13 backgrounds. Your background is what you were before the frontier, and it is the only part of creation that changes how your first hour goes.
Each one grants 2 trained skills, 2 tool or language proficiencies in some combination, and a feature: a standing perk that follows you for the whole run. It also colours where your alignment starts leaning, and it picks which opening you walk into.
| Background | Trained skills | Tools and languages | Feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acolyte | Insight, Religion | two languages | Shelter of the Faithful |
| Charlatan | Deception, Sleight of Hand | disguise kit, forgery kit | False Identity |
| Criminal | Deception, Stealth | gaming set, thieves' tools | Criminal Contact |
| Entertainer | Acrobatics, Performance | disguise kit, one instrument | By Popular Demand |
| Folk Hero | Animal Handling, Survival | artisan's tools, land vehicles | Rustic Hospitality |
| Guild Artisan | Insight, Persuasion | artisan's tools, one language | Guild Membership |
| Hermit | Medicine, Religion | herbalism kit, one language | Discovery |
| Noble | History, Persuasion | gaming set, one language | Position of Privilege |
| Outlander | Athletics, Survival | one instrument, one language | Wanderer |
| Sage | Arcana, History | two languages | Researcher |
| Sailor | Athletics, Perception | navigator's tools, water vehicles | Ship's Passage |
| Soldier | Athletics, Intimidation | gaming set, land vehicles | Military Rank |
| Urchin | Sleight of Hand, Stealth | disguise kit, thieves' tools | City Secrets |
Trained skills stack with everything else on the sheet. A trained skill from your background is trained exactly as if a class had given it.
Tools and languages are real: a thieves' tool proficiency opens locks, an artisan's tool proficiency is a profession you have already started, and a language is a conversation you can have that somebody else cannot.
The feature is a standing perk rather than a bonus to a roll. It is the door your past opens: who will house you, who will talk to you, whose name still means something where you are standing.
Your opening branches on it. The background you pick decides which start you arrive in and who meets you there.
It does not gate a class, and it does not lock you out of anything later. A Criminal can become a Paladin, and an Acolyte can end up running the gray market.
Your alignment is not fixed by it. A background leans; what you do decides. See Character.
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