Ancestries

Fantastic peoples inhabit the worlds of Draw Steel. Among them are devils, dwarves, elves, time raiders—and of course humans, whose culture and history dominates many worlds.

Your hero is one of these folks! The fantastic ancestry you choose bestows benefits that come from your anatomy and physiology. This choice doesn't grant you cultural benefits, such as crafting or lore skills, though. While many game settings have cultures made of mostly one ancestry, other cultures and worlds have a cosmopolitan mix of peoples.

In Draw Steel, ancestry describes how you were born. Culture (part of Chapter 4: Background) describes how you grew up. If you want to be a wode elf who was raised in a forest among other wode elves, you can do that! If you want to play a wode elf who was raised in an underground city of dwarves, humans, and orcs, you can do that too!

This chapter details twelve ancestries for the game:

Devil: Devils originated in the Seven Cities of Hell and have a supernatural charisma that helps them persuade others. They are similar in stature to humans, and their skin tones include deep blues, purples, and reds. They sport horns, eyes of all shades (including gold and red), and tails, and some have feathered or leathery wings.

Dragon Knight: Dragon knights are muscled draconic humanoids who stand between 6 and 7 feet tall. The scales covering their reptilian heads, bodies, and tails can be almost any color. All dragon knights have wings, but on only a few are those wings big enough to let them fly.

Dwarf: Humanoids with stony skin, dwarves have short and stout bodies. Many carve supernatural runes into their flesh, and some have beards made of crystals.

Wode Elf: Lithe humanoids with finely furred skin in all shades of blue, wode elves have angular features and large, pointed ears akin to a bat's. They possess a supernatural glamor that allows them to blend in with their surroundings when they wish to hide.

High Elf: Stately and graceful, high elves have tall, willowy bodies, pointed ears, and smoother skin than most other humanoids. Rare metal inlays such as gold, platinum, palladium, and iridium act as organic components within their skin. The truest form of any high elf is hidden from most—sometimes even from themself—thanks to a supernatural glamor that makes them more attractive to others, whatever that might mean to an individual. This glamor transcends physical appearance, also slightly altering a high elf's tone and smell.

Hakaan: Descended from stone giants, the mighty hakaan stand over 9 feet tall and have well-muscled bodies made of organic stone. They are the largest ancestry in this book!

Human: Humans are the most numerous people in Orden and many other fantasy worlds! In Draw Steel, humans have all the diversity that our species displays in real life—and they can sense the presence of supernatural energy!

Memonek: Originating on Axiom, the Plane of Uttermost Law, memonek are a machine people made of metal, marble, glass, and other inorganic materials. Their bodies are lightweight, making them easier to move and letting them fall at slower speeds.

Orc: Orcs have skin in green tones and stand slightly taller and wider than humans. A supernatural energy they call "the blood fire" flows through their veins, igniting colorful lines in an orc's skin during life-or-death battles.

Polder: The smallest of the ancestries in this book, polders stand no taller than 3-1/2 feet. They look like smaller humans, and they have the ability to blend in with the shadows.

Revenant: No hero starts their life as a revenant. Rather, these undead creatures return to the world of the living because they have dire business that must be finished. A character of any ancestry can become a revenant.

Time Raider: Travelers of the timescape, the time raiders (or kuran'zoi as they call themselves) have four arms and a single ocular sensor instead of a pair of eyes. Many have innate psionic abilities that make them capable warriors.

Other Sections

The rules for using ancestries refer to lots of other parts of the game. You can find information on specific topics as follows:

Edges and banes, Recoveries, respites: Chapter 1: The Basics

Languages: Chapter 4: Background

Abilities, conditions, potencies, saving throws, surges: Chapter 5: Classes

Skills, tests: Chapter 9: Tests

Crafting projects: Chapter 12: Downtime Projects

Main actions and maneuvers, creature size, damage and Stamina, dying and death, flanking, movement and forced movement, winded: Chapter 10: Combat

Names by Ancestry

Obviously you're free to invent whatever name you want for your character! And your director might have their own setting that uses different cultures than those in Orden. But if you want to pick an Orden-appropriate name for your hero, keep reading.

Equally obviously; names are cultural, not biological. Your character probably has a name appropriate to whatever culture they were born into, or grew up in. A human raised by hakaan would probably have a hakaan name.

Last Names and Bynames

Most people living in Orden—and this is especially true of Vasloria live in villages. They do not have and do not use last names or family names. Everyone in the village knows who you mean when you refer to "William." Even if there's more than one William in the village, you can usually tell who someone's referring to from context. Sometimes folks prepend "our" to someone's name meaning: the one related to or otherwise concerned with me and my family. "Our William" for instance.

If that's not enough, folks use another identifier known as a byname. If there were two boys in the village named Much, one of them might be called Much the Miller's Son, to distinguish them from the other lad.

If you leave your village regularly, say to trade with others in a distant market, then your byname might be the place you're from. Alan from the village in the dale, might become known as Alan from the Dale, or even Alan-a-Dale. But everyone back home just calls you Alan.

A byname might refer to your profession. Clyde the Cartwright is a perfectly normal byname. But no one you met would assume "Cartwright" was your 'family name.' People who live permanently in a very large city like Capital use family names, because almost no first name is sufficiently unique to identify you, and "Marissa the Cartwright's Daughter" quickly evolves into Marissa Cartwright.

Most nobles in Orden also use the name of the area they rule as part of their name. When someone refers to Lord Edmund Bedegar everyone listening silently, without thinking about it, adds "of" between the name and the place. Edmund is both Edmund, and the Lord of Bedegar, and Edmund, Lord of Bedegar, and therefore sometimes Lord Edmund Bedegar. Even though "Bedegar" looks like a "last name" to us, and is being used in that manner sometimes, it's not exactly his last name. It's still just another kind of byname.

Unlike remote villages, well settled areas where many towns and villages are all networked by roads often do use surnames to help differentiate one William from the other twenty within a densely populated area.

Names and Gender

Most cultures in Vasloria make a distinction between masculine and feminine names, though not all do. And for some cultures that make such a distinction, almost no one outside the culture can tell the difference.

Among those cultures which do make a distinction between masculine and feminine names, there are always names that could refer to a person of any gender. Here in the real world, you can't tell a person's gender just from the name "Shane." This is mostly because which names are considered masculine or feminine changes over time, and when this happens, there's a period—maybe a few generations—where the name could refer to a person of any gender.

Of course, there's no law (neither metaphorically nor literally) that requires your character to go by their birth name. They might not even know their birth name depending on what happened after they were born. It's not unusual, especially among talents, for a hero to adopt a moniker or sobriquet instead of a name. And in some cultures, there's a tradition of changing your name—or at least how you prefer to be known—as you go through different stages of life. High elves sometimes adopt a wholly new name when they reach a certain age, or more commonly, they choose a different component of their name. When A Mist Curls Around Dying Embers was a young woman, she was known as Mist. Now that she's the master of the Tower of Translation, she's known as Embers.

Authentic or Comedic?

For some players choosing a "good name"-by which they mean "authentic to the setting"-is important and can take a while. Because the right name can ground a character in the world, and this can help the player feel more immersed in the fictional reality. It also communicates to the other players that you're serious about the game and your hero.

For other players, choosing a comedic, joke name communicates the opposite! You are here to have fun and screw around and taking things seriously is something you already have to do all week, and so you pick a ridiculous name just to get a laugh because that's what you're serious about.

The choice of name is an important one, because it says a lot about you and how you view the game as a whole.

Example Names By Ancestry

Devil Names

Feminine: Ampeth, Arrian, Cyrrik, Frissia, Illya, Oreth, Quallo, Uryalia, Yllioth, Zorri

Gender Neutral: Halciar, Illion, Karya, Moriel, Orliath

Masculine: Bulliarvik, Cenoph, Dhult, Jjaro, Kuryalkin, Radiarsk, Tessiar, Turayvik, Ullian, Villyroth

Dragon Knight Names

Feminine: Ahrijiinad, Cyrrijox, Kaikorrivar, Kalliarx, Korazajaan, Korovaamijax, Orrizarviox, Uriquexicaar, Ythirix, Zoronivaam

Gender Neutral: Baiqadrazaar, Ciniceziar, Lorikorivox, Vinkarijaan, Zaikorojax

Masculine: Aarkizovar, Dannorax, Denoxavinaax, Killexiriax, Koraavinam, Raijorozaan, Vanazor, Vorokazinaar, Zakaarior, Zexijorovox

Dwarf Names

Feminine: Dazria, Dekka, Djorva, Giria, Kirza, Kuroth, Lurza, Uur, Zareth, Ziir

Gender Neutral: Arzak, Keth, Orikk, Q'ir, Qoroth

Masculine: Darzok, Dazran, Djorek, Durok, Duur, Gavok, Kaaz, Kazaan, Zaar, Zarek

Wode Elf Names

Elves in general have a casual attitude toward gender, it having no direct bearing on procreation for them. (Normal elf upon learning how humans mate: "You mean... like animals?") They tend to view the various sex-linked traits associated among other ancestries with masculinity or femininity as a kind of fashion to be taken up or discarded as the mood suits. Over one life, any elf might wear masculine features, or feminine features, or both, many times. For wode elves, this often means adopting a new name, or a different version of the same name. Llyandros might become Llyandra for instance.

Feminine: Elvyr, Eviarwyc, Illwyv, Iorwyth, Lliarwyn, Meithennyn, Nimuë, Rhegyth, Viarwyn, Ysallwyth

Gender Neutral: Arriswyth, Gogellwyc, Hygglwyc, Lliarion, Tywso

Masculine: Calliarwyc, Cillyv, Eidior, Ffyllwyc, Gwyllmach, Llyandros, Ogllvar, Radiarwyn, Ryll, Tafirdwyn

High Elf Names

High elf names are poetic. They are an attempt to capture a fleeting, often contradictory, impulse, or emotion. They sometimes contain references to the natural world. They are never meant to be taken literally and they are not an attempt to make a character feel heroic.

Examples: The Anticipation of a Sigh Upon His Lips, A Crown of Starlight on Winter Snow, The Earth Cries the Skies Divide, Echoes of Autumn Heat, Edges of a Leaf Torn by the Wind, Every Flake of Snow a Memory, A Heart That Will Not Yield the Stars, The Last Star Fading With Morning, A Rain of Glass Over a Sea of Dreams, The Sun Reflected in a Lover's Tear

Hakaan Names

Feminine: Adrina, Arawanni, Barsina, Irdabava, Kiandot, Mavané, Osorabi, Sitarey, Tyriti, Ulivesh

Gender Neutral: Adaska, Kirashev, Oriamos, Sandauka, Ulion

Masculine: Adusiya, Artabānu, Dahyu, Farnaspa, Fravartiš, Jamaspa, Khosrau, Kithara, Sarames, Utana

Western Vasloria Human Names

Human names vary widely by culture. The following examples are from Western Vasloria.

Feminine: Brenwyn, Demelza, Elzbeth, Gwynhyvyr, Maerwyn, Margaret, Meliora, Rowenna, Tamara, Wenna

Gender Neutral: Ashley, Bryn, Jennet, Morgan, Taran

Masculine: Brys, Cadwyr, Dyfan, Edmund, Geoffrey, Gwiddon, Heden, Richard, Taegan, Taethan

Memonek Names

Feminine: Abandhaska, Ashariyaa, Devidayya, Gandahraji, Kunismyya, Priyaptaa, Ruthudeva, Urivashii, Vanarishka, Yashovalla

Gender Neutral: Jamiattra, Lotarhixa, Mitterirtra, Sattayarit, Talyana

Masculine: Ayabaskha, Dhamayana, Divarsotto, Duruvatta, Ghaurdamatta, Harakshathra, Khasimandru, Khavettra, Virabanu, Vittarkoya

Orc Names

Feminine: Askilli, Dorviath, Jeddoar, Karoskha, Khorisa, Khorva, Moraska, Vakarra, Vhorovi, Zhorva

Gender Neutral: Dorokor, Gorovik, Khettovek, Meadior, Orosk

Masculine: Dezovor, Dhorovek, Djorvok, Korjok, Medozoar, Pakadrask, Rojak, Rokore, Uvarsk, Vordokov

Polder Names

For reasons not well understood, polders in Vasloria use surnames. First names seem chosen to imply a degree of sophistication (or, at least, what polders consider sophisticated) while last names are typically common, compound words. No one knows why they do this.

Feminine: Agatha, Amaryllis, Beverly, Esmerelda, Marceline, Modesty, Penelope, Rosemarie, Ursula, Weatherly

Gender Neutral: Bellamy, Bethell, Carrington, Madison, Mallory

Masculine: Aimsley, Alderson, Bancroft, Beechwood, Billingsworth, Broderick, Langston, Owlswick, Patterson, Willoughby

Surnames: Bottlebrush, Bracegirdle, Cheesewright, Cobblestone, Cordwainer, Lamplighter, Pinwhistle, Thistlethrush, Twobuckle, Underhill

Revenant Names

Revenants most often keep whatever names they had in life. They may have any number of reasons to adopt a new name in which case that name would reflect their reasons for doing so. Perhaps they adopt a moniker like many talents do, or they choose a new name from their original culture, or something completely different!

Time Raider Names

Kuran'zoi names typically end with an epithet, given when the young time raider comes of age, that reflects their uniquely rebellious nature.

Feminine: Ak'karatar, Ip'pritt, Ner'radmok, Orov'vika, Phe'kala, Quix'x, Thes'srika, Thos'sivik, Um'manri, Vir'rikin

Gender Neutral: Jorut'or, Morp'phan, Mot'tira, Sonit'ir, Thir'rip

Masculine: Astro'ogor, Dak'kara, Ik'koq, Jel'lek, Kes'slik, Laz'zir, Mav'vikek, Thork'kar, Uv'vik, Va'antak

Epithet: The Acerbic, the Cynic, the Heretic, the Impious, the Irritant, the Skeptical, the Sneering, the Surly, the Unbeliever, the Unruly

Measurements

How tall is a polder? How long does a dwarf live? The Ancestry Measurements table provides the average adult height and weight ranges and life expectancy for each of the ancestries in this chapter. These measurements are only averages, and many folks in the world exist outside of them, so your hero can too!

Revenants aren't on the table, since their height and weight is based on their previous ancestry. Likewise, they live until destroyed or moving on after completing their unfinished business.

Humans have the potential to live a little longer on Orden than they do in the real world thanks to the presence of magic.

Ancestry Measurements Table

Starting Size and Speed

Unless otherwise noted, a character of any of these ancestries is size 1M and has speed 5 and stability 0.

Where an ancestry provides you with an ability, see Abilities in Chapter 5: Classes for details of the ability format.

Ancestry Traits

Each ancestry has one or more signature traits, which your hero gets for free if they take that ancestry. This is a defining feature that other heroes of your ancestry also possess.

Ancestries also have purchased traits, but you don't get every purchased trait your ancestry has to offer. Instead, your ancestry provides a budget of ancestry points you can use to select traits. Each trait has a point cost that you pay to grant its benefit to your hero.

For example, the devil ancestry has the signature trait Silver Tongue and 3 ancestry points to spend on seven different traits. A player creating a devil hero could select Barbed Tail, Glowing Eyes, and Hellsight, each of which costs 1 ancestry point, or they could select one of those traits plus Impressive Horns or Wings, each of which costs 2 ancestry points. But they couldn't select both Impressive Horns and Wings, since their combined cost of 4 exceeds the ancestry points budget for the devil.