History TabletopGame / Birthright

* WitchSpecies: Downplayed. In Birthright, the Wizard class is only accessible to Blooded individuals, as only they have the mystical "spark" that lets them channel such magic. Non-Blooded characters can only become [[QuirkyBard Bards]] or "Mages", a weaker version of the Wizard that only has relatively low-level spells and relies heavily on ritual magic.

** The Gorgon, one of the most powerful villains in the setting, looks nothing like a gorgon (a humanoid with snakes for hair, the most famous of which is {{Medusa}}), instead appearing as a stone-skinned minotaur-like creature. About the only thing they have in common is their ability to turn people to stone (though with a gorgon it requires someone to view their face, while the Gorgon can do it by gazing ''at'' them instead).

* DivineConflict: In the setting's BackStory the Good deities fought the Evil deity Azrai. They finally sacrificed themselves, destroying both themselves and Azrai.

* BalkanizeMe: After the death of Michael Roele, last of his line, the Anuirean Empire crumbled as power-hungry pretenders to the throne waged a continuous civil war lasting more than 70 years.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Anuireans, Khinasi, Brecht, Rjurik and Vos are respectively Anglo-Saxon French Romans, Turkish Persian Arabs, the Hanseatic League, part-Celtic Vikings and [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Kislevite]] Russians with more than a touch of [[BarbarianTribe Kurgan]].

''Birthright'' is a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' setting which attempted to put new life into the "classical" Fantasy Europe type of setting, primarily by integrating politics and the DivineRightOfKings. Players are intended to be the rulers of large realms and receive special powers from their heritage. The backstory of the setting focuses on an ancient battle in which six of the elder gods battled their corrupt brother, Azrai. When the six gods' assembled mortal legions proved inadequate to overcome Azrai, the gods destroyed themselves in order to destroy him. The mortals fortunate enough to survive the final blast inherited shards of godhood: while a small handful absorbed enough divinity to act as new gods, far more of the mortal onlookers ("scions") gained a few fragments of divine power that manifested as supernatural abilities and, more importantly in some ways, an ability to bond with the lands over which they rule. At the same time, Azrai's scattered essence granted power -- but also monstrous mutations -- to a variety of people and monsters, setting the stage for the awnsheghlien (monsters with similar "divine right" abilities).

** Similarly, the Gorgon has been known to mate with *cattle* when the mood moves him, due to his otherworldly strength (regular human women are simply too frail to survive his attentions and even female ogres only sometimes live through the experience). No one in his realm who does not wish to suffer an extremely painful death ever comments on it.

* PhysicalGod: Possibly the Serpent. The Serpent is one of the most powerful awnsheghlien on the continent and has proclaimed himself a god. While most such claims from scions are dismissed as insane megalomania, in the Serpent's case, he actually has priests dedicated to him and *they can use priestly magic*, something that should not be possible unless he actually is a deity.

* BestialityIsDepraved: It's mentioned in "Blood Enemies" that the Sphinx, an awnshegh consisting of a human mind inside a warped, semi-human feline's body, mates with both cats and humans alike, spawning strange hybrid offspring.

* TheTheocracy: The island kingdom of Ghamoura is ruled by the High Priest of Nasri, with lesser priests serving the roles of military officers and bureaucrats.

''Birthright'' is a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' setting which attempted to put new life into the "classical" Fantasy Europe type of setting, primarily by integrating politics and the DivineRightOfKings. Players are intended to be the rulers of large realms and receive special powers from their heritage. The backstory of the setting focuses on an ancient battle in which six of the elder gods battled their corrupt brother, Azrai. When the six gods' assembled mortal legions proved inadequate to overcome Azrai, the gods destroyed themselves in order to destroy him. The mortals fortunate enough to survive the final blast inherited shards of godhood: while a small handful absorbed enough divinity to act as new gods, far more of the mortal onlookers ("scions") gained a few fragments of divine power that manifested as supernatural abilities and, more importantly in some ways, an ability to bond with the lands over which they rule. At the same time, Azrai's scattered essence granted power -- but also monstrous mutations -- to a variety of people and monsters, setting the stage for the awnsheghlien (monsters with similar 'divine right' abilities.)

''Birthright'' is a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' setting which attempted to put new life into the 'classical' Fantasy Europe type of setting, primarily by integrating politics and the DivineRightOfKings. Players are intended to be the rulers of large realms and receive special powers from their heritage. The backstory of the setting focuses on an ancient battle in which six of the elder gods battled their corrupt brother, Azrai. When the six gods' assembled mortal legions proved inadequate to overcome Azrai, the gods destroyed themselves in order to destroy him. The mortals fortunate enough to survive the final blast inherited shards of godhood: while a small handful absorbed enough divinity to act as new gods, far more of the mortal onlookers ('scions') gained a few fragments of divine power that manifested as supernatural abilities and, more importantly in some ways, an ability to bond with the lands over which they rule. At the same time, Azrai's scattered essence granted power - but also monstrous mutations - to a variety of people and monsters, setting the stage for the awnsheghlien (monsters with similar 'divine right' abilities.)

* AncestralWeapon: Tighmaevril weapons, if you can get one.

* CantArgueWithElves: Formed a Wild Hunt to kill humans, one Elf is known by the title Manslayer.

* KrakenAndLeviathan: The Seadrake is a 50-foot-long serpentine awnshegh capable of breathing both water and air that patrols the Straits of Aerele and preys on sharks and whales.

* BastardBastard: Raesene was the elder half-brother of Haelyn and Roele, the royal princes of the Anuirean people, but as he was born out of wedlock; his resentment over this was what made him susceptible to Azrai's blandishments, prompting his FaceHeelTurn. Almost a millenium and a half later, he still bedevils Cerilia as the mightiest awnshegh, the Gorgon.

* MonsterProgenitor: Many awnsheghlien have the ability to produce lesser offspring of some kind. For some, this is asexual, such as the Hydra spontaneously spawning bizarre compound horrors from its shifting flesh. Others take a more... traditional... approach, as with the Sphinx, who has produced myriad feline monsters, ranging from CatFolk to unusually intelligent dire lions, by rampantly breeding with humans and great cats alike.

* OurMonstersAreDifferent: Many monsters that are common Mooks in regular D&D are unique villains called Awnsheghlien or Blood Abominations. (Examples: The Gorgon, the Hag, the Manticore.) They often spawn mook versions as well. While other Bloodlines are less contagious, they are also known to "enhance" normal animals: "Bloodhounds" descended from war-dogs who got spilled power can detect Shadow creatures and tend to be ''very'' smart, loyal and strong. Wild dogs with the bloodline of a war-god become natural leaders in their packs just like humans do, and can be really nasty critters -- or legitimate bloodtheft fodder, for those who can pull this.

* ElvesVersusDwarves: An odd variant exists in ''Birthright''. The elves take their usual role from the trope (though with notably less of a mind towards diplomacy, as ''Birthright'' elves tend to be closer to TheFairFolk and embrace more isolationist tendencies than many other fictional elf variants), but the part of the "dwarves" in the trope (mechanical, industrious, somewhat blunt with other races) is actually filled by humans in the setting. The ''Birthright'' cwarves are, somewhat surprisingly, pretty much the race with the best relations with the elves. This is due to the fact that the dwarves and elves mostly keep to themselves and when the dwarves initiate contact with other races, it is mostly in the form of trade caravans that take great care to keep good diplomatic relations with all their potential clients, elves included.

* HornedHumanoid: The Gorgon appears as a stony skinned humanoid with horns atop his massive head. The Minotaur plays with the trope

* AnimalisticAbomination: Beast type awnsheglien are former animals who consumed scions and were mutated by the Blood they carried. Examples covered in the "Blood Enemies" sourcebook consist of the Boar (a gargantuan albino wild pig), the Hydra (a crocodile which has developed multiple limbs and a mane of tentacle-like necks topped with the screaming heads of the scions it's eaten), the Leviathan (giant carnivorous whale or sea serpent) and the Wolf (an usually large and intelligent wolf).
** Some of the Tainted type awnsheglien have devolved into a grotesque animal-like form, most notably the Basilisk (grotesque humanoid reptile), the Chimaera (scaly, multi-armed, bat-winged panther), the Gorgon (stony-hided minotaur), the Kraken (an enormous, deformed, squid-like creature), the Seadrake (man turned into a sea serpent) and the Spider (hideous half-goblin, half-spider).
** The Sphinx is a weird case that might fit either category; He's a scion who was killed and eaten by a lion, but who possessed his killer's body and reshaped it to have eerily human-like traits.
** The Serpent is a strange awnshegh that can take the form of either a man with a snake's head or a giant serpent. He suffers from a particular strong delusion of godhood, even given that scions are, technically, aspirant demigods.

* OurElvesAreBetter: They're more TheFairFolk.

* ElvesVersusDwarves: An odd variant exists in ''Birthright''. The elves take their usual role from the trope (though with notably less of a mind towards diplomacy, as ''Birthright'' elves tend to be closer to TheFairFolk and embrace more isolationist tendencies than many other fictional elf variants), but the part of the "dwarves" in the trope (mechanical, industrious, is actually filled by humans in the setting. The ''Birthright'' cwarves are, somewhat surprisingly, pretty much the race with the best relations with the elves. This is due to the fact that the dwarves and elves mostly keep to themselves and when the dwarves initiate contact with other races, it is mostly in the form of trade caravans that take great care to keep good diplomatic relations with all their potential clients, elves included.

* AbsoluteXenophobe: Orogs consider all other races their enemies.

* MirrorWorld: The Shadow World, same as the real one, except inhabited by the dead.
* MonsterProgenitor: Many awnsheghlien.

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Yep. The dwarves of Cerilia are the classic strong, enduring, hard-working people who live in mountain-based clans and excel at mining.

* CainAndAbel: Raesene, the champion of Azrai who later became the Gorgon, is the Cain to the Abel of his half-brothers, Haelyn and Roele, champions of Anduras.

* DefectorFromDecadence: When Azrai first came to Cerilia, the elves initially sided with him to take revenge on the humans that took their land, but later realised his evil and deserted him.
* DeityOfHumanOrigin: When the old gods died at Mount Deismaar, their champions inherited their powers, becoming gods themselves.

* EthnicGod: Dwarves, goblins, gnolls, minotaurs, orogs and other races each have their own patron deities who are little known (let alone worshipped) by other races.

** Humans and elves fight quite bitterly, with many elves hating humans for their perceived ravaging of the forests. The Wild Hunt exists on Cerilia as essentially an anti-human hate group, a militant faction of elves dedicated to driving off or exterminating all humans. One of the awnsheghlien, is Rhuobhe Manslayer, also called "The Elf", who was one of the founders of the Wild Hunt and still harries humanity to its extinction today.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The Anuireans, Khinasi, Brecht, Rjurik and Vos are respectively Anglo-Saxon Romans, Turkish Persian Arabs, the Hanseatic League, Vikings and [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Kislevite]] Russians.

* HegemonicEmpire: After the battle of Mount Deismaar, Roele, champion of the old god Anduras and brother of the new god Haelyn, founded an empire by defeating the local Anuirean petty kings as well as the Brechts and Basarji. He and his descendants did a good job ruling it until his line failed and the empire crumbled with it.

* HornedHumanoid: The Gorgon appears as a stony skinned humanoid with horns atop his massive head.

* OurOrcsAreDifferent: They call them Orogs.

* RasputinianDeath: Invoked; a Bloodline power called Invulnerability, carried through the Bloodlines of Azrai, Basaia, and Vorynn, makes it impossible for the possessor to die unless certain ritual steps are completed first. Otherwise the "dead" body will slowly regenerate itself, even to the point of FromASingleCell, until the scion comes back to life. Many of the more prominent awnsheghlien possess this trait, but not all of them; "Blood Enemies" lists its possessors as the Apocalypse, the Banshegh, the Basilisk, the Boar, the Hydra, the Magian, the Raven and the Spider. Ironically, the most famous of all awnsheghlien, the Gorgon, lacks this ability. Further complicating matters, almost all of these awnsheghlien don't have their method of destruction described in "Blood Enemies"; only two have a canonical means of death: