Give me some of your awesome ideas for a good backstory for the Phantom Rogue! I have been excited about trying out this subclass and finally have the chance, some inspiration would be great!
I've been thinking about it this character, a Changeling Phantom Rogue. RP wise you change into the people you've killed, you channel the spirit of a dead soul.
I've been thinking about it this character, a Changeling Phantom Rogue. RP wise you change into the people you've killed, you channel the spirit of a dead soul.
Heh. I was literally about to come in here and say the same thing.
Basically the Faceless Men from GoT.
If you don't want to roll a changeling than you can splash in a little warlock to get the Mask of Many Faces invocation. Or dip any spellcaster and take the feat Eldritch Adept to pick up the Invocation.
Just remember to add Actor to the equation. Nothing breaks a good disguise like still sounding like yourself.
One approach with using a Charlatan background is to swindle some object off of someone, but the object itself is haunted/possessed by a ghost of some sort. Or perhaps they swindled a relic to a god of the dead, and the god's punishment is to make the crook a magnet for spirits. The upshot is that this kind of backstory could work regardless of race you pick. Changeling, Human, Gnome, Half-Orc, Elf? All equally likely to have brought this upon themselves. It's a good way to implement a character flaw into a motivation for the subclass.
Alternatively, you could be a pious Acolyte who turned to thievery after a relic was stolen from the temple you were raised in. Helps there to worship various death deities, but there's still a number of ways to be close to death as an Acolyte. Maybe a follower of various healing deities has seen so much death they become accustomed or attuned to it. A more murder-happy god might encourage followers to deal death wherever they go.
Personally I am tinkering with an idea of playing a Phantom Rogue with a 1 or 2 level dip into Barbarian. My thinking is that my character who is a Shadar-Kai loyal to the Raven Queen, having served his Mistress for countless years has lost all his emotions. One day he was sent to dispatch an interloper, a Barbarian that was meddling with the Raven Queen's plans. After a long and grueling battle the PC stood over his fallen foe victorious. But instead of just gaining a minor skill from his latest victim the Elf found he could now go into a primal Rage. After so long without having felt even a tiny sliver of anything that resembled emotion, the Rage was almost too much for him to handle.
More curious is that he did not tell the Raven Queen about it, choosing instead to keep it secret so that he is able to feel something every once in a while even if it is just pure anger.
I have a phantom rogue character somewhere. My concept was that they were brought back from the dead a few years ago, but when they returned, the taint of death didn't leave them. As the rogue progresses in levels, the rogue becomes increasingly connected to the world of the dead and spirits clamour around them, granting them the subclass abilities. I liked this idea because with DM approval it could be worked into part of the storyline and the rogue may not even notice that it is tainted by its experience for years, until it reaches level 3.
Virtually any background works for this, but resurrection is expensive, so your character probably has a wealthy patron or family, making criminals and nobles make a lot of sense. You could also have a supernatural patron, go for whatever background you feel like and multiclass into warlock - your patron returned you to life in return for your service.
My character will be using the City Watch/ Investigator background. Imagine a private eye who has seen one too many deaths and they are starting to weigh on the rogue's soul.
Do you have Tasha's Cauldron in your D&D Beyond account? Or purchased the subclass itself? If so, then when you hit third level, use the Edit Character option to select from your archetype choices.
I am going to be playing a Dragonborn Ranger (Gloomstalker 5) / Rogue (Phantom X) in a new campaign that will be starting soon.
KrrRull is part of a Dragonborn clan <still working on the name> that believes in The Great Hunt as a religion and way of life. Part of that religion is to collect trophies of the honored dead. They wear trinkets/trophies as a status symbol and believe that these trophies will guide and protect them throughout their life until they themselves become honored dead. The trophies are known to grant wisdom, luck, and knowledge from their former owner's life experience. KrrRull hearing stories of great hunts from elders decided to go on a journey quest to find his great hunt and return with grand stories/trophies.
I picked the classes first (still not sure why dragonborn don't have darkvision) then came up with basic history based based on trickets from Phantom archtype. Always wanted to play a dragonborn and my DM has already OK me to use breath weapon as bonus action per recent UA article. Looking forward to playing this character.
For a while I've wanted to make a character inspired by Odin, the norse god, but not the version you find in Marvel, but based on the Odin Vikings prayed to. Odin in real life was a wanderer and trickster figure, as well as a seeker of knowledge. That's also how he lost his eye, he sacrificed his eye and himself for secret knowledge. As well as being the god of war we are familiar with, he was also a figure of wisdom and death, and it's those aspects I want to draw inspiration from.
Odin also grew popular during the migration period, a time when many people traveled and wandered, and he became a kind of patron for these people. Håvamål, a book which is said to be Odin's words, offer a lot of advice on how to survive among others, in a world where you might not know who you can trust or not. I think a rogue is a great character for such a world, and for a wanderer in general. You can fight some, but you can also use your abilities to avoid conflict altogether.
For the backstory what I am imagining is a person who in some way sacrificed himself for the ability to reunite with someone dead, perhaps his wife or daughter. When he wakes up after the ritual he is suddenly able to see the dead with one of his eyes, and he's able to communicate with them. Perhaps what he found was not what he had hoped for, perhaps someone dead asked him for help, or perhaps he took so long to recover from his ritual he had lost everything when he awoke. In any case, the ritual or the dead drove him to travel, and he has slowly learned to use his abilities and the aid of the dead to enhance his roguish abilities.
So as an arc for this character I am imagining he's starting out skittish, perhaps a bit mad as the death still unsettle him. He covers one eye to avoid seeing the dead, though he can never quite tune them out completely. I am imagining as he grows he slowly becomes more comfortable with the dead, he begins working with them and for them. As he reaches into higher levels he becomes this wandering sage, closely tied with the dead and their knowledge.
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Give me some of your awesome ideas for a good backstory for the Phantom Rogue! I have been excited about trying out this subclass and finally have the chance, some inspiration would be great!
I've been thinking about it this character, a Changeling Phantom Rogue. RP wise you change into the people you've killed, you channel the spirit of a dead soul.
Heh. I was literally about to come in here and say the same thing.
Basically the Faceless Men from GoT.
If you don't want to roll a changeling than you can splash in a little warlock to get the Mask of Many Faces invocation. Or dip any spellcaster and take the feat Eldritch Adept to pick up the Invocation.
Just remember to add Actor to the equation. Nothing breaks a good disguise like still sounding like yourself.
One approach with using a Charlatan background is to swindle some object off of someone, but the object itself is haunted/possessed by a ghost of some sort. Or perhaps they swindled a relic to a god of the dead, and the god's punishment is to make the crook a magnet for spirits. The upshot is that this kind of backstory could work regardless of race you pick. Changeling, Human, Gnome, Half-Orc, Elf? All equally likely to have brought this upon themselves. It's a good way to implement a character flaw into a motivation for the subclass.
Alternatively, you could be a pious Acolyte who turned to thievery after a relic was stolen from the temple you were raised in. Helps there to worship various death deities, but there's still a number of ways to be close to death as an Acolyte. Maybe a follower of various healing deities has seen so much death they become accustomed or attuned to it. A more murder-happy god might encourage followers to deal death wherever they go.
Personally I am tinkering with an idea of playing a Phantom Rogue with a 1 or 2 level dip into Barbarian. My thinking is that my character who is a Shadar-Kai loyal to the Raven Queen, having served his Mistress for countless years has lost all his emotions. One day he was sent to dispatch an interloper, a Barbarian that was meddling with the Raven Queen's plans. After a long and grueling battle the PC stood over his fallen foe victorious. But instead of just gaining a minor skill from his latest victim the Elf found he could now go into a primal Rage. After so long without having felt even a tiny sliver of anything that resembled emotion, the Rage was almost too much for him to handle.
More curious is that he did not tell the Raven Queen about it, choosing instead to keep it secret so that he is able to feel something every once in a while even if it is just pure anger.
I have a phantom rogue character somewhere. My concept was that they were brought back from the dead a few years ago, but when they returned, the taint of death didn't leave them. As the rogue progresses in levels, the rogue becomes increasingly connected to the world of the dead and spirits clamour around them, granting them the subclass abilities. I liked this idea because with DM approval it could be worked into part of the storyline and the rogue may not even notice that it is tainted by its experience for years, until it reaches level 3.
Virtually any background works for this, but resurrection is expensive, so your character probably has a wealthy patron or family, making criminals and nobles make a lot of sense. You could also have a supernatural patron, go for whatever background you feel like and multiclass into warlock - your patron returned you to life in return for your service.
Chilling kinda vibe.
My character will be using the City Watch/ Investigator background. Imagine a private eye who has seen one too many deaths and they are starting to weigh on the rogue's soul.
My biggest question would be how the hell do you add the Archetype to your Sheet .... :D
Do you have Tasha's Cauldron in your D&D Beyond account? Or purchased the subclass itself? If so, then when you hit third level, use the Edit Character option to select from your archetype choices.
I am going to be playing a Dragonborn Ranger (Gloomstalker 5) / Rogue (Phantom X) in a new campaign that will be starting soon.
KrrRull is part of a Dragonborn clan <still working on the name> that believes in The Great Hunt as a religion and way of life. Part of that religion is to collect trophies of the honored dead. They wear trinkets/trophies as a status symbol and believe that these trophies will guide and protect them throughout their life until they themselves become honored dead. The trophies are known to grant wisdom, luck, and knowledge from their former owner's life experience. KrrRull hearing stories of great hunts from elders decided to go on a journey quest to find his great hunt and return with grand stories/trophies.
I picked the classes first (still not sure why dragonborn don't have darkvision) then came up with basic history based based on trickets from Phantom archtype. Always wanted to play a dragonborn and my DM has already OK me to use breath weapon as bonus action per recent UA article. Looking forward to playing this character.
For a while I've wanted to make a character inspired by Odin, the norse god, but not the version you find in Marvel, but based on the Odin Vikings prayed to. Odin in real life was a wanderer and trickster figure, as well as a seeker of knowledge. That's also how he lost his eye, he sacrificed his eye and himself for secret knowledge. As well as being the god of war we are familiar with, he was also a figure of wisdom and death, and it's those aspects I want to draw inspiration from.
Odin also grew popular during the migration period, a time when many people traveled and wandered, and he became a kind of patron for these people. Håvamål, a book which is said to be Odin's words, offer a lot of advice on how to survive among others, in a world where you might not know who you can trust or not. I think a rogue is a great character for such a world, and for a wanderer in general. You can fight some, but you can also use your abilities to avoid conflict altogether.
For the backstory what I am imagining is a person who in some way sacrificed himself for the ability to reunite with someone dead, perhaps his wife or daughter. When he wakes up after the ritual he is suddenly able to see the dead with one of his eyes, and he's able to communicate with them. Perhaps what he found was not what he had hoped for, perhaps someone dead asked him for help, or perhaps he took so long to recover from his ritual he had lost everything when he awoke. In any case, the ritual or the dead drove him to travel, and he has slowly learned to use his abilities and the aid of the dead to enhance his roguish abilities.
So as an arc for this character I am imagining he's starting out skittish, perhaps a bit mad as the death still unsettle him. He covers one eye to avoid seeing the dead, though he can never quite tune them out completely. I am imagining as he grows he slowly becomes more comfortable with the dead, he begins working with them and for them. As he reaches into higher levels he becomes this wandering sage, closely tied with the dead and their knowledge.