Backgrounds

Backgrounds are traits that catalog your character's connections, her possessions and her position in the world. Backgrounds are closely tied to your character concept—each is more than just a dot rating. If a character has the Allies, Contacts or Mentor Background, the dots represent individuals with their own lives, personalities and motives. Having Resources means that your character has a ready source of wealth, and your character acquired any artifact or manse in some interesting and unusual manner.

The player and the Storyteller should work together to make sure that your choices make sense and work well with the overall theme of the game. For example, if all of the characters start of as recently escaped slaves, then both Resources and Influence are inappropriate. Backgrounds should complement both the series and the character concept, rather than providing a way to make a powerful character.

If the player or Storyteller is uncertain whether a character's Background rating is sufficient for a given task, the player rolls the character's Background against difficulty 1 to see if it can do what she wants. Such rolls can be used to see if allies can come to the character's aid or if she can afford a new piece of equipment, for example.

However, while this method is simple, it can easily undermine roleplaying. It is often better if the Storyteller ask the player to describe her character's use of the Background clearly and then call for the appropriate (Attribute + Ability) roll when the time comes. The player might roll the character's (Manipulation + Socialize) to talk her allies into helping her or (Charisma + Presence) to see if they come to the character's aid when they know she is in trouble. A character trying to buy something expensive might roll (Intelligence + Bureaucracy) to find a bargain on the open market.

Storytellers should not use such techniques to make the character's Backgrounds less useful. Instead, she should help make Backgrounds into real and concrete things and not just abstract numbers the player rolls whenever she needs someone to rescue her character.

Allies

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Artifact

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Backing

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Contacts

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Cult

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Familiar

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Followers

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Influence

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Manse

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Mentor

Although most Chosen meet their new life without a guide, your character found one. This mentor is a patron, a teacher, a defender and a friend. Yet although she always acts in what she sees as your character's best interests, your mentor expects your character to obey her (or at least to listen to her). Your character is your mentor's student, ward or apprentice, not her equal. However, this relationship need not be without conflict, and it can be the subject of much in-depth roleplaying. A mentor can be one of the Exalted, an important prince or Guild Factor or even a god or one of the Fair Folk. In addition to providing advice and assistance, your mentor may also teach Abilities, Charms and possibly even sorcery. Occasionally, she might also save your character from some dire fate. Characters who require such aid too often annoy their mentors and will be disciplined for overly reckless behavior.

Trait Effects:

•	Your character's mentor is just a bit more worldly and wise than your character.
••	Your character's mentor is a figure of some note or an exceedingly important individual who has little time for your character.
•••	Your character's mentor is wise, influential and considerably more powerful than your character.
••••	Your character's mentor is an exceedingly important individual whose words and deeds can shape the course of nations.
•••••	Your character's mentor is exceedingly powerful, and he takes a great interest in your character's welfare. However, he expects both obeisance and greatness from your character, and he likely has powerful enemies who might attack you to get to him.

Resources

Resources represents your character's wealth. She may own large tracts of fertile land, a pottery factory, a ruby mine, shares in a shipping firm or simply a large horde of gold and jewels. This Background includes such things as property, clothing and basic equipment, and it shows how easily your character can acquire more. While Resources are not entirely liquid assets, all possessions can be sold to gain money (though doing so could take some time depending on what is for sale).

Each dot of Resources conveys an income beyond any gear or wealth your character gains during play. The source of this wealth must be detailed (rents on property, sharecropping, government stipend, interest in a mercantile concern, tax farming), since it may be increased, reduced or cut off entirely depending on events in the series. As with Influence, few Exalted have problems acquiring Resources—through one means or another.

Trait Effects:

•	Your character has an apartment or hut and may own a shoddy suit of armor and a notched long knife or spear. He has no riding animal but might own a pet and some smaller domestic animals. If your character supports a family, it often goes hungry. If he lives alone, your character can eat meat once a week.
••	Your character has a comfortable cottage or apartment and might own a poor quality riding animal. He might own a suit of light armor and a weapon. If your character supports a family, it eats filling, if boring, meals. If he lives alone, your character can eat meat every other day and afford hard liquor as well as beer.
•••	Your character owns a townhouse or a prosperous farm. He probably has one fine riding animal and another one of lower quality in case the first falls ill. Your character has a suit of any armor and any two weapons. If he lives alone, your character eats well every night and can regularly afford all manner of entertainments. If he is supporting a family, it never goes hungry, and there are roasts and sweetmeats on feast days. Your character almost certainly has a domestic servant or two.
••••	Your character is exceedingly wealthy. At minimum, he owns both a townhouse and a country estate. Your character bears the finest arms, rides a fine gelding or stallion, and alone or as master of a family, your character and his kin will never know hunger or want for medical attention. He might also own a private yacht and have a dozen or more servants tend to his needs.
•••••	Your character is a fabulously wealthy merchant prince, a bandit king, a mercenary lord or a potentate. He has vast riches and either commands an army or could rent one at need. Your character owns at least one excellent ship, and an army of attentive servants eagerly await his every whim.

Note: Almost everyone in Creation has at least one dot in this Background. Those who do not are both homeless and destitute.