The call of heroism, fortune, and glory draws from all walks of lives from nobles, soldiers, and scholars to urchins and criminals. Even with the unpredictability of warm meals and lodging beneath a roof on rainy nights, the predictability of hostile blades, deadly traps, and sharp, hungry teeth, and the distinct possibility of an anonymous and painful death, the adventurer's life represents a welcome and literal escape from your life before. Until recently, you spent your days being held captive against your will. Whether as a patient, bondservant, or prisoner, your existence was controlled by others and your will bent subservient to theirs. While you have left your physical captivity behind you, the invisible scars remain. Caught between the strangeness of life beyond your imprisonment, the fear of renewed captivity, and the thirst for continued freedom, you forge your path in the world.
- Skill Proficiencies: Skill Proficiencies: Choose two of Insight, Deception, Sleight of Hand, or Intimidation.
- Tool Proficiencies: Tool Proficiencies: Select one proficiency with either Woodcarver's Tools, Painter's Supplies, the Pan Flute, or a Gaming Set.
- Languages: Languages: Choose any one language (based on your captor or captors)
- Equipment: Equipment: A set of traveler's clothes, a blanket, a small knife, incomplete/ruined lab notes on the experiment, and a small pouch containing 5 gp
Feature: The Low Life
Having spent years among society's villains and outcasts, you have learned how to move among them and how to pierce the veneer of the underworld that the upstanding and righteous never see past. You are the proverbial fly on the wall with respect to conversations and interactions that you are not a direct participant in. You are adept at hiding in plain sight, feigning disinterest in others, and simply being innocuous, causing those that aren't focused on you to overlook your presence, almost as though they were beneath your notice. Tongues wag more liberally, significant glances are less concealed, and subtle hand-offs become sloppy. Through this observation and a combination of reading body language, snippets of thieves' cant and other secret languages of the dispossessed and unscrupulous, and tales from your fellow inmates, you have learned to spot outcroppings of the whispered landscape beyond the law. You can spot shopkeepers who are actually low-level fences, taverns whose kitchen entrances also lead to secret brothels or gambling dens, wilderness guides who are actually highwaymen, and members of the city watch who have been bought or desperately wish to be.
Suggested Characteristics
Years spent without a safe or solitary space has left you alert and as battle-hardened as any soldier, yet the strangeness of the outside world fills you with wonder. You oscillate between self-reliance and survival instincts sharpened to a killing edge, and an awakening engagement with trust and friendship.
| d10 |
Personality Trait |
| 1 |
The brutality of my captivity has given me tremendous situational awareness. Always back to the the wall, never backed into a corner. |
| 2 |
My imprisonment has made me aware of how marvelous and amazing the world is. Something as simple as fresh fruit makes me ecstatic, and I will often expound at length on my delight with little or no prompting. |
| 3 |
I once beat a dwarf and half-orc twins senseless with my bare hands over a half-loaf of moldy, wormy bread. Do you honestly expect me to surrender my coin to a simple cutpurse? |
| 4 |
Those who won't lie, swindle, cheat, or steal just end up being the ones lied to, swindled, cheated, and robbed. |
| 5 |
I am certain that everyone can sense my shameful past. As a result, I am loathe to lead or speak up, preferring to contribute quietly. |
| 6 |
I take umbrage at trivial slights and meaningless comments, sometimes even ones that I'm pretty sure I've imagined. My temper is ... HEY! HEY, WHAT THE HELLS ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!?! YEAH, YOU!! |
| 7 |
I could not escape physically, so I escaped mentally. I turned inward during my imprisonment - seeking inner peace and mindfulness. This quest for serenity has left me unflappable, facing danger with an eerie calm. |
| 8 |
The person I was before my captivity is gone. Who I am and what I will become is something I determine with the choices I make each day. |
| 9 |
To hide my shame from polite society, I make a great show of extravagance and erudition when in public - sometimes it works, sometimes it's just good for a laugh... |
| 10 |
Every day I wake up and wonder if this is the day that they catch me and put me in chains again. On days when I can't shake this feeling, I'm skittish and prone to flight - particularly when the authorities are present. |
| d8 |
Ideal |
| 1 |
Justice. The law is the law, even when it causes hardship. No one knows that better than me. (Lawful) |
| 2 |
Subterfuge. The main thing I learned in prison? Next time, don't get caught. (Evil) |
| 3 |
Indulgence. All my life, I tried to live by the rules everyone taught me and the rules that everyone seemed to know. All it got me was a cell. Rules be damned, it's time to enjoy! (Chaotic) |
| 4 |
Redemption. I'm grateful for this second chance. I vow to dedicate my life to protect, defend, and support the innocent and the downtrodden, in hopes of atoning for my misdeeds. (Good) |
| 5 |
Rage. I was small time when the world locked me up and left me all alone with nothing but my hate. I forged that hatred into a weapon that I will use to scourge the world. (Evil) |
| 6 |
Freedom. No being deserves to be caged and held against their will. The chains that bind men and women must be struck off and those that hold them must be struck down (Any). |
| 7 |
Obscurity. I want no associations with my imprisonment and what led me there. I just want to live life anonymously and hope that my good deeds are enough to convince gods or men who find me that I've changed. (Any) |
| 8 |
Sacrifice. My ordeal has marked me and if I can spend whatever my life is worth to protect and defend others, so be it (Good). |
| d8 |
Bond |
| 1 |
When I first was imprisoned, my cellmate saved me from the predators within those walls and showed me the ropes.They were released before I was, but I know they saved my life and I am forever indebted to them. |
| 2 |
I never thought I would be accepted again on the outside. Those that call themselves my friends now have earned my unquestioned loyalty and devotion. |
| 3 |
Most view prison as a bottomless pit filled with faceless villains, but there are good folk in there. When I got out, I left some of those behind. I'll do anything I can to help them. |
| 4 |
More painful than being locked away was being disowned by my family. I can only hope that my deeds will one day earn me the right to walk through the door to my childhood home once more. |
| 5 |
When I was pinched, my partner and I were on the way out of our last job. I haven't seen him since I got out, but we have a little bit of ... "accounting" to take care of. |
| 6 |
I was wrongfully accused and held. I'll do anything to wash this stain from my honor and my name. |
| 7 |
Many of the folk I met inside weren't evil or cruel, they were just forced outside the law by circumstances or birth. I try to remember that, and try to help and stick up for the outcasts and the downtrodden whenever I can. |
| 8 |
The incident that led to my imprisonment caused real harm to real people. Although I'm sure they must curse my name, I still try to look out for them in secret. |
| d8 |
Flaw |
| 1 |
When the opportunity arises, I will have bloody revenge on my captors. |
| 2 |
I was years without any indulgence in fine food, strong drink, or warm companionship. I have a hard time focusing on other tasks when I'm making up for lost time. |
| 3 |
If I'm not careful, I fall back into institutional patterns that are out of place in the outside world. |
| 4 |
Loyalty to anything other than self-interest is something of a foreign concept for me. |
| 5 |
I am pretty sure that I'm being sought by those who feel that I should never have been released apart from being thrown into the prison's mass grave. |
| 6 |
I am never ... NEVER ... going back. I become agitated and panicky when I am around prisons, and should anyone ever try to imprison me, it won't go well. Likely, I will either flee or attack. |
| 7 |
I spend a great deal of time distracted and paralyzed with wonderment at mundane things. |
| 8 |
Someone has discovered my secret past and I believe they are either planning to expose me or blackmail me. |
Comments