Ark-Born Stray

Born three thousand years out of date.

Born aboard an Earth ark ship that arrived in a Core system during the character's lifetime -- a generation ship, a sleeper-ark, or a hybrid, adrift for centuries and limping in to a Core world that has changed three times over. Raised on the ark: shipborn, ship-schooled, ship-bred, speaking old-Earth dialects and carrying old-Earth beliefs. The arrival was the crisis; the disembarkation was the dispersal. The Family that bought salvage rights on the ark took half the population as assets; the Confederation took the rest as wards; the Rim took whoever slipped through. The stray is whoever slipped through, or whoever walked out of the ward-programme, or whoever the Family sold and the buyer's buyer forgot. The leash is whoever held the claim on the ark; the debt is the ark itself, named in no ledger, claimed by every House.

Rules Reference

Field	Value
Archetype Combinations / Academic	Natural fit. The stray's old-Earth knowledge is real scholarship.
Archetype Combinations / Chaplain	Good fit. Old-Earth faiths are carried frozen on the arks.
Archetype Combinations / Face	Workable fit. Disembarkation bargaining is real Persuasion.
Archetype Combinations / Officer	Bad fit. Shipboard rank does not transfer cleanly.
Archetype Combinations / Operative	Workable fit. Ark-survivors learn fast, or they don't last.
Archetype Combinations / Psion	Workable fit. Ark-born psions are flagged late and loud; the Core's leash is waiting.
Archetype Combinations / Sawbones	Workable fit. Ark medicine is conservative and functional.
Archetype Combinations / Scout	Good fit. Closed-environment upbringing is a scout's childhood.
Archetype Combinations / Soldier	Awkward fit. The ark's defence cadre is not a military.
Background Trait / Cause	Because the ark brought them in, but the ark did not land them safely.
Background Trait / Name	Wrong-Century
Background Trait / Trigger	Passive; knowledge bonus and one structural displacement penalty.
Birthplace	earth-ark-ship
Pipeline	ark-arrival-survivor
Starting Kadiss Tier	1
Starting Rek	150
Verse Anchor	Ark-Born Stray

Notes

Background Trait / Effect: +4 bonus to Lore checks about old-Earth history, shipboard culture, the ark diaspora, and pre-Fold technology (this is the ark's lived memory). +2 bonus to Insight checks performed on Ark-arrival events and the political crisis surrounding them (the stray lived through one). However, the character's social and procedural understanding of current Confederation, Family, and Rim culture is dated or partial; any Persuasion, Bureaucracy, or Deception check performed against a long-settled citizen of the current era is made at -2 (the stray is out of phase, a century behind the slang). The character is registered in Ark-Arrival intake records; whichever House or programme holds the claim can recall them at GM discretion.

Social Hook: The stray knows what three thousand years in the dark tastes like and what the disembarkation bay looked like when the families started buying. They can read an old-Earth print, splice a closed-environment alarm, and tell a Helix from a Lao by the cut of the logo. They owe the ark the rest of the family they lost on the way in, and they owe whichever House bought the claim the rest of their life.

Starting Gear: Ark-disembarkation tag (Confed-issued, intake-programme marker; one-time claim on Confed refugee assistance per system), Old-Earth clothing (ill-fitting for the era, often re-tailored), Hand-me-down weapon (often a museum-piece by Core standards, but functional), One reload, Datapad (if any; many strays carry an ark-blessed slate or paper-book instead), Rek chip with starting balance of 150 (intake-programme allocation, mostly spent), Three days' field rations (Lao-printed, unfamiliar), A personal ark-relic (a print, a chip, a stone from the ark's garden; -1 Disadvantage to Persuasion by any ark-survivor who recognises the kind), A single contact's name from the disembarkation intake (one sympathetic worker, one fixer, or one survivor-friend; one favour per story)

Trained Skills

Skill	Ranks	Note
Insight	2	Reading the moment of disembarkation, the claim, the sell.
Persuasion	1	The stray learned to ask for things in a strange tongue.
Survival	2	Closed-environment upbringing; shipboard emergencies.
SKILL-KNOWLEDGE-HISTORY	2	Old-Earth dialects, dead customs, the ark's records.