Ch. 4: Personality and Background

The Undead are certainly interesting folk... They strive to be so much more than what their class and homeland entails, each having their own personality, story, ideals, goals... but why bother? When you go Hollow, every thought, every emotion, every dream, every bond, every semblance of self, everything will be gone, replaced by pure insanity. This chapter explores the details that distinguish characters from one another, including the basics of name and physical description, the rules of backgrounds, and the finer points of personality and alignment.

## Character Details

Your character’s name and physical description might be the first things that the other players at the table learn about you. It’s worth thinking about how these characteristics reflect the character you have in mind. Some homelands may have typical physical traits, such as Catarinians having broader bodies and being heavier, or Astorians being fair-skinned. These traits are not universal, however, your homeland does not force your character to look a certain way.

### Name

Sometimes names can be reflective of a character's personality, it is used often in fiction, such as Knight Solaire, who loves sunlight, hence his name. You could think of a name that reflects who your character is, or you may choose whichever name you like, either way, think about how you would like your character to be called, perhaps the name you choose could spawn nicknames from your teammates or NPCs.

### Sex

Gender has no bearing on skill. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture’s expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. Perhaps a female character who is a strong knight or warrior, defying the norm of women being weaker, or on the flip-side, a male spellcaster who is not physically strong and does not engage in melee combat, or stick to the norm and do the opposite. Whichever you choose as your sex and presentation of gender could end up having some weight in your character's story, it is something to bear in mind.

You don’t need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, or a man who feels trapped in a female body, or vice-versa. Likewise, your character’s sexual orientation is for you to decide. Gender, sex, sexuality... In the end, it won't matter, everyone will end the same way, the Undead will go Hollow, the Unkindled will never defeat the Lords of Cinder, and all humans will inevitably die, such is the fate of this world

### Height and Weight

You may decide your character's height and weight, but this does not have any bearing in combat. You may want to reflect your character's soul scores in your body type, perhaps a character with high strength or constitution is tall, heavy or muscular, and a character with high dexterity may be shorter, thinner and more agile. You could use this body type to tell something about your character by their design.

### Other Physical Characteristics

You choose your character’s age and the color of their hair, eyes, and skin. To add a touch of distinctiveness, you might want to give your character an unusual or memorable physical characteristic, such as a scar, a limp, a tattoo or a birth mark.

## Alignment

A typical creature in the game world has an alignment, which broadly describes its moral and personal attitudes. Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral). Thus, nine distinct alignments define the possible combinations.

These brief summaries of the nine alignments describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment. However, straying too far from your alignment may or may not make you despair... Oh, those poor Lawful Goods, so naïve, thinking they can stick to it in this world

***Lawful Good.*** (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society.

***Neutral Good.*** (NG) folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs, but may often disregard what others think.

***Chaotic Good.*** (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect, but always trying to do it for the greater good.

***Lawful Neutral.*** (LN) individuals act in accordance with law, tradition, or personal codes, will not stray from what society expects them to do.

***True Neutral.*** (N) is the alignment of those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don’t take sides, doing what seems best at the time. Various crestfallen are True Neutral, offering advice to other Undead if they feel like it, just to see what will happen.

***Chaotic Neutral.*** (CN) creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else, not caring whether they're doing something right or wrong, and don't care for what others may think.

***Lawful Evil.*** (LE) creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order, finding loopholes to exploit others. The worst kind of evil is the one that cannot be punished.

***Neutral Evil.*** (NE) is the alignment of those who do whatever they can get away with, without compassion or qualms. A few hostile NPCs might be neutral evil, as well as a few monsters

***Chaotic Evil.*** (CE) creatures act with arbitrary violence, spurred by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust. Hollows and most completely aggressive monsters are chaotic evil.

***Unaligned.*** don't have a concept of morality or society, typically reserved for beasts who act purely on instinct due to not being intelligent enough. Dragons and other magical creatures are typically intelligent, and despite being beasts are not unaligned

## Personal Characteristics

Fleshing out your character’s personality—the array of traits, mannerisms, habits, beliefs, and flaws that give a person a unique identity—will help you bring them to life as you play the game. Four categories of characteristics are presented here: personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. Beyond those categories, think about your character’s favorite words or phrases, tics and habitual gestures, vices and pet peeves, and whatever else you can imagine. These characteristics may make the difference between keeping your humanity or going completely Hollow...

Each background presented later in this chapter includes suggested characteristics that you can use to spark your imagination. You’re not bound to those options, but they’re a good starting point.

### Personality Traits

Give your character two personality traits. Personality traits are small, simple ways to help you set your character apart from every other character. Your personality traits should tell you something interesting and fun about your character. They should be self-descriptions that are specific about what makes your character stand out. “I’m smart” is not a good trait, because it describes a lot of characters. “I’ve read every book in the Duke's Archives” tells you something specific about your character’s interests and disposition.

Personality traits might describe the things your character likes, their accomplishments when alive, things your character dislikes or fears, your character’s self-attitude or mannerisms, or the influence of their soul scores.

A useful place to start thinking about personality traits is to look at your highest and lowest soul scores and define one trait related to each. Either one could be positive or negative: you might work hard to overcome a low score, for example, or be cocky about your high score. Cockiness leads to death... Death leads to hollowing.

### Ideals

Ah, ideals, the only thing that keeps the Undead going, but what would they ever do if they were forced to betray their own ideals?

Describe one ideal that drives your character. Your ideals are the things that you believe in most strongly, the fundamental moral and ethical principles that compel you to act as you do. Ideals encompass everything from your life goals to your core belief system.

Ideals might answer any of these questions: What are the principles that you will never betray? What would prompt you to make sacrifices? What drives you to act and guides your goals and ambitions? What is the single most important thing you strive for? Oh, but eventually you will realize that striving for something greater is pointless, the Undead are cursed to never accomplish what they strive for

You can choose any ideals you like, but your character’s alignment is a good place to start defining them. Each background in this chapter includes six suggested ideals. Five of them are linked to aspects of alignment: law, chaos, good, evil, and neutrality. The last one has more to do with the particular background than with moral or ethical perspectives.

### Bonds

Create one bond for your character. Bonds represent a character’s connections to people, places, and events in the world. They tie you to things from your background. They might inspire you to heights of heroism, or lead you to act against your own best interests if they are threatened. They can work very much like ideals, driving a character’s motivations and goals.

Bonds might answer any of these questions: Whom do you care most about? To what place do you feel a special connection? What is your most treasured possession? Oh, these bonds are just a burden, why would you hold something dear? What if it is taken away?

Your bonds might be tied to your class, your background, your race, or some other aspect of your character’s history or personality. You might also gain new bonds over the course of your adventures.

### Flaws

Finally, choose a flaw for your character. Your character’s flaw represents some vice, compulsion, fear, or weakness—in particular, anything that someone else could exploit to bring you to ruin or cause you to act against your best interests. More significant than negative personality traits, a flaw might answer any of these questions: What enrages you? What’s the one person, concept, or event that you are terrified of? What are your vices? Will your flaws drive you to insanity?

## Inspiration

Inspiration is a rule the game master can use to reward you for playing your character in a way that’s true to their personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. By using inspiration, you can draw on your personality trait of compassion for the downtrodden to give you an edge in talking with the poor undead who is going hollow. Or inspiration can let you call on your bond to the defense of your allies to push past the effect of a spell that has been laid on you.

### Gaining Inspiration

Your DM can choose to give you inspiration for a variety of reasons. Typically, DMs award it when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way. Your DM will tell you how you can earn inspiration in the game.

You either have inspiration or you don’t - you can’t stockpile multiple “inspirations” for later use.

### Using Inspiration

If you have inspiration, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll. Inspiration may also be used to gain humanity

Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game. When another player character does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, you can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration.

## Backgrounds

Every story has a beginning. Your character’s background reveals where you came from, how you became an adventurer, and your place in the world. Your warrior might have been a courageous knight or a grizzled soldier. Your sorcerer 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? What happened for you to start adventuring? Was it the Curse of the Darksign turning you Undead? Were you awoken to defeat the Lords of Cinder as an Ashen One? Or perhaps you are a simple human who strives for adventure? How did you learn the skills of your class? What sets you apart from ordinary people who share your background?

The sample background in this chapter provides both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies) and roleplaying suggestions.

### Imprisoned

Could be because an error of your life past, or the simple fact that the terrible Darksign took over you. Whatever the reason may be you are now stripped of any possesions you once held dear just to be locked away in a tiny cell room where you will be doomed to stay, for ages to come. That is unless you find a way to escape, but in a place such as yours that is unlikely, to say the least... The only hope left to those imprisoned is that someone, anyone, might come to the forsaken place where they are held, and to save them from that cruel cruel fate, such are the idiotic thoughts of the undead, who grasp on the hope of someone saving the dying world, but oh dear... Who would risk their life to save them?

Starting Humanity: 2

Humanity Loss Rate: 1/death

Skill Proficiencies: Choose three from Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, History, Intimidation, Investigation, Insight, Survival, Perception, Performance, Persuasion, Religion or Stealth.

Equipment: Broken Straight Sword, Green Blossom (1), Prisoner's Tattered Clothing, Rubbish

This background is special as it has the possibility of beginning with a short adventure of its own. All characters with this background will start at a prison cell escaping shortly after and finding the gear their class starts with paired with any loot they are able to find inside the prison to then face a boss guarding the exit. The DM or player may choose to skip this event in which case the gear and gift chosen by the player will be added directly to their inventory.

### Lost Wanderer

Lost souls traveling across the dying world in hopes of finding that which they have lost. A lost wanderer has lost any trace of humanity left in them, and on the verge of fully going hollow they encounter a salvation, though just temporary. This salvation can be a number of things such as a bit of humanity found in a deserted corpse, a shrine for those undead serving as a resting place for the player, a place reminiscent of the character's past, etc. This can be anything the player wants, in the end little will it matter, for those bearers of the curse will never find true salvation.

Starting Humanity: 3

Humanity Lose Rate: 1/death

Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from Survival, Nature, Investigation, Sleight of Hand and Perception

Equipment: Dung Pie (1), one of any kind of Moss Clump

### Arisen From the Dead

From the crypt some may come back to life, be it a long dead human brandished by the Darksign or a Champion of Ash who failed to link the fire. A blessing some may say, to be given a second chance to be alive, but what is it worth? What is life worth in a dying world? Men are nothing but objects for the gods, awaiting to be used to extend their age of fire under the false premise that peace will prevail, that their sacrifice will help to banish the dark from this world, but no matter how tender nor how exquisite it sounds, a lie will remain a lie. Is your sacrifice really worth giving?

Starting Humanity: 6

Humanity Loss Rate: 2/death

Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from Intimidation, Persuasion, Insight, Perception and History

Equipment: One of any kind of Pellet, Humanity consumable (1), Throwing Knife (5)

### Blacksmith

Once a renowned blacksmith serving the gods, now tarnished from previous glory, forgotten, and only attending to those few Undead who seek their service, still glad to work on weapons, but what can a blacksmith really accomplish in this land? Some blacksmiths have taken it upon themselves to travel the world, whether it be to hone their craft, search for legendary weapons, or a greater purpose. Of course, blacksmiths are no adventurers, or fighters, it will not be a safe journey.

Starting Humanity: 5

Humanity Loss Rate: 2/death

Skill Proficiencies: You are proficient with Smith's Tools. Choose two of the following skills: Athletics, History, Investigation, Persuasion, Arcana

Equipment: Smith's Tools, Repair Powder (2)

### Forgotten Hero

A hero of a long-forgotten age, in their time, worshipped as a champion who could face the most dangerous of situations with immense power and courage, but now, simply a myth. Perhaps awoken by the Darksign, or called as an Unkindled to link the fire. Could you be trying to save to world once more? To regain your glory? Or forget about your past, and set your own objective? But if you were forgotten, perhaps you were not that great to start with, do you really think you can accomplish anything in the world's current state?

Starting Humanity: 4

Humanity Lose Rate: 1/death

Skill Proficiencies: Select three from the following skills: Athletics, Acrobatics, Persuasion, Insight, Survival, History

Equipment: Repair Powder (1), Firebomb (2), one Pine Resin of any kind

### Criminal

Starting Humanity: 4

Humanity Lose Rate: 1/death.

Skill Proficiencies: Choose three from: Deception, Acrobatics, Athletics, Intimidation, Sleight of Hand, Stealth.

Equipment: Thieves' Tools