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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Redthistle" data-source="post: 6677977" data-attributes="member: 6778305">When I think "monk", I think "monastery". In terms of sustaining itself, a monastery will be able to provide some things by their own labor, but for other necessities will have to have some kind of economic relationship with the surrounding community, and will therefore need to provide something of value to that community. Individuals within the monastic collective will have some responsibilities in common, but will otherwise fill niches to provide the various and sundry essentials the residents need. The less interaction with non-monastics, the more self-sufficient the monastery must be. Different monasteries may have different specialties; craft work such as brewing, wine-making, making stained glass and/or glass-blowing, herbal remedies, baking bread, etc. More isolated monasteries will likely be more impoverished; the hard-scrabble life sometimes requiring a McGyver-esque level of making-do with very little. A monastery will also have some relationship with the local political structure, whether supportive or conflicted, that can affect a monk PC's diplomatic/insightful social awareness and perspective.Why did the PC become a monk? Was the monk abandoned at the door of the monastery as a infant? Was it a personal choice at some time in the character's life, whether as a youth caught up in an idealistic religious passion, or as a more mature individual, weary of war, such as Ellis Peter's Brother Cadfael, who took monastic vows after a score of years fighting in the Crusades? Maybe it was coerced: think of "Get thee to a nunnery!" from Shakespeare's Hamlet.As one of those RPGers that is almost obsessive-compulsive about creating new PCs, I've created a few monks where I've included backstory information about what that PC's role was within the monastery, using the PC's selected skills as a starting point.To answer the OP question, what general knowledge niche might monks lay claim to? I'd give monks a sense of at least one line of endeavor from the Guild Artisan list linkable to one of the monk's proficient skills; a practical understanding of mundane aspects of farming, cooking, food-preservation, and the like, and mending clothes, without necessarily being proficient in any of them. Also, because of the make-do existence of monastic life, anytime the adventuring party is confronted with a need to construct a simple item, i.e., something like a raft or rope-bridge, a monk will at the least be able to competently assist.</blockquote>

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