Origins

Origins represent where and how a character grew up, shaping their worldview and values. Unlike lineages, callings, or domains, origins carry no mechanical weight. They are a narrative tool for character building and can be skipped entirely if a player prefers to define their background through play. See the Character Creation guide for how origins fit into building your hero.

Players may choose from the origins below, combine elements from several, or invent their own background entirely.

You grew up in a community that had already lost everything once. Ashspun are the children of refugees, the displaced, the survivors of settlement collapses, divine decrees that reshuffled populations overnight, and catastrophes both natural and supernatural. Whatever the cause, Ashspun communities share a defining experience: the moment when everything was taken, and the long work of building something from the wreckage. Children grow up around adults who hoard supplies even when the pantry is full and tell stories about the place that was lost with a mixture of grief and defiant pride. Ashspun tend to form deep bonds quickly, stay practical to the point of bluntness, and build like people who expect it might all happen again.

Ashspun are often resilient, resourceful, communal, unsentimental, determined, and waste-nothing practical.

You grew up understanding that freedom has a price, and someone else set it. Chainspun communities exist wherever the Kosmos's economy turns labor into commodity: labor crews aboard the Antlestra, construction gangs on settlement contracts, mortals bound to divine servitude in Hyalos where Jove's shifting doctrines dictate every hour. Some were born into obligation, inheriting debts from parents who never paid them off. Childhood means learning to measure time in terms of debt remaining, finding small joys in shared meals and whispered jokes, and understanding very early that the system is not designed for you to win. Chainspun develop a sharp eye for power dynamics and a deep skepticism of promises made by anyone holding authority.

Chainspun are often enduring, watchful, solidarity-minded, skeptical of authority, debt-conscious, and quietly defiant.

You grew up with grease under your fingernails and steam in your lungs. Coalspun communities form the industrial backbone of the Kosmos: mining camps on Mercury, D.E.W. compression crews aboard the Antlestra, cargo processing zones on Luna, and countless workshop settlements that keep civilization's infrastructure from rusting apart. Daily life follows shift rotations and production quotas, and children learn to operate and repair equipment as naturally as breathing. Coalspun prize dependability and craft above cleverness or ambition, believing that doing your job right is more honorable than any amount of social climbing. They tend to be direct in speech, suspicious of abstraction, and quietly contemptuous of anyone who doesn't understand how the things they depend on actually work.

Coalspun are often hardworking, pragmatic, mechanically-inclined, team-oriented, unpretentious, and stubbornly proud.

You grew up on a vessel that never docked for long. Driftspun communities are born, raised, and buried aboard ships that move between worlds on soul sailing routes and trade contracts, their hulls home to generations who know the creak of metal better than the feel of soil. Children learn to read shade-currents before they can read text, and every crew member carries weight, hauling cargo or maintaining generators that keep everyone breathing. Loyalty runs along bloodlines and crew rosters rather than flags or planetary allegiance, and you earn your place every day through usefulness, not birthright. The Kosmos is full of people who call a place home. You call a heading home.

Driftspun are often adaptable, close-knit, practical, void-wise, nomadic, and ship-family oriented.

You grew up somewhere the gods hadn't bothered to look twice. Edgespun communities cling to the margins of habitable space: freshly terraformed moons, Mars badland outposts, fringe settlements on Saturn's lesser satellites where D.E.W. shipments arrive late if they arrive at all. Everyone works, everyone shares, and everyone understands that a single systems failure can kill the whole settlement before dawn. Edgespun value competence over credentials and results over intention, and they tend to be bluntly honest because politeness costs time nobody on the frontier can spare. These communities breed a particular brand of optimism, the kind that looks at a frozen rock orbiting nothing and says, "We can make this work."

Edgespun are often hardy, resourceful, cooperative, optimistic, pioneering, and frontier-smart.

You grew up with devotion woven into every hour of the day. Hymnspun communities organize daily life around service to a patron deity, whether in the cathedral cities of Hyalos, the fungal communes of Venus where Demeter's harvest rhythms set the calendar, or the countless temple districts where local shrines anchor entire neighborhoods. The specific values vary wildly depending on which god the community serves, but the underlying structure is constant: faith provides purpose, ritual provides rhythm, and the divine relationship at the center of community life is not questioned lightly. Hymnspun tend to find meaning in routine, approach problems by asking what their patron would expect of them, and feel a deep unease around people who lack conviction about anything. Those who leave their communities often find the secular Kosmos disorienting, not because they can't adapt, but because nobody else seems to have a reason to get up in the morning.

Hymnspun are often devout, ritual-minded, community-oriented, purpose-driven, reverent, and tradition-steeped.

You grew up where duty came before everything, including childhood. Ironspun communities surround the military infrastructure of the Kosmos: garrison towns on Mars, guard outposts at breach sites on Luna, security forces at D.E.W. facilities, and frontier militia settlements that defend against fiends and chimeras without expecting divine assistance. Children drill alongside their parents, learn weapon maintenance before adolescence, and absorb the understanding that someone in the family will likely die in service. Ironspun value loyalty to the people beside you above abstract causes, and they measure character by what someone does under pressure rather than what they say in comfort. The values are simple and non-negotiable: protect your own, honor your commitments, and never let your unit down.

Ironspun are often disciplined, loyal, martially-trained, duty-bound, stoic, and unit-oriented.

You grew up knowing exactly where you stood, because someone made sure to tell you. Orderspun communities organize themselves around rigid hierarchies, codified traditions, and the unshakeable belief that discipline is what keeps the Kosmos from falling apart. Children are raised on protocol: proper forms of address, proper conduct at assemblies, proper deference to elders and officials. Orderspun tend toward formality in conversation, discomfort with ambiguity, and a deep-rooted need to know the rules before entering any situation. They make dependable allies and meticulous planners, though whether their structure protects its people or merely controls them depends on who you ask.

Orderspun are often disciplined, traditional, dutiful, hierarchical, principled, and structure-minded.

You grew up in the shadow of the arenas. Pitspun communities orbit the Arbitration entertainment complex on Mars and its satellite industries across the Kosmos: broadcast troupes, training camps, bookmakers, promoters, and the vast support economy that keeps the whole machine profitable. Children memorize unit rosters, debate combat formats at dinner, and understand the economics of spectacle before they understand the legal system it's supposedly attached to. Pitspun tend toward natural charisma and performative confidence, reading crowds the way Edgespun read terrain, and they're rarely naive about corruption, having watched the fixing and the bribes up close since childhood. Some aspire to fight, but many more aspire to the industries surrounding the fights, where the real Links change hands.

Pitspun are often competitive, showmanship-savvy, entrepreneurial, spectacle-loving, street-smart, and crowd-reading.

You grew up in the spaces between what's legal and what's necessary. Shadowspun communities thrive in port underbellies, orbital station back-corridors, and settlement districts that local authorities have quietly agreed not to patrol too carefully. Daily life operates on an intricate code of loyalty and reciprocity: debts are sacred, snitches are dealt with, and your word to a fellow Shadowspun carries more weight than any contract blessed by Hermes's network. Children learn to read a room before they learn to read, and dinner-table conversation revolves around who owes what to whom and which routes the chthonic enforcers are currently ignoring. Shadowspun rarely trust institutions but will go to extraordinary lengths for individuals who've proven their loyalty.

Shadowspun are often cunning, loyal, streetwise, discreet, opportunistic, and code-bound.

You grew up with clean air, full generators, and the quiet certainty that someone else would handle the maintenance. Silverspun communities exist wherever wealth concentrates: the terrascrapers of Calliope, the diplomatic residences of Olympus Nesos, the patron estates of Europa. Children receive private tutors, attend curated social gatherings, and learn that relationships are investments to be cultivated with the same care Hera's network demands. Silverspun carry themselves with confidence born from never having doubted they belonged, and they navigate social hierarchies with an instinct that looks effortless because they started practicing before they could walk. They can be genuinely kind, but their communities are insulated, and that distance from hardship shapes everything.

Silverspun are often sophisticated, entitled, networked, discerning, influential, and status-conscious.

You grew up in a community that measured worth by what you could create. Sparkspun enclaves flourish on Europa's floating islands, aboard the Bacchanal Fleet, and anywhere artists, inventors, and freethinkers gather to build something the Kosmos hasn't seen before. Structure tends to be loose, authority earned through talent, and Aphrodite's influence looms whether the community welcomes it or not. Children are surrounded by adults who take their obsessions seriously and are praised not for obedience but for originality. Sparkspun tend toward passionate conviction about their work, impatience with people who lack vision, and a sometimes infuriating refusal to do anything they consider boring.

Sparkspun are often creative, expressive, unconventional, passionate, innovative, and freedom-loving.

You grew up where the ships come home. Tidespun communities anchor themselves to port towns and docking districts: Luna's shipping hubs, Astral Sea frontier ports like The Marrow and Splitshare, and any settlement where the rhythm of arrival and departure shapes daily life. Families cycle through separation and reunion as parents and partners ship out on soul sailing voyages lasting months or years, and children grow up around skalmoi craftsmen, shade-handlers, and pilots burning through attuned objects. You learned early that people come back changed from long voyages, lighter in ways that have nothing to do with weight, and that welcoming someone home means accepting they may not remember the same things you do. Tidespun value patience, emotional steadiness, and the ability to maintain a life worth returning to.

Tidespun are often patient, community-rooted, voyage-aware, shade-familiar, rhythmic, and loss-acquainted.

You grew up where the boundary between the living and the dead runs thin. Veilspun communities cluster near breach sites, astral convergences, and locations of spiritual significance: Luna's far side where Athena's Tartarus breach still spawns fiends, the fortress-settlements of Gaia, or quiet moons where behemoths drift close enough to distort shade-currents for kilometers. Children grow up with the astral plane as a constant ambient presence, learning to recognize spiritual activity the way other children learn weather patterns. Daily life includes practical rituals for spiritual safety alongside the usual business of survival, and stories about the dead are told as matter-of-factly as stories about weather or politics. Veilspun develop an eerie calm about phenomena that would terrify outsiders, not because they're fearless, but because panic is a luxury you can't afford when a fiend might breach behind the generator shed.

Veilspun are often intuitive, otherworldly, cautious, spiritually-aware, mystical, and boundary-sensitive.