Heritage, trades, and racial talents

Three talent trees hold what you are born or brought up to: your family’s Heritage and a craftsperson’s Crafts, both taken only at character creation, and the Racial tree of what each people is good at.

Heritage: only at character creation

The Heritage tree holds what your family gave you. Its talents are offered only at character creation (the Talents step, or a random pick there), never at a level. The Talents page shows them with “to be a new character”, which no later level meets. What they give comes at once, on top of your starting kit.

• Family wealth gives you nine times the gold coins you start with more: your class’s purse, and any a start of the world adds. That is at least 180 and at most 450 more. It also gives two or three loose gems, as found at item level 2. Coins weigh 10 g each, so the weakest of the small peoples (halflings, gnomes, goblins, kobolds, ratfolk) may set out Burdened. An aristocrat is born to it: their class gives it at level 1, so they never pick it, and they may pick Father’s sword straight away.
• Father’s sword (needs Family wealth) is your people’s heirloom weapon: not always a sword, but always a weapon. It is magic, with 2 to 4 affixes rolled at item level 6. Two make it magic; more make it rare and give it a name. It is a Masterwork piece, so it can bear all four (Capacity). You know what it does from the start. It is readied in its own slot if your kit left that free: the main hand, or the missile weapon slot for a sling or a bow. Otherwise it waits in your pack beside the kit’s own weapon.

Crafts: a craftsperson’s trades

The Crafts tree holds the trades: one for each profession skill. Only a craftsperson may take one, and only at character creation. No other class is offered them, and no later level is. A craftsperson’s first two picks are always trades: the class gives them two bonus picks at creation for them, on top of the usual ones. They may spend an ordinary pick on a trade too, so a human craftsperson may set out with three.

A trade is never one your race already gives everyone. A dwarf is born to Metalcraft and Mining, so Smith and Pitman are closed to them. The Talents page says so: “you need not to be a dwarf or a duergar”. A skill a race gives only by chance (a human’s extra class skill, say) does not count.

Taking a trade does three things:

• It trains the skill at 3d6 (3 to 18), rolled once as you take it, plus 6 from the craftsperson’s Time served. If you have the skill already, the roll adds to it.
• It gives you the tools of the trade, on top of your starting kit. A pick-axe is readied in the Tool slot if your kit left it free, and carried otherwise. A scroll is known by its name from the start.
• The skill grows faster: a skill roll on it throws the die one step up the ladder, as on a skill your class is known for. A skill that is both rolls one step up, not two.

Racial talents

The Racial tree holds what each people is good at. Every talent in it asks for its race, and some for a score, a level, or a weapon skill besides. So only an elf may take Elven accuracy, and only a dwarf Stone sense. They are picked like any other talent.

Humans have no gift of their own, so they are given Versatile from the start instead: one more talent at creation and one more at level 30. Like the gifts of the stars it is never on a pick list, and the character screen’s Talents page marks it as your race’s.

The trees

Each talent with what it needs and its rule, exactly (see What a talent does).

Heritage

What your family gave you: only at character creation.

Crafts

A trade learned young: a craftsperson’s, at character creation.

Racial

What your people are good at.

See also: Races, Starting kit, and Crafting.