Mundane Talents and Backgrounds

[hcobb]

ITL 36 notes an option rule for 1 point of talent to help fill out a character's background. Here is an example of how I apply this for a background template for PCs to use as the players find suitable.

Template: Former Apprentice
Background: A wizard who until recently served as an apprentice somewhere, providing fatigue for enchantment and doing other tasks.
Requirements: Character is a wizard who pays for the Aid spell.
Mundane bonus talent: Literacy is the one point of mundane talent.
Background implications: The character was an apprentice serving a wizard's guild, coven, or a lone master. They are therefore to some extent still enmeshed in either the continuing politics of their patron, on bad terms with this patron, or dealing with the breakup or fall of this patron. They are assumed to have no net credit in either case. They can reach back to these contacts, but will need to provide boons at least equal to the favors they ask for. Conversely the GM may reach through these contacts to the PC, but only in terms of job or mission offers, not requirements.