San Antonio by Night: Backgrounds

There are a few new backgrounds and notes on existing backgrounds:

Contacts
Contacts are a great thing to have. Identifying influential people is a key ability of contacts. Contacts can also be a great source of rumors. Contacts should be described in detail. A suggestion to me might call up an NPC I have already detailed.

Influences
San Antonio is pretty self-contained. It operated one of the few successful international airports in Texas but its exports have diminished significantly with the loss of so many suburbs. Influence is not a sliding scale. Instead, there will be defined influences at a set rate. For example, many official police duties have been delegated to the sheriff, so instead of a 5, they are only a 3. You may not buy police 1, you must buy police 3 in order to access police influence. Using this influence is free once per game, subsequent uses will require a successful social roll to convince them to help you again. Bribery often makes these attempts easier, allowing you to add your resources to the roll. Here is the link to the current list of influences. If there is something you want, that I don't have on this list already let me know.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17iFc3WmTp4TJzX8VRC695Qe7HX95yEgFa2t6Y5h5LqU/edit?hl=en_US

I want to make sure we are on the same page here, and having influence over one of these doesn't eliminate the possibility that others will use this resource too.

Equipment
Equipment background represents the amount of gear you can acquire or create for yourself. (You must purchase a minimum of Equipment 1 in order to play in this game.)

1. Make custom ammunition. Already have paperwork for legal weapons & armor.
   
2. Acquire illegal weapons and standard military gear on the black market.
   
3. Have a simple enchanted item w/o knowing enchantment.
   
4. Acquire expensive or hard to find combat gear.
   
5. Make explosives safely.

Resources
(You must purchase a minimum of Resources 2 in order to play in this game.)

Privilege
Privilege represents the perks of society that you enjoy. They might be inherited, or they might be granted by the government. Individuals who object violently to you exercising these privileges may be arrested. (You must purchase Privilege 4 in order to play in this game. This privilege applies only in San Antonio. You must purchase it separately for any location outside of San Antonio.)

1. You may monetarily damage individuals in the course of your duties.
   
2. You may inconvenience or detain people in public in the course of your duties.
   
3. You may intrude onto private property in the course of your duties.
   
4. You may arrest, break into or injure obstacles that bar you from your duties.
   
5. You may break the law with impunity in the pursuit of your duties.

Rotes
For each point of Rotes, a sorcerer may have one active ritual that they prepared in advance. The ritual may not be of a higher level than the requisite path. You may learn additional rituals at the flat rate of 3 XP, but during any given session, only your rote number will be available. (Rotes must be purchased separately for 3 freebies.)

Mana
For each point of Mana, the sorcerer has a stronger energy source through which to power their spells. In order to make extended rolls, a sorcerer MUST have access to mana. Mana often resides in objects, which crumble to dust when used in this way. If you have a Mana pool, you will wake each morning with this energy restored by the rising sun. (It is strongly recommended that any sorcerer that does not take any ranks of Mana develop the Mana Manipulation path.)

Composure
Sorcerers require superior poise to manipulate the fabric of reality. Their composure background represents this calm, focus or sense of purpose. When casting a spell without using mana, sorcerers add their composure rating to their successes. This can result in some stellar results. If your spell is simple enough that your composure is can cover all the aspects of the spell you want covered, you needn't even roll. (For this game, no starting character will have a composure higher than 2.)

Losing and Gaining Backgrounds
I feel that backgrounds are an alternative reward to XP. Therefore you may not purchase backgrounds using XP. Backgrounds are increased or lost through roleplay and must be actively pursued in order to change. The level of the background will correlate closely to the time spent pursuing said background. Alternatively, stellar RP may be rewarded with temporary increases in backgrounds.