Rim Salvager
Born on a Rim rock.
Born on a Rim outpost, a clan dock, or a free-port Station -- a child of the salvage yards and the unlicensed Cores. Schooled in the field: crawling hulks, cutting plates, reading Derelict air, sorting the valuable from the cursed. Crewed with a salvage outfit (Drift Logistics, a clan outfit, a small partnership) from adolescence. They leave by ship loss, contract dispute, clan feud, or by being declared unlucky (the Fold touched the last haul). The leash is the outfit's captain; the debt is whatever the last invoice didn't pay.
Rules Reference
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Archetype Combinations / Academic | Awkward fit. The salvager knows hulls, not books. |
| Archetype Combinations / Chaplain | Awkward fit. The Fold breeds folk-belief, not chaplains. |
| Archetype Combinations / Face | Workable fit. Free-port haggling is real Persuasion. |
| Archetype Combinations / Operative | Good fit. Infiltration and salvage overlap. |
| Archetype Combinations / Pilot | Good fit. System-drive is the everyday; some salvagers are pilots first. |
| Archetype Combinations / Psion | Awkward fit. A psion in the salvage crew is a beacon, not a blessing. |
| Archetype Combinations / Sawbones | Workable fit. Field-medic training is patchy but essential. |
| Archetype Combinations / Scout | Natural fit. The salvager is the scout's outer rim. |
| Archetype Combinations / Soldier | Good fit. Hulk-crawl combat is real soldiering. |
| Background Trait / Cause | Because salvage is the Rim's honest economy, and the Fold touches the honest work. |
| Background Trait / Name | Hulk-Rat |
| Background Trait / Trigger | Passive; environment bonus and one structural hazard. |
| Birthplace | rim-outpost |
| Pipeline | rim-salvage-crew |
| Starting Kadiss Tier | 1 |
| Starting Rek | 400 |
| Verse Anchor | Rim Salvager |
Notes
Background Trait / Effect: +4 bonus to Knowledge or Perception checks performed inside derelicts, hulks, and abandoned stations (pattern recognition is lifelong). +2 bonus to Survival checks in vacuum, hard vacuum, and unbreathable atmospheres. However, the character's last ship sailed Fold-touched space; once per story, when the character encounters an unexplained Fold phenomenon (a ghost-derelict, an unlicensed beacon, a silent distress signal), the GM may invoke a flashback or a haunt -- the character makes a Will save (DC 13) or take -2 to all checks for the remainder of the scene (the Fold remembers what crawled through it).
Social Hook: The salvager has crawled the dead, sorted the cursed from the cash, and lived by the smell of stale air. They can read a derelict from the inside, splice a hull plate, and tell an Akraan ruin from a Helix dump by the cuts on the metal. They owe their last outfit a commission and a few ghosts.
Starting Gear: Personal datapad (loose-grid, Drift Logistics firmware if corporate; clan-mark if clan), Multitool (hull-grade, plasma cutter included), Vac-rated work suit (one-piece, helmet separate), Personal sidearm (hive-make or clan-forged, often a hold-out), Two reloads, Rek chip with starting balance of 400, Three days' field rations (Rim pressed), A small piece of salvage the character kept (a relic, an aug-fragment, an Akraan trinket; sells for 100 rek in the right port), Outfit ID tag (Drift Logistics, clan-mark, or partnership chop; one favour per story from a former crewmate)