4.4 - Blended, Adopted, and Custom Heritages

People are often raised between households, languages, routes, nations, and generations. Use these procedures without stacking larger mechanical benefits.

Blended Heritage

Choose two Heritage profiles.

• Gain one language from either profile.
• Choose two Heritage Expressions total, each of which may come from either profile.
• Name one community and one touchstone from each.
• Name one tension created by moving between their expectations.

This is one Heritage choice, not two complete mechanical packages.

Diaspora Heritage

Choose a remembered or ancestral Heritage and a present-home Heritage. Use the Blended Heritage rules. Then decide which customs were deliberately preserved, which changed to fit the new home, which were lost, and who argues about whether the result is authentic.

Diaspora is not Mixed Lineage. A family can preserve, adopt, or lose Heritage across any Ancestry and Lineage.

Adopted or Later-Entered Heritage

Use the same rules as anybody else who belongs. Explain who taught the character, which habits now feel effortless, which remain consciously practiced, and whether outsiders or some insiders challenge that belonging. Adoption never creates partial ancestry mechanics.

Mobile and Third-Culture Characters

For a character raised on ships, diplomatic routes, military postings, caravans, flying cities, seasonal camps, or company outposts, choose the two profiles that best describe the route. The moving community itself may be home.

Custom Heritage

With GM approval, define:

1. A regional, local, route, or diaspora anchor.
2. A specific community inside it.
3. One language or dialect.
4. Five to eight suggested Heritage Expressions from the catalog; the character chooses two suggestions or another fitting catalog expression.
5. Three material touchstones and one internal tension.
6. Two outsider stereotypes and what each misses.
7. Three character questions.
8. One reliable lore anchor and one fact deliberately left open.

Do not create an Expression that grants combat power, a broad check bonus, professional proficiency, free resources, secret knowledge, rank, or guaranteed institutional help.

Companies, Religions, and Factions

These can shape local life but are not Heritage choices. A company district may influence a Heritage; employment by that company belongs to Background. A holy city may influence public customs; personal worship and temple office remain character choices. Faction membership belongs in campaign history or a separate faction system.