Houndkin

Overview

Houndkin are bio-engineered canine humanoids — loyal, brave, strong, and bred for one job above all: to sniff out magic, psionics, and the supernatural that ordinary senses miss. They serve as soldiers and trackers, often in packs, and their keen noses and unshakable loyalty make them invaluable hunters of things that hide. They feel intensely and bond fiercely with the people they trust.

A human-tier ancestry, balanced against the Human baseline. The Houndkin's identity is sensory: keen physical senses plus an engineered ability to detect the supernatural, which is its signature contribution to a party. Strong and durable, it leans into the loyal-protector role. (The dated "low intelligence" framing is deliberately dropped — no attribute flaw.)

At a glance

Bred to Hunt the Strange. Your engineered senses register the supernatural. Your imprecise scent also detects magic-using, psionic, and supernatural creatures within 30 feet — you become aware such a creature is present (to within scent's normal imprecision) even if it's invisible or hidden, though you must still pinpoint it normally. This sense has the psionic trait.

Heritages

Choose one at level 1.

• Warhound. Combat-bred and heavier-built. You gain 2 additional Hit Points at level 1 and every level thereafter, and your jaws are a melee unarmed attack dealing 1d6 piercing damage (brawling group, unarmed trait).
• Tracker. Your nose is exceptional. Your scent is precise within 10 feet, and you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Survival to Track and to Seek checks that rely on smell.

Ancestry feats

Level 1

• Snapping Jaws. You gain a jaws unarmed attack (1d6 piercing, brawling group, unarmed trait). If you already have jaws from the Warhound heritage, they instead deal 1d8.
• Loyal Guardian. Trigger: an enemy you can see hits an adjacent ally. Effect: the ally gains a +1 circumstance bonus to AC against that attack (possibly turning a hit into a miss).
• Keen Hearing. +2 circumstance bonus to Seek checks that rely on hearing, and you aren't off-guard to creatures you can hear but not see.

Level 5

• Pack Tactics. When you and an ally are both adjacent to a creature, that creature is off-guard to your melee attacks.
• Bloodhound. Pick a creature whose scent you've detected; you know its precise direction (not distance) for 10 minutes while it stays within 1 mile, and gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Track it.

Level 9

• Bane of the Hidden. Against magic-using, psionic, or supernatural creatures you've detected with Bred to Hunt the Strange, gain a +1 circumstance bonus to attack rolls and to Perception to find them.

Level 13

• Relentless Loyalty. While a chosen ally is within sight, gain a +2 circumstance bonus to saves against fear and to recovery checks. There's nothing you won't face for the pack.