Nomads in space, Spacers (also known as astroid miners, belt miners, miners, or just ‘belters’), have spent most of their lives mining astroids, gas planets, and other, more exotic resources. They usually make money by taking work for clients doing jobs that are too high-risk for local work forces; these jobs can run from days to years. This, combined with their time in space, has forever shaped a culture of self-reliance, fierce independence, and more than a little xenophobia. Spacers can be loners, but more often they tend to organize themselves in clans. These tend to be related through blood, although this is not necessarily the case - “found” families are quite prevalent, brought together through shared experiences. Clan structure itself is a form of Neo-primitivism, with leadership residing in a council of elders; the rest of the clan formed by, and bound to, the functions of the ships and space stations they inhabit. While honor and dignity are the ideals they live up to, there is more than one scoundrel whose only real goal in life is to set themselves up in riches and comfort. Spacers that set out on adventure can be supported by kin, or, as often, rejected. Either way, Spacers know their own, and tend to help out their folk when in trouble.

Skill Proficiencies: Astrophysics, survival

Tool Proficiencies: Mining equipment 

Languages: Galactic Standard, Spacer Speak, one of choice. 

Equipment: One old vacc suit, worn but functional mining equipment, one weapon of choice, a clan emblem of some sort (a tattoo, a piece of jewelry, a fetish are examples) and not much more. 

Suggested Characteristics

Spacers use the standard attribute and characteristics modifiers for whatever species they are. However, a life time of living in space has taken its toll on them, and reflects in real, if mostly cosmetic changes. Due to a a life often lived in 0g, Spacers tend to have 5-10% less body mass than their species standard, and 5-10% taller. Their skin skews lighter, and their skin more splotchy. Poorer clans may have a reduction in expected life span thanks to faulty engine and cosmic ray shielding. 

Role playing tips: The Spacer background is very much built off the idea of Niell Blomkamp movies (District 9, Elysium, Chappie); The Expanse (belters and the OPA); Corvus Belli’s Infinity (Nomads, specifically Corregidor Comand); and whoever the heck those space hippies were on the space station at the end of the book Neuromancer (its been too damn long, I can’t remember anything about that book, other than the space hippies). When playing your Spacer, affect an accent: Afrikaner if possible, but Caribbean, Romanian, Russian, German, Eastern European, or even Greek will do. Try to imagine, you’ve spent your entire life in space, going from job to job. For you, ending up on a planet is most people’s equivalent of going to outer space! 

d8	Personality Trait
1	I am consider myself a shaman of my clan; I am always calm and exude a zen-like confidence
2	I am gregarious and outgoing. There is nothing better than meeting new people; the more exotic the species the better!
3	The tools of my trade are holy to me. I covet and obsessively maintain them.
4	Whenever I enter a new situation, I am always looking to see where the exit points (both figurative and literal) are.
5	I am an intensely quiet and reserved individual, keeping my mind on my duties and always on the lookout for the next job
6	Although I work hard on my current job, my mind is elsewhere; I have a decidedly non-Spacer passion, like art or finance
7	I run games of chance in the mess and keep a distillery in my quarters
8	My role in the clan has a non-mining bent; I work in life support tending crops or sick bay as a doctor or some such

d8	Ideal
1	I am convinced that there is a Big Score out there, and I am going to find and mine it
2	As an agent of your clan, you keep an eye on intergalactic events and, as necessary, intervene in going’s on
3	A key piece of tech was lost by my ancestors. I have a line where it might be, and I am going to find and return it.
4	I have a powerful case of wanderlust, and I will not stop traveling until I have seen one end of the galaxy to the other
5	I am from a poor clan, and I am determined to keep them off the drift, whether through hard work or adventuring
6	The clients your clan work for simply have too much wealth; you aim to relieve them of some of it
7	Clan leadership has become feeble of late. You are sure you could do a better job, you only need to prove yourself amongst the stars first
8	A clan ship disappeared some time ago. You are on a mission to investigate what happened to them

d8	Flaw
1	I drink away the pain of this hard life
2	I harbor a secret disdain for Spacers and their culture
3	I am extremely xenophobic and consider all non-spacers as trash
4	After a lifetime on ships and space stations, I suffer from agoraphobia - a fear of open spaces
5	Money is a safety net to the pit falls of this existence, and I obsessively horde all I can
6	I shamed my clan and am on the run from them, my past, or both
7	I am afraid that I am not good enough to live up to other Spacers expectations of me
8	I have a deep distrust of any technology that I can not fix myself, including AIs and robots