You’re a performance artist at heart, with a flair for the dramatic and a love of the spotlight. You’ve spent years honing your craft, mastering a demanding set of skills so you can perform them with panache and make them look easy. The wild applause, the screams of the crowds, the music you wrench from the final breaths of your latest target — this is what you live for.
Life as a traveling entertainer gives you the perfect cover to operate as an assassin. Funny thing, those you slay never seem to appreciate the level of artistry you bring to their deaths. Everyone's a critic.
- Skill Proficiencies: Acrobatics, Performance
- Tool Proficiencies: Choose two from: Disguise Kit, Forgery Kit, Poisoner's Kit, Thieves' Tools
- Equipment: An Entertainer's Pack. A set of six small daggers, balanced for throwing and sheathed in a leather strap which can be belted at the waist or slung diagonally across the torso, and a pouch containing 15 gp
Your performances are always edgy and exciting, and although you vary them frequently, you do have favorites. Choose or roll to select your two biggest crowd-pleasers.
| d8 | A Flair for the Dramatic |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sword Swallower |
| 2 | Knife Thrower |
| 3 | Human Fireball |
| 4 | Dagger Juggler |
| 5 | Spikewheel Acrobat |
| 6 | Death Illusionist |
| 7 | Blade Dancer |
| 8 | Trapeze Combatant |
Spell List
You acquire most spells through careful and deliberate study, but some draw you in and demand you learn them. If you are a caster, these are added to your spell list.
| Spell Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| Cantrip | fire bolt, vicious mockery |
| 1st | bane, burning hands, dissonant whispers, hellish rebuke |
| 2nd | crown of madness |
| 3rd | fear, haste |
| 4th | confusion |
| 5th | immolation |
Your magic often produces a flashy spectacle, wreathing you or your targets in a mixture of harmless flame and shadowy shapes.
Suggested Characteristics
Covert killers aren’t generally known as the kindest or most mentally stable individuals, so you’re likely to have something in your nature that distinguishes you from the law-abiding citizens of the land.
| d8 | Personality Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | I can’t stand it when things are predictable, so I like to add a little chaos to every situation. |
| 2 | I enjoy testing others' patience. |
| 3 | I'll sing at the drop of a __________. The blank doesn't even need to be filled in. |
| 4 | I sometimes randomly cackle. It's probably best not to ask. |
| 5 | I like to steal a small thing of no value (a button, a strip of leather, etc.) from those few who earn my respect. Once I've done them a good turn, I return it as covertly as I took it. |
| 6 | I need a certain amount of acrobatic movement every day to feel right. Bodies were meant to move! |
| 7 | I don't trust most adults. They lie to themselves as much as to others. |
| 8 | I enjoy breaking delicate works of art. And fingers, which are sort of the same. |
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Honesty. Art should reflect the soul; it should come from within and reveal who we truly are. (Any) |
| 2 | Violence. The purest art is formed from the flow of movement and magic, carved with body and blade into flesh. (Neutral or Evil) |
| 3 | Freedom. Chains are meant to be broken, as are those who would forge them. (Chaotic) |
| 4 | Purpose. I have a dark calling that puts me above the law. (Chaotic) |
| 5 | Creativity. I strive to find more ways to express my art through pain — my own as well as others’. (Chaotic) |
| 6 | Mastery. I am ever seeking to attain greater heights of knowledge and skill. (Any) |
| d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | Life is heightened during a performance, whether the "audience" appreciates it or not. |
| 2 | Pain strips every pretense away. For most people, only in extreme pain are they their truest selves. |
| 3 | The greatest satisfaction comes from prevailing over the greatest obstacle. |
| 4 | I am never more alive than in the heat of violence, and I'll even fight for a good cause to get more of it. |
| 5 | If I actually trust someone, I'll protect them. |
| 6 | I don't care if what I seek to do has never been done before. I will never stop striving to accomplish it. |
| d6 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | My sharp tongue can land me in trouble. Mocking people is just too much fun. |
| 2 | I can fixate on an artistic endeavor to the point of forgetting other obligations. This has caused problems when creating in my favorite medium. |
| 3 | An innocent person is in prison for a crime I committed. I'm okay with that. |
| 4 | Most people don't matter to me. They lie even to themselves, living behind a mask. Why should I care about them if they don't? |
| 5 | There's no room for caution in a life lived to the fullest. |
| 6 | It's not stealing if I can just remove it from their pocket. |
Contacts
In any region in which you've performed for more than a week, you know how to seek out those who hire assassins. You also know how to learn whether there is a local assassins' guild or other organization that controls such trade, and how to avoid stepping on their toes. In some cases, this involves offering to take a contract off their hands and split the fee with them. In others, you may need to promise or perform a favor in return for being permitted to operate in their territory.
For whatever reason, you had to employ subterfuge to acquire your martial skills. Perhaps you grew up in a family of entertainers that condoned your development of an unusual act, but would not have permitted you to fight. Or maybe people in your birthplace were pacifistic, so you had to camouflage your practice as a performance, and along the way acquired a taste for the spotlight. Your experience with dancing and tumbling in your performances has accustomed you to experiencing pain without losing your grace or your smile, to the point where whether you're fighting or performing, the pain you feel is a welcome part of your art.
You focus your performances on artistic displays of movement and mayhem. Your acts most often include juggling and throwing various blades, often simultaneously with your acrobatics. In this way, you keep your skills as sharp as your blades, without anyone suspecting you use those skills for more than performance. Using your By Popular Demand feature, you can always find a place to perform, usually in an inn or tavern but possibly with a circus, at a theater, or even in a noble’s court. But you are especially welcome anywhere frequented by those of a martial bent, such as adventurers, soldiers, guards, and so forth. In these settings, after a strong performance, the patrons will often buy you drinks and talk a bit more openly than they otherwise might. You can replace the musical instrument in your equipment package with a brace of six small juggling/throwing knives, which are inexpensive daggers balanced for throwing.
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Posted Jul 12, 2022I love this background!
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