Warforged are one of the cooler playable races to come out of the Eberron release...mechanical constructions that were once built for warfare, but now find new purpose amidst the various classes in D&D.
They are actually pretty damn versatile for a literal death-machines...they're innate defenses, coupled with the unique subclasses that allow them to excel in nearly any kind of build, means that a Warforged can pretty much be whoever they want to be.
The only thing remaining is...justifying their presence. Unless your campaign is set in Eberron, the presence of a Warforged might draw attention to your typical city guard or townsfolk. But this might serve only as an additional aspect to make your Warforged backstory even more unique!
Perhaps your Warforged was created by a Gnomish wizard-inventor, interesting in creating artificial life with a genuine soul (ala Victor Frankenstein).
Maybe your Warforged DID come from Eberron...part of an imported shipment of weaponry paid for by a criminal organization looking to expand their influence by using a small army of mechanical enforcers. But your Warforged gained sentience, breaking away from the criminal guild and is now on the run from the boss looking to reclaim his stolen property.
Maybe your Warforged is a wandering monk, looking to gain peace from the bloody memories of a war you can't actually remember clearly.
Perhaps your Warforged is actually the soul of another living race, trapped in a mechanical shell by a wicked necromancer who was looking to achieve immortality.
The potential for naming your Warforged are also unique to the type of class you want:
Stogie - the veteran Warforged Barbarian who puffs on a cigar and drinks whiskey, despite not really feeling the effect.
Tesla - the magical Storm Sorcerer whose heart is a literal condensed storm.
Jukebox - an Envoy Warforged Bard whose torso opens to reveal an assortment of musical instruments (like an ORGAN, ha!). Perhaps he is seeking musical instruments to add to his collection, to become a living symphony!
Hidden Pearl - a spiritual monk Warforged whose name is chosen as a metaphor for the soul within the shell.
Slick - the surprisingly sneaky Warforged rogue.
Really, the possibilities are endless.
So please, share your Warforged character concepts below!
I have a warforged EK that I named MXLII (pronounce Mix-ley), as that was his number back during the war (MXLII=1042 in Roman-er-Gnoman numerals (since in my homebrew world warforged were created by gnomes to fight an ongoing war with gnolls)). I got most of my inspiration for his backstory from the Bastion overwatch short, but basically he's a warforged that gained sentience a lot more slowly than others since he was designed to be a simple grunt, so by the time the war was over he basically had the mind of a child but still with all the memories of war with all these new emotions tied to them.
From there he wanders the wilderness alone for a long time before rediscovering civilization and deciding to try and differentiate himself from the grunt he was designed to be. He starts learning magic specifically because he was not built to, and decides he wants to master baking because deeper down he really just wants to be liked.
One of my players is rolling up a Warforged replacement to their PC that recently died. As we are at level 6, and he's a big multiclasser type, he has one level in Warlock, one level in Rogue and four levels in Fighter (Battlemaster), and has an aberrant dragonmark.
We talked quite a bit, and this character hasn't been introduced yet, but I'm digging the concept so far.
Background is that the warforged were designed by gnomes, specifically a now-long-dead gnomish civilization, originally to be civil servants. His warforged envoy was a painter, someone brought in after constructions were completed to paint magnificent sceneries and frescoes. The Rogue level was for the skill and tool proficiencies.
However, despite being rather peaceful, war comes to everyone eventually. The warforged were repurposed into foot soldiers, with her taking more of a commanding role, hence the fighter levels and battlemaster subclass. Being an artistic type, the war was tolerated at best, never enjoyed or fully accepted. Despite the capabilities of their armies, and advances of their technologies, the gnomes do not win this war, and it triggers a decline that soon eliminates them as a functioning civilization. Those warforged that survived are placed in stasis, lest they fall into the wrong hands.
This war will live on in a mythological context for centuries after the gnomes are gone, and it is from these legends that the warforged get their name. To come across one, still intact and whole, is a rarity of rarities, but if anyone has ever managed to awaken one, nobody's saying. But some time ago, just over a century from the present, one such warforged was found, and indeed, it was in the wrong hands. A man from a family with a dark secret dragged his find home, leaving the bodies of those who had shared in the discovery.
For generations, this occult family of murderers and sadists enacted a dark ritual to appease a devilish patron. Marking the warforged's body with a mark of evil (aberrant dragonmark), countless unsuspecting guests, travelers and other innocents are sacrificed to the ritual. Their souls bound to the warforged still in stasis, unmoving and unthinking.
The last heirs to that family have been put to the sword, only just recently by the party. At this family's cabin, deep in the woods, a terrible fight ensued, and many innocents saved from slaughter. But in an unfortunate turn of events, two of the party's own fell. One could be saved, the other bled out into the dirt.
One last soul, pulled from the body by the ritual blades of murderers. The last soul needed for the ritual to be complete. And now, the warforged awakens to darkness and chains, her future party above her. Her form is marred by a dark sigil, and dozens of overlapping voices muddle her mind. The souls bound to her will be her warlock patron, the origin of darker powers she did not accept willingly.
It will hurt her, when she realizes what brought her back, but it will also galvanize her to action. She can either attempt to make peace with those souls within her, grow to become an enlightened being with the experiences of many lives within her. Or she can attempt to undo the ritual binding, freeing those souls trapped within her.
Temple - Warforged Cleric who is just so done with these meatbags hurting each other and then demanding to be healed just so they can do it again. Oh, he'll do as he's told, but he'll complain and call you an idiot the whole time while he does. Think Baymax from Big Hero 6 with the personality of Lopez from Red vs Blue.
designed to mimic the armor of a King, or Lord(whatever works for the Champlain), Emperor was meant to fight in his stead when the king/Lord could not.
but after time, Emperor became inactive, and the family died off.
Emperor, some how, became active again. and now he is searching for a legitimate heir to the Royals. Also wanting to find the grave-robed royal weapon of the king/lord.
he is stern, and pretty serious, but he will go along with the other PC's and their own goals.
Harlequin----
A re-purposed Court jester, now an assassin.
there are a few more like him, but this is actually meant to be a big game for some mad man.
Wight(painted so) is meant to hunt down and kill red, blue, green, and black. Black being Harlequin.
As said above, Harlequin is an assassin himself, well using his bard-yness he gets close to the targets to see if they need to be dead.
If they are not that bad, then he dose not complete the job.
He is a Veteran of years of war witch has not been kind and after being relieved after years of service with nothing to do and has been left struggling with normal life due to his looks and his twitch, witch makes people nervous to be around him.
Fallen on hard times he has begun adventuring to find the fight of all fights that will end his life.
He's been left with more than just scars, a tattered uniform and a nervous twitch. He also has an invisible creature on his shoulder that if asked for advice has to roll a D100 that can either give advantage or disadvantage on certain rolls (thought up by the DM for him). I don't have to use it, but its a unique trait to have as a mentally scared vet I think.
Plus when with certain other Veterans gains +1 to AC and when within 10ft of them can elect to sacrifice himself by taking the damage and allowing the other character to survive. (This also was worked out with a DM).
Im fairly new to DnD 5e and It may be not as unique as some other back stories but I like.
I have one in the works that was made by the giants of old. He's rune knight and some rogue, made as a toy of sorts to capture and return humanoids who might try and escape for their captors. An excellent grappler, keeps finding new functions that he forgot during a very long deactivation. Lots of knowledge locked away in his memory banks.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Willow was built in a gnome village, but before he could be told anything, a band of goblinoids descended on the village and slaughtered everyone. Without a purpose, he remained where he stood when he first awakened, while the goblinoids moved in for a while, trashed the place, and carved crude graffiti into the 'weird statue' before leaving. Still he stood motionless, while the village crumbled and the nearby forest grew to encompass the ruins. Moss grew over his body, and birds and mice nested between his shoulder plates. Finally, after innumerable years, someone came by. Two young elves, fleeing from a human mercenary, saw a humanoid figure and called out for help. Willow finally had the purpose he was waiting for. The unsuspecting mercenary was quickly dispatched, and Willow calmly followed the children to find their parents. They were druids, making a pilgrimage to a sacred site deep in the forest. The then-nameless warforged got a mixed reception from the protectors of the site since he was obviously unnatural, but he was useful and wanted to help so they gave him a name and allowed him to stay. After around a year, when tiny white flowers began blooming from the wood of his body and he cast his first healing spell, none could deny that he was one of them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jude, He/They
Former gnome evocation wizard and dhampir fey wanderer ranger, current simic hybrid aberrant mind sorcerer
I have a Warforged NPC in my campaign named Horseshoe. He is the coach and horse master for a secret society that hunts unseen monsters. He awoke in a hunting lodge in the forest with no real knowledge of who or what he was. However he found that he could hunt and fire a bow, and had a natural affinity with interacting and caring for animals, especially horses. After a few weeks of wandering the forest he felt a urge to go to the local city, and visit a four storey building on the outskirts of the city. He found this building to be the headquarters of said society. He found his way to the stable and to the booth that contained Pandora, a large grey dappled horse. No one had been able to calm Pandora since her previous owner, the previous coach master had died in the forest several weeks ago. Horseshoe climbed into the booth and walked towards the bucking horse. However, as soon as Horseshoe touched the grey dapple spot on Pandora's nose she stopped bucking and immediately calmed, nuzzling into Horseshoe's hand. The council running the society talked about their new visitor and it was decided that if he had such an affinity with the horses then he should be their new coach and horse master. Some of the society believed that Horseshoe somehow came to contain the soul of the previous coach master when they died in the forest, and that was why Pandora was placated him Horseshoe. Horseshoe is made of willow wood with a silver chest plate embossed with a brass horseshoe.
I've recently made a Warforged Cleric called Dorryn (named after the gnomish naming convention) He was created for use by the Lanteans before the calamity as a protector of one of the islands many shrines to Gond. But after the island of Lantan dissapeared he was left behind somehow, after years of sitting at the bottom of the ocean he was dredged up by a Wizard research vessel exploring the location.
He was brought back to the mainland and was reactivated by a group of artificer, but had no memory of what happened to Lantan and why it dissapeared.
in my games i said that warforged have sentience and free will because souls of the dead are bound to them but only a very rare few know that so that could be used to make better backstories
I have a Warforged Paladin. One of House Canith's wizards decided to build a protector for his little girl. He called her into the room and told her that this Warforged was her guardian and she should name it, because it would be her friend and companion.
The six year-old immediately called him "Fluffy! P-H-L-U-P-H-Y!"
Eventually the little girl grew up and Phluphy starting picking up some odd jobs here and there, and eventually came in contact with the Lord of Blades. Now Phluphy is a couple of McNuggets short of a happy meal, but upon hearing The Lord of Blades wanted to gather all the sentient races, he immediately volunteered to help.
So we have the Lawful Good Paladin sworn to an evil deity, with the intelligence of a squirrel and mannerisms of a clumsy child, going around helping people out in the name of gathering everyone to his god.
In the 6'8, 400lb body of a a Heartwood, stone and steel hewn Warforged.
I have a Warforged Paladin. One of House Canith's wizards decided to build a protector for his little girl. He called her into the room and told her that this Warforged was her guardian and she should name it, because it would be her friend and companion.
The six year-old immediately called him "Fluffy! P-H-L-U-P-H-Y!"
Eventually the little girl grew up and Phluphy starting picking up some odd jobs here and there, and eventually came in contact with the Lord of Blades. Now Phluphy is a couple of McNuggets short of a happy meal, but upon hearing The Lord of Blades wanted to gather all the sentient races, he immediately volunteered to help.
So we have the Lawful Good Paladin sworn to an evil deity, with the intelligence of a squirrel and mannerisms of a clumsy child, going around helping people out in the name of gathering everyone to his god.
In the 6'8, 400lb body of a a Heartwood, stone and steel hewn Warforged.
Hello everyone!
Warforged are one of the cooler playable races to come out of the Eberron release...mechanical constructions that were once built for warfare, but now find new purpose amidst the various classes in D&D.
They are actually pretty damn versatile for a literal death-machines...they're innate defenses, coupled with the unique subclasses that allow them to excel in nearly any kind of build, means that a Warforged can pretty much be whoever they want to be.
The only thing remaining is...justifying their presence. Unless your campaign is set in Eberron, the presence of a Warforged might draw attention to your typical city guard or townsfolk. But this might serve only as an additional aspect to make your Warforged backstory even more unique!
Perhaps your Warforged was created by a Gnomish wizard-inventor, interesting in creating artificial life with a genuine soul (ala Victor Frankenstein).
Maybe your Warforged DID come from Eberron...part of an imported shipment of weaponry paid for by a criminal organization looking to expand their influence by using a small army of mechanical enforcers. But your Warforged gained sentience, breaking away from the criminal guild and is now on the run from the boss looking to reclaim his stolen property.
Maybe your Warforged is a wandering monk, looking to gain peace from the bloody memories of a war you can't actually remember clearly.
Perhaps your Warforged is actually the soul of another living race, trapped in a mechanical shell by a wicked necromancer who was looking to achieve immortality.
The potential for naming your Warforged are also unique to the type of class you want:
Stogie - the veteran Warforged Barbarian who puffs on a cigar and drinks whiskey, despite not really feeling the effect.
Tesla - the magical Storm Sorcerer whose heart is a literal condensed storm.
Jukebox - an Envoy Warforged Bard whose torso opens to reveal an assortment of musical instruments (like an ORGAN, ha!). Perhaps he is seeking musical instruments to add to his collection, to become a living symphony!
Hidden Pearl - a spiritual monk Warforged whose name is chosen as a metaphor for the soul within the shell.
Slick - the surprisingly sneaky Warforged rogue.
Really, the possibilities are endless.
So please, share your Warforged character concepts below!
I have a warforged EK that I named MXLII (pronounce Mix-ley), as that was his number back during the war (MXLII=1042 in Roman-er-Gnoman numerals (since in my homebrew world warforged were created by gnomes to fight an ongoing war with gnolls)). I got most of my inspiration for his backstory from the Bastion overwatch short, but basically he's a warforged that gained sentience a lot more slowly than others since he was designed to be a simple grunt, so by the time the war was over he basically had the mind of a child but still with all the memories of war with all these new emotions tied to them.
From there he wanders the wilderness alone for a long time before rediscovering civilization and deciding to try and differentiate himself from the grunt he was designed to be. He starts learning magic specifically because he was not built to, and decides he wants to master baking because deeper down he really just wants to be liked.
One of my players is rolling up a Warforged replacement to their PC that recently died. As we are at level 6, and he's a big multiclasser type, he has one level in Warlock, one level in Rogue and four levels in Fighter (Battlemaster), and has an aberrant dragonmark.
We talked quite a bit, and this character hasn't been introduced yet, but I'm digging the concept so far.
Background is that the warforged were designed by gnomes, specifically a now-long-dead gnomish civilization, originally to be civil servants. His warforged envoy was a painter, someone brought in after constructions were completed to paint magnificent sceneries and frescoes. The Rogue level was for the skill and tool proficiencies.
However, despite being rather peaceful, war comes to everyone eventually. The warforged were repurposed into foot soldiers, with her taking more of a commanding role, hence the fighter levels and battlemaster subclass. Being an artistic type, the war was tolerated at best, never enjoyed or fully accepted. Despite the capabilities of their armies, and advances of their technologies, the gnomes do not win this war, and it triggers a decline that soon eliminates them as a functioning civilization. Those warforged that survived are placed in stasis, lest they fall into the wrong hands.
This war will live on in a mythological context for centuries after the gnomes are gone, and it is from these legends that the warforged get their name. To come across one, still intact and whole, is a rarity of rarities, but if anyone has ever managed to awaken one, nobody's saying. But some time ago, just over a century from the present, one such warforged was found, and indeed, it was in the wrong hands. A man from a family with a dark secret dragged his find home, leaving the bodies of those who had shared in the discovery.
For generations, this occult family of murderers and sadists enacted a dark ritual to appease a devilish patron. Marking the warforged's body with a mark of evil (aberrant dragonmark), countless unsuspecting guests, travelers and other innocents are sacrificed to the ritual. Their souls bound to the warforged still in stasis, unmoving and unthinking.
The last heirs to that family have been put to the sword, only just recently by the party. At this family's cabin, deep in the woods, a terrible fight ensued, and many innocents saved from slaughter. But in an unfortunate turn of events, two of the party's own fell. One could be saved, the other bled out into the dirt.
One last soul, pulled from the body by the ritual blades of murderers. The last soul needed for the ritual to be complete. And now, the warforged awakens to darkness and chains, her future party above her. Her form is marred by a dark sigil, and dozens of overlapping voices muddle her mind. The souls bound to her will be her warlock patron, the origin of darker powers she did not accept willingly.
It will hurt her, when she realizes what brought her back, but it will also galvanize her to action. She can either attempt to make peace with those souls within her, grow to become an enlightened being with the experiences of many lives within her. Or she can attempt to undo the ritual binding, freeing those souls trapped within her.
Amazing!
Temple - Warforged Cleric who is just so done with these meatbags hurting each other and then demanding to be healed just so they can do it again. Oh, he'll do as he's told, but he'll complain and call you an idiot the whole time while he does. Think Baymax from Big Hero 6 with the personality of Lopez from Red vs Blue.
well i have a few, but here is two.
Emperor----
designed to mimic the armor of a King, or Lord(whatever works for the Champlain), Emperor was meant to fight in his stead when the king/Lord could not.
but after time, Emperor became inactive, and the family died off.
Emperor, some how, became active again. and now he is searching for a legitimate heir to the Royals. Also wanting to find the grave-robed royal weapon of the king/lord.
he is stern, and pretty serious, but he will go along with the other PC's and their own goals.
Harlequin----
A re-purposed Court jester, now an assassin.
there are a few more like him, but this is actually meant to be a big game for some mad man.
Wight(painted so) is meant to hunt down and kill red, blue, green, and black. Black being Harlequin.
As said above, Harlequin is an assassin himself, well using his bard-yness he gets close to the targets to see if they need to be dead.
If they are not that bad, then he dose not complete the job.
Edited for mistakes
Current game- Pelegos: Coastal Chaos
Game world- Pelegos, homebrew
Role- Player
Players- (Me) Druid/bard : Flower, Dancer of Curses ------- Fighter/rouge : Blackshanks, ruffian --------Sorcereress - Melenie, prodigy
Hi
I've got a warforged fighter named Trax.
He is a Veteran of years of war witch has not been kind and after being relieved after years of service with nothing to do and has been left struggling with normal life due to his looks and his twitch, witch makes people nervous to be around him.
Fallen on hard times he has begun adventuring to find the fight of all fights that will end his life.
He's been left with more than just scars, a tattered uniform and a nervous twitch. He also has an invisible creature on his shoulder that if asked for advice has to roll a D100 that can either give advantage or disadvantage on certain rolls (thought up by the DM for him). I don't have to use it, but its a unique trait to have as a mentally scared vet I think.
Plus when with certain other Veterans gains +1 to AC and when within 10ft of them can elect to sacrifice himself by taking the damage and allowing the other character to survive. (This also was worked out with a DM).
Im fairly new to DnD 5e and It may be not as unique as some other back stories but I like.
Galatea. Beautiful but deadly warforged assassin.
I have one in the works that was made by the giants of old. He's rune knight and some rogue, made as a toy of sorts to capture and return humanoids who might try and escape for their captors. An excellent grappler, keeps finding new functions that he forgot during a very long deactivation. Lots of knowledge locked away in his memory banks.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Willow was built in a gnome village, but before he could be told anything, a band of goblinoids descended on the village and slaughtered everyone. Without a purpose, he remained where he stood when he first awakened, while the goblinoids moved in for a while, trashed the place, and carved crude graffiti into the 'weird statue' before leaving. Still he stood motionless, while the village crumbled and the nearby forest grew to encompass the ruins. Moss grew over his body, and birds and mice nested between his shoulder plates.
Finally, after innumerable years, someone came by. Two young elves, fleeing from a human mercenary, saw a humanoid figure and called out for help. Willow finally had the purpose he was waiting for. The unsuspecting mercenary was quickly dispatched, and Willow calmly followed the children to find their parents. They were druids, making a pilgrimage to a sacred site deep in the forest. The then-nameless warforged got a mixed reception from the protectors of the site since he was obviously unnatural, but he was useful and wanted to help so they gave him a name and allowed him to stay. After around a year, when tiny white flowers began blooming from the wood of his body and he cast his first healing spell, none could deny that he was one of them.
Jude, He/They
Former gnome evocation wizard and dhampir fey wanderer ranger, current simic hybrid aberrant mind sorcerer
Rookie Call of Cthulhu Keeper
Great use of allusion.
Thank you! 😊
Katyusha- Warforged artillery officer
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I have a Warforged NPC in my campaign named Horseshoe. He is the coach and horse master for a secret society that hunts unseen monsters. He awoke in a hunting lodge in the forest with no real knowledge of who or what he was. However he found that he could hunt and fire a bow, and had a natural affinity with interacting and caring for animals, especially horses. After a few weeks of wandering the forest he felt a urge to go to the local city, and visit a four storey building on the outskirts of the city. He found this building to be the headquarters of said society. He found his way to the stable and to the booth that contained Pandora, a large grey dappled horse. No one had been able to calm Pandora since her previous owner, the previous coach master had died in the forest several weeks ago. Horseshoe climbed into the booth and walked towards the bucking horse. However, as soon as Horseshoe touched the grey dapple spot on Pandora's nose she stopped bucking and immediately calmed, nuzzling into Horseshoe's hand. The council running the society talked about their new visitor and it was decided that if he had such an affinity with the horses then he should be their new coach and horse master. Some of the society believed that Horseshoe somehow came to contain the soul of the previous coach master when they died in the forest, and that was why Pandora was placated him Horseshoe. Horseshoe is made of willow wood with a silver chest plate embossed with a brass horseshoe.
Thanks it helped alot
Keep Yeeting.
I've recently made a Warforged Cleric called Dorryn (named after the gnomish naming convention) He was created for use by the Lanteans before the calamity as a protector of one of the islands many shrines to Gond. But after the island of Lantan dissapeared he was left behind somehow, after years of sitting at the bottom of the ocean he was dredged up by a Wizard research vessel exploring the location.
He was brought back to the mainland and was reactivated by a group of artificer, but had no memory of what happened to Lantan and why it dissapeared.
in my games i said that warforged have sentience and free will because souls of the dead are bound to them but only a very rare few know that so that could be used to make better backstories
I am leader of the yep cult:https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/82135-yep-cult Pronouns are she/her
I have a Warforged Paladin. One of House Canith's wizards decided to build a protector for his little girl. He called her into the room and told her that this Warforged was her guardian and she should name it, because it would be her friend and companion.
The six year-old immediately called him "Fluffy! P-H-L-U-P-H-Y!"
Eventually the little girl grew up and Phluphy starting picking up some odd jobs here and there, and eventually came in contact with the Lord of Blades. Now Phluphy is a couple of McNuggets short of a happy meal, but upon hearing The Lord of Blades wanted to gather all the sentient races, he immediately volunteered to help.
So we have the Lawful Good Paladin sworn to an evil deity, with the intelligence of a squirrel and mannerisms of a clumsy child, going around helping people out in the name of gathering everyone to his god.
In the 6'8, 400lb body of a a Heartwood, stone and steel hewn Warforged.
I love it!!!
Thanks.