Character Backgrounds

Barbarian

Standards of barbarism vary when many worlds are capable of interstellar spaceflight, but your hero comes from a savage world of low technology and high violence. Their planet may have survived an all-consuming war, or been deprived of critical materials or energy resources, or simply have been colonized by confirmed Luddites. Other barbarians might be drawn from the impoverished underclass of advanced worlds or the technologically-degenerate inheritors of some high-tech space station or planetary hab.

Business Sophont

Strange Stars

Small-time entrepreneurs and up and-coming junior executives exist on every civilized world. Sometimes they chafe against bureaucracy or make some bad decisions and decide to look for better markets.

Skills: Business, Culture/Any, Persuade, Steward.

Clergy

Courtesan

Criminal

Data Prospector

Strange Stars

There is a lot of valuable information buried in the depths of planetary or system noospheres. Data prospectors mine the infospace for that value. Sometimes they discover things that make them want to have a firsthand look at the wider galaxy.

Skills: Computer, Culture/Any, Perception, either Bureaucracy or Tech/Any.

Dilettante

Entertainer

Singers, dancers, actors, poets, writers… the inter-stellar reaches teem with artists of unnumbered styles and mediums, some of which are only physically possible with advanced technological support. Your hero was a dedicated entertainer, one likely focused in a particular form of art. Patrons and talent scouts can be temperamental, however, and sometimes a budding artist needs to take steps to find their audience. Or at least, to find their audience’s money.

Hacker

Strange Stars

Everyone uses computers without even thinking about it, but hackers know the very soul of the network. Some of them are criminals, some of them work to stop criminals. Either way, it’s easy to get on the wrong side of the wrong people. When that happens, it’s wise to get out of the local jurisdiction.

Journalist

Strange Stars

News is everywhere and journalists are there to sift through the data and bring connection and context to their audience. Some get the idea to go gonzo and be a part of the stories themselves, while others make enemies in places of power. Both sorts can be encountered among the Strange Stars.

Skills: Culture/Any, Perception, Persuade, and one other skill.

Law Enforcement

Strange Stars

Beat cop, port authority security contractor, or corporate investigator, the law enforcer does a tough job, often for little reward. Is it any wonder some of them look for a way to put their skills to more lucrative use?

Skills: Combat/Any, Culture/World, Perception, Security.

Medtech/Psychtech

Strange Stars

Most actual medicine is delivered by expert systems and bots, but sophont beings usually like a friendly, sophont face on their healthcare. That face is the medtech. Occasionally, though medtechs get an itch to really put their skills to use in situations where they can’t rely on bots to do the real work

Even In an age of nanopsychotherapy, the “sophont touch” is still prized — particularly by the wealthy. An understanding of sophont psychology, however, is a skill that has a lot of uses.

Merchant

Your hero was or is a trader. Some merchants are mere peddlers and shopkeepers on primitive, low-tech worlds, while others are daring far traders who venture to distant worlds to bring home their alien treasures. The nature of trade varies widely among worlds. On some of them, it’s a business of soberly-dressed men and women ticking off trades on virtual terminals, while on others it is a more… active pursuit, requiring the judicious application of monoblades and deniable gunfire against competitors. Sometimes a deal goes bad or capital needs to be raised, and a merchant’s natural talents are turned toward the perils of adventure.

Noble

Many planets are ruled by a class of nobles, and your hero was a member of one such exalted group. Such planets are often worlds of exquisite courtesy alloyed with utterly remorseless violence, and a mis-placed word at the morning levee can result in an executioner’s monoblade at noon. Your hero has done something or been the victim of something to dislodge them from their comfortable place at court. Without their familiar allies, wealth, or influence, they must take a new place in the world, however distasteful that claiming might be.

Official/Bureaucrat

Most advanced worlds run on their bureaucracies, the legions of faceless men and women who fill unnumbered roles in keeping the government running as it should. Your hero was one such official. Some were law enforcement officers, others government office clerks or tax officials or trade inspectors. However necessary the work may be, it is often of unendurably tedious nature, and any man or woman with an adventurous spark to their blood will soon find themselves desperate for more exciting use of their talents.

Peasant

A technologically-advanced world can usually produce all its necessary foodstuffs and basic resources with a handful of workers, the bulk of the labor being performed by agricultural bots. On more primitive worlds, or those with a natural environment that requires close personal attention to crops, a class of peasants will emerge. These men and women often become chattel, part and parcel of the land they occupy and traded among their betters like the farm equipment of richer worlds. Your hero was not satisfied with that life, and has done something to break free from their muddy and toilsome past.

Pilot

A pilot’s role is a broad one in the far future. The most glamorous and talented navigate starships through the metadimensional storms of interstellar space, while less admired figures fly the innumerable intra-system shuttles and atmosphere craft that serve in most advanced systems. On other worlds, this career might reflect a long-haul trucker, or a horse-riding messenger, or an intrepid sailor on an alien sea. As the Pilot skill covers all these modes of transport, any character whose role revolves around vehicles or riding beasts might justify their selection of this career.

Politician

The nature of a political career varies from world to world. On some, it’s much like one we’d recognize, with glad-handing voters, loud rallies, and quiet back room deals with supposed rivals in government. On others, it might involve a great deal more ceremonial combat, appeals to councils of elders, and success at ritual trials. Whatever the details, your hero was a politician in their home culture. Something went wrong, though, and the only way to fix it is to get clear of your constituents for a while and seek some alternative means of advancement.

Scholar

Scientists, sages, and professors all qualify under this career. Your hero was one such, a man or woman with a life dedicated to knowledge and understanding. It might have involved the technical expertise of a metadimensional structures engineer or the sacred memorization of the chronicles of some lostworlder sage-order, but your hero’s life was in learning. Sometimes that learning cannot be found in familiar surroundings, however, and for one reason or another, willing or not, your hero must venture out into the wider world.

Soldier

Whatever the technology or structure of their parent world, a soldier’s work is universal. Your hero was a professional fighter, whether that took the form of a barbarian noble’s thegn, a faceless con-script in a planetary army, or an elite soldier in the service of a megacorp’s private military. Whether it was because they were on the losing side, choosing to leave the service, or being forced to flee a cause they couldn’t fight for, they now find themselves navigating a world where their most salable skill is one that can cause them a great deal of trouble.

Spacer

Almost every advanced world is highly dependent upon the resources that space flight brings them. Some of this work can be automated, but every re-ally important task needs a flexible human operator to oversee the work. Your hero is one such spacer, either a worker who toils in the sky or a native void-born man or woman who has spent their entire life outside of natural gravity. It’s not uncommon for such workers to find better prospects in places where they can breathe without a vacc suit.

Technician

Old things break and new things need to be made. Whether a humble lostworlder blacksmith or an erudite astronautic engineer, your hero made a career out of building and mending the fruits of technology. While almost every society has a need for such services, not all of them treat their providers as generously as a technician might wish. Sometimes, these same talents can be turned toward less licit ends, and a skilled technician’s expertise is always useful to an adventuring group that plans to rely on anything more sophisticated than a sharpened stick.

Thug

Your hero was a bruiser. They might have had a notional allegiance to some so-called “army”, or have been part of some crime boss’ strong-arm crew, or simply been a private contractor of misfortune for those who failed to pay up. They might have even been a fist in a righteous cause, defending their neighborhood from hostile outsiders or serving as informal muscle for a local leader in need of protection. Whatever the details, they’ve had to move on from their old life, and their new one is likely to involve a similar application of directed force.

Vagabond

A dilettante has money and friends; your hero simply has the road. Whether they were knocked loose from polite society at a young age or have recently found themselves cast out of a familiar life, they now roam the ways of the world and the spaces between. Some heroes find this life satisfying, with its constant novelty and the regular excitement of bare survival. Others long for a more stable arrangement, and are willing to lend their pragmatic talents to a group that offers some prospect of profit.

Worker

Countless in number, every industrialized world has swarms of workers to operate the machines and perform the labor that keeps society functioning. Cooks, factory laborers, mine workers, personal servants, lawyers, clerks, and innumerable other roles are covered under this career. If your hero rolls or picks Work as a skill but has a career that would better fit another existing skill, they may substitute it accordingly. Thus, a wage-slave programmer might take Program instead of Work, while a lawyer would use Administer instead as a reflection of their litigious talent.