Backgrounds

Backgrounds anchor your character in the world of Kaernest long before their power grows and their deeds echo. They represent where you come from, what you learned in that place, and how the world expects you to act.
Every background gives a +1 bonus to an Attribute (never exceeding +6), training in five Novice-level skills, training in one Apprentice-level skill, a Narrative Permission, and a Mechanical Edge that reflects who you were before you began adventuring in earnest.
A background should give you something unique to lean into, narratively and mechanically.

Backgrounds are grouped by broad themes to help you find the right story for your character.

Civic and Trade

These backgrounds reflect lives rooted in community infrastructure, economic exchange, and the rhythms of daily labor.

Civic Background Equipment

Theme: Practical tools, everyday weapons, minimal protection.
Intended feel: Equipped to work, not to fight, but not helpless.

Equipment

• Simple weapon (club, knife, hand axe, or staff)
• Work knife or utility blade
• Travel clothes suitable to the trade
• Light pack or satchel
• Rope (30–50 ft)
• Trade tools (craft, cooking, fishing, farming, etc.)
• Personal trinket tied to family or trade

Value: ~5–8 silver

Barrister

You learned how to shape a story into an argument, how to notice what matters, and how to make the right people listen.
Law, custom, and procedure were not abstract. They were tools, and sometimes weapons.
+1 Influence or Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Society
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Discipline, History, Institution, Negotiation, Oration, Philosophy Permission: You can translate disputes into claims, claims into leverage, and leverage into resolution. When a conflict is social or legal rather than physical, you can propose a formal framing that reduces immediate escalation.
Edge: Once per session, when you attempt to resolve a dispute through argument, procedure, or mediation, treat a failure as a partial success that creates an obligation, a delay, or a formal consequence rather than immediate hostility.

Beggar

You learned which streets are safe, which eyes watch, and how to survive when your name does not open doors.
Pity is a currency. So is invisibility.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Stealth
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Discipline, Evasion, Skullduggery, Society, Stealth, Survival
Permission: You can move through public spaces without drawing attention, even in places where strangers would be noticed. When you are treated as “beneath notice,” you may exploit that assumption without it immediately becoming suspicious.
Edge: Once per session, when you would suffer a consequence from being noticed, suspected, or remembered, you may instead become anonymous in the scene, shifting the consequence onto evidence left behind, time pressure, or a future complication.

Cook / Baker

You learned the practical magic of hunger and satisfaction.
The kitchen taught you timing, heat, cooperation, and how to keep working when everything is already on fire.
+1 Will or Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Compounding
Novice Skills: Choose five from Compounding, Endurance, Folklore, Nature, Negotiation, Society, Survival
Permission: You can produce food, drink, or simple comforts quickly and reliably with limited supplies. When provisioning or feeding others is relevant, you can do it with less cost, less waste, or less time than most.
Edge: Once per session, when you prepare food or drink for a group, choose one. Reduce fatigue or environmental strain for the group during the next travel segment, or remove one Minor Condition from a single person who shares the meal.

Dockworker / Teamster

You measured strength in hours, not brief exertion. Loading wagons, hauling cargo, and shifting space taught you how bodies move when they must, and how endurance wins when bursts of strength do not.
+1 Vigor
Apprentice Skill: Athletics
Novice Skills: Choose five from Acrobatics, Endurance, Fiberarts, Forge, Navigation, Stealth, Survival
Permission: You know how to move people and goods without attracting unwanted attention, and you know which practical shortcuts are accepted in labor spaces. You may spend Effort instead of coin to secure routine cooperation from workers, porters, or transport crews, as long as the request is reasonable and immediate.
Edge: Once per session, when you or your group must move something heavy, awkward, or time-sensitive, gain a bonus die or reduce required time by one step, whichever matters more in the moment.

Merchant / Trader

You learned value as a moving target. What matters is not what something is worth, but who wants it, when, and why.
+1 Influence or Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Negotiation
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Fiberarts, Folklore, Forge, Institution, Leadership, Society
Permission: You can quickly estimate fair price, likely demand, and hidden leverage in an exchange. When haggling, sourcing, or trading, you can accomplish routine transactions without rolling unless the deal is risky, contested, or politically complicated.
Edge: Once per session, when you buy, sell, or trade, choose one. Improve the outcome one step, avoid an added complication, or shift a hostile negotiation into a tense but civil one.

Sailor / Seaman

You learned to read a living surface that never stays still. The sea taught you patience, balance, and how to keep moving when certainty is a luxury.
+1 Finesse Apprentice Skill: Athletics
Novice Skills: Choose five from Acrobatics, Endurance, Evasion, Navigation, Resolve, Survival, Throwing
Permission: You can function effectively in unstable environments, including slick stone, swaying platforms, storms, crowds, and chaotic movement. When the environment would impose a minor disadvantage due to instability, you may ignore it.
Edge: Once per session, when you would be knocked prone, swept away, or forced off position, you may remain standing or land safely, turning the outcome into a lesser consequence.

Commoner Backgrounds

These backgrounds describe everyday lives in villages, towns, and hearthside communities.

Commoner Background Equipment

Theme: Practical tools, everyday weapons, minimal protection.
Intended feel: Equipped to work, not to fight, but not helpless.

Equipment

• Simple weapon (club, knife, hand axe, or staff)
• Work knife or utility blade
• Travel clothes suitable to the trade
• Light pack or satchel
• Rope (30–50 ft)
• Trade tools (craft, cooking, fishing, farming, etc.)
• Personal trinket tied to family or trade

Value: ~5–8 silver

Barkeep / Waitress / Service Worker

Some of the most important truths in any place are spoken between sips of ale and shared laughter.
You learned who lies, who listens, and who pays.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Negotiation
Novice Skills: Choose five from Compounding, Con, Discipline, Folklore, Music, Oration, Skullduggery, Society
Permission: You can gather information in social spaces without announcing that you are gathering information, and you can do so while performing routine work. When rumors are available in a scene, you can extract at least one useful thread without a roll unless the information is actively hidden.
Edge: Once per session when gathering information in a social setting, reduce the Effort spent on a roll by 2.

Brewer

You learned that consistency is earned, not assumed. Fermentation taught you patience, measurement, and how to judge quality by smell, taste, and time.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Compounding
Novice Skills: Choose five from Compounding, Endurance, Folklore, Nature, Negotiation, Resolve, Society
Permission: You can produce dependable drink and simple preservations with limited tools, and you can judge whether drink has been watered, tainted, or poorly made without testing.
Edge: Once per session, when drink, food, or hospitality would introduce a complication, you may identify the problem before it takes effect, or reduce it to a minor consequence.

Caregiver / Hearth Keeper

You endured emotional labor, responsibility, and exhaustion without flagging. You learned to be steady when others needed steadiness most.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Discipline
Novice Skills: Choose five from Chirurgeon, Counsel, Endurance, Folklore, Nature, Negotiation, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can calm distress and stabilize social panic. When someone is overwhelmed, frightened, or emotionally compromised, you may attempt to reduce escalation without needing leverage or authority.
Edge: Once per session when offering care or soothing distress, you may erase a Minor Condition or reduce its severity.

Clerk

You learned the hidden language of records, schedules, and procedures. Small errors become large problems, and large problems often begin as small omissions.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Society
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Discipline, History, Institution, Negotiation, Philosophy, Society
Permission: You can navigate routine bureaucracy efficiently. When dealing with forms, queues, permissions, or institutional process, you can accomplish ordinary tasks without rolling unless the institution is actively hostile or the request is extraordinary.
Edge: Once per session, when an institution would delay you, lose your request, or bury you in process, you may reduce that obstruction to a lesser complication, a smaller delay, or a single named obstacle.

Artisan

Precision, patience, and hands that learned not to rush define your work. You shape flexible materials into things of beauty and utility.
+1 Finesse or Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Fiberarts
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Endurance, Fiberarts, Music, Negotiation, Oration, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can assess craft quality quickly, including shortcuts, flaws, and intentional deception. When repairing, modifying, or improvising with textiles, leather, or flexible materials, you can do "good enough" work without rolling unless the stakes are high.
Edge: Once per session while using Fiberarts, reduce the roll difficulty by 1 step.

Craftsman

Hard materials yield to persistence and precision in your hands. You learned to shape wood, metal, and stone into structures and tools that endure.
+1 Vigor or Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Forge
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Endurance, Forge, Music, Negotiation, Oration, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can assess craft quality quickly, including shortcuts, flaws, and intentional deception. When repairing, modifying, or improvising with metal, wood, or rigid materials, you can do "good enough" work without rolling unless the stakes are high.
Edge: Once per session while using Forge, reduce the roll difficulty by 1 step.

Entertainer

You learned how attention bends in crowds, how rhythm affects mood, and how surprise can bend expectation to your favor. Your performance is not just artistry, but control of presence and moment.
+1 Influence
Apprentice Skill: Music or Oration
Novice Skills: Choose five from Acrobatics, Con, Discipline, Folklore, Music, Negotiation, Oration, Skullduggery, Society, Stealth
Permission: You can ask personal or probing questions under the cover of performance. When you frame a hard truth as humor, story, song, or stagecraft, you may do so with reduced risk of immediate offense.
Edge: Once per session, when you use Music, Oration, Negotiation, or Con to influence a group or crowd, reduce the cost of Effort by 2.

Farmer / Agricultural Worker

You woke up early, worked hard all day, and provided not just for your family, but for your village. The natural way of things was something you learned by experience.
+1 Vigor or Will
Apprentice Skill: Nature
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Chirurgeon, Endurance, Fiberarts, Folklore, Forge, Survival, Resolve
Permission: You can “read” land and weather as practical signals. When food supply, harvest timing, animal health, or seasonal risk matters, you can identify the likely direction of trouble without investigation.
Edge: Once per session, when long labor, travel, or hardship would inflict fatigue, exposure, or environmental strain, you may reduce the consequence by one step for yourself or one ally.

Miner

You learned to work in confined spaces where the world presses close. Stone teaches patience, and fear teaches discipline.
+1 Vigor Apprentice Skill: Endurance
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Evasion, Forge, Navigation, Survival, Throwing, Resolve
Permission: You can evaluate tunnels, caves, and stonework for stability, hazards, and weak points without specialized tools. When the environment is cramped, dark, or airless, you may ignore one minor disadvantage related to discomfort or claustrophobia.
Edge: Once per session, when an environmental hazard would collapse, trap, or suffocate, you may turn the outcome into a lesser consequence, such as a delay, a difficult escape, or a minor injury.

Village Speaker / Matchmaker

People trusted you to speak for them because you understood both words and context. Whether coaxing peace or sparking workers, you learned how language shapes expectation.
+1 Presence
Apprentice Skill: Negotiation
Novice Skills: Choose five from Counsel, Discipline, Leadership, Music, Oration, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can represent others credibly. When you speak on behalf of a group, you may treat your position as legitimate unless the other side has specific reason to reject it.
Edge: Once per session when speaking for a group, you may shift a hostile crowd to tense neutrality, or reduce a social consequence aimed at your group by one step.

Criminal & Shadow

These backgrounds represent lives lived in secrecy, illegality, or moral ambiguity.
They are not defined by villainy, but by proximity to risk, concealment, and consequences that cannot be appealed.

Criminal/Shadow Equipment

Theme: Concealment, mobility, leverage.
Intended feel: Under-equipped on paper, dangerous in practice.

Equipment

• Concealable weapon (knife, blackjack, sling, garrote)
• Spare knife hidden elsewhere
• Dark or reversible clothing
• Lockpicks or equivalent tools
• Small satchel or belt pouch
• Chalk, wire, or marking tools
• Trinket tied to a past crime, debt, or alias

Value: ~6–10 silver

Charlatan

You survived by making people believe what they wanted to believe, just long enough. Every lie was a performance, and every truth a liability.
+1 Influence
Apprentice Skill: Con
Novice Skills: Choose five from Discipline, Music, Negotiation, Oration, Society, Skullduggery, Stealth
Permission: You can plausibly establish a false identity that holds up under casual scrutiny, as long as you have time to set the stage. When you “play a role” that fits the room, you may ignore one minor inconsistency without it collapsing the con.
Edge: Once per session when a deception collapses, you may redirect the immediate fallout into a lesser consequence, such as suspicion later, a demanded proof, or a narrow escape, rather than instant exposure.

Enforcer / Strongarm

Some problems are solved by presence alone. Others require you to make the cost of resistance obvious.
+1 Vigor
Apprentice Skill: Intimidation
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Endurance, Evasion, Leadership, Melee, Resolve, Unarmed
Permission: You can apply controlled pressure without it immediately becoming a brawl. When you make a credible threat, you may force a pause, a retreat, or a concession before violence begins, unless the other side is committed to death or fanaticism.
Edge: Once per session when using intimidation backed by force, you may impose the Shaken condition without rolling.

Fence / Black Market Trader

You moved goods that could not be sold openly, and learned who asks questions and who does not. Trust, silence, and reputation mattered more than legality.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Fiberarts or Forge
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Fiberarts, Forge, Negotiation, Society, Skullduggery, Stealth
Permission: You can identify an illicit market’s rules quickly. When dealing with restricted goods, you may reduce the risk of the first transaction by one step, as long as you keep it small and quiet.
Edge: Once per session when trading illicit goods, you may avoid a cost increase, a seized item, or an added complication that would normally follow from the deal.

Informant / Whisper Broker

You survived by knowing what others wished to hide. Secrets were currency, and silence was survival.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Society
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Counsel, Discipline, Negotiation, Oration, Stealth, Resolve
Permission: If you spend time observing, you can reliably learn what a community is afraid to say out loud. When rumors exist in a scene, you may learn one true tension or hidden pressure without rolling, unless someone is actively countering you.
Edge: Once per session, you may ask the GM one direct question about hidden motives or secrets in a scene.

Thief / Burglar

You learned how locks think, how spaces reveal their weaknesses, and how absence can be louder than presence. What others guard with law, you approached through opportunity.
+1 Finesse
Apprentice Skill: Skullduggery
Novice Skills: Choose five from Acrobatics, Athletics, Evasion, Navigation, Stealth, Survival, Resolve
Permission: You can plausibly bypass mundane security, enter restricted spaces quietly, and be present where you should not belong, so long as care and preparation are taken.
Edge: Once per session when bypassing a physical barrier or lock, you may treat a failed roll as a partial success that leaves evidence or creates later complications.

Devotional

These backgrounds reflect lives shaped by belief, service, or obligation to powers greater than the self. Devotion may be spiritual, philosophical, or institutional, but it always carries expectation and cost.

Devotional Equipment

Theme: Faith, symbols, endurance.
Intended feel: Not rich, but supported by belief and community.

Equipment

• Simple weapon (staff, mace, club, or knife)
• Religious symbol or focus
• Ritual clothing or vestments
• Prayer book, scrolls, or oral tokens
• Bedroll or blanket
• Small pack
• Trinket tied to a vow, vision, or failure of faith

Value: ~6–9 silver

Notes:
Devotional characters often carry meaning rather than wealth. Their trinkets are ideal story hooks.

Acolyte

You were raised in ritual, routine, and restraint. Faith taught you patience, endurance, and how to listen when others speak with certainty.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Folklore
Novice Skills: Choose five from Counsel, Discipline, History, Music, Philosophy, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can perform rites, prayers, and observances that steady a room. When faith, taboo, or sacred custom matters in a scene, you can act with confidence without needing proof of rank.
Edge: Once per session when acting in accordance with your faith’s teachings, you may reduce Effort spent on a related action by 2.

Governess / Professor

You learned to teach under constraint. Attention is a discipline, and authority must be earned repeatedly.
+1 Influence or Will
Apprentice Skill: Discipline
Novice Skills: Choose five from Folklore, History, Hermetics, Leadership, Nature, Philosophy, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can impose structure on a chaotic group. When organizing people, setting expectations, or establishing instruction, you may reduce the difficulty of the first meaningful roll by one step.
Edge: Once per session, when an ally fails a roll due to distraction, fear, or confusion, you may treat that failure as a partial success by reframing the moment as instruction or correction.

Scribe

You learned to make memory durable. Ink does not care about excuses, and records do not forget.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: History
Novice Skills: Choose five from Discipline, Folklore, Hermetics, Institution, Nature, Philosophy, Society Permission: You can create, verify, or interpret documents reliably. When written records matter, you can spot routine errors, forgeries, or omissions without rolling unless the deception is exceptional.
Edge: Once per session, you may produce a useful written reference, citation, or remembered detail that shifts a negotiation, investigation, or dispute in your favor.

Shrine Keeper / Caretaker

You tended sacred space rather than doctrine. Maintenance, respect, and continuity shaped your understanding of the divine.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Folklore
Novice Skills: Choose five from Chirurgeon, Compounding, Discipline, Nature, Philosophy, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can recognize when a place has been disrespected, disturbed, or ritually harmed. When dealing with sacred custom, you may prevent a minor spiritual complication by doing the right small thing at the right time.
Edge: Once per session when protecting a place, object, or tradition, you may negate a minor complication.

Water-Keeper

You tended the relationship between your community and its water. You maintained courtesies with the spirits of currents and pools, read flood signs before they formed, and knew which waters heal and which carry harm. The waterway was not yours to own. You were its to keep.
+1 Will or Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Nature
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Counsel, Discipline, Folklore, Forge, Philosophy, Repair, Resolve, Survival
Permission: You can read the condition of a waterway — its flow, health, spirit-mood, and hidden dangers — without investigation. When water is present in a scene, you may identify one meaningful truth about it without rolling, unless that truth is actively concealed.
Edge: Once per session, when you take time to observe before acting in or near water, wetland, or flood-prone terrain, you may treat one failed roll as a partial success that opens a path forward rather than a worsening complication.

Frontier & Nomadic

These backgrounds describe lives lived beyond settled stability. They reflect adaptability, endurance, and comfort with uncertainty.

Frontier and Nomadic Equipment

Theme: Survival, travel, adaptability.
Intended feel: Ready for the road, light on luxuries.

Equipment

• Practical weapon (spear, bow, axe, or knife)
• Hunting or utility knife
• Weathered travel clothes
• Bedroll
• Fire-starting kit
• Rope (50 ft)
• Rations for several days
• Trinket tied to land, route, or lost home

Value: ~8–12 silver

Notes:
This is one of the most complete kits. Nomads often lack coin, but not preparedness.

Caravan Guard

You learned that danger is often introduced politely. Your job was not to win wars, but to keep people alive long enough to arrive.
+1 Vigor
Apprentice Skill: Ranged
Novice Skills: Choose five from Endurance, Evasion, Melee, Nature, Survival, Throwing, Resolve, Unarmed
Permission: You can establish practical security quickly. When setting watches, escorting travelers, or holding a line against opportunistic threats, you may reduce the first complication by one step through preparation alone.
Edge: Once per day at the start of a fight, you may grant one ally a bonus die on their first defensive roll, representing warning, positioning, or ready signals.

Carrier / Messenger

You learned how to arrive, no matter the weather, the road, or the mood of the world. Speed matters, but reliability matters more.
+1 Finesse Apprentice Skill: Survival
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Endurance, Evasion, Navigation, Nature, Stealth, Throwing
Permission: You can move with purpose through difficult routes. When travel speed, navigation, or delivery timing matters, you may accomplish routine movement without rolling unless actively pursued or opposed.
Edge: Once per session, you may ignore one travel complication for yourself, or turn a pursuit into a delayed chase rather than immediate engagement.

Frontier Scout

You learned how land reveals intent, and how danger announces itself to those who listen. Maps were suggestions. Experience was truth.
+1 Finesse
Apprentice Skill: Stealth
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Evasion, Navigation, Nature, Ranged, Survival, Resolve
Permission: You can establish safe routes and identify hazards without delay. When a natural threat is present but not yet sprung, you may notice it early enough to choose how to meet it.
Edge: Once per session, you may act before initiative is established when an ambush or environmental threat is revealed.

Homesteader / Border Settler

You built where failure was not abstract. Weather, soil, and isolation taught you which efforts mattered.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Endurance
Novice Skills: Choose five from Fiberarts, Folklore, Forge, Nature, Ranged, Society, Survival
Permission: You can make a place livable quickly. When shelter, heat, or practical homestead work matters, you may accomplish routine setup without rolling unless resources are scarce or time is desperate.
Edge: Once per session when enduring hardship over time, you may treat a failure as success with lasting fatigue.

Hunter / Trapper

You learned patience measured in hours, not moments. Your survival depended on reading signs others ignored.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Nature
Novice Skills: Choose five from Fiberarts, Folklore, Forge, Ranged, Stealth, Survival, Resolve Permission: You can harvest from the wild without drawing attention or causing unnecessary waste. When a creature is present in the area, you may determine one true detail about it without rolling, as long as signs exist to read.
Edge: Once per session when tracking prey or quarry, you may learn one useful detail about its condition or behavior.

Nomad

You lived on the road, learning its dangers and its rhythms. Distance taught you patience, and travel taught you when to stand your ground.
+1 Vigor
Apprentice Skill: Survival
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Endurance, Melee, Navigation, Nature, Throwing, Resolve
Permission: You can integrate into transient groups quickly. When traveling among strangers, you may reduce the social friction of “outsider status” by one step through custom, etiquette, and practical help.
Edge: Once per session while traveling, reduce fatigue, exposure, or environmental strain for yourself or a companion.

Wayfarer Story-Bearer

You carried stories between places that would never meet otherwise. Memory, not permanence, defined your home.
+1 Presence
Apprentice Skill: Folklore
Novice Skills: Choose five from History, Music, Negotiation, Navigation, Oration, Society, Survival, Resolve
Permission: You can turn events into shared narrative. When rumor, reputation, or community memory matters, you may influence how a story travels by choosing what detail becomes the “hook.”
Edge: Once per session when recounting events to a group, shift a neutral audience to friendly interest, or reduce a hostile audience to tense curiosity.

Militant

These backgrounds describe lives shaped by organized violence, discipline, and the expectation that conflict will occur. They are not defined by heroism or brutality, but by familiarity with force as a tool of policy, survival, or order.

Militant Equipment

Theme: Training, discipline, violence as a profession.
Intended feel: Clearly combat-capable from session one.

Equipment

• Primary weapon (sword, axe, spear, or polearm)
• Backup weapon (knife or sidearm)
• Light armour
• Simple shield (if appropriate)
• Military clothing or insignia
• Pack with basic field gear
• Trinket tied to a unit, commander, or old battle

Value: ~40–55 silver

Notes:
Militant kits are expensive but obvious. This is where visible power lives early.

Guard / Watch Member

You learned how authority feels when worn daily rather than claimed in crisis. Routine taught you patience, restraint, and when force should remain implied.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Resolve
Novice Skills: Choose five from Discipline, Evasion, Intimidation, Melee, Society, Strategy, Unarmed
Permission: You can de-escalate before it becomes violence. When a conflict is still verbal, you may attempt to impose structure, boundaries, and consequences without needing leverage beyond your presence.
Edge: Once per session when maintaining order, you may treat a failure on an intimidation or negotiation attempt as a partial success that ends the immediate confrontation, but creates a lingering consequence, such as resentment, investigation, or retaliation later.

Mercenary

You survived not by loyalty, but by judgment. Experience taught you when to commit and when to walk away.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Leadership
Novice Skills: Choose five from Endurance, Evasion, Melee, Negotiation, Ranged, Strategy, Resolve, Unarmed
Permission: You can size up a fight quickly. When planning an engagement, you may identify the most immediate threat, the most vulnerable target, or the most dangerous terrain feature without rolling, as long as you can observe the situation.
Edge: Once per session, when a combat begins or significantly escalates, you may declare a line you will not cross. If you or an ally would suffer a consequence beyond that line, you may downgrade it by one step by immediately forcing a reposition, withdrawal, or concession in the fiction.

Officer / Battle Leader

Others looked to you when decisions carried weight. Command taught you how to balance authority, risk, and responsibility.
+1 Presence
Apprentice Skill: Leadership
Novice Skills: Choose five from Discipline, History, Intimidation, Melee, Negotiation, Society, Strategy
Permission: You can coordinate people under pressure. When you give clear direction, allies can act with less hesitation, even in chaos.
Edge: Once per combat, you generate 1 shared Effort. Any ally may spend this Effort as if it were their own. This Effort is lost at the end of combat if unused.

Skirmisher / Irregular

You learned to fight without lines, banners, or certainty. Terrain, timing, and improvisation mattered more than formation.
+1 Finesse
Apprentice Skill: Evasion
Novice Skills: Choose five from Acrobatics, Athletics, Melee, Ranged, Stealth, Survival, Throwing
Permission: You can plausibly operate independently in hostile or contested territory. When you disengage, flank, or reposition using terrain, you may do so with reduced risk of immediate reprisal.
Edge: Once per session when disengaging from combat or repositioning, you may do so as a free action instead of a normal action.

Soldier

You were trained to stand when told, advance when ordered, and endure when retreat was not permitted. Discipline, repetition, and shared hardship shaped how you move and think.
+1 Vigor
Apprentice Skill: Melee
Novice Skills: Choose five from Athletics, Endurance, Intimidation, Leadership, Ranged, Strategy, Resolve, Unarmed
Permission: You can function effectively as part of a unit. When acting with allies in a coordinated plan, you may ignore one minor disadvantage caused by chaos, noise, or confusion.
Edge: Once per session when acting as part of an organized group, you may ignore the first penalty from coordination or chaos.

Scholarly

These backgrounds represent lives devoted to understanding, preservation, and interpretation. Knowledge was not abstract. It shaped how you survived.

Scholarly Equipment

Theme: Knowledge over force.
Intended feel: Poorly armed, but never unprepared.

Equipment

• Dagger or staff
• Books, scrolls, or notes
• Writing kit
• Satchel or pack
• Reference texts or diagrams
• Bedroll
• Trinket tied to a discovery, mentor, or forbidden text

Value: ~10–15 silver

Notes:
Scholars carry weight in information. Their gear often becomes valuable later rather than immediately.

Archivist / Scribe

You learned that memory decays unless actively preserved. Words, records, and patterns became your tools.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Society
Novice Skills: Choose five from Discipline, Folklore, Hermetics, History, Institution, Philosophy, Strategy
Permission: You can trace claims back to sources. When researching within records, you can obtain one solid lead without rolling unless information is deliberately obscured or destroyed.
Edge: Once per session when researching, you may obtain a useful lead without spending additional time.

Chirurgeon

You learned where bodies fail and how they recover. Care demanded both knowledge and resolve.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Chirurgeon
Novice Skills: Choose five from Counsel, Discipline, Endurance, Hermetics, Nature, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can attempt treatment under poor conditions. When someone is injured, ill, or poisoned, you may act with fewer tools or less time than most without increasing the risk.
Edge: Once per session when stabilizing an injury, reduce the severity of the outcome.

Hermetic Scholar

You studied the rules beneath appearances. Symbols, patterns, and metaphysical systems shaped your understanding of magic.
+1 Influence
Apprentice Skill: Hermetics
Novice Skills: Choose five from Channeling, Discipline, Folklore, History, Nature, Philosophy, Resolve
Permission: You can interpret the “shape” of magic. When you observe a magical effect, you may identify what kind of working it is before you understand details, unless it is deliberately disguised.
Edge: Once per session when analyzing a magical effect, you may identify a potential risk or limitation.

Historian / Chronicler

You studied events not as isolated moments, but as connected causes. Context mattered more than heroics.
+1 Presence
Apprentice Skill: History
Novice Skills: Choose five from Folklore, Institution, Music, Negotiation, Oration, Philosophy, Society
Permission: You can frame events in ways people recognize as meaningful. When persuading others using precedent, tradition, or consequence, you may do so with reduced risk of being dismissed as irrelevant.
Edge: Once per session when recounting or recording events, you may influence which detail becomes the accepted takeaway.

Natural Philosopher

The world was your text. Observation, comparison, and experiment taught you how systems behave.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Nature
Novice Skills: Choose five from Chirurgeon, Folklore, Hermetics, Navigation, Philosophy, Survival, Resolve
Permission: You can analyze natural phenomena and environmental anomalies quickly. When something is “not behaving normally,” you may identify one key property without rolling, unless it is actively concealed.
Edge: Once per session when encountering an unfamiliar natural effect, you may identify one useful method to mitigate it or endure it.

Station

These backgrounds reflect formal social position rather than personal skill. Station shapes how the world responds to you before you act.

Station Equipment

Theme: Status, responsibility, access.
Intended feel: Less mobile, more embedded.

Equipment

• Quality clothing appropriate to station
• Sidearm or ceremonial weapon
• Signet, badge, or proof of authority
• Writing kit or records
• Personal pack
• Trinket tied to office, favor, or scandal

Value: ~15–25 silver

Notes:
Station gear buys doors opening, not fights being won.

Court Functionary

You learned how power moves through paperwork and procedure. Process mattered more than spectacle.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Society
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Discipline, History, Institution, Leadership, Negotiation, Skullduggery Permission: You can navigate institutions efficiently. When dealing with routine procedure, you may complete an ordinary step without rolling unless the institution is actively hostile or the request is extraordinary.
Edge: Once per session when dealing with institutions, you may bypass one layer of obstruction.

Guild Officer

You represented organized interests rather than yourself. Consensus and enforcement were equally important.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Negotiation
Novice Skills: Choose five from Fiberarts, Forge, Institution, Intimidation, Leadership, Society, Resolve
Permission: You can establish a baseline agreement between professionals. When negotiating terms of work, payment, or standards, you may reduce the risk of immediate conflict by one step.
Edge: Once per session, you may call in professional cooperation without immediate payment, but it creates a future obligation.

Household Retainer

You served a powerful household directly. Loyalty and discretion defined your role.
+1 Finesse
Apprentice Skill: Discipline
Novice Skills: Choose five from Counsel, Evasion, History, Negotiation, Society, Stealth, Resolve Permission: You can act as a “functional presence” rather than a social actor. When operating in formal spaces, you may move, listen, and handle practical tasks without drawing attention unless you choose to.
Edge: Once per session, you may act unnoticed in a social environment, treating a minor social consequence as if it never attached to you.

Noble Scion

You were raised with expectation, scrutiny, and access. Privilege came with obligation.
+1 Influence
Apprentice Skill: Society
Novice Skills: Choose five from Con, Discipline, History, Leadership, Music, Negotiation, Oration, Philosophy Permission: You can invoke status as leverage. When you present yourself as legitimate authority, you may reduce the immediate risk of dismissal, insult, or escalation by one step, unless the other side is committed to defiance.
Edge: Once per session, you may call upon your family name to avoid a minor consequence.

Unusual / Supernatural

These backgrounds reflect lives touched by forces outside the ordinary. They do not replace species gifts, but explain how strangeness entered your story.

Unusual and Supernatural Equipment

Theme: Otherness, omen, danger.
Intended feel: Uneven, strange, and story-heavy.

Equipment

• Simple or strange weapon
• Symbolic focus or talisman
• Unusual clothing or markings
• Small pack
• Esoteric materials (bones, ash, charms, etc.)
• Trinket tied to the event that changed them

Value: ~6–12 silver

Notes:
These trinkets should beg questions. Coin value matters less than narrative gravity.

Curse-Bearer

Something clings to you. You learned to live around it rather than be defined by it.
+1 Vigor or Will
Apprentice Skill: Endurance
Novice Skills: Choose five from Counsel, Discipline, Folklore, Hermetics, Nature, Survival, Resolve
Permission: Supernatural effects respond unpredictably to your presence. When the unseen intrudes, you may recognize the pressure before it fully manifests, unless it is deliberately concealed.
Edge: Once per session, you may convert a severe consequence into a lingering condition.

Hedge Adept

You learned magic outside formal structures. Practice was cautious, personal, and improvised.
+1 Cunning
Apprentice Skill: Channeling
Novice Skills: Choose five from Channeling, Compounding, Discipline, Folklore, Hermetics, Nature, Philosophy, Resolve
Permission: You can attempt small workings safely when others would not dare. When improvising magic in low stakes situations, you may reduce the risk of a mishap by one step.
Edge: Once per session, you may treat a magical failure as a partial success that produces an unintended side effect rather than a direct backlash. Special: You need to start with the Magical Dabbler Gift.

Touched by the Unseen

Something noticed you. Whether blessing or burden, it changed how the world responds.
+1 Will
Apprentice Skill: Folklore Novice Skills: Choose five from Channeling, Discipline, Hermetics, History, Intimidation, Nature, Philosophy, Skullduggery, Resolve
Permission: You can sense supernatural attention as presence rather than detail. You do not know the “what,” but you can feel the “here.”
Edge: Once per session, when you sense supernatural attention, you may ask one of the following questions, which the GM must answer truthfully but vaguely:
• Is it watching, passing, or lingering?
• Is it curious, hostile, or indifferent?
• Is its attention focused on a place, an object, or a person?

Using Background Permissions and Edges

A background’s narrative permission is not a bonus to dice.
It is a statement about what your character can do cheaper, safer, faster, or differently because of who they were and what they learned.
The mechanical edge is a once-per-session benefit tied to the theme of the background, and it should feel like something only that background would grant.

Background Evolution

As characters progress, what they learned in their background expands and grows.
See Background Evolution for more on this.