Spacefarer Personalities (CSH)

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Not every fighter is dedicated to slaughter. Not every thief steals from everyone he meets. Not every priest is a proselytizer. Not every mage lusts for higher power. Real characters have personalities beyond the constraints of their class and kit, giving a deeper perspective to who the character really is and what makes that character tick.
This chapter describes four new personality types, each of which can provide you with a new perspective on your character. These character types are totally optional and do not affect any rules.
Personalities are not like kits, which provide characters with special abilities. Instead, they are points of view which any character can adopt. They represent the motivation for the character: why the character participates in adventures, and what is really important to him.
To help you understand the personalities, we have divided each of them into four major sections:
Character Description: This section describes the personality in general terms. It tells what the character thinks, and how the character feels.
Best Suited For: This section lists the character classes, kits, and alignments which are most appropriate for the personality type. These are not requirements, but rather guidelines; there is no reason that your character cannot do something other than what this paragraph says. However, this information is here to help you, and you should probably have a good reason for playing a character outside these boundaries with this personality.
In Combat Situations: This section tells how the character behaves in combat. It explains what kind of tactics appeal to the personality, how the character perceives himself as a combatant, and what kinds of beings the character views as enemies.
In Role-Playing Situations: This section tells how the character behaves outside of combat. It describes how he views NPCs and how NPCs view him. This section is also a guideline to how to role-play the personality; there is no rule that says a Carefree Wanderer must always be flip.
==The Carefree Wanderer==
Character Description: The Carefree Wanderer is a happy-go-lucky wayfarer. He travels from place to place to experience life, never putting down roots or staying in one place long. To a Carefree Wanderer, all bills are paid when the ship leaves.
The Carefree Wanderer need not be uncaring. While in a place or with a group, he may do selfless things to aid them and may go out of his way to try to leave things better than he found them. However, the day will come when it is time for him to move on, and he will not look back.
Best Suited For: Carefree Wanderers tend to be neutral or chaotic, though they may be good or evil. Lawful behavior would force the Carefree Wanderer to accept long-term obligations for the people he meets, and he simply will not do so.
Any character may be a Carefree Wanderer. However, mages do not generally live such carefree lives, because they need to gather spells as they advance. Many faiths are tolerant of Carefree Wanderer priests, notably the faiths of Arts, Crafts, Darkness/ Night, Death, Disease, Divinity of Mankind, Elemental Forces, Evil, Fate/Destiny, Fortune/Luck, Good, Healing, Life-Death-Rebirth Cycle, Lightning, Literature/Poetry, Love, Magic, Mischief/Trickery, Music/Dance, Nature, Sky/Weather, Strength, Sun, Thunder, Time, Trade, Wind, and Wisdom.
In Combat Situations: Carefree Wanderers are often quite skilled in combat. Their individual lifestyles force them to be able to defend themselves. They may not cooperate well in complex tactical situations, however, and can often be found employing stratagems of their own.
In Role-Playing Situations: The Carefree Wanderer may be perceived as flighty and uncaring, but conversation reveals that he can care deeply about the people he is with. He will often adopt their desires and dreams as his own, at least until it is time for him to move on.
==The Compromiser==
Character Description: The Compromiser is a superb negotiator, dedicated to preserving harmony and good relation among his companions. He is a skilled negotiator and is usually able to see all sides of a question.
The Compromiser need not be the party leader in order to function. He can step in when disputes arise within the party to sort out problems without pushing his own ideas as the best solution.
Best Suited For: Compromisers tend to be lawful. They desire harmony within their group and prefer majority rule or compromise to individualism. Mages and warriors make the best Compromisers. They can hold the respect of the other team mem-bers while maintaining their distance from the dispute most easily.
In Combat Situations: While the Compromiser may not be the most physically or magically capable character, he is able to find ways to use all the skills of the party for success. A Compromiser's plans allow each person to do what he or she does best, and enjoys doing the most, without giving anyone an unnecessarily dangerous or limited role.
In Role-Playing Situations: Compromisers are excellent negotiators, but they act more as facilitators than as proponents of the party's position. Therefore, it may be better for the Compromiser to help the rest of the party come to a consensus, with the Compromiser staying out of subsequent negotiations with MPCs. If the Compromiser does become involved, however, he will press for a solution that will make everyone happy.
==The Vigilante==
Character Description: The Vigilante plies the space lanes, charging into any fray where he thinks an underdog needs his help. Vigilantes perceive themselves as the agents of right wherever they happen to be, self-appointed saviors of the oppressed and righters of the wrongs of fate. Others perceive them as sometime benefactors, sometime nuisances with a penchant for getting into trouble.
Best Suited For: Vigilantes mean well and are usually good in alignment. However, they disparage what they view as the inept enforcement of common decency among the spacelanes and seek to replace it with their own justice. They are thus hard to justify as lawful. True neutrals, or even chaotic neutral characters may be Vigilantes, but they are as likely to rescue a pirate vessel that attacked an overly powerful target as to aid the target itself.
Members of any class may be Vigilantes. Warriors and rogues are most common, but even priests (particularly of the faiths of Culture, Justice, and Redemption) may pursue this personality type.
In Combat Situations: In combat, the Vigilante looks to those who have been injured or who are outnumbered, leaping in to even the odds. Vigilantes are less concerned with tactical considerations, and their enthusiastic defense may occasionally foul up more subtle strategies.
In Role-Playing Situations: Vigilantes tend to be viewed as aggressive by those around them. They are not good negotiators, as they find it difficult to see both sides of an issue. They occasionally speak up at inopportune moments, but most recognize that a little silence can often be effective.
==The Xenophobe==
Character Description: The Xenophobe has an unreasoning hatred and fear of meeting up with new and unknown species. Xenophobes are often groundlings who have entered space, and who can accept demihumans as equals (or nearly so) but who are revolted at the idea of working beside a hadozee or a giff, much less a mind flayer.
Xenophobes have no rational basis for their fears. If they get to know an individual of an alien species, they can accept that being as "just like me on the inside," but they will often still retain a prejudice against the remainder of the species. Truly unknown races, such as the dracons, may send the Xenophobe into unreasoning panic—or a homicidal mania to "eliminate the monsters."
To a xenophobe, any being that is not familiar is an alien and probably does not deserve to live. Thus, an ore might be viewed with less hostility than an elf, if the xenophobe were familiar with ores but had never met an elf before.
Best Suited For: Xenophobes tend to be of neutral alignment, with chaotic or evil tendencies. Some xenophobes are good aligned but are unable to overcome their own prejudices enough to treat aliens like their fellow species. Some xenophobes are lawful and push for protectionist legislation to eliminate the alien threat. Others are chaotic and take matters into their own hands.
Warriors and rogues make good Xenophobes (if there is such a thing). Most mages are accustomed to new and strange experiences, so an unknown racerarely bothers them. A few priests are xenophobic, notably those who worship faiths closely tied to their homeworld or their race.
Humans are not the only race to produce Xenophobes. Many elves are notably xenophobic, extending their dislike even to humans. Dwarves are also prone to xenophobia, although this is mitigated by the fact that only the most open dwarves deal directly with nondwarvish peoples. Halflings and gnomes are rarely Xenophobes.
Among the nonhumans, only the dracons are sufficiently new to the Known Spheres to produce Xenophobes. All dracons are disparaging of "the Deformed," as they call demihumans, but few suffer from the unreasoning hatred of a Xenophobe.
In Combat Situations: Xenophobes prefer to "get the monsters first." They try to attack the most alien creature present, although they will not let their hatred blind them to obvious tactical threats from less alien sources. They tend to use excessive force when attacking aliens, although they may be quite restrained in other combats.
In Role-Playing Situations: Xenophobes can be quite pleasant in role-playing situations—so long as no one present is an "alien." In the presence of aliens, Xenophobes become hostile and cruel.
==Previously Published Personalities==
Besides these personalities, there are several personalities already published in the PHBR series of handbooks that would be suitable in a spacefaring campaign. These personalities, and the classes to which they apply, are summarized in Table 9.
For a greater variety of ideas, players should examine the personalities without regard to character class. There is no reason that a wizard cannot be a Merry Showoff or a priest cannot be a Sneaky Thinker.
 Table 9: Personalities from other Handbooks
Fighter 	Wizard 	Priest 	Rogue
Dangerous Antagonist	Brooder 	Crusader 	Artist
Doomed Champion 	Counselor 	Hypocrite 	Desperado
Merry Showoff 	Mercenary 	Philosopher 	Folk Hero
Natural Leader 	Mystery Man	Proselytizer	Mobster
Sneaky Thinker 	Obsessive 	 	Trickster