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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide

Chapter 2: Ancestries & Backgrounds

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
Your character's ancestry determines which people they call their own, whether it's diverse and ambitious humans, insular but vivacious elves, traditionalist and family-focused dwarves, or any of the other folk who call Golarion home. A character's ancestry and their experiences prior to their life as an adventurer—represented by a background—might be key parts of their identity, shape how they see the world, and help them find their place in it.

A character has one ancestry and one background, both of which you select during character creation. You'll also select a number of languages for your character. Once chosen, your ancestry and background can't be changed.

This chapter is divided into four parts:
  • Ancestries express the culture your character hails from. Within ancestries are heritages—subgroups that have unique characteristics. An ancestry provides attribute boosts (and perhaps attribute flaws), Hit Points,ancestry feats, and sometimes additional abilities.
  • Versatile heritages, starting on page 74, are heritage options available to all ancestries for extra customization, such as a character who has a mixed ancestry or one with a more unique or unusual origin.
  • Backgrounds, starting on page 84, describe training or environments your character experienced before becoming an adventurer. Your character's background provides attribute boosts, skill training, and a skill feat.
  • Languages, starting on page 89, let your character communicate with the wonderful and weird people and creatures of the world.

Ancestry Entries

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
Each entry includes details about the ancestry and presents the rules elements described below

Hit Points

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
This tells you how many Hit Points your character gains from their ancestry at 1st level. You’ll add the Hit Points from your character’s class (including their Constitution modifier) to this number. For more on calculating Hit Points, see Step 7: Record Class Details, on page 24.

Size

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
This tells you the physical size of members of the ancestry. Medium corresponds roughly to the height and weight range of a human adult, and Small is roughly half that.

Speed

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
This entry lists how far a member of the ancestry can move each time they spend an action (such as Stride) to do so.

Attribute Boosts & Flaws

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
When creating a character of this ancestry, you apply attribute boosts to increases some attribute modifiers, and possibly attribute flaws to decrease others (depending on the ancestry). For more about attribute boosts and flaws, see page 19.

Alternate Ancestry Boosts: Because of the wide variety of people within any ancestry, you can always choose to take two free boosts to represent your character, even if the ancestry normally has three boosts and a flaw.

Languages

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
This tells you the languages that members of the ancestry speak at 1st level. If your Intelligence modifier is +1 or higher, you can select more languages from a list given here. More about languages can be found on page 89.

Traits

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
These descriptors have no mechanical benefit, but they’re important for determining how certain spells, effects, and other aspects of the game interact with your character.

Special Abilities

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
Any other entries in the sidebar represent abilities, senses, and other qualities all members of the ancestry manifest. These are omitted for ancestries with no special rules.

Heritages

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
You select a heritage at 1st level to reflect abilities passed down to you from your ancestors or common among those of your ancestry in the environment where you were born or grew up. You have only one heritage and can’t change it later. A heritage is not the same as a culture or ethnicity, though some cultures or ethnicities might have more or fewer members from a particular heritage.

Ancestry Feats

Source Player Core pg. 41 2.0
This section presents ancestry feats, which allow you to customize your character. You gain your first ancestry feat at 1st level, and you gain another at 5th level, 9th level, 13th level, and 17th level, as indicated in the class advancement table in the descriptions of each class.

Ancestry feats are organized by level. As a starting character, you can choose from only 1st-level ancestry feats, but later choices can be made from any feat of your level or lower. These feats also sometimes list prerequisites—requirements that your character must fulfill to select that feat.

Versatile Heritages

Source Player Core pg. 74 2.0
The peoples of Golarion are many, and they have a long history of intermingling or dabbling with forces capable of altering the very fabric of a mortal body or soul. The children born to such parents might have traits from each of their parents or physiological manifestations of the forces their ancestors were influenced by, manifesting as a specific heritage.

The most common of these by far are the aiuvarin and dromaar versatile heritages, usually born to a human parent on one side and either an elf or orc parent on the other. Other individuals are born under far stranger circumstances, such as having a parent who was affected by monstrous, undead, or extraplanar energies. As these circumstances aren't unique to a single ancestry, these heritages—called versatile heritages—are likewise shared by many ancestries.

Golarion is home to a variety of versatile heritages. Some are born to unusual creatures or arise through specific mundane or supernatural circumstances. Many, however, result from an infusion of extraplanar energy, whether through direct parentage, more distant ancestors, or simply direct exposure to the quintessence of that plane. These individuals are known as planar scions.

Because the circumstances that give rise to versatile heritages aren't limited to a single ancestry, a versatile heritage can be chosen by a character of nearly any ancestry. Some versatile heritages are more common among some ancestries than others, and some might list additional restrictions specific to that heritage. Your GM may place other restrictions on which ancestries can use a given versatile heritage based on the story and setting.

Unlimited Possibilities!

Source Player Core pg. 74 2.0
Though a character can have only one heritage and one lineage feat, the possible permutations of a character’s background and family tree are virtually unlimited. An aiuvarin character might still have a changeling parent whose nature is visible in the coloration of their eyes even if they don’t have access to changeling ancestry feats, and a pitborn dwarf might very well have an ancestor with fey influences on their bloodline, reflected with a fey muse or patron gained through their class alongside their ancestral fiendishness.

Playing a Versatile Heritage

Source Player Core pg. 74 2.0
To play a character with a versatile heritage, first select your ancestry, just like you would for any character. You gain Hit Points, size, Speed, attribute boosts and attribute flaws, languages, traits, and other abilities from that ancestry. Then, instead of choosing a heritage from those normally available to that ancestry, apply your chosen versatile heritage. You gain all the features from your versatile heritage, some of which might modify or replace statistics, abilities, or traits from your ancestry.

Since a versatile heritage is a heritage, you can have only one, and you can't have any other heritage in addition to your versatile heritage.

Sometimes a versatile heritage might give you an ability that conflicts with an ability from your ancestry. In these cases, you choose which of the conflicting abilities your character has.

When selecting ancestry feats, you can choose from those available to your ancestry as well as those specific to your versatile heritage.

Lineage Feats

Source Player Core pg. 75 2.0
Some ancestry feats within a versatile heritage have the lineage trait. These feats specify a physiological lineage your character has—such as the type of hag that birthed a changeling character, or the type of extraplanar entity that influenced a nephilim’s birth. You can have only one lineage feat; you can select such a feat only at 1st level, and you can’t retrain into or out of this feat.

In This Book

Source Player Core pg. 75 2.0
This book includes the rules for three kinds of versatile heritages

Changeling

Source Player Core pg. 75 2.0
Children of the malevolent, magical creatures known as hags, changelings share some of their mothers' abilities, such as sharp claws and occult magic. Many changelings experience or dread the psychic summons of their hag mothers, known as the Call, urging them to seek out their mothers so they might be transformed into hags themselves.

Changeling lineages affect the appearance of one of the changeling's eyes, and are as follows: brine may for the child of a sea hag, callow may for a sweet hag, dream may for a cuckoo hag, and slag may for an iron hag.

Planar Scions: Nephilim

Source Player Core pg. 75 2.0
Life is present everywhere across the planes of the Multiverse, and the intermingling of mortals from the Universe with extraplanar energy is no rare thing. Whether their origins are from a direct physical relationship between a mortal and an extraplanar being or from some other infusion of extraplanar energy, mortals who carry the power of another plane are known as planar scions. There are numerous types of planar scions, just as there are countless types of beings across the planes whose power might be shared with a mortal. This book focuses on nephilim, planar scions from planes strongly associated with concepts of good, evil, order, or dissolution, and presents lineages associated with fiendish and celestial beings.

Nephilim are planar scions—mortals influenced by planes beyond the Universe—whose bodies or spirits have been influenced by energies from an outer plane, often one strongly associated with mortal religions or philosophies, like Elysium or the Outer Rifts. Some nephilim are even born with seemingly contradictory influences, displaying traits of both celestials and fiends.

The angelkin, lawbringers, and musetouched lineages each represent different aspects of the celestial planes, while the grimspawn, hellspawn, and pitborn lineages represent beings with fiendish bloodlines or influences.

Mixed Ancestry Heritages

Source Player Core pg. 75 2.0
Golarion has numerous metropolises where people from a wide variety of ancestries 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 world is full of people whose bloodline can be traced to at least two different ancestries. The most common examples of this are aiuvarins and dromaars, who have elf and orc ancestors respectively. While all known dromaars and aiuvarins in the Inner Sea share human as the other part of their origin, it's possible that other combinations could exist.

This section also describes how to create a custom mixed ancestry heritage when creating your own world.

Mixed Ancestry

Source Player Core pg. 82 2.0
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, though most people in the Inner Sea region are familiar with only aiuvarins and dromaars, as those are the most common people of mixed ancestry they encounter.

Custom Mixed Heritage: You can work with your GM to create a mixed heritage for an ancestry other than elf or orc. 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 aiuvarin heritage below grants the “elf” and “aiuvarin” 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. The aiuvarin and dromaar heritages both have special feats, but a custom heritage will need you to work with your GM to create or adapt some.

Backgrounds

Source Player Core pg. 84 2.0
Backgrounds allow you to customize your character based on their life before adventuring. This is the next step in their life story after their ancestry, which reflects the circumstances of their birth. Your character's background can help you learn or portray more about their personality while also suggesting what sorts of things they're likely to know. Consider what events set your character on their path to the life of an adventurer and how those circumstances relate to their background.

At 1st level, when you create your character, you gain a background of your choice. This decision is permanent; you can't change it at later levels. Each background listed here grants two boosts, a skill feat, and the trained proficiency rank in two skills, one of which is a Lore skill. If you gain the trained proficiency rank in a skill from your background and would then gain the trained proficiency rank in the same skill from your class at 1st level, you instead become trained in another skill of your choice.

Lore skills represent deep knowledge of a specific subject and are described on page 240. If a Lore skill involves a choice (for instance, a choice of terrain), explain your preference to the GM, who has the final say on whether it's acceptable or not. If you'd like some suggestions, the Common Lore Subcategories sidebar on page 240 lists a number of Lore skills that are suitable for most campaigns.

Skill feats expand the functions of your skills andappear in Chapter 5: Feats.

Languages

Source Player Core pg. 89 2.0
The people of the Inner Sea region speak dozens of different languages, along with hundreds of dialects and regional variations. While a character can generally get by with Taldane, also known as Common, knowing another language is vital in some regions. Being able to speak these tongues can help you with negotiation, spying on enemies, or just conducting simple commerce. Languages also afford you the chance to contextualize your character in the world and give meaning to your other character choices.

Your ancestry entry states which languages you know at 1st level. Typically, this means you can both speak and read these languages. Having a positive Intelligence modifier grants a number of additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier. You can choose these languages from the list presented in your character's ancestry entry and from those available from your region or ethnicity. Ask your GM if there's a language you want to select that isn't on these lists.

The languages presented here are grouped according to how common they are throughout the Inner Sea region. Languages that are common are regularly encountered around the Inner Sea, even among those who aren't native speakers. Languages that are uncommon (see the Uncommon Languages table and Regional Languages) are most frequently spoken by native speakers, but they are also spoken by certain scholars and others interested in the associated cultures.

Many uncommon languages are spoken by natives of other planes who rarely appear near the Inner Sea unless summoned. Mortals learning these languages might spend a lifetime without meeting a native speaker.

It is possible for your character to learn languages later in their adventuring career. Selecting the Multilingual feat, for example, grants a character two new languages chosen from those listed below. If your Intelligence changes later on, you also adjust your number of languages accordingly. Other abilities and effects might grant access to common or uncommon languages, as detailed in their descriptions. Rare or secret languages can only be discovered through play.

Common Languages

LanguageSpeakers
CommonHumans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and other common ancestries
DraconicDragons, reptilian humanoids
DwarvenDwarves
ElvenElves, half-elves
FeyFey, centaurs, plant and fungus creatures
GnomishGnomes
GoblinGoblins, hobgoblins, bugbears
HalflingHalflings
JotunGiants, ogres, trolls, ettins, cyclopes
OrcishOrcs, half-orcs
SakvrothSubterranean civilizations, serpentfolk

Uncommon Languages

LanguageSpeakers
AkloEvil fey, otherworldly monsters
ChthonianDemons
DiabolicDevils
EmpyreanAngels and other celestials
KholoThe hyena-like kholos
NecrilGhouls, intelligent undead
PetranEarth elemental creatures
PyricFire elemental creatures
ShadowtongueNidalese, Netherworld creatures
SussuranAir elemental creatures, flying creatures
ThalassicAquatic creatures, water elemental creatures

Regional Languages

Source Player Core pg. 89 2.0
Regional languages depend on the game world you're playing in. Chapter 1: Introduction lists the regional languages of the Pathfinder world and where they're spoken (page 34).

Regional languages are uncommon, but characters from that region have access to choose them at character creation. For characters with less exposure to the region or language, check with your GM to make sure speaking that language makes sense for your character.

Most characters learn the Common language. This is the most widely used language in the region where the campaign takes place. In the Inner Sea region of Golarion, the Common tongue is Taldane, for example. Characters with Common might face a language barrier if they travel somewhere with a different Common language.

Sign Language

Source Player Core pg. 89 2.0
The language entry for most characters lists languages they use to communicate in spoken words. However, you might know the signed languages associated with the languages you know, or how to read lips. You can learn these by taking the Sign Language or Read Lips skill feats, or both. If you are creating a character who is deaf, hard of hearing, or unable to speak, discuss with your GM whether it makes sense for your character to know sign languages or lip reading. If so, your GM might allow you to select one of these feats for free (even if you don’t meet the prerequisites) to represent your character concept.