Backgrounds

A character's Background is where they came from — the environment, culture, and circumstances that shaped them before they became whatever they are now. Background is the lightest layer of character creation. It's a creative prompt that rewards you for thinking about who your character was before the game started.

Pick a Background. Read the description and let it inform your character's history. Then pick 2 different skills from the Background's skill list and gain one rank in each. If you are not trained in a skill you pick, you become trained in it instead of gaining a rank.

Backgrounds

Academic

You were raised in an environment of learning — a university campus, a research station, a library the size of a city block. Knowledge was valued above everything else, and curiosity was encouraged. You learned how to find answers, even if you didn't always learn what to do with them.

Skills (pick 2): Science (pick a discipline), Medicine, Engineering, Savvy (pick a discipline).

Colonial

You grew up on the frontier — a colony world far from the comforts of the core systems. Resources were limited, neighbors were few, and self-reliance wasn't a virtue, it was a survival requirement. You learned to fix things, endure things, and handle things that people in the core never have to think about.

Skills (pick 2): Survival, Athletics, Engineering, Medicine.

Exile

You were cast out — from your community, your faction, your people, or your family. The reason varies. Maybe you broke a law. Maybe you asked the wrong question. Maybe you simply didn't fit. Whatever the cause, the life you were supposed to have is gone, and the galaxy doesn't care about your reasons. You start from nothing and you owe nothing to anyone.

Skills (pick 2): Survival, Stealth, Influence: Insight, Athletics.

Former Slave

You were property. Someone owned you — your body, your time, your future. You are not property anymore. How you got free matters less than the fact that you did. The galaxy took everything from you and you clawed it back. You learned to read people because your survival depended on it, to go unnoticed because attention was dangerous, and to endure because the alternative was unthinkable.

Skills (pick 2): Influence: Insight, Stealth, Athletics, Survival.

Free Lyndri

You are Lyndri and you are not a slave. That makes you rare. Most likely your mother was freed or escaped while you were still young, and you grew up in the gap between slave and free — technically not property, but the galaxy doesn't always see the difference. Every new face decides what you are before you open your mouth. You grew up knowing what your freedom cost, and you carry that knowledge like armor.

Skills (pick 2): Influence: Insight, Athletics, Survival, Leadership.

Heretic

You are Sooni, and you are one of the Heretics — descendants or recruits of the group that escaped with Alastair McKenzie on the Archigos. Your people rejected the Doctrine and everything the Council demands. You were born or raised among humans, hiding what you are, working to undermine the Council's plans for humanity. Every day is a performance. Every relationship is built on a lie you tell to protect the people around you.

Skills (pick 2): Influence: Deception, Stealth, Savvy: Military, Survival.

League Citizen

You grew up inside the League — the largest and most stable human government in the galaxy. You had access to education, infrastructure, and the quiet confidence that comes from living in a society that works. Whether you appreciated it or resented it, the League shaped how you see the world.

Skills (pick 2): Leadership, Influence: Persuasion, Science (pick a discipline), Savvy: Government.

Military Family

You grew up on bases, in transit housing, and in the shadow of uniforms. You understand chain of command the way other kids understand schoolyard politics. You know how to move through military spaces, how to talk to military people, and how to stay out of the way when things get serious.

Skills (pick 2): Athletics, Savvy: Military, Coordination: Tactical, Combat: Firearms.

Noble

You were born into a Terran noble house. Your family name carries weight — political alliances, old grudges, and expectations that were set before you drew your first breath. You grew up understanding that court politics is a battlefield where words cut deeper than blades, and loyalty to your house is not optional.

Skills (pick 2): Leadership, Influence: Intimidation, Savvy: Government, Influence: Insight.

Outlaw

You grew up outside the law — or at least adjacent to it. Maybe your family ran a smuggling operation. Maybe you fell in with the wrong crowd young. Maybe the law just didn't reach where you lived. Either way, you learned how the other side of the galaxy works before you learned much else.

Skills (pick 2): Savvy: Criminal, Stealth, Combat: Melee, Influence: Deception.

Privileged

You grew up with more than most — money, status, connections, or all three. League political dynasties, wealthy merchant families, well-funded research institutions. You had access to the best of everything, including the expectation that you would do something with it. Whether you lived up to that expectation is another question.

Skills (pick 2): Leadership, Influence (pick a discipline), Savvy (pick a discipline), Science (pick a discipline).

Refugee

You lost everything — your home, your community, maybe your family. War, disaster, economic collapse, or political upheaval forced you to start over somewhere unfamiliar. You survived because you had to, and you learned to read situations fast because the cost of misreading them was too high.

Skills (pick 2): Survival, Stealth, Medicine, Influence: Insight.

Shattered Stone

You are Sooni, and you failed the trial. Your stone broke and you could not put it back together. Among your people, this marks you as ordinary — not cursed, not shunned, but unremarkable. In a society that measures worth by Focus mastery, "ordinary" is its own kind of exile. You are still Sooni. You still have the reflexes, the training, the lifespan. But the path to mastery is closed to you, and everyone knows it.

Skills (pick 2): Athletics, Influence: Insight, Science (pick a discipline), Savvy (pick a discipline).

Shipborn

You were born on a ship and raised in the hum of engines and the recycled air of life support. Gravity was something you felt when you docked. Open sky was disorienting the first time you saw it. A ship isn't where you live. It's what you are.

Skills (pick 2): Piloting (pick a discipline), Engineering, Athletics, Coordination: Communications.

Station Raised

You grew up on a space station — a closed environment where everyone knows everyone and privacy is a luxury. You learned to navigate tight spaces, tight communities, and the politics that come with living on top of each other. Stations are their own ecosystems, and you know how they work.

Skills (pick 2): Engineering, Security, Coordination: Communications, Influence (pick a discipline).

Street Rat

You grew up poor, in the margins, on the wrong side of whatever city or station you called home. Nobody gave you anything. What you have, you took or you earned. You learned to move without being noticed, talk your way out of trouble, and run when talking failed.

Skills (pick 2): Stealth, Athletics, Influence: Deception, Savvy: Criminal.

Terran Subject

You grew up under Terran governance — noble houses, old money, rigid hierarchies. The Terrans are not the League. Power is personal, loyalty is everything, and your family name determines more than your talent ever will. You learned to navigate a world where who you know matters more than what you know.

Skills (pick 2): Influence (pick a discipline), Savvy: Government, Savvy: Corporate, Leadership.

Wanderer

You never stayed in one place long. Maybe your family moved constantly — traders, migrant workers, traveling performers. Maybe you just couldn't sit still. You've seen more of the galaxy than most people twice your age, and you've picked up a little bit of everything along the way.

Skills (pick 2): Survival, Piloting (pick a discipline), Influence: Insight, Athletics.

Zealot

You are Sooni, and you know the truth: the Overseers created your people to be something better than humanity. The flawed originals were left behind for a reason. Your duty — your purpose — is to ensure the Sooni fulfill their destiny and prove themselves worthy of the Overseers' return. Humanity is an obstacle at best, an abomination at worst. You have spent your life training to remove that obstacle by any means necessary. Whether you are an infiltrator walking among them, a warrior preparing for the day the Council gives the order, or something else entirely, your faith is absolute.

Skills (pick 2): Influence: Intimidation, Combat: Melee, Savvy: Military, Influence: Deception.