Your life before adventure was marked by its mundanes. Under the supervision of your higher ups, you have helped keep shops running, taverns full or farms working. This is the simple life many lead, but this is not the life cut out for you. You feel compelled towards adventure, with reasons ranging from a dramatic event which forced you into it, or a growing boredom with your current career. You know how shops are run and helped, can get on common terms with others in your previous trade, and up to this point have experienced, with joy or regret, the new active life of adventuring.
- Skill Proficiencies: Persuasion, Insight
- Languages: Two of your choice.
- Equipment: A keepsake from your previous career, a set of assistant's clothes, a small book with common phrases in Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Gnomish and Undercommon, a pouch containing 15 gp
There are many professions which need some sort of assistant or apprentice in order to function. Many of these are found in towns or cities, though some are more rural in nature. Wherever you are from, the life of being told what to do is shared everywhere. Choose the previous profession you helped in, or roll on the table below.
| d8 | Previous Profession |
|---|---|
| 1 | Stablehand |
| 2 | Waiter |
| 3 | Library Clerk |
| 4 | Cleaner |
| 5 | Shop Assistant |
| 6 | Squire |
| 7 | Apprentice Alchemist |
| 8 | Farmhand |
Your time spent assisting others mean that you can empathize with those with jobs like yours. You can talk freely about your past with assistants of yours or other professions, be it stablehands, bartenders, or library clerks. Assistants typically enjoy the attention, and will return the interest. These assistants can tell you much of the local gossip and area, can be convinced to help you in minor tasks, and can talk enough about their profession in order for you to quickly get the gist of it.
Assistants will often be more than happy to suggest you as a helping hand to their employer. You will be paid at a rate from 2 sp to 1 gp per hour. During work you can talk with other assistants freely and your employer on less distant terms. Any profession you have worked for without issue are more inclined to favor you, with them more likely to agree to discounts or even offering discounts for you and any party members who haven't caused trouble in their business.
Suggested Characteristics
Assistants come from the lower classes in society, and may miss or despise their past profession. However, their training has leaned them towards a practical way of thinking. Their practicality, knowledge of commoner's lives and wanting to escape it may shape their ideals. Their bonds could be to their old employer, an assistant friend or an unique customer. Their flaws could be shaped by an overly simplistic view of the world, or excessive recklessness or caution due to their newfound freedom.
| d8 | Personality Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | I always attempt to barter the price of goods. |
| 2 | I get nervous around adventurers which have come from a higher background than me. |
| 3 | I will always go on the side of talking a situation out rather than it descend to violence. |
| 4 | I am eager to be taught new things by more experienced adventurers. |
| 5 | I can deal with situations of rising anger and arguments well and coldly- just like I do with customers. |
| 6 | I will revel in any moment of fame I get. |
| 7 | I am always astounded by people who are content to live their lives as mere workers. |
| 8 | I often zone out when people drone for too long, but I have learned to hide this from dealing with it in the shop. |
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Freedom. The boring life of an assistant wasn't for me. Now with this vast life ahead of me I can at last live. (Chaotic) |
| 2 | Ambition. I have become an adventurer because I know I am capable of so much more. (Any) |
| 3 | Heroism. Why stay in a shop when I could help solve the issues plaguing the land? (Good) |
| 4 | Might. I have spent too much time being told what to do. It's time to change that. (Evil) |
| 5 | Opportunity. Everyone should be given an equal chance to rise. (Lawful) |
| 6 | Fulfillment. Adventuring is a way to bring meaning to my life. (Any) |
| d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | My old employer had his business looted, and I am doing this in order to help him. |
| 2 | A mysterious customer once came into the premises and secretly handed me a scroll in a language I do not understand. Will I ever understand? |
| 3 | An old regular told me every night of his adventuring stories. I am doing this to prove to him that he inspired me. |
| 4 | My brother always gets the better deal when it comes to our family. He owns the family business while I do the cleaning. Wait until I show them what I am made of. |
| 5 | Life was okay as an assistant until a work friend of mine became an adventurer. I regret not going with them. |
| 6 | I still secretly enjoy the work that I did, and find any reference or temporary return to it wondrous. |
| d6 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | I am needlessly reckless or cautious due to my limited training as an adventurer. |
| 2 | Abstract ideas bore me, as do overcomplicated plans. |
| 3 | I will do anything if it means fame. |
| 4 | I get easily nervous and may not share ideas or information on the assumption the other party members already thought of it and know about it. |
| 5 | I will instinctively listen and obey to authority, as I fear the consequences of not doing so. |
| 6 | I get overly defensive about my humble past, and I am ready to lie about it or insult the person who asks. |
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