The eternal darkness of the Wraith Coast is home to many diverse cultures and ancestries, each with its own traditions, beliefs, and strengths. Whether they dwell in the sprawling cities, or in humble villages on the fringes of the untamed wilderness, the peoples of Coast have endured centuries of oppression, conflict, and supernatural incursions by unfathomable dangers from beyond the mortal realm. This fact has shaped the inhabitants of Coast into
hardy folk. Nearly every one of them has faced warfare firsthand.
The recent events of the Last Sun resulted in a great loss of life. The remaining population falls into two major categories: those who seek to return to a sense of normalcy, and those who strike out to pick up the pieces of the world, drive the shadows back, and ensure that the world will never again suffer such a catastrophe. Most player characters fall into this second group.
Inner Souls
The Wraith Coast is a widely varied place, and characters’ natural aptitudes determine as much about their abilities as the parents they were born to and the places they grew up in. When creating a character, a player can choose to use the following rules for inner souls in addition to those for race, class,
and background. Each Inner Soul also grants an additional trait and access to feats that have the inner soul as a prerequisite.
Intellectual
Capable of true bursts of genius, characters with the Intellectual inner soul are often exceptionally intelligent and think impossibly quickly and clearly. Characters with this inner soul are cerebral thinkers and planners who see all the angles and anticipate the likely course of action taken by those with lesser minds.
- Ability Score Maximum. Your Intelligence or Wisdom score maximum increases by 2.
- Intellectual Aptitude. Choose one of your skill proficiencies or tool proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses the chosen proficiency.
- At 11th level, you can choose another skill proficiency or tool proficiency to gain this benefit.
- Does not work during downtime activities.
Mighty
Characters with the Mighty inner soul are in peak physical condition. Their strength defies imagination, their resilience borders on the supernatural, and their blows strike with bone-shattering force.
- Ability Score Maximum. Your Strength or Constitution score maximum increases by 2.
- Potent Strikes. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one additional weapon damage die and drop the lowest result.
- Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the amount you can push, drag, or lift.
Agile
Characters with the Agile inner soul are extremely quick, nimble, and dexterous. They often rely on a combination of speed, wits, and skill, as well as a measure of luck. Many live as artful dodgers, using their fleetness to evade the city watch after pulling off a criminal score, but others choose more acceptable paths, acting as scouts, rangers, explorers, or even skirmishers in a nation’s military.
- Ability Score Maximum. Your Dexterity or Wisdom score maximum increases by 2.
- Fleet. Your movement speed increases by 10 feet.
Gifted
Characters with the Gifted inner soul are born with the capacity to work magic. This potential can be a latent talent discovered later in life, or it can be pronounced and defining from an early age. The Gifted inner soul provides characters with the innate ability to use magic and further empowers their spellcasting abilities if they choose to play a spellcasting class.
- Ability Score Maximum. Your Intelligence or Wisdom score maximum increases by 2.
- The Gift of Magic. You know one cantrip of your choice from the following list: dancing lights, light, mage hand, message, prestidigitation, shocking grasp, and thaumaturgy. If your class has a spellcasting ability for spells, that ability is your spellcasting ability for it; if not, whichever ability you increased with the Gifted inner soul is your spellcasting ability for it.
Pious
Characters with the Pious inner soul have a strong connection to their faith. They are not necessarily part of the clergy, although many choose that path. Others live their lives as devout warriors guided by their faith, or one of many other roles, but all feel the guiding hand of divine purpose in their lives. The power of their devotion is enough to provide them with a clarity of purpose and deed, which sometimes even manifests as minor divine miracles b bestowed by their faith.
- Ability Score Maximum. Your Wisdom or Charisma score maximum increases by 2.
- Rewarded Faith. You learn one cantrip from the following list: guidance, light, mending, produce flame, resistance, sacred flame, and spare the dying. If your class has a spellcasting ability for spells, that ability is your spellcasting ability for it; if not, whichever ability you increased with the Pious inner soul is your spellcasting ability for it.