What New Ancestries / Versatile Heritages do you want to see in PF2?

[KaiBlob1]

We already have a thread for Classes, and Rulebooks, and APs, but what interesting/exciting Ancestry or Versatile Heritage options are people hopeful/excited for?

For reference, as of writing there are 8 ancestries confirmed to be coming out this year:
Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse Anadi, Grippli, Gnoll, Shisk, Conrasu, Goloma
Guns and Gears Automaton
Lost Omens Grand Bazaar Unknown never-before-playable ancestry

Personally I hope we get a VH to make characters truly undead (mortic maybe?}, as well as centaurs and other Large ancestries and more weird/non-humanoid options.

[WWHsmackdown]

I want a psionic race. I'm a simple man, I just want to make my Jedi pc.

[Laclale♪]

Versatile Heritage option: Dimension of time bloodlines!

[Themetricsystem]

Molemen (Rare Ancestry)

Earthling (Rare Human only Heritage)

Awakened (Rare with Familiar(Tiny), Animal Companion (Small or Medium), or Construct (Medium or Large) Heritages)

Ettercap

One of these is a joke, the other three I am serious about, can you guess which is which?!

[Charon Onozuka]

Lamia, Centaur, other "human from waist-up" ancestries.

Some ancestry that is large-sized from level 1 so one of my players will be happy. Currently homebrewing a half-giant versatile heritage for them.

Half-Dragon as a versatile heritage. Everyone loves to mix dragons with everything considering how popular Dragon Disciple is/was - so why not just make it a versatile heritage that can be added onto any of the existing ancestries?

[keftiu]

Gnolls are a big one crossed off my list; I’m giddy to see it.

Seeing a Serpentfolk perspective on history, human ascendancy, and the Darklands remains something I want a lot. Iron Gods and my hopes for a sword-and-planet AP make me want Kasatha and Lashunta back. Wyrwoods are a must for an Arcadia trip.

[Perpdepog]

I've got two batches of ancestries I'd be happy to see right now.

First are Darklands ancestries. Drow, Duergar, those gnomes I can't spell, Munavri, possibly Derro, and my biggest hope is for Caligni. I like Caligni. Some of these would also more likely be heritages than ancestries, which would be cool on saving printspace.

The second batch I'd like to see would be ancestries from other planets, along with a heritage or two. The red humans from Akiton, for example. Mostly I'd like to see new ancestries, like the Anacytes--looking to the Automaton rules for a model for this--as well as Triaxians, Dragonkin, and maybe a Fleshwarp heritage for the Ilee ... and of course Kasathas, as well. Maybe as a crossover nod putting Skittermanders in, too.

Aside from those, an undead ancestry like the Mortics would be cool, though I could also see those becoming heritages or first-level ancestry feats as well since each Mortic's flavor seems to be "take core ancestry, take iconic undead, smash together, profit."

I'd also like there to be some manner of feat that allows someone to take a heritage as a first-level feat if they have a versatile heritage to allow us to make things like tiefling drow.

[Lelomenia]

Troll. Leprechaun. Revenant (versatile heritage maybe).

[Ventnor]

Skittermanders from Starfinder could be fun. It would be interesting to see how Paizo would balance a 6-armed ancestry.

[Laclale♪]

Themetricsystem wrote:

Awakened (Rare with Familiar(Tiny), Animal Companion (Small or Medium), or Construct (Medium or Large) Heritages)

We already have beastkin for animal and automaton for construct

But Familiar? What familiar?

[Gortle]

Some form of serpentfolk, centaur, plus a few size large options maybe a half ogre.

[Mythraine]

Feyblood and Shadowblood options as versatile heritages.

[Perpdepog]

Ventnor wrote:

Skittermanders from Starfinder could be fun. It would be interesting to see how Paizo would balance a 6-armed ancestry.

I was thinking about that, and I'm not sure they would need a terribly huge amount of balancing, at least around their multiple arms. Multiple arms were an issue in PF1E because each limb also got an attack; it's why we got so many eidolons who haled from the Elemental Plane of Arms. That isn't an issue in PF2E, where the number of attacks you can make is balanced around the number of actions you have, and what feats you have to cheat those actions.

I suspect a multi-limbed ancestry would mostly see a benefit in being able to hold more items at the ready, which admittedly is still a benefit and a potential balancing concern. Getting the benefit of a shield to AC while still holding a two-handed weapon, for example. Then again they could gate some of those abilities behind feats and flavor it as learning how to effectively juggle that many items.

[PossibleCabbage]

Charon Onozuka wrote:

Lamia, Centaur, other "human from waist-up" ancestries.

I really want cecaelias back. "Doofy good-natured octopus people" were really high on my list in PF1. Like you can wear a long, poofy shirt and just change height by stretching out your leg-arms (technically octopus limbs are arms, not tentacles.)

[keftiu]

Oh, I do want to throw my support behind a Medium Heritage for Kobolds - my players would love it, and it scratches the “dragonborn” itch.

[TiwazBlackhand]

I would love detailed rules for awakened plants and animals, both as PCs and just in general.

I want an assortment of Non-humanoid characters. I think Starfinder has shown that yes, as a matter of fact, a disembodied floating brain, a giant six legged insect, and Small columns balanced on a spinning ball are all actually perfectly fine player character options.

[Albatoonoe]

I want the main ancestries from Castroval and Akiton. The Contemplatives most of all.

[Winkie_Phace]

Centaurs, Minotaurs, half dragon, and just general more bulky ancestries. Large would be cool, but even just stuff that doesn't end up +dex would be great.

[belgrath9344]

half giant or troll race

[Castilliano]

I want reasoned pacing in the release of Ancestries/Heritages so that we don't get swamped like Starfinder did with lots of meaningless skins with minimal culture. I want them to have enough depth a home GM could build a chunk of adventure around a village or family of them and have a solid base for building personalities and uniqueness. Or a table of players, if they built a party of them, would understand how that would change the social dynamics from a typical party.

Thankfully most of the examples here do, yet I had to get that out there.

[Cyrad]

Merfolk
Lamia with snake or other animal lower halves
Dryad where you have a bonded tree
Naiad ancestry with abilities fitting for a person made of water
Ooze person ancestry
An unfettered familiar
Versatile heritage for being a shadow planar scion, an artificial construct, a living figment

[KaiBlob1]

Castilliano wrote:

I want reasoned pacing in the release of Ancestries/Heritages so that we don't get swamped like Starfinder did with lots of meaningless skins with minimal culture. I want them to have enough depth a home GM could build a chunk of adventure around a village or family of them and have a solid base for building personalities and uniqueness. Or a table of players, if they built a party of them, would understand how that would change the social dynamics from a typical party.

Thankfully most of the examples here do, yet I had to get that out there.

I think 2e is the perfect game for this idea of ancestries with actual culture and depth. IN starfinder and 1e, a race could fit in a sidebar, and that incentivizes throwing them in to fill space in bestiaries and the like rather than fleshing them out. In pathfinder an ancestry takes 4 pages minimum, and its hard to write 4 pages about a group of people without giving them at least some interesting qualities and culture.

[Ssalarn]

Themetricsystem wrote:

Molemen (Rare Ancestry)

Earthling (Rare Human only Heritage)

Awakened (Rare with Familiar(Tiny), Animal Companion (Small or Medium), or Construct (Medium or Large) Heritages)

Ettercap

One of these is a joke, the other three I am serious about, can you guess which is which?!

I'm really curious as to whether it's the one that has a 3pp write-up already.

[Heather F]

I have removed some posts and posts containing quoted content. Do not try to get around the profanity filter. If you think a word is going to be triggering for someone, replacing the letters with symbols does not make it less triggering. If you truly want to censor your own words, just don't post them.

[Schreckstoff]

Beastkin can cover a lot of bases but I'd still like to see Jackals and similar.

Also a big fan of dragon heritages since kobolds don't quite do it for me.

There's a whole untapped market of non central European fantasy.

Kappas, Tanuki, rabbitfolk, monkey king,...

[Ventnor]

I don't think being quintuply immortal would be a balanced ancestry feature, Schreckstoff.

[Staffan Johansson]

Strictly speaking they wouldn't be new ancestries, but I'd love to see some love for humans in the ancestry department—both new heritages and some neat ancestry feats.

The problem is that the human heritages are boring. You have "More skills", "General feat", and Wintertouched. Oh, and a dozen different ways to get low-light vision plus buying into a set of non-human ancestry feats. So if you want to play a human without weirdness in the family tree, and you're not from Irrisen, you basically only have two options, whereas other ancestries usually have about seven.

[Gaulin]

I just want to see more beastkin feats!! Already one of the coolest and most versatile ancestries, but there could be so much more.

[keftiu]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Strictly speaking they wouldn't be new ancestries, but I'd love to see some love for humans in the ancestry department—both new heritages and some neat ancestry feats.

The problem is that the human heritages are boring. You have "More skills", "General feat", and Wintertouched. Oh, and a dozen different ways to get low-light vision plus buying into a set of non-human ancestry feats. So if you want to play a human without weirdness in the family tree, and you're not from Irrisen, you basically only have two options, whereas other ancestries usually have about seven.

The problem is that mechanizing different types of humans can very quickly go some very gross places.

[Staffan Johansson]

keftiu wrote:

The problem is that mechanizing different types of humans can very quickly go some very gross places.

True. But heritages for other ancestries aren't strictly tied to ethnicities – there is some correlation ("heritage A is common among ethnicities B, C, and sometimes D" or the inverse "ethnicity A often have heritage B, C or D"), but it's not a strict thing ("all As are Bs"). And while it's definitely an area that does need some sensitivity, I think there's definitely room to expand there.

I think the main danger is to reserve the "cool" heritages for "exotic" folks (that's not the best term, but it's what I can come up with while posting). If you were to add, for example, "Desert dweller", "Forest folk", and "Mountain men", that would send the message that folks from those places aren't "normal" humans, which could be bad.

Hmm. Perhaps one way of dealing with it would be to add one heritage that gives a second ancestry feat, and then make more cool cultural ancestry feats for humans (ancestry feats generally have less of a risk of being gross than heritages).

[KaiBlob1]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

keftiu wrote:

The problem is that mechanizing different types of humans can very quickly go some very gross places.

True. But heritages for other ancestries aren't strictly tied to ethnicities – there is some correlation ("heritage A is common among ethnicities B, C, and sometimes D" or the inverse "ethnicity A often have heritage B, C or D"), but it's not a strict thing ("all As are Bs"). And while it's definitely an area that does need some sensitivity, I think there's definitely room to expand there.

I think the main danger is to reserve the "cool" heritages for "exotic" folks (that's not the best term, but it's what I can come up with while posting). If you were to add, for example, "Desert dweller", "Forest folk", and "Mountain men", that would send the message that folks from those places aren't "normal" humans, which could be bad.

Hmm. Perhaps one way of dealing with it would be to add one heritage that gives a second ancestry feat, and then make more cool cultural ancestry feats for humans (ancestry feats generally have less of a risk of being gross than heritages).

Maybe something like "Deeply rooted" that says "pick one first level ancestry feat with a specific ethnicity as a prerequisite" or something?

[Rude_]

Astomoi
Stheno
Mortic
Nymph - Dryad, Naiad, Lampad, Hesphid options
Kovintus - nerha, bree, yoro, weg
Shae
Prana-Ghost or some kind of spirit
Merlucents - would be cool to see them as an oozelike symbiotic type heritage
Mi-go or some type of Alghollthu posing as human for hive mind fun

[Staffan Johansson]

KaiBlob1 wrote:

Maybe something like "Deeply rooted" that says "pick one first level ancestry feat with a specific ethnicity as a prerequisite" or something?

I wouldn't use ethnicity (and I'm generally leery of using ethnicity as a prerequisite for ancestry feats), but rather something like culture, region, or nation of origin. For example, I think it's a mistake to tie the Viking Shieldbearer feat to the Ulfen ethnicity—rather, it should be tied to coming from the Land of the Linnorm Kings. An Ulfen whose family moved to Cheliax or Varisia or Absalom shouldn't be able to take that feat, but a Chelaxian whose family moved to and integrated into the Land of the Linnorm Kings should.

Then again, I think some physiological differences could exist for certain humans. It's already established that some humans have extreme tolerance for cold (Wintertouched), so it's not unreasonable to have the same for deserts/jungles (if orcs, elves, and dwarves can adapt to heat, why not humans?). The Bonuwat are established as supernaturally good swimmers, so I don't think it would be wrong to put the Wavetouched Paragon feat into a heritage, perhaps along with Breath Control, just as long as you make sure that this is not a thing all Bonuwat have.

[Karmagator]

I would love a lot of true monster ancestries. Rakshasa (Rajas to be precise), devils and dragons in general are favourites of mine. My current character is on his best way to get Fiendish Form - i.e. become an actual devil - and is lining up to marry a powerful rakshasa noblewoman for both power and his own enjoyment. Whatever this union will produce in regards to children will be glorious and I want to play one of them some day. Without homebrewing the hell (heh) out of the tiefling that is.

Sadly, there is just no real way to balance a lot of those abilities in the context of an ancestry or heritage. And that is even if you were to ignore for a moment that they would have massively higher ability scores - which you obviously cannot have.

[TheDoomBug]

I'd really love to see a non-humanoid ancestry. Something that doesn't have two arms and two legs, such as a quadruped that has hands for feet.

On the topic of human heritages: rare abilities that people are born with that aren't tied to any culture or ethnicity do exist, such as extreme flexibility or ability to eat almost anything. They could also be something basic like having a stronger immune system or a higher pain tolerance.

I'd also like Crab-people. Pinchy claws! Bubble spit! Scuttle strafing!

[Caralene]

KaiBlob1 wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

keftiu wrote:

The problem is that mechanizing different types of humans can very quickly go some very gross places.

True. But heritages for other ancestries aren't strictly tied to ethnicities – there is some correlation ("heritage A is common among ethnicities B, C, and sometimes D" or the inverse "ethnicity A often have heritage B, C or D"), but it's not a strict thing ("all As are Bs"). And while it's definitely an area that does need some sensitivity, I think there's definitely room to expand there.

I think the main danger is to reserve the "cool" heritages for "exotic" folks (that's not the best term, but it's what I can come up with while posting). If you were to add, for example, "Desert dweller", "Forest folk", and "Mountain men", that would send the message that folks from those places aren't "normal" humans, which could be bad.

Hmm. Perhaps one way of dealing with it would be to add one heritage that gives a second ancestry feat, and then make more cool cultural ancestry feats for humans (ancestry feats generally have less of a risk of being gross than heritages).

Maybe something like "Deeply rooted" that says "pick one first level ancestry feat with a specific ethnicity as a prerequisite" or something?

I think what you just described is what would need to be specifically actively avoided to make more variance in human heritages/feats interesting. Ethnicity requirements might be the worst idea possible.

[KaiBlob1]

To be clear ethnicity requirements were not my idea, there are a bunch of feats with ethnicity requirements in the Character Guide, but I don't disagree that they might not be the best thing ever.

[nick1wasd]

I kinda wanna see what an insectoid/arachnid ancestry would look like, more natural poison users and chitinous skin that helps reduce damage in some way. Drow is a given, all hail our now teal assassination aficionados who are SUPER cool and well loved by all. They should be a full blast ancestry, not a heritage, because that would be lame and would miss out on a lot of potential for feats and such. I'd also like some dragon-kin type Large creatures with strength up who are real good at bonking. One thing I'd also like to see, is more half-heratiges, half-dwarf, half gnome, half-drow when we get to it. That cover things like size adjustment, sensory impact beyond sight, stuff like that.

[Squiggit]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

For example, I think it's a mistake to tie the Viking Shieldbearer feat to the Ulfen ethnicity—rather, it should be tied to coming from the Land of the Linnorm Kings. An Ulfen whose family moved to Cheliax or Varisia or Absalom shouldn't be able to take that feat, but a Chelaxian whose family moved to and integrated into the Land of the Linnorm Kings should.

Given your description, the Chelaxian probably does qualify. Whether the Ulfen does depends a lot on the circumstances of their specific circumstances. Tying cultural traditions purely to geographical location doesn't seem right either way.

[Schreckstoff]

I saw the ethnicity requirements primarily as being a "choose one" kinda deal.
In the sense that your background only matters if you or your GM plans to do something with it so the only thing picking one of those does is closing you off from other ethnicity requirements.

You could pick more but at that point you kinda have to have a justifying backstory.
Or just be a Witch protecting desert viking.

[Arachnofiend]

nick1wasd wrote:

I kinda wanna see what an insectoid/arachnid ancestry would look like, more natural poison users and chitinous skin that helps reduce damage in some way. Drow is a given, all hail our now teal assassination aficionados who are SUPER cool and well loved by all. They should be a full blast ancestry, not a heritage, because that would be lame and would miss out on a lot of potential for feats and such. I'd also like some dragon-kin type Large creatures with strength up who are real good at bonking. One thing I'd also like to see, is more half-heratiges, half-dwarf, half gnome, half-drow when we get to it. That cover things like size adjustment, sensory impact beyond sight, stuff like that.

One of the new Mwangi ancestries is spidery, more of a fluffy tarantula aesthetic than the classic venomous spiders though.

[Travelling Sasha]

I imagine that the Merfolk are pretty down below on the priority list, but my first character ever was a merfolk bard(yes yes, very original) and honestly, I'd argue that they're pretty iconic as far as aquatic ancestries go on pop culture. So here's hoping!

[The-Magic-Sword]

I know most people in the thread are listing specific things, but I'd like to see more +Strength and/or +Wisdom ancestries in general, it isn't exactly essential for character building since free boosts work the way they do, but itd be nice since out of the 22 we currently have, only Lizardfolk and Orcs are +Strength.

I think they mentioned Centaur was considered for the character guide, I think that would be perfect for + Strength and Wisdom. I also wouldn't mind large either, it feels like the ancestry guide was really starting to flirt with that, what with Beastkin and Lizardfolk.

[OrochiFuror]

Half dragons. Eventually some form of quad reptile/drake/lesser dragon.
Mantis people, because Thri-kreen.
More creatures that are anything but human with a dash of something else.

[AnimatedPaper]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I think they mentioned Centaur was considered for the character guide, I think that would be perfect for + Strength and Wisdom. I also wouldn't mind large either, it feels like the ancestry guide was really starting to flirt with that, what with Beastkin and Lizardfolk.

Well that moved them up in my “what we getting in LO Bazaar” list.

Stheno still seems most likely, but now I’m curious.

[Perpdepog]

OrochiFuror wrote:

Mantis people, because Thri-kreen.

I feel like if something like this existed we'd have heard about it by now, what with there being a big mantis-themed cult and god in-setting.