The Foundling

An airbender is featured as an example for the Foundling playbook.

The Foundling (孤鴻) is one of the playbooks for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game, an outline of a character archetype that can be customized in the game. The Foundling is one of the four playbooks featured in Wan Shi Tong's Adventure Guide. They are the inheritor of two traditions, two cultures, two frameworks of training and philosophies. They are constantly trying to represent the best of both, and sometimes to combine them into something new. Their balance principles are Unity vs. Heritage.

Description

The Foundling is the child of two cultures, belonging to both but not at home in either. Play the Foundling if you want to synthetize the lessons and traditions of your heritage.

Dualistic, torn, innovative, exploring. The Foundling is a child of two different heritages, each with their own traditions, their own practices, their own trainings. The Foundling might be an earthbender raised by Air Nomads, or a sword-wielding Fire Nation orphan raised in the Southern Water Tribe. Both of their heritages have a place in the Foundling's life and identity, and they struggle to find ways to belong to either heritage or to combine both. The struggle between belonging and owning one heritage and uniquely mixing both defines the Foundling's path.

A Foundling cannot bend two different elements, but they are always stronger for incorporating elements of another culture and training. A waterbender who knows how to use firebending forms with waterbending is that much more effective. With their unique perspective, the Foundling can pick up skills that no other character can, adapting them and building a new style all their own.

• Starting stats: Creativity +1, Focus -1, Harmony +1, Passion 0
• Demeanor options: Caring, Dedicated, Friendly, Modest, Respectful, Shy

Principles

The Foundling's two principles, Unity and Heritage, reflect their struggle to define themselves while finding a place to belong.

The Foundling's Unity principle represents their desire to combine their heritages, to find the connections and similarities that bring their two home cultures into one identity. Leaning toward this principle means the Foundling is coming to see themselves as something new, a truly innovative combination of two ways of being.

The Foundling's Heritage principle represents the Foundling's interest in and devotion to their heritage. Commitment to either background is represented by Heritage — the principle represents how the Foundling is embracing the unique and specific aspects of one of their cultures, no matter which culture they embrace. But identifying with either heritage too strongly tends to preclude identifying easily with the other — raising Heritage usually means picking one of the two identities to focus on. Finding a way to mesh two disparate identities together is much more about Unity, while being interested in and proud of either tradition individually is about Heritage.

The Foundling's Moment of Balance allows them to embrace each of their identities in full, uniting them without diminishing either. In that moment, the Foundling sees how all things connect, and their two aspects can retain their own special identities but act in perfect concert with the other. The Foundling sees that the divisions are false — everything is connected, and they can be proud of all their facets. And with that new understanding, they combine their trainings from both heritages to perform astonishing feats.

Characteristics

Moment of Balance

You have always struggled to find unity between your two halves while trying to honor their traditions. But true balance is about knowing that everything is part of a greater whole. One heritage cannot exist without the other, especially within you.

Moves

• Empty Your Mind
• Building Bridges
• Martial Sensitive
• Trusty Talisman
• Things in Common

Growth question

Did you resolve an issue or conflict relying on something other than your trainings?

The Foundling's growth question is all about exploring more of the world beyond the two trainings that divide them. The Foundling may be deeply defined by those trainings, but that means they need to round themselves out as a full person by learning other ways of solving problems or dealing with the world.