#ancestries and heritages

[honourablejester]

PF2e Ancestries That Intrigue Me

So I’ve been browsing the various PF2e ancestries and heritages on Archives of Nethys, and I just want to mention a few that sparked joy.

Ancestries:

Grippli: Frog people! Frog people are always a guaranteed sell for me, I seriously just love frogs, and grippli are specifically arboreal frog people. You are a tree frog. There’s even a specific heritage, the Windweb Grippli, that eventually lets you be a gliding tree frog. I love it. I just wanna be a frog, man.

Leshy: You’re a plant. You are even, depending on your heritage, a specific type of plant. Want to be a tiny fungus being? Fungal Leshy. A squat grumpy cactus person? Cactus Leshy. You can be a vine, a root, a seaweed, a fruit leshy. If you decide you want to be a pumpkin leshy and choose the Gourd Leshy heritage, you don’t have a brain (your knowledge and personality are stored in your spirit) and can store things inside your empty pumpkin head. Which makes them harder to steal. I don’t … I can’t even. Amazing. Also, cannot possible overstate this, leshy are adorable. The art is just amazing.

Ysoki/Ratfolk: Much as with Grippli, sometimes I just wanna be a rat, dude. Possibly specifically a Sewer Rat, although the Longsnout Rat is also cool, and has a feat called ‘Plague Sniffer’ that lets you smell disease on people, which feels interesting and evocative of a lot of things. Also, the bit of me who grew up with The Pied Piper of Hamelin as my favourite fairytale wants to go in a lot of directions with a ratfolk character.

Fleshwarp: Bit of a switch of direction here, but … me and horror, me and cosmic horror, me and dark fantasy. Fleshwarps are fantastic. You have been horrifically transformed/manufactured by magical/alchemical/otherworldly forces. Each fleshwarp looks completely different, depending on what their particular horrific transformation did to them, so you can go absolutely wild with the body horror details so long as you keep to a broadly humanoid shape (bipedal, one head, four functional limbs – you can have more if a) they’re vestigial and non-functional or b) you take a feat). The heritages for fleshwarps are essentially how you were created, and you’ve got some options from ‘made in a vat’ to ‘warped by wild magic’ to ‘magical cybernetics ate your emotions’. And their feats are fucking gnarly. Weapons grown from your bodies, making enemies pay for wounding you by sickening them with the sight of your innards and the strange behaviour of the wound, gaining a sheen of acidic slime on your skin … Like. Okay. Body horror is not usually my horror cup of tea, but hot damn I would play around with this! They are fantastic. And there’s a lot to play with thematically with the consequences of such a difficult and warped existence. Like. Lots of story meat on this ancestry. Amazing.

Kashrishi: You know that thing where unicorns might have been rhinos? And the slight difference in vibe that gives? Kashrishi are halfling-sized empathic rhino people with crystal horns. I repeat. You are a three foot tall, built as hell bipedal psychic rhino unicorn with empathy and a crystal horn that glows when you use magic. Whoever came up with this idea and then put it in a book so that people could actually play it, I hope you got paid big money for it. This ancestry somehow hits a perfect bullseye dead centre on the venn diagram of the bits of me that love dwarves and the bits of me that love unicorns. I want it.

Versatile Heritages:

Firstly, I’m gonna say that I love the idea of taking these and making them heritages and not ancestries, so you can put them on any base ancestry. DnD 5e was starting to head this way with the dhampir and reborn, but because of 5e’s structure when it comes to races/ancestries, they still mostly just replace the ‘original’ race. PF2e’s ancestral heritage and feat structure lets you have both from the get go and choose elements of both to build on. I can have a tiefling dwarf. That’s still dwarfy. I can have a dhampir dwarf. An aasimar dwarf. An elemental dwarf.

And yes, instinctively, I pretty much do want to put all of them on a dwarf. I just like the idea of taking the quintessential dwarfness of a dwarf and adding something bonkers onto it. Dwarves are just so solidly dwarfy that they warp whatever you put on them around it. A dhampir is one thing, all cool and gothic, but a dhampir dwarf is something else. An aasimar dwarf is the grumpiest, most pragmatic half-angel on the planet. The sheer … solidity of dwarves just shifts the vibes, and I love it. Get your dwarf vibes all up in planar business!

Though, you know. Once my brain lets go of dwarves a bit, I can see some interesting potential for other combinations. An aasimar fleshwarp, for example, would be interesting. Which came first, the destruction or the grace? Were you born beautiful and blessed, and warped from jealousy or cruelty or bad luck? Or did some benevolent deity recognise the beauty of your spirit even in your shattered and twisted physical state and confer some touch of celestial grace upon you (my personal favourite)? How much of the aasimar shows through the ruin of warped flesh? I love the image of the halo feats you get from an aasimar on a fleshwarp. You are a shambling mound of twisted and tortured flesh, but you shine with a gentle heavenly light, that possibly even heals people. An absolutely stunning combination of the profane and the divine. I love that.

Versatile heritages are just a fantastic idea. Pulling those out and letting them be taken by anyone. You can have a heavenly frog. You can have a vampiric cactus. You can have a demonic dwarf. Absolutely excellent system decision. I love it.

A specific new-to-me versatile heritage that sparks interest is the Duskwalker, a heritage where your soul was basically allowed to knowingly reincarnate by a death deity. There’s a lot of psychopomp-adjacent lore and abilities that definitely intrigue me.

Specific Heritages from Ancestries

For those ancestries where it’s a specific heritage that sparks interest for me as much as the ancestry as a whole:

Witch Gnoll: Don’t get me wrong, I definitely do enjoy gnolls as an ancestry option in and of themselves. Gotta love the chance to play a hyena person. But the Witch Gnoll in particular just makes me want to play exclusively that heritage, because it’s a spooky gnoll. It’s the hyena laugh made manifest as a heritage. You’re a sly, shaggy, dark-furred hyena person with spells to throw sounds and freak people the hell out. I love it. I want to play a witch gnoll saboteur rogue, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

(Sidenote: Between gnolls and kashrishi, I’m strongly considering trying to get my hands on the setting source books, Mwangi Expanse and Impossible Lands. They look cool)

Trogloshi Kashrishi: You’re a subterranean empathic rhino unicorn. With subterranean albinism, and you automatically get the kashrishi feat that makes your crystal horn shed light. Not going to lie, probably going to be my first choice for kashrishi.

Death Warden Dwarf: Look. We have discussed that I like spooky dwarves, along with generally weird dwarves. And the Death Warden cannot help but evoke the childhood memories of the Mines of Moria for me. You descend from a line of tomb guardians. You get bonuses against undead. Your family stood watch in the dark against the defilement of the dead. I just. I like it.

Unbreakable Goblin: I suspect this heritage probably annoys people in play and possibly in concept once it gets old, but I just really enjoy the entire idea of a small creature heritage that boils down to ‘we bounce and we don’t go down’. You’re just a tough, excitable, bouncy little dude. Heck yeah.

Summary:

You can possibly tell where my general interests lie from this selection. Heh. But yeah. I like a) cute things and b) spooky things. And dwarves. And generally short, stocky creatures who may or may not be also unicorns.

I do want to doodle out that aasimar fleshwarp character, now that I’ve been waxing poetic about it. Gonna go have a further think. Heh.

I do think Pathfinder 2e’s structure for character progression, the way it’s built on feats per level, does make ancestries and heritages a lot more flexible and customisable and combinable. Your ancestry is not just one-and-done, it’s a thing you consistently interact with and consider over the course of your character’s career. I like that. And I love the versatile heritages and how they can be added to anything. Ancestry feats were an excellent game design decision.

And, to reiterate, whoever made the stocky rhino unicorns? You deserve a raise. Full approval!

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[ghost-37]

Nafisa 🌻

[vox-anglosphere]

A Scottish pipe band leads the way to the Highland Games in Ballater

[oddthesungod]

daggerheart looks really fun! Not a huuuge fan of the card and tokens scheme since that's something that doesn't translate too well imho as someone that plays 100% online, but other than that it looks really fun and promising!

[neuroticboyfriend]

to anyone with ancestors who survived An Gorta Mór (The Great Famine, who also has a binging/restricting eating disorder... i can guarantee you, there has got to be at least one person in your lineage who would be happy to see you eat well. your ancestors who starved, who had to see their loved ones get sick or die... they would be happy to see you healthy, and deeply saddened to see you in this pain - yes, even if you're fat. especially if you're fat.

if you don't have it in you to eat for your own wellbeing... i hope that maybe, it might help to think of them. to do it for them, the people who survived such great pain, such great hunger, and would never want you to feel that pain too. you are not alone. the love they had for their descendants lives on in you. you are made of the survival of the irish... in spite of colonialism and mass death, no matter how disconnected from your family's culture you may be.

you are loved.

[theludicwitch]

I'm doing a lunar ritual tonight and then on Samhain my family (who doesn't practice) and I are going to make a big dinner of beef stew, molasses bread, mulled apple cider, and soul cakes.

My family is very celtic and to start traditions like this means the world to me. We already do some Irish things that we've done since my great grandma came from Ireland (like my mom's shepards pie recipe handed down from my grandma or black eyed peas eaten on new years)

After the food festivities I plan on doing tarot with my sister or working on developing my claircognizance.

With all that being said I hope some of these things inspires you to pre-plan for Samhain too! Merry Samhain and Happy Halloween!

[blackswaneuroparedux]

L'expérience concluante du nihilisme enseigne à contrario qu'être homme c'est être de quelque part, appartenir à une lignée, à une tradition, parler et penser dans une langue antérieure à toute mémoire, que l'on reçoit à son insu et qui forme la perception de façon définitive.

Dominique Venner

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

i love how "polish" muricans are like yeah i'm POLISH bc great grandma was polish i LOVE my country, i'm a BIG patriot, Koscuzko am i right?🇵🇱 but when someone tells them that a sentence in polish that they have tattooed some bullshit that doesn't make sense, that theior "traditional" polish dish is a horrible abomination unknown to mankind and that they do not have better knowlegde about very basic polish words than native speakers suddenly they're like "hope your shithole country gets bombed by russia 😠🖕🤬"

[sanyu-thewitch05]

I know the developers weren’t think of this but Sebek’s birthday and overall look has funny design when it comes to his birthday in the US.

Sebek’s hair is green

Sebek’s wearing green

Sebek’s in a green dorm

And his birthday is on March 17th….St. Patrick’s Day in the US and Ireland.

Essentially, I headcanon that Sebek is half-Irish.

[nordfjording]

Also just as an fyi using "norse" as a collective term for current-day nordic or scandinavian people and languages is both incorrect and also, notably, a very common narrative in white supremacist and neonazi communities so like. I'm not saying anyone's inherently a bad person for this but it might be worth having a think about why this is the word used okay thank you 😊

[irithnova]

Timurid Empire: I AM CHINGGISID I HAVE CHINGGISID LINEAGE!

Mongolia: I have no idea who the hell you are

Timurid Empire: TAMERLANE IS A DESCENDANT OF THE GREAT CHINGGIS KHAN UKHAII (please believe me) 💪💪

Mongolia: Leave my bathroom

[pacing-er]

A bit morbid but I've been doing research on how much of my family died in the Holocaust. It's something that I've been aware of and curious about since I was a child but never had specific details on. My great grandparents on my Booba's side are from Russia, Belarus, Romania, and Poland. My immediate relatives all immigrated to the USA around the 1890s, up to the third generation of grandparents. This is why my Great Grandpa and my Great Great Grandpa fought in WW2 as American soldiers. The family that was most heavily affected by the Holocaust were the ones who stayed in Poland, my Great Great Great Grandfather's brothers and sisters and their family. All but three of the family members from Symcha Flapan's (my 3rd Great Granduncle) line died either in the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, or vaguely in Poland around 1942. For context that is 43 people (and that's only accounting for Symcha's direct descendants, I haven't looked into his siblings yet), of which all but 3 perished. The details on each death are vague with only one clarifying the cause of death as starvation and a handful stating that they were Holocaust victims, which I'm assuming is based on their names having been included on a list. Many records of relatives abruptly end with no details other than where their last residence was, most of which were in Lodz Ghetto but a few were in Warshaw. As for where I am getting all this information, my Booba is very interested in Genealogy and has been compiling records of our family since the 1970s. I will continue to update information I find here as I go through my family tree.

[maudlin-scribbler]

I've said this before, but I really do want to learn greek! Because on my mother's I am in part greek, with my grandfather being greek, and his parents being a woman from the greek minority in Romania, and a greek man from the minority in Istanbul, who went to Romania after WW1. My mom, having a romanian mother and really only hearing greek at home from her dad and grandpa, never learned greek besides a few words and so she couldn't teach me, and I want to learn greek to honor my heritage (and because Greece and it's people fascinate me)

But idk, whenever I talk about it I feel like I'm being annoying...like whenever I try to tell people this it sounds kinda stupid to me. Having greek ancestry is something that is important to me and my family, but talking about it to people feels weird. I don't know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[yinlotus]

in honor of juneteenth, i've been researching my genealogy starting with my mom's side since I know a bit more about them and so far have learned:

my 5th great grandmother was mulatto and born in 1800 [<- i'm imagining the clothes she wore during the georgian and victorian era! i assume it's similar to the bayasoube video i posted earlier of the southern belle fashion 🥰]

most of my family on my mom's side is from southern and central alabama and have been for 6-7 generations (i.e around 170 years) (before that they seem to be from georgia and virginia)

my family is possibly alabama creole? they were in the right area at the right time and mixed so hm.... and maybe mississippi creole on my dad's side idk.

based on what i saw, the seven ancestors who lived before 1865 were all born free (besides maybe two or three)

my 4th great grandfather fought in the civil war as a member of the union side's colored troops in either alabama or georgia

my 4th great grandmother was a cook

i haven't found the indigenous ancestry that i was told about but i won't rule it out yet since it was supposed to be fairly recent and some laws makes it harder to be counted as part of a tribe especially if you're black during those time periods

etc etc.

it's really cool to learn and i wish i could learn more, unfortunately ancestry.com is mostly behind a paywall and dna tests are even more expensive and a girl gotta eat (and would like to help her parents do so as well) so.... since others have been asking today...

if anyone wants to send some money to help me out with either learning my heritage or buying groceries and gas that'd be great! my cashapp: $softestruler