---
title: "Versatile Heritages"
noteType: ":sticky-note:"
aliases: "Versatile Heritages"
foundryId: Compendium.pf2e.journals.JournalEntry.45SK8rdbbxvEHfMn.JournalEntryPage.u6IGUd8Gtarj6h7K
tags:
  - JournalEntryPage
---

# Versatile Heritages
_The peoples of Golarion are many, and they have a long history of intermingling or dabbling with forces capable of altering the very fabric of a mortal body or soul. The children born to such parents might have traits from each of their parents or physiological manifestations of the forces their ancestors were influenced by, manifesting as a specific heritage._

* * *

The most common of these by far are the aiuvarin and dromaar versatile heritages, usually born to a human parent on one side and either an elf or orc parent on the other. Other individuals are born under far stranger circumstances, such as having a parent who was affected by monstrous, undead, or extraplanar energies. As these circumstances aren't unique to a single ancestry, these heritages—called versatile heritages—are likewise shared by many ancestries.

The peoples of Golarion are many, and they have a long history of intermingling or dabbling with forces capable of altering the very fabric of a mortal body or soul. The children born to such parents might have traits from each of their parents or physiological manifestations of the forces their ancestors were influenced by, manifesting as a specific heritage.

## Versatile Heritages

Golarion is home to a variety of versatile heritages. Some are born to unusual creatures or arise through specific mundane or supernatural circumstances. Many, however, result from an infusion of extraplanar energy, whether through direct parentage, more distant ancestors, or simply direct exposure to the quintessence of that plane. These individuals are known as planar scions.

Because the circumstances that give rise to versatile heritages aren't limited to a single ancestry, a versatile heritage can be chosen by a character of nearly any ancestry. Some versatile heritages are more common among some ancestries than others, and some might list additional restrictions specific to that heritage. Your GM may place other restrictions on which ancestries can use a given versatile heritage based on the story and setting. Unlimited Possibilities!

Though a character can have only one heritage and one lineage feat, the possible permutations of a character's background and family tree are virtually unlimited. An aiuvarin character might still have a changeling parent whose nature is visible in the coloration of their eyes even if they don't have access to changeling ancestry feats, and a pitborn dwarf might very well have an ancestor with fey influences on their bloodline, reflected with a fey muse or patron gained through their class alongside their ancestral fiendishness.

## Playing A Versatile Heritage

To play a character with a versatile heritage, first select your ancestry, just like you would for any character. You gain Hit Points, size, Speed, attribute boosts and attribute flaws, languages, traits, and other abilities from that ancestry. Then, instead of choosing a heritage from those normally available to that ancestry, apply your chosen versatile heritage. You gain all the features from your versatile heritage, some of which might modify or replace statistics, abilities, or traits from your ancestry.

Since a versatile heritage is a heritage, you can have only one, and you can't have any other heritage in addition to your versatile heritage. Sometimes a versatile heritage might give you an ability that conflicts with an ability from your ancestry. In these cases, you choose which of the conflicting abilities your character has.

When selecting ancestry feats, you can choose from those available to your ancestry as well as those specific to your versatile heritage.

## Lineage Feats

Some ancestry feats within a versatile heritage have the lineage trait. These feats specify a physiological lineage your character has—such as the type of hag that birthed a changeling character, or the type of extraplanar entity that influenced a nephilim's birth. You can have only one lineage feat; you can select such a feat only at 1st level, and you can't retrain into or out of this feat.

## Versatile Heritages

[[Aphorite]]

[[Ardande]]

[[Beastkin]]

[[Changeling]]

[[Dhampir]]

[[Duskwalker]]

[[Ganzi]]

[[Ifrit]]

[[Nephilim]]

[[Oread]]

[[Reflection]]

[[Suli]]

[[Sylph]]

[[Talos]]

[[Undine]]

## Other Halves

By default, [[Aiuvarin]] and [[Dromaar]] descend from humans, but your GM might allow you to be the offspring of an elf, orc, or different ancestry. In these cases, the GM will let you select the aiuvarin or dromaar heritage as the heritage for this other ancestry. The most likely other parent of a aiuvarin are gnomes and halflings, and the most likely parents of a dromaar are goblins, halflings, and dwarves.