You began mopping floors and scrubbing counters in an artisan’s workshop for a few coppers per day as soon as you were strong enough to carry a bucket. When you were old enough to apprentice, you learned to create basic crafts of your own, as well as how to sweet-talk the occasional demanding customer. Now you are an artisan in your own right, skilled in a particular field and closely associated with others who practice your trade.

Work with your DM to determine the nature of your chosen trade/guild and the details of your apprenticeship. You might have worked as part of a family business, with your master being a parent or older sibling. Or perhaps your family apprenticed you to a family friend or even a stranger, hoping you could rise above your modest origins by learning a valuable trade. You might have been your master's sole apprentice, or one of many. Was your master a kind and attentive teacher, helping you through each setback and mistake as you honed your craft? Or were they a cruel, unforgiving tyrant who expected perfection from those under their tutelage? If you joined a guild, you may have been required to present a masterwork as proof of your talent; what did you create? Once you became an artisan yourself, how did you make your way in the world? Did you set up a shop of your own in a town or city, becoming an established member of the community? Or did you set out on the open road with your tools, selling your handmade wares wherever you traveled? You might struggle to make ends meet, or perhaps your business is a great success. You might even have taken on apprentices of your own, choosing to pass on your knowledge and train a new generation of artisans.

Ability Scores: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence

Feat: Choose one feat from the Origin Feat list. Crafter is recommended.

Skill Proficiencies: Investigation and Persuasion

Tool Proficiencies: Choose one kind of Artisan's Tools appropriate for your chosen trade

Equipment: Choose A or B: (A) Artisan's Tools of your chosen proficiency, 2 Pouches, Traveler’s Clothes, an example of your work, 32 GP; or (B) 50 GP

Suggested Characteristics

Guild artisans are among the most ordinary people in the world—until they set down their tools and take up an adventuring career. They understand the value of hard work and the importance of community, but they’re vulnerable to sins of greed and covetousness.

d8	Personality Trait
1	I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right. I can’t help it—I’m a perfectionist.
2	I’m a snob who looks down on those who can’t appreciate fine art.
3	I always want to know how things work and what makes people tick.
4	I’m full of witty aphorisms and have a proverb for every occasion.
5	I’m rude to people who lack my commitment to hard work and fair play.
6	I like to talk at length about my profession.
7	I don’t part with my money easily and will haggle tirelessly to get the best deal possible.
8	I’m well known for my work, and I want to make sure everyone appreciates it. I’m always taken aback when people haven’t heard of me.

d6	Ideal
1	It is the duty of all people to strengthen the bonds and security of communities.
2	My talents were given to me so that I could use them to benefit the world.
3	Everyone should be free to pursue his or her own livelihood.
4	I’m only in it for the money.
5	I’m committed to the people I care about, not to ideals.
6	I work hard to be the best there is at my craft.

d6	Bond
1	The workshop where I learned my trade is the most important place in the world to me.
2	I created a great work for someone, and then found them unworthy to receive it. I’m still looking for someone worthy.
3	I owe my guild a great debt for forging me into the person I am today.
4	I pursue wealth to secure someone’s love.
5	One day I will return to my guild and prove that I am the greatest artisan of them all.
6	I will get revenge on the evil forces that destroyed my place of business and ruined my livelihood.

d6	Flaw
1	I’ll do anything to get my hands on something rare or priceless.
2	I’m quick to assume that someone is trying to cheat me.
3	No one must ever learn that I once stole money from guild coffers.
4	I’m never satisfied with what I have—I always want more.
5	I would kill to acquire a noble title.
6	I’m horribly jealous of anyone who can outshine my handiwork. Everywhere I go, I’m surrounded by rivals.

Contacts

As an essential piece of the economy in most D&D realms, an artisan will have no shortage of contacts to call upon. The most obvious contacts for an artisan to have are the members of their own guild, assuming they belong to one. You and a fellow artisan might be friendly competitors, bitter rivals or allies who regularly trade knowledge and advice. Consider your standing in the guild and your relationship with its leaders: the more respected you are within the guild, the more likely its members are to help you out of trouble. Outside of a guild, an artisan's contacts may include important clients or merchants who provide you with raw materials for your work. Satisfied clients may become regular patrons who offer you greater opportunities, either as an artisan or as an adventurer.

d8	Contact
1	Your former master will vouch for your skill and often advise you as if you were still an apprentice.
2	During your apprenticeship, you had a friendship or romance with the apprentice of your master's rival.
3	You know (or belong to) a family of artisans in which the children are apprenticed to their own parents and the most talented apprentice will inherit the family business.
4	Your guild includes a melancholy artisan whose masterwork was lost or destroyed before they could complete it. They've never been the same since.
5	You once did a favor for a struggling young apprentice, and now they admire you more than their own master.
6	One of your regular clients is an eccentric noble who gives you bizarre instructions/requests whenever they commission your services.
7	A shady merchant sells you valuable raw materials for a reasonable fee, provided you don't ask questions about where they came from.
8	One of your guild's leaders is a construct containing the soul of the greatest artisan in your trade, who died well over a century ago.