While a culture typically originated from groups of people who are of the same sub-species, that doesn’t mean you were born in that culture. There are many people born into (or moved to) a new land and had to adapt to a culture other than their sub-species stereotype. A Raf’Shat orc, whose sub-species has a strong history of living in on the plains (Rafiate Empire could have grown up in the Grimslarian Empire (predominantly human culture). They could have lived in a big city their whole life and never saw the Rafiate plains.
You must select only one culture per character. You gain the cultural aspects of that culture. These aspects are what your character has learned while living within the culture and partaking in the cultural lifestyle.
Just because you are aware of the different religions, traditions, laws, etc. doesn’t mean you follow them. Your character might disagree with some of the cultural aspects they grew up with. Regardless of how connected you are to the ways of your culture, you still keep the knowledge of the cultural aspects.
Sub-species Recommendation
While your sub-species has a listed culture, you choose what culture your character grew up in. The listed culture is only a recommendation that fits with the origins of the sub-species. The culture you select can help develop your backstory as it gives you context about your upbringing.
Cultural Masteries
Each culture provides you with two free masteries. One can be any starting mastery of your choice, but the other must relate to your culture. The disciplines of each culture list recommended (not required) masteries to give examples of what people in your culture would be skilled at.
A starting mastery has a (CC) after the price in the same way as mutations. When selecting your starting masteries, you ignore the price and requirements.
A mastery is a special ability or aspect that required special training for you to have mastered it. After character creation, it is required to meet certain requirements besides paying the listed price. Also, ranking up a starting mastery after character creation requires that both the requirements and price have to be met and paid. You can find masteries in the mastery chapter.
Cultural Disciplines
Each culture grants unique abilities that are listed under the “disciplines” section of each culture. The abilities provided by each culture are unique and you cannot gain most of them anywhere else.
Languages
Your culture determines what your native fluent language is and possibly a second language. You need a mental statistic of three or higher to gain a secondary language. You can find languages in the disciplines section of the culture.
Step Summary
Refer to Chapter 4: Cultures & EmpiresCultural Mastery
You can only select masteries with (CC) after the price and you ignore the requirements.
Gain 2 starting masteries:
- The first starting mastery is your choice.
- The second starting mastery must connect to the culture.
Cultural Disciplines
Besides the masteries, skills, and languages provided to you by your culture, you also gain special abilities unique to your culture known as disciplines.
Language
As part of your upbringing, you fluently learned the native language of your culture and a secondary one if your mental is three or higher.
- Automatically gain the native language of your culture.
- Mental ≥ 3 = gain one secondary language from your culture.
Character Sheet Reference
