I have been working on a character and it is a Monk, it is the first Monk I have done and I want some help with the backstory. I want the monk to have a tragic backstory like the monk was an orphan and he was taken under the wing of monks or something like that. I also want him to be trained kinda like a ninja. Maybe he can be a mercenary, and the Monk doesn't really lie the way of the monk he knows that The way of the Monk is to only fight when necessary but he also wants to fight like in a underground fighting arena. Maybe he ends up running away from the monks to try to make it on his own maybe he joins the military or something. Just have fun doing this and thank you for this it is very much appreciated.
Maybe you were taken in by the monks, but eventually rebelled against their rigid discipline, running away from the monastery without completing your training. Now they're trying to hunt you down and bring you back because they cannot allow someone with such a natural talent for the destructive side of their arts and such a wild, undisciplined spirit loose on the world.
I've yet to make an actual monastic monk. The closest I got was a janitor ("custos") who was working at a monastery when someone killed all the monks and burned down the monastery while he was sleeping in a latrine outside the monastery grounds (to avoid doing any work). Because the monks had taken a vow of silence and he never learned how to read, he didn't even know the name of the monastery. He had no clue who destroyed the monastery. He was essentially forced into the world to actually put some effort into staying alive and got dragged into an adventure as the only survivor of the attack on the monastery.
That's also my general limit of tragedy. I've tried to go all-in on tragic, but I prefer people who were doing just fine until an adventure happened upon them; a version of the "anyone can be a hero" trope.
My monks use the Monk mechanics but not the monk lore; mostly brawlers.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Raised in an isolated village until an unexpected war started between rival settlements that somehow wandered straight into their village.
For all intents and purposes he was left orphaned and part of a group of survivors who took shelter at the monastery where his Monkish Order resides.
For reasons the Elder of the Order still hasn't revealed a number of the kids were recruited into the order as the other survivors disappeared over night.
Although told they moved on your character stumbled onto their graves during a mission to help scavenge herbs and supplies from the surrounding wilderness still beset by the war that claimed their village.
The monks mistook you for another child recruit (because you switched shifts) and killed them causing you to flee recognising you were the actual target and whatever you had uncovered was something they couldn't let you live.
Stumbling through the wilderness you coped as best as they can letting your hair grow out, but maintaining some of the grooming habits you dimly recalled from what little of your childhood you could and this led to them being befriended by one of the roving patrols that you expected to attack.
It turns out your parents were part of a caravan hit shortly before the war and you and a couple of other kids went missing and were assumed killed.
The war started shortly after this and you learned the enemy had targetted an important family killing the daughter who was intended for an arranged marriage that would have settled the difficulties between the warring settlements.
Now with no clear means of ending the warfare you have the first clues that explain whats actually going on and hopefully the means to solve both the mystery of your past and the monastic order of assassins you was raised unknowingly among.
There's a movie out called Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins. Supposedly it's "meh", but if you watch it as a way to distill it down to a shadow monk origin story, there you go. Seriously, it's fairly archetypal.
Just tell your DM that you want the monk's training to have been through their world's equivalent of a ninja clan and just write "My monk was trained by <insert ninja equiv name>"
From there "Monkname got disillusioned with the ideals of the clan (choose whether he thought the internal politics sullied the clan ideals or he couldn't hold the clan ideals so left for more worldly pursuit) and now works as a mercenary (or serves in an army).
As a DM, that's all I'd want and we'd work from there. Anything more starts imposing, I feel at least (other DMs want the characters straightjacketed by their determined pasts more development). It gives enough grounding to go on while also giving the game space to tie the character to the world as the game is played. Maybe someday the campaign will find itself revisiting your origin, otherwise you got enough notes to go forward with.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Tragic backstories can be interesting, but they can also be cliched so you'll want to be careful how you approach them. That said, there are a lot of options you could go for if you're trying to think about what motivates them. I don't have a lot of experience with monk but I do have a couple other characters who have tragic backstories.
Being an orphan who was taken in by a monastery would be a valid choice, but it might be an obvious route. Perhaps a more interesting twist could be him (I'm assuming it's a he, since you've used male pronouns) arriving and joining the monastery as an a teenager or young adult due to something that happened in his past.
For instance, maybe he was a criminal- perhaps a thief, pickpocket, or assassin, something that would give him experience in stealth which would tie in with your idea of a ninja-type character. A job went wrong and he had to run away, nearly died in the process before being saved by the monks and brought to the monastery. The experience caused him to reconsider his life in crime and he joined them hoping to atone for his past actions.
Another possibility could be that he was a former warrior or mercenary, like you said, who was forced to reconsider their position after being shown kindness by the monks and now struggles with the guilt of his past life.
You talk about him possibly rebelling or joining an underground fighting arena. Perhaps his efforts at atonement were complicated by an experience that then shook his faith. Like for instance discovering that the leader of the monks was corrupt and involved in some less-than-ethical dealings or finding evidence that the monks didn't really care about him and were actually brainwashing him into acting as a tool to further some personal agenda. This might not have changed his interest in atoning, but it would certainly leave him asking questions about how to do it and what he really should be doing. The experience caused him to run away, but the skills he developed ended up being useful for making money in fighting rings.
Tragic backstories can be interesting, but they can also be cliched so you'll want to be careful how you approach them. That said, there are a lot of options you could go for if you're trying to think about what motivates them. I don't have a lot of experience with monk but I do have a couple other characters who have tragic backstories.
Being an orphan who was taken in by a monastery would be a valid choice, but it might be an obvious route. Perhaps a more interesting twist could be him (I'm assuming it's a he, since you've used male pronouns) arriving and joining the monastery as an a teenager or young adult due to something that happened in his past.
For instance, maybe he was a criminal- perhaps a thief, pickpocket, or assassin, something that would give him experience in stealth which would tie in with your idea of a ninja-type character. A job went wrong and he had to run away, nearly died in the process before being saved by the monks and brought to the monastery. The experience caused him to reconsider his life in crime and he joined them hoping to atone for his past actions.
Another possibility could be that he was a former warrior or mercenary, like you said, who was forced to reconsider their position after being shown kindness by the monks and now struggles with the guilt of his past life.
You talk about him possibly rebelling or joining an underground fighting arena. Perhaps his efforts at atonement were complicated by an experience that then shook his faith. Like for instance discovering that the leader of the monks was corrupt and involved in some less-than-ethical dealings or finding evidence that the monks didn't really care about him and were actually brainwashing him into acting as a tool to further some personal agenda. This might not have changed his interest in atoning, but it would certainly leave him asking questions about how to do it and what he really should be doing. The experience caused him to run away, but the skills he developed ended up being useful for making money in fighting rings.
If this is your first character/if you're newer coming into the hobby, I wouldn't worry overmuch about being "clichéd." Cliches are often cliches for a reason in that they're very effective storytelling shorthand that gets you into the character quickly without having a lot of baggage to wrap your head around. You know the "tragic orphan warrior" story, I know it, everyone knows it, so you're free to work with that as an easy baseline and then develop your character further as you play. You shouldn't need to put a twist into your backstory to make it original, because just because a thing has been done before, it hasn't been done by you before.
What world are you currently on, or desire to be on?
I stay primarily on Oerth, (Greyhawk) in and near the Valley of the Mage. (Mine fully since 1990 in our gaming group).
I may be able to assist as one of the things in the Valley is the Temple of the Night Tigers. Here we train monks, ninja, kensai, and various others in the martial ways.
As one of our agents, folks are sent far and wide in a number of different roles, to further our reach and sometimes, our influence.
Contact me further should you be interested and Ill see what I am able to do.
>the sound of glass breaking on the floor nearby startles you, you look quickly only to see….nothing. When you turn back, the elderly traveler is gone. Only a faint smell of cherry tobacco and a wisp of pipe smoke remain where he was.<
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Known in other realms as Ranxaeroth.
“Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with bar-b-que sauce.” ~Cheshire Dragon
”You can fool most of the people most of the time, but a Sphinx….never.” ~Torwyn Vantalion.
“When the DM smiles, its already to late.” ~many a player.
James was a wimpy kid from the slums. Got his lunch money stolen a lot. He and his family didn't have much, but he always snuck some bread from the dinner table to Shakes, the elderly homeless man whose hands shake constantly, except when he drinks, when he becomes a martial arts master. In return, Shakes teaches him the 72 ancient forms with a side of folksy wisdom. He doesn't get his lunch stolen anymore. In fact, he can even stand up for some of the other bullied kids in the neighborhood.
Things take a turn, though, when an industrial catastrophe kills thousands in the city, including both his parents, who worked at the alchemical plant. Now James must find whoever caused the accident and make sure they're never able to do that again.
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I have been working on a character and it is a Monk, it is the first Monk I have done and I want some help with the backstory. I want the monk to have a tragic backstory like the monk was an orphan and he was taken under the wing of monks or something like that. I also want him to be trained kinda like a ninja. Maybe he can be a mercenary, and the Monk doesn't really lie the way of the monk he knows that The way of the Monk is to only fight when necessary but he also wants to fight like in a underground fighting arena. Maybe he ends up running away from the monks to try to make it on his own maybe he joins the military or something. Just have fun doing this and thank you for this it is very much appreciated.
Maybe you were taken in by the monks, but eventually rebelled against their rigid discipline, running away from the monastery without completing your training. Now they're trying to hunt you down and bring you back because they cannot allow someone with such a natural talent for the destructive side of their arts and such a wild, undisciplined spirit loose on the world.
I've yet to make an actual monastic monk. The closest I got was a janitor ("custos") who was working at a monastery when someone killed all the monks and burned down the monastery while he was sleeping in a latrine outside the monastery grounds (to avoid doing any work). Because the monks had taken a vow of silence and he never learned how to read, he didn't even know the name of the monastery. He had no clue who destroyed the monastery. He was essentially forced into the world to actually put some effort into staying alive and got dragged into an adventure as the only survivor of the attack on the monastery.
That's also my general limit of tragedy. I've tried to go all-in on tragic, but I prefer people who were doing just fine until an adventure happened upon them; a version of the "anyone can be a hero" trope.
My monks use the Monk mechanics but not the monk lore; mostly brawlers.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Raised in an isolated village until an unexpected war started between rival settlements that somehow wandered straight into their village.
For all intents and purposes he was left orphaned and part of a group of survivors who took shelter at the monastery where his Monkish Order resides.
For reasons the Elder of the Order still hasn't revealed a number of the kids were recruited into the order as the other survivors disappeared over night.
Although told they moved on your character stumbled onto their graves during a mission to help scavenge herbs and supplies from the surrounding wilderness still beset by the war that claimed their village.
The monks mistook you for another child recruit (because you switched shifts) and killed them causing you to flee recognising you were the actual target and whatever you had uncovered was something they couldn't let you live.
Stumbling through the wilderness you coped as best as they can letting your hair grow out, but maintaining some of the grooming habits you dimly recalled from what little of your childhood you could and this led to them being befriended by one of the roving patrols that you expected to attack.
It turns out your parents were part of a caravan hit shortly before the war and you and a couple of other kids went missing and were assumed killed.
The war started shortly after this and you learned the enemy had targetted an important family killing the daughter who was intended for an arranged marriage that would have settled the difficulties between the warring settlements.
Now with no clear means of ending the warfare you have the first clues that explain whats actually going on and hopefully the means to solve both the mystery of your past and the monastic order of assassins you was raised unknowingly among.
Does that help?
Yes it does Thank you
There's a movie out called Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins. Supposedly it's "meh", but if you watch it as a way to distill it down to a shadow monk origin story, there you go. Seriously, it's fairly archetypal.
But more seriously, when you write, "
Just cut "or something like that" keep what's left; and when you write
Just tell your DM that you want the monk's training to have been through their world's equivalent of a ninja clan and just write "My monk was trained by <insert ninja equiv name>"
From there "Monkname got disillusioned with the ideals of the clan (choose whether he thought the internal politics sullied the clan ideals or he couldn't hold the clan ideals so left for more worldly pursuit) and now works as a mercenary (or serves in an army).
As a DM, that's all I'd want and we'd work from there. Anything more starts imposing, I feel at least (other DMs want the characters
straightjacketed by their determined pastsmore development). It gives enough grounding to go on while also giving the game space to tie the character to the world as the game is played. Maybe someday the campaign will find itself revisiting your origin, otherwise you got enough notes to go forward with.Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Tragic backstories can be interesting, but they can also be cliched so you'll want to be careful how you approach them. That said, there are a lot of options you could go for if you're trying to think about what motivates them. I don't have a lot of experience with monk but I do have a couple other characters who have tragic backstories.
Being an orphan who was taken in by a monastery would be a valid choice, but it might be an obvious route. Perhaps a more interesting twist could be him (I'm assuming it's a he, since you've used male pronouns) arriving and joining the monastery as an a teenager or young adult due to something that happened in his past.
For instance, maybe he was a criminal- perhaps a thief, pickpocket, or assassin, something that would give him experience in stealth which would tie in with your idea of a ninja-type character. A job went wrong and he had to run away, nearly died in the process before being saved by the monks and brought to the monastery. The experience caused him to reconsider his life in crime and he joined them hoping to atone for his past actions.
Another possibility could be that he was a former warrior or mercenary, like you said, who was forced to reconsider their position after being shown kindness by the monks and now struggles with the guilt of his past life.
You talk about him possibly rebelling or joining an underground fighting arena. Perhaps his efforts at atonement were complicated by an experience that then shook his faith. Like for instance discovering that the leader of the monks was corrupt and involved in some less-than-ethical dealings or finding evidence that the monks didn't really care about him and were actually brainwashing him into acting as a tool to further some personal agenda. This might not have changed his interest in atoning, but it would certainly leave him asking questions about how to do it and what he really should be doing. The experience caused him to run away, but the skills he developed ended up being useful for making money in fighting rings.
If this is your first character/if you're newer coming into the hobby, I wouldn't worry overmuch about being "clichéd." Cliches are often cliches for a reason in that they're very effective storytelling shorthand that gets you into the character quickly without having a lot of baggage to wrap your head around. You know the "tragic orphan warrior" story, I know it, everyone knows it, so you're free to work with that as an easy baseline and then develop your character further as you play. You shouldn't need to put a twist into your backstory to make it original, because just because a thing has been done before, it hasn't been done by you before.
ok thanks for the tips
Salutations.
I do so love a “blank slate” as it were…
What world are you currently on, or desire to be on?
I stay primarily on Oerth, (Greyhawk) in and near the Valley of the Mage. (Mine fully since 1990 in our gaming group).
I may be able to assist as one of the things in the Valley is the Temple of the Night Tigers. Here we train monks, ninja, kensai, and various others in the martial ways.
As one of our agents, folks are sent far and wide in a number of different roles, to further our reach and sometimes, our influence.
Contact me further should you be interested and Ill see what I am able to do.
>the sound of glass breaking on the floor nearby startles you, you look quickly only to see….nothing. When you turn back, the elderly traveler is gone. Only a faint smell of cherry tobacco and a wisp of pipe smoke remain where he was.<
Known in other realms as Ranxaeroth.
“Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with bar-b-que sauce.” ~Cheshire Dragon
”You can fool most of the people most of the time, but a Sphinx….never.” ~Torwyn Vantalion.
“When the DM smiles, its already to late.” ~many a player.
I made a character like this.
James was a wimpy kid from the slums. Got his lunch money stolen a lot. He and his family didn't have much, but he always snuck some bread from the dinner table to Shakes, the elderly homeless man whose hands shake constantly, except when he drinks, when he becomes a martial arts master. In return, Shakes teaches him the 72 ancient forms with a side of folksy wisdom. He doesn't get his lunch stolen anymore. In fact, he can even stand up for some of the other bullied kids in the neighborhood.
Things take a turn, though, when an industrial catastrophe kills thousands in the city, including both his parents, who worked at the alchemical plant. Now James must find whoever caused the accident and make sure they're never able to do that again.