So we're starting a new Adventurer's League season 10 campaign, and my DM is using the secrets from Rime of the Frostmaiden. I was all geared up to run a half-orc Aberrant Mind using the "mind flayer tadpole didn't quite take" angle, but I got my secret and it's the Owlbear Whisperer ("You were raised by owlbears").
I hadn't landed on a Background or backstory yet - would anyone have any ideas for how to marry these concepts together into something semi-coherent? I'm not married to the mind flayer thing.
Not sure it has to be "raised by owl bears" but here's 3 quick other angles to spin off, all off which could fit well with Aberrant Mind -
In the Wild - You were lost/on the run/dropped in from another plane/insert another and stumbled into an Owlbear's territory. It hunted you and as it bore down on you for the kill you pushed into it mind with images of <insert whatever> which made it stop and pause, after which whilst still communicating through your mind you were able to persuade it with your natural charisma that you could be useful to it for a while, and learned its ways.
In captivity - You grew up and tended the animals in a traveling circus, the most aggressive and lonely of which was the owlbear. Again because of your innate ability/charm you, over time, pushed into its mind and because of its loneliness an affinity grew which eventually lead you freeing the animal and leading it deep into the wilds.
In between - An old friend/family member/master had an owlbear in its service (Druid/ranger/Wizard) with whom you connected with and built an understanding of how owlbears think.
You can pretty much use any race with any of these, even planar.
Your family was captured by Mind Flayers when you were young. As an experiment they inserted inserted a tadpole. You pretended it took but it didn't and you were able to escape. You were disoriented, passed out and were found by an owl bear. You were able to use your new found telepathy to convince it not to eat you, etc...
You are The Adversary, prophesied to bring about the downfall of the Mindflayers. As an experiment they decided to see how a child would react to having the tadpole inserted. The Illithid larva underwent ceremorphosis but took on your personality and memory in its entirety, keeping you, you but giving you Mindflayer abilities. You escaped and were found by owl bears.
My Aberrant Mind is the insufferable first-born son of a Trump-like noble (a politically influential weapons & fortifications magnate) that survived a botched assassination attempt made by a Soulknife Rogue. Fearful of what his family’s core values of racial purity, human supremacy, and their dogmatic advocacy of “the self-made man” unaided by arcane advantage will make of his altered being, he goes ‘off the grid’ with a party of adventurers to find an antidote to his afflicting gifts in a fraught bid to secure his inheritance to his father’s empire.
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So we're starting a new Adventurer's League season 10 campaign, and my DM is using the secrets from Rime of the Frostmaiden. I was all geared up to run a half-orc Aberrant Mind using the "mind flayer tadpole didn't quite take" angle, but I got my secret and it's the Owlbear Whisperer ("You were raised by owlbears").
I hadn't landed on a Background or backstory yet - would anyone have any ideas for how to marry these concepts together into something semi-coherent? I'm not married to the mind flayer thing.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
Not sure it has to be "raised by owl bears" but here's 3 quick other angles to spin off, all off which could fit well with Aberrant Mind -
In the Wild - You were lost/on the run/dropped in from another plane/insert another and stumbled into an Owlbear's territory. It hunted you and as it bore down on you for the kill you pushed into it mind with images of <insert whatever> which made it stop and pause, after which whilst still communicating through your mind you were able to persuade it with your natural charisma that you could be useful to it for a while, and learned its ways.
In captivity - You grew up and tended the animals in a traveling circus, the most aggressive and lonely of which was the owlbear. Again because of your innate ability/charm you, over time, pushed into its mind and because of its loneliness an affinity grew which eventually lead you freeing the animal and leading it deep into the wilds.
In between - An old friend/family member/master had an owlbear in its service (Druid/ranger/Wizard) with whom you connected with and built an understanding of how owlbears think.
You can pretty much use any race with any of these, even planar.
Your family was captured by Mind Flayers when you were young. As an experiment they inserted inserted a tadpole. You pretended it took but it didn't and you were able to escape. You were disoriented, passed out and were found by an owl bear. You were able to use your new found telepathy to convince it not to eat you, etc...
You are The Adversary, prophesied to bring about the downfall of the Mindflayers. As an experiment they decided to see how a child would react to having the tadpole inserted. The Illithid larva underwent ceremorphosis but took on your personality and memory in its entirety, keeping you, you but giving you Mindflayer abilities. You escaped and were found by owl bears.
My Aberrant Mind is the insufferable first-born son of a Trump-like noble (a politically influential weapons & fortifications magnate) that survived a botched assassination attempt made by a Soulknife Rogue. Fearful of what his family’s core values of racial purity, human supremacy, and their dogmatic advocacy of “the self-made man” unaided by arcane advantage will make of his altered being, he goes ‘off the grid’ with a party of adventurers to find an antidote to his afflicting gifts in a fraught bid to secure his inheritance to his father’s empire.