Backgrounds

## **Explanation**

Your character’s background reveals where you came from, how you became an adventurer, and your place in the world. Your fighter might have been a courageous knight or a grizzled soldier. Your wizard could have been a sage or an artisan. Your rogue might have gotten by as a guild thief or commanded audiences as a jester. Choosing a background provides you with important story cues about your character’s identity.

The most important question to ask about your background is what changed? Why did you stop doing whatever your background describes and start adventuring? Where did you get the money to purchase your starting gear, or, if you come from a wealthy background, why don't you have more money? How did you learn the skills of your class? What sets you apart from ordinary people who share your background? The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions.

## **Suggested Skills, Tools & Languages**

These are some recommended Skills for such a Background, though they not mandatory.

## **Starting Equipment**

These are the items and curreencies you start the game with, in addition to those from your Class!

## **Features**

These are storytelling perks that a Character posesses due to their upbringing, lifestyle, occupation or suchlike.

## **Backgrounds List**

* Acolyte**:** Devoted performers of religious duties.
* Cloistered Scholar**:** Sheltered researcher emerging into a wider world in search of knowledge.
* Entertainer**:** A talented artist dedicated to their craft.
* Folk Hero**:** Champion of your local area, seeking a greater destiny.
* Insurgent**:** Refugee from your fallen home, you seek to one day return & reclaim it!
* Urchin:

## Acolyte

You have spent your life in the service of a temple to a specific God.You act as an intermediary between the realm of the holy and this mortal world, performing sacred rites in order to conduct worshipers into the presence of the divine.You are not necessarily a Cleric; performing sacred rites is not the same thing as channeling divine power. Choose a God & work with your DM to detail the nature of your religious service.

* **Suggested Skills:** Insight (WIS), Religion (INT).
* **Suggested Tools:** None
* **Suggested Languages:** Any 2
* **Starting Equipment:** A holy symbol, a prayer book or wheel, 5 sticks of incense, vestments, a set of common clothes & a belt pouch containing 15 gp

**Feature (Shelter of the Faithful):** 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 & you have a residence there. This could be the temple where you used to serve, or one 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 & you remain in good social standing with your temple.

## Cloistered Scholar

As a child, you were inquisitive when your playmates were possessive or raucous. In your formative years, you found your way to one of Brightfort or Valerun's great institutes of learning , where you were apprenticed & taught that knowledge is a more valuable treasure than gold or gems. Now you are ready to leave your home – not to abandon it, but to quest for new lore to add to its storehouse of knowledge.

The most well known of Daria's fonts of knowledge is the Church of Trintay's Sevenhill University. A great library is always in need of workers and attendants, some of whom rise through the ranks to assume roles of greater responsibility and prominence. You might be one of it's own, dedicated to the curatorship of what is likely the most complete body of lore and history in the Homelands.

Perhaps instead you were taken in by the scholars of the Eldritch Knights or the Church of Unis & now you have struck out to increase your knowledge & make yourself available to help those in other places who seek your expertise. You might be one of the few who aid the Circle of the Sun as it becomes the Church of Pent, helping to catalogue & maintain records of followers & spread the faith!

* **Suggested Skills:** Arcana (Int), History (Int), Nature (Int), Religion (Int).
* **Suggested Tools:** None
* **Suggested Languages:** None
* **Starting Equipment:** The scholar's robes of your cloister, a writing kit (small pouch with a quill, ink, folded parchment & a small penknife), a borrowed book on the subject of your current study & a pouch containing 10 gp

**Feature (Library Access):** Though others must often endure extensive interviews & significant fees to gain access to even the most common archives in your library, you have free & easy access to the majority, though it might also have repositories of lore that are too valuable, magical or secret to permit anyone immediate access to.

You have a working knowledge of your cloister's personnel & bureaucracy & you know how to navigate those connections with some ease as well as gaining preferential treatment at other libraries across Daria & potentially beyond, as a professional courtesy shown to a fellow scholar.

## Entertainer

You thrive in front of an audience. You know how to entrance, entertain & even inspire them. Perhaps your poetry can stir the hearts of those who hear you, or your music awakens grief, joy, laughter or anger in those who hear it as it raises their spirits or captures their sorrow. Your dance steps captivate, your gourmet dishes delight or your humor cuts to the quick. Whatever techniques you use, your art IS your life.

Many of those who would make their living in such ways find themselves drawn to the West Ports, a swirling melange of exotic peoples & cultural influences that expands any horizon. The Bardic Schools there have both great influence as well as ability. Some who do not travel carve out their niche in their own ways, as members of households or travelling troupes, becoming demanded or derided across their homelands as their talents allow.

* **Suggested Skills:** Acrobatics, Performance
* **Suggested Tools:** Any instrument or Tool of your trade.
* **Suggested Languages:** None
* **Starting Equipment:** A Tool or instrument of your choice, the favor of an admirer (love letter, lock of hair, or trinket) or letter of recommendation, a costume & belt pouch containing 15 GP.

**Feature (By Popular Demand):** You can always find a place to perform, usually an inn or tavern but possibly with a theater or even in a noble's household. At such a place you receive free lodging & 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 people recognize you in a town where you have performed, they typically take a liking to you.

## Folk Hero

You come from a humble social rank, but you are destined for so much more. Already the people of your home village regard you as their champion & your destiny calls you to stand against the tyrants & monsters that threaten the common folk everywhere.

* **Suggested Skills:**Animal Handling (Wis), Survival (Wis).
* **Suggested Tools:** Artisans, Transport (Land).
* **Suggested Languages:** None
* **Starting Equipment:**A set of artisan’s tools (one of your choice), a shovel, an iron pot, a set of common clothes & a belt pouch containing 10 gp

**Feature (Rustic Hospitality):**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.

## Insurgent

The taking of your home is a clear memory in your mind. You were going about your everyday business when the foe attacked & most people you knew, young and old alike, were captured or killed. You somehow escaped & learned to survive in dire & desperate circumstances, with meager supplies & an uncertain future. Wherever you are now, the desire to retake your home &/or rescue the survivors burns within you. You may not be strong enough yet, but one day you will have your revenge! In he meantime, you take any chance you can get to strike back at those who wronged you.

You could be the survivor of a Barbarian tribe wiped out in wild Parth, or refugee from the Underdark & its endless wars fleeing to the surface. The sad truth is that such individuals are all too common across these lands.

* **Suggested Skills:** Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis).
* **Suggested Tools:** One type of artisan's tools, vehicles (land).
* **Suggested Languages:** None
* **Starting Equipment:** A bag of caltrops (20), a small trinket that connects you to the life you once had before the occupation of your home, a healer's kit, a set of dark common clothes that includes a cloak and hood & a belt pouch containing 5 gp.

**Feature (Solidarity):**  Those of your Race &/or culture recognise the wrong done to you & will provide you with basic shelter & supplies to further your activities in reclaiming what was lost. They will not risk their own secutity, lives & homes however for fear that the same fate may befall them. In addition, traditional foes of whoever wronged you may look favourably on you should they be aware of your story.

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