Whatever your fortunes once were, they have long since deserted you. You sleep in alley ways, behind or beneath any shelter you can find, but you're exposed to the elements more often than not. Sickness means a likely death, since you can't afford medicine. You live on the charity of passing strangers with a copper or two in their pockets that they don't need, your begging bowl is one of your most guarded possessions - and truly, you have so few things left.
Your adventuring begins with a generous gift from someone who was feeling philanthropic that day. A few coins more, and maybe even a motivating "good luck!", see you pulling yourself up and leaving the alleyways and prime begging spots to try and make your fortune anew.
- Skill Proficiencies: Survival, + 1 of your choice from Deception, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Persuasion, or Stealth
- Tool Proficiencies: Choose one from Gaming Set, Herbalism Kit, or Thieves Tools, and one from Artisans Tools, Navigator's Tools, or Vehicles (Land or Water)
- Equipment: A set of common clothes, a begging bowl, a staff, a small knife, a ratty blanket, and 5gp
You weren't always a beggar. You have specialised knowledge that someone who grew up on the streets wouldn't have any reason to know. Get you cleaned up, and fed properly, and people would not be so surprised at the knowledge you possess. Select any one Feature from the Background section of the Player's Handbook.
Suggested Characteristics
Beggars are shaped by lives of defeat and loss, for good or ill. They tend to be driven by a burning desire to find or make a better life - either to spite their situation, or hopeful despite it. There may also be some consideration towards payback to whoever they blame for their change in fortunes that saw them begging on the streets when they'd not needed to before.
You were born a street rat, you will die a street rat, and only your fleas will morne you. Well, maybe not, if you get lucky with the whole making-your-own-fortune thing, but you've never known any life but life on the streets. Begging, stealing when the begging was bad, and disappearing when people took offense to your stealing.
You know the secret patterns and flow to cities and can find passages through the urban sprawl that others would miss. When you are not in combat, you (and companions you lead) can travel between any two locations in the city twice as fast as your speed would normally allow.
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