Putting it all together - Character Background Help

[Deox]

Edit - Seems there may be some interest and value in a thread which helps players and DMs fully realize a character's background. I would like to use this space not only for PCs but for potential NPCs as well. Collectively, this could be a great space for some inspiration!

Entry Criteria - To be fair to everyone's time and effort, an amount of effort should also be put into the request. For example, "I have a <race> <class>, can you help?" does not give enough information to help facilitate a background. Two to three bullet points should suffice for a minimum. I would like to propose the following as an example / template to follow:

<Class>:

Class Note
Class Note
Class Note



Parents
Birthplace
Siblings
Family Wealth / Status




Education / Instruction
Skills / Trades Learned



Memorable Life Event
Memorable Life Event


Character nuts and bolts finally put down to paper. To have some extra fun, I used XGtE to help randomly generate some character background information. My challenge is, I simply am having difficulty tying it all together into a cohesive character background. That is, transforming statements of facts into a short few story paragraphs.

If I were to place a few snippets down, would the Playground be able to help this poor person with writer's block?

[Aett_Thorn]

Yes.

The rest of this is just here to meet the character requirements.

[Ventruenox]

Is this for the Monk/Lock you had posted about recently? I'm willing to give it a stab if you can give me something to go off of.

[Deox]

I appreciate the quick responses!


Is this for the Monk/Lock you had posted about recently? I'm willing to give it a stab if you can give me something to go off of.

That is correct. One of the things I really enjoyed about 3.5 was the Hero Builder's Guidebook. When XGtE incorporated something similar, it easily became one of my favourite parts to look through.

Pertinent info (worked with DM to take class charts / backgrounds to fit his fluff):
Class - Monk:
• Monastery: High in the branches of an immense tree in the Feywild.
• Monastic Icon: Displacer Beast
• Master: Merciless in pushing you to your limits.* Nearly lost an eye during one especially brutal practice session.
Class - Warlock:
• Patron's Attitude: Patron is strict, but treats you with a measure of respect.
Special Pact Terms: You must occasionally conduct bizarre rituals to maintain your pact.

History - Character
• Parents: One parent tiefling, one parent devil.
• Birthplace: Feywild
• Siblings: 2 older (sisters)
• Family: Single Father / Stepfather
• Absent parent: Imprisoned, enslaved, or otherwise taken away
• Family Lifestyle: Wealthy
• Childhood Home: Palace or Castle
• Childhood Memories: Found it easy to make friends, I loved being around people.

History - Decisions:
Class - Monk:
• I stumbled into a portal to the Shadowfell and took refuge in a strange monastery, where I learned how to defend myself.
Class - Warlock:
• <While in strange monastery> Examining a strange tome I found in a forbidden / abandoned library when the entity that would become my patron suddenly appeared before me.

History - Life Events (3):
Age 31
• You made an enemy of an Adventurer.* You are blameless for the rift.* Work with your DM to determine this hostile character's identity and the danger this enemy poses to you. DM - someone who trained at same monastery and sees character as rival / needs to be taken out
• You fought in a battle.* Work with your DM to come up with the reason for the battle and the factions involved.* It might have been a small conflict between your community and a band of orcs, or it could have been a major battle in a larger war.
You encountered something magical and were affected by teleportation magic

[Aett_Thorn]

You were born into a powerful family of Tieflings in a border region of the Feywild near a portal to the Abyss, where male heirs to the throne routinely brokered deals with Succubi to father their children to keep the infernal lineage alive. Once the Succubi had completed their end of the bargain, they were sent away and forced to never return.

While your childhood was fairly easy, while out playing with friends one day, you fell through a portal into the Shadowfell. There, you met a mysterious entity who convinced you that you were just in a distant part of the Feywild, and that you were brought there to learn how to control your heritage. There, you learned how to use your natural talents to defend yourself and fight, under the tutelage of the merciless mysterious entity. You trained for years under her strict supervision, but one day you managed to find yourself in a section of the monastery you had never been to before...a seemingly ancient library. While searching through the old books, you felt one calling to you. When you opened it, your master appeared in front of you, and revealed herself to be your mother, the Succubi. There, she made you sign a pact to work for her in getting revenge on your father and your family line for constantly enslaving the Succubi in order to give birth to the next generation of their royal line.

Once you signed, you found yourself pulled through a portal into the Prime Material Plane, looking at several horrified faces. It seems as if the portal had ripped asunder a member of an adventuring party, and you emerged from their body. You ran, but not before one of the adventurers promised to hunt you down. Since then, you have been wandering from town to town trying to serve your patron while staying ahead of the adventurer. At one point, you even had to rally a town to defend itself against the adventurer and a tribe of orcs he had recruited to hunt you and kill anyone you were associated with.

[Ventruenox]

I have something, but it may be more of a flawed protagonist character than a hero. For lack of name, I'll call him "N."



N does not like to remember his early childhood. Those were dark times. Even though his family was well off, at least resource rich, N was not a happy child. His father was a devil of a man. No, literally. He was an Incubus who served under a lieutenant of one of the Lords of Nine. Nasty piece of work, that one. Enjoys causing pain, which is probably why his mother is gone and never spoken of. Try as he might, N can never fully forget the screams at night. His father's "recreational room" was shrouded in perpetual darkness, and as far as N knew, only contained a few pieces of furniture. In his experience, each piece had attached restraints. He had no doubt they all were designed for unsavory purposes. It was common that slaves, servants, and even his sisters were taken into the room when it struck their father's whims. The screams would go on for hours. Sometimes, they were his own.

A child can only process so much. N wanted out, but he knew that simply running would not get him far. Too many times, he had seen a terrified face run out of the darkness, only to be caught by a barbed chain hooking into flesh and dragged back into the darkness amidst chilling laughter. It was better to hide somewhere long enough for someone else to get it instead of him. That's how he ended up going through the portal to the Shadowfell. It's the Feywild; portals pop up everywhere, except when they don't. It was there, and N was looking to hide. Gloomy as it was, the Shadowfell was preferable to the hell that was his last home. Bereft of all resources, N scavenged an existence for several weeks before trying to steal food from some strange monks. They caught him and brought him back to their monastery. He was obviously not native to this plane and may one day prove to be useful. Even though they were severe, and the discipline brutal, it followed a strict code. It was consistent, unlike the whims of his father.

He was not the only child of the monastery, and N found a way to surround himself with others. It was a survival trick he always had a knack for. If you are in a group, the odds are better that someone other than you will get taken to the darkness. There was another child at the monastery who kept to himself more. Never took a shine to N. Seemed to resent N allowing others to submit to discipline instead of taking responsibility for himself. Maybe it was how N enjoyed hitting others during sparring practice a little too much. "Fairness" has a very different definition to N, and that animosity persists to this day.

The monastery had a rather extensive library, acquired in part as spoils of combat. The monastery considered itself to be the peacekeeper organization of the area, and spellcasters were considered dangerous elements. When he was old enough, N joined their patrols. They dispatched a Warlock and his Ghouls, and N found a tome among the Warlock's possessions. Rather than relinquish it to his superiors, he felt drawn to it and kept it in secret. Apparently, the Warlock's patron was one of his father's masters. Though N does not know this, the infernal family ties have plans for him. Promises and dark whispers came to him whenever he held the book. N made his own pact for power and the need to inflict pain as his father did. Screams in the darkness.

[Deox]

Holy cow - thanks to the both of you! Both stories are great!

This is exactly the type of fuel I needed!

[Gydian]

Wow that was awesome. If you don’t mind I’d like to go next. Ive got this warforged wizard with his first level in cleric. Could we make this into a manger thread?

[Deox]

Wow that was awesome. If you don’t mind I’d like to go next. Ive got this warforged wizard with his first level in cleric. Could we make this into a manger thread?

I think that is a novel idea. I know there have been previous threads that did similar. I think if we laid out some entry criteria, we could definitely get something going!

[Ventruenox]

Intriguing. I'm game. Posters get help developing characters instead of mere builds, and I can expand my stable of NPC personalities with half the work done for me.

Entry criteria is a must. Just providing race and class is not enough. Telling me you have a Warforged Cleric/Wizard makes me think of an animated holy tea kettle who waves his fingers and yells in Richard Kind's voice, "Derrr, M-A-G-I-C!!" We each have individual personalities, but it is our pasts that forge what those personalities can come to look like. I at least, need lots of elements to weave together to build a narrative. I see details and build equations of behavior around them with "What if's?" and "What would that have been like?" questions. For "N" above, the idea spark was "Who was the absent parent, and why?" From there, history was built upon from the viewpoint of someone who had serious ongoing childhood trauma. (Not my own, but you sometimes hear nightmare stories when you foster kids.)

Even though the details from Xanathar's Guide are intellectual property of WoTC, what about creating a template of the category headings? I liked the format you presented, Deox.

[Deox]

Even though the details from Xanathar's Guide are intellectual property of WoTC, what about creating a template of the category headings? I liked the format you presented, Deox.

Thanks! I think I can come up with a rough template for use.

[Deox]

OP edited to add template for use, with suggested entry criteria. Thanks again for getting this going!

[Gydian]

Ok so this is what I have so far.
The life and Times of Bookmaker of the book maker. 84 years ago during the war of the human takeover. With a combined efforts of elves and dwarves worked to me living construct a scout was made to help with the war. Put into service as a runner passing messages and scouting the front line to help keep the commanders informed. Though he had perfectly recall and didn’t need to take notes some of the superiors wanted his reports written. After the war he got work as a scribe copping and taking dictation. Because he was in the war he still has distrust of humans but he did not see any combat. Not everyone understands that he was has agency so he has difficulty getting paid sometimes. He joined the guild for support and baking. For 70 years he spent all of his efforts in the art and craft of making books from the pulpiing of the paper to the sewing of the stitches In the binding. From his skill and his seniority he could be a leader of the gild but he has no interest in it. 43 years ago after being commissioned to transcribe a journal of a cleric of Gond he was inspired to learn more about the faith. 25 years ago and abandoned child was left at the temple he volunteered to raise the boys as an apprentice. Proctor now runs the day today operations of the bindery. Proctor is a tiefling but could maybe be confused as a half elf. Young wizard apprentice commission him to make a spell book the specifications are very odd and very specific. This peeked his curiosity to learning more about the arcane arts.

We got a free feet at lvl 1 I took linguist. Background guild artisan. First level in forge cleric. Remaining levels in abjuration wizard.

Questions still to answer

Who is the leader/president of the guild and what is that relationship like?

What is the relationship like between BookMaker and Proctor. What was it like for one race that people are unfamiliar with, warfoged, raising a tiefling, a race people don’t trust?

Why did he start adventuring?

[Miz_Liz]

I shall try my best to give one and ask for one. :)
Ok so this is what I have so far.
The life and Times of Bookmaker of the book maker. 84 years ago during the war of the human takeover. With a combined efforts of elves and dwarves worked to me living construct a scout was made to help with the war. Put into service as a runner passing messages and scouting the front line to help keep the commanders informed. Though he had perfectly recall and didn’t need to take notes some of the superiors wanted his reports written. After the war he got work as a scribe copping and taking dictation. Because he was in the war he still has distrust of humans but he did not see any combat. Not everyone understands that he was has agency so he has difficulty getting paid sometimes. He joined the guild for support and baking. For 70 years he spent all of his efforts in the art and craft of making books from the pulpiing of the paper to the sewing of the stitches In the binding. From his skill and his seniority he could be a leader of the gild but he has no interest in it. 43 years ago after being commissioned to transcribe a journal of a cleric of Gond he was inspired to learn more about the faith. 25 years ago and abandoned child was left at the temple he volunteered to raise the boys as an apprentice. Proctor now runs the day today operations of the bindery. Proctor is a tiefling but could maybe be confused as a half elf. Young wizard apprentice commission him to make a spell book the specifications are very odd and very specific. This peeked his curiosity to learning more about the arcane arts.

We got a free feet at lvl 1 I took linguist. Background guild artisan. First level in forge cleric. Remaining levels in abjuration wizard.

Questions still to answer

Who is the leader/president of the guild and what is that relationship like?

What is the relationship like between BookMaker and Proctor. What was it like for one race that people are unfamiliar with, warfoged, raising a tiefling, a race people don’t trust?

Why did he start adventuring?
I would think the relationship between two races looked down (or at least sideways) at by the rest of the world would be close. They share a common bond with that even if the two themselves aren't the same race.

As far as why did he start adventuring, did you not answer that yourself? He is looking to learn more about the arcane arts. The only way you're going to learn something like that is either studying at an academy, or travelling enough to learn it through experience. Given how people feel about him, I would guess this gentleman probably would not be welcome in a school of magic (that might even be an event of note in his history, being denied) so he travels far and wide to soak up all that he can. Hope that helps.



My big issue with an upcoming character is personality. I have a decent backstory, but I'm weirdly unsure of how to play her.
<Class>: Warlock

Homebrew pact of the wild hunt
Artemis Patron
Pact of the chain with sprite familiar


Parents unexplained missing in action, she joined the hunt to find them
Lived with caring aunt and uncle, boat load of cousins, became a pseudo-caretaker
middle-high class merchant family, she helped them get there by being such a good hunter.



Learned "on the job" as it were to be a hunter, family sells pelts/hides


Hunted Artemis's great black stag and caught her attention, agreed to join the Wild Hunt in return for extra power that might help her find her parents.

Over all I think she'll probably be rather quiet and stoic, but I don't know what else to add to that. How do you play a huntress with a decent extended family looking for her parents?

[Ventruenox]

I haven't forgotten about these requests, but real life gets in the way. Gydian, Miz_Liz, I have some ideas, just need to find the time. Since I might not have that in the next week, I can give the briefest of synopses for now. Prose may come later, unless you tell me that it doesn't fit your character at all and that I shouldn't bother.

I see Bookmaker starting out without self-awareness. Early entries in his backstory are written out almost as computer coding. This evolves in later entries. To play off his station, I see humans implanting a behavioral modification following the war, giving him the facade of a personality and subservient speech patterns. (Yessuh, I waz in the WAh of HU-man Aggression.)

Later, while translating clerical journals on commission from the Clergy of Gond, self awareness takes over as a result of loosely phrased orders ("Keep it true to the original intent...") requiring the processing existential questions. Computing error? Divine Intervention? You figure that one out. Since the rest of the world views him as a machine instead of a sentient being, he is treated with all the respect one give a toaster. He signs on as Guild property in order to get paid for his work. He takes in the abandoned Tiefling, which his minders view akin to him caring for a pet. Eventually proves useful, as the Tiefling can legally own a business. Constructs may not own property.

Time passes, Bookmaker is commissioned to create a spellbook. He finds that by replicating the written formulae, he can manifest magical ability. Knowing that the biological creatures will not accept him as a true life form, and (correctly) believing that they would see his sentience and magical power as a threat, Bookmaker sets off on a journey of self discovery. Mortality has different implications for a construct. One day, his true nature will be exposed. Best be prepared for when that happens.



Growing up with responsibility over little ones is very demanding. Being expected to care for them when they are not your own can be even harder. It's a lot of obligation, and your own needs, wants, and desires can get lost in the overwhelming needs of the little ones. I see her adoptive family placing more and more responsibilities upon her, and she feeling unfulfilled.

The one place where she finds solace is by hunting. There are no screaming kids, her sharp senses provide an awareness of her surroundings, and the primal connection to the hunt makes her feel alive. She may think that she will find answers by searching for her parents, but what she really wants is to be herself.

The Wild Hunt is a force of nature. When it comes through, you are either one of the hunters, or the hunted. Gods themselves come under it's sway, even though they are frequently the ones who lead the pack. Cernunnos, Odin, Artemis... You lose your individual identity for a time, no matter your station. All that matters is the Hunt. Joining the hunt gave her an out from the trap of familial obligation, and the opportunity to seek out her parents, but what will it demand of her? Is it what she really wanted?


As I said, I'll try to come back and do these properly, but I hope there is enough to build some characterization for you.