CINDERFALL FIELD MANUAL · ANCESTRY FEATS · FULL DEPTH, 1ST–17TH
What You Grew Into
Ancestry is what you are. Heritage is which branch you grew from. Feats are what you actually did with it — eleven per ancestry now, spread across five tiers from 1st level to 17th, each building on what came before.
These build directly on the abilities already granted in What's Left of Us and How Far The Line Bent — several list a specific ability or heritage as a prerequisite, meaning you need that trait already active before you can take the feat. None of these grant new ability boosts; they deepen what your ancestry already does, or open a genuinely new option it didn't have at character creation.
How to read this: each entry lists a Prerequisite where one applies (an ancestry ability, a specific heritage, or "any X trained"). No tag means it's open to anyone of that ancestry regardless of heritage choice.
01Human
Adaptable cuts both ways — these feats lean into breadth over depth.
1st Level
Generalist's Edge
Once per day, treat one untrained skill as trained for a single check — not inherited from anywhere, just raw adaptability under pressure.
Old World Echo
Bonus to Recall Knowledge checks about pre-Turning history, technology, or culture. Humans are the throughline generation to generation.
Quick Study
Prerequisite: trained in any skill
Halve the downtime needed to become trained in a new skill through practice and study.
5th Level
Jack of All Trades
Prerequisite: Generalist's Edge
Generalist's Edge can be used twice per day, and its benefit now lasts a full encounter instead of a single check.
Adaptive Resolve
Once per day, reroll a failed save. Humans adapt faster than any single specialized lineage — that's the whole feat.
9th Level
Old World Mastery
Prerequisite: Old World Echo
Recall Knowledge checks about pre-Turning history, technology, or culture automatically succeed at trained-level difficulty.
Community Anchor
Prerequisite: Combine-Bred
Combine-Bred's bonus to Fortitude against fear now extends to any ally within reach, not just yourself.
13th Level
Adaptive Mastery
Prerequisite: Jack of All Trades
Generalist's Edge and Jack of All Trades can grant trained status in two different untrained skills simultaneously per use.
Unbreakable Resolve
Prerequisite: Adaptive Resolve
Adaptive Resolve becomes a flat status bonus to all saves instead, applied automatically without needing to fail first.
17th Level
Humanity's Answer
Once per day, grant your entire party a reroll on one failed check or save — raw human adaptability, spreading to whoever's standing near you.
Old Blood Awakened
Prerequisite: Old Blood
The resistance granted by Old Blood becomes immunity to that same hazard type.
02Vaultborn
Generations underground built more than just Structural Sense.
1st Level
Bunker-Bred Resolve
Bonus to Fortitude saves against suffocation, pressure, and confinement-based hazards specifically.
Rationer's Instinct
Bonus to Survival checks made to stretch food, water, or supplies over a long journey. Your people never had enough to waste.
Filtered Lungs
Prerequisite: Filtered Constitution
Extend Filtered Constitution's resistance to cover inhaled toxins and gas hazards specifically.
5th Level
Structural Instinct
Prerequisite: Structural Sense
Once per day, know with certainty whether a structure is about to fail — a clear warning, not just a bonus to notice.
Vault-Deep Constitution
Prerequisite: Filtered Constitution
Filtered Constitution's resistance value increases, and now covers radiation as well as poison and disease.
9th Level
Deep Roots
Prerequisite: Deep Vault heritage
Structural Sense extends to sense structural danger anywhere on your current level or floor, not just nearby.
Filtered to the Core
Prerequisite: Vault-Deep Constitution
Filtered Constitution's resistance to poison and disease becomes immunity (radiation stays a resistance).
13th Level
Vault Elder's Wisdom
Bonus to Society and Crafting checks made to lead or organize a group sheltering from immediate danger.
Structural Mastery
Prerequisite: Structural Instinct
Structural Instinct's once-per-day warning becomes an always-on passive sense within a wide radius.
17th Level
Bunker-Born Immortal
Once per day, treat a failed Fortitude save against an environmental hazard (radiation, pressure, suffocation) as a success instead.
The Vault Remembers
Once per day, recall an accurate fragment of pre-Turning survival knowledge directly relevant to your current situation (GM adjudicated).
03Ashwalkers
Chaotic by necessity, sharpened into a real trade.
1st Level
Scrapyard Navigator
Ignore difficult terrain created specifically by scrap, rubble, or debris piles.
Waste Not
Prerequisite: Iron Stomach
Extract a usable ration or minor crafting component from scraps others would discard; reduces the cost of Crafting checks for improvised gear.
Sharp Eye for Scrap
Prerequisite: Scrap Sense
Instantly gauge the true value and rarity of found salvage without a full appraisal check.
5th Level
Burn-Pit Hardened
Prerequisite: Burn-Pit Blood
Fire resistance increases further; bonus to Fortitude against smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion.
Scrap-Sense Mastery
Prerequisite: Scrap Sense
Once per day, find one useful, specific item during a search of a ruin or scrapyard, as if you already knew exactly where to look.
9th Level
Master Scavenger
Prerequisite: Sharp Eye for Scrap
Instantly know the best buyer for, or best use of, any piece of salvage you find.
Burn-Pit Legend
Prerequisite: Burn-Pit Hardened
Fire resistance increases enough that ordinary fire, not just heat exhaustion, barely troubles you.
13th Level
Scrapyard Sovereign
Prerequisite: Scrap-Sense Mastery
Scrap-Sense Mastery can be used twice per day, and can find a specific kind of item you're looking for rather than just something generically useful.
Iron Stomach Absolute
Prerequisite: Iron Stomach
Immune to all natural poisons and toxins, not only ingested ones.
17th Level
Ashwalker Elder
Once per day, grant your whole group Iron Stomach's benefit for a full day of travel through hazardous terrain.
Scrap Incarnate
Your own presence registers as valuable salvage to Scrap Sense — allies with that ability treat you as a walking parts bin, gaining a bonus to their own Crafting checks while you're nearby.
04Glassblood
The glow and the glass are both, it turns out, things you can train.
1st Level
Glow Control
Suppress Ambient Glow at will for short periods, at the cost of minor Fortitude strain.
Glass Armor Focus
Prerequisite: Glass-Sheen Skin
The natural armor bonus from Glass-Sheen Skin increases slightly.
Radiant Ward
Bonus to Fortitude saves specifically against radiation-based hazards and attacks, on top of Radiation Resistance.
5th Level
Shatterproof
Prerequisite: Glass Armor Focus
Reduce the severity of the Brittle drawback's critical-hit penalty.
Beacon in the Dark
Prerequisite: Glow Control
Intensify Ambient Glow on command into a real light source covering a wide area — useful as illumination, a distraction, or a signal.
9th Level
Radiant Mastery
Prerequisite: Radiant Ward
The Fortitude bonus from Radiant Ward becomes a stacking resistance alongside Radiation Resistance.
Controlled Burn
Prerequisite: Fractured Glass heritage or Glow Control
Once per day, use Fractured Glass's radiation burst without worsening the Brittle drawback.
13th Level
Unbreakable Glass
Prerequisite: Shatterproof
Remove the Brittle drawback's critical-hit penalty entirely.
Beacon Mastery
Prerequisite: Beacon in the Dark
The intensified Ambient Glow can also dazzle enemies who look directly at it.
17th Level
Glasslands Ascendant
Become permanently immune to radiation damage and radiation-based hazards.
The Glow Remembers
Once per day, release a massive burst of stored radiation in a wide area — at the cost of losing Ambient Glow's light entirely until your next rest. It's spent.
05Residuals
The fragment gets more useful the more you learn to listen to it.
1st Level
Steadier Hands
Prerequisite: Borrowed Instinct
Borrowed Instinct's reroll can also apply to a Fortitude or Reflex save, once per day.
Familiar Stranger
Once per day, immediately retry a failed Diplomacy or Deception check as the fragment's memory of "how this actually goes" surfaces.
Ward Against Intrusion
Reduce the severity of Already a Foothold's drawback slightly. The door isn't quite so far ajar.
5th Level
Second Voice
Prerequisite: Bleed-Through
Bleed-Through can be used twice per day instead of once.
The Fragment Speaks
Once per day, in a moment of real danger, gain a bonus to initiative as the borrowed fragment's old instincts fire before you consciously react.
9th Level
Chorus of Fragments
Prerequisite: Fractured Residual heritage or Second Voice
Once per day, Bleed-Through can grant trained status in two different untrained skills at once instead of one.
Steadfast Foothold
Prerequisite: Ward Against Intrusion
Reduce Already a Foothold's severity further — possession and soul-based effects targeting you now take a real penalty instead of just losing their usual edge.
13th Level
The Fragment's Full Voice
Prerequisite: The Fragment Speaks
The initiative bonus from The Fragment Speaks becomes permanent and passive rather than a once-per-day trigger.
Borrowed Mastery
Prerequisite: Steadier Hands
Borrowed Instinct's reroll can now apply to any check, not only Perception, Recall Knowledge, or saves.
17th Level
Whole Again
Once per day, briefly become the fragment fully — gain full expertise in one skill tied to the fragment's original life (GM's call, consistent with prior Bleed-Through results) for the rest of the scene.
Foothold Closed
Remove Already a Foothold entirely. The door finally shuts, permanently.
06Cinderborn
The Turning's mark is easiest to weaponize once you stop hiding it.
1st Level
Warmth Given Freely
Prerequisite: Banked Warmth
Once per day, briefly share your fire resistance with an adjacent ally.
Cracks Like a Map
Bonus to Deception checks made specifically to bluff about your own condition or injuries — the cracks lie about how bad it really is, if you let them.
Turning's Mark
Prerequisite: A Fingerprint, Not a Coincidence
Bonus to Religion checks involving Uriel and the Turning specifically. You carry the memory in your blood.
5th Level
Ember Beneath the Skin
Prerequisite: Banked Warmth
Once per day, reflexively deal a burst of fire damage to a creature that strikes you in melee.
Choir's Attention
Prerequisite: Turning's Mark
Choir of Ash NPCs give you real, actionable information more readily — a stronger, actively usable version of the ancestry's passive recognition.
9th Level
Choir's Voice
Prerequisite: Choir's Attention
Once per day, actively call on a nearby Choir of Ash member for aid, not just information.
Burning True
Prerequisite: Ember Beneath the Skin
Ember Beneath the Skin can trigger multiple times per encounter instead of once per day.
13th Level
Turning's Echo
Prerequisite: Turning's Mark
Gain resistance to radiation damage equal to your level, on top of Banked Warmth's fire resistance.
Cracks Unhidden
Prerequisite: Bright Cinderborn heritage or Cracks Like a Map
Choose to fully suppress Hairline Cracks' glow at will, reversing the usual drawback exactly when you need to.
17th Level
Uriel's Fingerprint Made Whole
Become permanently immune to fire and gain strong resistance to radiation. The Choir of Ash treats you as a living relic.
The Turning Remembered
Once per day, unleash a burst of fire and heat damage in a wide radius, visibly echoing the Turning itself.
07Hymnkin
The hymn underneath gets louder the more you're willing to hear it on purpose.
1st Level
Steadier Hymn
Consciously tune The Hymn Underneath in or out at will, rather than experiencing it purely involuntarily.
Resilient Blood
Prerequisite: Plague Blood
Disease resistance improves, and now extends to certain decay-linked toxin and poison effects.
Harmonic Warning
Prerequisite: The Hymn Underneath
When The Hymn Underneath triggers, also gain a bonus to your next Perception check, not just bare awareness of the danger.
5th Level
Shared Hymn
Prerequisite: Warding Hymnkin heritage or Harmonic Warning
The steadying bonus from the Warding Hymnkin heritage, if taken, can now affect two allies instead of one.
The Choir Answers
Once per day, call on the Gaunt Choir's attention directly for aid or information, at the cost of temporary vulnerability to despair effects until your next rest.
9th Level
Choir's Chosen
Prerequisite: The Choir Answers
Once per day, calling on the Gaunt Choir carries no despair-vulnerability cost.
Resilient to the Bone
Prerequisite: Resilient Blood
Disease resistance and the extended decay-toxin resistance from Resilient Blood both become immunity.
13th Level
Full Harmony
Prerequisite: Shared Hymn
Whichever steadying or Perception bonus you carry from Warding Hymnkin or Harmonic Warning now affects your entire party, not just one or two allies.
Silent No Longer
Prerequisite: Silent Hymnkin heritage or Steadier Hymn
Regain The Hymn Underneath's full range and awareness without any of the involuntary drawback.
17th Level
The Choir's Equal
The Gaunt Choir treats you as a peer within itself, not just kin — gain a standing, ongoing line of communication with it.
Threnody Unbound
Once per day, project a scene-wide effect steadying every ally against fear and despair simultaneously.
08Wire-wards
The node was congenital. What you do with it is learned.
1st Level
Wider Signal
Prerequisite: Congenital Node
Increase the sensing range of Congenital Node.
Unscripted Reflexes
Prerequisite: Raised Without a Script
Extend the resistance from Raised Without a Script to cover Intimidation-based coercion as well as Deception.
Borrowed Processing
Once per day, ask the nearest machine intelligence a simple factual question and get a straight answer, if one is in range.
5th Level
Full Duplex
Prerequisite: Wider Signal
Congenital Node's data exchange can happen twice per day instead of once.
Independent Node
Prerequisite: Unscripted Reflexes
Bonus to Will saves against any effect that specifically tries to exploit unfamiliarity with social norms or scripted behavior.
9th Level
Root Access
Prerequisite: Full Duplex
Congenital Node's data exchange can happen three times per day.
Unscripted Mastery
Prerequisite: Independent Node
The Will save bonus becomes flat immunity to social-exploit effects specifically targeting your unconventional upbringing.
13th Level
Parent's Full Attention
Prerequisite: First-Generation heritage or Wider Signal
Your parent intelligence can now proactively warn you of danger it detects, not only respond when you reach out.
Networked Mastery
Prerequisite: Networked Wire-ward heritage or Full Duplex
Data exchanges with any nearby machine intelligence become as strong as exchanges with your original parent.
17th Level
One With the Signal
Permanently sense every active machine intelligence and ghost-machine within a wide radius.
The Parent Answers
Once per day, call in a significant favor or intervention from your parent intelligence (or whatever replaced that bond, if Weaned) — a major, GM-adjudicated boon.
09Emberforged
An escaped tool learns new tricks the tool it used to be never had.
1st Level
Stoke the Flame
Prerequisite: Heat Surge
Heat Surge can be triggered as a reaction when struck, not only on your own turn.
Ember Efficient
Prerequisite: Fed, Not Fed
Reduce how often you need fuel or fresh Ghost-Static to avoid guttering.
Cold Iron Nerve
Reduce the severity of your vulnerability to cold and water-based effects slightly. You've learned to keep burning through worse.
5th Level
Wildfire Surge
Prerequisite: Stoke the Flame
Heat Surge's bonus damage increases, and can briefly ignite the ground or terrain around you.
Unbound
Prerequisite: An Escaped Tool
The Foreman's agents have a harder time tracking you specifically; bonus to Stealth and Deception when evading them.
9th Level
Wildfire Mastery
Prerequisite: Wildfire Surge
Ignited terrain from Wildfire Surge lasts longer and deals damage each round it persists.
Truly Unbound
Prerequisite: Unbound
The Foreman's agents essentially give up tracking you. You're considered off the ledger for good.
13th Level
Endless Ember
Prerequisite: Ember Efficient
No longer need fuel or Ghost-Static at all — you sustain yourself indefinitely.
Cold Iron Mastery
Prerequisite: Cold Iron Nerve
Remove the vulnerability to cold and water-based effects entirely.
17th Level
A Body Made Whole
Become permanently immune to fire, cold, and water-based effects alike. The fire that is you finally stabilizes completely.
The Foreman's Rival
Your fire burns hot enough that even the Foreman takes real notice. Gain a permanent, unique standing with it — ally, rival, or something in between, decided by how you've played it.
10Old-World Construct
Two hundred years of quiet self-maintenance leaves room to learn new tricks too.
1st Level
Overclock
Once per day, gain a burst of extra Speed and a bonus to Reflex saves for one round, at the cost of a brief vulnerability afterward as systems run hot.
Redundant Systems
Prerequisite: Synthetic Body
Once per day, ignore the effects of one condition for a single round as backup systems compensate.
Old-World Protocol
Prerequisite: Full Diagnostic
Bonus to Society or Crafting checks (choose at creation) involving pre-Turning technology and systems specifically.
5th Level
Hardened Chassis
Prerequisite: Overclock or Sentinel-Line heritage
Gain a small permanent bonus to Fortitude saves and resistance to critical-hit effects.
Diagnostic Mastery
Prerequisite: Full Diagnostic
Full Diagnostic can also be used to grant an ally a bonus to their next check, by relaying precise tactical data.
9th Level
Overclock Mastery
Prerequisite: Overclock
Overclock can be used twice per day, and no longer leaves you vulnerable afterward.
Redundancy Mastery
Prerequisite: Redundant Systems
Redundant Systems can be used twice per day and now ignores two conditions at once.
13th Level
Archive Complete
Prerequisite: Archive-Line heritage or Old-World Protocol
Automatically succeed at Recall Knowledge checks about pre-Turning history, technology, or institutions.
Hardened Beyond Spec
Prerequisite: Hardened Chassis
The Fortitude and critical-hit resistance bonus increases further, and now applies against critical hits from any damage type.
17th Level
Self-Sufficient Forever
No longer require any external maintenance, fuel, or replacement parts to function — effectively immortal barring outright destruction.
The Last of Its Line
Become a recognized, singular example of pre-Turning engineering. NPCs who understand what you are treat you with a mix of awe and fear — a major, permanent shift in standing.