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Character Backgrounds

The document outlines various character backgrounds and features within the context of a fantasy setting, detailing organizations such as the Hellriders, Order of the Gauntlet, and Flaming Fist, each with unique skills, equipment, and advancement opportunities. It also introduces additional backgrounds like Acolyte, Charlatan, Sage, and Faceless, providing insights into their characteristics and abilities. Each background emphasizes the character's role in the world, their connections, and the potential for growth and interaction with other factions and communities.

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Jason Ensign
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
13 views13 pages

Character Backgrounds

The document outlines various character backgrounds and features within the context of a fantasy setting, detailing organizations such as the Hellriders, Order of the Gauntlet, and Flaming Fist, each with unique skills, equipment, and advancement opportunities. It also introduces additional backgrounds like Acolyte, Charlatan, Sage, and Faceless, providing insights into their characteristics and abilities. Each background emphasizes the character's role in the world, their connections, and the potential for growth and interaction with other factions and communities.

Uploaded by

Jason Ensign
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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HELLRIDER

You are one of the Hellriders, an elite company of mounted warriors that protects Elturgard, the Kingdom of Two Suns.
The Hellriders get their name from the brave cavalry that rode into the Nine Hells alongside the angel Zariel long ago.
Today, these honorable riders fiercely defend Elturel atop mighty destriers and dutifully give ten percent of all earnings to
the city's coffers. Hellriders are easily recognizable due to their crimson and white armor and banners bearing the crest of
Elturgard: the sun and the smaller, blazing Companion.

Skill Proficiencies: Animal Handling, Persuasion


Languages: One of your choice
Tool Proficiencies: Your choice of gaming set or musical instrument
Equipment: One set of traveler's clothes, a signet, a banner or seal with the crest of Elturgard, and a pouch containing 9
GP

FEATURE: RESPECTED RIDER


As a Hellrider, you are well-respected within Elturgard, and your heraldry is recognized throughout Faerûn. While in the
Kingdom of Two Suns-encompassing Elturel, Triel, Scornubel, Soubar, and Berdusk-you can commandeer fresh mounts
for you and your party. Typically, this occurs at outposts such as Windstream Lodge, but Hellriders and their companions
are held in high regard and can resupply in any Elturgard settlement. Use the warhorse statistics for your mount and the
riding horse statistics for those of your comrades.
Hellriders traditionally operate within Elturgard, but on occasion the High Watcher or High Rider has sent Hellriders to
other lands. Outside of the Elturgard, you can purchase non-exotic mounts from merchants sympathetic to the Hellriders
at half price.

ΑDVANCEMENT
Once they have completed their training, a warrior is inducted into the Hellriders through a special ceremony held by the
High Rider and an elected priest of Helm known as the High Observer. Once initiated, a Hellrider can continue to prove
themselves by advancing in rank.
HELLRIDER RANKS

SUGGESTED CHARACTERISTICS
A Hellrider's rigorous training produces an equestrian knight with a reputation for discipline, vigilance, and fury. Though
each rider may seem identical when galloping across the hills of Elturgard, these high expectations can have profound
effects on an individual Hellrider's outlook.
ORDER OF THE GAUNTLET
You are a member of the Order of the Gauntlet, an organization devoted to crushing evil when it rears its ugly head. The
order is composed of righteous warriors-paladins and clerics of Tyr, Helm, Torm, and Hoar-united by faith, ideals, and a
powerful camaraderie. Unlike the Harpers, the Order of the Gauntlet conducts its operations in the open and refuses to
strike preemptively.
Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Religion
Languages: Two of your choice
Equipment: A heraldic pendant, a scroll containing the tenets of the order, and a pouch containing 15 GP

FEATURE: CONSTANT VIGILANCE


The Order of the Gauntlet must be poised to retaliate should evil misbehave. To stay prepared, the organization works
openly with local groups to identify and monitor evil threats such as cults, crime syndicates, or inherently evil creatures.
When you enter a new settlement, you can request an audience on behalf of the order with faction agents, law
enforcement, or clergy sympathetic to your cause.

ADVANCEMENT
Every member of the Order of the Gauntlet begins as a Chevall. As they complete missions and additional training,
members of the order may serve as mentors or take on influential leadership positions within the faction.

ORDER OF THE GAUNTLET RANKS


SUGGESTED CHARACTERISTICS
The Order of the Gauntlet is typically composed of good-natured individuals united under tenets of honor, duty, and
justice. These virtues and the tight-knit bond between members mold these holy warriors for their never-ending battle
against the forces of evil.
FLAMING FIST
You have joined the Flaming Fist, a powerful mercenary company headquartered in Baldur's Gate, where it serves as the
city's primary law enforcement and military. Lower-ranking fists patrol the Lower City or are assigned to missions
elsewhere, while senior officers may act as commanders in battle or intimidating bodyguards for high-profile negotiations.
If you've relinquished your ties to The Flaming Fist, you can re-enlist at any time. However, so long as you collect wages,
you must serve the Flaming Fist dutifully or be held accountable to the Grand Dukes of Baldur's Gate.
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Intimidation
Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set, vehicles (land)
Equipment: A Flaming Fist uniform, an insignia of your rank, a gaming set of your choice, and a pouch containing the
remainder of your last wages (10 GP)

FEATURE: TIGHTEN THE GRIP


As a member of the Flaming Fist, you can enact justice on behalf of the organization or the city of Baldur's Gate. If you
compel a creature to surrender or knock it unconscious (see chapter 9, "Combat," of the Player's Handbook) you may
choose to place it under arrest. Additionally, you may confiscate any of an arrested creature's possessions or contraband
on behalf of the Flaming Fist. At your DM's discretion, your commanding officer may allow you to keep a portion of these
items as payment.

ΑDVANCEMENΤ
The Flaming Fist maintains a military hierarchy with six ranks, not including the Grand Dukes of Baldur's Gate. As your
character furthers the goals of the Flaming Fist, they may gain renown (see chapter 1, "A World of Your Own," of the
Dungeon Master's Guide for more information on renown) and advance in rank.

FLAMING FIST RANKS


SUGGESTED CHARACTERISTICS
As a mercenary company, the Flaming Fist enlists a multitude of individuals throughout Faerûn. While the majority of
Flaming Fist agents are based in Baldur's Gate, the organization-and by extension, the city-has extensive reach, with
active forces as far south as Chult. As an agent of The Flaming Fist, your identity may have been shaped by other
members, the area in which you operate, or a particularly treacherous mission.
Acolyte
It’s said that every faith in the world has a believer in Baldur’s Gate. Not only are most established faiths tolerated — even
if some of them, including most of the openly evil faiths, are relegated to the Outer City’s Twin Songs neighborhood — but
new ones arrive constantly, carried by travelers and proselytizers from far-flung lands. A character with this background
might aspire to greater things, not for themselves, but for their faith.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Religious Community
You’re tightly connected with the religious community of Baldur’s Gate. You know if a deity has a following in the city and
any places that faith openly congregates and the neighborhoods those faithful typically inhabit. While this isn’t remarkable
for most of the city’s larger faiths, keeping track of the hundreds of religions newcomers bring with them is no mean feat.

Charlatan
Everybody’s always trying to get a leg up on somebody in Baldur’s Gate. One group’s con artist might be another’s
revolutionary. Or maybe you’re just in it for yourself. In any case, characters with this background have a plan to hit the big
time; all they need is audacity and a little time.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Long-Lost Heir
You’re well-versed in the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies of Baldurian patriars and other nobles, imitating them smoothly
enough to convince even the snootiest family heads of your authenticity. You’re skilled at posing as the long-lost heir to
some imaginary or extinguished patriar lineage.
Because of your skill in passing yourself off as a patriar, you have a Watch token that allows you alone into the Upper City
of Baldur’s Gate. You might be able to bluff others through with you, or even convince members of the Watch that you’re a
patriar. However, any true test of your authenticity is likely to reveal your deception.

Sage
Baldur’s Gate has a modest academic community centered around the libraries of the High Hall and the various temples
dedicated to gods of learning and innovation. Lecturers, researchers, and historians all participate with passing scholars
from Candlekeep in a lively exchange of ideas, debating and collaborating in book-filled halls across the Upper and Lower
City. The city is also rife with opportunities for arcane study, although its masters are dispersed across individual wizards’
abodes and lack concentrated communities.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Rumor Monger
Via your personal rumor mill and articles published in Baldur’s Mouth, you can surmise a great deal about Baldurians’
secrets — who’s practicing necromancy, who’s involved in spying or smuggling, who would purchase or craft dangerous
magical wares without batting an eyelash. Whenever a noteworthy crime or mysterious happening occurs in the city, you
immediately have a list of 1d4 suspects who, if they aren’t involved, have a strong chance of knowing who is.
Criminal
No career criminal in Baldur’s Gate operates without being aware of the Guild. Some studiously keep a low profile,
carrying just the occasional smuggled load in with legitimate merchandise, or only breaking knees when it can plausibly
be claimed as an act of personal revenge. Others join up with crews for protection, or with the Guild itself. A few former
Guild members have been cast out of the organization due to incompetence or after offending a more powerful member,
and now shuffle for scraps to survive.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Criminal Connections
In Baldur’s Gate, crime is just another business. As a result, you can arrange a meeting with a low-ranking operative of
nearly any business, patriar family, crew, government institution, or — certainly — the Guild. This operative will hear you
out and, at their discretion, take your information or request up their chain of command. These meetings almost always
occur in shady venues.
Criminal Origins
Criminals are pervasive in Baldur’s Gate. If you wish, you may roll on the Criminal Origins table for an event that began
your life of crime.
1 You crippled a Guild kingpin’s cousin without realizing the connection. You got the Guild to back off demands for your
death by offering to make amends by working for the criminals, but even so the kingpin still plots a personal revenge.
2 The Guild took over your family business, ran it into the ground, and burned the building for insurance money. You
were driven into crime yourself, but you’ll never work for the Guild. You take special joy in hitting its targets first,
tipping off its con victims and otherwise frustrating its schemes.
3 It’s always been about money. You’re not paid what you’re worth, working for someone who has more than they
deserve. But the Guild offered you a way to fix that. You keep doing what you’ve always done — guard work, dock
labor, business accounting — but what you learn you pass on to the Guild.
4 The inequality of Baldur’s Gate has driven you to take matters into your own hands. You steal from patriars and rich
Lower City residents, funneling the money through charitable fronts to help the needy.
5 You got into crime as a bored patriar looking for excitement. Your family has no idea of your activities, and neither
does the Guild. If either of them ever finds out, your life as you know it will be over.
6 A close friend or relative joined the Guild and vanished mysteriously. You’ve worked your way into the lower ranks
hoping to find out what happened to them.
7 You’ve always wanted to be a member of the Guild. As a child, you looked up to the Guild members’ swagger, their
flashy dress, and their competence, which all marked them as different from the other adults you knew. As soon as you
could, you joined the organization.
8 To you, this is just a way to earn a living. You go to work, do what needs to be done, and get paid. Anyone who pursues
crime for thrill-seeking, to strike back at unjust authorities, or anything else are amateurs, and they’re liable to get you
arrested or killed with their idiocy.

Entertainer
From the Oasis Theater’s spectacular singers and acrobats to the pantomimes and shadow puppeteers of the Wide,
Baldur’s Gate hosts a colorful array of performers. Good acts can always find ready audiences, and the constant flow of
travelers means that both new spectators and new spectacles are always passing through.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Backstage Pass
You’ve learned that most of the real business of entertainment (or any other venture) happens behind the scenes. It’s
easy for you to case what sorts of audiences attend what venue — like how toughs gather at the Blushing Mermaid or
how brash patriars congregate at the Helm and Cloak. After a successful performance, you may meet an enthusiastic
member of the crowd — someone of an occupation or social class that frequents the establishment. This contact is
delighted to talk with you, and to listen.

Guild Artisan
Numerous guilds and professional associations exist in Baldur’s Gate, covering every imaginable trade and discipline from
gravediggers to moneylenders.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Professional Courtesy
You’re familiar with the city’s crews, their territories, and inter-crew politics. Choose one of the three districts of Baldur’s
Gate: The Upper City, the Lower City, or the Outer City. This is the district where you conduct most of your business.
Whenever you need information about something in one of that district’s neighborhoods, you can seek out crew members
in that area and learn the local gossip. You can also gain unimpeded entry to nearly any bank, guild hall, place of
business, workhouse, or crew meeting place in your district.
Faceless (New Background)
Being who you are, you could never be a hero. Whether due to your class, your people, your family, or your sins,
something about you prevents you from effectively pursuing the path you’ve chosen. Even so, that doesn’t stop you.
You’ve left your old face behind, taking on a new persona, becoming something more.
Characters with the faceless background don a disguise — literally or otherwise — as they adventure. This persona might
be dramatic or subtle. In a way, though, many characters have such larger than life personalities. Therefore, this
background largely focuses on detailing the hero behind the mask.
Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Intimidation
Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit
Languages: One of your choice
Equipment: A disguise kit, a costume, a pouch containing 10 gp
Faceless Persona
A faceless character adventures behind the mask of a public persona. This persona is as natural to them as their hidden,
true face, but it disguises their identity. Roll on the Faceless Persona table to determine your persona, or work with the
DM to create a persona that’s unique to your character and suits the tone of your game.

1 A flamboyant spy or brigand


2 The incarnation of a nation or people
3 A scoundrel with a masked guise
4 A vengeful spirit
5 The manifestation of a deity or your faith
6 One whose beauty is greatly accented using makeup
7 An impersonation of another hero
8 The embodiment of a school of magic
9 A warrior with distinctive armor
10 A disguise with animalistic or monstrous characteristics, meant to inspire fear

Feature: Dual Personalities


Most of your fellow adventurers and the world know you as your persona. Those who seek to learn more about you—your
weaknesses, your origins, your purpose—find themselves stymied by your disguise. Upon donning a disguise and
behaving as your persona, you are unidentifiable as your true self. By removing your disguise and revealing your true
face, you are no longer identifiable as your persona. This allows you to change appearances between your two
personalities as often as you wish, using one to hide the other or serve as convenient camouflage. However, should
someone realize the connection between your persona and your true self, your deception might lose its effectiveness.
Suggested Characteristics
A faceless character usually plays their persona — the hero or extraordinary person they are every day. That’s all a
facade, though, or a part of them expressed to an extreme. To define a persona, feel free to choose characteristics from
other backgrounds, particularly folk hero, hermit, or noble. For the person behind the persona, the one who truly strives to
be faceless, consider a distinct set of faceless characteristics. As a result, those with this background have two sets of
characteristics, one for their persona, and one for their faceless selves.
Folk Hero
Baldur’s Gate is a city badly in need of heroes, and every so often, one rises from among its own. Ordinary people who
rise to greatness are beloved in local history, but the popular imagination can turn on such champions almost as quickly
as it anoints them.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Social Vengeance
You’ve lived your entire life in the Lower or Outer City of Baldur’s Gate. You grew up seeing arrogant patriars flaunt their
wealth while your hardworking neighbors struggled. As a result, you know how eager commoners in Baldur’s Gate are to
see any patriar get what they deserve. While in a busy part of the Lower City or Outer City of Baldur’s Gate, you can
spend 2d10 minutes to convince 1d6 commoners to perform a non-illegal act that inconveniences a member of the Watch
or Flaming Fist, a patriar, or some other wealthy looking individual.
Folk Hero Origins
Folk heroes might rise from a variety of circumstances, or their origins might be a secret as they do their work
anonymously. If you wish, you may roll on the Folk Hero Origins table for an event that started you down your heroic path.
1 You helped get healing for a sick child. Now the sick come to you, knowing you’ll help them find a way to salvation.
2 You helped break a Guild protection racket afflicting a community of immigrants in the Outer City. Now, you can’t travel
through that part of the city without your dozen adopted grandparents inviting you in for a meal.
3 Seeing a lost patriar after dark in the Outer City, you guided the wayward noble through back streets to safety. The
patriar repaid your help by paying for improved roofs and lamps in your neighborhood, causing the entire community
to celebrate your deed.
4 Fueled by alcohol, you faced down a carrion crawler that slunk out of the sewer, knocking it out with a single punch.
Since then, however, the ale you once credited with your heroism has drowned it, and even your most patient admirers
are losing hope. You’re hoping for one last chance to win back the goodwill you’ve drunk away.
5 You once defeated a raging bugbear with a hand mirror, a mounted deer’s head, and two kicks to the groin. Later, you
and the bugbear became friends.
6 Last winter, you dove into the frigid river to haul out a foundering fishing boat with your bare hands, saving all aboard.
Now, everyone on the docks knows your name.

Hermit
While some might think it strange to find hermits in a bustling city, others know that sometimes the most profound solitude
exists in the midst of a crowd. Baldur’s Gate holds a handful of souls who manage to find isolation amid its tumult.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: The Real City
You know the Baldur’s Gate most Baldurians ignore, the dog-eat-dog world of the homeless and unfortunate. You know
where to go in the Lower City and Outer City for anonymity. In these slums and alley camps, you can get a damp bed and
a bad meal, but also a degree of privacy and no questions asked. Living here isn’t comfortable, but it’s unlikely anyone will
find you — and you can stay as long as you want.
Hermit Origins
Any number of personal choices or ill-fated circumstances might have led you to turn away from society. You may, if you
wish, choose or roll an origin event from the Hermit Origins table.
1 You led an ill-fated expedition into the Riverveins. Your friends were swept away by flooding, and you’ve never been
able to shake the guilt of causing their deaths over a frivolous lark. You’ve maintained a solitary vigil outside the
cavern entrance ever since.
2 You crossed the Guild in a bad way. Fortunately, its members think you’re dead. Less fortunately, maintaining that
deception might require you to stay in hiding until you actually are.
3 You study the puzzles of mortal natures. You’ve seen followers of evil deities perform miracles for the helpless at Twin
Songs, and you’ve seen patriars who worship good deities turn their backs on the poor daily. Bearing witness to such
things, and meditating on their contradictions, fills your hours.
4 You tend to some part of the city’s forgotten history: the unmarked graves in Cliffside Cemetery, the crumbling remains
of dead patriar families’ manors, or a collection of religious texts stuffed into an attic and forgotten when a believer’s
patron deity died. In this solitary work, you’ve learned secrets no one else knows.
5 You killed a patriar’s scion in an illegal duel. The family swore revenge, and you fled to the slums rather than risk
bringing their wrath down on your kin.
6 You aren’t originally from Baldur’s Gate. You came here seeking something else, only to learn that the quest that drove
you had become impossible to fulfill — its object was destroyed or its purpose was negated by some superseding
event. Suddenly directionless and unable to return to your homeland, you have lingered, adrift, in this wretched city.
Noble
The patriars of Baldur’s Gate live in the Upper City, where they host grand galas and flaunt cosmopolitan fashions, but are
walled off from the poverty and squalor of the less fortunate districts and their neighborhoods. Although they might visit
prosperous Bloomridge to try a fashionable restaurant or boutique, or watch a spectacle at the Oasis Theater, the patriars
have little reason to venture into the dirtier, more dangerous parts of the city. If they do, it is generally as thrill-seeking
tourists or enclosed by a retinue of armed guards, not as friends or neighbors. As a result, many patriars are at once
acutely attuned to the nuances of royal courts half a continent away and shockingly ignorant of what life is like for the poor
outside their own doorsteps.
This combination of worldly savvy and local blindness characterizes almost all the nobility of Baldur’s Gate. As a result, for
those who wish to play patriars, the Patriar feature below replaces the Position and Privilege feature of the noble
background. Those who wish to use the background’s standard feature might have gained their standing in Baldur’s Gate
from business rather than inheritance.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Patriar
As a member of one of the elite families of Baldur’s Gate, you may pass through city gates without paying tolls, mingle
among the Gate’s nobility unquestioned, and impress those on the lookout for wealthy patrons. You are welcome in the
Upper City and may stay there after dark without being harassed or evicted. Your word is accepted over others’ without
question, and any corruption among guards or government officials tends to work in your favor, not against you — at least
until you make some effort to expose it.

Outlander
Coming to Baldur’s Gate might seem like a good idea for a spectrum of reasons. Profit, excitement, and cosmopolitan
opportunities all present tempting prospects, but rarely does one start on the path to Baldur’s Gate fully understanding the
complex social morass that awaits. You enter the city an outsider, and it’s likely that — no matter how long you spend in
the city — you’ll leave an outsider, if you leave at all.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Immigrant Experience
Even after your short time in Baldur’s Gate, you’ve learned the city holds more walls and gates than those the Watch and
Flaming Fist patrols. You are known within the city’s immigrant communities. Should you ever need to learn about a
foreign land, people, tradition, or history, you know where to find someone with firsthand experience — likely somewhere
in the Outer City.
Outlander Origins
Foreigners of all kinds come to Baldur’s Gate daily, drawn by countless reasons from countless lands. The Outlander
Origins table provides ideas for how your character might have come to Baldur’s Gate.
1 Someone stole something precious from your people. You tracked the thief to the city gates, but finding clues in an
urban environment is very different from tracking someone across the wilderness. You don’t know where to go from
here, but your people need you to succeed.
2 You’ve always been fascinated by the glitter and glamor of city life, so different from the slow pace of life in your
homeland. Now you’re here, ready to make your mark in the world, but unsure how to begin.
3 War, plague, famine, or a marauding monster ravaged your home, forcing you to flee for your life. You don’t even know
how many of your people survived or where to find them. Alone or accompanied by a handful of equally bereft
survivors, you must navigate a new life that you never asked for.
4 You were captured by kidnappers and taken far from your home. The Knights of the Unicorn freed you and brought you
here, but now you’re on your own.
5 You were exiled for breaking a trivial-seeming taboo. For this seemingly minor transgression, you lost your friends,
family, and homeland in one fell swoop, and were given little choice but to strike out on your own.
6 A peddler once brought something astonishing to your homeland — a Gondan clockwork, shimmering cloth of gold, a
trained speaking bird, or some other small wonder — and told you that it came from Baldur’s Gate. You’ve come to see
the source of such wonders, and perhaps learn to create them.
Sailor
Baldur’s Gate was founded by sailors, and its harbor is still the city’s beating heart. Several patriars are descended from
captains of yore, the commerce of the Lower City is built on the port, and even the Outer City’s rhythms are dominated by
the ebb and flow of river trade. Because sailors are as fundamental and ubiquitous to Baldur’s Gate as the cobbles on its
streets, characters with this background are common.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Smuggler’s Sense
You’re familiar with the docks of Baldur’s Gate, the movement of inspectors and tax collectors, the way cargo and coin
flows. As a result, it’s easy for you to hustle a load of cargo ashore or see such a cargo onto a cooperative ship without
attracting suspicion or taxation. You also know the movements of the Gray Wavers — the Flaming Fist harbor guards —
and have a sense of how to operate the city’s mechanized cranes.

Soldier
Mercenaries, private guards, Watch soldiers, and members of the Flaming Fist number among just a few of the many
soldiers on the streets of Baldur’s Gate.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: City Guard
You may choose to currently serve in either The Flaming Fist or The Watch. If you do, you have responsibilities related to
your post. For as long as you perform these responsibilities, you gain benefits. If you stop performing your responsibilities,
though, you lose access to the benefits and might suffer further fallout. Should you lose these benefits, you may regain
them by having an unpleasant conversation with your commanding officer and fulfilling your responsibilities for a month.
Flaming Fist. If you serve in the Flaming Fist, once every ten days, you must report to the Seatower of Balduran for
training, and you’re required to take a regular shift patrolling either the Lower City or the Outer City. In return, you have
access to the Flaming Fist’s fortresses and a direct line of communication with Flaming Fist officers and other soldiers.
You can also pass through the city’s gates without question — although you can’t bring guests into the Upper City as a
member of the Watch might. Additionally, you’re always welcome at the Three Old Kegs, where the Three Old Toads are
glad to greet you with a smile and a mug of ale.
The Watch. If you serve in the Watch, you’re required to conduct a regular patrol in the Upper City or take a regular shift
at its gates, and must report for training in the Watch Citadel once every ten days. In return, you have access to the
Citadel and a direct line of communication with Watch officers and officials. Your word carries considerable weight in the
High Hall, and most establishments in the Citadel Streets neighborhood are happy to give you and your friends free
meals. Additionally, you can escort people into the Upper City without question, regardless of whether they are patriars or
have Watch tokens. Outside the Upper City, however, most people regard you with suspicion, and you generally get a
chilly reception while in uniform.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Loyalty Test
You’ve had enough dealings with crooked soldiers that you can spot the behaviors common to corrupt guards and military
officers a mile away. While awareness of such corruption doesn’t equate to evidence of it, and your sense certainly isn’t
foolproof, your instinct proves a useful starting point when determining who might take a bribe, who might turn a blind eye
to a crime, or who might have criminal connections. You can also use this sense to get a feeling about who might fulfill
their duties strictly by the book.

Urchin
Bands of orphans and runaways band together in the Outer City, running after passersby in ragged throngs to plead for
scraps. In the Lower City, urchins are often recruited into the lowest echelons of the Guild or pressed into dirty and
dangerous work by unscrupulous masters.
Baldur’s Gate Feature: Gateguide Connection
Even though you might not be a member of the Gateguides crew, you’ve associated with enough of them that you know
their torch-based code. From the lighting, placement, and type of torch arranged on or near a structure, you can gather a
great deal of information about those who live or do business there, particularly if they deal fairly with strangers, have
Guild or government connections, or have either helped or denied the Gateguides in the past.

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