Lineages, Cultures, and Backgrounds

Every adventurer has a few parts that pre-exist their adventuring life. Who they are, what they did before they became adventurers, and what kind of creature they are. Effectively, this breaks down into the biological, the socio-cultural, and the individual backgrounds. We call those, respectively, Lineage, Culture, and Background.

Your character’s lineage describes their biological heritage. Are they one of the tall, long-lived gwerin? Or a human? Or a draconic-souled dragonborn? Or one of many other lineages. Each lineage grants a few features, including giving a +1 to one ability score. It also describes the common heights, weights, appearance, etc. of members of that lineage.

A character’s culture describes where in the world they come from and what kind of culture they grew up with. Some cultures are more generic and others more narrow; pick what fits your character best after consultation with the GM. Each culture gives a set of features, including a +1 to one ability score. You can’t pick the same ability score for this +1 as you did from your lineage. If they would overlap, pick a different one of your choice. After including both changes, no ability score can be greater than +5.

Your background is more personal. Each character has a background, reflecting what they did growing up and/or before becoming an adventurer, as well as giving the character a motivation for adventuring and a connection to NPCs or areas. This document describes some common backgrounds, but you’re more than welcome to create your own in coordination with your GM, as described in that section.

Lineages of Quartus

Lineages are the biological part of a character. Every lineage specifies

• Size (both category and suggested height/weight bands)
• Age (both age of physical maturity and usual max age)
• Base speed (walking + any others as appropriate)
• Ability Score Increase (+1 to one ability score)
• Status. One of “core”, “regional”, and “rare. Core lineages are found everywhere and raise no especial eyebrows. Regional lineages are common/normal in region X, but will raise eyebrows elsewhere. Rare lineages raise eyebrows everywhere. This element has fewer direct gameplay effects, but has significant narrative effects. NPCs may or may not change how they treat you based on how common your lineage is in that region.
• Some combination of features. One minor feature only counts as half of a major feature; each lineage has the equivalent of 2 major features. Features marked with (+) are for use with the Touched template, which replaces one lineage feature from a base lineage with one caused by exposure to extra-planar forces.