Aftermath Survivor

Something happened. Not a battle you chose. Not a war you understood. Something sudden, violent, and final. A place you knew and the people you trusted were gone in a single turning of fate. However, you lived.

Whether by instinct, luck, or timing, you were not taken with the rest. In the days that followed, survival became your only constant. You learned to move carefully, to read danger before it arrived, and to endure without certainty. You do not know who else survived. You do not know if anyone did.

But you carry what remains, and you keep moving.

Ability Scores: Aftermath Survivors are shaped by experience rather than training. Their abilities often reflect heightened awareness, adaptability, and resilience developed through hardship.

Skill Proficiencies:

Choose two skills that reflect how you endured and adapted in the aftermath.

Common choices include:

• Stealth
• Survival
• Insight
• Perception
• Investigation

These skills typically represent heightened awareness, environmental adaptation, or the ability to read threats and intentions.

Tool Proficiencies:

Choose one tool proficiency that reflects how you navigate the world after the event.

Common options include:

• Disguise Kit (blending in, avoiding notice)
• Thieves’ Tools (access, escape, survival)
• Herbalism Kit (self-sufficiency, recovery)

Languages:

You know common and may learn two additional languages of your choice.

These languages often represent something picked up during your travels, trade speech, regional dialects, or the tongue of those you encountered while surviving on your own.

Equipment:

You begin with:

• A set of traveler’s clothes suitable for your environment
• A small, practical item used during your survival (such as a knife, kit, or tool)
• A token from your past: Something recovered, carried, or remembered after the event (its form and meaning are up to you)
• A pouch containing a modest amount of coin

The token should hold personal significance but need not have mechanical value.

Spell List

None.

(This background does not grant spells, but it pairs well with classes that emphasize awareness, survival, or subtle influence.)

Spell Level	Spells

Suggested Characteristics

Aftermath Survivors often carry a quiet intensity. Their personalities are shaped not only by what they endured, but by what they lost—and what they chose to become afterward.

Personality Traits

• I observe before I act, and act only when necessary.
• I am slow to trust, but quick to notice when something is wrong.
• I prefer control and preparation over risk and chance.
• I speak plainly, and only when there is something worth saying.

Ideals

• Endurance. Survival is not luck—it is awareness and choice.
• Caution. Safety is never permanent; it must be maintained.
• Adaptation. The world changes. I change with it.
• Hope (quiet). Not knowing who survived means someone still might have.

Bonds

• I carry something from what was lost, and I will not let it be meaningless.
• I will not allow those around me to be taken unaware.
• If anyone else survived… I will find them.

Flaws

• I assume danger is always present, even when it isn’t.
• I struggle to rely on others, even when I should.
• I leave before things become too dangerous—even when staying might matter.
• I measure people by what they might cost me to lose.

d4	Personality Trait
1	I observe before I act, and act only when necessary
2	I am slow to trust, but quick to notice when something is wrong.
3	I prefer control and preparation over risk and chance
4	I speak plainly, and only when there is seomthing worth saying.

d4	Ideal
1	Endurance: Survival is no luck - it is awareness and choice
2	Caution: Safety is never permanent. It must be maintained
3	Adaptation: The world changes. I change with it.
4	Hope (Quiet): Not knowing who survived means someone still might have

d4	Bond
1	I carry something from what was lost, and I will not let it be meaningless.
2	I will not allow those around me to be taken unaware, as I was.
3	If anyone else survived... I will find them.
4	I keep moving, not to just survive, but because stopping means facing what I lost.

d4	Flaw
1	I assume danger is always present, even when it isn't.
2	I struggle to rely on others, even when I should.
3	I leave before things become too dangerous, even when staying might matter.
4	I measure people by what they might cost me to lose.