Lineages for Player Characters

In Drintera, we use the term lineage to denote a character's hereditary traits—height and weight, skin tone, ear shape (pointed or rounded), and hereditary magical abilities, if any. We draw a distinction between lineage and Ethnicities & Cultures. Older game systems (from before about 2010) usually conflated lineage and culture into a category called "race." More modern game systems may use terms synonymous with lineage, such as "species" or "ancestry."

There are many lineages of people in Drintera—however many the gods chose to create, or that were created by mythic events.

A character can have more than one lineage, with physical traits and abilities that combine those of their ancestors' lineages.

Most, but not all, lineages of people are suitable for use as player characters. Some lineages have powers, such as flight, that would profoundly change the gameplay experience. (Chasms and cliffs cease to be obstacles for a character who can fly.) We don't think it's a good idea for a game master to allow those as player characters.

That said, there are no "evil races" in Drintera. If a group of orcs has a feud with a group of dwarves, it's because of the history between those two populations, not because one population is good and the other, evil. Orcs, goblins, and similar fantasy lineages are playable as characters in Drintera.

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