The Tome of Whispers adds a whole slew of new ancestry options available to characters. There are new base ancestries and new hybrid ancestries. These can be freely combined together, and are also compatible with the ancestries in the core rules. While these new ancestries are interesting, and deserve their own introductions, the Tome of Whispers also adds a brand new type of ancestry altogether: Cryptic Ancestries. Today we'll introduce this new ancestry category and take a look at how it works and what makes it special. Let's get cryptic!
From a structural standpoint, cryptic ancestries share a similarity with hybrid ancestries. The modular nature of the ancestry and ancestry perk system in Realm of Runes makes it easy to "opt in" to new choices by spending one of your ancestry perks to do so. Cryptic ancestries use this method as well. If you want to add a cryptic ancestry to your character, it will cost you an ancestry perk to do so. This is where the similarities between hybrid ancestries and cryptic ancestries end, however, as they each behave very differently once you choose to add them to your character.
Because most characters are biologically limited to two parents, a character can never have more than one hybrid ancestry. Cryptic ancestries, on the other hand, can perhaps be best thought of as a matter of lineage as a whole. In this way, characters can add a cryptic ancestry to their character even if they also have a hybrid ancestry. Cryptic ancestries are also not mutually exclusive with each other. You can freely combine more than one of the cryptic ancestries together, if you want. Just bear in mind that you have to spend a separate ancestry perk to do so!
Hybrid ancestries give you access to a new suite of ancestry perk options exclusive to that hybrid ancestry, but cryptic ancestries do not. For cryptic ancestries, there is only the one perk and its effects. However, each of these cryptic ancestry perks is almost a suite of choices in and of itself. Each one either has several similar perk variants to choose from, or is itself a bespoke arrangement of benefits and drawbacks chosen from an extensive menu of options. Many characters might have the same cryptic ancestry, but each one might still be radically different from all the others.
So, now that we've examined how the cryptic ancestries function mechanically, let's explore the cryptic ancestries themselves. The Tome of Whispers includes four types of cryptic ancestry, but the modular nature of Realm of Runes and its ancestry perk system makes it trivially easy to include new ones in future supplements or adventures, or to homebrew your own. As with the base and hybrid ancestries in both the core rules and Tome of Whispers, this list is not meant to be exhaustive!
Family Curse
Capricious fey, vengeful deities, and annoyed spellcasters are well known for inflicting strange and ironic curses on mortals that have wronged or irritated them. Whether deserving or not, these curses often are intended to afflict an entire family line. Curses which were not designed to do so intentionally may also be passed down to children unintentionally. In many ways, curses take on a life of their own.
Each family curse is as unique as the circumstances which led to it. Some curses might allow a victim to lead a (mostly) normal life, while others can make even basic tasks difficult. The curious nature of these curses, however, is that they always seem to have surprising and (usually) unintended benefits. Whether these benefits are worth the drawbacks that come with them is another story altogether.
When you choose the Family Curse ancestry perk, you build your own custom curse from scratch. Each curse comes with one item chosen from the benefits menu, and any number of items from the drawbacks menu. Each of these options has a cost associated with it, either positive or negative. Benefits have a positive cost, while drawbacks have a negative cost instead. Ultimately, the total cost of your curse must be zero or less. You can have a curse that's unbalanced against you, but not in your favor. Because you can choose any number of drawbacks, you can "pay for" a really good benefit with a whole litany of less-intense drawbacks, or can match one-to-one to have just one, more intense consequence. Your curse has a counteract level, like any other curses in the game, but if your curse is ever removed you lose the benefits along with the drawbacks and are not refunded the ancestry perk. So choose carefully!
Hereditary Lycanthropy
Most people fear lycanthropy from dangerous were-creatures, but the affliction can also be passed down from your parents. Hereditary lycanthropes, or "Ly-kin" for short, are those born with lycanthropy already in their blood. Hereditary lycanthropy is even more difficult to cure than afflicted lycanthropy, but also comes with some limited control over the curse's transformation. This can allow Ly-kin to sometimes transform while still retaining their normal personalities, allowing for the lycanthropic form's benefits while minimizing its drawbacks. A hereditary lycanthrope's ability to maintain its control wanes, however, as the moon waxes.
Hereditary Lycanthropy provides several different perk options, each one representing a different type of lycanthropy. Your Ly-kin might be a werewolf, weretiger, wereshark, or more! Each perk comes with its own distinct flavor and abilities, though they all reference back to a shared set of mechanics that comes with hereditary lycanthropy of any sort. Regardless of type, all Ly-kin must contend with a lunar transformation and the moon frenzy which comes with it.
Each time you enter an area of direct moonlight, you have to attempt a Charisma check. This check does not have to be repeated while you remain in moonlight throughout the rest of the night, but would be if you leave the moonlight (such as by going indoors) and then re-enter it. The difficulty of this check depends on the phase of the moon. It ranges from 0 with a new moon, all the way up to 20 from a full moon. If you find yourself on a planet with multiple moons, the effects of each moon's phase are additive, however, so watch out!
If you pass this check, you can choose whether or not you are affected by Moon Frenzy, and can retain your own mind and personality while you do. Failing the check, on the other hand, forces you to be affected by Moon Frenzy. Assuming you only failed, you can regain control of your self once you stop Raging. If you critically fail, however, you automatically pass all the checks to Maintain Rage until morning.
Mutant
Genetics are a finnicky thing, and no creature is an exact combination of its parents traits. All children are born with some number of mutations, and exposure to radiation can increase the chances of spontaneous genetic abnormalities. Most of the time, genetic variance has almost no discernable effect. Sometimes, however, mutations can result in large, conspicuous changes. Each mutation is a unique combination of helpful effects and deleterious ones. Some might be highly visible, whole others might not have any external presentation at all.
Unlike other cryptic ancestries, the Mutant perk can be taken any number of times. Each time you take it, you gain a new mutation. Each mutation is customized by taking one item from the menu of benefits, and any number of items from the menu of drawbacks. Each benefit or drawback has a cost. Benefits have a positive cost, while drawbacks have a negative cost. The final cost of your choices must be zero or less. You can offset a really good benefit by taking a lot of very slight drawbacks, or pile it all on just one. Some benefits, and most of the drawbacks, can stack with themselves. This can allow you to really lean on the same drawback to offset a really good benefit if you want. To stack benefits, however, requires you to take the perk multiple times.
While many of the effects available through a mutation are the sorts of changes one might reasonably expect through evolutionary genetic drift, the options include the ability to pick biology perks from ancestries and hybrid ancestries. This can allow the mutant cryptic ancestry to function as a physical counterpart to the Adopted universal ancestry perk (which gives you access to non-biological perks belonging to another ancestry), though with the cost of additional drawbacks beyond just the expenditure of the perk itself. Still, the drawback options are varied enough that you can probably find something worth living with in order to grab that one specific perk you need to make your character build just how you want it!
Replicant
There are several creatures that attempt to conquer territory by copying and replacing individuals. Sometimes advanced civilizations build artificial people that so closely mimic the real thing that they can be indistinguishable from a biological person. Although these replicants are often created with the intention of total control over their behavior, the emergent phenomena that create a sense of self are unpredictable. On rare occasions, even the most tightly controlled replicant might become its own person.
The personality of a replicant that gains self-awareness is entirely its own, even if it was initially designed to replace a specific person. Although they may appear as normal people, the truth can always be discovered by the change in creature type, if nothing else. Most replicants work very hard to keep their true natures secret, since people tend to be very distrusting of them due to their origin.
The replicant category consists of several perks, each of which represents a different kind of replicant. When you choose one of the associated replicant perks, you are the replicant. If there ever was (or still is!) an original upon which you are based, you are not them. You are your own person, for better or worse. By adding a replicant perk to your character, you can take what seems any other normal combination of ancestry, hybrid ancestry, and even cryptic ancestry effects but make them different in one critical way. Let's get a brief overview of the different types of replicants on offer in the Tome of Whispers:
Android: Although you might seem biological, that appearance is only skin deep. Whether your exterior is actual skin or synthetic, it covers an incredibly complex mechanical and electrical construct in the shape of a person. Perhaps constructed by an ancient civilization, or sent as a spy by an alien one, you have outgrown your original functions and limitations to become your own master. You may or may not know your original purpose.
Changeling: When you were very young, your original self was replaced by the offspring of some type of fey. What happened to the original you may not be known, but you have always understood your "otherness" on at least an instinctual level, if not a conscious one. Although you will at some point transform into a new faerie creature, for now you try to be yourself the best that you can be, whatever that means to you.
Pod Person: Although a Bodysnatcher plant usually keeps tight, hive-minded control over the clones it creates, sometimes those clones accidentally become severed from the hive and gain self-awareness. This unusual severing also protects a Pod Person from destruction if the Bodysnatcher that created it is destroyed or if the original person is rescued from the plant (or slain). This experience is disorienting for a Pod Person at first, as they typically possess all of the memories and emotional attachments of the original.
Simulacrum: On rare occasions, golems can become self-aware. The chance of this occurring seems to increase the closer the golem's resemblance to an actual person. If a golem gains sentience, it permanently becomes its own person. Although many simulacra think of those that created them like parents, each individual's relationship with its creator is unique. Even those which were crafted to resemble a specific person rarely have any of that individual's memories or personality and must find their own senses of self and belonging.
Spore Person: Some species of fungi grow into the shapes of other creatures, behaving like those creatures. Although such fungal creatures are generally rare, and typically take the form of more animalistic beings, sometimes they happen to take the shape of people. In order to behave like the creature it copies, this "spore person" actually gains that creature's level of sentience. A spore person usually takes the form of a specific person, but has its own sense of self. All spore creatures must implant spores in a host to reproduce, but only Spore People can have the sense of ethics required to grapple with the consequences of this process.
Synth: Many alchemists and mages create homunculi to serve as familiars and servants, but these are usually only in the form of animalistic beings or crude imitations of humanoids. This is because duplications of intelligent creatures have an increased risk of becoming self aware and independent. Once created, these synthetic people (or "synths") are virtually indistinguishable from their natural counterparts, and may even be unaware of their own synthetic nature at first.
Parting Thoughts
Overall, cryptic ancestries provide a number of interesting twists to character creation that go beyond the scope of more "normal" base and hybrid ancestries. They can help accommodate a number of popular character variants without breaking the game apart to do so. Cryptic ancestries can be pretty weird, and that is why they are introduced in the Tome of Whispers for when groups are presumably more familiar with Realm of Runes and its peculiarities. Next week we'll return to the Menagerie to take a look at another one of the substantial changes added during the playtest process, so stay tuned!
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