Hi everyone! This is actually my favorite way to create character concepts. Basically, you randomly generate a Level 1 character, then you try to write the backstory to connect everything together. I find it's fun to explain, say, how the army's cook ended up a warlock, why that paladin used to be an entertainer, or how exactly that otherwise normal halfling wizard learned Abyssal.
Xanora always chafed against the happy-go-lucky nature of her home village. She found their excessive exuberance and peaceful lifestyle to be the mark of simple and stupid creatures with no appetite for the finer things of life. She started her career as a grifter at a young age, regularly skipping classes to pose as a beggar child, swipe purses at the market, and generally get into as much mischief as possible. She fell in with a group of young thieves and generally enjoyed the excitement of an accomplished heist. She boasted among her friends that she was the best thief in town, and they called her bluff, challenging her to steal from the house of a former adventurer, well guarded but filled with treasures unseen among the normal townsfolk. But the heist went south, and she was caught and banished. She traveled alone through the wilderness, eventually coming upon a clan of Dragonborn. She set up a base in the wilds nearby, and started to swipe materials from the settlement, eventually creating a comfortable base camp. However, she still longs for bigger and better heists, and this is just a stopover until she can find somewhere even better.
My thought is that I'm really bad at coming up with character concepts without some sort of guidance. It's easier to explain a set of attributes than come up with the same concept on my own. The character I'm preparing for an upcoming game happened the same way. Randomized a good Drow noble fighter, which intrigued me. Seemed sort of weird and off the wall, but I liked it. Story I concocted around it was that they weren't born a Drow, that their race was changed. Well how did their race change? Reincarnate spell gone wrong. Then, why use Reincarnate instead of any other means of resurrection? Well, there was no one nearby, and the family shuns all necromancy spells. Why were they killed, and why were there no spellcasters to stabilize them with more immediate healing? Well, let's say they were a diplomat, and the mission went south when the other party turned on them, so everyone was dead. Well, what's the fallout from your diplomat now being a Drow? Well, people are bigots and won't trust a Drow as a diplomat for their nation. Well, ok, then who revived them, and who brought their bodies back, who's their family? Idk, we'll leave those as plot hooks for the DM, though reincarnate is only a druid spell, so we'll probably need one of those somewhere.
And there you have it! A basic outline! Now you can go back and tweak the randomized parts that didn't fit to make it more cohesive. In this example, changed from a Fighter to a College of Eloquence Bard, since maybe giving the guy with sun sensitivity a crossbow is a bad call, and College of Eloquence seems to fit the persona of a noble raised to be a diplomat. It's kinda fun, just starting with an outline from a randomizer, and keep asking questions to fill in the holes until you have something satisfying.
Hmmm... interesting. I'll have to play with this more. A Water Genasi Barbarian with a Gnome Only Feat? Dex based (20) with good Constitution... and then Path of the Beast. Certainly not something I would have put together... but I'll work on it...
I wish you luck! I decided to try this with 4th level characters to have backups for my next campaign, so now I'm workshopping a Goliath Sorcerer 2/Celestial Warlock 2 and a Drow Battle Smith Artificer 3/Barbarian 1. Current backstory thoughts for the Goliath was that he was born with magic and left in search of the source of his magic, meets his Celestial ancestor and becomes their warlock. Randomizer originally had him as a Wild Magic Sorcerer, changing it to Divine Soul for story reasons. Also thinking of making him a 3-1 split one way or another. For the Drow, I'm thinking maybe she comes from a village of Drow that left the Underdark or the setting equivalent for a deep, dense forest. She got proficiency with Woodcarving Tools, so seems fitting. Haven't decided yet when she learned to Rage and gained barbarian, thinking either someone smashed her construct and she got pissed, or some backstory NPC in danger. But I think it'd be fun to make magical weapons she could use in her rage.
Kenta Rapidcrest, human from the Dwendelwood Empire part of a family that worked for the Augen Trust until an unfortunate event stranded them in the far North where Kenta learnt to master their Rune Knight abilities and became familiar with Cloud and Fire Giants especially rune magic.
Human Fighter (Rune Knight) 5th
Str 14, Dex 16, Con 14, In 12, Wis 14, Cha 16
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Wears Leather Armor and uses a Wooden Shield, carries a Longbow, a Rapier and a pair of Hand axes as weapons.
Fighting Style: Protection, Second Wind, Action Surge
Languages: Read, write and speak Common, Giant and Q'uori
Ability Score Improvement: +1 Intelligence and +1 Constitution.
Kenta has always wondered about their birthplace, but the years stranded out here has caused those to become very distant memories and their attempts to adapt to their situation has made their use of pronouns more distinct as they have to change identities and appearance according to need so until they do they keep a neutral stance.
Kenta is still trying to find their missing parents and siblings all they do recall is being aided by Giants who trained them following whatever event left them alone and whilst they occasionally leave messages for their former mentors their childhood training has caused their personal bias to war with their mentors training tearing them between the two groups wanting to go home but refusing to do so until they can find out what happened to their family and why they knows how to speak Qu'ori which they learned as a child before they got stranded up here.
PS: If you use this character you get to decide what gender they are from my point of view can use their rune powers with their weapons and gear.
Belree Copperkettle this seemingly unassuming lightfoot halfling is actally a member of the Order of the Lycan and a skilled operative of the Myriad when she isn't accompanying her own group of adventurers' out into the wild.
Halfling Bloodhunter (Order of Lycan) 16th
Str 14, Dex 19, Co 17, In 17, Ws 16, Ch 11
AC (Wears Studded Leather) 17
HD: 16d10+48 (148hp)
Yes I'd include the rest except I went through the Bloodhunter stuff and thought oh heck if you want a copy of this character let me know and I'll send you it so you can alter it for your own uses!
All I can say is that its entirely possible she has gone through a number of adventuring parties and identities to hide her actions once she feels they're a threat to her activities so I think she's more of a villain than a potential PC!
Sirxire is a survivor, during her childhood she had a narrow brush with something so horrifying the monks who found her wandering afterwards adopted her into their order helping bring her back from the brink of madness they had found her in.
Sirxire has had a bitter lonely life the result of fighting the fear and horror of her childhood now getting on in years she had returned to the monastery where she grew up recovering from that nightmare hoping to spend her last few years helping the next generation unaware her old home has become a target for those that see people like her a threat to their plans for the future.
Notes: Odd after how overpowered Belree was this I thought would be the same given the level, but she's surprisingly more grounded.
This barely ten year old child has found themselves stranded far from the monastery he was raised after being brought there as a newborn child.
Left wielding the glaive he used to defend himself after the caravan he had been accompanying was attacked and he apparently left for dead forced to depend on his pitiful knowledge of the outdoors that he's far from ready for.
Maybe the adventurer's who find him can help him back to civilisation even if that means setting aside his childhood and learning about the rest of the world outside of that monastery he grew up within?
EDIT: If intent on using this as a PC I'd recommend stat point buy or using the standard array thus ability scores would be; Str 13, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 13, Cha 10 improving AC to 15 and makes wielding the Glaive more understandable. And throw in he was indoctrinated by the Quori whilst part of the Luxonborn Monastery and is slowly coming to his senses after he and his comrades were dominated into attacking the caravan from within.
He was knocked out during the fight and will gradually remember what happened and depending if good or evil might change their response depending on what the player wants to do.
Tools: Alchemist's Supplies, Dice Set, Land Vehicles
Languages: Common, Draconic, Primordial
Spells: Control Flames, Dancing Lights, Mind Sliver (archived*), Shape Water, True Strike, Acid Stream, (archived*) Blur, Enhance Ability, Invisibility
*These spells are from UA, and are archived. I'm not sure if that means they've made it into a book (probably TCE) in refined form, or whether they're just never getting implemented.
Blood Curse of the Marked - Rite of the Flame - Great Weapon Fighting style
Plash is, at his core, a fairly normal person, probably a bit on the timid side, and all he really wants is a normal life. So basically Arthur Dent (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as a D&D character. But he was drafted into the military during a war Somehow he stumbled through the war, not dying despite his general state of confusion at everything. He even found himself doing things that, had he done them on purpose, could be considered acts of heroism. Via some sort of extreme misunderstanding, he ended up joining the blood hunters. One of his fellow soldiers was a dragonborn, and that's how he learned Draconic. His sorcerer powers come from a time when he nearly died, and the solution the medics came up with was blood transfusion. Since that procedure is not even remotely understood in the world he lives in, they gave him blood from that dragonborn, even though they weren't even the same species. By some miracle, this didn't cause any adverse complications but instead made him a sorcerer. He'd always had a sort of amateur interest in detective work, and after the war he realized that he's basically exactly the sort of detective you read about in periodicals, except for his personality, and attitude, and just... everything. So, having long abandoned the idea of ever having a truly normal life, he decided to become a private detective. He picked up alchemy because he found a set of mostly intact alchemists' tools in a dumpster once during the war (it's a long story), originally planning to sell them, but later, after the war, he met an alchemist who taught him how to use them.
As a detective, naturally he keeps getting wrapped up in cases of murder, and smuggling, and court intrigue, and conspiracies. He's even gained a nemesis, entirely against his will, mind you. Just once, couldn't it be a simple pickpocket? Or a missing pet?
Like the above post, if you were going to actually play this character, I'd go standard array (Str 13, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10).
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Hi everyone! This is actually my favorite way to create character concepts. Basically, you randomly generate a Level 1 character, then you try to write the backstory to connect everything together. I find it's fun to explain, say, how the army's cook ended up a warlock, why that paladin used to be an entertainer, or how exactly that otherwise normal halfling wizard learned Abyssal.
I'll start!
Xanora Swiftwhistle
Lightfoot Halfling Rogue Outlander
15 STR/ 13 DEX/ 14 CON/ 8 INT/ 17 WIS/ 17 CHA
Proficient in Athletics, Deception, Insight, Performance, Sleight of Hand, Survival
Languages: Common, Draconic, Halfling, Thieves’ Cant
Xanora always chafed against the happy-go-lucky nature of her home village. She found their excessive exuberance and peaceful lifestyle to be the mark of simple and stupid creatures with no appetite for the finer things of life. She started her career as a grifter at a young age, regularly skipping classes to pose as a beggar child, swipe purses at the market, and generally get into as much mischief as possible. She fell in with a group of young thieves and generally enjoyed the excitement of an accomplished heist. She boasted among her friends that she was the best thief in town, and they called her bluff, challenging her to steal from the house of a former adventurer, well guarded but filled with treasures unseen among the normal townsfolk. But the heist went south, and she was caught and banished. She traveled alone through the wilderness, eventually coming upon a clan of Dragonborn. She set up a base in the wilds nearby, and started to swipe materials from the settlement, eventually creating a comfortable base camp. However, she still longs for bigger and better heists, and this is just a stopover until she can find somewhere even better.
My thought is that I'm really bad at coming up with character concepts without some sort of guidance. It's easier to explain a set of attributes than come up with the same concept on my own. The character I'm preparing for an upcoming game happened the same way. Randomized a good Drow noble fighter, which intrigued me. Seemed sort of weird and off the wall, but I liked it. Story I concocted around it was that they weren't born a Drow, that their race was changed. Well how did their race change? Reincarnate spell gone wrong. Then, why use Reincarnate instead of any other means of resurrection? Well, there was no one nearby, and the family shuns all necromancy spells. Why were they killed, and why were there no spellcasters to stabilize them with more immediate healing? Well, let's say they were a diplomat, and the mission went south when the other party turned on them, so everyone was dead. Well, what's the fallout from your diplomat now being a Drow? Well, people are bigots and won't trust a Drow as a diplomat for their nation. Well, ok, then who revived them, and who brought their bodies back, who's their family? Idk, we'll leave those as plot hooks for the DM, though reincarnate is only a druid spell, so we'll probably need one of those somewhere.
And there you have it! A basic outline! Now you can go back and tweak the randomized parts that didn't fit to make it more cohesive. In this example, changed from a Fighter to a College of Eloquence Bard, since maybe giving the guy with sun sensitivity a crossbow is a bad call, and College of Eloquence seems to fit the persona of a noble raised to be a diplomat. It's kinda fun, just starting with an outline from a randomizer, and keep asking questions to fill in the holes until you have something satisfying.
Hmmm... interesting. I'll have to play with this more. A Water Genasi Barbarian with a Gnome Only Feat? Dex based (20) with good Constitution... and then Path of the Beast. Certainly not something I would have put together... but I'll work on it...
I wish you luck! I decided to try this with 4th level characters to have backups for my next campaign, so now I'm workshopping a Goliath Sorcerer 2/Celestial Warlock 2 and a Drow Battle Smith Artificer 3/Barbarian 1. Current backstory thoughts for the Goliath was that he was born with magic and left in search of the source of his magic, meets his Celestial ancestor and becomes their warlock. Randomizer originally had him as a Wild Magic Sorcerer, changing it to Divine Soul for story reasons. Also thinking of making him a 3-1 split one way or another. For the Drow, I'm thinking maybe she comes from a village of Drow that left the Underdark or the setting equivalent for a deep, dense forest. She got proficiency with Woodcarving Tools, so seems fitting. Haven't decided yet when she learned to Rage and gained barbarian, thinking either someone smashed her construct and she got pissed, or some backstory NPC in danger. But I think it'd be fun to make magical weapons she could use in her rage.
Okay here we go...
Kenta Rapidcrest, human from the Dwendelwood Empire part of a family that worked for the Augen Trust until an unfortunate event stranded them in the far North where Kenta learnt to master their Rune Knight abilities and became familiar with Cloud and Fire Giants especially rune magic.
Human Fighter (Rune Knight) 5th
Str 14, Dex 16, Con 14, In 12, Wis 14, Cha 16
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Wears Leather Armor and uses a Wooden Shield, carries a Longbow, a Rapier and a pair of Hand axes as weapons.
Fighting Style: Protection, Second Wind, Action Surge
Martial Archetype: Rune Knight
*Bonus Proficiencies, Rune Carver (Fire & Frost Rune), Giant's Might.
Languages: Read, write and speak Common, Giant and Q'uori
Ability Score Improvement: +1 Intelligence and +1 Constitution.
Kenta has always wondered about their birthplace, but the years stranded out here has caused those to become very distant memories and their attempts to adapt to their situation has made their use of pronouns more distinct as they have to change identities and appearance according to need so until they do they keep a neutral stance.
Kenta is still trying to find their missing parents and siblings all they do recall is being aided by Giants who trained them following whatever event left them alone and whilst they occasionally leave messages for their former mentors their childhood training has caused their personal bias to war with their mentors training tearing them between the two groups wanting to go home but refusing to do so until they can find out what happened to their family and why they knows how to speak Qu'ori which they learned as a child before they got stranded up here.
PS: If you use this character you get to decide what gender they are from my point of view can use their rune powers with their weapons and gear.
I like this! Lots of fun to be had fleshing out their parents, the Giants, and the conflicting beliefs between their Giant and Human upbringing.
This reminds me of the early days of Basic D&D. Roll the six abilities, in the order they are written, then choose a class based on the results.
Sometimes, I miss the simplicity of the older games.
Yeah, but how many times did you re-roll, I know I did...
Belree Copperkettle this seemingly unassuming lightfoot halfling is actally a member of the Order of the Lycan and a skilled operative of the Myriad when she isn't accompanying her own group of adventurers' out into the wild.
Halfling Bloodhunter (Order of Lycan) 16th
Str 14, Dex 19, Co 17, In 17, Ws 16, Ch 11
AC (Wears Studded Leather) 17
HD: 16d10+48 (148hp)
Yes I'd include the rest except I went through the Bloodhunter stuff and thought oh heck if you want a copy of this character let me know and I'll send you it so you can alter it for your own uses!
All I can say is that its entirely possible she has gone through a number of adventuring parties and identities to hide her actions once she feels they're a threat to her activities so I think she's more of a villain than a potential PC!
Sirxire, Tiefling Monk (Kensei) 18th level
Haunted One Background
Ability Scores: Str 16, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 13, Wis 13, Cha 18
HD: 18d8+0 (93), AC: (Dex +3, Wis+1) 14
Skills: Athletics +9, Religion +7, Stealth +9, Survival +7
Languages: Common, Draconic, Infernal, Loxodon
Sirxire is a survivor, during her childhood she had a narrow brush with something so horrifying the monks who found her wandering afterwards adopted her into their order helping bring her back from the brink of madness they had found her in.
Sirxire has had a bitter lonely life the result of fighting the fear and horror of her childhood now getting on in years she had returned to the monastery where she grew up recovering from that nightmare hoping to spend her last few years helping the next generation unaware her old home has become a target for those that see people like her a threat to their plans for the future.
Notes: Odd after how overpowered Belree was this I thought would be the same given the level, but she's surprisingly more grounded.
Yelran Selevarun a Wood Elf male Barbarian Acolyte of the Luxonborn
Str 7, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 7, Wis 11, Cha 10
AC: (Dex +0, Con +2) 12
Skills: Athletics +0, Insight +2, Intimidation +2, Perception +2 and Religion +0
Languages: Common, Elvish, Orc and Quori
This barely ten year old child has found themselves stranded far from the monastery he was raised after being brought there as a newborn child.
Left wielding the glaive he used to defend himself after the caravan he had been accompanying was attacked and he apparently left for dead forced to depend on his pitiful knowledge of the outdoors that he's far from ready for.
Maybe the adventurer's who find him can help him back to civilisation even if that means setting aside his childhood and learning about the rest of the world outside of that monastery he grew up within?
EDIT: If intent on using this as a PC I'd recommend stat point buy or using the standard array thus ability scores would be; Str 13, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 13, Cha 10 improving AC to 15 and makes wielding the Glaive more understandable. And throw in he was indoctrinated by the Quori whilst part of the Luxonborn Monastery and is slowly coming to his senses after he and his comrades were dominated into attacking the caravan from within.
He was knocked out during the fight and will gradually remember what happened and depending if good or evil might change their response depending on what the player wants to do.
Plash, Water Genasi Blood Hunter 2/Sorcerer 3: Str 12 Dex 13 Con 10 Int 13 Wis 9 Cha 9
Background: Soldier
Ac: 14 (Studded Leather)
Skills: Athletics +4 Acrobatics +4 Intimidation +2 Investigation +4 Survival +2
Tools: Alchemist's Supplies, Dice Set, Land Vehicles
Languages: Common, Draconic, Primordial
Spells: Control Flames, Dancing Lights, Mind Sliver (archived*), Shape Water, True Strike, Acid Stream, (archived*) Blur, Enhance Ability, Invisibility
*These spells are from UA, and are archived. I'm not sure if that means they've made it into a book (probably TCE) in refined form, or whether they're just never getting implemented.
Blood Curse of the Marked - Rite of the Flame - Great Weapon Fighting style
Plash is, at his core, a fairly normal person, probably a bit on the timid side, and all he really wants is a normal life. So basically Arthur Dent (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as a D&D character. But he was drafted into the military during a war Somehow he stumbled through the war, not dying despite his general state of confusion at everything. He even found himself doing things that, had he done them on purpose, could be considered acts of heroism. Via some sort of extreme misunderstanding, he ended up joining the blood hunters. One of his fellow soldiers was a dragonborn, and that's how he learned Draconic. His sorcerer powers come from a time when he nearly died, and the solution the medics came up with was blood transfusion. Since that procedure is not even remotely understood in the world he lives in, they gave him blood from that dragonborn, even though they weren't even the same species. By some miracle, this didn't cause any adverse complications but instead made him a sorcerer. He'd always had a sort of amateur interest in detective work, and after the war he realized that he's basically exactly the sort of detective you read about in periodicals, except for his personality, and attitude, and just... everything. So, having long abandoned the idea of ever having a truly normal life, he decided to become a private detective. He picked up alchemy because he found a set of mostly intact alchemists' tools in a dumpster once during the war (it's a long story), originally planning to sell them, but later, after the war, he met an alchemist who taught him how to use them.
As a detective, naturally he keeps getting wrapped up in cases of murder, and smuggling, and court intrigue, and conspiracies. He's even gained a nemesis, entirely against his will, mind you. Just once, couldn't it be a simple pickpocket? Or a missing pet?
Like the above post, if you were going to actually play this character, I'd go standard array (Str 13, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 10).