Nightingale Lineage, Inheritance and Story in Character Creation explained

Nightingale Lineage, Story and Inheritance are all part of the Ancestry section in the game's character creation, but it's not clear what they mean and how they affect the game going forward. As a matter of fact, you don't have to be too worried - right now, Lineage and the other sectors are all largely either not something that affect gameplay massively, or focus simply on your character's appearance. We'll explain Story, Inheritance and Lineage in Nightingale below, so you can be certain what you want to expect from your family members.

What are Lineage, Inheritance and Story in Nightingale?

Lineage and Inheritance in Nightingale character creation are both heavily connected, but Story is its own thing that's probably the least meaningful part of the character creation at time of writing. We'll cover all three elements of the Ancestry tab below:

Lineage: Lineage in Nightingale is a way to change your character's appearance by picking parents, grandparents and great-grandparents of your character, something you can either randomise or do individually. On its own this does nothing until you get to…
Inheritance: This section gives you a four-quadrant graph that allows you to change your character's face in accordance with your family's appearance - as in, the family you choose in the Lineage section! Keeping it in the middle means they still look the same, but you can adjust them to look more like their family by moving the icon around - don't worry, it's just cosmetic.
Story: This section allows you to pick your character's backstory and history, but right now it doesn't do very much except determine the clothes you wear going into the game (which will soon likely be swapped out for crafted outfits with better stats). It's entirely possible that Nightingale will add new features later in Early Access as the game develops that utilise your character's Story - dialogue options and abilities, perhaps - but right now we've been playing Nightingale for days and yet to uncover a way in which it has a clear and meaningful impact on the experience.

More Nightingale guides

Nightingale T1 Essence
Nightingale Antiquarian and Astrolabe Cards
Nightingale Infusions

Want to know more about Nightingale as you're getting started? Find out how to increase your Nightingale Gear Score here, or how to perform the most damaging attacks in the game, the deadly Nightingale Heartshots, here!

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.