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Nicely done. As another reviewer said, it does exactly what it says on the tin. The character backgrounds offer variety and interest if you have a Bronze Age setting and you want some historical accuracy.
I'm glad to see the author is a Bronze Age expert. The introduction gives you a few pages of overview for a Bronze Age setting, plus a list of recommended books where you can find out more.
Even though it aims for historical realism, there's nothing stopping you from putting a fantasy spin on things.
There are four groups (broad categories) of character backgrounds consisting of six roles each, for a total of 24 roles. A nice touch is that you get four ways to roll up results:
- Diverse d6 by group: roll d4 to chooose the group then d6 to choose the role within the group. All roles have equal probability.
- Weighted d10 by group: d4 for the group, then d10 approximately matching the historical frequency of a role within the group.
- Diverse d100, no groups: d100 almost evenly distributed across all 24 roles.
- Weighted d100, no groups: d100 distributed across all 24 roles according to approximate historical frequency.
Each background gets a paragraph telling you how that role works in a Bronze Age setting. I had never heard of the "Speaker at the Gate" concept before. The brief description is enough to work with, but I'd probably want to dig into one of the books listed in the introduction to find out more. The other roles were conceptually familiar, but it was good to see the descriptions telling you what they were like in the Bronze Age that might not be what they're like in other eras.
Most of the backgrounds include a tweak or two for your character, such as additional equipment or a bonus to a characteristic.
Each background drills down further. Most of them have a d4 list in response to "Tell us about this background." The exception is the Artisan/Skilled Laborer, which rolls against a d12 list (twice) for craft specializations. This additional info gives you a subtype for your role. Your charioteer might have been a charioteer/archer, for example, or if you're a foot soldier, you might have been a skirmisher in particular. It's almost like having 96 roles instead of 24.
Another nice touch is that each background also gives you a d4 list of responses to "Tell us why you left." In fact, you could use a lot these for other settings as well. How come you're off adventuring when you had a day job? These lists answer that question with plausible, creative stories described in a sentence or two or three. Maybe your manual laborer ran off to join a bandit gang. Maybe your caravan member fled after being accused of spying. You're left to flesh out any details (How's that gang working out? Are you really a spy?). You could start adding your own variations to these stories, such as using the bandit gang story for some other role, or choosing a different crime in the accusation story.
The extra benefit of these "why you left" stories is that they offer continuing adventure material, such as recurring NPCs, places where you're especially safe or especially at risk, or on-going personal quests.
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