Wedded to History [Initial]
Born in the distant past, you possess special insight or uncanny abilities that distinguish you from those for whom the time of your birth is at best nothing but legends and stories.
Benefit: Choose an ancient background from Apostle of the Forgotten, Elder of Legend, Golden Ager, Hand of Prophecy, Survivor, Throwback, or Wanderer. You gain the special ability associated with it.
Apostle of the Forgotten
The temples are ruined, the idols long since gone to dust. Where once a thousand voices cried out, now only one pushes back the tide of darkness; a once mighty deity now resides only within a single soul, one priest or simple believer to hold aside the tide of oblivion. The last servant of a forgotten deity, you possess a profound sense of loss, and a thin sliver of deific power remains, however small, for you to draw upon.
Special Ability: You gain a +1 insight bonus to your initiative checks. Once per day, you can use an effect that duplicates the spell augury, but it can only see one minute into the future.
Elder of Legend
You possess the reputation of a historical figure; you could be a legend among your people, power and influence that has waxed and waned over the years. Even if all power has slipped through your fingers like dust, at least a shard of this respect remains. People who know of you teat you with more respect and at least lend their ears; after all, you have made or buried fortunes and civilizations.
Special Ability: Whenever you make a Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check against someone who knows your name and nature, you gain a +3 bonus.
Golden Ager
Born in an age of glory and wonder, the Golden Ager remembers the mythical past, the power of a civilization resplendent in the awe of magic. Perhaps floating islands dotted the heavens or glittering spires reached toward the stars. Somehow, though, disaster struck, and the wonders crashed back to the soil, but you survived, melting into the background of history. You still possess a startling grasp of magical theory despite this.
Special Ability: You always treat Use Magic Device as a class skill, and can use it untrained. You only suffer a mishap if you fail a check by 15 or more.
Hand of Prophecy
Blessed and cursed by the arbiters of fate, by strange spirit the forces of time itself, or some other esoteric means, you are guided through the ages by a hand that pushes you ever forward. Whether reborn over and over again, memories returned at a special age or simply not allowed to age or die by the cruel whims of life, the Hand of Prophecy drifts through the ages until at last, destiny has been fulfilled.
Special Ability: You are guided by the hand of fate, but you have some small insight to the machinations of your destiny. Once per day, you may designate a creature you oppose in combat as your nemesis, your rival or opposite as a free action. You gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls and skill checks when dealing with that creature.
Survivor
Too weak, too slow, too unfit. You have plowed through the decades or even centuries with an uncanny fortitude that astounded your contemporaries and continues to do so even now. Your outlook is tempered by this survival, beating back time and age through sheer force of will, running on nothing more than mental might alone. You possess a desire to exist that would frighten many.
Special Ability: Whenever you must make a Fortitude or Reflex save, you may make a Will save instead. Each time you use this ability after the first, you suffer a cumulative -1 penalty to all Will saves for the rest of the day.
Throwback
You are the final holdover from the last stage of your race's evolution. You might even be the first of your race, still wandering the world, gaining and losing power as you do. You have lived since time had even yet to make mortality, and so wander from age to age, reinventing yourself as you choose.
Special Ability: You possess strange quirks of mentality and physiology that affect both mundane and magical attempts to disrupt your body. Attacks and effects normally geared toward your creature type have no effect; this includes a Ranger's favored enemy bonus, bane weapons, and spell effects geared to creature types (such as charm person). On the other hand, you are also immune to beneficial effects that affect such types as well, should you run into any.
Wanderer
Place to place, horizon to the sea, you've been everywhere and seen it all; you may have even forgotten how you got to live so long. It could have been that night with the goddess of spring, or the mermaid's flesh you ate, the strange spring in the mountains, the unearthly energies from the yawning vortex, or even the crucible of wailing souls you encountered. You are witness to wonders and horrors both, and yet even still perhaps seek the city in you dreams.
Special Ability: You may use any untrained skill, even if you have no ranks in it, but you have a -2 penalty on the check if the skill is one you could not normally use untrained. You may also attempt to communicate in any known language with an Intelligence check (DC 15) to get a statement out correctly.
FEATS
Ancestor
All members of your race consider you a revered ancestor.
Prerequisites: Wedded to History (Elder of Legend)
Benefit: Shift the attitude of anyone of your race one step closer to helpful. You receive a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks made to shift the attitudes of anyone of your race.
Master's Voice
You can attempt to emulate the magical aura of other beings entirely.
Prerequisites: Use Magic Device 9 ranks, Wedded to History (Golden Ager)
Benefit: You may, as a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity, attempt to assert control over an unintelligent construct or undead. This requires a Use Magic Device check (DC 20 + creature's HD). If you succeed, you may, as a standard action, command it to perform any task it is capable of performing. Issuing commands takes a Use Magic Device check (DC 10 + creature's HD). You must make this check every round to keep it performing the action, and if you ever fail a check you must re-establish control first. In the presence of the creature's true master, you can never control it.
Packrat
You've got a mess of things.
Prerequisite: Appraise 1 rank, Wedded to History (Wanderer)
Benefit: You may carry up to 10 gp per level of mundane or alchemical items without designating exactly what they are. Once you designate an item, it becomes a normal part of your gear. Note how much weight you have allocated to these items. You may not add an item if its weight exceeds the amount you allocated for this purpose. You must then spend 8 hours of shopping to replenish this "gear space."
Pawn in the Great Game
The hand of fate will not let you die until it is through with you.
Prerequisite: Die Hard, Endurance, Wedded to History (Hand of Prophecy)
Benefit: Whenever you fall prey to an attack that reduces you from positive hit points to -10 hit points or fewer or fail a save against a death effect, you make a Fortitude save (DC 25 - your level). If you succeed, you find yourself alive with 1 hit point and with 2 points of Strength and Constitution drain.
Self-Medicating
You have learned to tend your own wounds and ailments, not to mention a few tricks that work on others, as well.
Prerequisite: Wedded to History (Survivor)
Benefit: You treat Heal as a class skill and can give yourself long term care. You can also heal yourself or others 1d4 + your Intelligence modifier hit points with a Heal check (DC 15). Doing so takes one minute and can only be done once per day per patient.
Shuffled Interior
Your vital organs are slightly off center.
Prerequisite: Great Fortitude, Wedded to History (Throwback)
Benefit: Whenever you are hit with a sneak attack or critical hit, there is a 25% chance that the extra damage is negated and the damage is rolled normally.
Voice of Bitter Experience
Your attachment to your vanished deity lets you spout a warning to others attached to their own hubris.
Prerequisite: Bluff 1 rank, Wedded to History (Apostle of the Lost)
Benefit: Whenever you face someone who casts divine spells, you may, as a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity, attempt to unnerve him by speaking of your own deity or mistakes. Make a Bluff check opposed by the target's Sense Motive check. If you win, the target is shaken for the duration of the encounter. If your check beats the target by 5 or more, the victim is frightened for 1 round as well. This is a language dependent fear effect.