From publisher blurb:
In a world of towering megacities, corporate overlords, and digital shadows, every character has a story—a past that shaped them long before they became who they are today. The backgrounds in this supplement provide a foundation for characters living in a cyberpunk world, helping players define their history, skills, and connections before they step onto the streets.
What Are Backgrounds?
Backgrounds represent your character’s past profession, lifestyle, or personal history before they became entangled in the larger events of the game. Each background provides skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, equipment, and a unique feature that reflects knowledge, experience, or social ties. These mechanics allow players to further personalize their characters, offering roleplaying depth as well as tangible benefits.
Using These Backgrounds in Your Game
This supplement replaces traditional backgrounds with cyberpunk-flavored alternatives suited for a world of neon-lit skylines, underground hacking networks, and corporate espionage. Whether your character was a corporate drone struggling under a megacorp’s control, a street racer thriving in high-speed illegal circuits, or a paramedic patching up cybernetically enhanced mercenaries, these backgrounds help bring the setting to life.
While backgrounds offer mechanical benefits, they are also a storytelling tool. Each background provides hooks for your character’s past, including contacts, enemies, and knowledge of the world. Your background might introduce allies who can help—or former employers who want you silenced.
Customization & Integration
While each background is designed for a cyberpunk setting, they can be adapted to fit other high-tech or dystopian worlds. Game Masters may modify features to better suit their campaign’s specific themes, or allow players to customize details to reflect their unique experiences.
These backgrounds are designed for use in 5E-based cyberpunk campaigns and integrate seamlessly with existing character creation rules. They are meant to be used alongside other core mechanics, offering new possibilities for storytelling, skill checks, and roleplaying interactions.
Step into the Cyberpunk World
Your past is the foundation of your future. Whether you were a hacker, a dock worker, or a media influencer, the choices you made before stepping into the game world still affect you today. What secrets did you uncover? Who do you still owe favors to? And how will your past shape the future you're about to create?
Welcome to the neon streets. Your story starts here.
This is a booklet of 30 backgrounds to replace the ones from the core rulebooks, but aimed towards a Cyberpunk setting.