Whether you violated the law and suffered the consequences or were framed and forced to suffer on behalf of someone else, you have spent a formative amount of time imprisoned. Perhaps you were made to toil in a work camp, forced to fight and survive in a caged environment surrounded by gangs with the same goal as you, or a similar environment where the neglected and shunned gathered to serve their time, innocent and guilty alike. Already the people of your home village or city have likely forgotten you, and the only comfort or solace to be found is in the camaraderie of your fellow prisoners. However, your time behind bars is now over, you either served your time and the law could no longer keep you, or you continued to rebel and somehow escaped. Now you are free, you have little in the world, but the bonds and lessons of your time in captivity stick in your mind as you re-enter a world that you barely recognize.
- Skill Proficiencies: Choose proficiency from among Intimidation, Insight, Athletics, or Perception
- Tool Proficiencies: During your time in prison, you were likely forced to work and no doubt picked up some kind of vocation or trade in the process, or at the very least had a hobby to keep yourself occupied and sane. Choose proficiency for either Carpenters, Cooks, Masons, Potters, Weavers, or Woodcarvers Tools; One Gaming set of your choice.
- Languages: One language you picked up from your fellow inmates.
- Equipment: A Dagger, an inexpensive keepsake from your time in prison, a set of common clothes, and 10 gp
Whether guilty or innocent, you have spent a great deal of time in prison where your life in the outside world is gone and forgotten. You may have found friends, true friends that knew all about what happened to you and didn't judge you, but regardless you used to have a life. What took it from you, was it your own hand? Were you wronged by another? Or was it justified and did your crimes finally catch up with you?
Life in prison has changed you and while you will eventually adjust to life on the outside, some habits from your time incarcerated will never go away. How you walk, how you conceal yourself, the habit of always looking over your shoulder, and many other tics only those who have been inside like you will ever understand. Fellow and Former inmates know you, they understand you and have gone through what you have. Your fellow prisoners, Former or otherwise, are more likely to trust and respect you. Perhaps you've made friends on the inside who have served their sentence and have come to join you in the outside world. Maybe you made contacts inside that will allow you to restart your criminal career or start a new life away from your old one. Either way, You have connections to almost all illegal organizations and guilds in the city that your prison was in and the surrounding countryside or through certain people you met and befriended in prison. You can invoke favors and connections to gain safe lodging, send messages, or other favors from some organizations, but they may want something in return.
Suggested Characteristics
Most prisons are very harsh and violent environments filled with thieves, con artists, frauds, murderers, slavers, and worse. It takes a very hardened individual to survive prison and leave, and many are likely to have mental as well as physical scars from their imprisonment. Be you facially deformed, more paranoid and mistrustful, or become more cold and stoic after joining in with the wrong group of people. Regardless, Many prisoners tend to leave more steeled or more afraid than when they entered. However, one universal trait of almost all prisoners, is that none of them ever want to go back.
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