Some cultures embrace the principles of trade and commerce almost to the exclusion of all else. Everything is a transaction, and everything has a price. In such societies, trading houses or corporations reign supreme, and the rules of commerce supersede other ethical considerations. Such rules encourage honesty in trade, as adherence to contracts is the foundation of a mercantile civilization, and the punishments for breach of contract are amongst the most severe in such jurisdictions.

Members of mercantile societies are often expert hagglers, and highly accomplished businessfolk, with an excellent grasp of legislation and an almost instinctual ability to estimate the value of anything.

Characters raised in a mercantile culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

Accumulated Wealth. You start play with twice the credits you ordinarily would. If you are creating a character of higher than 1st level, this feature does not affect your starting wealth.

Expert Trader. Negotiation is a fundamental skill. You gain proficiency in Culture, Insight, and Persuasion.

Quick Valuation. You can readily determine the value of any object by examining it for one minute.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common and two other languages.

Duty, diligence, and sacrifice. While they are important to any civilization, they are the central conceits of most empires. Such civilizations seek to expand their borders to fuel their growing needs, which in turn expands its borders and increases the cost of governance, repeating the vicious cycle. However, this “progress” does not come without cost from its people. Soldiers, civilians, and even entire worlds may fall securing resources for the ever-teeming masses of the empire. It is the greatest hope of the imperial leadership that star charts will, some day within their lifetime, show that the empire has no borders. That all will have been welcomed into it—either through diplomacy or the barrel of a blaster.

Full citizens in the heart of such an empire live quite comfortably, and though there are always discrepancies in wealth and power even the near-destitute enjoy comforts and luxuries unheard of in distant colonies. Medicine and education, relatively safe streets at night, a judicial system that generally works for them rather than against them—all are taken for granted as a base living standard. Regardless, every adult citizen must be prepared to join when conscription begins on their world. After all, sacrifices must be made for the greater good.

Characters raised as an imperium subject share a variety of traits in common with one another.

Conscript. All citizens must register for the draft and receive basic training packets and educational courses on blaster safety, as well as basic vehicle skills. You are proficient with pistols and rifles. You also have proficiency with land, air, and space vehicles.

Sheltered Education. Those at the safe center of empires often have privileged access to fine teachers and the opportunity to follow academic interests that might otherwise be too impractical. You gain proficiency in History and either Culture, Nature, Performance, or Religion.

Station in Society. As a citizen of the empire you benefited from some measure of station that those outside your society did not. When interacting with merchants from a sector associated with your empire, you are able to use your station to secure a 10% discount on most goods and services.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common and one other language.

In a fleeting and inhospitable cosmos, all that matters to some is having the strength to live and die with honor. On a small scale, honorbound cultures adapt extremely well to harsh environments—their enclaves are found even on the remotest planets. On a larger scale, the honorbound culture may be but one culture within a larger civilization. In this case, it is likely followed by a particular subset of the population, most often the warrior class.

For the honorbound, duty is a priority in all things. The particulars vary between individual communities, but they often focus on honesty, valor, and a sense of fairness. Compassion and charity towards the weaker or less fortunate is a great virtue among the rich, strong, and powerful, and all are expected to fulfill their roll to the utmost. Even the most mundane work brings its own kind of honor if done with diligence.

Those who are found violating the community’s terms of honor are expected to feel an equal amount of shame (often along with their families) and to make public shows of remorse and recompense, such a performing community service or making a large donation to a righteous cause or religious institution. The more prominent the member of the culture, the more substantial their reparations to their people must be. Many such cultures espouse the idea of death before dishonor, and to willingly dishonor oneself is to become a pariah at best.

Characters raised in an honorbound culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

Gentler Pursuits. While combat and physical capabilities are important to your culture, there is little respect for one who spurns intellect and beauty. You are proficient with your choice of either Culture, Performance, two musical instruments, or two artisan’s tools.

Peak Performance. You have trained relentlessly to become a paragon of physical capability. Choose two from Athletics, Acrobatics, or Intimidation. You are proficient with the chosen skills.

Save Face. You are careful not to show weakness, lest your capabilities or dedication be questioned. If you miss with an attack roll or fail an ability check, you can gain a bonus to the roll equal to the number of allies you can see within 30 feet of you (maximum +3), possibly changing a failure into a success.
Once you use this trait, you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Weapon Training. You have been taught the ways of combat from an early age. You gain proficiency with 2 martial weapons of your choice and with starship weapons.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common, plus one other language.

In the wide, beautiful, and uncaring cosmos, the only thing we can control is ourselves. The “enlightened” cultures who follow this path center a contemplative and intellectual lifestyle in balance with galactic events. For them, the main objective in life is selfcultivation. At their best, enclaves of this culture are truly spiritual and practice contemplation as a liberative practice and support their allies on their mutual quest for liberation. At worst, these enclaves believe that their way is “the true way”, leading them to be self-righteous, aloof, or even colonialist or tyrannical. The truth is frequently somewhere between.

The people of this culture generally have a mature disposition towards science. In their view, science is a worthy path of investigation, but technology is to be subordinated to the correct way of living. Craftsmanship among the enlightened is often highly artistic, accentuating or blending in with the features of nature. Ruins of enlightened cultures feature beautiful stonework and woodwork merged seamlessly with their high tech, practically whispering the story of certain enclaves who used their technology to transcend the mortal coil (or become extinct due to a perilous final mistake). Empires of this culture often do not shy away from using behavior control technology to enforce adherence to “the way.”

Characters raised in the enlightened culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

Defensive Training. Self-cultivation also includes the practice of meditation and martial arts. Choose one of the following:

Student of the Body: Choose one 1st degree combat maneuver from any tradition. Once per short rest, you can use this combat maneuver without spending exertion.

Student of the Mind: You learn one psionic reflex. Your psionic ability for this trait is your choice of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.

Inner Path. Your people value cultivating the intellect and spirit, so you can always find your way in life. Choose two from History, Insight, Nature, Religion, Performance, or Science. You have proficiency in the chosen skills.

Artisan. You have proficiency in a musical instrument or artisanal tools.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common and three other languages.

Some voidrunners grew up hearing stories of their ancestors who lived on a planet once upon a time. This could be as recent as within the last decade or so, with parents being able to recall exactly where and how they lived, or as distant as an era before their elders’ elders. Massive evacuations from planetary-scale destruction, catastrophic failure of the environment or civilization, or warfare that bombarded the entire planet could all be the cause. More peaceful tales involve ambitious plans of migrating to a habitable planet in a different galaxy, establishing colonies, or scientific expeditions expected to last generations.

Many young drifters spend their entire lives never coming into contact with land, so learning how to work spaceships and space stations is a matter of duty and obligation. Such voidrunners are utterly at home in space, making them valuable assets for any voidrunner crew.

Given that adventuring provides a chance to break from the routine life and duty, many drifters jump at the opportunity to leave their home ship or station, whether as an act of rebellion or as a sanctioned representative of their floating colony.

Characters raised in the drifter culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

At The Ready. You developed the habit of keeping your tools on your person for quick access. You are proficient with a tool of your choice. Taking the Use an Object action to use this tool is a bonus action for you.

Familiar Operations. Living in a space colony means you are well-versed in such systems. You gain proficiency in your choice of computers or Engineering, and with space vehicles. You also gain an expertise die on checks with the chosen skill that involve working with your home ship or station or similar system.

In addition, being born into a life in the cold blackness has made you mentally resilient. You gain an expertise die on checks to resist becoming rattled or suffering a level of strife.

System Hotwire. Your familiarity with starships and space stations allows you to optimize their systems. Choose two deck types. Up to three times per long rest, when you make a system maneuver through those decks, you can reduce the power point cost of the maneuver by 1, to a minimum of 0. You can change your chosen deck type over the course of a long rest.

Void Native. You know how to maneuver easily with little gravity. Zero-g does not count as difficult terrain for you. When you make a Dexterity check to maneuver in zero- or low-gravity conditions, any rolls under 10 count as 10 instead.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common and two other languages.

Shipyards need a lot of things to keep voidrunners moving: raw materials for hulls, fuel for generators, and countless other necessities. And they need it all in bulk, because ships are large and plentiful. That’s where Belters come in.

Mining planets for their unique mineral contents and rare materials is something most societies accomplish well before the beginning of an industrial era. By the space age, though, a lot of those minerals are already in use, and the ecological damage of tearing new supplies out of your own world can cause socio-political upheaval and strife. All this is why most societies start mining uninhabited—and largely uninhabitable— rocks drifting in space.

Bouncing around the accretion disks of countless stars in the night sky are belters: people raised on starships and space-stations that are designed to land on a particularly large asteroid and act as a central hub and workstation for the processing of ores, crystals, and any other materials the asteroid might have that are worth taking. Life as a belter is one of cramped quarters, loud noises, and families doing their best to live in a dangerous and difficult profession. There are endless stories about atmo leaks, reactor breaches, and monsters just outside the bulkhead told to children at bedtime, after a long day of playing tag in narrow corridors or hide-and-seek in the ore-processing center.

When not planted on an asteroid, the behemoth ships drift slowly to stardock to deliver their cache of goods or toward the next asteroid in the belt to hollow it out in turn. This travel time gives belters plenty of time in between to try and live something resembling a normal life with their loved ones.

Characters raised in the belter culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

All Hands on Deck. From an early age you got to know the machines of your asteroid hopper, and as you grew up you were instructed on their care and maintenance. You gain proficiency in the Engineering skill and space vehicles. In addition, when you undertake the Repair journey activity, you count your result as one higher. Critical failures become failures, failures become successes, and successes become critical successes. If you roll a critical success, you can remove an additional critical malfunction of your choice.

Gauge Threat. Growing up on asteroid hoppers and the space stations where you dropped your cargo, you learned how to pick out the petty toughs from the actual threats. You can use an action to make an Insight check against a DC equal to the target’s passive Deception check score (or an Engineering check in the case of androids and other constructs) against a creature you can see within 60 feet. On a success, you learn the creature’s Challenge Rating (or level in the case of a creature with character levels).

Vent-Rat. As a child and young adult you got skilled at hiding in cramped spaces, particularly if you were boarded. You gain an expertise die when making a Stealth check in cramped spaces and can move at full speed while squeezing.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common and one other language.

Not every world is a sparkling jewel of dazzling skylines and dizzying society galas, filled with elites and the underclass that supports them and supported by shipyards and places of great commerce. Sometimes it’s because the world has so little to offer; others times what the world had to offer has already been taken. Whatever the case, there are backwaters.

Most citizens of backwaters spend their lives scrounging and scavenging to make a few credits while the void hangs over their heads, shining in the night and tantalizingly out of reach. A lot of backwater brats spend their time trying to gather the parts of a ship or the creds to at least buy a ticket off their rock. Some even make it.

Spaceports and criminal enclaves are the only place to really find excitement on a backwater— or a valuable job. There are far more credits to be had working a counter at the spaceport as a facilitator than scavenging, while running messages and merchandise pays even more—if one is smart and fast enough to stay a step ahead of the law.

But whether they’re running, or scrounging, or kissing up to tourists, the goal for would-be voidrunners is getting off this rock and seeing what is out there to see. Because until then they’re stuck, hanging out with childhood friends, doing odd jobs, and staring up at the stars when everyone around them is looking at the ground.

Characters raised in the backwater culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

Blastin’ Rats. You gain proficiency with rifles and land vehicles and gain an expertise die on checks to repair them, even if you do not have the appropriate tools.

Eye for Parts. Whether you’re at a spaceport, on a space station, or visiting an alien world, you know how to find parts and components for ships, weapons, and armor, as well as where to get the right parts at the right price. So long as you have two hours to work through junk yards and consignment shops, you can get almost any part or material component for 15% below market value.

Tightened Belt. On backwater worlds supplies can be scarce. You can go a number of days equal to half your Constitution modifier without suffering any fatigue from lack of Supply.

Versatile Skill. Living in a lonely world where the population tends to be very condensed into pockets of civilization means you often need to be self-sufficient just to make it through the day. You gain proficiency in Survival and one other skill of your choice.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common and one other language.

Cultures composed entirely of artificial beings are unusual, but they are not unknown. In some cases, organic beings evolve to integrate themselves with technology before eventually completing the transformation to a fully robotic society. Others might be enclaves of androids who have deliberately created their own spaces, free from the prejudices of organic species–or, worse, opposed to them and dedicated to their destruction–and yet others may have somehow evolved as robotic people from the very start. There are even stories of artificial civilizations which abduct and assimilate beings from other cultures, turning them into machines. Of course, one does not need to be artificial to grow up in an artificial society; some organic beings may prefer the company of robots. 

Characters raised in the artificial culture share a variety of traits in common with one another.

I Know A Back Door. Your lifelong familiarity with robotics and computers gives you an intuitive sense of how they work. You get an expertise die when using hacking tools.

Pattern Recognition. You are so used to an environment where everything is ordered and in its place that something unusual sticks out to you like a sore thumb. You gain an expertise die  on Investigation checks and initiative rolls.

Surrounded By Tech. You gain proficiency in computers and Engineering, and an Engineering specialty in robotics.

Languages. You can read, sign, speak, and write Common and Machine.