxy, where ancient asteroid fields drift through the void and the very bedrock of planets pulses with primordial energy, Oreads are born with an intrinsic connection to the essence of cosmic stone and metal.
Rare Heritages
These heritages require GM collaboration in character building; they possess potentially game-unbalancing ancestral abilities, or their lore demands additional attention from the GM to integrate them seamlessly into the campaign.
Beastkin: capable of partially or fully transforming into animalistic forms, granting them deadly natural weapons, refined senses, and other such traits. A beastkin treads the line between instinct and rationality, living with a foot in both the wild cosmos and advanced society.
Nephilim: In the Starfall Galaxy, where the veil between dimensions is thin and ancient powers stir, some individuals are born with an intrinsic connection to forces beyond the material plane. These are the Nephilim, individuals whose very essence is influenced by the raw energies of the Rift, the profound order of the Aether Synapse, or the benevolent (or malevolent) will of powerful Cosmic Entities. They are living conduits, bridging the mundane existence of mortals with the vast, supernatural realities of the cosmos.
Prismeni: Prismeni are inherently "plugged in" to the Rift, but the origins of this connection are variable. Most Prismeni were born this way – some to parents who were particularly attuned to Mana-currents, and some to individuals who happened to be near a significant Rift-rupture or within a Mana-rich nebula when their child was conceived, gestating, or born.
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