"Me? I've been all around these waters, and seen the colorful tapestry that this world has to offer. Why, see Siegfried the Dwarf there? His grandparents were from the undercity of Canae, and yet he can't speak a wit of Dwarvish, but he sings all of his lively jigs in perfect Oberen. What a wonderful tapestry."

-The Captain of the Herald, Baldwin One-Eyed

 

Expanded Backgrounds: Culture

 

Cultures, or ethnicities, represent the place that your character is from; the types of people that they knew, the traditions they honor, the values they were taught. A culture is not necessarily a place of birth. Rather, it is the culture that your character identifies with, likely the one they spent their formative years growing up in, but not necessarily.

            Culture grants a character a stat increase of 1 in a certain attribute and a stat decrease of 1 in a certain attribute. These represent the values that a culture places on certain kinds of people, and the encouragement and discouragement that characters receive as they grow up. Culture also grants a language that is typical or dominant in that culture. Some cultures have multiple languages that someone could sensibly learn, but if there is a primary language, one that everyone would be expected to know, it will be highlighted in green. Finally, a culture grants its members a Sub-Discipline in every knowledge skill on checks relating to the culture or the nation that the culture is dominant in. A sub-discipline grants proficiency in a skill wherein a character doesn't have proficiency; it grants expertise wherein a character does have proficiency; it grants advantage on all checks wherein a character does have expertise. The DM may sometimes only allow members of a culture to know certain things about that culture, at his or her discretion.

      The Cultures you can choose for your background are all grouped into the following categories, which you can navigate to in order to find the culture you would like:

 

Cultures of Adra Majoris: The largest continent in Adra, with the highest concentration of humans in the world.

Cultures of Adra Minoris: Barely a continent on its own, it is a chain of large islands in the Glittering Sea.

Cultures of Arathia: The far-western continent, made up of massive jungles and a wildly diverse set of cultures and civilizations.

Cultures of Kelior: Technically within the Adra Majoris Super Continent, though is divided by the Bleached Desert and Wretched Spine Mountains to its east.

Cultures of Qualaxi: A continental shelf to the far-south, with hundreds of smaller islands and one massive one.

Cultures of the Seven Underkingdoms: These underkingdoms make up the core of Dwarven society, and the most advanced civilizations in Adra.

Other Cultures: A catch-all category for anything that didn't fit into the previous ones. Some of Adra's most unique cultures fall in here.

 

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