Isekai (Aramar setting)

You are a traveler from another world/campaign setting/dimension/time. As a result you associate with other people so that someone can explain what the heck is going on whenever you run into something different from what you are used to.

 

Skill Proficiencies: You are from Elsewhere. You are therefore slightly awkward, at least initially, on most social encounters (-1 Charisma penalty) where your background is not known.

On the other hand, you benefit from the difference in environments depending on where you come from and what your other background is. If you hail from an established Other Realm (such as Krynn, Forgotten Realms, Oerth, Dead Sun, Ravenloft, etc) you can offset this penalty within a couple of encounters where you familiarize yourself with the different customs fairly easily. If you hail from a technologically advanced society, this gives you a +1 to figure out mechanisms of various purely tech-driven designs. If you hail from a magically advanced society (Aramar in the Age of Sorcerer-Kings, some Spelljammer or Planescape settings, etc) then this gives you a +1 to Arcana or Alchemy checks.

Tool Proficiencies: Those from highly advanced technological societies are considered unskilled with most tools/equipment of medieval or less sophistication. For at least the first six months in a very different setting, the character is at a -2 for skill checks on things considered normal day-to-day skills unless their background specifically allows it. (ex: thatching a roof, feeding farm animals, horse riding, daub-and-wattle repair...)

Languages: In Aramar, the first day sees the character slowly absorbing knowledge of the Common (Comyn) tongue. Literacy in Comyn (if the character is literate) comes after three days. Racial languages, if applicable, will start out as pathetic but gradually grow to base fluency within the first week.

Equipment: Equipment is as the background suggests. A farmer from Krynn would have basic clothing and a farm implement. A student from Arizona State University in the 21st century of the First Age of Man might have a single set of clothes, backpack, laptop (with no way to recharge it), cell phone, and some basic school supplies.

Suggested Characteristics

Basically whatever the background suggests, but be prepared for the DM to exercise extreme vetoing capability if you're being a keghole and trying to munchkin in a bunch of stuff for purposes of being either an edgelord or overpowered twit.