This week we continue our deep dive into the ancestries in Realm of Runes with the Half-Elf, and its art by Nikki Smith-Cielo. Half-Elves are a hybrid ancestry, and are therefore added to another basic ancestry through the expenditure of one of your ancestry feats. This means that virtually anyone can be a Half-Elf, whether your non-Elf parentage is Human (as is the typical baseline in many settings) or something more unusual like Halfling, Dwarf or even Orc. By unshackling the Half-Elves from specific parentage, players gain the freedom to explore many different possible pairings all while utilizing the same easily understood rule set.
From the rulebook: "A half-elf is born to an elf and a creature of another ancestry, or to two half-elves. The life of a half-elf can be difficult, marked by a struggle to fit in. Populations of half-elves are not particularly tied to one another, since they often have very disparate heritages. Instead, most half-elves attempt to find acceptance in settlements primarily inhabited by people with the same heritage as one their parents.
"Half-elves appear primarily like their non-elven parents, with subtly pointed ears and a taller stature than most full-blooded members of that ancestry. Half-elves also have an unusually graceful presence, and often a striking beauty, that leads many of them to become artists or entertainers. Even so, many half-elves have difficulty forming lasting bonds with either of their heritages due to the disconnection they feel from both peoples as a whole.
"Half-elves live longer than others of their parent ancestry, often having a life span about 1.5 times longer than the natural life expectancy of those without their elven blood. This causes some of them to fear friendship and romance with others, knowing that they will likely outlive their companions."
One of the intrinsic benefits of possessing elven blood is unfettered access to three different pools of ancestry feats. Half-Elves can freely use their remaining feats to pick even Biology feats from the basic ancestry chosen (as with other hybrid ancestries) but also from those otherwise available exclusively to Elves. This true blending of distinct ancestries sets Half-Elves apart from even other hybrid ancestries, and yet Half-Elves also have access to a few ancestry feats that are uniquely theirs.
Half-Elf ancestry feats tend to focus on their relationships to their parent cultures, whether those are positive or negative, and thus are especially useful for characters that value effective communication. Half-Elves' blending of ancestries already gives them great synergy with many different character concepts in general, but Half-Elf feats double down on this synergy when it comes to concepts that rely on interacting with others, such as Bards, Clerics, Paladins, Enchantment-focused Wizards, and any character that delves deeply into any of the Charisma-based skills. Let's take a closer look at each of the Half-Elf specific feats.
HYBRID ANCESTRY (HALF-ELF) ANCESTRY FEAT
[Ancestry, Biology, Half-Elf, Hybrid]
Prerequisites: You are not an elf
Either one of your parents was an elf, or one or both were half-elves. You gain the elf trait, and add all elf and half-elf ancestry feats to those available to you. Choose two of the following benefits:
Elven Speed: Increase your Speed by 1 hex.
Elven Tongue: you are fluent with spoken or signed elvish.
Elven Vision: You have low-light vision.
Gifted Speaker: You have a +1 un-typed bonus to Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Religion and Society checks against creatures.
This is the basic feat required to be a Half-Elf, and serves as a prerequisite for all the other feats we're going to take a look at. It has the additional prerequisite that you are not already an Elf, which is there mostly for common sense reasons. The Half-Elf exists to add elvishness to something else, and therefore isn't necessary for those that are already Elves. This feat also gives you some freedom to customize how your elvishness manifests in you, with a choice between several options which can all be quite helpful.
GREAT COMMUNICATOR ANCESTRY FEAT
[Ancestry, Half-Elf]
Necessity has taught you how to get along with others, even with a language barrier. Reduce the DC of your flat check from broken fluency by 2, do not attempt a flat check with conversant fluency, and when you Convey Gist, the result is one step better.
This feat is extremely helpful to those that like to dabble in many different languages without specializing in any of them, and for those that regularly travel into new and exotic-speaking cultures during adventures. Whether you like to be your party's primary point of contact with new people, or you just like to stay in the loop, this feat helps ensure that you have a good chance of understanding and being understood.
INSPIRE IMITATION ANCESTRY FEAT
[Ancestry, Half-Elf, Teamwork]
You inspire your allies to great feats through your own actions. When you succeed at a skill check, allies have a +2 circumstance bonus to their next check to perform the same activity within 1 hour.
Showing your friends how things are done is a great way to ensure that they do it well too. This comes in extremely handy for a large number of skill activities that are attempted by whole parties, like climbing, swimming, jumping, sneaking, and so on. This feat helps you lead by example, and is one of the very few Teamwork ancestry feats that exist.
SOCIAL PARIAH ANCESTRY FEAT
[Ancestry, Half-Elf]
You were never accepted in your community, and others generally feared and mistrusted you for your differences. You have a +2 circumstance bonus to Intimidation checks against creatures with whom you share a trait, but take a -1 circumstance penalty to Deception, Diplomacy, Religion and Society checks against them.
This feat is for those that have regularly had unfortunately unpleasant interactions with their parent ancestries. While everyone hopes to be loved and accepted by those around them, learning to turn the absence of that nurturing into an advantage can be an important adaptation for survival.
SUPERNATURAL CHARM ANCESTRY FEAT
[Ancestry, Biology, Half-Elf]
Your elven blood manifests as magic that makes you more alluring. You can cast charm as an innate occult spell by spending one Resonance Point. If you spend a second Resonance Point, the spell level is half you character level, rounded up. Otherwise it manifests as a first level spell. Use Charisma as your Key Ability for this spell. You are trained with this spell unless you would have better proficiency otherwise.
Having innate access to magic is useful whether your character casts spells normally or not. It's a handy trick if you don't, and it can let you save your spell slots for other options if you do. Better still, it can improve as you do through heightening, and if you regularly cast occult spells enough to invest in better proficiency with the tradition this spell won't get left behind just because you learned it from a different source.
Whether your character shows only minor signs of Elven heritage or is thoroughly elvish, Half-Elves make for interesting and flavorful characters with a unique perspective on the world. While all Half-Elves might share some amount of Elvish blood, they are nonetheless capable of incredible diversity. Next week we'll continue our ancestry exploration with tiny and whimsical Gnomes.
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