1.1 - Character Origin Procedure

Step 1: Choose an Ancestry

Your ancestry provides creature type, size, Speed, senses, and a small set of inherited traits. An ancestry does not determine personality, alignment, profession, language, or ability-score increases.

Step 2: Choose a Lineage

Choose one lineage listed in your ancestry. A lineage is the system's sub-race layer: a physical, magical, environmental, or inherited expression of the broader ancestry.

Instead of a normal lineage, you may choose Aasimar, Tiefling, or Mixed Lineage from the Versatile Lineages chapter. You retain your base ancestry and replace only its lineage.

Step 3: Choose a Heritage

Heritage represents a regional people and way of life: the community that taught you language, etiquette, food, public memory, survival routines, and assumptions about belonging. Any ancestry and lineage may belong to any heritage when the character's history supports it.

Choose one profile from the Heritages chapter. Gain one listed language or dialect and choose two Heritage Expressions. The profile suggests common choices, but another catalog expression is valid when you explain how your community taught it. Expressions grant narrow, reliable story permissions rather than numerical bonuses. They never grant ability-score increases.

Step 4: Choose a Background

Background represents prior work and life experience. Choose it using the campaign's normal D&D 5e background rules. V4.0 does not add another set of ability-score increases, proficiencies, equipment, feats, or background features.

The Using D&D Backgrounds chapter explains 2014-style, 2024-style, and existing Hiraeth backgrounds.

Step 5: Choose an Ancestral Detail and Ancestral Trait

Choose one Ancestral Detail from your base ancestry. A Detail is a small inherited awareness, adaptation, or physical expression. It is intentionally narrower than a skill proficiency and does not grant blanket advantage on checks.

Then choose one level-1 Ancestral Trait from your base ancestry, your versatile lineage if you have one, or the Universal Ancestral Traits and Talents chapter.

For a quick build, take both recommendations in your lineage's Quick Package. For a modular build, replace either recommendation with any eligible option. The package never grants additional features.

You gain another ancestry talent at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. You must meet its level requirement and cannot choose the same talent twice unless it says otherwise.

These later choices represent discovery rather than a checklist of powers present at birth. When you choose one, describe whether it was awakened by danger, trained deliberately, inherited through memory, foretold by prophecy, or accepted as part of a changing body.

Step 6: Choose an Optional Flaw

Flaws replace mandatory power-buying drawbacks. A Flaw grants no permanent character power. When it materially makes a scene harder, the GM can award Heroic Inspiration, no more than once per session from this rule.

Some Flaws are associated with a particular ancestry, lineage, or heritage because they echo a common physical limitation or social pressure. Association is never a prerequisite: anybody may choose an appropriate Flaw, and nobody must take one because of their origin.

Duplicate Proficiencies

If ancestry or background grants a proficiency you already have at character creation, choose another proficiency of the same kind. A feature grants expertise only when it explicitly says so. Heritage Expressions are not proficiencies and do not trigger this rule.