Primary Skills: Housekeeping (IQ/E), Savoir-Faire - Servant.
Secondary Skills: Filching, Merchant.
Tertiary Skills: Scrounging,
Primary skills: Animal Handling - Equines, Armoury (two specializations:
Body Armour and Melee weapons), First Aid, Melee Weapon skills, Observation,
Packing, Riding - Horse.
Secondary skills: Knot Tying, Merchant, Scrounging.
Servants do for the upper classes what most people do for themselves. They run errands, buy and prepare food, clean and repair clothing, and dress and undress their masters.
Servants are drawn from the ranks of the poor, and remain there (except those able to advance to the rank of valet or otherwise learn a skilled profession). Often they are men without inheritance whose fathers cannot afford to set them up for another business, or women whose fathers cannot afford to marry them off. Some servants are able to save up money over the years and leave servitude, but most are not.
While the nobility could scarcely function without their servants, they universally deplore the baseness, greed, insubordination and laziness of such servants as they have.
Servants are estateless, and low-status to boot (Status -2). Often, they are paid naught apart from what they can filch or embezzle. They do however get food, often scraps from their masters' tables - which is incidentially far better food than most of their social equal, and even superiors, eat. They also get somewhere to sleep, in their master's home.
A shield bearer's main duties in combat are to keep his knight supplied with shields, horses and lances, to watch his master's back, and to keep from getting killed in the process. A shield bearer may also guard the baggage (including shields, horses and lances) and any prisoners his master has taken.
Out of combat, the shield bearer takes care of his master's arms and armour, helps his master get into and out of armour, and grooms and saddles the horses.
A valet is a well trained servant. . In addition to being a skilled and well behaved servant, he is a gentleman's gentleman. He knows how one should conduct oneself in high society, and is knowledgable about who is who and what the better people are doing.
A valet is a great resource for any gentleman, especially for a young and inexperienced one. A good valet is able to guide his master and ameillorate any mishaps he may have. A valet (Status 0) is much better regarded than a common servant, and may have a good Reputation among servants or nobles (small groups).
Some valets pick up the skills by osmosis, paying close attention to their betters. More often, a valet is trained by an other valet. There is also a school for valets in the Cargan empire - in the Free Kingdoms, having a Cargan-schooled valet is considered a mark of status, but also slightly ostentatious.
The highest advancement possible for a valet is to become a chamberlain.
Primary Skills: Housekeeping (IQ/E), Savoir Faire - High Society,
Savoir-Faire - Servant;
Secondary Skills: Cooking, Current Affairs - People, Diplomacy, Filching,
Heraldry, Merchant, Scrounging
Tertiary Skills: Conoisseur, Fast-Talk, Observation, Pickpocket.