Chapter 3: Character Origins

You’ve spent your life in the pursuit of knowledge in its purest forms. You have advantage on rolls that involve history, culture, or politics of a prominent person or place.

You’ve lived your life in service to a temple or other religious organization. You have advantage on rolls to decipher religious texts, perform or understand religious ceremonies, or proselytize.

You are a skilled artisan specializing in a particular kind of crafting—leatherwork, woodworking, smithing, weaving, or jewelry making. Reduce crafting countdown for your speciality by 1 and the amount of basic materials needed to do so by ¼, and you roll with advantage to negotiate prices on crafting material.

You’re obsessed with cultures other than your own and have studied them extensively. You roll with advantage when trying to understand mores and folkways of a group and adapt your behavior to local customs.

You’ve lived life in the underworld, learning an array of useful, if unscrupulous, skills. You have advantage on rolls to negotiate with criminals, detect lies, or find a safe place to hide.

You’ve spent your life trekking through and mapping unknown terrain. You roll with advantage when navigating harsh environments, using your survival skills, and mapping new or unknown locations.

You’re two small creatures in a trench coat! You appear as a medium creature, and are considered one mechanically, but in reality you’re just a couple of small creatures standing on top of each other, acting as one. You can only take this feat if your ancestry’s size is small and their typical height is between 2-3 feet tall. Your total height as a medium creature must be between 4-6 feet tall.

While you are two physical creatures, you’re treated as one for the purposes of game statistics and mechanics, unless otherwise noted. You can’t equip armor for a medium creature; each of your creatures needs to equip armor separately, and you must wear a trench coat, long robe, or other long covering that obscure your true nature and maintain the illusion you’re a single medium sized creature. But you’re still two creatures! Adopt a quirk around how your two creatures interact with each other; maybe you’re always whispering to yourself in two slightly different voices, maybe you’re lightly kicking and punching each other to get the other to do what they want. Whatever the quirk is, it should be noticeable, but subtle. Gain the in a trenchcoat talent. If a creature attempts to discover your true nature while you’re trying to hide it, they must make a focus saving throw DC is 10 plus your in a trenchcoat modifier; on a weak hit they notice something weird and gain +2 ongoing to discerning your true nature, on a strong hit they notice you are, in fact, just 2 small creatures in a trench coat.

On your turn, you can spend 1 AP to separate; if you do each creature gets ½ of your current HP, and any statuses or conditions applied (this does not change their duration) and can only be healed up to a maximum of ½ of your maximum HP. They share the same fatigue and exhaustion tracks. When split, each creature only has the equipment they were carrying. They share any remaining AP this round, and on subsequent rounds go on the same initiative and share total AP.

If one hits 0 HP but doesn’t outright die, the other can’t take any actions other than moving to their partner and getting them back together as a single creature, which takes 1 AP and immediately ends your turn. When you come back together, your HP equals the HP of each creature combined, and conditions or statuses that either creature has you now have. During this time, the partner at 0 HP makes death saving throws as normal, and if it dies, your maximum HP is cut in half and you lose all bonuses and abilities from this lineage until your partner is resurrected. If your partner is unconscious, you cannot split again until you’ve finished a short or long rest.

You’re accustomed to a life of elegance, opulence, and privilege within the upper echelons of society. You have advantage on rolls to consort with nobles, negotiate prices on equipment and lodging, or leverage your reputation to get what you want.

You’ve been blessed with a natural gift and have worked to hone it. Gain an extra talent.

You’ve lived a life of military discipline, and are ready to defend those around you. You gain proficiency in a weapon of your choice, or mastery of it if you’re already proficient with it, and roll with advantage when convincing law enforcement of your take of events.

Because you’ve spent your life wandering from place to place, never settling down, you’ve picked up a knack always having the right item on you. Add a Wanderer’s Pack to your inventory—when you use Retrieve Item from the pack, you can pull out a mundane item that’s useful for your current situation. Work with your GM to figure out what item you have taken out. Once you use this, you can’t use it again until you’ve made your daily preperations.