You have grown up, been raised around and educated by an Undertaker and his family. Perhaps you are a member of this odd family, a ward, or even the child of an indentured servant. Whatever the case, your background in this work, though largely a seclusive lifestyle, has gifted you with several skills and talents. Among those, in addition to burial preparations, grave digging, and a need for social report with the grieving, is the study of Thanatology or deathlore, which is the scientific study of death and the losses brought about as a result. It investigates the mechanisms and medicinal forensic aspects of death, such as bodily changes that accompany death and the postmortem period, as well as wider psychological and social aspects related to death.

Usually due to this macabre upbringing, those in your profession tend to be haunted by something so terrible that they dare not speak of it. You’ve tried to bury it and run away from your own, to no avail. Whatever this thing is that haunts you can’t be slain with a sword or banished with a spell. It might come to you as a shadow on the wall, a bloodcurdling nightmare, a memory that refuses to die, or a demonic whisper in the dark. The burden has taken its toll, isolating you further from most people and making you question your sanity at times. You must find a way to overcome it before it destroys you.

Lastly, you are a member of the guild of gravediggers and undertakers, skilled in your particular field and closely associated with other members of your profession. You are a well-established part of the mercantile world, freed by talent and wealth from the constraints of a feudal social order. You learned your skills as an apprentice to a master Undertaker/Thanatologist, under the sponsorship of your guild, until you became a master in your own right.

Skill Proficiencies: Choose four from among Arcana, Investigation, Religion, Medicine, Insight, Nature or Persuasion

Tool Proficiencies: Alchemist's Supplies, Painter's Supplies, Carpenter's Tools, Herbalism kit

Languages: Two of your choice

Equipment: An herbalism kit, a pack of alchemist's supplies, a set of painter's supplies, a set of carpenter's tools, a letter of introduction from your guild, a set of traveler’s clothes, a suit of fine clothes, a shovel, a scroll case stuffed full of notes from your studies, a winter blanket, and a pouch containing 35 gp

Suggested Characteristics

Undertakers are perhaps among the most creepy and odd people in the world of a civilized community, they learn to live with the terror, and constant death that haunts them and their semi-social profession. Whether they embrace solitude or long to escape it, the semi-social loneliness of a life that comes with the socially estranged profession shapes their attitudes and ideals. They do their best to survive, though a few slip and are driven slightly mad by their years with, and yet apart from society, that is — until they set down their tools and take up an adventuring career. They understand the value of hard work and the importance of community and can be very protective of those who bring light into their darkened life, but they’re also vulnerable to slight madness and sins of greed and covetousness.

d8	Personality Trait
1	I like to read and memorize poetry. It keeps me calm and brings me fleeting moments of happiness.
2	I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right. I can’t help it — I’m a perfectionist.
3	I am utterly serene, even in the face of disaster.
4	I spend money freely and live life to the fullest, knowing that tomorrow I might die.
5	I like to talk at length about my profession.
6	I often get lost in my own thoughts and contemplation, becoming oblivious to my surroundings.
7	Others might run from a terrible monster or demon, I take notes on it's anatomy.
8	I have no sympathy for the dead, they're the lucky ones.

d6	Ideal
1	Grandure. I have a dark calling that puts me above the law. (Chaotic)
2	Community. It is the duty of all civilized people to strengthen the bonds of community and the security of civilization. (Lawful)
3	Free Thinking. Inquiry and curiosity are the pillars of progress. (Chaotic)
4	Greed. I’m only in it for the money, and everybody is dying to get in. (Evil)
5	Power. Solitude and contemplation are paths toward mystical or magical power. (Evil)
6	Aspiration. I work hard to be the best there is at my craft. (Any)

d6	Bond
1	I keep my thoughts and discoveries in a journal. My journal is my legacy.
2	I will get revenge on the evil forces that destroyed my place of business and ruined my livelihood.
3	My isolation gave me great insight into a great evil that only I can destroy.
4	There’s evil in me, I can feel it. It must never be set free.
5	Should my discovery come to light, it could forever change medicine and the world, though there are some to whom it would incriminate me.
6	I would sacrifice my life and my soul to protect the innocent.

d6	Flaw
1	I talk to spirits that no one else can see.
2	I’m never satisfied with what I have — I always want more.
3	I harbor dark, bloodthirsty thoughts that my isolation and meditation failed to quell, only fed.
4	I feel no compassion nor ever show any true emotion in any situation, society has forged me into a sociopath.
5	I love the dead a bit to much, if the truth about my fetish ever came to light it would ruin me.
6	I have a weakness for carnel pleasures and an addiction to one of the cities many vices.