A few tips I can give are first, don't go heavy on detail. Include details that help the reader understand your backstory better, but be careful of letting it go from history to live narration. Plenty of people narrate their character's backstory like it's happening right there.
Second: Include at least one prominent person in your character's life, whether that be patron or family. It provides an anchor for your character.
Last piece of advice: Give an arc, a reason why your character is where he is. Don't just shoehorn it in there and pass it off.
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I'm not begging for attention, but if you like World Anvil, go give me a look.
Would appreciate any comments on this characters backstory as i'm new to D&D
Houn was born in the headquarters of a secret organisation for his father, Dustin Mristar was a rougue. His Mother Anne was an evil druid who went on the odd adventure when she could on the account of having 8 children. She would often tell stories of adventures that went in her favour. Houn never knew his father and his mother never spoke of him. He was brought up in a squalid large house, in which his early childhood memories were that of a happy one, he had several friends and enjoyed time spent with his siblings. As time went on Anne could not care for all her children, those that were old enough could choose where they wanted to go but Houn was placed in a temple, on that day he felt his god gave him a sign as an almighty thunderstorm came from the heavens and stopped as he entered the temple. He felt that his fate was chosen by the gods rather than his mother. Dean Palomarez was an evil criminal warlock whom Houn forged quite a connection to. Dean would often stop by the temple and seek advice. Houn found himself intrigued by his stories of adventure and Dean managed to persuade Houn to join him on a quest for an ancient relic. During the quest Houn found himself in jail accused of counterfeiting, although he did help to commit the crime he was found not guilty. The relic itself was guarded a number of Orcs. Dean, Houn and the other adventurers fought the guards in a mighty battle. Although Houn survived the battle, he has nasty scars all over his body and and to this day still suffers nightmares in which he relives the experience. Dean and Houn were the only people to survive and when they entered the ruins of the ancient temple, everything was as it should have been but the relic was not to be found. Palomarez already had another job and the pair shook hands. "What will you do next?" asked the warlock. "I will seek further adventures" repled Houn and as he finished an almighty flash of lightning appeared. "I have approval" he smiled.
It's definitely not a bad start for a backstory. The only things I would suggest is to pay attention to grammar and spelling, and don't swap between past and present narration. I.e. "Gordom lived in a simple house with his family. As he went to work one day, someone suddenly pulls him into an alleyway. The person covered his mouth, holding a finger to their lips. Guards looking for Gordom walk by, their eyes scanning for him. Turns out, Gordom had been accused of murder, and now he tries to clear his name."
Other than that, looks good!
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I'm not begging for attention, but if you like World Anvil, go give me a look.
I'm thinking of a tiefling warlock mixed with either a paladin or a monk.
The backstory would be about an order having custody of a demonic/goo entity; they would to keep it dormant and would do so by having a child bond with it, thus becoming a warlock and draining its power. The paladin/monk training would then ensue to help the child have the martial and mental discipline to handle the burden.
The members of the order could either scour the land to find the right candidates for the ritual, or maybe the mystical fallout from the entity causes surges of spontaneous tiefling pregnancies among the novices.
Also, a member of the order (or maybe a cleric) would be tasked to always follow the warlock, to bring her back to the fold/kill her in case she loses control
It would work well enough, the creativity is pretty good. I do recommend you think about what people think of this order, taking children and using them. It would make a great backstory if your character was trying to escape this order's clutches and is trying to stay away from a cleric hunting you down.
However, if you want to be on the side of your order then you can look for children for your order, as a little side thing that your character does.
The main issue is that the children would be tiefling, and most often their parents are not too reluctant to give them away. An order that accepts, that even seeks tiefling children could be well thought. I doubt that the common folk knows of the guarded entity; that would be the most important secret after all (I'm channelling a bit of Dark Angels Space Marines).
I don't want to make the order a hellish orphanage of sort. They take orphans and not-orphans, most join the ranks, very few become warlocks and very few of them are actively hunted. I think it works better if all of them are not only thinking of doing the right choice but they effectively do it.
I'm not sure whether it's better monk or paladin as far as the story is concerned. I'd say monk for the GOO (mental discipline against madness) or paladin if it's the fiend. I'm thinking of throwing a metallic dragon as the head of the order. Silver of gold.
Or maybe warlock/bard, taking inspiration from 'The Music Of Erich Zann.' The headhouse of the order was built where a larva of a GOO sleeps and music keeps it slumbering.
Fled the Underdark and her house after a coup. Her patron is the Daughter of Eldath, Mother of Waters. She is on a quest to find the pearl her patron was trapped in long ago and free her to reunite her with her mother Eldath.
Say one thing for Titus, say he can swim. That’s how he found himself clinging to the sad splinter of a once-proud Galleon. The half-submerged piece of wood rolled and yawed as it shouldered into the advancing swell, as it had a hundred times before, and pushed Titus’ head underwater. Then it pitched up into the wind as it crested the wave and slid down into the next trough, ready to repeat the ordeal all over again. When Titus occasionally had the urge to look around as he sputtered to the surface of a wind-whipped crest, he saw nothing but a vast expanse of rolling grey, and daylight slowly fading behind a wall of low clouds. By Valkur’s barnacled balls! He was already starting to shiver, and didn’t see how a night out was going to improve things.
A different man would have been confounded by how quickly a large ship and an entire crew could just up and slip away: all the shouting and groaning of timber lost and swallowed by the Great Gray and the implacable rolling of the sea. But Titus knew a thing or two about sinking ships. He knew how a deck felt underfoot as it subtly lurched toward its watery grave. He knew the dangers of waiting too long to jump overboard, of swimming with sails and rigging all strewn about in the water like rabbit traps and fishing nets, pulling and being pulled down to the unfathomable depths below. He knew the vagrant ways of flotsam on the open water. It’d make you wonder why he’d ever join up with a crew of privateers again. But Titus was never about making good decisions. Like the time he f’d the Chieftain’s daughter.
It had been an eventful day for him, back in his youth, even before the Chieftain’s daughter stomped alluringly into his afternoon. The Chieftain’s daughter was a colossal slut, devastatingly unapologetic in her ways, and a wily seductress, especially for an orc. She’d been casually stalking him for a couple of years, as he grew out into a muscular frame and showed talent in the sparring circles, a handaxe flashing in each of his fists. He made a fine, fit addition to their martial tribe, despite his glaring deficiency. But for the Chieftain's daughter, Titus was an exotic in their bland backwoods of nowhere: a half-breed human in a tribe of xenophobic, purebred orcs.
That’s why he spent most of his time out hunting in the forest: avoiding the young cocks spoiling for a fight, avoiding his temper, avoiding her. But he was so pumped up and full of himself that day, he wanted the world to stand up and give him a cheer. She gave him a cheer alright, and then some. She was extraordinary. She f’d him like he’s never been f’d since. She f’d him like her quim had never met anything it liked more than his mighty rod. She f’d him with immense satisfaction. Titus was astonished, and pleased, and just a little distracted as he tried to hold onto the squirming nymphet writhing ecstatically in his lap.
Sudden, blinding pain sent starbursts spiraling behind Titus’ closed eyes. A pernicious wave had lifted his wooden wreckage abruptly into his lolling face with a walloping smack. He startled in a panic, consumed with fear that he was going to pass out and lose purchase on the only thing he could see that’d keep him afloat. Not that he could see much of anything by this point. It was a moonless and starless night, with just the dark forms of waves crowding endlessly one after another. But the wind had let up and the seas were starting to settle. Maybe that’s what had lulled him. Exhaustion started to work itself into his bones once the panic wore off. Bloody hell. Dying alone, shipwrecked at sea, what a dismal end.
Now that he looked at it, that day with the Chieftain’s daughter was the best day of his life. Even including the minor detail that by nightfall he was fleeing for his life, never to see the girl again, the wronged Chieftain himself hot on Titus’ trail, with murder planted firmly in his savage mind. But the morning of that eventful day had been momentous in its own right, and he remembered it with a pride that seemed to warm his sodden soul.
Titus had been out early that day, hunting alone, like usual. He was young and full of piss and vinegar. The sun was up and he was returning to the tribe’s camp, following a wooded game trail, when he popped out into a small clearing just as an enormous brown bear cleared the trees on the other side. The bear was one monstrous specimen, the biggest that Titus ever beheld, walking slowly toward him, looking like it didn’t have a care in the world.
But Titus has seen the bear’s head snap up when they first spotted each other, and he’d never heard tell of a friendly bear, so he slowly lowered his right hand to his handaxe and loosened the shaft in its hoop. He briefly considered backing away from that muscular giant. But f* that. Titus felt a familiar heat in his chest, anger welling up, reminding him of all the injustice he had to endure. F* that bear. Titus would make way for no one, this was his trail after all, because he was bloody standing on the thing. The bear, apparently, had the same idea, because it too didn’t pause or shy away.
They didn’t quite meet nose-to-nose, but that’s how Titus remembered it, before the bear rose up onto its hind legs and let loose a mighty roar. The bastard was jaw-droppingly huge and it towered over Titus by twice his height, looking much more ferocious all of a sudden. Titus was undaunted, he’d already rolled onto the balls of his feet and was pulling out his axe, his nerves all jangly with the thrill of the moment and filled with an urge to meet it head on.
The great bear had his back to the sun and his vast rising bulk threw a shadow over Titus. Titus was looking up at the bear, raring to have at it, when suddenly, everything changed. Titus had a vision flash in his mind’s eye of the bear’s future. He saw it dead at his feet. He saw it skinned and dressed. He saw its face again at the head of a luxurious bearskin rug, serving as the centerpiece of some chieftain’s hut. The urge to fight this bear and kill it vanished in the moment. In its place, he felt wonder and an aching kinship for the wild roar still echoing in his ears. Titus stepped off the trail, two steps down the gentle slope. The bear dropped back down onto its front paws with a heavy snort and walked on, staring into Titus’ eyes until he was well past him.
Titus groaned. He’d lost feeling in his arms, clinging to the awkward wreckage. The seas were calm now, just a gentle swell bumping him along. It was still dark out, but lighter. The sun would be up soon with another hot day sure to follow. He wasn’t shivering any longer, but he suspected that it wasn’t a good sign. Damn those cocky bastards who sank his ship. Sorriest thing about it: there had only been three of them!
Say one thing for Titus, say he can fight. He was strong and fast and fearless and still in his prime. He was practiced in swinging an axe in each hand, which seemed to work well enough on the confined deck space where he usually found himself in a scrum these days. He was accustomed to carrying a brawl, stopping a rush short, and leading one forward. Most sailors were undernourished and over inebriated, anyway, truth be told. But what he’d seen yesterday boggled his mind.
The three of them scampered up the life-lines and over the bulwark like they were coming to a party, their ridiculous little skiff bumping alongside the much larger Galleon. The lookout had spotted their sail from his crow’s nest and yelled out enthusiastically enough to get the captain to alter course. Times were lean, and any prey was worth a look to a privateer on the hunt. “Helm to the lee!” the captain called out, to echoing cries of “yarr!”, and the little vessel’s fate was sealed. Unexpectedly, however, instead of turning away to run, they close-hauled and beat up toward Titus and the other jolly men lining the toe-rail, watching their approach with mild bewilderment.
They looked jolly themselves, once they came aboard, fit and spry, and nothing like all of the other sh*t covered locals mucking about along this stretch of the coast. The one everyone noticed last, was the one that worried Titus the most when he laid eyes on him. He was an old bastard, a druid for sure, with a white beard down to his ankles, a body all skinny and shriveled, with a look of befuddled amusement on his face. Titus knew to watch out for druids. Weird sh*t happens to people around druids.
The most obvious of the motley bunch was a great tub of a man: looked like he’d swallowed a bloody cauldron. He was taller even than Titus, which was saying something, with a useless-looking metal cap on his smallish head. He gave them all a thoughtful, appraising look, no hint of fear about him. The third one was the only one of the trio who was obviously armed, with a short sword at his side. He was short. Shorter than most. Oddly short like the other one was oddly huge. But no one laughed at him as he stepped forward to address the captain, because the little man was frowning hard. Turns out, they took unkindly to privateers plying their waters. Called the captain a pirate, which he was, of course, truth be told.
Who could have guessed that the two of them, Biggie and Smalls, were bloody berserkers? That’s the only explanation Titus’ numbed mind could work out. After a brief, heated exchange, the little one burst into action. Like lightning from the sky, he was so quick, and only Titus was able to get between him and the captain and interpose a blade. That started a furious exchange, with Titus desperately blocking thrust after savage thrust from that f’g short sword. Titus couldn’t catch a break, the sword was a blur, and he retreated from it, both of his axes making a defensive dance before him.
Titus would have lost that bout, no doubt, except Smalls kept taking little breaks from it to cut down other sailors who were stepping up to join in on the fun. The looks on his comrades' faces were all of eagerness and anticipation to get to business and kill the SOB while Titus had him occupied. Turns out, “occupied” was too strong a term for what Titus had going on. The brief interruptions were enough to give him an occasional breath at least, and a chance to find his footing again, and he got sporadic glimpses of the other madman, Biggie.
Biggie wore no armor and carried no weapons. He met the sailors head on, batting their weapons aside and swinging his big, meaty arms like windmills. Those arms were the size of tree trunks and hit with devastating, bone crunching force. It was mayhem. Soon, a pile of inert bodies were scattered about his feet, like he’d just whittled out a small space for himself on a deck full of foes. His face was business-like, he was inexorable. Then he started lunging at men. Quick as a cat, he’d pounce. He’d lift a man off his feet using a fistful of shirt and slap him in the face like you’d slap a child in need of learning, head whip-lashing from the blow, and then drop the sorry sap, who’d crumple like a sack of potatoes onto the deck. It was hard to make sense of the scene. Biggie moved his considerable bulk like everyone else was up to their necks in water.
Titus was tiring and growing desperate. Nothing to be gained by striking the colors with berserkers on the loose: they looked like they were just getting warmed up to their task. Titus stole a glance down to the main deck and spied the old druid. That right bastard had remained strangely unaccosted during the whole fracas. Titus sensed a chance. What he could use right now was a hostage to put an end to this rout, and that old man was the best hostage-looking candidate on hand.
Titus was fast becoming an expert at retreating. He took two quick steps back and sensed the large windlass that he knew would be right behind him now. He deftly sidestepped a vicious thrust and the hateful short sword tangled itself briefly in the mechanism. Titus pivoted around the bulky thing and used it for cover to break and run for the druid. He heard a satisfying cry of alarm from Smalls behind him as he dashed toward his new target.
The old druid never saw him coming. Instead, he was distractedly looking down into an open cargo hatch, like he’d just dropped something important into the hold. Titus was close enough by then to hear him say “oh dear”, quietly, to no one in particular, before there erupted the deafening, unmistakable rending groan of a ship’s hull being torn asunder on the rocks. Never mind they were out to sea. The ship listed violently, and in a rare lapse of seamanship, Titus lost his footing and his momentum carried him careening hard into the bulwark, where he promptly tumbled overboard.
He’d been aware of the hot sun beating into his blistered face for a long time now. The sea was calm and windless. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs. A shadow slowly crossed over his face and in his gentle state of delirium, it evoked in his mind an ecstatic vision, of a great bear towering over him. That thought spurred him to open his crusty eyes in curiosity. There above him, blocking the sun, was the bowsprit of a weather beaten dingy. Peeking over the side, silent as a pair of ravens, were captain Redbeard himself and his first mate, Pegleg, both frowning down at him. “Avast,” grunted Pegleg philosophically, “Nunc est bibendum.”
Thought of a twist to the drunken master and have it as a sort of sleepwalking/daydreaming but i'm unable to think of a backstory for her other then having 2 gnome parents that took care for her when she was little but not knowing her real parents and gnomes teaching her that sleeping is a wondrous thing.but i cant think of anything to add as to how she got the nickname or anything else for that matter, anyone wanna help feel free to, ill just be here scratching my brain to think of one my self.
When Carly was young, Her real parents entrusted the care of their daughter, Carly to two gnomes for a week. The gnomes lived far away, and a few days later, Carly's parent's town got raided. Carly's parents didn't make it through .The gnomes knew then that they would be taking care of carly until she reached adulthood. They taught her that sleeping was an Amazing thing, and that she should cherish it.everyday, When she was supposed to be doing something, she would day dream, resulting in lots of mistake. People who had witnessed her daydreaming, called her the Walking Dreamer, a nickname that would stick. When she started her training as monk,for the first time in her life, she stopped dreaming during the day. However she soon fell back into her old routines and, within a few weeks again, she was daydreaming again. Still, some part of her brain must have been listening, as she managed to become a fully realized monk. However, to this day, she keeps on dreaming.
My second outing in the Forest that Breathes. Maybe I'll use this as the background for a cleric.
Thoughts?
---
Something that would leave their kin from other forests perplexed would be knowing that the elves from the Forest that Breathes doesn't worship any particular god or pantheon: their belief is centered among the worship of ancestors. Among their boundaries the spirits of their departed are mostly everywhere and the average elf find it easier to believe in the kindness of beings that once were just like them, than in divine entities of cosmic power.
Similarly, they have no concept of afterlife as most races would understand it.
That's not to say that clerics are unknown in the Forest: in the largest settlements there are temples where gods of the Grave, Life and Nature are worshipped, but among the nomad clans that represent most of the population an elf can go a human's life without meeting more than one or two of them. Among the stilt buildings of the coastal towns, some maritime trade with neighboring kingdoms of human and dwarves happens, some foreigners have been allowed to build altars for the divinities they believe in, but these cults get little hold on the local elves, despite the efforts of preachers and missionaries of several races.
The Forest that Breathes, however, is older than the elves leaving among its trees. Nor the elfish inhabitant descend from the same culture. Before the latecomers, the necromantic elves who awakened the Forest, scant tribes of elves where already living among the trees or near the shores of the Great Dragon bay. Never numerous, nowadays those tribes are almost completely faded, succumbed to the hardships of their homes, but some of the old beliefs still remain.
One of the most enduring traditions concerns the creation of the forest by three entities now known as: the Serpent, the Crocodile and the Albatross.
The Serpent made the trees of the forest and brought the creatures that live among the leaves.
The Crocodile shaped the rivers and the coastline and the aquatic creatures. To her all the waters are holy, but her most sacred places are where fresh water mixes with the sea.
The Albatross brings the warm winds from the South-East; with them come fog and storms as well as all the birds.
There are no consistent depictions of the trinity: any of them is depicted as male and female, as an elfoid figure or as the animal they are named after or as elves with animal traits. Worthy of note is the fact that, in their dialect, the elves uses the names of these divinities to refer to the trees, water and wind, and they do so always with uppercase initial. To them, the Serpent is not just the god of the forest: he is the Forest just like the Crocodile is the Water and the Albatross is the Storm.
Reality is slightly different. The Serpent, the Crocodile and the Albatross were three incredibly ancient dragons who fought to gain dominion over the region.
The black dragon who would become the Crocodile arrived first and took possession over the vast estuaries that plunge into Great Dragon bay, populating the waters with a huge number of wyrmlings.
The Serpent was a green dragon who fell in love with the dense foliage of the trees. The green dragon Rhansedra is the last living descendant of the Serpent who is worthy of her ancestor.
The Albatross came last: a massive bronze dragon who meant to free the word from the other two.
These three monsters fought for years and all they achieved is that they killed each other. Yet, their deaths and elemental diffusions shaped the region into what it is now. From then on the trees grew ever stronger and lush, thick enough to obscure the ground. The waters became deeper, dark and incredibly reflective, forever hiding what swims. The death of the Albatross made the warm wind blowing from South-East, which violent storms from the ocean.
This truth is almost unknown to the elves. Nonetheless, the totemic symbols of Serpent, Crocodile and Heron are widespread throughout the Forest that Breaths.
Another really interesting backstory. I like how the image of the Serpent and the Crocodile recall Egyptian mythology a little bit, even though the serpent in your story is nothing like Apep - who is a force of chaos. The crocodile and black dragon do seem to resemble Sobek though - she is primal, savage and prolific. I am unfamiliar with he albatross in mythology, but there is the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In literature, the albatross represents innocence, so the death of the albatross represents the death of innocence. This seems to fit with your bronze dragon. The violent storms after her death also recall the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Very well done! I don't know why, but I usually think of dragons as females, so I used female pronouns to describe them.
I like Egyptian mythology and I like to think I know a bit of it, but to write this I didn't took direct inspiration from myths of any kind. At least, nothing that wasn't already in my mind. Yet, it happened. I thought what the element in a tropical forest could be and how to represent them. Then I threw dragons in the mix, because I like them. I also remember studying Coleridge back in school, but I had it almost forgoten by now. Another thing that simply happened. Serpent and Crocodile came easily, but I chose the Albatross last and after much thoughts. Mainly, I didn't want to use raptors: however beautiful they are, they are too represented in fantasy while there are lots of underrated birds.
I wanted the animal totems to be simple and applicable to different contexts (they could work for clerics and for barbarians) and for them to be obvious about what they represent (the element of the forest) without being too obvious about what they represent (the dragons).
Now I want to rewrite at least the bit about the dragons coming and fighting, the Albatross will be the youngest of the three and the first to die. I may also add the bio of a character: a storm domain cleric or a totem warrior barbarian.
It's funny isn't it? Things can influence our thinking without realizing it sometimes. The human mind is a marvel. Anyway, I did like your story, and maybe I saw those things in there even if you didn't put them in there, and that says more about me. Still, the animal totems being linked to dragons is one of the things that makes your story compelling. And I suppose that the elements for your story are universal enough that a reader can see connections to other stories and even myths, even if you didn't deliberately put them there.
I haven't really read any of this thread (will do so now) but I just finished my backstory for one of my chars. And I figured it be nice to share it with people how might appreciate my work besides my DM. It's 5 page (3169 word) telling of how he got where he is at the start of the campaign. Would you like to read it? will post is people are interested.
Nateu
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I think that there are a few tips a couple pages up.
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
A few tips I can give are first, don't go heavy on detail. Include details that help the reader understand your backstory better, but be careful of letting it go from history to live narration. Plenty of people narrate their character's backstory like it's happening right there.
Second: Include at least one prominent person in your character's life, whether that be patron or family. It provides an anchor for your character.
Last piece of advice: Give an arc, a reason why your character is where he is. Don't just shoehorn it in there and pass it off.
I'm not begging for attention, but if you like World Anvil, go give me a look.
Level 1
Age 52
Would appreciate any comments on this characters backstory as i'm new to D&D
Houn was born in the headquarters of a secret organisation for his father, Dustin Mristar was a rougue. His Mother Anne was an evil druid who went on the odd adventure when she could on the account of having 8 children. She would often tell stories of adventures that went in her favour. Houn never knew his father and his mother never spoke of him. He was brought up in a squalid large house, in which his early childhood memories were that of a happy one, he had several friends and enjoyed time spent with his siblings. As time went on Anne could not care for all her children, those that were old enough could choose where they wanted to go but Houn was placed in a temple, on that day he felt his god gave him a sign as an almighty thunderstorm came from the heavens and stopped as he entered the temple. He felt that his fate was chosen by the gods rather than his mother. Dean Palomarez was an evil criminal warlock whom Houn forged quite a connection to. Dean would often stop by the temple and seek advice. Houn found himself intrigued by his stories of adventure and Dean managed to persuade Houn to join him on a quest for an ancient relic. During the quest Houn found himself in jail accused of counterfeiting, although he did help to commit the crime he was found not guilty. The relic itself was guarded a number of Orcs. Dean, Houn and the other adventurers fought the guards in a mighty battle. Although Houn survived the battle, he has nasty scars all over his body and and to this day still suffers nightmares in which he relives the experience. Dean and Houn were the only people to survive and when they entered the ruins of the ancient temple, everything was as it should have been but the relic was not to be found. Palomarez already had another job and the pair shook hands. "What will you do next?" asked the warlock. "I will seek further adventures" repled Houn and as he finished an almighty flash of lightning appeared. "I have approval" he smiled.
It's definitely not a bad start for a backstory. The only things I would suggest is to pay attention to grammar and spelling, and don't swap between past and present narration. I.e. "Gordom lived in a simple house with his family. As he went to work one day, someone suddenly pulls him into an alleyway. The person covered his mouth, holding a finger to their lips. Guards looking for Gordom walk by, their eyes scanning for him. Turns out, Gordom had been accused of murder, and now he tries to clear his name."
Other than that, looks good!
I'm not begging for attention, but if you like World Anvil, go give me a look.
Hi TieflingsRule,
Appreciate the time taken to look over the backstory and to present the constructive feedback.
Neilsy404
I'm thinking of a tiefling warlock mixed with either a paladin or a monk.
The backstory would be about an order having custody of a demonic/goo entity; they would to keep it dormant and would do so by having a child bond with it, thus becoming a warlock and draining its power. The paladin/monk training would then ensue to help the child have the martial and mental discipline to handle the burden.
The members of the order could either scour the land to find the right candidates for the ritual, or maybe the mystical fallout from the entity causes surges of spontaneous tiefling pregnancies among the novices.
Also, a member of the order (or maybe a cleric) would be tasked to always follow the warlock, to bring her back to the fold/kill her in case she loses control
Thoughts? Could it work?
It would work well enough, the creativity is pretty good. I do recommend you think about what people think of this order, taking children and using them. It would make a great backstory if your character was trying to escape this order's clutches and is trying to stay away from a cleric hunting you down.
However, if you want to be on the side of your order then you can look for children for your order, as a little side thing that your character does.
It could work both ways.
The main issue is that the children would be tiefling, and most often their parents are not too reluctant to give them away. An order that accepts, that even seeks tiefling children could be well thought. I doubt that the common folk knows of the guarded entity; that would be the most important secret after all (I'm channelling a bit of Dark Angels Space Marines).
I don't want to make the order a hellish orphanage of sort. They take orphans and not-orphans, most join the ranks, very few become warlocks and very few of them are actively hunted. I think it works better if all of them are not only thinking of doing the right choice but they effectively do it.
I'm not sure whether it's better monk or paladin as far as the story is concerned. I'd say monk for the GOO (mental discipline against madness) or paladin if it's the fiend. I'm thinking of throwing a metallic dragon as the head of the order. Silver of gold.
Or maybe warlock/bard, taking inspiration from 'The Music Of Erich Zann.' The headhouse of the order was built where a larva of a GOO sleeps and music keeps it slumbering.
You're going for a bit of steampunk, I see! Nice backstory and character!
I'm not begging for attention, but if you like World Anvil, go give me a look.
Artificers are no push-over when it comes to spells and attacks.
I'm not begging for attention, but if you like World Anvil, go give me a look.
D'novia Wrathshadow My Drow Warlock/Swashbuckler.
Fled the Underdark and her house after a coup. Her patron is the Daughter of Eldath, Mother of Waters. She is on a quest to find the pearl her patron was trapped in long ago and free her to reunite her with her mother Eldath.
https://i.imgur.com/iH0yJSq.jpg
Titus Remus
Half-Orc Barbarian Pirate, Path of the Totem
Say one thing for Titus, say he can swim. That’s how he found himself clinging to the sad splinter of a once-proud Galleon. The half-submerged piece of wood rolled and yawed as it shouldered into the advancing swell, as it had a hundred times before, and pushed Titus’ head underwater. Then it pitched up into the wind as it crested the wave and slid down into the next trough, ready to repeat the ordeal all over again. When Titus occasionally had the urge to look around as he sputtered to the surface of a wind-whipped crest, he saw nothing but a vast expanse of rolling grey, and daylight slowly fading behind a wall of low clouds. By Valkur’s barnacled balls! He was already starting to shiver, and didn’t see how a night out was going to improve things.
A different man would have been confounded by how quickly a large ship and an entire crew could just up and slip away: all the shouting and groaning of timber lost and swallowed by the Great Gray and the implacable rolling of the sea. But Titus knew a thing or two about sinking ships. He knew how a deck felt underfoot as it subtly lurched toward its watery grave. He knew the dangers of waiting too long to jump overboard, of swimming with sails and rigging all strewn about in the water like rabbit traps and fishing nets, pulling and being pulled down to the unfathomable depths below. He knew the vagrant ways of flotsam on the open water. It’d make you wonder why he’d ever join up with a crew of privateers again. But Titus was never about making good decisions. Like the time he f’d the Chieftain’s daughter.
It had been an eventful day for him, back in his youth, even before the Chieftain’s daughter stomped alluringly into his afternoon. The Chieftain’s daughter was a colossal slut, devastatingly unapologetic in her ways, and a wily seductress, especially for an orc. She’d been casually stalking him for a couple of years, as he grew out into a muscular frame and showed talent in the sparring circles, a handaxe flashing in each of his fists. He made a fine, fit addition to their martial tribe, despite his glaring deficiency. But for the Chieftain's daughter, Titus was an exotic in their bland backwoods of nowhere: a half-breed human in a tribe of xenophobic, purebred orcs.
That’s why he spent most of his time out hunting in the forest: avoiding the young cocks spoiling for a fight, avoiding his temper, avoiding her. But he was so pumped up and full of himself that day, he wanted the world to stand up and give him a cheer. She gave him a cheer alright, and then some. She was extraordinary. She f’d him like he’s never been f’d since. She f’d him like her quim had never met anything it liked more than his mighty rod. She f’d him with immense satisfaction. Titus was astonished, and pleased, and just a little distracted as he tried to hold onto the squirming nymphet writhing ecstatically in his lap.
Sudden, blinding pain sent starbursts spiraling behind Titus’ closed eyes. A pernicious wave had lifted his wooden wreckage abruptly into his lolling face with a walloping smack. He startled in a panic, consumed with fear that he was going to pass out and lose purchase on the only thing he could see that’d keep him afloat. Not that he could see much of anything by this point. It was a moonless and starless night, with just the dark forms of waves crowding endlessly one after another. But the wind had let up and the seas were starting to settle. Maybe that’s what had lulled him. Exhaustion started to work itself into his bones once the panic wore off. Bloody hell. Dying alone, shipwrecked at sea, what a dismal end.
Now that he looked at it, that day with the Chieftain’s daughter was the best day of his life. Even including the minor detail that by nightfall he was fleeing for his life, never to see the girl again, the wronged Chieftain himself hot on Titus’ trail, with murder planted firmly in his savage mind. But the morning of that eventful day had been momentous in its own right, and he remembered it with a pride that seemed to warm his sodden soul.
Titus had been out early that day, hunting alone, like usual. He was young and full of piss and vinegar. The sun was up and he was returning to the tribe’s camp, following a wooded game trail, when he popped out into a small clearing just as an enormous brown bear cleared the trees on the other side. The bear was one monstrous specimen, the biggest that Titus ever beheld, walking slowly toward him, looking like it didn’t have a care in the world.
But Titus has seen the bear’s head snap up when they first spotted each other, and he’d never heard tell of a friendly bear, so he slowly lowered his right hand to his handaxe and loosened the shaft in its hoop. He briefly considered backing away from that muscular giant. But f* that. Titus felt a familiar heat in his chest, anger welling up, reminding him of all the injustice he had to endure. F* that bear. Titus would make way for no one, this was his trail after all, because he was bloody standing on the thing. The bear, apparently, had the same idea, because it too didn’t pause or shy away.
They didn’t quite meet nose-to-nose, but that’s how Titus remembered it, before the bear rose up onto its hind legs and let loose a mighty roar. The bastard was jaw-droppingly huge and it towered over Titus by twice his height, looking much more ferocious all of a sudden. Titus was undaunted, he’d already rolled onto the balls of his feet and was pulling out his axe, his nerves all jangly with the thrill of the moment and filled with an urge to meet it head on.
The great bear had his back to the sun and his vast rising bulk threw a shadow over Titus. Titus was looking up at the bear, raring to have at it, when suddenly, everything changed. Titus had a vision flash in his mind’s eye of the bear’s future. He saw it dead at his feet. He saw it skinned and dressed. He saw its face again at the head of a luxurious bearskin rug, serving as the centerpiece of some chieftain’s hut. The urge to fight this bear and kill it vanished in the moment. In its place, he felt wonder and an aching kinship for the wild roar still echoing in his ears. Titus stepped off the trail, two steps down the gentle slope. The bear dropped back down onto its front paws with a heavy snort and walked on, staring into Titus’ eyes until he was well past him.
Titus groaned. He’d lost feeling in his arms, clinging to the awkward wreckage. The seas were calm now, just a gentle swell bumping him along. It was still dark out, but lighter. The sun would be up soon with another hot day sure to follow. He wasn’t shivering any longer, but he suspected that it wasn’t a good sign. Damn those cocky bastards who sank his ship. Sorriest thing about it: there had only been three of them!
Say one thing for Titus, say he can fight. He was strong and fast and fearless and still in his prime. He was practiced in swinging an axe in each hand, which seemed to work well enough on the confined deck space where he usually found himself in a scrum these days. He was accustomed to carrying a brawl, stopping a rush short, and leading one forward. Most sailors were undernourished and over inebriated, anyway, truth be told. But what he’d seen yesterday boggled his mind.
The three of them scampered up the life-lines and over the bulwark like they were coming to a party, their ridiculous little skiff bumping alongside the much larger Galleon. The lookout had spotted their sail from his crow’s nest and yelled out enthusiastically enough to get the captain to alter course. Times were lean, and any prey was worth a look to a privateer on the hunt. “Helm to the lee!” the captain called out, to echoing cries of “yarr!”, and the little vessel’s fate was sealed. Unexpectedly, however, instead of turning away to run, they close-hauled and beat up toward Titus and the other jolly men lining the toe-rail, watching their approach with mild bewilderment.
They looked jolly themselves, once they came aboard, fit and spry, and nothing like all of the other sh*t covered locals mucking about along this stretch of the coast. The one everyone noticed last, was the one that worried Titus the most when he laid eyes on him. He was an old bastard, a druid for sure, with a white beard down to his ankles, a body all skinny and shriveled, with a look of befuddled amusement on his face. Titus knew to watch out for druids. Weird sh*t happens to people around druids.
The most obvious of the motley bunch was a great tub of a man: looked like he’d swallowed a bloody cauldron. He was taller even than Titus, which was saying something, with a useless-looking metal cap on his smallish head. He gave them all a thoughtful, appraising look, no hint of fear about him. The third one was the only one of the trio who was obviously armed, with a short sword at his side. He was short. Shorter than most. Oddly short like the other one was oddly huge. But no one laughed at him as he stepped forward to address the captain, because the little man was frowning hard. Turns out, they took unkindly to privateers plying their waters. Called the captain a pirate, which he was, of course, truth be told.
Who could have guessed that the two of them, Biggie and Smalls, were bloody berserkers? That’s the only explanation Titus’ numbed mind could work out. After a brief, heated exchange, the little one burst into action. Like lightning from the sky, he was so quick, and only Titus was able to get between him and the captain and interpose a blade. That started a furious exchange, with Titus desperately blocking thrust after savage thrust from that f’g short sword. Titus couldn’t catch a break, the sword was a blur, and he retreated from it, both of his axes making a defensive dance before him.
Titus would have lost that bout, no doubt, except Smalls kept taking little breaks from it to cut down other sailors who were stepping up to join in on the fun. The looks on his comrades' faces were all of eagerness and anticipation to get to business and kill the SOB while Titus had him occupied. Turns out, “occupied” was too strong a term for what Titus had going on. The brief interruptions were enough to give him an occasional breath at least, and a chance to find his footing again, and he got sporadic glimpses of the other madman, Biggie.
Biggie wore no armor and carried no weapons. He met the sailors head on, batting their weapons aside and swinging his big, meaty arms like windmills. Those arms were the size of tree trunks and hit with devastating, bone crunching force. It was mayhem. Soon, a pile of inert bodies were scattered about his feet, like he’d just whittled out a small space for himself on a deck full of foes. His face was business-like, he was inexorable. Then he started lunging at men. Quick as a cat, he’d pounce. He’d lift a man off his feet using a fistful of shirt and slap him in the face like you’d slap a child in need of learning, head whip-lashing from the blow, and then drop the sorry sap, who’d crumple like a sack of potatoes onto the deck. It was hard to make sense of the scene. Biggie moved his considerable bulk like everyone else was up to their necks in water.
Titus was tiring and growing desperate. Nothing to be gained by striking the colors with berserkers on the loose: they looked like they were just getting warmed up to their task. Titus stole a glance down to the main deck and spied the old druid. That right bastard had remained strangely unaccosted during the whole fracas. Titus sensed a chance. What he could use right now was a hostage to put an end to this rout, and that old man was the best hostage-looking candidate on hand.
Titus was fast becoming an expert at retreating. He took two quick steps back and sensed the large windlass that he knew would be right behind him now. He deftly sidestepped a vicious thrust and the hateful short sword tangled itself briefly in the mechanism. Titus pivoted around the bulky thing and used it for cover to break and run for the druid. He heard a satisfying cry of alarm from Smalls behind him as he dashed toward his new target.
The old druid never saw him coming. Instead, he was distractedly looking down into an open cargo hatch, like he’d just dropped something important into the hold. Titus was close enough by then to hear him say “oh dear”, quietly, to no one in particular, before there erupted the deafening, unmistakable rending groan of a ship’s hull being torn asunder on the rocks. Never mind they were out to sea. The ship listed violently, and in a rare lapse of seamanship, Titus lost his footing and his momentum carried him careening hard into the bulwark, where he promptly tumbled overboard.
He’d been aware of the hot sun beating into his blistered face for a long time now. The sea was calm and windless. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs. A shadow slowly crossed over his face and in his gentle state of delirium, it evoked in his mind an ecstatic vision, of a great bear towering over him. That thought spurred him to open his crusty eyes in curiosity. There above him, blocking the sun, was the bowsprit of a weather beaten dingy. Peeking over the side, silent as a pair of ravens, were captain Redbeard himself and his first mate, Pegleg, both frowning down at him. “Avast,” grunted Pegleg philosophically, “Nunc est bibendum.”
The adventures of Titus continue in the campaign: Sailors on the Seas of Fate
Carly Haldore, nickname "The Walking Dreamer"
Age 230
Female Wood Elf
Monk, Drunken Master
Thought of a twist to the drunken master and have it as a sort of sleepwalking/daydreaming but i'm unable to think of a backstory for her other then having 2 gnome parents that took care for her when she was little but not knowing her real parents and gnomes teaching her that sleeping is a wondrous thing.but i cant think of anything to add as to how she got the nickname or anything else for that matter, anyone wanna help feel free to, ill just be here scratching my brain to think of one my self.
What about this backstory for your wood elf monk?
When Carly was young, Her real parents entrusted the care of their daughter, Carly to two gnomes for a week. The gnomes lived far away, and a few days later, Carly's parent's town got raided. Carly's parents didn't make it through .The gnomes knew then that they would be taking care of carly until she reached adulthood. They taught her that sleeping was an Amazing thing, and that she should cherish it.everyday, When she was supposed to be doing something, she would day dream, resulting in lots of mistake. People who had witnessed her daydreaming, called her the Walking Dreamer, a nickname that would stick. When she started her training as monk,for the first time in her life, she stopped dreaming during the day. However she soon fell back into her old routines and, within a few weeks again, she was daydreaming again. Still, some part of her brain must have been listening, as she managed to become a fully realized monk. However, to this day, she keeps on dreaming.
"If you ever ask a wizard to list the books they've read recently, prepare to be there for a solid week. " - Original.
Grammar Cult
Bow down to Cats! (Cult of Cats)
love it, much appreciation for the help AlexandraMelianne
My second outing in the Forest that Breathes. Maybe I'll use this as the background for a cleric.
Thoughts?
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Something that would leave their kin from other forests perplexed would be knowing that the elves from the Forest that Breathes doesn't worship any particular god or pantheon: their belief is centered among the worship of ancestors. Among their boundaries the spirits of their departed are mostly everywhere and the average elf find it easier to believe in the kindness of beings that once were just like them, than in divine entities of cosmic power.
Similarly, they have no concept of afterlife as most races would understand it.
That's not to say that clerics are unknown in the Forest: in the largest settlements there are temples where gods of the Grave, Life and Nature are worshipped, but among the nomad clans that represent most of the population an elf can go a human's life without meeting more than one or two of them. Among the stilt buildings of the coastal towns, some maritime trade with neighboring kingdoms of human and dwarves happens, some foreigners have been allowed to build altars for the divinities they believe in, but these cults get little hold on the local elves, despite the efforts of preachers and missionaries of several races.
The Forest that Breathes, however, is older than the elves leaving among its trees. Nor the elfish inhabitant descend from the same culture. Before the latecomers, the necromantic elves who awakened the Forest, scant tribes of elves where already living among the trees or near the shores of the Great Dragon bay. Never numerous, nowadays those tribes are almost completely faded, succumbed to the hardships of their homes, but some of the old beliefs still remain.
One of the most enduring traditions concerns the creation of the forest by three entities now known as: the Serpent, the Crocodile and the Albatross.
The Serpent made the trees of the forest and brought the creatures that live among the leaves.
The Crocodile shaped the rivers and the coastline and the aquatic creatures. To her all the waters are holy, but her most sacred places are where fresh water mixes with the sea.
The Albatross brings the warm winds from the South-East; with them come fog and storms as well as all the birds.
There are no consistent depictions of the trinity: any of them is depicted as male and female, as an elfoid figure or as the animal they are named after or as elves with animal traits. Worthy of note is the fact that, in their dialect, the elves uses the names of these divinities to refer to the trees, water and wind, and they do so always with uppercase initial. To them, the Serpent is not just the god of the forest: he is the Forest just like the Crocodile is the Water and the Albatross is the Storm.
Reality is slightly different. The Serpent, the Crocodile and the Albatross were three incredibly ancient dragons who fought to gain dominion over the region.
The black dragon who would become the Crocodile arrived first and took possession over the vast estuaries that plunge into Great Dragon bay, populating the waters with a huge number of wyrmlings.
The Serpent was a green dragon who fell in love with the dense foliage of the trees. The green dragon Rhansedra is the last living descendant of the Serpent who is worthy of her ancestor.
The Albatross came last: a massive bronze dragon who meant to free the word from the other two.
These three monsters fought for years and all they achieved is that they killed each other. Yet, their deaths and elemental diffusions shaped the region into what it is now. From then on the trees grew ever stronger and lush, thick enough to obscure the ground. The waters became deeper, dark and incredibly reflective, forever hiding what swims. The death of the Albatross made the warm wind blowing from South-East, which violent storms from the ocean.
This truth is almost unknown to the elves. Nonetheless, the totemic symbols of Serpent, Crocodile and Heron are widespread throughout the Forest that Breaths.
Another really interesting backstory. I like how the image of the Serpent and the Crocodile recall Egyptian mythology a little bit, even though the serpent in your story is nothing like Apep - who is a force of chaos. The crocodile and black dragon do seem to resemble Sobek though - she is primal, savage and prolific. I am unfamiliar with he albatross in mythology, but there is the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In literature, the albatross represents innocence, so the death of the albatross represents the death of innocence. This seems to fit with your bronze dragon. The violent storms after her death also recall the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Very well done! I don't know why, but I usually think of dragons as females, so I used female pronouns to describe them.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I like Egyptian mythology and I like to think I know a bit of it, but to write this I didn't took direct inspiration from myths of any kind. At least, nothing that wasn't already in my mind. Yet, it happened. I thought what the element in a tropical forest could be and how to represent them. Then I threw dragons in the mix, because I like them. I also remember studying Coleridge back in school, but I had it almost forgoten by now. Another thing that simply happened. Serpent and Crocodile came easily, but I chose the Albatross last and after much thoughts. Mainly, I didn't want to use raptors: however beautiful they are, they are too represented in fantasy while there are lots of underrated birds.
I wanted the animal totems to be simple and applicable to different contexts (they could work for clerics and for barbarians) and for them to be obvious about what they represent (the element of the forest) without being too obvious about what they represent (the dragons).
Now I want to rewrite at least the bit about the dragons coming and fighting, the Albatross will be the youngest of the three and the first to die. I may also add the bio of a character: a storm domain cleric or a totem warrior barbarian.
It's funny isn't it? Things can influence our thinking without realizing it sometimes. The human mind is a marvel. Anyway, I did like your story, and maybe I saw those things in there even if you didn't put them in there, and that says more about me. Still, the animal totems being linked to dragons is one of the things that makes your story compelling. And I suppose that the elements for your story are universal enough that a reader can see connections to other stories and even myths, even if you didn't deliberately put them there.
Hi there fellow D&D enthusiasts!
I haven't really read any of this thread (will do so now) but I just finished my backstory for one of my chars. And I figured it be nice to share it with people how might appreciate my work besides my DM. It's 5 page (3169 word) telling of how he got where he is at the start of the campaign. Would you like to read it? will post is people are interested.
Nateu