Heritage

When you make a character you have to pick exactly one heritage. The majority of the population are human but all the other heritages are well enough represented to be considered normal by most people.

Chosen

Chosen are created through a series of expensive alchemical treatments starting at birth and lasting throughout childhood which corrects physical defects and sharpens mental skills.

All Chosen have the following traits:

  • Resilient: Immune to the majority of kemics, drugs and toxins unless they are tailored specifically to the character. Alcohol is included in this category.
  • Intuitive: +2 on any checks that don't use a trained skill.

All chosen can buy any of the following customisations at character creation only:

  • Fast healer: Heal a wound per day.
  • Attractive: +1 on checks where that would be useful. Harder to remain unnoticed in groups or crowds.
  • Strategist: used to organising people and taking a high level view of information, +1 to checks organising groups of people or activities or when investigating information, patterns, etc. +1 on checks for activities that take a long time.
  • Pacifist: Can't make checks to perform actions that will do physical harm to another. Most people will consider the character to be harmless, and are unlikely to attack unless provoked. Can distract or disable without doing permanent harm, but that will count as provocation.
  • Specialist: replace intuitive with a +2 bonus on a trained core skill.
  • Perfect Recall: can remember exactly everything seen or heard, +1 to imitation checks when imitating something seen or heard.

Seekers

Seekers are small, light and fast and often have irregularly coloured or patterned skin. On average a seeker is about three quarters the size of a normal human. They’re one of the oldest heritages and it’s widely considered that the formula for making more seekers is long lost. Seekers have a strong sense of kin and large, complex family structures. Because of that and the fact that all their kemic adjustments make them ideally suited for getting into places they shouldn’t they are sometimes the target of local prejudices. Seekers in different locations organise themselves in different ways, such as family, or clan, or tribe or house - most seekers consider they way their immediate relatives do it to be the right way and think every other group of seekers has it wrong.

Seekers also have a natural affinity for consuming kemics, because of their smaller size and other aspects of their heritage potions are more effective for them

All Seekers have the following traits:

  • Sneaky seeker: Seekers are small and can make their hair and skin colour drab and neutral at will or when stressed. This grants a +2 bonus on checks to conceal themselves.
  • Lightweight: +1 on climbing and jumping.

All Seekers can buy the following advanced customisations, either at character generation or during play.

  • Sharp Claws and teeth - always considered armed.
  • Kem store. Can drink a potion and not get the effects until later on. Can store only one potion but for any length of time.
  • Kemic memory: after drinking three doses of a potion can have its effects once a day. Only one effect can be remembered at a time.
  • Malleable body: +1 on body checks if trained, don't need a focus to use basic spells
  • Changeling: requires malleable body and level 4. Takes time and requires eating a lot, but can imitate another heritage / change size up to a brute, don't get the physical benefits. If not changing size can change appearance very fast.

Human

Humans represent the overwhelming majority of the population. Humans get three extra points to spend at character generation.

Brute

Brutes are big, tough and strong. Designed as the ideal front line troop they require only a small number of relatively inexpensive kemic treatments to be applied in the last years before adulthood. These treatments allow them to continue growing until they’re up to seven feet tall as well as partially deadening their pain reflexes, making them much harder to take down in a fight than an unagumented human. The majority of brutes are infertile, but there’s no shortage of them as it’s standard for anyone with the budget to run an armed force of any size to offer the treatment to promising candidates in return for several years of service. There’s a perception that all brutes are stupid but this is mainly selection bias as most people who opt into this kind of bargain do so because they lack better prospects.

All brutes have the following traits:

  • Brutishly tough: They ignore the first wound inflicted on them each combat
  • Brutish strength: +1 bonus on checks involving melee weapons, shields, breaking or lifting.

Guardian

Guardians are kemically bred to act as elite troops, special forces and bodyguards. They share the range of normal human body types, although they tend to be fitter and healthier. Guardians are valued for their quick reaction times and dedication. All Guardians have the following traits:

  • Danger Sense: +2 bonus on awareness checks
  • Selfless Reflexes: +1 reaction and may react to defend an adjacent ally with a melee combat skill.

Infused

Infused are fewer in number than the other heritages. They look like normal humans apart from their eyes, which are always somehow strange. All Infused have the following traits:

  • Intuitive Magic: +1 bonus on all checks with magic skills
  • Weird: Long running social stigma imparts a -1 penalty to social checks to persuade or befriend, but grants a +1 bonus to scare or intimidate except when the heritage is deliberately obscured or concealed.