Backgrounds

Features:

As an acolyte, you command the respect of those who share your faith, and you can perform the religious ceremonies of your deity. You and your adventuring companions can expect to receive free healing and care at a temple, shrine, or other established presence of your faith, though you must provide any material components needed for spells. Those who share your religion will support you (but only you) at a modest lifestyle.

You might also have ties to a specific temple dedicated to your chosen deity or pantheon, and you have a residence there. This could be the temple where you used to serve, if you remain on good terms with it, or a temple where you have found a new home. While near your temple, you can call upon the priests for assistance, provided the assistance you ask for is not hazardous and you remain in good standing with your temple.

Features:

A favorite scheme, such as cheating at games, forging documents, swindling people or families, adopt new identities, use sleight of hands on the streets, or convince people to buy worthless items.

You have created a second identity that includes documentation, established acquaintances, and disguises that allow you to assume that persona. Additionally, you can forge documents including official papers and personal letters, as long as you have seen an example of the kind of document or the handwriting you are trying to copy.

Features:

Criminal specialty such as blackmailer, burglar, enforcer, fence, highway robber, hired killer, pickpocket, or smuggler.

You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you.

Features:

You have a performance routine such as actor, dancer, fire-eater, jester, juggler, instrumentalist, poet, singer, storyteller, or tumbler.

You can always find a place to perform, usually in an inn or tavern but possibly with a circus, at a theater, or even in a noble's court. At such a place, you receive free lodging and food of a modest or comfortable standard (depending on the quality of the establishment), as long as you perform each night. In addition, your performance makes you something of a local figure. When strangers recognize you in a town where you have performed, they typically take a liking to you.

Features:

You have a defining event that made you famous such as: standing up to a tyrant, saving people from a natural disaster, stood against a monster, stole to help the poor, led a defense against an army, broke into a castle to arm your people, trained peasants to become soldiers, protested a decree that was then rescinded, a fey blessed you or revealed your secret origin, or was recruited into an army where you were commended

Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

Features:

You have a particular business from one of the many guilds or professions, see list. As a member of your guild, you know the skills needed to create finished items from raw materials (reflected in your proficiency with a certain kind of artisan's tools), as well as the principles of trade and good business practices. The question now is whether you abandon your trade for adventure, or take on the extra effort to weave adventuring and trade together.

As an established and respected member of a guild, you can rely on certain benefits that membership provides. Your fellow guild members will provide you with lodging and food if necessary, and pay for your funeral if needed. In some cities and towns, a guildhall offers a central place to meet other members of your profession, which can be a good place to meet potential patrons, allies, or hirelings.

Guilds often wield tremendous political power. If you are accused of a crime, your guild will support you if a good case can be made for your innocence or the crime is justifiable. You can also gain access to powerful political figures through the guild, if you are a member in good standing. Such connections might require the donation of money or magic items to the guild's coffers.

You must pay dues of 5 gp per month to the guild. If you miss payments, you must make up back dues to remain in the guild's good graces.

Features:

You have led a life of seclusion to either find spiritual enlightenment, partake in communal living by religious order, exiled for a crime you didn't commit, retreat from society after a life-altering event, work on your art, commune with nature, guard an ancient relic, or search for a place of spiritual significance.

The quiet seclusion of your extended hermitage gave you access to a unique and powerful discovery. The exact nature of this revelation depends on the nature of your seclusion. It might be a great truth about the cosmos, the deities, the powerful beings of the outer planes, or the forces of nature. It could be a site that no one else has ever seen. You might have uncovered a fact that has long been forgotten, or unearthed some relic of the past that could rewrite history. It might be information that would be damaging to the people who or consigned you to exile, and hence the reason for your return to society.

Features:

Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.

Features:

You have been to strange places due to your life as a forester, trapper, homesteader, guide, exile, bounty hunter, pilgrim, nomad, hunter-gatherer, or marauder.

You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.

Features:

You have an intellectual specialty such as alchemist, astronomer, discredited academic, librarian, professor, researcher, wizard's apprentice, or scribe.

When you attempt to learn or recall a piece of lore, if you do not know that information, you often know where and from whom you can obtain it. Usually, this information comes from a library, scriptorium, university, or a sage or other learned person or creature. Your DM might rule that the knowledge you seek is secreted away in an almost inaccessible place, or that it simply cannot be found. Unearthing the deepest secrets of the multiverse can require an adventure or even a whole campaign.

Features:

When you need to, you can secure free passage on a sailing ship for yourself and your adventuring companions. You might sail on the ship you served on, or another ship you have good relations with (perhaps one captained by a former crewmate). Because you're calling in a favor, you can't be certain of a schedule or route that will meet your every need. Your DM will determine how long it takes to get where you need to go. In return for your free passage, you and your companions are expected to assist the crew during the voyage.

Features:

You had a specific role in the army, such as an officer, scout, infantry, cavalry, healer, quartermaster, standard bearer, or support staff.

You have a military rank from your career as a soldier. Soldiers loyal to your former military organization still recognize your authority and influence, and they defer to you if they are of a lower rank. You can invoke your rank to exert influence over other soldiers and requisition simple equipment or horses for temporary use. You can also usually gain access to friendly military encampments and fortresses where your rank is recognized.

Features:

You know the secret patterns and flow to cities and can find passages through the urban sprawl that others would miss. When you are not in combat, you (and companions you lead) can travel between any two locations in the city twice as fast as your speed would normally allow.

Features:

As a worker, you're used to using the servant's entrance. If you've worked at a particular site, you can readily find alternate ways in, a back door, or other less-visible entrance. You also have a vulgar rapport with other workers, allowing you to obtain useful gossip.

You also have a good sense of buildings, such as layout, features, or material.

Features:

You dwell on an injustice you witnessed, this might be: an innocent person imprisoned, a criminal who went free, a partner who died, a coworker who is corrupt, a law you don't like enforcing, your own forced retirement, an antagonistic superior, or a rookie who made all the wrong mistakes.

Whether you are still with the force or not, you exude an authority that may allow you to enter someone's home, investigate a crime scene, arrest a suspected criminal, or even seize evidence. However, if it turns out you didn't have a good reason, it could be far worse for you.

Features:

Every detective has a few cases they just couldn't solve. You have one that eats at you to this day. It might have been a murder, a theft, a disappearance, a cryptic message, a lost treasure, or a mysterious stranger.

You are good at digging for information. If you don't know a particular piece of information, you can usually find out where best to look for that piece of information, or who best to ask for it.

Features:

There's a good reason you left Faeland, perhaps you are exiled by one of the courts, lost a wager, disillusioned with other fey, sent to retrieve something from Blimnor, felt a strong wanderlust that hasn't subsided, kidnapped by a Blimnorian explorer.

You have a precious memento from home that you will keep close to you at all times, and will certainly turn violent and devious should it be stolen or damaged.

Features:

You have real parents somewhere in Blimnor. You may have very little memory of them if you were taken when you were very young. You seem to remember that they may have been humble country folk, wealthy industrialists, nobility, nomadic wanderers, poor peasants, or intrepid explorers.

You also have a Fey Parent. They may or may not have been the one to kidnap you. They may be very sweet and attentive, cruel and petty, or even entirely ambivalent to you. However, should you think of going back to Blimnor, they will go to great lengths to prevent you, and if you escape, then they will be relentless in their mission to bring you back.

Features:

People seem eager for the remarkable ability for photographs to capture wonderous sights exactly as they appear, or for its ability to provide an unadulterated self-portrait, and may even pay handsomely for them. As a habit and a way of earning money, you take photographs wherever you go.

You were compelled to explore the world of magic when one of your photographs astonished you by revealed a fey crossing, a surprised fairy, a wandering spirit, an invisible creature, a brief image of yourself holding a camera, a message you could not read, or a looming shadow where none should be.

Features:

You know the secret patterns and flow to cities and can find shortcuts through the street traffic that others would miss. When you are not in combat, you (and companions you drive) can travel between any two locations in the city twice as fast as your speed would normally allow.

Features:

There is a particular injustice you fight against, which depends on the place. It could be gender inequality, labor laws, racial prejudice, exploited classes, tyrannical rulers, or corruption.

You know how to make a scene and can find it easy to rally locals to protest their outrage and even escalate to a mob. You also find it a convenient chaos to quietly make yourself scarce.

Features:

Nearly any important social event you can gain an invitation to, as well as at least one guest. And if you already know any of the hosts of the event, then you are probably already invited anyway.

Even if it doesn't reflect your personality as a whole, you do have a particular reputation at parties, and feel obliged to stick to that role. You may be a notorious flirt, a matchmaker, a drunkard, a philanthropist, a fashionista, a patron of the arts, an intellectual, a travel logger, new money, or a scandal magnet.

Features:

You have a second chance at life after you were convicted for a magical crime. While this incident may leave you scarred and uncertain, it at least has been removed from your criminal record.

Unfortunately, what was also removed was any memory of the crime you were supposed to have committed, to prevent you from attempting it again. Along with that memory, you may have lost a few others. It may be a person you knew, a place you lived at, a profession you practiced, a phrase you liked, a thing you did, or even a day that was important to you.

You cannot cast spells.

Features:

You specialize in a particular area of the body, whether it's the brain, the skeleton, the muscles, the blood, the organs, the eyes, the skin, or the mouth.

You are well-regarded in large settlements, and can often obtain material components or other medicinal ingredients at a discount.

Features:

Electrical systems are expensive and temperamental. As a result, electricians are in high demand and well-payed. Nearly any place with an outstanding electrical problem will be eager have you fix the problem, and will pay generously. While this means you can often gain entrance to many places reserved for authorized personnel, you are often still observed, and even hounded with curiosity about how everything works.