"I understand your father wanted you educated on matters of money. I can do as much - whether you have a keen mind for coin remains to be seen my boy."
-Head of the Kormellis Bank, Spiros Kormellis
Bourgeois Upbringing
Bourgeois are the dominant class, politically speaking, in the broader group of Middleborn peoples in the medieval world. Bourgeois are the descendants of those who broke out in some sort of successful business endeavor - owners of vineyards, landlords, bankers, caravan runners, and anyone in charge of a large business, usually one that makes a good deal of money. The wealth of Bourgeois can sometimes rival nobles, though their own social class never comes very close. Despite this, they try - Bourgeois are the only Middleborn Upbringing who have unique surnames, akin to highborn.
Bourgeois often raise their children up in the business they built or inherited, and train them to be the future stewards of that business. They put great pressure and hope on their children, often as much or even more than the nobility - nobles have stewards, courtiers, and extended family to ensure the stable transfer of power - but the world bourgeois live in is far less stable, and the inheritor of the family business must be worthy of it. Bourgeois also, despite their wealth, often live more frugally than their wealth would allow - luxuries are thought to be wasteful, and so those from a bourgeois upbringing often are just as frugal later in life - or sometimes, in a backlash against this miserly childhood, live in opulence as adults.
Characters from a Bourgeois Upbringing will have with them an inheritance left to them from their family. This could represent the last of a business which no longer exists, or perhaps a smaller payment to a child that refused to follow in their parents footsteps. This Inheritance is worth 50 silver pieces, and can come in a multitude of forms - an expensive painting, a silver chalice, a jeweled ring, a share in a company, etc.
If you choose the Bourgeois Upbringing, you gain the following:
~A +1 to your Intelligence score~
~Either a -1 to your Strength score or a -1 to your Wisdom score~
~A language of your choice, one taught to you by a parent, guardian, or mentor from your upbringing~
~A Sub-Discipline in every social skill on checks dealing with other members of Bourgeois Upbringing~
~An Inheritance from your family worth 50 silver pieces~
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