Hogwarts students are divided up into four houses by the Sorting Hat when they first arrive at Hogwarts. Houses at Hogwarts are both the living and learning communities for its students. Each year’s group of students in the same house shares their dormitory and many classes, acting as a sort of family. The houses compete by earning points for the House Cup and playing for the Inter-House Quidditch Cup.
Each house has stereotypical traits that are grounded in reality, but students are quite diverse. Some young witches and wizards share traits with another house, like Hermione Granger’s Ravenclaw-like brilliance. Others might appear the exact opposite of their house, like Neville Longbottom’s lack of confidence (needing time to grow into bravery) or Luna Lovegood’s ostensible disconnection from facts (keeping a creative, open mind and being perceptive). The Sorting Hat places students in the house that will benefit them the most.
The way you decide your character’s house is not always by what they do, but what would make them proudest if they were strong enough to do it. Your sorting is what you want to be and what you believe in.
Hogwarts Houses
Gryffindor
With a lion as its crest, Gryffindor is the house which most values the virtues of determination, courage, and chivalry. Some call these traits recklessness or “pointless heroics,” but a Gryffindor is sure to take action. Gryffindor’s house colors are red and gold.
Champions of Justice
Gryffindors trust their moral intuitions and have a need and a drive to live by them. They feel what’s right in their gut, and that matters and guides them. It feels immoral to ignore that.
However, just because they operate on what “feels right,” that doesn’t mean Gryffindors are all impetuous, emotional hellions. Gryffindors can still be intelligent and deliberate, weighing their decisions and moralities carefully.
Fighting Spirit
Gryffindors charge. They meet the world head-on and challenge it to do its worst. Gryffindors are honest, brash, and bold in pursuit of things they care about. Known for their bravery, it is almost a moral matter to stay true to themselves in any situation.
Gryffindor Traits
Through their camaraderie, Gryffindors bolster each other’s confidence and endeavors.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score, Charisma score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Bravehearted. You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened from any source other than a Dementor.
True Gryffindor. In times of dire need, the Sword of Gryffindor may present itself to you.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Hufflepuff
Hufflepuffs value hard work, patience, loyalty, and fair play, represented by the sturdy badger. Although often disparaged by others for their lack of competitiveness, the house has produced great wizards - not least Newt Scamander, notable magizoologist and author. Hufflepuff’s house colors are yellow and black.
Compassion and Empathy
Hufflepuffs value people and community. They base their decisions on who is in need and who they can help. They value fairness because everyone is a person. Even directly wronged, Hufflepuffs will often give a second (or fifth) chance.
But Hufflepuffs aren’t inherently tolerant, like Gryffindors aren’t inherently moral. They believe that all people deserve some type of kindness or decency, but they can redefine “person” to exclude anyone who doesn’t meet their standards.
Hard Workers
Hufflepuffs toil. Their strength comes from consistency and the integrity of their method. They have a certain steadiness, naturally becoming the lynchpin of a community. While stereotyped as being social, a Hufflepuff might also be an introverted misanthrope who runs on hard work alone.
Hufflepuff Traits
You can rely on them to have certain attributes in common.
Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score, Wisdom score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Steadfast Loyalty. You have advantage on saving throws against any effect that would make you attack or work against a creature you would normally consider an ally.
Kitchen Trips. Your experience with the Hogwarts house elves has taught you how to politely address and interact with magical beings. Oh, and you can get tons of snacks.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Ravenclaw
Ravenclaws prize wit, learning, and wisdom. It’s an ethos etched into founder Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem: ‘wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.’ Despite the house’s reputation for eccentricity and reclusiveness, Ravenclaws tend to make their mark on the world. Ravenclaw’s house colors are blue and bronze.
A Systematic Mind
Ravenclaws construct systems to test their decisions against before they feel comfortable calling something right. Their systems give them a way to frame the world and a confidence in their ability to interact with it.
Ravenclaws do not lack intuition, but often distrust gut instinct. Although they go about it differently, a Ravenclaw can be just as morally motivated as a Gryffindor.
Contingency Planners
Ravenclaws plan. They collect information, they strategize. They have tools. They run hypotheticals and try to plan ahead for things that might come up. They build things (of varying degrees of actual usefulness) that they can use later, whether that’s an emergency supply pack or vast knowledge in a niche topic. They feel less at home in improvisation and more comfortable taking the time to be prepared.
Ravenclaw Traits
With a library in their common room, Ravenclaws will always share studious habits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score, Wisdom score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
In-Depth Knowledge. Whenever you make an Intelligence or Wisdom ability check that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 5 or lower as a 6.
Rowena’s Library. You can easily research a desired topic through enlisting your housemates’ help and browsing books exclusively found in the Ravenclaw common room.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Slytherin
Slytherin produces more than its share of Dark wizards, but also turns out leaders who are proud, ambitious, resourceful, and cunning. Merlin is one particularly famous Slytherin. What others may call cheating or manipulation, a Slytherin calls “playing the game.” Slytherin’s house colors are green and silver.
Inner Circle
Slytherins are fiercely loyal to the people they care for most. Slytherin is the place where “you’ll make your real friends”; they prioritize individual loyalties and find their moral core in protecting and caring for the people they are closest to.
Slytherin’s reputation for ambition comes from prioritizing themselves and the select people they deem important. Ambition is something you can find in all four houses, but Slytherin’s looks most obviously selfish.
Machiavellian Maneuvers
Slytherins improvise. They are the most adaptive, finding their strength in responding quickly to whatever a situation throws at them. They improvise differently than Gryffindors, trying new angles instead of strong-arming the situation. They might have different “faces” for different situations, only truly being themselves when they’re finally alone or feeling safe.
Slytherin Traits
Although Slytherins like to keep their secrets, there are some obvious traits they all have.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score, Charisma score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Compromising Information. Whenever you make a Charisma check related to using a person’s secrets, you are considered proficient in the appropriate skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
A Noble Quality. You’re able to adopt a persona of importance to blend in among high-ranking officials and prestigious witches and wizards.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Beauxbatons and Durmstrang
Beauxbatons
Located in the mountains of France, the Academie de Magie Beauxbatons or Beauxbatons Academy of Magic is the choice of magical education for young witches and wizards living in Western, Southern, and sometimes even Central Europe. For wizards in the UK, Beauxbatons is most notable for its friendly rivalry to Hogwarts, and the two schools have often supported each other throughout history. Beauxbatons is widely recognized for the elegance of its castle, its majestic gardens and its well-prepared cuisine.
Tradition and Discipline
Etiquette and respect are at the forefront of Beauxbatons customs. The students stand at attention whenever their headmaster or headmistress enters a room and continue doing so until they take a seat or order everyone to return to their tasks.
There is a strong atmosphere of school pride, and the Academy’s traditions are treasured by staff and students alike. While taught to be polite, that pride often shows through when students of Beauxbatons travel abroad.
A Delicate Approach to Magic
Beauxbatons Academy of Magic teaches its students to approach magic with control and finesse, instead of clumsiness or brute force. The studies revolve around proper dueling forms, taxonomies and knowledge deeply grounded in magical theory.
To an untrained eye, the deliberate movements of Beauxbatons duelists might resemble a choreographed dance, but it’s closer to the precision, quickness and lethality of Muggle fencing.
Beauxbatons Student Traits
The traits of Beauxbatons students originate from their school’s dueling style and from their travels abroad.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score, Wisdom score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Nimble Evasion. Whenever you take the dodge action, add half your proficiency bonus to your AC and your Dexterity saving throws.
Exchange Student. You’re familiar with the workings of the International Confederation of Wizards and other international associations.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Durmstrang
Even among the magical community, the Durmstrang Institute’s location is a closely guarded secret, a symptom of the magical school’s distrust of outsiders. Some believe it to be somewhere in the Nordic countries or Russia, but the only thing that’s certain is that it accepts students from Northern, Central and Eastern European countries. Historically, Durmstrang has also refused to accept Muggleborn students, although that might be attributed to a previous headmaster’s association with Britain’s Death Eaters. Its modern policies are unknown.
Unorthodox Curriculum
Durmstrang is notorious for its acceptance of the Dark Arts, and was known to have educated (and later expelled) Gellert Grindelwald before his ascension as one of history’s most dangerous Dark wizards.
Contrary to its reputation, Durmstrang doesn’t specialize in the Dark Arts themselves, but in combative magic. The school is simply open-minded about the use of Dark Arts, and so most topics studied at Durmstrang incorporate Dark elements other schools would forswear.
Strength Through Hardship
The stern and militaristic culture that has pervaded the Durmstrang Institute is mirrored in its harsh surroundings. Brutal winters, rigorous physical exercise regimens and swimming in ice cold lakes are all part of the character-building school experience.
Although some parents feel the approach is too extreme, everything is designed to produce resilient and resourceful wizards and witches who will survive any combat.
Durmstrang Student Traits
The Durmstrang coursework and philosophy strongly define its students’ attributes.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score, Constitution score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Cold Efficiency. You add the bombarda spell to your list of known spells. It does not count against your cantrips known, and cannot be forgotten to learn another cantrip.
Dark Education. You have advantage on any rolls made to resist gaining Corruption effects from Dark magic.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Ilvermorny Houses
Horned Serpent
Horned Serpent is the house of scholars. Isolt Sayre, the founder of Ilvermorny, named her house for her friendship with a horned serpent and her ability to understand Parseltongue. Horned Serpent represents the mind of the wizard, since Isolt’s passion for learning has been preserved in Horned Serpent.
Natural Academics
Because of Horned Serpent’s reputation for studiousness, parallels are often drawn with the Ravenclaw house at Hogwarts, but Hogwarts and Ilvermorny houses are not equivalent to each other.
While it would be common to find a Horned Serpent student at the top of their class, you’re just as likely to find them heading out to obtain first-hand practical experience. A certain appreciation of nature is another notable trait of Horned Serpent.
Horned Serpent Traits
Horned Serpents consistently like to test their well-rounded intellect.
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score, Charisma score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Scholar’s Mind. You add half your proficiency bonus to any Intelligence or Wisdom ability check you make that doesn’t already include your proficiency bonus.
Procedural Thinking. You enjoy testing yourself with riddles and logic puzzles. If you get stuck on one, you might subconsciously connect a few dots.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Wampus
The house represents the body of the wizard. Wampus was chosen by Webster Boot, one of the first students of Ilvermorny and one of Isolt Sayre’s adopted children. Wampus favors warriors, taking after Webster’s career in the British colonies as a prominent “Auror for hire.”
Warriors at Heart
Wampus is named after the wampus cat, an extremely dangerous magical creature found in America. The wampus cat is XXXXX classified by the Ministry of Magic: “Known wizard killer / impossible to train or domesticate,” which is fitting for the Ilvermorny house’s reputation.
Wampuses rarely back down from a fight, whether it’s in the form of an argument, fisticuffs or exchanged hexes. They place great value on swift action and self-defense. Fiercely loyal too, a Wampus is a good person to have on your side and terrible to have against you.
Wampus Traits
Wampuses’ traits can be very useful in times of conflict and turmoil.
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score, Constitution score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Warrior’s Endurance. When you roll a 16 or higher on a death saving throw, you instantly regain 1 hit point. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Contagious Valor. Your moxie can be inspiring, and those around you feel more inclined to accompany you into battle against your foes.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Thunderbird
Thunderbird is said to represent the soul of the wizard and is home to adventurers. The house was named and created by Chadwick Boot, Webster Boot’s older brother, Isolt Sayre’s other adopted son, and one of the first students of Ilvermorny. The Thunderbird house has been associated with Chadwick’s later accomplishments as an international traveller and author of magical textbooks.
Discovery and Creation
The house is named after the awe-inspiring thunderbird, whose natural habitat is in southwestern United States. Thanks to its ability to create storms and its wide-ranging travels around North America, it’s the most widely known magical creatures among indigenous No-Maj communities. Thunderbird students similarly feel a yearning to venture beyond the ordinary.
That desire can be expressed through literal or conceptual exploration, as Thunderbirds are just as likely to forge new paths in their chosen field as forge new paths through the untamed wilderness. Wherever they go, they’ll go boldly.
Thunderbird Traits
One thing that’s a constant for all Thunderbirds is change.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score, Charisma score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Adventurer’s Footing. Moving through nonmagical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement.
Dependable Bearings. You have a good sense of direction and can easily use notable landmarks and geography to remember the general layout of areas.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.
Pukwudgie
The Pukwudgie house represents the heart of the wizard, and is commonly associated with healers. This house was named by James Steward, famous for being the co-founder of Ilvermorny, husband of Isolt Sayre, adoptive father of Chadwick and Webster Boot and the only known no-maj wandmaker.
Supportive and Self-Sufficient
James chose this house because a pukwudgie named William had accompanied Isolt. A mix between European goblins and house-elves in both appearance and magical capabilities, pukwudgies are traditionally aloof from human-kind. William later saved the lives of Isolt, James, and the Boots, and because of the respect showed by James, William and his descendants became Ilvermorny’s guards and caretakers.
Students of the Pukwudgie house are often quite caring and compassionate. They easily empathize, even with an enemy, and enjoy seeing others achieve their goals. However, Pukwudgies are just as capable of taking care of themselves and won’t forget to prioritize their own happiness.
Pukwudgie Traits
Pukwudgies’ perspective gives them common attributes.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score, Charisma score, and one other ability score of choice increase by 1.
Healer’s Knack. Whenever you make a Wisdom (Medicine) check to stabilize a creature, add half your proficiency bonus to your roll.
A Diplomatic Touch. If you assist a hostile being in a meaningful way, they’re more likely to reconsider their hostility towards you, potentially defusing the situation.
Feat. You gain one feat of your choice.