"I have always been quite resourceful, ever since I was a young babe. My mother used to say that I would leave and she would lose me for hours at a time, and when I came back, I wound up with copper pieces in my little trousers. So believe me when I say, I know how to get out of tight spot, and usually how to make profit on the way out as well."

-Traveling Merchant, Isbo of Edmas

Expanded Backgrounds: Upbringing

Upbringing is your character’s family background. Wrapped up in this is their socio-economic background, the type of life that they lived. Now, while it is very possible that both of your character’s parents had very different backgrounds, most people in medieval times came from the same livelihood. If your parents came from different backgrounds, choose the upbringing that was most formative for your character’s later life.

            Upbringing grants a stat increase of +1 in a certain attribute and a stat decrease of -1 in a certain attribute. This represents your family’s influence on your formative years, or even the access to certain benefits and drawbacks that a socio-economic group presented to a character. Further, upbringing grants a special item that was left to you from your formative years, likely by your family, or in some cases, made by, stolen by, purchased by, or given to you. An Upbringing also grants a character a free subdiscipline on Intimidation, Persuasion, or Deception checks against a member of the same upbringing, representing the common lingo and shared knowledge between the two characters. Finally, upbringing grants a free language, which the player can choose, and which represents a language learned from a parent, guardian, or other mentor. If a player wishes to know few languages, they may also take an extra 10 silver pieces to spend at character creation, forgoing this extra language pick.

            Upbringing is broken into different socio-economic groups for the feudal period: Highborn, Middleborn, Lowborn, and Outsider. These groups are largely for the purposes of roleplay. For example, Highborn characters are likely to belong to some sort of House, with a noble surname. Middleborn characters are likely to have a surname reflecting either their job, their parent’s name, or their homeland. Lowborn characters are likely to have no surname at all. Outsiders are wildcards in this respect.

            The Upbringings you can choose for your background are all grouped into socio-economic groups, each of which you can click on to find out more:

Highborn: Magical, Noble, Religious, Scholarly

Middleborn: Artisan, Artistic, Bourgeois, Bureaucratic, Merchant, Military

Lowborn: Agrarian, Enslaved, Laboring, Nautical, Orphaned

Outsiders: Criminal, Nomadic, Tribal

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