Cultural Paideia

“You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.” ―Madeline Miller

How one’s story begins often becomes traced back to childhood, the place in which one was raised. Those brought up in an agrarian setting will likely not get many opportunities to learn skills growing outside of the farming trade. Likewise, children from an urban setting probably have other apprenticeship options but would not have access to skills like hunting and fishing. All of this thinking leads to the culture of one’s childhood due to the species chosen.

A quick note here: it will be tempting to convince the GM of an extraordinary upbringing, where an elf was raised by foster-dwarves, who were then enslaved by orcs, where the elf gained favor for some crazy reason and learned cultural skills all over the map. All of that is fine so long as the GM permits it; however, this step of character building is also part of having a balanced character rather than trying to created the min-max-made Mary Sue. Could an elf be raised by dwarves and gain access to dwarven culture? Sure, but the GM should then limit that background as if being part of the dwarven culture only rather than both being an elf to gain access to those while also gaining the price point of what is available to dwarves.

With that out of the way, let's discuss how this part of the character creation works. As stated, this is where one’s childhood culture influenced what one learned and knows as a starting character. The explanation of these skills has been left simple, high-level and vague. This is done on purpose. These skills will be repeated later on in the game tome with additional detail and application to the rules. selecting cultural skills is also the first stepping stone of building the character’s back story.

Each species was assigned a set of cultural points. Below are listed skills that could be learned prior to starting an adventuring career -- things that are common trades of that species’ culture… and sometimes a few less-than-common trades. Those skills cost points, which may be adjusted by the species which one has chosen. Essentially, the character being created can select skill from the culture of his or her childhood, then subtract the point-cost from the assigned value. This is repeated until no more skills can be bought. Some skills have requirements at this phase. All skills will have requirements after beginning game play; however, at this point in character creation, many skills can be obtained without the need to meet the prerequisites required later.

If the species cost is listed as “R,” then it is restricted and unavailable to one from that culture. Further, if a species has a trait that acts like one of these skills, it would not need to be acquired here but could be at the standard price. A sub-orc will always have access to the culture from where one grew up as this species does not truly have a culture, but moreover, the environments in which a sub-orc was raise probably had a prejudice against the bastard child, meaning if it is listed, the cost for a sub-orc is used rather than the standard price. Finally, remember that humans have the diversity trait, meaning they will have the option to purchase a cultural skill at the lowest price point available, which is why the species is not listed.

Lastly, a quick statement on languages. Every character has fluency in one’s species culture (or starting culture if different); however, literacy is not a given. If one's character must be able to read and write, then one point must be used to gain this additional part of the language skill. Further additional skills can be bought in this step but the fluency only costs 3 points, then spending an additional 2 points permits literacy in the newly acquired language. And to be clear, literacy cannot be learned first.