You have been touched by primordial fire. Did you receive this power as a gift from a noble Efreeti, the Immortal Fire Celestial, or were you born near a rift leading to the elemental plane of fire? This ember of primal flame within you may manifest in your outward appearance or through your emotions. Most Emberheart sorcerers revel in their exotic appearance; flame red hair, eyes like glowing embers, or dark skin with magma peering through cracks. Is your flaming soul a raging inferno, unable to be controlled, or, do you seek to master your power?
The power of water is the strength of flexibility, resilience, and a relentless nature. Water parts to allow a ship to sail over it or a diver to plunge into it, but their passing leaves no mark. Water flowing down a mountain reaches the sea. It might bend and turn across valleys and down hillsides, but it slowly and steadily returns to the waves. Those whose souls are touched by the power of elemental water command a similar power.
Your heritage ties to powerful creatures of the sea, such as nereids, the lords of the merfolk, and elemental powers. Like a river, you feel the call of the ocean. The call is ever present in your heart, and you are never completely at peace until you are near the sea.
Within you dwells a drop of elemental power drawn from primordial waters. You have an innate connection to the ocean depths, babbling brooks, and the frigid waters of frozen lakes. How did you come to wield the power of elemental waters? Did you inexplicably survive a shipwreck, awakening with oceanic power, or did you drink from a stream flowing from the elemental plane of water?
Your magic springs from a mystical link between your soul and the magic of elemental earth. You might trace a distant ancestor to the Plane of Earth, or your family might have earned a mighty boon in return for a service to the dao lords. Whatever your past, the magic of elemental earth is yours to command.
Your link to earth magic grants you extraordinary resilience, and stone sorcerers have a natural affinity for combat. A steel blade feels like a natural extension of your body, and sorcerers with this origin have a knack for wielding both shields and weapons. In combat your place is amid the fray. You rely on your elemental nature to shield you from harm and your magic and metal weapons to overwhelm your foes.
Sorcerers who reject the wild and chaotic power in their blood can tame their inner arcana, compelling it into stable structures through complex glyphs and sigils, and what might be lost in sacrificing the natural expression of their power is gained in skill, control, and masterful precision.
Few sorcerers choose this path, instead embracing the magic inherent to their blood and soul. Those that do always have good reason. You might have suppressed your former origin after accidentally losing control and harming a loved one, or perhaps it was done to you against your will to limit and focus your power, or to keep the true nature of your sorcerous origin a secret.
From your first attempt at casting a spell, you displayed an exceptional aptitude for magic. Since that time, the more you tried to learn magic through rote memorization and practiced study, the less your innate talent shone through. Sorcerers who are arcane prodigies eventually discover it’s better to let their natural genius guide their magic than relying on an academic understanding. Arcane prodigies don’t abandon the attempt to understand magic on a methodical level, but their prodigious talent for spellcasting relies on their unconscious grasp of the mystic laws that underpin all of existence.
Power drawn from the great Beastlands or another plane of great beasital power has been passed down your lineage since an ancestor made a deal with a great animal god, or perhaps spent an amount of time within the great library. Either way, a powerful bestial spirit resides within you. Occasionally appearing as cat-like eyes, higher reflexes, excessive hair growth, or sharpened nails and teeth, this spirit brings about a new commune with nature and the animals that reside within.
Your innate magic is a magical rot, a sort of disease that befouled a place so deeply that it seeped into the land and spread to those born within it. Most often, this corruption stems from workings of intense necromancy practiced in the wilderness, where such magic could infect the plants and animals that people subsisted on without their knowledge. But it is also known to reside deep within the earth, occasionally manifesting alongside plagues and natural blights, infecting children that reside near such affected areas. Whatever the cause, the darker side of nature works through you, spreading rot and undeath by your hand.
There is simplicity in the summer sun, whose light is impossible to overcome. For in what realm could one be bold enough to attempt to tame the sun’s great power? Shield yourself from it, and its intensity seems to magnify between your fingers. Hide yourself away, and you only let something else scorch in your place. Attempt to flee from it, and you run forever without once separating yourself from its reach. And in that ever-blazing light a Child of the Sun gains their dazzling power.
Perhaps your lineage can be traced to outsiders with an affinity for the summer sun, or perhaps you have an ancestor who infused a pure droplet of the season’s power into their blood. Regardless of how it came to be, the summer’s power has never once diluted, and now rises through you into this world with silent and commanding brilliance.
Your magic springs from the divine blood that flows through your veins. The gods have often been known to consort with mortals, and such unions sometimes produce half-divine offspring. These individuals are called demigods, and many of them are born with a powerful aptitude for magic.
Demigods exhibit powers that are related to the domain of their godly ancestor, but their magic is not constrained by this association. Rather, they may channel the power in their blood to improve the efficacy of any spell, regardless of its type. Additionally, the divine power that courses through their blood makes demigods impressive specimens of both physical fitness and beauty.
Your power comes from the relentless and punishing magic that lies at the heart of the world’s most unforgiving deserts. Most sorcerers with this power were born to nomads or traveling pilgrims in the deserts, but perhaps yours came to you in the chaos of a raging sandstorm or the springs of a magical oasis. Regardless of its origin, this blistering magic spirals around inside of you in an ever-present storm that can reduce even the sturdiest enemies to rubble.
Once in a generation, a divinely chosen ruler is born amongst the people. Some cults and countries seek out these blessed rulers, trusting the gods to select their leader. However, the existence of these chosen sorcerers poses a significant threat to those who currently hold power. While some will willingly step aside to let the will of the gods rule, other less honorable leaders will hunt down these challengers to their power.
As a sorcerer chosen by Divine Right, you are granted great power, but with that power also comes responsibility. Will you lead the your people to destruction or into a new golden age?
Whenever you are filled with heartbreak, terror, or the depths of sorrow, waves of arcane energy spill forth from you. You might have found the spark of magic when great tragedy struck or while you shook with rage, or it may have always lingered in the back of your soul, only erupting forth when you lost control. However it originated, controlling your emotions and knowing yourself is key to manipulating your deep well of arcane energy. To lose focus, to be governed by your emotions, allows all your magic to flow through you in spectacular and uncontrollable fashion. But to have control of yourself, and true understanding of your soul, grants you a breadth of magic few can hope to equal.
Some cats practice unusual martial traditions and can access magic normally only available to familiars. This is available to any cat.
Fiendish Bloodline Sorcerers gain their powers from having blood that has been mixed with creatures from the Lower Planes. They could be the result of demonic rituals, the offspring of a humanoid and an incubus or succubus, or as the result of some fiendish contract. Tieflings are commonly born as fiendish sorcerers, as they inherently have this lineage. though any humanoid race can have fiendish blood even without showing any of the common physical characteristics.
These sorcerers are more hearty and resilient than most other sorcerers and can hold their own in melee combat. They utilize their sorcerous powers to bolster their martial abilities, which allows them to use their unholy magic to smite their foes.
The central tenet of the Church of the Eclipse is to make a blazing mark on the world. Some pursue fame, others create art, but perhaps the most potent expression is the raw thrill of a fight that leaves one bloodied, but alive. Becoming more dangerous than danger is a pursuit for sunblood, a connection to their dogma’s rush of unstoppable, sensational glory. Some who chase sunblood are gifted with the means to channel its sorcerous magic. When the sun reaches full eclipse, it is said that the sun chooses new candidates for its power. These blessed mortals burst with the gifts of the eclipse: immolating fire and the frigid cold of a dark sun. Once awakened, these sorcerers use physical might to overpower the magics of the world, and force reality itself into submission.
Born to a dryad parent, infused with the eldritch power of an enchanted forest you were raised in, or influenced by a primal enchantment in your mother’s womb, the magic of the natural world runs through you. Unlike druids, you did not choose your connection to the natural world; the natural world chose its connection to you. Greenheart sorcerers often have dark brown and bright green features, and smell of the native flora of their homelands. Sorcerers of this origin are exceptionally resilient and observant of their surroundings.
Your birth heralded the end of the world—the omen from which you draw your innate magic. Having such raw power flow through you is certainly dangerous, but its origin is a pressing concern. Perhaps your ancestor was a primeval force present in the creation of everything, returning in your lifetime to undo a grand work. Or as the world begins to crumble, its raw power suffused with you at the time of your own arrival. Some view those of Harbinger Bloodlines as threats and monsters with uncontrollable power. Despite being living warnings of the end of all things, how they embrace or shun these notions is ultimately up to them.
Unlike many other sorcerers, the circumstances of your birth were mundane and you have no arcane inheritance passed down from strange ancestors. Instead, you gained your sorcerous powers after you managed to survive an experience that left you on the brink of death. Since that experience you’ve had a preternatural sense for danger and a ghostly companion that either can’t or won’t leave you alone. Some Haunted, as sorcerers who share your origin are called, develop cordial relationships with their phantom, while others find their spectral companion to be a relentless nuisance.
Your innate magic comes from your connection to an ancient hero—an ancestor of yours that defeated mighty foes and reached the peak of physical ability. In the years beyond their death, your ancestor’s deeds have been immortalized by history, and their bloodline has been blessed by the gods. Through your blessed blood, you can channel the abilities of your ancestor, mimicking their unmatched strength and prowess.
Most of these bloodlines are well-established, and deeply connected to royal or noble blood. Some of these bloodlines have been obscured by time, however, and many sorcerers of this origin have no knowledge of their history. Not all members of a heroic bloodline awaken this magic, so it can remain hidden for generations and slowly forgotten before suddenly re-emerging.
Your blood flows with a subset of elemental earth refined by millenia of industry. Perhaps an ancestor survived immersion in molten adamantine, or your people have survived underground for generations, surrounded by veins of ore. Like all Iron Cores, the kernel of magical metal within you manifests in your spells, which appears as heavy plates, chains, and other weapons formed from your essence.
Often born during times of great war and strife, Ironmonger sorcerers have an affinity for all things forged for use in war. They thrive in the midst of battle, wielding potent war magic on the front lines. Ironmongers are formidable foes, and are sought after by captains and conquerers for their ability to turn the tide of any battle, no matter how hopeless.
Mirror Soul sorcerers are strange and rare occurrences. Their souls are like mirrors for B magic, allowing them to manipulate it in unique ways - reflecting a foe’s attacks, weaving it into complex illusions or producing ephemeral reflections of themselves through which they can channel their arcane power.
These sorcerers make tricky combatants, hiding themselves behind several layers of illusions and protections - a tendency that sometimes extends to their lives as well. In fact, Mirror Soul sorcerers are prone to crisis of identity, and their journeys are often ones of self-discovery as they try to cut through the lies and barriers that they put up themselves. They feel compelled to seek out answers to the burning questions that often pop into their minds - who are they and what truth hides under all the illusions they craft? What made them this way and why? Who do they want to become? Ultimately, most of these questions can only be answered by the sorcerer themself, and many come to different conclusions in the end.
Your magic is created by pieces of the Everheart, the center and driving force behind the expanding Northland. This power within you might be passed down through ancestors who protected the glacier’s magical core, or it might have been forced upon you through a chance encounter with the enchanted ice itself. Regardless of the source of your power, you are a creature of cold incarnate.
You are a prisoner, trapped within a cage of flesh and bone. You devoured the mind of your captor, feasted upon their memories, but the seals and wards those wretched, cunning mortals etched into its skin are steadfast and self-repairing. You speak in the voice of the one you’ve consumed and play along with the indignity, concealing the fact that if the shell you are trapped within dies, then you will be banished to the afterlife in place of the soul you consumed. They are afraid of your nature, though they may not know what you truly are. You will be freed. Nine seals stand in your way, and the first is ever so delightfully fragile.
Smile, nightmare, for your time has come.
Rifthoppers are the living embodiment of wanderlust. The yearn to travel and witness unseen vistas burns in them and manifests in their ability to move nearly at the speed of thought. The origin of the rifthoppers’ powers remains a mystery, as they refuse to stay in one place long enough to be studied extensively. Given the lack of empirical evidence, many scholars have hypothesized that rifthoppers absorb energy from the world itself, typically through an innate connection with ley lines or with areas where the borders between planes are thin, and can use it to alter their own magic.
Adventuring rifthoppers often concern themselves with investigating mysterious portals to unknown locations, researching ley lines and other mystic phenomena, or seeking out and stopping spatial and temporal disturbances.
While other sorcerous bloodlines have an overabundance of arcane energy, Ruptures are the exact opposite. They are irregularities in the Weave, points where no arcane energy exists.
Many military organizations gladly take these ruptures into their ranks, training them to be used as efficient weapons against any spellcaster that would otherwise prove difficult to subdue.
Whether it be some distant doppelganger heritage or over-exposure to biomantic magic, your body thrums with the potential for change. Though you may try to channel that power into those around you, the magic that inoculates your body is just as likely to change you, transforming your form into a myriad of magical morphs. Will you end up with two left feet and paper-thin skin, or rake through your enemies with toxic claws as spells bounce off of your reflective carapace?
Every day, the world is in danger because of the great monsters people call horrors. Fiends from the deepest hells, alien fey, the spirits of those long gone; the most efficient way people found to prevent these attacks is by sealing these horrors within mortals. You are one such mortal, protecting the world from the evil locked within you.
You are not alone. Inside your soul, there is a being of pure light, wild joy, and benevolent harmony. It saved you from death, and claims that you saved it as well. To protect you from its overwhelming power, it sealed itself inside your heart. As you act in accordance with the virtues of your guest, your power grows and wells forth from within you. Act with pure intent, and fight against darkness wherever you find it. You are not alone.
In the silent annals of time, where the tapestry of fate is woven, a resonant whisper emerges – the heartbeat of cosmic balance. This is the echo of a Soul King, the ancient sands' essence of truth, order, and harmony. From this primordial concept, the Soul King Sorcerers draw their profound power, their magic intertwined with the timeless scales of justice and morality.
These sorcerers are not mere conjurers of spells: they are living vessels of Souls, guardians of equilibrium in a chaotic universe. Their presence oscillates between shadow and light, their very souls a testament to the age-old dance of truth and balance. Every incantation they invoke is touched by the divine essence of harmony, and their gaze, penetrating and wise, reflects the eternal quest for order.
Clad in robes woven from threads of destiny and bearing staffs carved from ancient trees, these sorcerers carry a subtle yet powerful symbol – the ostrich feather, the emblem of the first Soul King. It serves as a reminder of the universe's enduring search for balance: just as the hearts of the departed are weighed against this feather in age-old rites, so too do these sorcerers weigh their every action against the eternal scales of truth. In a world teetering on the precipice of imbalance, the Soul King Sorcerers stand as unwavering sentinels of cosmic harmony.
One of the most omnipresent elements in the atmosphere is practically invisible and often ignored: spores. Plants of all varieties, fungal sentient life forms like mushroomfolk, and even animals emit these tiny pieces of life. You’ve always had an affinity for the natural world, and your innate magic is carried within the power of these omnipresent spores.
Spore sorcerers are regularly found among the mushroomfolk and derro who grow large gardens of fungi deep beneath the surface of the world. Spore sorcerers can also be found in any area with an abundance of plant life, such as forests, swamps, and deep jungles.
Divine will produces the massive titans, greater than even the giants. As the children and creations of deities, titans are filled with magic so powerful that they require enormous forms to contain it.
When a titan’s blood mixes with that of a humanoid, there is a chance for the smaller being to gain the ability to channel the titan’s magic by altering their form. This power transfer occurs if a titan deems a humanoid worthy of wielding their power, or if the lesser creature makes the behemoth bleed in battle and lives to tell the tale. A burst of flame or surge of wind from a Titan Heart sorcerer commands fear and respect.
Your character could be the chosen herald of the titans, a survivor of a cataclysmic titan battle, or even the descendent of another Titan Heart sorcerer.
A powerful, unfinished artifact has fused itself to you, melding with your flesh and making it’s power yours. In an effort to completes itself it can copy the forms of other magical items letting you borrow their powers.
You are a fey-touched creature, for your innate magic comes from the Wildes itself. Perhaps you were born in a moonlit glade near a fey crossing, or you might trace your lineage to a dryad. Whatever your ancestry, the source of your magic comes from a realm of primal magic run amok. It ebbs and flows between capriciously severe and whimsically benign. The sway of Wildeheart magic bestows an enchanted characteristic to your physical appearance. Your otherworldly mystique is unmistakable as it suffuses everything about you.
Sometimes psionic potential manifests in an individual as a massive, volatile outpouring of extreme emotion. Such Wilders can summon intense emotions within themselves to increase the power of their spells. These wild surges can be tremendously powerful, but carry with them their own risks. Unlike the more regulated and controlled psions, Wilders can appear anywhere, with no formal training beyond mere survival. Wilders are often linked to otherplanes in some way, be it through circumstance of birth or chance encounters with planar forces. Wilders are most commonly encountered along the fringes of society and in areas with strong ties to otherplanes. They might also be found anywhere in the wilds of the world.
With every promise made to a fairy, contract signed with a devil, and pact with the unquiet dead, there’s a chance someone doesn’t keep their end of the bargain. The vengeance of immortal beings lasts much longer than one lifetime, and the lingering magic of these curses can affect the mortal’s descendants.
These inherited magical afflictions may manifest as a plague, deformity, or aversion to the sun. In such families, a child may be born that learns to master the latent magic within their inherited curse, turning their bloodline’s bane into a personal boon—these sorcerers are known collectively as the Wretched.
[To choose this sorcerous origin your character must be one of the Dragonmarked racial variants of the human, half-orc, half-elf, dwarf, elf, gnome, or halfling races.]
With the ending of the Last War the Twelve Houses and even some independent scions, excoriates, and foundlings have been exploring new ways of directly channeling the powers of their Mark. This has lead to specialists known collectively as Dragonmark Adepts. Each of the twelve normal marks and those bearing an aberrant mark have their own sorcerous origin option.
You must be a half-elf with the Mark of Detection to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a human or half-orc with the Mark of Finding to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a human with the Mark of Handling to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a halfling with the Mark of Healing to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a halfling with the Mark of Hospitality to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a human with the Mark of Making to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a human with the Mark of Passage to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a gnome with the Mark of Scribing to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a human with the Mark of Sentinel to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be an elf with the Mark of Shadow to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a half-elf with the Mark of Storm to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must be a dwarf with the Mark of Warding to choose this sorcerous origin.
You must have the Aberrant Dragonmark feat to choose this sorcerous origin.