Share your Character backstories!

[Tireseas]

So, semi-inspired by this thread, I thought it would be cool to have a place to just post our character's backstories. Obviously, this is mostly going to be for tabletop games, most of which are going to be RPGs, but I don't think we should limit ourselves to that. Rather, share your backstory in as much or as little detail as possible. Hell, given I've created about seven or eight times as many characters as I've played, don't limit yourself to ones that you've actually thrown in front of the GM/DM.

Some rules to help facilitate:

1) This isn't a place to be critical. Most characters are personal and often intimate for players and writers alike and this should be a safe place for people to post their characters. I don't care if their backstory is virtually identical to Sarah Connor and her name is Tara O'Connor, this isn't the place for that.

2) Provide some context for your character, notably the game system (assuming it's a game) and anything that you think is necessary to understand who your character is in the story.

3) Spoiler tag your narratives if it stretches more than 1.5 your profile bar. This (a) makes the thread a little more navigable and (b) is a good way to separate your story from any set up or commentary you have.

Here's one to start:

Game: Shadowrun (4.0)
Name: Stacy Smith
Occupation: "Mechanic"

General location is the Everett (i.e. a gang-infested squatter-filled district abandoned by the private law enforcement that most cities use) in the Shadowrun Seattle Area, which is a Cyberpunk dystopia. The aim was to create a "base" for the players to use and give a PC a backstory for why she has a home for 6 despite living on her own.

Spoiler: Stacy's story

Stacy was an engineer who never saw a machine or system she couldn't work with. Cars, HVAC, manufacturing, aircraft; she understood it intuitively and could get pretty much anything working if she could get the parts in. She actually worked for a Megacorp in their maintenance department for years before meeting her husband, Greg, an engineer in the corp's physical plant. They dated, grew close and married, very soon taking their saving to buy a rundown autoshop with a two-story residence up top that they would fix up and quit the Corp. They had 2.5 children in their wonderful little oasis among the slums, fixing peoples cars and becoming the neighborhood repair family as "The Smith Family's Repair Shop." And they lived happily ever after.

Well... that was the story she wanted to tell. Most of it was true, as she was an engineer, met Greg at work, fell in love, married, and bought a place together that they cleaned up so they could start a family. Except their salaries weren't exactly cutting it for buying real estate, even in Everett. She would "get some side work" some nights and weekends to supplement her income. See, being a good engineer doesn't just mean you can fix things, it means you can "fix" things. Her ability to sabotage, particularly in a way that made it relatively easy to pin it as an accident or human error, made her invaluable to the kinds of people who need certain things destroyed or people killed without raising suspicion. She had contacts with a few local fixers and usually did 1-2 jobs a month for a hefty fee for her savings. Her husband thought she was just overcharging rich assholes with more dollars than sense, and companies skimping on maintenance meant a private plane disappearing mid-flight wasn't exactly a rare occurrence.

She kept it up after they bought the place, using the funds from her other work to make the home a bit nicer than it probably could have been otherwise. She didn't have a lot of qualms about it either. It was a job for her and it paid the bills. The autoshop opened and while the income meant less outside work, it also meant more work for her as she was the mechanic while he tried to gin up business. Some of the customers were less than reputable, but a engine crack is an engine crack, and they had better prices and less scruples about who they served. Business picked up at a decent pace and soon she was only doing side jobs to build up their savings once again for when they would have to slow down due to her pregnancy.

Except that day never came. Greg and Stacy had been growing distant and they were getting into fights, after which he'd storm out for a few hours and come back, sometimes drunk, sometimes not. One night he came back with an odd smell on his clothes, familiar but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She slipped a tracker into his truck one day and followed him with a drone after another fight one afternoon. He passed by the bar and drove straight to a high school, eventually picking up a cheerleader who couldn't have been more than 17; probably a girl with "daddy issues" or some BS like that. She was furious.

They found the wreckage of his truck a few weeks later. He was speeding down the highway when he some some reason drove right head on into an oncoming semi truck. Lone Star informed her that there was a girl in the car who died with him, but she didn't know who she was. The girl's next of kin were notified, the accident report got noted as human error and closed. Her parents and in-laws reached out and gave their condolences. Stacy received a middling sum from their life and car insurance. Stacy dealt with the situation she best knew how: she went back to work.

The Smith Family Repair Shop still manages to bring in a tidy profit, though it's closed on weekends. Gangs agreed to use her as a neutral vendor after a few gang members inexplicably got killed trying to claim her shop as territory, which was followed by a warehouse fire that nearly wiped out another. Rumor has it she has enough plastique under the shop in the pits to take out a city block if they really tried to take her out, though it's never been confirmed and everyone who so much as tries to start trouble around her seems to end up injured or dead by some kind of mechanical failure. Plus, her prices are good, she's relatively fast, and she keeps her mouth shut, so why rock the boat?

The house upstairs practically remains untouched except for the couch, TV, and fridge. The bedrooms on the third floor have a layer of dust in most of them and her trash has quite a few more bottles and take-out containers in it than before her husband died. Stacy herself has gotten colder and it's rare to see her out of her maintenance jumper. Some think she's still working side gigs, but you'd have to find a fixer who can contact her to see if that's at all true. Most people just see her as a widow who couldn't bear to change the name of her shop after her family passed away.

 

[Chimpzy]

Game: D&D
Name: Richmond
Class: Wizard

Richmond technically doesn't have a real background. When I first played him, the campaign was run by a DM who enjoyed weaving PC backstories into the greater campaign narrative. Now, I wanted to play a character who's so off his rocker he can't distinguish between reality and his absurd fantasies, so I decided to not give him a set origin, so the DM could basically do whatever he wanted. Instead, whenever the opportunity arose, I'd tell some batshit crazy story, and it'd be a different one each time. One time it was about being created in a super secret underwater volcano lab ... in space, as part of failed experiment to create the perfect crazy wizard from parts of lesser crazy wizards. Another was me being the long lost cousin-in-law thrice removed of Elminster, Mordenkainen, Otiluke, Bigby, Tenser, Vecna and a half-finished crocheted doily. I had a lot of fun coming up with ever more ludicrous tales. We never really got around to what the real story was. There were a few hints that Richmond might be a clone or copy of a nasty tyrannical mage-king of old, but nothing more. Wasn"t really important to me anyway.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Game: D&D
Name: Eragrim
Race: Dwarf
Class: Fighter

Being a warrior for justice, he travelled across the land in search for bounties for any evil doers and those who took advantage of the helpless. One day this led him to following an illegal prostitution ring, until he finally found the head of the whole thing. The man wore a big, floofy and gaudy purple and black striped hat with a huge pink plume. Filled with a justice enduced rage, he smacked the head pimp with his double sided battle axe so hard he sent the guy far into the sky, never to be seen again. And slowly the pimp's hat floated down and landed on Eragrim's head. Finding himself oddly taken with it, he donned the hat as a trophy for one of his strongest accomplishments. Soon his triumphs started to spread in legend, his hat being one of the most distinct parts of the tale. Soon, he earned a title he proudly stated on introduction, largely becoming known as...

"Eragrim, the dwarf with a silly hat"

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Well, to save myself time, I'm going to slightly re write the content of that thread.

Game: Cyberpunk 2020
Name: Leonard Tilburn
Role: Solo

First RPG character, sometime in the eaerly to mid 90's: Ex parachute regiment. I can't remember any specific adventures but we played though a few of the pre written adventures and generally got involed in a lot of thoroughly amoral mercenary assholery. Had the fairly standard killing machine starter pack of cyberware, guns, armour, skills and stats. Probably wouldn't enjoy playing a charcater like this now, but it was fun at the time. Basically a teenage power fantasy.


Game: WHFRPV2
Name: Klara Schwarzlunge.
Role: Charcoal burner

Last RPG character that actually went anywhere, sometime in the late 2000's. I wrote about 3 A4 sides of backstory, character details etc. I can still remember the major points.
Rhya worshipper. Lived in the tiny village of Beilen in the Demst Valley on the outskirts of the Laurelorn forest in Nordland. Father and Brother got conscripted into the Hargendorf regiment during the Storm of Chaos and went off to get caught up in the Seige of Middenheim. A couple of mangled remnants returned to Beilen and reported that they had seen her father just about alive in a field hospital somewhere in the city and brother was nowhere to be seen.
So Klara hoists her axe and goes off to try and find them. Makes it to Middenheim with a small group of travellers that glommed together on the way (PC group formation, obviously) and during the course of PC adventuring in the city tracks down her horribly crippled father and makes enough cash to send him on a wagon back home. The hideous devastation and human misery of the place and horrors of adventuring gets her drinking and taking various warhammer drugs ported over from V1 (i.e. gained 6 insanity points, failed her WP test and rolled Mandrake Man). Finds out her brother went off with an ad hoc group of soldiers to go somewhere and do something I can't recall which just happened to be near the next place the party was meant to be going. Then the game petered out due to scheduling on the way there. I am pretty sure she had worked her way up through woodsman, vagabond, possibly hunter (can't recall the order) and into scout by this time. Or maybe was still in Vagabong and was aiming for scout next.

*sniffle* I'm getting a little nostalgic tear now. Given that I can remember this off the top of my head at least 10 years after the game I'd say Klara was my favorite and best realised character.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Spoke about mine a little with the OP in that thread (even though it wasn't the actual topic of my response).

Game: Iron Kingdoms RPG
Name: Kedrejas (people who know the setting will quickly jibe about the distinct lack of 'y's in this name(!))
Class/career/race: Mage Hunter (race-locked to Iosan Elves) & Investigator
Role within party: Ranged DPS

I've always been an elf player, preferring janky and high dexterity-low durability style of combat, whether in RPGs or skirmish/battle games. I've played High/Dark Elves in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Eldar in Warhammer 40K and most of my PnP RPG characters have been elves or as close as the setting will allow to somewhat stereotypical Tolkienesque elves, my favourite race in Total War: Warhammer II is High Elves and so it's no surprise that in Warmachine & Hordes, I main Retribution of Scyrah (the High Elf equivalent, but this equivalence is terribly vague and completely non-indicative). My two favourite characters in my army are my first warcaster, and her best bash-buddy, so I made a character whose progression would work towards the combat profile of the latter while working towards the personality of the former. My character starts out as a xenophobic, distrustful and hawkish individual with little but contempt for the rest of the party (three humans from different nations, a forest-born barbarian and a Trollkin), but turns this into a quietly snarky cooperation. The final boss encounter was a good one for demonstrating character development I believe (took a lot of damage at the start and had to get help from Granny Murder to be useful in the fight, that in itself was fun in its own way).

 

[Kae]

So as a general rule of thumb most of my characters actually have fairly simple backstories since I'm aware the DM I play with never really reads them, so they aren't really going to come up, I do have some exceptions that I'll post here.

Let's start with the character I mentioned in my thread which the OP has generously posted a link for.
Game: Legend of the Five Rings 4e
Name: Asahina Kaede, later Isawa Kaede (I was unaware that a character with this name already existed in the lore when I wrote her, less aware they shared the same class & school)
Class & School/Role: Void Shugenja of the Isawa Phoenix Clan School, Role was support spellcaster/medic/researcher, but she was also a Philosopher & a Priest.

Spoiler: Asahina Kaede

So I need to abbreviate this real hard as this game really emphasises complex backstories due to the political complexity of the setting, but basically you have to decide to which Samurai Clan you belong to, then which Family of that clan & then which school of that same Clan, schools are normally one per family but there are a few families that teach more than one discipline, normally it wouldn't be much of an issue but my Character's family & school aren't of the same clan.
Basically my character was born to the Asahina family which is part of the Crane Clan, the Crane clan is a clan that focuses on politics & courtesy over everything else, the Isawa Family is part of the Phoenix Clan which is a clan known for Philosopy & pacifism but in reality they focus on everything Magic, the Asahina Family in the Crane clan is the only Family of that clan that doesn't actually participate in politics with them being genuine pacifists & focusing on the art of Medicine & creating charms of protection, in general they don't care for politics at all, they just focus on what they do best, they also have strong ties to the Phoenix Clan as the family is named after Isawa Asahina which was a very powerful Wind Shugenja that after dishonoring his family & as penance for his sins married into the Crane Family the story is very long.
In any case this is relevant because my character is a VOID Shugenja, so in L5R everything is structured by the 4 Elements (Air, Fire, Water & Wind) and typically when you play a Shugenja you focus on 1 of those elements, but there's also Void (There's Blood Magic too but it's better if we ignore that) which is the Nothing that holds everything together, the canvas in which the World is painted if you will, Void magic is extremely rare & highly unstable, unlike other forms of Magic Void Magic isn't something you can learn it's something you're born with due to this, due to being the only Clan to have a Void magic school, the Phoenix Clan has gotten a law approved by the Emperor that forces all families to to give their Void Magic capable children over to the Isawa especially since it is so dangerous & Void sensitive children often end up hurting themselves or other, Void magic also attracts Spirits.

With all that bullshit out of the way, basically since the Asahina & Isawa families are in good therms they agreed to hand Kaede over to the Isawa but in a way which wouldn't make them lose face, so in this case arranged marriage was chosen, to some kid she didn't know, so at the early age of 5 she was given to the Isawa School, after demonstrating enough aptitude that she didn't have to be put down (Children who are incapable of controlling Void Magic are executed) she was assigned to be trained under one Isawa Hanako, this is important since Void Shugenja attract spirits they aren't trained in a school, instead they set out to travel & are trained along their traveld in order to prevent the amassing of spirits in a single area, so this woman Hanako had actually originally been a Heimin (Peasant) but due to being born with the gift of Void Magic she had been elevated to the status of Samurai, as such unlike other Samurai she had no problem speaking or socialising with peasants & taught Kaede to be respectful of everyone regardless of their social station, as well as everything she could about the spirits.
In addition to that she was taught the Philosophy of the Phoeinix Clan & due to being on friendly terms with her family she was allowed to have ongoing conversations via mail with them in addition to visiting them occasionally, who taught her both about Medicine & about the Philosophy of the Asahina family, due to a combination of Isolation & too much study Kaede although smart became too idealistic & very socially awkward which is a terrible thing to be as a Samurai (Shugenja are considered Samurai despite the fact that most of them don't have martial training, but they're also considered Priests).

She excelled in her training of both Magic & Philosophy and was overall very tallented, if perhaps too gullible, naive & idealistic, not to mention very good natured & incapable of hurting someone, fotunately for me the campaign starts when the characters are still 13 & are on the ceremony of Gempuku where they are officially named Samurai so I could stop there, but a lot of stuff happened on the campaign, by the time Kaede died she had been exiled & returned from exile twice, possessed by an evil entity, lost 1 arm, glowed in the dark, permanently floated and many other stuff, & yes she did get married but the husband was horribly neglected since Kaede had a church, a hospital, a lab & a school to run, also she didn't really know him well at all.

Another character I'd like to mention just because unlike that mess (that was severely abridged BTW), it's actually pretty straightforward & fun.

Game: D&D 5E (Dragonlance)
Name: Idalen Tyromill
Race: High Elf
Class/Ocupation: Wizard, alchemist & mechanic.

Spoiler: Much shorter I promise

Before starting I will establish this was my 2nd character in this campaign, so it was for an already ongoing campaign.

So the story for this one is pretty simple, he was a High Elf from a family with a long tradition of Wizardry, like his father & his grandfather before him he joined the White Tower of Wizardry to study Conjuration Magic as well as Alchemy & learned some tinkering from a gnomish friend, after graduating from the School of Magic he was allowed to open his own lab in the middle of a forest near the coast where he was doing just fine, everything perfect for an NPC.
That is until one day he meets a girl, another High Elf, but she isn't a wizard, she's a Wild Magic Sorcerer, this girl claims to be the chosen one, the one that will save the world from darkness & become history's greatest hero, but she doesn't actually know how to control her magic. Now normally Idalen wouldn't consider teaching her as it is illegal to train people in magic arts outside the tower, but according to her the prophecy dictates she's going to be the greatest hero, & he can't turn her down though in reality because he's absolutely smitten by her & in his love induced stupidity he will believe everything the girl tells him.
In any case in his wisdom Idalen starts to train her & everything seems to be going great until one day, she's training her to use & defend from Magic Missile by being the target & using the shield spell & a Wild Magic Surge goes off, suddenly he's not in his cabin it the forest with the girl, no he's in the middle of what seems to be a desert but the sand isn't sand, it's like metal dust & there's monsters fighting each other?
A giant demon with a great axe rushes towards him & kills a monster right behind him, he starts helping the Demon & that's it, he's now part of the campaign.
In any case it might be possible to tell, but I originally was planning to play the girl & she has a more interesting backstory than him actually (Even though it boils down to her being a moron), but when I was creating her I just thought of that scene & as I thought about it, & how I could bring her into the campaign, since that took place in a different continent, I came up with that but it wasn't as funny when she cast a spell on herself & disappeared so I ended up going with him instead.

There's one single other backstory that I've written that I liked more, but it was for a character I never actually played so I'm not sure how much it would qualify.

 

[Asita]

Hoo boy...I think the one I fleshed out the most was Enadar.

Game: Pathfinder
Name: Enadar
Race: Elf
Class: Witch

Now, for a bit of context, I was fiddling about, trying to ensure that I ended up with a useful character (As I understand it, Pathfinder's Witch is a very hit or miss class, so I wanted to be doubly sure that I wasn't about to make my character a playable escort mission), and I ended up liking a few traits and abilities in particular: Magical Knack, Slumber (because of course), and Flight (via Extra Hex), and these formed the backbone of Enadar's backstory. I thought to myself: How would someone with Slumber be making a living? Bounty hunter! If you can put your target to sleep, you have a sizable advantage in bringing in criminals alive. Magical Knack required that Enadar be raised by a "Magical Creature", and I settled on the Aranea - basically sorcerous werespiders - which neatly justified his Flight hex (if they aren't masquerading as humans, the colonies probably are living in a tree...and Enadar's stats and skills were such that he sucked at climbing). Funnily enough, this also further justified Slumber and the Bounty Hunter profession, as what little writing there is on aranea suggests that not only are they not especially hostile, but also err towards non-lethal methods, preferring to subdue and ransom their enemies rather than kill them.

So now that you see what I started with, let's do some backstory.

Spoiler: Part 1: The 'Early' Years

Enadar was found, as a swaddling babe deep within a forest, by an Aranea named Chauki. Reasoning that he must have been a part of the ill-fated caravan she had found earlier, Chauki took the child back to her colony where she raised him as her own. Growing up in an Aranea colony gave Enadar a predisposition towards a few things: magic, a preference for non-lethal tactics, and a certain fondness for arachnids. Unfortunately, he never exactly got the hang of climbing and constantly had to rely on his adopted family to get home. His adoptive little sister, Kiqudda, teased him mercilessly about that fact for years...until one night when he stubbornly tried to climb up the moss-covered tree that they called home…during a storm. He was a comparatively bad climber at the best of times, but that night his stubbornness caused him to fall and break his arm. This really drove things home for Kiqudda about her brother’s pride and relative ability, and she stopped teasing him about his climbing ability. However, much to Enadar's frustration and embarrassment, his little sister had instead developed a mildly patronizing protectiveness of him.

While he and his Aranea family did move to different colonies a few times over the years, it wasn’t until adulthood that Enadar had his first contact with 'true' civilization. Restless and a bit depressed due to some relationship issues, Enadar left the colony and started roaming the world, occasionally dropping a line to various colonies to tell his family of his exploration. In the decades since then he has learned a good deal about civilized cultures, not the least of which is that he finds them most tolerable in small doses. As such he tends to spend more time on the outskirts than in cities and punctuates that with occasional visits to his old stomping grounds. He has maintained ties to his extended family (continued through Kiqudda) over the years and when he drops in, he positively dotes upon his young [great-great-great] grand-niece, much like he did her mother and her mother's father before her.

It was during his travels that he truly came into his own as a caster. While he was certainly fascinated by magic when he was growing up and had a natural understanding of much of the theories behind it, none of the schools really 'clicked' with him. Worse still, his own abilities had always been very hit and miss to the point that he wondered if he had any aptitude for casting at all. That changed however, when he met his familiar Mina while he was on the road. For reasons that Enadar was never made privy to, someone or something had taken an interest in him and wanted to foster his growth as a caster, which Mina was to oversee. While initially distrustful of the bat, his secretive patron, and their interest in him, Enadar and Mina have since established a favorable – almost familial – rapport over the years. Even so, Enadar finds himself frequently (by elven standards, at least) wondering why he was chosen and when the figurative hammer will drop.

Spoiler: Part 2: Recent Activities

Recently, Enadar has taken up temporary residence on the outskirts of town, making a modest living as a bounty hunter. He has developed a bit of a reputation for his ability to consistently bringing back the bounties alive, with little damage to either him or them. He has never explained this mystery, though the guards and ordinary citizens have their theories (rumors).

The townsfolk generally recognize him but consider him a bit odd and are happy enough that he tends to keep to himself. Three in particular stand out as taking a special interest in him. The first of these is Jenna, a fairly influential merchant who, not to mince words, has been trying to bed him since he arrived, much to Enadar's dismay. She’s quite possessive in her infatuation and simply won’t take no for an answer, believing that Enadar belongs to her even if he doesn’t know it yet. She has gone so far as to spike his drinks on multiple occasions to try and catch the elf, but much to her consternation, Enadar has always managed to “misplace” these drinks.

The second interested party is a child by the name of Damon who is far and away the friendliest to him. He first saw the elf when he was 5, and immediately took a liking to Enadar’s “pet bat”, and soon to Enadar himself, despite his parents initially trying to ward him away from the elf. The kid often sneaks out to visit Enadar’s cabin by the woods and frequently tries to convince him to take him on as an apprentice in bounty hunting.

The third is Irvin, a member of the town watch who just plain doesn’t trust the elf, and shadows him whenever he shows up. Enadar is aware of this and makes some sport out of losing the pursuit. Usually this is harmless enough, but there was one instance where, by chance, one of Jenna’s spiked drinks made its way to Irvin instead of Enadar. Irvin had no idea of the drink’s contents, collapsed in the bar and was reprimanded for getting drunk on the job. Irvin is unaware that Enadar was the intended recipient and is convinced that the elf had deliberately spiked his drink for some nefarious purpose, though he has no evidence of this.

Despite the bad blood between him and Irvin, Enadar’s general good behavior and occasional help in bringing in criminals has affording him a degree of trust with the guard for several nearby towns in which he is a familiar face. Not enough to pull favors or make them friendly towards him, but enough to generally acknowledge that the people he drags along are more likely wanted criminals than kidnapping victims.

So there you have it, at the start of the adventure, Enadar is the hermit living just outside of town with a dubious profession and - depending on who you ask - is weird, exotic, cool, 'obviously up to something', etc. I wanted him to end up as a relatively grounded character. He's knowledgeable, friendly, largely laid back, a bit quirky...kinda a "team mom", really. His backstory is deliberately a happy one which makes him largely content at the start of the story, highlighting his lack of ambition (which plays into the story behind his patron, which I shan't get into here), while also laying the foundations for excuses to join the party (ranging from getting the hell away from his unwelcome admirer to the villain du jour hurting one of his few friends in town). He's written for the party to stumble upon and pull into the adventurer lifestyle, not really choosing it himself.

 

[Tireseas]

There's one single other backstory that I've written that I liked more, but it was for a character I never actually played so I'm not sure how much it would qualify.

Go for it!

Alright, another one of mine. This one is shorter and arguably one of my least favorite character's I've made, which is why he's also the one that lasted the longest because that's how my life works.


Game: D&D 5e, Sword Coast/Cult of the Dragon Queen Campaign
Character: Mordai Bane
Race: Tiefling
Class/Background: Warlock Disgraced Researcher (Sage)

My aim: make an evil/Selfish Indiana Jones for a prewritten module that was in progress. The background was updated shortly after we started, so the last paragraph was added partway into the campaign

Spoiler: The Ballad of Mordai Bane

Mordai Bane used to be a respected archaeologist and adventurer, plundering tombs and ancient ruins for all kinds of treasure and lore in between scholarship and teaching history at the University in Baldur's Gate.

At least until the University discovered how he financed his lavish lifestyle. Turns out selling artifacts on the black market when you're done with them is not considered to be the height of scholarly achievement. They especially frown on selling the kinds of magical items that destroy villages when used properly.

So, now Mordai freelances as an adventurer, often as a partner in expeditions. Makes him a partner in expeditions. Makes him a bit of bread money and the ability to... "procure..." somes pieces to study.

Finding his research stolen by cultists, Mordai has joined a band of uncultured idiots, religious morons, and a drunkard to recover it. For his troubles, his right hand has turned into a claw and the tip of his tail is growing scales of some kind.

 

[Worgen]

The ultimate dark backstory.

I don't actually play, I just wanted an excuse to link this comic.

 

[Chimpzy]

Game: D&D 3.5
Name: Rafe aka "Wolf"
Race: Wolf (duh)
Class: Swordsage
Role: scout, infiltrator, flanker

A character I played in a short campaign with an all monstrous races party. His background is that he was once the animal companion for a powerful druid who got the Awaken spell cast on it, elevating him to humanlike sentience. The druid master then ended up getting killed. Normally, this would mean the animal companion reverts back to a regular specimen of its kind, but in Rafe's case, a fluke of fate caused him to keep his intelligence. After wandering for a bit, he met a Werewolf swordmaster who wanted to test herself by seeing it she could train a non-humanoid in the ways of the shadowy sword. Obviously, she succeeded. Afterward, Rafe wanted to test his newfound skills. Sadly, being a wolf (and not actually being able to speak) made it a little difficult to find companions, until he joined up with a group of other misfit monstrous adventurers. Also, Rafe is the name his original druid master gave him, but wolves don't care nor have need of names, so the rest of his party just called him "Wolf".

 

[Asita]

Ok, another bit of context here: I wanted to make a Tiefling. And I don't mean "I wanted to make a human with a devil aesthetic" or "I wanted to make a run of the mill devil pretending to be mortal." I wanted to make an a Tiefling, a mortal that actually reflected the prejudices of the world. This isn't supposed to be a sexy misunderstood "monster", or someone who lets the prejudice slide off his back. This was to be a character that for his entire life almost nobody ever believed in and almost everyone treated as an irredeemable monster and figurative timebomb that was just waiting for the right opportunity to corrupt and/or slaughter everyone.

And that was one of the things I wanted with this character. I wanted the character to start basically as Alucard from Hellsing; a near rabid attack dog controlled through a tight leash of absolute loyalty to an individual (or in this case, the legacy of an individual), and whose character arc would be reflected in his very gradual shift in alignment from Lawful Evil to some variant of Good over multiple campaigns...Naturally, this means that actually using the character is a very tricky proposition. Without good confederates to help with that arc, people would just assume that "edgelord" was Zerris's intended archetype rather than the starting point he'd grow out of. Thus his character arc wouldn't happen, and we'd all have a bad time of it. So in the end, even if I did have the opportunity to RP, this character would still probably be on the backburner.

Game: Pathfinder
Name: Zerris
Race: Tiefling (Qlippoth-Spawn)
Class: Inquisitor (Heretic archetype)

Spoiler: Backstory

Zerris was the product of a one-night stand between an unknown adventurer and a barmaid named Althea. Unfortunately, by the time Althea started showing, the adventurer was long gone and she had no way to contact him. Shunned by her family, she sought refuge with the church of Sarenrae, who cared for her until she gave birth. Tragically, she did not survive the birth, and upon seeing the infant, it was immediately apparent to the priests that she had been doomed the moment it was conceived.

Before them lay an infant whose deathly white eyes stared back at them from beneath the insectoid-stalks that made up its ‘hair’ and which grasped at them with a hideous chitinous claw, even as its tentacle-tail writhed about searching for a something to grasp for comfort. It cried out for attention, revealing that its maw was already filled with needle-sharp fangs. The priests were aghast. This was a tiefling that she had given birth to. Worse, it was the spawn of the Qlippoth, some of the most horrifically evil demons known to mortals. Almost immediately cries went out amongst the clergy to smother the foul creature, for its kind was kin to the Rough Beast, incapable of understanding virtue.

It was only due to Dawnfather Kelvak’s intervention that these cries were not heeded. A firm believer that even fiends were [at least in theory] capable of redemption, he refused to let the tiefling’s heritage alone damn him to death. At his insistence, the clerics of Sarenrae would raise the Motherless infant in the hopes that Sarenrae’s love would find its way into him. Kelvak named the boy ‘Zerris’.

Kelvak’s compassion saved Zerris in more than one sense. In addition to preventing his murder at the hands of his fellow Sarenrites, the Dawnfather took an interest in the child’s upbringing. While Sarenrites were famously compassionate and empathetic under most circumstances, ‘common knowledge’ was that the Qlippoth-spawn were irredeemably evil by nature, and most of the church believed that in raising Zerris they were tacitly adding more evil to the world. Kelvak, however, believed that nurture played a stronger role than nature and treated Zerris as a child first and foremost, both in need of guidance and in need of understanding and love if it could be provided. Kelvak’s compassion for the Tiefling is ultimately what made Zerris’s formative years tolerable, as unlike the vast majority of Qlippoth-Spawn, Zerris had someone who he could trust and who would stand in his defense. That is not to say, however, that these were happy years by any stretch.

Even among the Dawnflower’s faithful, Zerris was often regarded with anything from overt pity to half-heartedly hidden scorn. And for all that Kelvak tried to treat the young Tiefling well; Zerris still felt that the old man was keeping him at arm’s length. Whether that was due to Kelvak’s other obligations taking priority or a conscious decision, Zerris could never decide. Despite the obvious disapproval he faced - or perhaps because of it – Zerris took a strong interest in the church’s writings, finding that the Punishment of Ninshabur in particular spoke to him. Conversely, Darkness and Light brought him to tears, as he reasoned that the goddess was either unable or unwilling to offer him the same cleansing despite his prayers. Though he never openly spoke of it, Kelvak did write that his discovery of the young Tiefling’s sobbing form reaffirmed his belief that saving Zerris was good and just, as it showed both his vulnerability and his desire to be good. A few additional entries in his personal diary referenced similar moments with the young Tiefling.

In later entries, Kelvak mused that in observing Zerris he had further reason to question the common wisdom that Qlippoth-Spawn were innately beyond redemption and incapable of feeling. Rather, he speculated that they were never offered the former, and that rather than being incapable of positive emotion they were in fact terribly depressed and learned to block out most emotion as only leading to further sorrow. At any rate, his attempts to console the boy would be among the few moments of true compassion and comfort Zerris would know in his childhood, and made him desperately loyal to the Dawnfather and his memory.

Zerris would later decide to train as a warrior for the church, and Kelvak bequeathed to him a great sword that he himself had inherited. It was true that Sarenrae’s clerics tended towards scimitars, but he had reasoned that the Tiefling could put the largely unused blade to use and felt it fitting that such an unorthodox disciple have an unorthodox weapon. Though dumbfounded by the act, Zerris accepted his inheritance and started training to master it. In that regard, his training went very well. Zerris excelled at the physical aspect of the church’s teachings. Despite knowing them by rote and trying to embrace them, however, the spirit of Sarenrite teachings eluded him. While he would obey when told to stop, he was – on the whole – too hotheaded and eager to pay evil unto evil, never truly embracing Saranrae’s compassion and mercy. Rather than ceasing his training, however, the clergy tweaked it, turning him into what could best be described as an Inquisitor for the church, to be directed towards those who truly caused suffering in the world.

Zerris is still more…zealous…than the church would ever openly approve of, but they reason that at the very least he’s useful if properly directed. As such, his overriding mission is to hunt down the various cults of Rovagug, thus sending the merciless against those who have chosen to embrace the worst of existence. His superiors pay lip service to the idea that over the course of this mission Zerris will develop compassion for the people he’s protecting, but in truth they think (At least after Kelvak’s passing) that it is simply in his nature to be evil and – for all that he can be trained to swing and sheathe his blade on command – he is little more than a rabid dog that will never truly be worthy of the Everlight. Zerris is, as far as most are concerned, a lost cause only ‘redeemed’ in the sense that he is controlled and directed at uncontrolled evil. If he dies, he shall not be mourned as nothing worth saving will have been lost.

So yeah, this guy is the night to Enadar's day. Qlippoth-spawn trend towards evil of the "I want to watch the world burn" variety, but Blood of Fiends suggests that that's possibly attributed to the total rejection they experience from the moment they're born. I wanted to test this, and so I created Dawnfather Kelvak as Zerris's sole beacon of hope in a sea of mistrust. Compassion has been rare for him, and he's still a ball of bottled up anger, fear, and self-loathing, but at the same time he desperately wants to be the man that Kelvak believed he could be. He just doesn't know how to be that person. And learning that is his character arc.

 

[SilentPony]

Game: Warhammer 40k 8th Edition
Name: Berek Lord of Cinders
Race: Chaos Space Marine
Legion: World Eaters
Class: Terminator Lord

Berek served in Gladiator Group 117 during the Shadow Crusade campaign in Ultramar during the Horus Heresy. Like his Primarch and brethren Berek took great pride in tearing Ultramarines from their strongholds and burning their worlds to cinders. Paired with the warrior-priests of Lorgar's Legion Berek cut a bloody swathe through the 500 Worlds, and earned a reputation for maximum casualties. Over the course of the Crusade Berek and his warriors fell deeper and deeper into bloodlust, no doubt encouraged by the Word Bearers. Slowly Berek began to loose sight of the endgame of the Crusade and his reports to Legion command became infrequent and increasingly incoherent; he spoke of oceans turned to blood, of monsters of fire and scale and horn rampaging across continents and that the stars themselves had started to whisper.
When Angron ascended to daemonhood Berek struck out on his own, believing the Gods themselves had chosen him to follow in his Primarch's steps. For years Berek, his World Eaters and their Word Bearer's allies bled Ultramar and even when the Warmaster Horus ordered the final push on Terra he did not relent. Berek was convinced the war would never end, regardless of who sat on the Throne and instead chose to pick his own battles and listen only to the whispering stars. Thus Berek and his warriors were no in the World Eater's fleet during their assault on Terra, nor did they participate in the failure to capture the Throne World or the retreat into the Eye afterwards.
Though his gaze has long since fallen from Ultramar, Berek has continued his path to greatness, burning worlds and rending populations alongside his warriors and the Word Bearers. For 10,000 years this lord of butchers has made the UItima Segmentum his hunting grounds and many a Lord and Hero of the Imperium has fallen to his claws.

In game terms Berek is in Terminator armor with double lightning claws. His unique traits are a +1 Invul save for a 2+/3++, in close combat a unmodified to hit roll of 6 does 2 hits instead of 1, he can re-roll his charges and has a -1 Leadership bubble around him.
His warlord trait is Flames of Spite which do mortal wounds on a To Wound roll of 6.
On the charge he's base 4 attacks, +1 for the charge, +1 for being a world eater and +1 for double lightning claws. 7 attacks, hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s, 6s explode, wounding on S4, with all failed wounds rerolling because of his Claws and then To Wound of 6s deal mortal wounds, all at Ap-2. He's pretty fun.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Game: Warhammer 40k 8th Edition
Name: Berek Lord of Cinders
Race: Chaos Space Marine
Legion: World Eaters
Class: Terminator Lord

Berek served in Gladiator Group 117 during the Shadow Crusade campaign in Ultramar during the Horus Heresy. Like his Primarch and brethren Berek took great pride in tearing Ultramarines from their strongholds and burning their worlds to cinders. Paired with the warrior-priests of Lorgar's Legion Berek cut a bloody swathe through the 500 Worlds, and earned a reputation for maximum casualties. Over the course of the Crusade Berek and his warriors fell deeper and deeper into bloodlust, no doubt encouraged by the Word Bearers. Slowly Berek began to loose sight of the endgame of the Crusade and his reports to Legion command became infrequent and increasingly incoherent; he spoke of oceans turned to blood, of monsters of fire and scale and horn rampaging across continents and that the stars themselves had started to whisper.
When Angron ascended to daemonhood Berek struck out on his own, believing the Gods themselves had chosen him to follow in his Primarch's steps. For years Berek, his World Eaters and their Word Bearer's allies bled Ultramar and even when the Warmaster Horus ordered the final push on Terra he did not relent. Berek was convinced the war would never end, regardless of who sat on the Throne and instead chose to pick his own battles and listen only to the whispering stars. Thus Berek and his warriors were no in the World Eater's fleet during their assault on Terra, nor did they participate in the failure to capture the Throne World or the retreat into the Eye afterwards.
Though his gaze has long since fallen from Ultramar, Berek has continued his path to greatness, burning worlds and rending populations alongside his warriors and the Word Bearers. For 10,000 years this lord of butchers has made the UItima Segmentum his hunting grounds and many a Lord and Hero of the Imperium has fallen to his claws.

In game terms Berek is in Terminator armor with double lightning claws. His unique traits are a +1 Invul save for a 2+/3++, in close combat a unmodified to hit roll of 6 does 2 hits instead of 1, he can re-roll his charges and has a -1 Leadership bubble around him.
His warlord trait is Flames of Spite which do mortal wounds on a To Wound roll of 6.
On the charge he's base 4 attacks, +1 for the charge, +1 for being a world eater and +1 for double lightning claws. 7 attacks, hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s, 6s explode, wounding on S4, with all failed wounds rerolling because of his Claws and then To Wound of 6s deal mortal wounds, all at Ap-2. He's pretty fun.

In the dark days when I played Space Marines, you could customise your Chapter quite a lot (oh 4th, how I miss thee), and I did a Dark Angels off-shoot who were seriously line treading. The Chapter Master may as well have been Alpharius, but with a healthy dose of meme-y taco chef Pedro Kantor mixed in (went fully that direction for 5th when they gutted the customisation features and I couldn't take Bike Squads to my hearts content).

Only a pity that you can't do your own back stories in Warmachine & Hordes because you can only play as named characters.

But anyway, since we're on the topic of custom characters for skirmish battle games:

Game: Warhammer Fantasy Battle (8th Edition)
Name: Korsarion
Race: High Elf
Kingdom: Nagarythe
Allegiance: Lesser Prince & Outcast

A formerly zealous follower of Alith Anar, but grew weary of continued glorious, if ultimately aimless, ventures in Naggaroth, requested and received leave to return to Ulthuan. Life in the Elven homelands was pleasant, but unfulfilling, so raised a small force of his loyal Nagarythean retainers to support Aislinn, but was contemptuously dismissed for not having what it takes to be an admiral despite knowledge of Shadow Warrior tactics and prior campaigns against Norsca. Seeking a new hunting ground to make his name known among the Phoenix Court, he sailed south, towards Araby and the Southlands beyond, dispatching pirates and raiders as he went.

Unfortunately, I never really got to play his build much so his story never got past his voyages towards the Dragon Isles, which is a pity, but he was meant to circumnavigate the world and arrive from the west to help out against a Dark Elf attack against the Lizardmen at the Isthmus of Lustria.

 

[SilentPony]

In the dark days when I played Space Marines, you could customise your Chapter quite a lot (oh 4th, how I miss thee), and I did a Dark Angels off-shoot who were seriously line treading. The Chapter Master may as well have been Alpharius, but with a healthy dose of meme-y taco chef Pedro Kantor mixed in (went fully that direction for 5th when they gutted the customisation features and I couldn't take Bike Squads to my hearts content).

Only a pity that you can't do your own back stories in Warmachine & Hordes because you can only play as named characters.

But anyway, since we're on the topic of custom characters for skirmish battle games:

Game: Warhammer Fantasy Battle (8th Edition)
Name: Korsarion
Race: High Elf
Kingdom: Nagarythe
Allegiance: Lesser Prince & Outcast

A formerly zealous follower of Alith Anar, but grew weary of continued glorious, if ultimately aimless, ventures in Naggaroth, requested and received leave to return to Ulthuan. Life in the Elven homelands was pleasant, but unfulfilling, so raised a small force of his loyal Nagarythean retainers to support Aislinn, but was contemptuously dismissed for not having what it takes to be an admiral despite knowledge of Shadow Warrior tactics and prior campaigns against Norsca. Seeking a new hunting ground to make his name known among the Phoenix Court, he sailed south, towards Araby and the Southlands beyond, dispatching pirates and raiders as he went.

Unfortunately, I never really got to play his build much so his story never got past his voyages towards the Dragon Isles, which is a pity, but he was meant to circumnavigate the world and arrive from the west to help out against a Dark Elf attack against the Lizardmen at the Isthmus of Lustria.

8th edition is much friendlier for custom stuff. You can even take as many attack bits as you want these day, you just have to take the correct detachment. In this case it'd be an Outrider detachment which is 1 HQ and 3 Fast Attacks

 

[SckizoBoy]

8th edition is much friendlier for custom stuff. You can even take as many attack bits as you want these day, you just have to take the correct detachment. In this case it'd be an Outrider detachment which is 1 HQ and 3 Fast Attacks

Good to know, though I probably won't play 40K for the foreseeable future, there's no 40K where I live, and currently focussing on another game. Chances are, I'll return to Eldar, tho.

 

[SupahEwok]

I don't really do backstories much. Just seems like too much unnecessary work.

Here's my character design philosophy:

1) Identify role needed in the party
2) Create a stat sheet optimized to fill that role
3) Use the idiosyncrasies that the stat sheet suggests to fill in the broad strokes of the character
4) Invent personality and backstory through play (basically improv references/flashbacks to their pasts), or when the DM asks for something

I'll use my latest character as an example of my process:

Game: Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader (although using the Dark Heresy 2e rules mostly)
Name: Brad (although better known as "Solid Brad")
Race: Human
Class: Accountant
Role: Administration, Trade Negotiations, Chief of Security, Best Selling Author, Actuarial Facillitation

Spoiler: Solid Brad, Adventurer Accountant

This was with a group whom I've played with for years, but whom I'd been on a break from due to grad school getting in the way. They started a new game and were about half a dozen sessions deep, so I was late in joining up.

Rogue Trader is a game about running a group of conquistadors in the 40k universe for profit and profit (and also profit). Strikingly, for a game about profit, nobody else had specialized in the Commerce skill, central to trade negotiations. The group could also use a melee tank. These needs are kinda opposed, as Commerce is based on an Attribute that melee tanks do not use (and melee tanks use several Attributes), so it'd be a case of spreading my XP spending thin. But I rolled with it. I was pretty sure I could make it work out.

So I'm making the sheet, and it soon becomes obvious that I'm not going to be able to start with the stats at a level which I felt I needed. I go looking for solutions. I find one: there's a character creation option wherein you come up with a Dark Secret, the kind that people would probably kill you for if it got out, and which is almost impossible to get rid. In return for giving the GM the opportunity to screw you over at any time, you get... a +6 boost to a stat of your choosing!

So my character got his soul sold.

This was the point I had to sit down and think about who this character was, since I needed a Dark Secret. There were 3 big idiosyncrasies: he had high Intelligence to use for Commerce, he was kitted and roided out to bash in faces with a Thunderhammer and Power Armour, and he'd sold his soul somewhere along the way. What sort of character does this blend create?

This campaign is a parallel story to our previous game (which was a pure Dark Heresy game, wherein you go around and burn heretics at the stake in the 40k universe). In that game, my character (who was a bookworm) was searching a library for something to interest his party member (who was an action girl of possibly limited literacy). I rolled very poorly on finding something suitable, so I decided that the book he'd decided to lend her would be Solid Brad: Adventurer Accountant. A series of novels of the most boring man imaginable chronicling his "adventures". The Solid Brad series instantly became a favorite in-joke for our group.

It came to me, why couldn't Solid Brad be this character? There's this guy who really is named Brad, who'd started life as an accountant but wanted to be a novelist. He was of such limited imagination that he could only write about what he'd experienced, and when nobody would publish his novels of accountancy, he had to go out and have his own adventures to be able to write about them. Somehow, the novels became bestsellers, found in libraries across this entire sector the games are taking place in.

Of course, how he did it was he sold his soul to a daemon god (for the 40k literate among you, Tzeentch). The bargain was that the daemon would give Brad the proper inspiration for writing in exchange for Brad's soul. But this daemon being a tricksy sort, the inspiration he gives is both mandatory, and is a complex code for arcane rituals to summon corruption into the material universe, disseminated through a beloved book series that went everywhere and that noone would think to suspect. And even if cultists were found with a book in their possession, there'd be no reason to suspect that they were using it for rituals rather than just being fans.

The GM loved it. Loved retconning a joke into a Chekhov's Gun. And I thought it was rather tidy. So now the party has hired on mild mannered accountant Brad, beloved author whose bestselling novel series has spawned TV, movie, animation, radio play, young adult novel, comic, and (coming soon!) musical spin-offs, and who can navigate bureacracy and process paperwork as well as he can smash Ork with his Thunderhammer, named Actuarial Facilitation: very well. And who secretly is in a bargain with daemons.

See, I didn't start making the character with any of that in mind. I made a character that would be helpful to the party, and let it dictate the sort of character that that set of characteristics and aptitudes would imply. I find that this both guarantees a character that will have strong gameplay, while also being easy (or at least simple) to create an appropriate backstory for. I have barely more backstory than what's been written here (basically the only detail missing is that it was his publisher who gave him the ritual to contact the daemon and who is now his main handler in his bargain); anything else I need, I can just invent when the GM asks for it or improv if it comes up in the game. The improv might be hit or miss, but probably isn't going to be any worse than having to reference a document for details that aren't at the top of my head in the moment. And oftentimes I can just make a joke about the way my characters see the world and society and improv that as a view into their history.

And yes, I guess the Solid Brad persona qualifies as an in-universe Mary Sue, although I must stress that Brad generally just chronicles the events as they happened, no matter how outlandish (which is also a great source of improv'd backstory, just making up a ridiculous name for a novel at the drop of a hat, and given Brad's demeanor, even the most ridiculous things are taken as fact), rather than creating an idealized version of himself to live vicariously through.

 

[Kae]

Go for it!

So this was for the same campaign as the Wizard, the Wizard had 8 CON score & was overall very fragile so he didn't really last very long, unfortunately.
So I made this character to enter that same campaign, it took a lot of work & research but unfortunately she ended up not being played due to a misunderstanding of what what I was trying to accomplish.

Game: D&D 5E (DragonLance)
Name: I don't remember the character sheet was erased & had a completely different character written over it, it was also burned when I was bored.
Race: Protector Aasimar
Class/Role: Paladin Oath of the Ancients wandering minstrel.

Spoiler: Paladin of the Whale

So this was a while ago & as mentioned before the character sheet no longer exists & my memory isn't good enough that I can recall everything as it was.

In any case she was born to a tribe of Plainsmen (Tribal Nomads) in the Plains of Dust near the land of Ergoth (An evil Kingdom that worships Takhisys The Dragon Queen) in the continent of Ansalon, the plains of Dust are a desolate desert, in any case her parents were normal people & the village elder declared her to be a holy child blessed by Bran (CG God of Music & Poetry), as such the kid was treated with a lot of privilege at first, as she had innate healing abilites & a lot of natural talent for the arts, though she was also educated in Hunting & Foraging unfortunately once the rumours of an Aasimar came to the Knights of Ergoth they started hunting her, typical tragic backstory where her village gets destroyed & her and the survivors have to flee, barely surviving in the harsh desert climate, after some time of living on the run they bump into an expedition of Knights of Solamnia (Followers of Paladine King of Dragons), upon discovering her they help her & the remaining Plainsmen survive in exchange of taking her to their Knightly order, which of course she accepts.
Once there she is trained in how to be a knight but she doesn't really fit in with the rigid structure of knighthood nor does she with the more stoic character expected of a knight & after having a few visions of a cursed land to the West she flees.
As mentioned before the campaign takes place in a different land mass so I need to get her there, so she has a vision (Not uncommon among Aasimar) that she needs to board a Ship, so she does & they set sail, unfortunately the ship is raided by Minotaur Pirates & she fails to defend it, so after she's floating at sea, seemingly about to die, when suddenly she's rescued by Sea Elves (A common thing for Sea Elves to do according to Dragonlance Lore) after being rescued the Elves find out about what she is & since they share a devotion to her God Branchala, they decide to help her, so after providing her with basic equipment they give her a Whale & tell her that she can used it to travel to the mysterious land in the far west, & that's it that's how she makes it, and yes if you investigate DragonLance lore Sea Elves do use whales as transportation.

In any case everyone responded very positively to the whole Whale story, unfortunately the DM wasn't happy with a Paladin not being LG and also being a joke & for whatever reason everyone got mad at me for going for a DEX build, which they claimed was me trying to Power-Game, even though I was only doing it because I imagined her as a slender & graceful girl and also she because she fights with a rapier because that's her God's Favored weapon.
BTW the DM had no right in complaining, I imagined he might have a problem with it, so I had ran everything beforehand & before the session he had said everything was OK, it was until the session that he started demanding I made changes, even though I had specifically ran it by him a week earlier to avoid last minute changes.

Alright, another one of mine. This one is shorter and arguably one of my least favorite character's I've made, which is why he's also the one that lasted the longest because that's how my life works.

Same thing happened to me, not surprisingly with what I played instead of the character mentioned above.

Game: D&D 5e, Sword Coast/Cult of the Dragon Queen Campaign
Character: Mordai Bane
Race: Tiefling
Class/Background: Warlock Disgraced Researcher (Sage)

My aim: make an evil/Selfish Indiana Jones for a prewritten module that was in progress. The background was updated shortly after we started, so the last paragraph was added partway into the campaign

Spoiler: The Ballad of Mordai Bane

Mordai Bane used to be a respected archaeologist and adventurer, plundering tombs and ancient ruins for all kinds of treasure and lore in between scholarship and teaching history at the University in Baldur's Gate.

At least until the University discovered how he financed his lavish lifestyle. Turns out selling artifacts on the black market when you're done with them is not considered to be the height of scholarly achievement. They especially frown on selling the kinds of magical items that destroy villages when used properly.

So, now Mordai freelances as an adventurer, often as a partner in expeditions. Makes him a partner in expeditions. Makes him a bit of bread money and the ability to... "procure..." somes pieces to study.

Finding his research stolen by cultists, Mordai has joined a band of uncultured idiots, religious morons, and a drunkard to recover it. For his troubles, his right hand has turned into a claw and the tip of his tail is growing scales of some kind.

Ironically enough when we played Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Tyranny of Dragons I played something very similar to that, fortunately I ended up having a great dynamic with the Paladin who since he didn't trust me never left me alone, which also meant we shared all of our character moments which caused the characters to become best friends, so for me it was very fun at least, he ended becoming a God too, which was weird since all he wanted was to have a Library & nothing else.

I would add him but he really didn't have much of a backstory.

 

[Saint of M]

Patnfinder and Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Ronan: He is the product of a high ranking member of the Aspis Consortium, an elf by many names, and a enamored barmaid that was too young and idealic to know he would leaver after he had his fill of her. 9 Months later, Ronan Pops out. He grew up smart, wise, and charasmatic, learning from the various patrons of the Bloody Cove Taven. And while he might not have nearly the same level of luck as his father, he is much more gentlmanly.

The problem is that he looks so much like him every now and then he sees a half sibling that wants to avenge their mother's abandonment. After a dozzen of these he joined the pathfinder society to cause havok for the Aspis consortium.

However he quickly learned he enjoyed the good he did, besides the fact it impressed chicks, and joined the Envoy's Alliance to help the new blood learn the ropes and not become a grave marker after their first mission. That and it enables him to taste the finest drinks from around the continent (not too much, he prefers not to be drunk...makes fighting drunkards much easier).


Darla: As a small child, her caravan was attacked by goblins. She fled, the only survivor, into a cave where she found a clutch of baby dragons. Inspired to protect them, she picked up a bady misued sickle and stood her ground. THe mama green dragon came back, impressed with what she saw, and adopted her. She grew up good and skilled in the ways of the wild, while the dragon's human form showed her how to act in society around her. Still, some dragon aspects remain in this ranger's persona, namly that she finds every animal she meets both cute and potentialy delicious.

[note, she also has a southern twang to her voice, and is a frequant user of the phrase bless your heart]


Dungeons and Dragons:
Bilbos: Bilbos grew up happy and healthy in a Gnome village on his parents farm where he tended to the animals and grew crops. The problem is that he grew biger and stronger than most of the children in the village, and it did make fitting in his parrent's cottage difficult. Maybe it was from his healthy appitie? Maybe it was the fact whenever the mule was injured he became the mule to plow the feilds. Or maybe it was the fact at at age 18 his parents finally revealed the truth: They found him abandoned on the side of the road and took him in.

Granted the fact that he was a 7 foot 8 inch tall half orc should have clued him in, but he didn't really think about that.

At this time, the local human lord needed boots on the ground, and so enlisted him into his army. Strong, tough, and surprisingly gifted in battle, he managed to hold the line long enough for the others to flee a bad turning of the tide of battle. It was at this moment he heard a still small rumbling, that quickly grew louder and louder until he saw something that inspired him and made his enemies fled. A new god had joined this world, and he would be his champion.

he would be the first paladin of GODZILLA!

Also he stutters really bad when around girls.

 

[Asita]

Darla: As a small child, her caravan was attacked by goblins. She fled, the only survivor, into a cave where she found a clutch of baby dragons. Inspired to protect them, she picked up a bady misued sickle and stood her ground. THe mama green dragon came back, impressed with what she saw, and adopted her. She grew up good and skilled in the ways of the wild, while the dragon's human form showed her how to act in society around her. Still, some dragon aspects remain in this ranger's persona, namly that she finds every animal she meets both cute and potentialy delicious.

[note, she also has a southern twang to her voice, and is a frequant user of the phrase bless your heart]

...Call me crazy, but I think it would be very interesting to see how Darla and Enadar would play off each other. Both were adopted by...atypical parents and thus have an outsider's perspective on 'civilization', both have a very broad concept of "cute animals" (given that Enadar was raised by Aranea and has a bat familiar, it shouldn't be surprising that he's got a fondness for 'creepy' critters), and if I read you right, have similarly broad taste buds (my extra notes on Enadar has him find most edible things to at least be palatable, and as content to eat locusts as spinach). There's a good amount of common ground between them, but that may only just exacerbate the differences in their upbringing. Honestly, I'm not sure whether they'd end up fast friends or snarky rivals. I mean, imagine one of them is on cooking duty and the other sees that they're using an ingredient the rest of the party would turn their nose up at. Would they be happy to see a kindred spirit, or would they be frustrated that the other doesn't know how to cook it 'properly'? ...Plus, I kinda see an obvious running gag in Darla repeatedly suggesting they turn Mina into bat jerky.

 

[SupahEwok]

(my extra notes on Enadar has him find most edible things to at least be palatable, and as content to eat locusts as spinach)

Gross. Who actually likes spinach?