Social Status
Social hierarchy is extremely important in complex societies, particularly in pre-industrial ones, where the vast majority of the population is required to work the land. In Mythmaster, your character's social status defines where they are born within the social hierarchy. Those born into the higher classes are much, much wealthier than those born into the lower classes, and will have access to certain fields of study that are not available to those in the lower classes. Upward social mobility is difficult, but not impossible, and membership in a faction can enable your character to climb the social ladder and increase their social status and wealth.
Determining Social Status
Social status is determined during the character creation process. This is done by making a random roll on the Social Status Table, below. The Social Status Table is balanced to provide a distribution representative of the population of a late pre-industrial society. Consequently, the table is heavily weighted to produce individuals in the lower social classes. In the case where the Director envisions an adventure or campaign where the characters are of a specific social status, the Director can assign social status to characters, or modify the table as needed so that the characters make sense in their planned adventure.
Social status determination is automated by the Character Generator, and if the Director prefers or allows it the Character Generator allows you to simply choose your starting social status.
Social status will determine the Earned Assets you accumulate during each Life Cycle, and also grants you a free skill roll and automatic Apprenticeship in a specific skill field.
Changing Social Status
Social status can change both during and after character creation. During character creation, different life events may increase or decrease your social status, and entry into and progression within factions is also likely to change your social status.
As an outcome of character creation, characters will have a net worth. Net worth can be liquidated for cash, which will lower your social status. Cash can also be invested in real property in order to increase net worth, and thereby potentially gain social status.
Apprenticeship Skill Field
As with their chosen species, each character also has access to Apprentice level training in a given skill field based on their social status, regardless of other pre-requisites. They also gain a free initial skill roll in this skill field. As each skill field offers a bonus to a derivative at the Apprentice level, this bonus is therefore gained automatically. Note that if your Apprenticeship skill field for your species and social status are the same (such as for a Rodian of SS6, for example), you will gain two free skill rolls, but will only receive the derivative bonus once (as you only become an Apprentice once).
SS 1 - Destitute
Being born into Social Status 1 means your character is destitute, and enters the world at the very bottom of the social order. You may be an orphan, abandoned to the care of any organization that will take you. You may be intentionally nomadic, or you may be a displaced person or a refugee, but in any case, you are homeless and poor, and your family - if you have one - is unemployed and broke.
SS 2 - Lower
Members of the Social Status 2 are typically peasants who work a plot of land in exchange for tenancy, or they are low skill or unskilled rural or urban workers. As a member of the lower class, your labour typically grants you food and shelter, but rarely earns actual pay. The kinds of work available to you are typically unpleasant; cleaning sewers or digging latrines, managing pests and vermin, gravedigging, or working in houses of debauchery.
SS 3 - Lower Middle
In rural areas, members of the Lower Middle Social Status are usually subsistance farmers who work a small familial plot of land. In urban areas, these are trade apprentices, or lower ranking civic workers such as guards, enlisted soldiers, or junior civil servants. In any case, existence at SS3 is tenuous; a bad harvest season can wipe out a rural family, or a poorly conceived conflict can send soldiers and militia forces to a bloody end.
SS 4 - Middle
In a pre-industrial society with a strong system of guilds, companies and similar organizations, the middle class can expand. In cities and towns, SS4 is comprised of companions in the trade guilds, junior officers in established militia or military orders, knowledge workers, and members of the clergy. In rural areas, these are small scale land-owners who are able to manage agricultural risk through diversification or through membership in a farming collective or guild.
SS 5 - Upper Middle
Guilds have the effect of stratifying an expanding middle class, creating the possibility for upward social mobility even within the middle range of society. With the increasing sophistication of trade and commerce, new roles emerge, including master tradespersons, mid-level officers in militias, or military orders, bureaucrats, and managers.
SS 6 - Upper
When guilds continue to expand in reach and power, large scale companies can form, giving rise to more sophisticated trade organization and blurring the line between those who come from 'old money' and those who have risen above even the top levels of the emerging middle class. Members of the Upper Social Status include the gentry, hereditary land-owners, lesser entitled nobility, and others who hold their wealth and power principally through heredity. Alongside these, there will also be senior military officers, elected and appointed officials, and directors of large companies and guilds.
SS 7 - Nobility
As with the Upper Social Status, the SS7 is not strictly confined to traditional nobility, as the heads of Great Houses, guilds, companies and organizations can rise in wealth and influence until their power matches or exceeds that of traditional nobles.