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Lineages

Lineage Overview

AX.C.06.01

Cultures are collective groups that share beliefs, customs, geographic regions and often physical characteristics.

Lineage is a deviation from a parent culture. The difference is usually reflected by changes in beliefs, customs, adaptation to unusual or harsh geographic regions or influences by other cultures or forces. This difference may include changes in visible or physical traits as well.

Lineages provide the following mechanical benefits.

  1. Health - Applied as a separate Health modifier each time Fortitude is increased

  2. Cultural Talent - 1D to a non-combat Talent. This represents a skill that the Culture or Lineage values and teaches from an early age.

  3. Perks or Special Abilities- Enhanced senses, natural weapons, natural defenses, unusual movement method, access to odd powers, increased maximum limit to one statistic, etc.

Example Lineage: Human

AX.C.06.02

This is a generic human Lineage provided for ease of reference and generation.

  • No Health Mod
  • No specific Cultural Talent
  • Versatile: (perk) +2 bonus Talent dice at character creation
  • Adaptive: (perk) Learn new Talents at -1 XP cost (minimum 1 XP)
  • Determined: (perk) Once per session, re-roll an imploded Wild Die

In this case, humans are presented as the jack-of-all-trades style culture.

Core Lineage Templates

AX.C.06.03

The following five lineages are genre-neutral templates suitable for use with the core rules in any setting. They are defined by biological and cognitive trait clusters rather than cultural identity, making them equally functional in fantasy, modern and sci-fi Genre Catalogs.

Genre Catalogs may rename, reskin or extend any of these lineages to fit the setting. The mechanical benefits remain consistent regardless of the fiction applied to them.

Each lineage entry notes any structural variation from the standard three-component format (Health Modifier + Cultural Talent + Perk or Special Ability).

Templates

Code Lineage Link
AX.C.06.03.01 Apex Apex
AX.C.06.03.02 Enduring Enduring
AX.C.06.03.03 Brisk Brisk
AX.C.06.03.04 Aeon Aeon
AX.C.06.03.05 Adaptive Adaptive