CHAPTER 2: ANCESTRIES
Nine ancestries are available to player characters in the Known World. Five are common — present in most settlements, organized into functioning societies, familiar to any traveler moving between regions. Four are rare — found in specific corners of the Known World, less understood by outsiders, and carrying mechanical traits that reflect genuinely different physiologies.
The descriptions that follow cover general traits and the broad strokes of how each ancestry fits into the Known World. Players should read them as tendencies, not mandates. The mechanical rules apply regardless of how a character personally relates to the cultural assumptions embedded in their ancestry's entry.
Full historical and political context for each ancestry appears in Book II.
Class Restrictions and Level Limits
Non-human ancestries are restricted in class availability and maximum attainable level. These limits reflect the cumulative effect of biology, cultural tradition, and the particular aptitudes each ancestry has developed over centuries — not individual ability.
Human characters have no class restrictions and no level caps.
→ Table 2.3: Ancestry Class Restrictions
The Druidic Compact
The druidic tradition in the Known World does not exist independently of Alvengaard. Every druid practicing anywhere in the Known World was named by the High Council of the Hyerophancy — a formal investiture that cannot be self-conferred, purchased, or inherited. The ability to commune with the natural forces that druidic magic channels is, in the Hyerophancy's position, an ancestral gift held in trust by Alvengaard, not a personal talent any individual can claim.
A character who practices druidic magic without Hierophantic investiture is not, in Alvengaard's legal framework, a druid. They are thieves — and the sentence is death, carried out wherever they are found, by whichever Húldar agents reach them first. Alvengaard's reach is long and its institutional memory longer. A non-investitured druid operating in the Known World has made an enemy that does not forget.
Only Húldar and Aelár characters may take levels as Druids. All other ancestries — including Human — cannot, regardless of Wisdom score, divine patronage claimed, or in-game circumstance.
A Human Druid is not simply a rules violation. In the Known World, it is a capital matter. The Hyerophancy hunts non-investitured practitioners without distinction of ancestry, but a Human presents a particular problem: they have no ancestral connection to Vengardian magic, which means someone taught them, which means there is a name the High Council wants. A captured Human Druid is interrogated before they are executed. The interrogation is thorough.
Optional Rule: The Outlawed Druid. With explicit approval from both the GM and every other player at the table, a Human character may take levels as a Druid. The abilities function identically to any other druid. What changes is everything surrounding them. The character is a fugitive from the moment of investiture, whether they know it or not. Their master's name is, from the Hyerophancy's perspective, outstanding intelligence. Their existence is a secret that endangers anyone who knows about it. This is a more dangerous position than practicing necromancy, and considerably harder to hide. The GM should establish at session zero what running those consequences looks like for the specific campaign before anyone commits to it.
Height, Weight, and Age
After selecting an ancestry, players may either choose their character's physical details or roll from the tables below. Age has cumulative mechanical effects. See Tables 2.1 and 2.2 at the end of the chapter.
Starting Age & Life Stage
A character begins play somewhere within their Adult stage by default. Some players will want to start older — a retired soldier in their middle years, a Húldar mage who spent three centuries studying before taking to the field, a Badaki elder who has already buried most of their generation. Age at character creation is a choice, not a roll.
Youth characters are not available for play. Whatever the ancestry, the game assumes a character entering play has enough lived experience to function independently. For most ancestries, that means the beginning of Adult; for Badaki, it means age 7 at minimum.
The life stage ranges for each ancestry are defined in Table X.3 (Seasons & Downtime chapter). The modifiers below apply at character creation and do not change again until the character advances to the next life stage through play.
Life Stage Modifiers
All modifiers are cumulative totals applied at character creation, measured from the Adult baseline. A character starting at Old Age applies the full Old Age column — not Middle Age plus Old Age separately.
| Life Stage | Str | Dex | Con | Int | Wis | Starting Bonus Skill Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Middle Age | −1 | — | −1 | +1 | +1 | +2 |
| Old Age | −3 | −2 | −2 | +1 | +2 | +4 |
| Venerable | −4 | −3 | −3 | +2 | +3 | +6 |
Ability score minimums still apply after aging modifiers. A character whose Constitution drops below their class minimum due to age cannot take that class — they have aged past the window where that path was open to them. They may have held that class before, but that story belongs to their background, not their starting sheet.
The Proficiency Bonus
The Starting Proficiency Bonus represents what the character learned during the years that brought them to this stage. It is not a mechanical gift — the player must explain it. "Where did this come from? Who taught you, or what happened that you know this now?" is the character creation question the GM asks before confirming the selection.
Proficiencies chosen through the bonus must be Non-Combat skills. The bonus does not grant additional Weapon Proficiency slots. A fighter who arrives at Old Age with a Trained proficiency in History got there through lived experience, not combat training — the combat skills chapter governs what their body still knows how to do.
The bonus proficiency cannot exceed the tier listed for the life stage. A Venerable character cannot take two Specialized proficiencies — one Specialized and one Trained is the ceiling.
Ability Score Maximums
Physical ability score maximums decrease as characters age, reflecting the hard ceiling that a body in decline places on recovery and development.
| Life Stage | Maximum Str | Maximum Dex | Maximum Con |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | 18 (+ ancestry modifier) | 18 (+ ancestry modifier) | 18 (+ ancestry modifier) |
| Middle Age | 17 | 18 | 17 |
| Old Age | 15 | 16 | 15 |
| Venerable | 14 | 14 | 13 |
These maximums apply to natural scores only. Magical enhancement can temporarily exceed them, but permanent improvement through training cannot.
Starting XP
Older characters begin play with no XP advantage over younger ones. The Starting Proficiency Bonus is the compensation for age, and it is the right kind of compensation — it represents accumulated knowledge rather than accumulated power. A Venerable Húldar mage and a young Adult Húldar mage begin at the same level. The elder knows more non-combat things. The younger has more of their physical prime ahead of them. Both are valid starting points for different stories.
The Badaki Season Counter
Badaki characters track their age in seasons (four per year) rather than years, because their life stages pass within a plausible campaign timeframe. At character creation, set the Season Counter as follows:
Starting Season = Starting Age (in years) × 4
A Badaki who begins play at age 10 starts at Season 40. A Badaki beginning at Middle Age (15 years minimum) starts at Season 60 at minimum. The counter increments by 1 at every Seasonal Phase and by 2 during Winter (see Chapter X: Seasons & Downtime).
The maximum season count is derived from the Badaki's maximum age (30 + 1d10 years), multiplied by 4. The GM rolls this privately at character creation and does not reveal it. The player knows their character is mortal. They do not know exactly when.
A Badaki starting play at Old Age (Season 88 minimum) has already passed more than two-thirds of a typical life. The Ancestry Question during each Seasonal Phase — "What did you do with the time?" — lands differently for this character than for any other at the table.
Magical Aging
Some spells and effects age a character artificially — Haste being the most common. Magical aging applies the physical penalties of the advanced stage but not the mental bonuses or the Starting Proficiency Bonus. A character who is magically aged past a threshold is older in body but not in experience.
Effects that reverse magical aging remove the physical penalties but not any mental bonuses the character legitimately earned through normal aging. A Venerable mage who is magically de-aged to Old Age retains their +2 Wis from decades of study. They do not lose it because a spell made their knees work again.
Common Ancestries
HUMANS
Humans are the most widely distributed people in the Known World and the most politically consequential. They built most of the empires that currently exist — and most of the ones that don't anymore. Their short generations and high tolerance for institutional reinvention have made them dominant in settled lands. That dominance is a fact of the setting, not an endorsement.
A human character's nation of origin shapes their cultural context, available languages, and starting assumptions about the world. Mechanically, all humans are identical regardless of origin. The differences are entirely social.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Any. No level cap.
Languages. Common, plus any languages the character would plausibly have encountered given their background.
Movement. 12.
HÚLDAR
Húldar are tall, lean, and long-lived — well past five centuries in most cases, though the count matters less to them than what they did with it. Their skin carries a faint greenish undertone that deepens with age and prolonged forest exposure. Eyes trend toward amber and green. They grow no facial hair and keep their hair long, usually unbound.
Their homeland is Alvengaard, a forest that covers more of the Known World's north than most maps accurately represent. The eldest Hyerophant rules Alvengaard, and the Hyerophancy is not merely a political institution — it is the primary vehicle through which Húldar understand their relationship with the natural world and the divine forces running through it. Druidcraft is not a profession a Húldar chooses. It is the ancestral inheritance that a Húldar either accepts or refuses.
Those who refuse it — who turn toward arcane study instead — do not become outlaws. They become embarrassments. A Húldar who enters the Order of Magnus or pursues formal magical scholarship has closed the door to Vengardian politics permanently, and their descendants carry that stain for generations. Whether that cost is worth what arcane mastery provides is a question each Húldar resolves alone.
Outside Alvengaard, Húldar serve as rangers, wardens, and occasional mercenaries. They are slow to trust and slower to forget. An adventuring Húldar usually left Alvengaard with a reason, and that reason rarely reflects well on whoever caused it.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Mage, Ranger, Thief. Druids are subject to the Druidic Compact described above; Húldar are the only ancestry for whom this path is unrestricted. Mage carries no mechanical restriction but significant social consequences within Alvengaard — detailed in Book II.
Languages. Húldari and Common. Additional options: Elvish (Aelár dialect), Vengardian, Giant, Goblin.
Traits.
Enchantment Resistance. Húldar have 90% resistance to sleep and charm spells.
Keen Senses. Húldar notice secret or concealed doors when passing within 3 m without actively searching on a roll of 1 on 1d6. When actively searching: secret doors 1–2 on 1d6, concealed doors 1–3 on 1d6.
Stealthy. In natural terrain — woodland, grassland, hills, or any outdoor environment without urban construction — Húldar impose a −4 penalty to surprise rolls against opponents, provided they are not wearing metal armor and are alone, traveling exclusively with other Húldar, or more than 27 m from their group. In urban environments, this ability does not apply.
Infravision. 18 m.
Ability Score Adjustments. +1 Wisdom, −1 Constitution.
Movement. 12.
AELÁR
Aelár are the low elves — shorter than Húldar, darker in complexion, and entirely without a fixed homeland to return to. Centuries of dispersal through the Known World have made them adaptable by necessity. They read rooms, they learn languages, and they are rarely surprised by human politics because they have been navigating it longer than most human families have existed.
The precise relationship between Húldar and Aelár is a subject both peoples prefer not to discuss in mixed company. The broad version: the Aelár are descended from Húldar who left Alvengaard, or were expelled from it, or chose integration over isolation long enough that the distinction became biological. Aelár scholars dispute this framing vigorously. Húldar scholars tend not to engage with it at all.
An Aelár whose parent was Húldar typically grows up outside Alvengaard. Most do not need it explained to them why.
Aelár form no nations and claim no territory. They live inside other people's cities and politics, which makes them either excellent diplomats or excellent scapegoats, depending on how those politics are going. In stable times they are valued intermediaries. In unstable times they are convenient targets. Most Aelár old enough to have seen a few political cycles have prepared for both.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Mage, Ranger, Thief. An Aelár druid is rare — the Hyerophancy names them, and the High Council views Aelár petitions for investiture with something between reluctant respect and political calculation. An Aelár who achieves Druid standing has navigated something most of their people never attempt. Multi-class options: Cleric/Fighter, Cleric/Mage, Cleric/Ranger, Druid/Fighter, Druid/Mage, Druid/Ranger, Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Mage/Thief, Fighter/Thief, Mage/Thief.
Languages. Elvish (Aelár dialect) and Common. Additional options: Húldari, Vengardian, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Orc, Gnoll.
Traits.
Enchantment Resistance. Aelár have 30% resistance to sleep and charm spells.
Keen Senses. Aelár notice secret or concealed doors when passing within 3 m without actively searching on a roll of 1 on 1d6. When actively searching: secret doors 1–2 on 1d6, concealed doors 1–3 on 1d6.
Infravision. 18 m.
Ability Score Adjustments. +1 Dexterity, −1 Constitution.
Movement. 12.
DUARDEEN
Duardeen — sun dwarves, in the Common rendering — stand between 1.1 and 1.4 m tall, built with the proportions of people who have spent millennia doing structural work underground and carrying the results out through narrow corridors. Average lifespan runs to 250 years, sometimes more. Hair spans the full dark range: black, brown, deep red, occasionally iron grey from early adulthood. Skin runs from tan to deep brown. Male Duardeen maintain elaborate beards; female Duardeen generally do not, though the cultural weight placed on this varies considerably between clans.
Their reputation as craftsmen and merchants is accurate and has made them indispensable across the Known World. Most of what gets mined, refined, and traded in the Emerald Corridor passes through Duardeen hands at least once. This economic position has made them wealthy and made them targets in roughly equal measure, which is a situation they have managed through the same approach they bring to stonework: patience, structural integrity, and a thorough understanding of load-bearing capacity.
Duardeen clans run deep. Obligations incurred by a great-grandparent are still valid obligations. Alliances formed before the Darkness fell are still alliances. Grudges formed in the same period are still grudges. An adventuring Duardeen carries their clan's reputation into every room they enter, whether they want to or not.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Cleric, Fighter, Thief. Multi-class options: Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief.
Languages. Duardeen and Common. Additional options: Duergar, Goblin, Kobold, Orc, Giant.
Traits.
Magic Resistance. +1 on saving throws against wands, staves, rods, and spells for every 3.5 points of Constitution.
Poison Resistance. +1 on saving throws against poison for every 3.5 points of Constitution.
Favored Enemy. +1 attack bonus against goblinoids and orcs.
Stonecunning. When actively searching within 3 m of natural stone, Duardeen detect the following:
- Grade or slope in passage: 1–5 on 1d6
- New tunnel or passage: 1–5 on 1d6
- Sliding or shifting walls and rooms: 1–4 on 1d6
- Stone traps and pits: 1–3 on 1d6
- Approximate depth underground: 1–3 on 1d6
Infravision. 18 m.
Ability Score Adjustments. +1 Constitution, −1 Dexterity.
Movement. 9.
DUERGAR
Duergar share a common ancestry with Duardeen, diverged so long ago that treating them as variants of the same people requires a generosity most members of both groups would reject. They are deep dwarves — built for the pressures of mountain interiors rather than the Emerald Corridor's trade routes. Slightly stockier than Duardeen, paler, with eyes that reflect light in the dark the way no surface-adapted creature's eyes do.
Their cities are marvels by any reasonable measure. Carved into living rock across generations, lit by bioluminescent cultivation and refined forge-light, they are extraordinarily ordered environments — because disorder in a sealed underground city kills everyone. Duergar civic culture runs toward the functional and austere. What they produce in that austerity is craftsmanship of a quality that surface merchants pay extravagantly to acquire.
The sunlight problem is real and persistent. Duergar who venture above ground are visibly impaired in daylight conditions — slower, harder to focus, effectively running at a disadvantage against every surface-adapted opponent they encounter. Duergar craftsmen have addressed this with characteristic practicality: tinted eye-guards developed over centuries of iteration, worn as a matter of course by any Duergar who spends time outdoors. They work. They are also the first thing a smart opponent goes for.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Cleric, Fighter, Thief. Multi-class options: Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief.
Languages. Duergar and Common. Additional options: Duardeen, Goblin, Kobold, Orc.
Traits.
Darkvision. Duergar see in complete darkness to any distance within normal vision range — full detail, cold objects included, with no heat-signature limitation. See Chapter 1 for the distinction between darkvision and infravision.
Daylight Sensitivity. In direct outdoor daylight or its magical equivalent, Duergar suffer a −2 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks.
Magic Resistance. +1 on saving throws against wands, staves, rods, and spells for every 3.5 points of Constitution.
Stonecunning. As Duardeen — detects grade, new passages, shifting walls, stone traps, and approximate depth underground, at the same detection rates listed above.
Ability Score Adjustments. +1 Constitution, −1 Charisma.
Movement. 9.
Rare Ancestries
The four ancestries below are uncommon enough that most people in the Known World will go years without encountering one. That unfamiliarity has consequences at the table — social, logistical, and occasionally dangerous. Players choosing a rare ancestry should expect that the Known World will notice them, and that this attention is not always friendly.
BADAKI
Badaki are powerfully built, standing roughly human height but considerably heavier — wide through the shoulders, thick in the neck, with forward-facing horns that begin as blunt nubs in early childhood and develop into genuine weapons by adolescence. Their skin is dense and grey-toned, somewhere between leather and armor in texture. They have flat, wide faces and small eyes set high and back, positioned for wide peripheral vision.
They are short-lived by the standards of most people in the Known World. A Badaki reaches full physical maturity by seven years old. Middle age arrives in the mid-teens. An adventuring Badaki in their late twenties has already outlived many of their generation and is aware of it.
What this produces, culturally, is an orientation toward the present that other ancestries sometimes mistake for recklessness. It is not recklessness. It is the result of people who have always known that the time available is limited and have organized their values accordingly. Badaki communities are intensely social, heavily oral, and entirely unsentimental about death. A Badaki who dies doing something worthwhile has died correctly.
Their physical strength is not metaphorical. A Badaki carrying a loaded pack can cover ground that would exhaust a human mercenary twice their age. Their gore attack is not a party trick — in a charge, the horns hit with the full mass of a body built around that impact.
The Darkness created Badaki as instruments of war — which is to say, the Darkness considered itself divine authority enough to forge champions in its image. The devotional discipline this required, stripped of its original allegiance and redirected toward something genuinely worth serving, maps onto the Paladin's spiritual framework with unsettling precision. A Badaki Paladin is not common. Most people will never see one. Those who do tend to remember it.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Thief. Multi-class options: Fighter/Cleric, Fighter/Thief.
Languages. Badaki and Common. Additional options: Orc, Goblin, Giant.
Traits.
Natural Armor. Badaki thick hide provides a base AC of 7. Worn armor replaces this if it produces a better result.
Gore. Badaki possess a pair of forward-facing horns and may make a natural attack dealing 1d6 piercing damage. A Badaki who charges at least 6 m in a straight line before attacking deals 2d6 damage on a successful hit instead.
Ability Score Adjustments. +2 Strength, +1 Constitution, −1 Dexterity, −1 Intelligence.
Movement. 12.
ÛRGON
Ûrgon are large — between two and three meters, broad, moving with the deliberate weight of something that has never needed to be fast to be effective. Thick grey-brown skin, wide-set tusks, ears that turn independently toward sound. Their eyes are small relative to their heads and exceptional at reading depth and motion in low light. They smell of dust and dry grass regardless of the environment.
Their social structure centers on the herd and the elder. Ûrgon elders carry the oral archive of their people — lineages, treaties, defeats, locations, and the names of the dead. This is not a metaphor for wisdom. An Ûrgon elder can recite the terms of a trade agreement made four generations back with enough specificity to hold up in arbitration. The Living Archive ability that Ûrgon player characters possess is a reduced version of what a fully trained elder carries.
In the Known World, Ûrgon are rare enough that most humans have never seen one. Those who have tend to remember the encounter. The size creates real problems in built environments — a standard inn doorway requires an Ûrgon to duck and turn sideways, standard bunk beds are a non-starter, and most dungeon corridors were not designed with this possibility in mind. Ûrgon adventurers deal with this through some combination of pragmatism and controlled patience.
As with Badaki, the Ûrgon Paladin exists at the intersection of their origins and the choice to repudiate those origins entirely. The Darkness made them for a purpose. A Paladin is the most direct possible refusal of that purpose.
Size. Large. See size rules in Chapter 1.
Classes. Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger. Multi-class option: Fighter/Cleric.
Languages. Ûrgon and Common. Additional options: Giant, Orc, Duardeen.
Traits.
Natural Armor. Ûrgon dense musculature and thick hide provide a base AC of 7. Worn armor replaces this if it produces a better result.
Tusk Attack. Ûrgon may make a natural attack with their tusks, dealing 1d6 piercing damage.
Living Archive. Once per day, an Ûrgon may attempt to recall historical information — the names of rulers, the outcomes of battles, the locations of ruins, the lineages of noble houses — drawn from the oral tradition carried by their people. The player rolls a d20 against their Intelligence score. On a success, the GM provides accurate information within the scope of what Ûrgon oral tradition would plausibly have preserved. On a failure, the attempt cannot be retried until the following day. The GM is not obligated to answer questions that the Ûrgon's tradition would have no reason to record.
Infravision. 18 m.
Ability Score Adjustments. +2 Strength, +1 Constitution, −2 Dexterity.
Movement. 9.
VAL'ARIAN
Val'arian are shorter than humans by a meaningful margin — broadly speaking, somewhere between human and Duardeen height, though their proportions are slender rather than stocky. Pale skin with a faint blue or silver undertone. Dark hair, almost universally. Eyes that catch light in the dark and reflect it dimly, like polished metal at the edge of a torch's reach.
They are a maritime people with a strong nocturnal tradition — their largest cities are coastal, most active after dark, organized around tidal patterns and lunar calendars that carry cultural weight their neighbors rarely understand. The low-light vision that characterizes the ancestry is not incidental to this. Val'arian cities at night are fully functional; the same cities at midday operate on reduced capacity while their population sleeps.
In the Known World's broader politics, Val'arian occupy the position of skilled outsiders — valued for their navigation, their trade networks, and the particular quality of their night-work, while being kept at arm's length by powers who find their autonomy inconvenient. The Cadmano Empire has twice attempted to formalize political control over Val'arian port settlements and twice found the attempt more expensive than projected.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Fighter, Mage, Ranger, Thief. Multi-class options: Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Ranger, Fighter/Thief, Mage/Thief.
Languages. Val'arian and Common. Additional options: Elvish (Aelár dialect), Húldari, any maritime trade language available in the campaign.
Traits.
Low-Light Vision. Val'arian see clearly in conditions of dim natural light — starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and candlelight — treating them as normal visibility rather than reduced. In complete darkness, they are blind. In full daylight, they see as humans do.
Infravision. 9 m.
Ability Score Adjustments. +1 Dexterity, −1 Strength.
Movement. 9.
VARTRAN
Vartran are scaled, bipedal, and unmistakably descended from something that once commanded more of the Known World than anything currently does. Their scales run from deep charcoal to burnished copper to pale gold, depending on lineage. They stand roughly human height, broader in the chest, with a tail they use for balance and — in close quarters — as a weapon of convenience. Their faces are angular and flat-featured, with eyes that do not blink the way human eyes do.
The breath weapon they carry is not learned but inherited — the attenuated remnant of what their ancestors could do at full power, which historical accounts suggest was considerably more than a 3 m cone. The Vartran knows this. There is an entire cultural apparatus built around the gap between what they were and what they are now, and most of it is not comfortable to observe from the outside.
Their relationship with arcane magic is complex precisely because it is innate. Vartran does not study magic the way a human wizard studies it. They contain it in a diffuse and unstructured way that formal, arcane scholarship finds both interesting and faintly alarming. A Vartran who pursues formal magical training is not learning something new — they are learning the vocabulary for something they have always been doing. The resulting wizards tend to be unusual.
The Church of Tar'amaan views Vartran with particular hostility, on theological grounds they consider self-evident. Vartran operating in Cadmano-controlled territories are advised to know which exits are available before they start a conversation.
Size. Medium.
Classes. Cleric, Fighter, Mage, Thief. Multi-class options: Fighter/Mage, Fighter/Thief, Mage/Thief.
Languages. Vartran and Common. Additional options: The Old Tongue, Goblin, Orc.
The Old Tongue was the dominant language of the age of Darkness and is prohibited throughout the Known World outside Bal'mekh. Most people who hear it today either do not recognize it or recognize it and want nothing further to do with the speaker. Any social or morale roll made by or against a character who has been heard speaking The Old Tongue fails automatically on a critical failure result, regardless of modifiers. Church agents and others with cause to know the language will respond with more than social distancing. Younger Vartran are increasingly choosing to let it go.
Traits.
Natural Armor. Vartran scales provide a base AC of 7. Worn armor replaces this if it produces a better result.
Magic Resistance. Bonus to saving throws against wands, staves, rods, and spells, derived from Constitution. See Table 2.4.
Breath Weapon. At character creation, the player chooses a damage type: fire, cold, acid, lightning, or poison. Once per day — plus once per five full levels attained — the Vartran may exhale a 3 m cone of that energy. Creatures in the area take 2d6 damage of the chosen type. A successful saving throw versus breath weapon halves the damage. The damage increases to 3d6 at level 7 and 4d6 at level 13. The damage type chosen at creation cannot be changed.
Infravision. 18 m.
Ability Score Adjustments. +1 Strength, +1 Constitution, −1 Dexterity.
Movement. 12.
Table 2.4: Vartran Magic Resistance
| CON Score | Bonus to Saves vs. Spells, Wands, Staves & Rods |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | +0 |
| 4–6 | +1 |
| 7–9 | +2 |
| 10–12 | +3 |
| 13–15 | +4 |
| 16–18 | +5 |
Tables
Table 2.1: Height and Weight
| Ancestry | Base Height | Modifier | Base Weight (M/F) | Modifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Human | 152 cm | +5d10 cm | 63 / 45 kg | +3d10 kg |
| Húldar | 140 cm | +3d8 cm | 41 / 32 kg | +2d6 kg |
| Aelár | 147 cm | +3d10 cm | 50 / 38 kg | +2d8 kg |
| Duardeen | 109 cm | +3d8 cm | 59 / 47 kg | +2d10 kg |
| Duergar | 107 cm | +2d10 cm | 61 / 50 kg | +2d10 kg |
| Badaki | 165 cm | +5d10 cm | 90 / 81 kg | +3d10 kg |
| Ûrgon | 198 cm | +6d10 cm | 135 / 122 kg | +4d10 kg |
| Val'arian | 132 cm | +4d10 cm | 54 / 41 kg | +2d10 kg |
| Vartran | 157 cm | +4d10 cm | 79 / 68 kg | +2d10 kg |
Table 2.2: Age
| Ancestry | Starting Age | Variable | Max Age | Middle Age | Old Age | Venerable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Human | 15 | +1d4 | 90 + 2d20 | 45 | 60 | 90 |
| Húldar | 100 | +5d6 | 500 + 4d100 | 250 | 333 | 500 |
| Aelár | 20 | +2d6 | 200 + 3d20 | 100 | 133 | 200 |
| Duardeen | 40 | +5d6 | 250 + 2d100 | 125 | 167 | 250 |
| Duergar | 45 | +5d6 | 300 + 2d100 | 150 | 200 | 300 |
| Badaki | 7 | +1d4 | 30 + 1d10 | 15 | 22 | 30 |
| Ûrgon | 15 | +1d6 | 150 + 3d20 | 75 | 100 | 150 |
| Val'arian | 15 | +2d4 | 120 + 2d20 | 60 | 80 | 120 |
| Vartran | 15 | +2d6 | 150 + 2d20 | 75 | 100 | 150 |
Table 2.3: Ancestry Class Restrictions
| Class | Human | Húldar | Aelár | Duardeen | Duergar | Badaki | Ûrgon | Val'arian | Vartran |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bard | U | No | U | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Cleric | U | 12 | 14 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 12 | 9 | 10 |
| Champion | U | U | U | U | U | U | U | U | 12 |
| Druid | No | U | 9 | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Fighter | U | 12 | 14 | 15 | 15 | U | 12 | 14 | 12 |
| Mage | U | 15 | 12 | No | No | No | No | 12 | 15 |
| Paladin | U | No | No | No | No | U | U | No | No |
| Ranger | U | 15 | 16 | No | No | 12 | 12 | 14 | No |
| Thief | U | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 10 | No | 15 | 12 |
U — unrestricted advancement. No — unavailable to this ancestry. Numbers indicate the maximum attainable level.
Human Druid requires GM and full table approval. See The Druidic Compact above.