Servants
Similar to the Retainers Background in Dark Ages: Vampire, Servants are either Commoners or magical beings that do your bidding. Servants are most often used for menial tasks -- cleaning a chantry, fetching water, cooking, and so forth. Like Retainers, a high rating in this Background can indicate that your character employs or commands many Servants or a few highly competent ones.
The player should consider strongly whether she wants her character to be served by Commoners or magical beings. Commoners are h u m a n beings, and as such, need to eat, sleep, and so forth. They suffer from all the usual human frailties and are not perfectly loyal; they can be bribed, threatened, or even supernaturally coerced into betrayal. They are also capable of a much wider range of tasks, however, and - most importantly — can learn new skills.
Magical constructs come in a variety of forms. Hermetic mages summon up golems from rock or metal to take on heavy lifting. Spirit-Talkers conjure elemental whereas the Ahl-i-Batin call up djinn arid afrits. Dark legends of the North speak of Valdaermen necromancers who reanimate the bodies of dead foes to serve as their footmen. These magical Servants share some common characteristics, however. First, they can perform only specific tasks. A golem created to lug heavy items can do only that, and cannot be taught to guard a door. A zombie created for the purpose of chopping wood will never learn to boil water. It the player decides that a high Servant rating indicates a more competent magical creature, that creature has a small measure of independence and can perform tasks related to the job for which it was created or summoned. Learning new skills is still largely out of their purview, though. At their chosen tasks, however, these beings excel, and can complete them in much shorter times than human servitors can. Also, they do not tire, get sick, complain, or betray their masters (not without powerful magical intervention, anyway).
The player should decide upon purchasing this Background whether the Servants are human or not. If she wishes for her character to have both types, she should purchase two separate ratings in this Background. Like Retainers, Servants can die or be destroyed, and are not easily replaced.
The player should also consider where the Servants came from and why they stay (if they are Commoners). Most likely, she employs them, but that either means that she is a noble or that she has a high Resources rating. Or, perhaps the Servant is actually an apprentice, doing menial labor and studying on his own time until he understands enough about magic to begin true schooling — what might he do to hasten the process?
● -- One rather mediocre servant.
●● -- Two servants, both of whom do their jobs well enough, or one exceptional servant.
●●● -- Three average servants or one remarkable servant.
●●●● -- Four average, two impressive, or one truly stellar servant (or some combination thereof).
●●●●● -- Five average, three exceptional, or one servant that one barely notices (or some combination, thereof).
