# Race: The Ascended > [!info] Quick Facts > | | | > |---|---| > | **Rarity** | Extremely rare | > | **Perception in Gryth** | As your original race. Nobody perceives an Ascended at all, because nobody knows one when they see one. | > | **Guide Section** | Transformed Lineages | ## Overview Something on the far side of this plane looked through it, settled on one person, and took them into its service. That person is still here, still going about their life, and is now an Ascended. ## Chosen Without Being Asked Ascension is not sought, not earned and not applied for. There is no order to join, no rite that produces it, and no record of anyone being told why they in particular were selected. What every Ascended reports is the same short experience: a moment of absolute clarity in which something enormous and entirely other regarded them, followed by the knowledge that an arrangement now exists and that they are the junior party to it. ## A Purpose Not Yet Given The purpose is real and the Ascended does not know what it is. It may be a kindness, it may be a catastrophe, it may be some piece of work so far outside ordinary reckoning that no explanation would survive being put into words. The Ascended learns what is wanted the way anyone learns a road, which is by walking it. Circumstances arrange themselves. Opportunities present themselves at intervals too convenient to be chance. Over a life, a pattern becomes visible, and the Ascended who lives long enough to see the whole of it is the exception rather than the rule. ## Nothing to See An Ascended looks exactly like what they were. There are no horns, no shadow in the skin, no change in the bones, and a physician would find nothing to report. Two things occasionally give them away, and neither is reliable. In certain lights there is a glint of silver in the eye that has no business being there. And in a fight, when an Ascended raises their voice, people obey it before they have decided to. ## The Silence Every Ascended is bound to keep the arrangement to themselves. This is not a promise they made and it is not a matter of discretion. The words do not come out. An Ascended may attempt to tell a spouse, a captain, a priest or a friend, and what leaves their mouth is always something else, delivered in a tone that convinces the listener nothing important was said. Most stop trying within the first year. The consequence is a life lived at a slight remove from everyone in it, which most Ascended describe, when they can describe anything, as the real cost of the thing. > [!note] A note for the DM > The Ascended is a lineage built around a secret that the player character does not hold. Decide what chose them and what it wants before the character reaches the table, keep it to yourself, and feed it out through events rather than answers. The lineage works best when the party knows something about this character is unusual and cannot establish what. ## Ascended Traits Your ascended character keeps the appearance and background of the race you were before, and gains the traits below in place of that race’s traits. **Ability Score Increase.** Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1. This replaces the ability score increase of your original race. **Age.** You age as your original race did. **Creature Type.** Your creature type is the one your original race had. **Size.** Your size is the size your original race was. **Speed.** Your walking speed is the speed your original race had. **Ancestral Legacy.** Nothing that made you was taken away. You keep any skill proficiencies you had from your original race, along with any climbing, flying, or swimming speed it granted. If your original race granted none of these, you instead gain proficiency in two skills of your choice. **Unmarked.** No examination finds anything. You have advantage on Charisma (Deception) checks made to pass as an ordinary member of your original race, and divination magic reveals nothing about your ascension unless the caster already knows what to look for and you consent to the casting. **The Silence.** You cannot disclose your ascension by any means, willing or otherwise. Any attempt to speak, write, sign or otherwise communicate it produces something else instead, and the recipient is satisfied that nothing of consequence was conveyed. This applies under magical compulsion, including *zone of truth* and similar effects, and you are aware each time it happens. **Voice of Command.** In a fight your voice carries an authority that was not yours before. As a bonus action, choose one creature within 30 feet of you that can hear and understand you. Until the end of your next turn, that creature has advantage on the next attack roll or saving throw it makes, or, if you choose a hostile creature, it has disadvantage on the next attack roll it makes. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. **The Hand on the Scale.** Matters resolve in your favour when the purpose requires it. Once per long rest, after you fail an ability check, attack roll or saving throw, you can reroll it and must use the new result. **Languages.** You retain the languages you knew before. --- ## Gallery ![[Race - Ascended.jpg]] --- *See also: [[Races]]*