Hiraeth Adventuring Guild Ancestry System v4.0
A lore-grounded playtest system for ancestry, physical lineage, regional heritage, ancestral traits and talents, mixed lineage, and optional character Flaws. It uses the campaign's normal D&D 5e background system rather than replacing it. This separate v4.0 book does not alter or silently replace earlier Hiraeth rules.
00 - Start Here - HAG Ancestry System v4.0
Playtest status: this is a complete but deliberately unfinished v4.0 playtest. It does not silen...
1 - Core System
The complete v4.0 character-origin procedure, shared rules, and compatibility guidance.
1.1 - Character Origin Procedure
Step 1: Choose an Ancestry Your ancestry provides creature type, size, Speed, senses, and a small...
1.2 - Shared Rules and Glossary
Origin Vocabulary Ancestry is the broad physical body and inherited nature. Lineage is the predef...
1.3 - Compatibility with Existing 5e Characters
V4.0 is written for the Hiraeth 5e rules environment and can support either 2014-style or 2024-st...
1.4 - Power Budget and Safety Rails
These are design rules for v4.0 content and adjudication. Level-1 Budget An ancestry chassis, one...
2 - Ancestries
Nine physical ancestry chassis, their lineages, quick packages, and ancestry talent lists.
2.1 - Human
Hiraeth's humans are the mortal children of Arcana, the god of magic. Every Human carries a small...
2.2 - Dwarf
Dwarves are dense-boned, stonewise people whose communities include deep delvers, volcanic holds,...
2.3 - Elf
Hiraeth's elves are long-memory people shaped by environment, magic, and community. Their lives a...
2.4 - Gnome
Gnomes are compact, detail-focused people whose traditions range from living forests to crystal w...
2.5 - Dragonborn
Dragonborn bear a strong draconic inheritance expressed through scale families rather than moral ...
2.6 - Kobold
Kobolds are small draconic people organized around found family, practical ingenuity, and scale l...
2.7 - Goliath
Goliaths carry giant legacies without being bound to one climate or social tradition. Choose a gi...
2.8 - Aerimpi
Aerimpi are small, wind-associated people sometimes compared to halflings in other realms. Their ...
2.9 - Felis
Felis are catfolk with varied builds, coats, and movement adaptations. Pride, alley, jungle, and ...
3 - Versatile Lineages
Aasimar, Tiefling, and mixed-ancestry options that replace a normal lineage.
3.1 - Aasimar
Aasimar are mortals marked by celestial blood, sacred aftermath, prophecy, or direct divine atten...
3.2 - Tiefling
Tieflings are mortals marked by fiendish pacts, bloodlines, curses, or liminal forces. A lineage ...
3.3 - Mixed Lineage
Mixed ancestry represents parentage or inherited influence from two or more base ancestries witho...
4 - Heritages
Regional peoples, communities, and ways of life, separated from both inherited lineage and profes...
4.1 - Choosing a Heritage
Heritage describes the regional people and way of life that taught your character how ordinary li...
4.2 - Hiraeth Themes and Heritage
Hiraeth is a world made by settlement, catastrophe, trade, memory, divine aftermath, public works...
4.3 - Heritage Expression Catalog
A Heritage Expression is a narrow piece of learned social or regional fluency. Choose two express...
4.4 - Blended, Adopted, and Custom Heritages
People are often raised between households, languages, routes, nations, and generations. Use thes...
4.5 - Icebeach Heritages: Hearths of the North
Icebeach is not one culture wearing thirteen different coats. It is a northern confederation of s...
4.6 - Icebeach Heritages: Ice, Lake, and Gate
The following heritages cover Icebeach communities formed by open water, seasonal sea ice, cultiv...
4.7 - Icebeach Heritages: Mountain, Glacier, and Memory
These heritages belong to communities shaped by difficult connection, mountain isolation, watchfu...
4.8 - World Heritages and the Peoples of Arfordir
Heritage answers a simple character question: Which people and place taught you how ordinary lif...
4.9 - Athenaeum, Gilded Crossroads, Wolgari, and Beccin
Athenaeum and Delphi 8. Delphic Civic Status: Working Heritage You were raised in Delphi as a cit...
4.10 - Eschatia and the Southern Thalassia
Eschatia 16. Eschatian Slow-Root Countryside Status: Working Heritage You were raised in an Escha...
4.11 - Cynnyd, Ossuria, the Ravine, and Draconic Enclaves
Cynnyd 26. Cynnyd Sky-City Household Status: Working Heritage You were raised in Cynnyd, the flyi...
4.12 - Legacy Heritages: Airgid through Harold-Ford
The profiles on this page are Legacy Heritages. They preserve established seeds from earlier Hira...
4.13 - Legacy Heritages: Iron Mountains through Southern Fair
These profiles continue the Legacy Heritage catalog. A legacy label is an invitation to collabora...
5 - Using D&D Backgrounds
How v4.0 works with the campaign's native D&D 5e and existing Hiraeth backgrounds.
6 - Universal Ancestral Traits and Talents
Ancestry-neutral level-1 Traits and later Talent choices available at each ancestry milestone.
7 - Optional Flaws
Optional universal, ancestry-, lineage-, and heritage-associated story pressures that never purch...
8 - Reference and Playtest
Quick-reference tables, design benchmarks, and feedback guidance.
8.1 - Quick Reference
Character Creation Step Choice Mechanical Result 1 Ancestry Chassis: size, Speed, senses, ...
8.2 - Playtest Checklist
Record feedback at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 when possible. Character Record Base ancestry and...
8.3 - Version Notes and Open Questions
V4.0 Structural Changes Replaced open Ancestry Point purchasing with bounded Ancestry, Lineage, ...