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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Surgoshan" data-source="post: 4099033" data-attributes="member: 61205">In any population that gets above hunter-gatherer population levels there's going to be specialization.  Medieval level farming centers were productive enough to support quite large population centers, meaning that there would be groups of natives dedicated to the tasks of accumulation of knowledge, of martial defense, of healing, of farming, and etc.In fact, feudal structures often served to foster such, while at the same time hindering it by making status hereditary.  For example, in England (arguably the one place where feudal structure led to strengthening of the central state rather than increasing fragmentation, as in France and Germany) military duties were parceled out based on land.  Land-holders owning, say, 10X units of land would be required to equip and send forth 10 soldiers (later they were required to send out 10 soldiers-worth of money; taxation!), while peasants owning a fraction of X would be grouped together and the group would have to equip and send forth a single soldier.  He would be trained and whatnot and would become the only individual to be sent forth on the many military expeditions because he already knew his crap and was less likely to die.  In the end, such individuals became, effectively, very minor nobility. If you expand that concept into the D&D realm, you can get a variety of backgrounds.  Your character comes from a large enough community that they have that degree of specialization and, hence, he has a great deal of combat prowess and the like, but very little ability as a farmer.  A youth manifesting magical talent could have been made part of the community's mage brigade or what have you.  Or he spent most of his time hunting, which entailed a lot of fighting for his life because the woods in POL are damn dangerous.  Or you could have your character come from a much smaller community where specialization didn't happen so much, and that explains why he was a farmer but also spent a lot of time fighting off goblin raids.</blockquote>

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