You were once two separate people, perhaps siblings or lovers. You might of been sworn enemies. Then some event happened and you became two souls in the same body. This often times confuses other people as you talk to the other soul. If you hate the other soul then just know there is one thing that both souls want. To survive. Even if you have your disagreements with the other soul, you can put aside the differences if a dragon is chasing you.
- Skill Proficiencies: Choose two skill proficiencies that this soul has learned from when they were a separate person.
- Tool Proficiencies: You two have learned to play a game so that you can keep yourselves entertained.
- Languages: Gain two languages of your choice and decide which soul knows that language. Often times, if asked, the soul not running the body will translate to common so the other can understand.
- Equipment: You gain a gaming set of your choice, A large backpack with labeled compartments, and 10gp
Every soul has a story, but your souls combine their stories at some point. How so?
| d5 | Joining of souls |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cursed to be in same body |
| 2 | Magic allowed souls to be in one body |
| 3 | Two souls fought for the body at birth and got stuck |
| 4 | An otherworldly entity tried possessing you but failed |
| 5 | Come up with your own story? |
As you are two people in one body, you can switch between souls when you want. When you do, switch character sheets to the other soul, keeping the Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores. This second character sheet may also choose to select a different class. Skills and proficiency are different on the second character sheet. You may also speak to the other soul as if it were a person standing in front of you. In addition when you go to sleep, the other soul comes out, although both souls are subject to spells that cause affects such as sleep and fear.
As aside note, Hit die is always 1d8 with this background despite what your class may say.
Suggested Characteristics
It's interesting having two souls.
| d6 | Personality Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | We always fight and are on oposing sides of an arguement |
| 2 | We usually are opposites of eachother but we do our best to cover eachothers backs |
| 3 | One of us is shy, one of us is bold. Which is which? |
| 4 | We both agree that it's fun messing with other people. |
| 5 | Where one's weekness is, the other makes up for in strength. |
| 6 | It's odd how much you hate it when you are not in control of your body. Although I should ask if it even is my body in the first place. |
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Even though we are two different people, we believe in the same things. (Lawful) |
| 2 | Too many people confuse us for us to not act completly different. (Chaotic) |
| 3 | Even if we are different, there's no reason to harm others. (Good) |
| 4 | We've got too many things on our minds to worry about others. (Neutral) |
| 5 | Why bother trying to hide who we are? If someone doesn't like us, we'll kill them. Simple. (Evil) |
| 6 | The only reason to hide yourself is if you are scared, and we are not. (Any) |
| d8 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | I would do anything for (Insert other soul's name). I feel that my life wouldn't be the same without them. |
| 2 | We were married before we got "Cursed." It's actually a blessing as far as we are conserned, although we won't be able to have children unless we adopt. |
| 3 | (insert other soul name)! You can shut your trap! |
| 4 | I may hate (Insert other soul name), but I got to admit that they are useful. |
| 5 | We love different things, but we let the other have their fun when they are out. |
| 6 | We are trying to get (Other soul name) their body back. No (other soul name) this is MY body not yours! |
| 7 | Yea, we are two people in one body, but we've made it work |
| 8 | It's a pain, but we don't mind being together |
| d8 | Flaw |
|---|---|
| 1 | I hate them, they hate me, we just copperate cause we're stuck. (Was singing that when I made it) |
| 2 | I'll sometimes force myself to go to sleep so that the other one will come out against their will |
| 3 | We hate admitting that we rely on eachother. |
| 4 | One of us is of a different race and doesn't want to admit it |
| 5 | (Soul 1 speaking) We've been together for so long, I'm finding it harder and harder to keep who is who clear. |
| 6 | Somehow we are both on the same weavelength when it comes to wanting to steal stuff. |
| 7 | It is sometimes too easy to tell us apart because of our polar opposite personalities. |
| 8 | It's hard to get the other soul out due to them being incredibly shy and it's hard for me to give control to them at the same time. |
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Posted Mar 26, 2019It wont let me put this in on my character sheet? Would I have to make two seperate sheets?
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Posted Mar 26, 2019Yes, you would have to make two different character sheets for this background, each sheet representing one of the two souls. It's a pain, but it's how you have to do it.
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Posted Mar 27, 2019Ok thanks
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Posted Jun 20, 2019When your character is the protagonist of JoJo part 8
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Posted Aug 14, 2019What does their body look like? Plus, what is the gender of the body?
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Posted May 10, 2020I love this it is so interesting!
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Posted Dec 15, 2020it would be cool if 2 different players were playing this
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Posted Dec 26, 2020My DM would not allow me to use this background.... apparently it's a bit much for a new DM to handle a character with 2 sheets :)
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Posted Oct 28, 2021I'm going to use this on a Blood Hunter character. Bro, this is awesome!
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Posted Oct 28, 2021Okay, seeing as I'm not paying for premium, I'm going to just copy this on another thing and just not post it. Thanks for the backround though, love it.
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Posted Mar 8, 2022Would have it were the hit die is the lower of the two classes
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Posted Jul 23, 2022Oh my goodness this background feature is AMAZING!
The idea for the background is also cool.
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Posted Jul 26, 2022I love this!!
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Posted Oct 2, 2022That probably depends. It would, I think, depend on your joining of souls and of what you personally wanted. It could be biologically neither gender if you wanted. It could also change with which spirit is active at the time if you wanted. It really depends because it is a fictional game right so you can decide for yourself. That or make it neither. Although for me biological gender does not matter in my characters you decide for yours. Also their body probably looks like whatever it would otherwise, maybe if one spirit was elven and the other human it would now appear as a half-elf if they had been in the same body long enough. You could just work with your DM to figure the body out.
PS. I am obviously years late to this question, this is just what I think about your question, or for anyone else with the same question.
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Posted Jan 26, 2023I want to play an Echo Knight with this background where the echo is one of the souls astral projecting.
Also… why does this background change the hit die?
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Posted Aug 28, 2023Very well done! If I had known of this earlier, I would have used this for my Tiefling! Overall, the concept of this is so unnatural and unique! Props to you, man!
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Posted Nov 24, 2023I love the idea for this background. I'm learning to be a DM for the first time and was very excited to take my character into the campaign but with our group's size it would be overkill. With this background, modified slightly to be less about two independent characters and more about leaning on the second "lost/combined" soul for support my wife can run her character and tap into my character's skills, knowledge, etc in dire situations (with a roll, of course).
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Posted Dec 2, 2024Just to get this straight, you essentially have 2 characters and can switch between them at will? is that how this works? like a level 10 character using this could be a level 10 sorcerer or a level 5 druid, 3 cleric 2 ranger multiclass and switch between them whenever they want? This seems a little OP, I mean you could play as a spellcaster till you run out of spell slots and then switch to a martial, or even just have 2 level 10 spellcasters and effectively have double spell slots. However if you have to divide character levels between the 2 personalities then it is objectively weaker than just a multiclass build. seems a little hard to balance, it's a cool idea but I can definitely see a dm who cares about balance being very iffy about using this.
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Posted Aug 7, 2025This is an interesting concept with a TON of role-playing potential. But the second sentence in the first paragraph should read: "You might have been sworn enemies."