Ancestries Overview
“You were not born in the Library. But we’ve made space for your kind.”
On Origin, Form, and the Quiet Hum of Pattern
You were something before this began.
Dwarf. Elf. Human. Gnome. Something stranger. Something misfiled.
You did not choose your shape. But the Pattern did.
In The Last Home, ancestry is not about biology. It is about resonance—the echo your thread made when it first struck narrative. This chapter records those echoes. Not as biology. Not as lineage. But as stabilised metaphors. The Pattern doesn’t need your bloodline. It needs you to make sense—for a little while longer.
Choosing an Ancestry
Your ancestry determines your most fundamental mechanical traits:
- Creature Type (how the world classifies your form)
- Size (Small or Medium)
- Speed (your base momentum through the world)
- Ancestry Traits (such as darkvision, resistances, or innate talents)
- Origin Feat (the Pattern’s narrative nudge—your first aberration)
But in The Last Home, these are not genes.
They are assumptions.
The arc simply begins your story by assigning you a shape that fits—for now.
The Nature of Threads
Every being carries a Thread—an echo of potential, trailing resonance behind it. For Threadwalkers, this becomes visible only when disrupted. Your ancestry reflects the first shape that resonance took—dwarf, elf, halfling, or something less immediately explainable.
In some Threadworlds, this form is accepted. In others, it is obscured by glamour: the arc-generated illusion that smooths your presence into genre logic. A tiefling might appear as a fire-eyed noble. A kobold as a sharp-toothed courier. The glamour doesn’t hide you. It explains you—poorly, but well enough for the locals to keep eating lunch.
The form is always true.
The perception is local.
Other Threadwalkers are not fooled.
They see you as you are. They remember the monologues.
Origin Feats and Resonant Variants
All ancestries in The Last Home grant one Origin Feat at 1st level. This is your first deviation—the first mark of narrative favour, curse, accident, or divine administrative error. You may choose any Origin Feat you qualify for, regardless of ancestry or setting. The listed feat in each entry is a suggestion, not a rule.
Where other settings divide ancestry by subrace, we recognise cultural echoes, resonant mutations, and narrative fractures. An elf may trace their thread to autumn leaves, moonlit vows, or a broken war-song. A human may descend from an empire, a ruin, or an ideology. These variations do not change your traits. They colour them.
You are not required to match your feat to your culture.
But the Pattern will quietly nod if you do.
A Note on Language (or Lack Thereof)
Threadwalkers do not speak every language.
The story simply pretends they do.
Upon arrival in a new Realm, you are enveloped by ThreadSpeak—a narrative smoothing effect that ensures the locals understand you, and you understand them. This is not translation. It is retcon. You have always spoken the local tongue, and they have always had a reason to overlook your pronunciation.
You do not track languages. You do not select them.
Language, in The Last Home, is handled by the arc.
“Unless you’re shouting your secret technique in celestial mid-combat. Then things get theatrical.”
— Seraphis Nightvale
If your ancestry or background would grant additional languages, you may instead gain a skill proficiency, thematic tool, or cultural trait appropriate to your origin.
All Forms Are Possible
The ancestries in this volume represent the most commonly stabilised forms across the Infinite Elsewhere. Humans, elves, halflings, dwarves, and orcs appear often enough to be indexed. But any ancestry with rules elsewhere—official, third-party, or homebrew—may be used in The Last Home with storyteller approval.
The Pattern does not forbid form.
It only asks that you play it well.
“The Inn has room. The world may not. Enter accordingly.”
— S.N.
New ancestries will be added as Threadworlds expand, stabilize, or break open. If yours is not yet listed, you are welcome to create it—provided the story survives contact.
What Ancestry Means in The Last Home
Mechanically, it determines:
- Your Creature Type (usually Humanoid)
- Your Size (Medium or Small)
- Your Speed
- Your Ancestry Traits (darkvision, resistance, etc.)
- Your Origin Feat
Narratively, it means:
- How your Thread first manifested
- What the world assumes you are
- What the glamour tries to explain
- What the story will later blame
Final Thought
You were something before the Pattern gave you a name.
This chapter is not the truth of you. It is merely the index.
Your ancestry is where the story began.
It is not where it ends.
Mmmm the pattern