On this page
- Cultural Builds
- Begin with a person in a place
- Put the choices on a sheet
- Three Sentinels, three ideas of safety
- Choose a life on the road
- Stone and breath
- Hearth, shadow and sums
- Root, mind and the three oaths
- The steppe and its neighbours
- The roads few maps admit
- Salt, fire and the remade
- The Wild made visible
- Make the practice your own
Fate’s Edge · character workshop
Cultural Builds
Thirty-five ways to belong, protect, bargain and survive.
A people’s way of life changes what competence looks like. A small spear-bearer guards a retreat through a hedge-gap. An exile brings grain home by acquiring the right claim. An elven ward-maker asks whether a sanctuary’s definition will still be just when its founders are gone.
Begin with a person in a place
These are proposed character builds drawn from the published peoples, cultures and stories. Their titles name playable concepts; they do not establish thirty-five new orders or compulsory professions. A person can inherit a body, grow up in another culture, reject a local expectation or learn a neighbour’s practice. Record which parts describe your character.
“Subrace” is not an exact description of every group here. Some are lineages, some accepted transformations, some communities or consequences of history. The Brasswrought are repaired people; the Unledgered are Aeler stripped of standing. Neither is a separate species. Beastfolk and Dragonfolk examples draw on the appearances and traditions described in their source, not on invented biological bonuses.
What each build provides: a method, the bodily and cultural reasons behind it, a legal basic starting allocation, an example of play, options to investigate and an unresolved personal pressure. A story supplies a way to think, not an extra power. The stories are linked rather than reprinted.
Put the choices on a sheet
- Use one creation procedure. These starting seeds use the SRD’s 1, 2, 2, 3 attribute array and six skill points, with no starting skill above 2. If your campaign uses another budget, rebuild the priorities under that procedure. No seed grants extra XP.
- Choose the actual heritage package. Read the Player’s Guide heritage rules and the linked culture’s applicable extensions. Keep the Affinity, Limit, gift choices and obligations together. Do not stack a broad ancestry package with every alternative branch. Affinity and Limit adjust Position under their rules; they do not change these purchased dice pools.
- Buy the signature if it needs a rule. Options named below are candidates, not awards. Check cost, access, prerequisites, tier, timing and limits in the talent reference or linked cultural source. If a package says choose two gifts, the suggestions use that allowance rather than expanding it. Magical work needs the chosen path’s access and full procedure.
- Equip and connect the person. Obtain the proposed kit through the campaign’s equipment rules. Name a teacher, a person who relies on you and an obligation you might refuse. A named contact is not a free follower, asset or String.
- Play the method. State intent and approach, establish Position and DV, roll when uncertain, count successes and Story Beats, and resolve the outcome and consequences. Position, DV, Effect and dice are distinct; an evocative title creates none of them by itself.
For a wider conversion worksheet, see Character Creation. A seed is ready to allocate, not a fully purchased sheet: equipment, talents, heritage selections and Bonds still need the campaign’s choices.
Three Sentinels, three ideas of safety
Each Sentinel protects a community. What they watch, what they trust and what they call a successful defence differ.
| Tradition | The approach | The dangerous question |
|---|---|---|
| Lethai-al · Where the Boughs Close | Forest reconnaissance, ambush, pursuit and extraction. The body reads the terrain; relationships make its routes usable. | Will destroying the intruders also destroy the place you protect? |
| Lethai-ar · The Tithe Comes Due | Agents, influence and information. This Web-Sworn example protects by changing who can be recruited and who owes whom. | When does your protective network become a means of owning the people inside it? |
| Lethai-thora · Axiom of Sanctuary | Abjuration as reasoned civic work: define a boundary, test its exceptions and leave a protection others can maintain. | If the ward excludes someone it ought to shelter, will you revise your proof? |
The three Lethai-ar oaths remain distinct. The Web-Sworn agent is the developed example here; Coil-Sworn and Shade-Sworn builds below offer other approaches with their own costs. No Sentinel receives all three packages.
Stone and breath
Aeler
Edgewalker
Get the signature nobody wants to give you.
An Aeler rogue can be unwelcome at the hold’s table and indispensable to its winter stores. Stone and Craft are comfortable ground; a room asking to be charmed is not. The Edgewalker learns who controls the bridge, whose credit keeps it open, and which concession each can afford. Exile makes surface opportunity a means of contributing without being readmitted.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Sway 2 · Insight 2 · Deception 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: Silk Palms is a candidate purchased talent for dealings with minor officials. Keep Presence useful: being disliked does not prevent command. The complete starting build is in the Player’s Guide.
At the table. When a governor detains grain, establish a real claim on something the governor needs. Bring the release papers and a settlement they can sign. Sway still resolves an uncertain demand; preparation changes what you can credibly ask for, not whether the other person has a will.
The unfinished obligation. Your home wants the cargo and may disown the bargain. Name one opportunity you will refuse to bring back.
Read the culture: Aeler. Full Edgewalker build and equipment guidance.
Aeler
Keeper of the Last Air
Keep a refuge habitable while everyone else gets out.
Aeler galleries live by vents, bracing and counted breath. A broad body can carry a prop; knowledge of the load determines where it belongs. This keeper protects a company by maintaining the space around it. Orra’s tale of the whispering vent supplies the attitude: recognising the point of retreat is a professional accomplishment.
Starting attributes: Body 3 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Craft 2 · Endurance 2 · Insight 1 · Melee 1
Options and development: Consider Stone-Sense or Breath-Counter from the cultural catalogue. Spirit Shield is a later choice requiring Spirit 3+, not a benefit of being sturdy. Buy the option and use its actual Defend trigger.
At the table. In a smoke-filled gallery, brace the door, identify the sound vent and organise the withdrawal. Hold a narrow approach only while it serves the evacuation. Your shield cannot make poisoned air safe, and a sealed door can become a death sentence.
The unfinished obligation. You promised to count everyone out. A voice behind the sealed door gives the correct number, but the wrong name.
Read the culture: Aeler. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Unledgered Aeler
The House That Still Stands
Make survival possible where lawful help has been withheld.
The Unledgered retain Aeler skill and patience after their houses are struck from the rolls. Their bridges hold without a charter. Their formal standing does not. This build repairs the shelter, watercourse or escape route an authority has decided should not exist, and carries the evidence of who depends on it.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Craft 2 · Insight 2 · Lore 1 · Sway 1
Options and development: Use the Unledgered package’s terms for Unchartered Work and disputed records when that package is in play. Advance Craft first, then the means to document and defend your work.
At the table. Inspect a condemned stair, identify the repair, obtain material and do the work. When the eviction party arrives, use the actual repair record and the residents’ testimony. Sound construction buys time; it does not manufacture legal recognition.
The unfinished obligation. A forged permit would save the house. Your people were destroyed by a record, and you have vowed not to forge one.
Read the culture: Unledgered Aeler.
Hearth, shadow and sums
Aelaerem
Last at the Latch
Keep pursuers off your companions by controlling the approach.
A small body, a long haft and a hedge-gap make a particular kind of protector. The Aelaerem cannot wear Heavy Armor under the Small Folk rules; heavy weapons are also a poor answer. Choose a spear or other permitted Hafted weapon, light protection and ground where an enemy cannot simply surround you. You guard the retreat by remaining difficult to reach.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Melee 2 · Stealth 2 · Athletics 1 · Insight 1
Options and development: Apply the published Hafted benefit and Hearth’s Luck within their timing and Boon limits. Train Melee and Athletics. The plan needs an exit and an ally who tells you when the last person is through.
At the table. Fight across a stile, doorway or narrow path. Threaten the approach, change footing, and fall back to the next obstruction as companions pass. Defend when the fiction supports it. Reach creates useful positioning; it grants no unprinted reaction attack or compulsory target.
The unfinished obligation. Your own Hearth-Law forbids abandoning a guest. The slowest person is the one who brought the pursuers.
Read the culture: Aelaerem. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Aelaerem
The Chair Kept Empty
Give the injured somewhere safe to recover, and make others respect it.
Aelaerem hospitality makes a room into a promise. The empty chair is reserved for whoever has not yet returned. Its keeper knows bedding, clean water, wounds and neighbours’ grudges. Their small stature suits close work and crowded shelter; it does not make them capable of carrying every casualty unaided.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 2 · Spirit 3 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Craft 2 · Insight 2 · Sway 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: Field Dressing is a candidate to read in the core support talents. Build the mundane practice first. A relationship with a quiet power is not magical healing access unless you buy and follow the relevant path.
At the table. Get the wounded behind a threshold, arrange treatment and negotiate a pause with those pursuing them. Use Craft and the healing procedures for care. Enlist help to lift, supply and watch; feeding someone is valuable without automatically clearing Harm.
The unfinished obligation. The Hollow Bride is a warning about extending welcome without understanding who has arrived. The person asking sanctuary wears a missing friend’s face.
Read the culture: Aelaerem. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Umbral Kin
A Window Left Dark
Find the watched person and prepare a way out.
Umbral Kin rent shade, know glaziers and read a city through its lamps and reflections. Their affinity with shadow is both bodily and civic: an uncovered light can spoil a route as surely as a locked gate. This build works through awnings, window angles and the remembered habits of lamplighters.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Stealth 2 · Insight 2 · Deception 1 · Craft 1
Options and development: If using the Umbral package, Shadow Step and Light Bending are fitting gift choices within its selection allowance. A shadow route obeys its visibility, continuity and cost rules; it is not unrestricted travel through walls.
At the table. Observe the patrol in reflected glass, hood a permitted lamp and lead the witness from one sheltered stretch to the next. Make the route usable by your companions; an escape only you can take leaves the job unfinished.
The unfinished obligation. A named ward-lamp remembers you. To save this witness you may have to expose a shade rented by another family.
Read the culture: Umbral Kin.
Aelinnel
Courtesy in Copper
Turn a dangerous misunderstanding into a workable crossing.
Aelinnel count because numbers, materials and promises have manners. Their small bodies navigate the threshold spaces larger visitors overlook. Copper tools, careful tallies and a plain account of what was said and meant let this build discover why a gate is refusing everyone.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Craft 2 · Sway 2 · Lore 1 · Insight 1
Options and development: Knack for the Right Thing suits an improvising toolkit if selected instead of Short Step. Oath-Carver is a possible purchased development, with its single-oath limit. Ordinary craftsmanship needs no magical path.
At the table. Examine the changed count, repair the displaced marker and approach the keeper in the proper terms. Offer a correction with a witness. The work is often practical; when the gate is enchanted, identify which published rite or negotiated concession actually addresses it.
The unfinished obligation. The count is wrong because a person was omitted. Correcting it will give them a claim the town cannot afford.
Read the culture: Aelinnel.
Mazereth
Three Taps Before Dawn
Prevent the collapse others are preparing to endure.
Mazereth read pressure lines, seams and the notes of loaded stone. Their small scale makes a crawl or bracing niche useful working space. Their expertise protects by moving a load, opening a bypass or regulating a crowd. The broad sky can be harder to navigate than a crushing shaft.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Craft 2 · Insight 2 · Endurance 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: Tunnel Craft and Pattern Reading suit the package’s two-gift choice. Retain its chosen complication; Surface Sickness makes a good reason to use counted grounding on an outdoor worksite. No brace is instantaneous merely because you named it.
At the table. Listen at the failing arch, mark the safe span and set a brace while companions keep people off it. A crowd may be the moving load. Tell the group what you can preserve and what must be abandoned before rolling to change the structure.
The unfinished obligation. The safest diversion sends the crush through a workshop whose owners trusted your chalk marks.
Read the culture: Mazereth.
Archive Keepers
The Missing Footnote
Produce the overlooked fact that makes an impossible case answerable.
An Archive Keeper is small enough to work the packed stacks and trained to connect records other readers keep apart. Pattern memory is useful, but the local ethic matters just as much: powerful visitors should not be able to make a shelf forget. This build contributes decisive evidence and routes to people who can act on it.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Lore 2 · Insight 2 · Craft 1 · Sway 1
Options and development: Knowledge Tap and Information Bridge are candidate gifts within the Archive package. Keep its overload or focus complication in play. Improve Lore and Insight before collecting more kinds of magic.
At the table. Find the absent entry, compare a second copy and establish what the discrepancy proves. Present the chain of evidence, not just a startling conclusion. Perfect recall of a false document remains recall of a false document.
The unfinished obligation. The correction restores a family’s title and reveals the neighbour who hid them. Whose safety belongs in the public record?
Read the culture: Archive Keepers. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Winged Aelinnel kin
Between Bell and Blossom
Keep separated companions and courts in contact.
Leaf-veined pinions and bough-born habits suggest a messenger who thinks in branches, landings and the spaces above a crowd. Hawthorn courtesy determines where that messenger may arrive. Being small is an advantage at a narrow landing and a burden when carrying someone else’s equipment.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Athletics 2 · Insight 2 · Sway 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: The setting describes pinions but does not give this build unlimited flight or carrying capacity. Establish movement permissions from the chosen heritage rules before play; use Athletics for uncertain movement and buy any additional ability from an applicable source.
At the table. Scout the landing, identify the correct sign of approach, and bring back a reply the group can trust. Arrange an accessible rendezvous for companions on the ground instead of assuming they can follow your route.
The unfinished obligation. You were told to return what points the way. The path-marker is now attached to the quarry you were sent to follow.
Read the culture: Winged Aelinnel kin.
Root, mind and the three oaths
Lethai-al Sentinel
Where the Boughs Close
Find the incursion, strike on chosen ground and bring the company out.
A Lethai-al Sentinel belongs to the living geography of a forest: canopy, scent, rain, root-path and the communities using them. Heightened senses and quick strength support reconnaissance, concealed movement and sudden violence. This is a forest commando whose first defence is preventing an enemy from reaching the place that matters.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Stealth 2 · Ranged 2 · Athletics 1 · Insight 1
Options and development: Start with Stealth and Ranged; add Melee for close work as you advance. Green Ward is a fitting purchased cultural talent. The forest supplies cover when it is actually present; heritage does not create concealment on a bare road.
At the table. Read the signs of passage, locate the scouts, prepare an ambush and keep an extraction route open. Use a bow from concealment, change ground after the shot, and escort the company through cover. If the objective is rescue, returning with the captive matters more than pursuing every enemy.
The unfinished obligation. The Silk Witness reminds you that living access rests on relationships. Your best ambush site is a crossing another grove has forbidden you to use.
Read the culture: Lethai-al Sentinel. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Lethai-thora Sentinel
Axiom of Sanctuary
Define, establish and maintain a boundary that hostile magic cannot casually cross.
The Lethai-thora Sentinel practises abjuration with the mind of a High Elven civic scholar. A ward is a proposition about who belongs, what may pass and how long the promise must hold. Long memory makes old failures relevant; public reasoning makes a design accountable. They want protection another trained keeper can understand a century later, not merely a spectacular rescue today.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Arcana 2 · Lore 2 · Insight 1 · Craft 1
Options and development: Purchase Spellcraft for freeform abjuration; without magical access, this starting profile is an apprentice inspecting and maintaining the site under a practitioner. A Sealed Gate tradition is an alternative path to investigate, with its own access and rites. Arcana and Lore support the method; no automatic counterspell or permanent ward is granted.
At the table. Identify the hostile working, define the people and space to protect, and formulate a narrow ward through the chosen magical path. Name the exit and the maintenance requirement. Investigate a loophole before expanding the barrier. When a stranger does not fit the ward’s categories, decide whether the error lies in the visitor or the definition.
The unfinished obligation. The Gloss That Ate a Name gives intellectual caution a human cost. Your protection has held perfectly for years; now its exact definition of a resident excludes a child everyone here raised.
Read the culture: Lethai-thora Sentinel. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Sundered Lethai-thora
A Bench Carried on the Back
Let strangers make an agreement without mistaking each other’s terms.
Sundered elves carry the work of the scholarly bench onto the road. A portable gloss-tree and a long memory help them translate context, not merely vocabulary. They make room for another people’s sense of ownership, time or witness before anyone swears to something disastrous.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Lore 2 · Sway 2 · Insight 1 · Craft 1
Options and development: Use the itinerant lineage’s published Bridge-Tongue or Pocket Gloss only as its rules permit. Advance Lore and Sway. This method remains distinct from the Edgewalker’s: it first seeks a shared meaning rather than a cost of refusal.
At the table. Have each side describe what compliance would look like. Identify the incompatible assumption, then draft a promise both can recognise. Your understanding can expose a conflict; it cannot guarantee that either party wants peace.
The unfinished obligation. Both interpretations are honest. Only one leaves a family with a home.
Read the culture: Sundered Lethai-thora.
Lethai-ar Sentinel · Web-Sworn example
The Tithe Comes Due
Protect a community through agents, obligations and control of information.
A Lethai-ar Sentinel watches the social approaches to a place: the clerk who can admit a shipment, the dependent house that can betray a route, the witness whose disappearance would silence a claim. The Web-Sworn example builds a prepared network of obligations. A polite meeting may already be an operation to recruit, expose or turn an agent.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Insight 2 · Sway 2 · Deception 1 · Craft 1
Options and development: This example selects the Web-Sworn package; it does not combine the three oaths. A Coil-Sworn agent might work through refuge and changed identity. A Shade-Sworn observer faces the real cost of intervention. Use their separate entries and obligations when choosing that version.
At the table. Identify who is recruiting the gate clerk. Obtain evidence, approach an intermediary and offer a concrete reason to change allegiance or disclose the handler. Prepare a warning route for the people you protect. You can win before a raid begins, but only through contacts and pressure established in play.
The unfinished obligation. The person owing you a debt needs forgiveness. Your oath requires transfer, trade or discharge; simply forgiving has its stated cost.
Read the culture: Lethai-ar Sentinel · Web-Sworn example.
Coil-Sworn Lethai-ar
Mercy After the Shedding
Help someone survive poison, injury and the life they are leaving.
Isoka’s change appears over decades in scales, eyes and a loosening jaw. A Coil-Sworn recognises that a person can become someone else, which makes an antidote keeper or refuge attendant as plausible as an unsettling courtier. Bodily transformation does not make every substance harmless.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 2 · Spirit 3 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Craft 2 · Endurance 2 · Insight 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: Venin Lore supports survival within its stated toxin limit. Learn Craft for actual care. Shed follows its own Complication and String cost; it cannot erase another person’s debt at your convenience.
At the table. Assess the poison, provide care through the healing rules and secure a place where the patient can recover. Negotiate what the new name means to those pursuing the old one. Treatment and release from an obligation are different jobs.
The unfinished obligation. The Bargain of the Shed Skin asks what an open-ended favour really buys. Your patient begs you to promise anything to the Court. Write down a limit.
Read the culture: Coil-Sworn Lethai-ar. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Shade-Sworn Lethai-ar
The Raven Has Not Landed
Learn what is approaching and decide what bearing witness demands.
Ikasha’s sworn are made for dim underways, patient watching and voices that are hard to remember. Their doctrine of non-intervention is a real obstacle to adventuring, not a clever way to obtain perfect scouting without responsibility. This character joins a company with that disagreement already declared.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Stealth 2 · Insight 2 · Lore 1 · Deception 1
Options and development: Use Stillness, Unremembered and Raven Post under the branch rules. Acting directly on a foreseen matter can suspend the Affinity until its stated restoration condition; being the party’s watcher does not waive that cost.
At the table. Observe, preserve evidence and undertake ordinary tasks outside the matter foreseen. When intervention would violate the oath, choose openly between its restriction and the cost of acting. Do not make another player pull the trigger and declare the obligation evaded.
The unfinished obligation. You saw a companion die. Tell the group before play whether your character will break the oath to prevent it; leave the actual decision to the scene.
Read the culture: Shade-Sworn Lethai-ar.
The steppe and its neighbours
Ykrul
The Well Behind Us
Create the retreat that lets the company survive its own advance.
Ykrul strength and endurance live inside a culture of flow, weight and exits. The remembered Wake and the kon’reh board teach that a piece without a way back can become a burden. This build uses a strong body to move decisively, escort the slow and contest a pursuit lane.
Starting attributes: Body 3 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Melee 2 · Endurance 2 · Insight 1 · Athletics 1
Options and development: Kon’reh Intuition is a fitting paid cultural option. The tale of the warrior and the Runner supplies a lesson in reading the whole position, not a rule for transplanting board-game moves into combat.
At the table. Name the escape route before the charge. Strike where a pursuer must turn, then disengage through prepared ground as allies move. A mount requires normal acquisition and room to work; mounted reach does not erase poor terrain.
The unfinished obligation. The clan will praise the charge and scarcely mention the withdrawal. Who taught you to value the people who came back?
Read the culture: Ykrul. Story lens: The Hearth Cord.
Ostkin
One Fire, Two Hostages
Keep two armed parties talking long enough to fulfil their agreement.
Ostkin bring Ykrul reach and shoulders together with a road-speaker’s ear. Compact seasons made them kin on both sides without guaranteeing welcome in either assembly. Endurance matters when witnessing means riding between camps all night, then remaining alert for the exchange.
Starting attributes: Body 3 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Sway 2 · Endurance 2 · Insight 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: Use Compact Witness and Long Seat only under the Ostkin package. Invest in Sway despite the limit in exclusively one-people assemblies. Being a capable intermediary does not remove the cost of formal exclusion.
At the table. Establish the terms of return, accompany the vulnerable party and verify the handover. Your recognised account helps the two sides share a fact. It cannot force them to honour what they know.
The unfinished obligation. One camp offers you secure belonging if you will swear to it alone. Accepting would change the very position that made your witness useful.
Read the culture: Ostkin.
Vilikari
The Road Owes a Supper
Keep an expedition supplied through relationships that survive the next border.
Vilikari life connects longhouses, roads, horse trade and older civic ruins. This build’s strength is learned practice rather than a new biological gift: knowing who can feed a company, what work will pay for it and which grievance must be settled before the wagons move.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 3
Starting skills: Sway 2 · Craft 2 · Insight 1 · Endurance 1
Options and development: Use the heritage appropriate to the character’s parentage and the regional background for their upbringing. Improve Sway and Craft; acquire any follower or caravan asset through its own rules.
At the table. Find lodging, negotiate repairs and organise a fair division of food. Put names beside the tasks. The company gains the supplies and shelter you actually secure, not an abstract bonus because you delivered a stirring meal-time speech.
The unfinished obligation. Your hosts will feed the company if you carry a message to a relative who refuses to be found.
Read the culture: Vilikari.
The roads few maps admit
Ghyll
The Gap in the Deed
Get the necessary person or part through a route larger bodies cannot use.
Ghyll inherited abandoned underways and run the salvage and message trades within them. A small, quick body is a transport solution. This build treats every barricade as a question about what still passes through it: water, air, a maintenance tool, a determined neighbour.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Athletics 2 · Stealth 2 · Craft 1 · Insight 1
Options and development: Gap-Wise and Salvage Eye inform the published Ghyll package. Train Athletics, Stealth and Craft. In a stand-up fight, seek withdrawal instead of pretending a confined-ground advantage applies in an open courtyard.
At the table. Find the narrow bypass, inspect it and take only what can fit. Open an accessible exit from the other side or bring the needed part back. Do not confuse your escape route with safe passage for an armoured companion.
The unfinished obligation. The deed says the tunnel belongs to nobody. Several families sleep there, and your shortcut would lead the bailiffs straight to them.
Read the culture: Ghyll.
Kuvani
A Letter Above the Weather
Carry a warning farther than the danger can travel.
Kuvani are changed by Kuva: hollow bones, sharp sight and feathers at forearm and nape. They belong to towers, lofts and passes. This build reads distant movement, plans relays and treats a secure landing as seriously as a rider treats a sound remount. The description does not grant unlisted flight.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Insight 2 · Athletics 2 · Endurance 1 · Sway 1
Options and development: Use Long Sight, Fall Light and tower hospitality under the Kuvani package. Retain bodily limits when pinned down. Improve endurance for the route as well as observation for the warning.
At the table. Identify the approaching weather, select the next shelter and deliver a sealed message to the right recipient. Long sight can tell you what happened on a ridge, not what the people there secretly intended.
The unfinished obligation. You must not read the post you carry. Smoke rises from the addressee’s village; the sender insists delivery will make it stop.
Read the culture: Kuvani.
Ashen
No Name at the Gate
Enter unnoticed, learn what matters and return with evidence others can use.
The Ashen are an outcome of the Mistlands, not a single ancestry. Gray eyes and an unsettling difficulty of recognition make anonymity possible while making legitimate claims hard. This build turns being overlooked into access, then plans how someone recognisable can attest to what was found.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Deception 2 · Stealth 2 · Insight 1 · Sway 1
Options and development: Use Unregistered and Borrowed Name within their stated frequency and duration. They do not authorise theft of another player’s identity or effortless impersonation of a known official. Advance Deception and Insight.
At the table. Pass through a place where nobody has fixed your identity, locate the record and preserve corroboration. A successful infiltration is only half the task if the court cannot acknowledge its witness.
The unfinished obligation. A friend offers to put your true name on the deed so you can finally own a home. Your people do not give that name to a scribe.
Read the culture: Ashen.
Salt, fire and the remade
Narethi
The Room Kept Waking
Help companions coordinate while recognising the intrusion of an older dream.
Tufted ears, slit pupils and dim-light sight belong to a felid people shaped by the Unburied’s resonance. An unbound Narethi carries that connection beyond the Sunken Courts. Their immediate usefulness can be quiet and intimate: sharing willing intent in darkness, then noticing when a memory is not their own.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 2 · Spirit 3 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Arcana 2 · Insight 2 · Lore 1 · Endurance 1
Options and development: Natural Telepathy is not deep mind-reading. The starting profile uses core skills; a dedicated psionic version must reallocate its budget to the Psionics skill and access required by that expansion. Track the Resonance Leash wherever the published trigger applies.
At the table. Use the permitted wordless contact to coordinate a silent crossing with willing companions. Separate received emotion from proven fact. For stronger workings, state the effect and follow the actual psionic procedure, including its pressure and costs.
The unfinished obligation. A dream supplies a useful detail about the route and the voice of someone you left behind. You cannot assume either is trustworthy.
Read the culture: Narethi.
Pereshi
Ashes in Safe Hands
Carry the dead home and keep the living able to continue.
Pereshi are fire-tended people, warm enough that snow and ink behave differently against their bodies. They work furnaces, glass and cremation, and enjoy a rare standing across faiths in handling the dead. Their practice lends this build access to houses and battlefields that bar an armed delegation.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 2 · Spirit 3 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Craft 2 · Lore 2 · Insight 1 · Sway 1
Options and development: Use Tended Hand and Right of Ash under the Pereshi package. Learn Craft and Lore for the actual work. If you want supernatural intervention, purchase a suitable magical path separately.
At the table. Identify remains, preserve what must be returned and negotiate the pause needed to perform the rites. Repair heat-damaged equipment along the way. Safe handling of hot material supports craft; it does not let you cast fire or heal burns with a touch.
The unfinished obligation. The tended hearth cannot be allowed to go out. An enemy offers fuel in exchange for the ashes entrusted to you.
Read the culture: Pereshi.
Tideborn
The Name Below the Hull
Recover a person, repair a passage and testify to what lies underwater.
Tideborn have broad ribcages, a third eyelid and a breath adapted to the wreck-shelves. Their bodily advantage has a civic consequence: harbour courts accept their account of a seabed. This build can save the expedition beneath the waterline and become its crucial witness ashore.
Starting attributes: Body 3 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Endurance 2 · Craft 2 · Insight 1 · Athletics 1
Options and development: Use Long Breath and Wreck-Read according to the Tideborn package. Dry-land endurance of a long route remains a limitation; do not make this character the default overland runner as well.
At the table. Rig a recovery line, inspect the obstruction by touch, and bring up the survivor or evidence. Plan for the companions who cannot share your breath. Current, entanglement and pressure still require judgement and the relevant rolls.
The unfinished obligation. A valuable wreck still contains its crew. Your people recover them before stripping it, even when another salvage company is approaching.
Read the culture: Tideborn.
Brasswrought
The Next Iteration
Stay useful under bodily strain, and make repair a deliberate choice.
A Brasswrought is a person rebuilt through successive repairs by the Monad’s practitioners. Their remembered iterations, maintenance needs and consent are central. This build can undertake punishing work, brace an escape route or remain at a dangerous task while companions finish elsewhere. It is not an unfeeling machine.
Starting attributes: Body 3 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Endurance 2 · Craft 2 · Insight 1 · Melee 1
Options and development: Follow the Brasswrought Field Iteration procedure during downtime. Define the particular past injury addressed by Tolerance rather than treating it as general invulnerability. Healing by unfamiliar hands retains the package’s limits.
At the table. Choose the work your present body is suited to, prepare spare parts and communicate when a repair is needed. Protect a companion through ordinary positioning and Defend. Mechanical resilience is not blanket immunity to Harm, fear or the Hollow.
The unfinished obligation. A repair would improve your usefulness but remove a part of yourself you want to keep. The company is short of time; your consent still matters.
Read the culture: Brasswrought.
The Wild made visible
Wolf-blooded Beastfolk
The Place Beside You
Keep an ally from becoming isolated.
Wolf-blooded traditions put the pack into the way people move and watch. Choose the actual bodily expression with the permitted heritage; a wolf-like appearance alone grants no extra attacks or scent ability. This build keeps track of the slow, the distracted and the companion who always charges too far.
Starting attributes: Body 3 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Melee 2 · Insight 2 · Athletics 1 · Stealth 1
Options and development: Choose Guard or Hunt as the single Beast Instinct that fits your character. Run With the Pack is a purchased later option with its own ally-risk clause; ordinary teamwork does not copy its numerical benefit.
At the table. Enter danger with a partner, cover their retreat and move the threat toward agreed ground. Your contribution is coordination rather than an assumed ability to order companions about. Ask where they want you, then act on the answer.
The unfinished obligation. The person outside the circle is an enemy who has surrendered. Does your idea of the pack have room to change?
Read the culture: Wolf-blooded Beastfolk.
Stag-marked Beastfolk
Antlers at the Ford
Find the crossing and speak for the passage it requires.
Stag-marked bodies carry a visible association with sacrifice and omen. Antlers make thick undergrowth and low doorways practical concerns, not simply decoration. A wanderer who knows where a herd crosses can become an expedition’s guide and its speaker at a Wild Moot.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 2 · Spirit 3 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Insight 2 · Lore 2 · Sway 1 · Athletics 1
Options and development: Choose Wander for the Instinct if travel defines the character. Develop Lore and Insight. Supernatural rites require their own access, even when others expect holiness from your appearance.
At the table. Read the ground, find the seasonal route and negotiate what the crossing disturbs. An omen begins an inquiry; it does not decide another person’s guilt. In a fight, help the company reach usable terrain rather than treating antlers as an unlisted weapon.
The unfinished obligation. The safe ford opens only during a migration. Your companions want to cross now, and the herd is arriving.
Read the culture: Stag-marked Beastfolk.
Raven-tongued Beastfolk
The Story Told Twice
Change what an audience expects long enough for someone to act.
Raven-tongued traditions connect mischief and memory. This build collects the version of a story that respectable people omit, then chooses the place and audience where telling it matters. The body’s visible marks invite attention; they do not grant perfect vocal mimicry without a supporting rule.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Deception 2 · Performance 2 · Insight 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: Trick is a fitting Beast Instinct. Performance supplies ordinary delivery and Deception supplies covert intent. A magical song would require the Cantor path rather than being bundled into raven ancestry.
At the table. Learn the guard’s routine, rehearse a credible diversion and perform it where a companion can use the opening. If the story reveals a real injustice, decide whether escape is still your only aim.
The unfinished obligation. The second telling would clear your friend and expose the person who trusted you with the first.
Read the culture: Raven-tongued Beastfolk.
Bear-hearted Beastfolk
Winter Has a Door
Give the company somewhere to hold, rest and recover.
Bear-hearted clans are described as community anchors, slow to anger and formidable when roused. A substantial body can make carrying and shelter work plausible, but the build is defined by what it prepares: a strong door, dry bedding, a defensible approach and enough food to wait.
Starting attributes: Body 3 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Endurance 2 · Melee 2 · Craft 1 · Insight 1
Options and development: Choose Guard if keeping others safe is the Instinct. Train Craft alongside Endurance. Select protection talents from their actual prerequisites; no unlimited endurance or natural armour is implied by the title.
At the table. Improve the shelter before trouble reaches it. Contest the approach with ordinary combat and Defend, then rotate the watch. Refuse the tempting pursuit that would leave the injured alone.
The unfinished obligation. The shelter cannot hold everyone comfortably. The last arrival is the person who burned the previous one.
Read the culture: Bear-hearted Beastfolk.
Ashscale Dragonfolk
The Kiln Opens
Turn frightening presence into a concrete opening for the company.
Ashscale bodies carry the visible suggestion of volcanic fire. This build gives that presence a craft and a purpose: understanding furnaces, wrecked workshops and the people who work beside dangerous heat. Temper is a tool to manage, not an excuse to destroy the company’s negotiations.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 3
Starting skills: Sway 2 · Craft 2 · Endurance 1 · Insight 1
Options and development: Fire is a fitting single Echo. Its social use is not a breath attack. Draconic Breath is a later, paid option with a Tier II+ gate, Fatigue cost and limited use; read it before selecting it.
At the table. State what must stop and what compliance will buy. Let the visible heat reinforce a demand supported by evidence or position. Where a task actually requires flame, bring a tool or use a purchased magical ability.
The unfinished obligation. A threatened community asks you to burn the works that feed the next valley.
Read the culture: Ashscale Dragonfolk.
Stormblood Dragonfolk
Before the First Thunder
Break a dangerous hesitation and organise movement.
Stormblood signs make an entrance hard to ignore: static, scales and a voice people associate with approaching weather. This build reads a developing crisis and makes a short, intelligible call. The cultural problem is learning when others need direction and when they need to be heard.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 2 · Spirit 2 · Presence 3
Starting skills: Sway 2 · Insight 2 · Athletics 1 · Lore 1
Options and development: Choose Storm as the Echo if disruption defines the character. Develop Insight as carefully as Sway. Dragonblooded Resilience applies only to its stated appropriate threats; ordinary falls and exhaustion remain real.
At the table. At a panicking crossing, identify the viable lane, direct the first group and demonstrate the route. A forceful voice can support Sway; it does not confer perfect weather prediction or control of lightning.
The unfinished obligation. People follow your warning because of how you look. You have evidence for concern, but not certainty. Tell them which is which.
Read the culture: Stormblood Dragonfolk.
Deepcoil Dragonfolk
The Claim Beneath the Claim
Find the possession or secret around which a dispute is organised.
Deepcoil are described as serpentine and drawn to secrets and leverage. This build notices what a person will not include in the inventory. Unlike the Edgewalker, who needs a workable exchange, this character risks wanting the hidden object for themselves.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 3 · Spirit 2 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Insight 2 · Sway 2 · Lore 1 · Deception 1
Options and development: Hoard is one fitting Echo. Hoard-Sense is a separate purchased option; its question exposes your temptation as well as an opportunity. Keep the consequence of pursuing or refusing it.
At the table. Trace the disputed title, identify the concealed claimant and decide what evidence can be shown. Negotiate a specific settlement. An unblinking gaze is not mind control, and curiosity does not establish ownership.
The unfinished obligation. The agreement would be fair if you returned the one item nobody knows you found.
Read the culture: Deepcoil Dragonfolk.
Shardsoul Dragonfolk
A Mirror Kept Whole
Preserve a fragile working without mistaking perfection for safety.
Glassy, reflective scales and an attachment to memory give this practitioner a particular relationship to damaged things. They keep a working’s history, mark every alteration and can become unwilling to tolerate the improvisation that keeps people alive. Reflection is bodily imagery here, not automatic spell reflection.
Starting attributes: Body 1 · Wits 2 · Spirit 3 · Presence 2
Starting skills: Arcana 2 · Lore 2 · Craft 1 · Insight 1
Options and development: Purchase Spellcraft for freeform workings, or choose another documented path with its own access. Select one Echo under the Dragonfolk rules. Neither scales nor memory provide free wards.
At the table. Study the threatened working, identify a narrow protective change and cast through the chosen path. Record what the alteration costs and which part is temporary. Allow a companion to solve the urgent problem imperfectly.
The unfinished obligation. The original design can be preserved only by leaving a person inside it.
Read the culture: Shardsoul Dragonfolk.
Others: a chosen liminal origin
The Guest Who Must Return
Help the company cross a boundary whose inhabitants recognise you.
An Other is bound to a place, story or being. Choose one concrete origin—such as a Green-vowed traveller or someone caught between memory and forgetting—and let its signs shape daily life. This build has a home on each side of a particular boundary, not universal access to every uncanny road.
Starting attributes: Body 2 · Wits 2 · Spirit 3 · Presence 1
Starting skills: Lore 2 · Sway 2 · Insight 1 · Stealth 1
Options and development: Choose one Liminal Axis and the required Bound Obligation. Step Sideways is a purchased option with a roll and consequences, not an unlimited property of being strange. Use the existing limits of your chosen origin.
At the table. Learn what the crossing requires, introduce the company and negotiate passage. Carry out the mundane work of guiding them too. Being recognised by a threshold does not make all its inhabitants friendly.
The unfinished obligation. You can accompany the company through the gate, but the promise that sustains your home requires you to return.
Read the culture: Others: a chosen liminal origin.
Make the practice your own
Choose what the character learned, whom they learned it from and where that training fails them. Change a starting priority within the selected creation rules if the person needs a different emphasis. A mixed-heritage character follows the published mixed-heritage procedure; knowing two cultures does not award both complete packages.
Ask a companion what they need you to make possible. The answer gives your first scene a purpose. The unfinished obligation gives you a reason to stay when the practical job is done.