Ancestries and Cultures

Breon      House Rules      Ancestries and Cultures

For campaigns in Breon, the ancestries presented here along with Cultures will be used to start Character Creation. This is both a means to take our game out of the quagmire of racial essentialism and to give us unique story building tools at the very first step of Character Creation. Ancestries and their associated traits are all traits that a character is born with as a result of their biological lineage. These qualities cant not be changed except by the most drastic of means. Cultures and their associated traits are everything that a character picks up after birth such as education, training, societal influence, and many other factors. It is typically assumed that these traits are well ingrained in the characters psyche but they may be more malleable than the Ancestral traits

Ancestries and Cultures will both be presented in the following format: Description, Common Traits, Simple Traits, Intermediate Traits, Advanced Traits, and Trait Descriptions. The description section will give a brief overview of the Ancestry or Culture while the Common traits section will contain some core attributes shared by all members of the Ancestry or Culture such as ability score adjustments. The next three sections - simple, intermediate, and advanced traits - will each be composed of three “packets” of one or more traits. One packet will be selected from each of the three groups to complete an Ancestry or Culture selection. The last section is self explanatory; Trait Descriptions will detail the flavor and mechanics of all traits availalbe to that Ancestry or Culture.

It is important to note that this way allows for us to open up more dynamic half-breeds and colorful deviations like Tieflings and elementaly touched beings. These races were all previously assumed to come from humans which needs not be the case any more. The basics of the process will be to choose an Ancestry to be the Base Ancestry then apply your choice of cross-breed and/or template. Some crossbreeds and Subancestries will be invalid based on the base ancestry choice and biological compatibility. Additionally, you can apply a maximum one subancestry and can only crossbreed once.

Similarly, the Culture section allows for characters of a wider array of backgrounds. Human raised by Dwarves? A lizardfolk taken in by Kobolds? An Orc who wants nothing more than to be like his Halfling parents? All possible and mechanically backed up by the Culture system. Just like Ancestries, Cultures have Sub-Cultures which can be applied to change up a culture slightly but function exactly the same as Sub-Ancestries.

Sub-Ancestries and Sub-Cultures

This section will cover the applications of Sub-Ancestries and Sub-Cultures. These are like templates which are applied on any type of regular Ancestry or Culture which will be referred to as the Base in the following sections. In order to apply a Sub-Ancestry or Sub-Culture - Sub in short - follow these steps.

1. Check compatibility Sub-Ancestries have restrictions based on creature type and sub-type which dictate which Base Ancestries the Sub-Ancestry can modify. Sub-Cultures do not have any such restrictions.
   
2. Apply Common Trait Modifications The Base will receive modifications to its ability score modifiers, size, type, and base speed traits. Unless specifically stated, ability score modifications cannot raise the total Racial bonus to an ability score above +2. In addition, The Base will receive all Common Traits from the Sub.
   
3. Make Trait Selections Trait selection will be made from all those available from both the Base and Sub. As per normal, Select one trait packet from Simple, Intermediate, and Advanced Traits. However, at least one of your trait selections must be from the B and at least one must be from the Sub.
   In the event that a subancestry is being applied to a half-breed it is important to note that you will end up with one trait selection (simple, intermediate, advanced) from each of the three sources - the two base ancestries and the sub ancestry.

Half-breeds

Halfbreeds take elements of the biology of both parents to create something slightly new. This is resricted by biological compatibility; a reptilian humanoid can not breed with the more mamallian humanoids for example. Beyond that, mixing and matching is easy. You'll select two compatible ancestries, determine which one is dominant, then apply traits from the non-dominant ancestry as though it were a sub-ancestry.
To determine compatibility, select an ancestry and navigate to its Cross Breeding section for a list of compatible ancestries. The table contains three columns explained here:

1. Full compatibility - no restriction, either ancestry may be selected as dominant.
2. This Species dominant - the specicies listed may not be dominant in this pairing.
3. Other Species dominant - the species listed must be dominant in this pairing.

With two compatible ancestries selected, the non-dominant ancestry is applied like a Sub-Ancestry to the dominant one with the following exceptions:

1. Common Traits: Only the Common Traits of the Dominant Ancestry are applied.
2. Trait Stacking: In the event that a half-breed can take two similar traits, they may stack with reduced benefit or not at all at DM discretion.

Ancestries

Catfolk

Dwarf

Elf

Gnome

Goblin

Hobgoblin

Halfling

Human

Kobold

Kitsune

Kulkodar

Lizardfolk

Merfolk

Orc

Ratfolk

Tortle

Trellind

Undine

Subancestries

Aasimar

Dragonborn

Ifrit

Oread

Sylph

Tiefling

Suli

Cultures

Astralvyn

Deep Elf

DeShattue

Traditional Dwarvish

Post-Breaking Dwarvish

Gnomish

Goblin Culture

Hobgoblin Culture

Halfling Culture

Kobold Culture

Korvosan

Kulkodar

Lizardfolk Culture

Nomadic

Mer'Undine

Metropolitan

Monastic

Orcish Culture

Ratfolk Culture

Rural

Sylvans

Tribal

Urban

Utasu

Vistanni

Sub-Cultures

Outsider

High Status