Death leaves its mark on the world around it. Cold spots, places where the light seems too pale, the colors washed out and faded. Sometimes, something seeps into the items surrounding a death in such a way that it taints them forever. The fainting couch in a Victorian serial killer’s parlor, or the portrait that hung on the wall of his abattoir, for example. The blackened wood floorboards at uncle Vittorio’s estate, reclaimed from a plague ship lit aflame to cleanse its still-living passengers. Books wrapped in the flesh of the monk who inscribed them, carved from his still living body, and bound by him in his last moments of life. But the most common mementos of death are murder weapons. The scalpels of serial killers and the sabers of war criminals. Bludgeons and .38 Bulldogs, nooses and punchbowls. The more death that has drenched the item, the more power it absorbs.

This Background gives you one or more of these mementos of death, allowing you to benefit from the ambient energies when using Necromancy. You must have the relic (or relics) with you to receive the bonus. Many necromancers have a special sanctum set aside for their ritual work for this reason.

• You have one minor relic. +1 bonus die to Necromancy rolls.

•• You have a relic of middling power or two minor ones. +2 bonus dice to Necromancy rolls.

••• You have a few reasonably powerful relics. +3 bonus dice to Necromancy rolls.

•••• You have a very powerful relic, or a couple of less powerful items. +4 bonus dice to Necromancy rolls.

••••• You have an incredibly powerful relic, or a couple of powerful items. +5 bonus dice to Necromancy rolls.