Backgrounds, Occupations, and Professions: Difference between revisions

While you are an adventurer, there is much more to your life than just battling beasts, hoarding treasure, and going on quests. When you’re not actively adventuring, you enjoy indulging in your personal interests and hobbies. Maybe you’re an avid reader and love nothing more than curling up with a good book in the local library or university. Or perhaps you’re a skilled blacksmith and spend your downtime creating intricate pieces of armor or weapons. Maybe you have a talent for playing music, and can often be found entertaining your fellow adventurers with songs on your lute. Whatever it may be, you find that having a hobby or interest outside of adventuring helps you to relax, unwind, and forget about the dangers and hardships of the road. Downtime between adventures also provides you with an opportunity to cultivate your reputation and manage a business.  

Your background provides narrative and mechanical information about who you are, what walk of life you come from, and where you might be headed. When you create a character at level 1, you choose your background from the list below. Seven of the nine backgrounds grant you additional skills if you take a profession with the corresponding occupation tag. Note that your background also determines your starting wealth.  

=== Starting Gear ===

Each background specifies how much wealth you start with. In addition, all backgrounds also grant you the following starting gear: Your profession and background may specify that you gain additional equipment.

1. A) 2 one-handed melee weapons, or B) 1 two-handed or hand-and-a-half melee weapon, or C) 1 one-handed melee weapon and a shield (buckler)

2. A) 1 shortbow and 20 arrows, or B) 1 crossbow and 20 bolts, or C) 3 javelins  

3. or you can forego equipment in both 1. and 2. for an amethyst wand  

4. A) 1 quarterstaff, or B) 1 hatchet, or C) 2 daggers, or D) 2 knives, or E) 1 cestus, or F) 1 brass knuckles  

|'''[[Born Warrior]]'''

|'''[[Criminal]]'''

|'''[[Entrepreneur]]'''

|'''[[Knave]]'''

|'''[[Noble Title]]'''

|'''[[Outlander]]'''

|'''[[Student]]'''

|'''[[True Believer]]'''

|'''[[Urchin]]'''

When creating a character, in addition to your background, you gain one profession of your choice. There are two exceptions: If you are a Knave, you gain two professions (you cannot pick the same profession twice). If you are an urchin, you do not gain any profession.

This decision should reflect your character’s advancement in the campaign world. For example, if you began the game as a Nomad, but became involved in a particular community and took care of a lot of problems for them, you might choose to gain a rank in Knight or Guard instead of ranking up in Nomad when you gain a second professional rank.  

Professional ranks range from 1 to 5, and it is unusual for a character to ever acquire more than 5 total professional ranks. The profession that you choose will grant you access to specific narrative benefits throughout the game. The higher your rank in a given profession, the more power and influence you have within that profession. For example, if you have 1 rank in Soldier, you are able to secure lodging and free meals from other members of your military institution. If you have 5 ranks in Soldier, then you can levy other soldiers into your service when they are in your vicinity.<blockquote>'''Note to MCs: Professional Advancement'''

Over the course of the game, a PC should gradually gain ranks in their profession, representing the PC’s slow increase in power and influence over time. A PC should gain one new rank in their profession for every 6 character ranks that they have, on average. Note, however, that professions are specifically intended to reflect a character’s roleplaying and narrative-based decisions, so you should give out profession ranks more frequently when it makes sense to do so as a narrative reward. They also make excellent quest rewards. PCs might also get ranks in multiple professions, such as a rank 2 Soldier being awarded an honorable title (rank 1 Honorable) after completing a quest for a viscount. Such a character would then have 3 professional ranks: 2 Soldier, and 1 Honorable.</blockquote>

Goodwill is a mechanic that tracks a community’s sentiment towards an individual. Any action a party or player takes may generate positive or negative Goodwill. Professions have a particularly strong effect on Goodwill.

 

Goodwill is tracked across several spheres of the community, roughly correlated to occupations: academic, aristocratic, layfolk, mercantile, militant, religious, underworld. Certain Professions are written with this in mind and specify which spheres of the community you gain Goodwill in.

Goodwill is tracked privately by your MC and can range anywhere on a scale from -20 to +20.

|'''Villain.''' You are hated and feared by your community. Community resources will be levied towards your arrest and destruction.

|'''Hated.''' The community is hostile to your presence and will refuse your trade and lodging. Angry mobs might attempt to exile you.

|'''Disliked.''' Goods and services often cost more for you and merchants are unlikely to haggle.

|'''Neutral.''' You are unknown to the community overall.

|'''Liked.''' Citizens usually go out of their way to accommodate you and give you good deals.

|'''Beloved.''' Citizens rejoice to see you and you can always find friends and allies in town.

|'''Hero.''' You are idolized by your community and can get virtually any good or service for free. Local authorities will overlook minor crimes that you commit and will help you when they reasonably can.

=== Profession List ===

|You use your silver tongue and quick wit to deceive and manipulate others. You move from town to town, using your skills of deception to sell false remedies, perform illusions, or simply con unsuspecting marks out of their hard-earned coin. Whether you’re a traveling swindler or a confidence trickster, you always have a new scam up your sleeve, and you revel in the thrill of fooling others and getting away with it.

|You are no stranger to the brutal struggle of urban life, outside the eyes of the law where the strong take from the weak and the sharpness of a blade says more than a written decree. Perhaps your actions come from necessity or maybe they come from a desire for power, but either way you are not afraid to use your cunning, strength, and wits to take what you want when you want it. You claim your territory through brute force or intimidation and don’t let anything stand in your way.