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Scarey Nerd
2010-05-10, 11:41 AM
Just wondered what your favourite backstory for a PC, whether it was one you made or a member of your party etc.

My favourite backstory that I've come into contact with was a wizard known only as "Despair". He was a half-elf, and when he was young, about 30 years old, he and a group of bandits attempted to raid a Dwarven city (IKR). Needless to say, they failed, and he was placed into servitude of the city for 100 years. When our party met him, one of our party members was a Dwarf from this city, and so "Despair" followed him out of instinct. He was monotonous speaking, very quiet, and ruthless beyond belief: Our first meeting of him involved him nearly murdering the party Paladin when she bent over to talk to him (He was lying on the ground), he stood up and grabbed her by the throat, unsheathing a wrist-blade.

How about you guys?

valadil
2010-05-10, 12:19 PM
The best one I've received is by a player in my current 4e game. I won't post the whole thing on the off chance the other PCs find it. What I can say though is that he's a Doppleganger raised by a family/clan of assassins who work for Netheril. When his sister was sacrificed to Shar he fled. Currently he's motivated by the need to get revenge against Shar, but he knows no other way besides murdering people and taking their place. The whole game (from his POV) was supposed to be about learning how to not be evil. Instead he's managed to corrupt the rest of the party. They've kinda got a Boondock Saints thing going on at this point, where they're willing to use evil means to take down evil people because nobody else will. Wasn't what I was going for, but they're having fun with it, so whatever.

Of my own backstories, I have two favorites.

Donald Gibson (http://gm.sagotsky.com/?page_id=166) is my hacker/political blogger in a currently defunct mage game. This is a length backstory. In it I am guilty of pretending to be a writer. I know some of you don't approve of 14 page backstories because they put too much of a burden on the GM. In this case I feel justified because I know that this particular GM approves of them (and because I read 10 pages of his Doppleganger backstory, so fair's fair). The story shows how my character Awakened and then how he got started as a mage. What was especially fun for me was that my Avatar is a grue (see: Zork) and my mentor is Neal Stephenson. Oh yeah, the middle part about going to college is pretty crappy. Feel free to skip that.

"Digger" (http://gm.sagotsky.com/?page_id=21) is my other favorite backstory. This character was an undertaker in a Deadlands game. What was fun about the backstory for me was that it wasn't from his POV at all. Digger is supposed to be big and creepy. People get squicked out by his presence. To help show this, his backstory is about a couple people at a bar talking about him. I think it was still effective in defining him as a character.

reptilecobra13
2010-05-10, 12:24 PM
tl;dr, so it's behind spoiler tags. This is one I came up with about a year ago.

Nyord’wrend—a frozen wasteland of a nation torn asunder by countless years of war, it is home to hundreds of wandering tribes of many races. Among them, there was a particularly notable group of savage orcs, known for their chieftain’s ferocity in battle. In one of his mighty frenzies, he challenged an ancient white dragon, a beast of power and magic to a duel for control of a mountaintop fortress. Here it was that Kyora, mighty barbarian chief faced down Kadath, the elder dragon of the Nyord’wrend Mountains, and at the time one of the great Chromatic dragons that served as an aspect of Tiamat. Armed only with a scythe, Kyora fought toe to toe with the dragon, his time in the wilds having hardened him and allowing him to endure the wyrm’s freezing breath. One small step at a time, Kyora gradually weakened his foe, slashing through his wings and forcing him to remain on the ground and fight on Kyora’s terms. The fight raged on for several days, threatening to destroy not only Kadath’s fortress, but also the very mountain on which it stood. Kyora and Kadath were both near to death, the dragon shocked that he had been so nearly defeated by a mere orc. In his own astonishment, Kadath cried out to Tiamat for aid. Indeed, Tiamat appeared to Kadath and saw how he had been beaten, and that his opponent, a mortal orc, was battered but not defeated, even though his scythe had been sundered. At this moment, Tiamat realized that perhaps some of the mortals were not beneath her notice. She spoke then to Kyora and Kadath, asking them to cease their conflict and join forces in the struggle against Bahamut, raising armies in the mortal realm to destroy the servants of her foe. On the summit of the mountain, in the Fortress of Kadath, Tiamat established the order of The Scales of the White Wyrm, one of her five priesthoods, with Kyora as her first priest in the order. She restored him and Kadath, as well as the Scythe of Kyora, which was enchanted with the power of the breath of Kadath. Kyora then passed the repaired scythe to his son, Garnath, who led the tribe of orcs as defenders of the Scales of the White Wyrm, to whom Kadath granted the honor of wearing armor crafted from his own shed skins.

In time, it came to pass that Nyord’wrend was again wracked with warfare. The Scales of the White Dragon were sent forth to protect the mountain fortress from the oncoming armies of goblins. Tiamat, observed that her minions were in danger and again acted to save Kadath from destruction. She caused a massive earthquake to separate her priesthood’s mountain from the rest of Nyord’wrend, and the fortress of Kadath, along with the few remaining members of the Scales of the White Wyrm were lost to memory. One member of the tribe of orcs, the youngest son of Garnath, separated from his fellow members of the order and unable to return to his mountain, wandered until he found a small human village. Here it was that he found a sympathetic human cleric of Hextor. She took the orc in and healed him of the wounds that he had suffered in his wanderings, and when he had recovered she began to explain to him the teachings of her god. The orc, whose name was Ryoga, was grateful for her assistance, and in turn told her of his people, the Scales of the White Dragon. Before long, however, the people of the cleric’s town learned of the orc she harbored and forced them both to flee into the wilderness. Luckily for Ryoga and for the cleric, Aya, they were able to combine their skills in order to survive. Between Ryoga’s knowledge of the wilderness and Aya’s magic, they were able to carve a path across the tundra of Nyord’wrend and make their way to the southern border. Just before they could make their way across the border, Aya gave birth to a single half-orc son. While they were camped, the couple was attacked by a raiding party made up of orcs and half-orcs. In order to save their son, whom they had named Ryuk, Ryoga was forced to kill Aya in front of the entire raiding party. Ryuk and Ryoga were then taken back to the mountains in the north of the country. In secret, Ryoga quietly taught his son of the glorious god Hextor, explaining the teachings as Aya had told them to him during his healing period. After several months of traveling and fighting, Ryoga took a new wife and became chief of the nomadic tribe. Under his rule, the order of the Scales of the White Wyrm was re-established, with the single goal of surviving and eventually relocating the lost Castle of Kadath.

As he grew older, Ryoga’s son trained to become not only a fierce warrior, but also a dragon shaman, a conduit through which flowed the might of the ancient white dragon Kadath himself. Upon reaching the age of fourteen, Ryuk took the weapon of his tribesmen and set out on a quest to find the knowledge of the location of Unknown Kadath. He journeyed far from his homeland, seeking this information, and continues to strive to grow stronger and prove himself worthy of the eventual reclamation of his birthrights as a servant of the White Wyrm and of Hextor.

Piedmon_Sama
2010-05-10, 12:38 PM
I don't think I've ever done anything as solidly creative as with my Fighter/Rogue Canio. He was raised in a traveling comedy troupe, fell in love with a young actress named Mona, who fell ill and died. He snapped and became convinced his Mona was really the Fairy Princess, kidnapped by a wicked sorcerer and taken to the ends of the earth. He now quests with a band of adventurers who have no idea he's absolutely insane. ^_^

mucat
2010-05-10, 05:19 PM
Kinda long, so spoilered.

The one I had the most fun writing was for a second-edition Ravenloft pbem campaign, many years ago now. My character was a wizard who was transported to Ravenloft after being involved in a failed experiment to create a new type of lich-like being. The story itself was a letter he left behind before vanishing, when the experiment had gone hopelessly wrong and he knew he was not going to make it home.

When I wrote it, I was stranded in a train station because a blizzard had shut down the tracks, and I had nothing interesting to do other than write and re-write. And ****, did the story creep me out more than I had intended.

In the first draft, the doomed wizards were a fairly stereotypical cabal of furtive, shadowy figures who only recruited my character -- a museum curator and mid-level mage of only moderate talent -- because he had access to an artifact they needed. Riordan, the older wizard who they were trying to keep alive (for a sufficiently broad definition of "alive"), was a selfish and unsympathetic character, and there was no real tension in the story, since the reader knows from the opening paragraph of the letter what will eventually happen (namely, Riordan ends up not only dead, but with his soul apparently annihilated forever, while the others are dragged off one by one into the unnatural mists that their experiment has spawned.)

So I decided that it would be more interesting if the reader wanted them to succeed. And over the course of several rewrites, these doomed secondary characters ended up stealing the show. Riordan became a brilliant, charismatic figure who really seemed like the type of guy whose friends would risk everything to save him. He was still a bit arrogant and self-aggrandizing, but mainly he loved life, loved magic, loved his wife, and was cheerfully willing to gamble his soul for a chance to keep all these things. It didn't hurt that they would make the discovery of a lifetime in the process.

His partners in crime, instead of being a bunch of standard-issue furtive plotters, were now a group of lifelong friends living in a world which was undergoing a sort of magical equivalent of the Enlightenment. They had seen so many leaps in knowledge in their lifetime, that it wasn't really out of line for them to believe that they were on the verge of curing death. They understood on some level that they what they were doing was insanely reckless...but not only did they want to save their dying friend, but the experiment was a fascinating exercise in pure magical theory in its own right. And when they failed disastrously, as the reader knew from paragraph one that they would, it really hurt to see these characters defeated.

The only trouble was that my character ended up the least interesting person in the whole story. Though no longer a dupe being used to steal from his museum as he had been in the first draft, he was still a quiet, cerebral type overshadowed by his more boisterous friends. This was fine for the story itself, where he served mainly as narrator, but it made for a challenge in letting him find an interesting voice of his own once the campaign started.

Umael
2010-05-10, 05:43 PM
This is a length backstory. In it I am guilty of pretending to be a writer. I know some of you don't approve of 14 page backstories because they put too much of a burden on the GM. In this case I feel justified because I know that this particular GM approves of them (and because I read 10 pages of his Doppleganger backstory, so fair's fair).

Don't sweat it.

The backstory for one of my characters clocks in about 75,000 words.

Yes, you read that right.


Okay, one of my favorites:

I was playing basically a Mummy (such as what you might get from the Storyteller system) in BESM - yes, an anime game. The story was that Emma-O, the Lord of Death, fell in love many thousands of years ago. My character, his lieutenant, disapproved.

"My Lord, you must take her when her time comes. She is mortal and must die."

"No. I have finally found love."

"...My apologizes, my Lord, but I must remind you of your duties." *slits woman's throat*

Emma-O was not amused.

So my character was cursed to periodically die. Part of this curse was that mechanical things would just... fail. Only for him and only for things that would injury or kill him. For example, while riding in a car, the brakes would just happen to give out... when going down a steep hill. As a result, he had multiple injuries all over his body, disfiguring it into something grotesque. To balance this, he could slowly heal (scarring all the time) and he had command over death magic.

My character got "invited" to help the PCs by being visiting by the Japanese equavalent of a Valkyrie (forget the name of it).

"Hi! How are you? I'm here to tell you that you're going to die in about four minutes."

"...really. *sigh* How this time?"

"Oh, I don't know! See you soon, ba-bye!!"

My character went back inside... to find that there was a fire in his house (faulty wiring, I think).

Calmly exit the house... the doorknob falls off.
Call the fire department... the phone line is dead.
Pull the fire extinguisher pin... nothing happens.

:smallsigh:

"Okay, fine. I get it."

*walk into the fire*

Just as he died... the firetruck showed up.

...:sigh:

"Hello, Lord Emma-O. What do you want this time? To chastise me again?"

"No, I have a deal for you. You must help some people."

"...Why?"

"Because if you do well, I might let you finally rest after another, oh, 200 years."

"...Okay. Fine." (*grumble, grumble, grumble*)

Sadly, that game ended before we got very far. The GM always told me that she didn't need to come up with anything to screw my character over. I did that all by myself.

valadil
2010-05-10, 09:12 PM
The backstory for one of my characters clocks in about 75,000 words.


Now I feel like a slacker. Dayamn!

The Pressman
2010-05-10, 10:05 PM
Helmuth Bjornberg. His parents worked at a university, as archaeologists, but they were killed one spring by a tribe of marauding accountants. He went on to eventually work at the university, but got wanderlust and started adventuring as an archivist for the university.

Katana_Geldar
2010-05-10, 11:13 PM
My favourite has to be the Nosurian who is betraying his species to the Empire. For an added touch, I gave him a vengeful ex-wife and had her played by another player.

Zellic Solis
2010-05-11, 12:03 AM
I have two.

Grolga Hammersdottor was a devoted and loyal servant of Netheril... ancient Netheril. That's right, she's 4500 years old. A skilled stonesmith she labored for years in the various floating cities building some of the finest arcane structures and becoming a heck of a fighter in the process... though she always considered herself a miner and stonemason first and foremost. Her weapon grand mastery was in pickax. Then in a foray in the underdark beneath the budding auroch desert she had the misforture of failing a save against a pharimm and was turned to stone. Fast forward to 4e and Grolga is freed during the spell plague, and is quite put off that of all the Netherese to survive it had to be the shadovar. And since dwarves can now learn magic she is striving to become a dwarven wizard.

The other was Relentless, a warforged urban ranger in Ebberon. However, he wasn't always a warforged. In his previous life he'd been a young and dutiful worker of house Cannith who'd accidentally stumbled of damning information and was thrown into the soul forges for his troubles. His spirit was imbued in the body of one of the warforged and he devoted his life to finding his murderer. He became quite an effective bounty hunter, but realized to his chagrin that Merrix D'Cannith had been the one to kill him.

Stone Heart
2010-05-11, 02:21 AM
Now I feel like a slacker. Dayamn!

I sorta feel like a slacker, but not too much. If you were to ask me about my characters I could tell you anything about them, in great length, but I don't write it down, its all in my head, because I feel it would take too much time to write all of it out.

krossbow
2010-05-11, 02:23 AM
I once had a monk who was just an insane and ornery hobo who was murdering people for ham sandwhiches.

onthetown
2010-05-11, 09:05 AM
My best friend created a Druid once that was insanely powerful, but her backstory was the best I've ever heard for a Druid. She had been born as a wolf pup to normal wolves, but arcane experimenters came their way and captured the wolves, bringing them to a lab. They forced her into a permanently human shape and continued to do experiments on her until she escaped with one of her pack, meeting up with us. Said pack member hadn't been turned into a human yet and was her animal companion for the rest of the campaign.

My favourite for my own characters was for my Ranger and Bard, who were sisters. They were born in Kozakura and their family were merchants. Their father was of another clan and had been seduced into joining their mother's family and giving her heirs so that she could secure her power in the clan as having children, therefore fit to lord it over. (It was awhile ago, I forget the specifics.) The caravan made it to Faerun when the Ranger was 5 and the Bard was 2, and (because the DM had a whole prophecy-plot going on with them) they were sent to another campaign setting as the ones who were supposed to end all sorts of misery, etc etc. The Ranger's high INT score is explained by that she was supposed to be a Wu Jen or whatever the Wizard-equivalent is, but when she was sent off to take care of the kid on her own she became a Ranger. All sorts of stuff happened and they made it to where they were supposed to be for the beginning of the campaign. And I haven't put much thought into a backstory since. :smalltongue:

valadil
2010-05-11, 09:13 AM
I sorta feel like a slacker, but not too much. If you were to ask me about my characters I could tell you anything about them, in great length, but I don't write it down, its all in my head, because I feel it would take too much time to write all of it out.

Taking time to write them out is what makes the characters come alive for me. By slowing down the character prep process I come up with more ideas. Here's an older character of mine for example. "Wittenberg was a cloistered cleric who dabbled in arcane magic." By the time I think that, it's done. In the time I write that, I'm left to wonder how to represent this mechanically (ended up going with magic, knowledge, and force domains with a healthy dose of UMD and frequent use of Anyspell). I also had time to think that most high powered wizards go insane. Magic bends their minds in interesting ways. What would happen to a cleric who used this sort of magic, but didn't have the training to handle what it would do to him. This guy's gonna start out quirky, but end up losing sight of reality entirely. I wonder if he'll even remember he's not really a wizard... Slowing each thought down to writing speed lets me elaborate on each of them quite a bit more than if I kept them in headspace.