So, this thread is to share the motivational element of your characters backstories, but twith one caveat - we'll have no clichés, like "my parents were killed and now I seek revenge!", or "I am adventuring for the glory and the treasure", no thankyou, keep that stuff outta here.
I want to hear about your adventuring chef who is searching the world for the perfect ingredients to make her all-new bbq sauce, and isn't picky about what she tries to cook with - it's results that matter, who cares if it's made of goblin?
I want to hear about your incredibly stupid character who was tricked into believing that to travel the world for the rest of his life would get him into university - just don't come back until you're dead!
Tell me your best alternative adventuring motivators! no clichés allowed!
a doctor who would very much prefer to stay put but seem inextricably tied to the party making it hard not to follow them.after awhile they stick around to keep the rest of the party from dying
One of my characters is a druid who doesn't believe that nature's beauty lies within life. Instead, she finds serenity in the harshest of terrains, where only she is brave enough to thrive. She set out from her hometown in search of such a perfectly harsh ecosystem (also because her parents disowned her, but that's not important here).
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew:Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I had a warforged vet from the last who, long story short, saw some crap and lost all his friends in the war, and Is leaving aundair and karrnath behind, along with the memories of it.
A bard who is more a kind little bean with poems and paintings rather than a jokester. She travels to try and draw every single unique creature, hoping that one day she will find the one she saw one night when she was a child.
These are really cool motives, thanks for sharing! It's nice to read ones which aren't "Edgy McEdgeson was a normal edgy person, until their parents were killed by >insert thing here< which destroyed their village, leaving them a homeless adventurer with no ties or motivations beyond "adventure""!
Tortle ranger's heart is really in ornithology and really came from Chult to Faerun mainland to broaden the range of birds addressed in his sketchbooks, and adventures as a means to explore remote areas with secure company that may grant him new sightings. Oddly he's very ambivalent about Kenku, Aarococra etc.
Hobgoblin Wizard with archaeology background. Basically sent to survey the world for magical weapons of mass destruction to further the security of his nation. Think Indiana Jones by way of Worf from Star Trek and when Indy would say "That belongs in a museum!" substitute "weapons laboratory." He "manages" in a number of senses a literal traveling band whose act consists of two bards, as well as a Tabaxi rogue who can do backup bagpipes and acrobatics and a Tiefling "strong person" who doubles as stage security. They're not as successful as the band thinks. Rather the Wizard uses accounting tricks to make it look like his honorarium and stipends from his nation are proceeds from the shows.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Saw a stream where only one is really cliché - pretty much lived his whole life as a criminal. The others ran out of money for various reasons:
Left the professional and legal but slightly taboo extreme fighting scene when she discovered corruption but still has bills to pay for food and home. She had been one of the more famous names in the circuit - no person had beaten her once she became #1.
Used all his estate's money to fund experiments that would get scooped or sabotaged by a rival and needed more funds for experiments.
Was an exchange student but she couldn't find a job to pay for uni.
And the last one: Well... was actually really rich and didn't need any money at all but just thought it'd be a fun thing to do.
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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.
Oh, another one that isn't mine (a friend played this one) but that EricHVela's last line reminded me of:
A rich old mind who had always wanted to be a heroic adventurer, especially a paladin. He finally decided in his old age to give it a go, and he literally paid an Order to take him in and make him a paladin. Turns out over the campaign he really developed into quite a good example of a paladin and made a lot of sacrifices along the way, but he was definitely played as a silly, clumsy old man the majority of the time.
This was for a more villainous character, but I think it still fits. A young human teen led a normal life until his father realized his mother was cheating on him. The boy's father left in the middle of the night without a word. Since his mother was having an affair with someone else, she wasn't able to keep him, and he was going to be sent to an orphanage. Angry and betrayed, the boy murdered his mother and fled out onto the streets where he fought for three years just to stay alive. When he finally got a chance to get into the outside world, he took it. He wanted to find his father and kill him, just like he had killed his mother.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew:Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I play a Totem Barbarian (Badger), who was a former paladin of The Badger Queen (Basically the deity of badgers, which is a reskinned, fluffy Tarrasque), before he suffered a freak accident where he lost almost all of his memories and ended up in a strange land (a bit cliche, but it gets better). He has lost almost knowledge of his past life, except the fact that he loves badgers. He dresses in badgerskins and wears a poorly-made badger mask (Think Bokoblin Mask from BOTW). He is convinced he is a badger and will only respond to "Badgerman", and is more-or-less seen by the party as a deranged furry with a greataxe. The rest of the party thinks he is absolutely stark raving mad with his talk about going on a quest to find some "Badger Queen", and think he's delusional. Contrary to the beliefs of the whole party, and just between the DM and I, the Badger Queen DOES exist, and they will be in for quite a shock when they realize that his incoherent mumblings about his crusade for badger worship turn out to be true.
Life is very busy unfortunately, gone from most Pbp's indefinitely. If you'd like to contact me, I am on Discord at GreatAxeblade#7595, always happy to chat :)
One of my characters, a paladin named Kite, travelled from her homeworld to Toril to Lesta so that she could apply for a job. She's currently waitlisted but is optimistic.
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— δ cyησ • τηε crσc mαsτεr • hε/hιm δ — “sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.” ——————| EXTENDED SIG |—————— Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
cynophobia_'s signature reminded me that a good motivator can be "You have less than a week to live - maybe only a couple of days before it's already too late. Go find a cure. NOW!" (...but as such stories go, it turns out that it's not that simple...)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
My first character was a barbarian blacksmith. His motivation was literally his home village already had a blacksmith and didn't need a second, so he was looking for a place to set up his own business. Also he was a half Orc who lived in a village of pure humans so everyone was really supportive of him going as far away as possible to set up his new business.
My Paladin is the second son of a Noble Lord (A Count). He and his older brother are expected to perform as ambassadors and army captains until they come of age to assume their titles, Baron (and his older brother to ascend to the title of Count when their father passes or steps down). They perform these duties between the time they are 21 and 30. So my Paladin is out acting as a diplomat which requires him to travel and fix problems as he travels on this assignment. Much of his travel takes him outside the boundaries of his father's March.
My Bard wanted to become a bard by watching bards that traveled through the town of his birth. He got the money to go on to Bard University for study after he had learned very much about music. In University he found out that many bards lead modest lives like traveling actors would. It wasn't the grand vision he believed it would be to go out and record the great events of his time and write about them in song and verse. He hooked up with some adventurers going to the frontiers and thought he might fulfil his desires yet. But when he got there he found himself restless while the party did small jobs for the town council. He decided to begin a small caravan group that he wants to grow into a large trading company and use that as a front for a spy network.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
In my previous group several character had their own motivation: - Rogue is a spy, making a name for himself with an end goal to get knighted for his heroics and spy on the nobility of the the country. - Bard is seeking a way to lift the curse that transformed her into kobold. Ransacking ancient tombs tent to unearth magical artifacts that can do such thing or failing that polymorph her back to her true form. - Druid just hangs around is friends. His grove was destroyed by a volcanic eruption so he have no other ties to the world. - Barbarian is an old dude at the end of his fighting years who seeks a worthy death. - Priest is there to kill undead and maybe dragons to increase his rank in his (very militant) church. He's gunning for the not!pope's throne, so he needs to outdo the current one in the scope and power of ungodly creatures he destroyed.
Cleric, whose goal is to compile a massive tome ‘nature documentary’ about the undead, how to classify, study, and kill them, and all their different types.
Dragonborn on a mission from god. Said dragonborn is a wizard, not religious at all and actually quite dislikes the god, and has made it their life mission to become a lich just so their soul won't go to the god when they die.
Pure spite. She couldn't pay tuition for wizarding school so they refused to accept her, even though she had more natural talent than most of their students. So she decided she was going to become a more successful wizard than the school's most famous student, and do it with zero formal education. She succeeded, wiping the floor with all of the realm's greatest threats (and possibly becoming a minor goddess in the process, but that freaks her out so she very determinedly ignores it).
To a lesser degree she was also motivated by the fact that she and her mother promised each other they wouldn't be thieves any more and she really didn't know what else to do with her free time.
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Jude, He/They
Former gnome evocation wizard and dhampir fey wanderer ranger, current simic hybrid aberrant mind sorcerer
Rookie Call of Cthulhu Keeper
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So, this thread is to share the motivational element of your characters backstories, but twith one caveat - we'll have no clichés, like "my parents were killed and now I seek revenge!", or "I am adventuring for the glory and the treasure", no thankyou, keep that stuff outta here.
I want to hear about your adventuring chef who is searching the world for the perfect ingredients to make her all-new bbq sauce, and isn't picky about what she tries to cook with - it's results that matter, who cares if it's made of goblin?
I want to hear about your incredibly stupid character who was tricked into believing that to travel the world for the rest of his life would get him into university - just don't come back until you're dead!
Tell me your best alternative adventuring motivators! no clichés allowed!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread - latest release; the Harvest Sprite, a playable Jack-o-Lantern Race!
Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: The College of Fisticuffs Bard!
I also dabble in art on here (my art thread)
a doctor who would very much prefer to stay put but seem inextricably tied to the party making it hard not to follow them.after awhile they stick around to keep the rest of the party from dying
Check out my homebrew subclasses spells magic items feats monsters races
i am a sauce priest
help create a world here
One of my characters is a druid who doesn't believe that nature's beauty lies within life. Instead, she finds serenity in the harshest of terrains, where only she is brave enough to thrive. She set out from her hometown in search of such a perfectly harsh ecosystem (also because her parents disowned her, but that's not important here).
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew: Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I had a warforged vet from the last who, long story short, saw some crap and lost all his friends in the war, and Is leaving aundair and karrnath behind, along with the memories of it.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
Graduation Test from the local wizard school. Working on their arcane thesis.
A bard who is more a kind little bean with poems and paintings rather than a jokester. She travels to try and draw every single unique creature, hoping that one day she will find the one she saw one night when she was a child.
These are really cool motives, thanks for sharing! It's nice to read ones which aren't "Edgy McEdgeson was a normal edgy person, until their parents were killed by >insert thing here< which destroyed their village, leaving them a homeless adventurer with no ties or motivations beyond "adventure""!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread - latest release; the Harvest Sprite, a playable Jack-o-Lantern Race!
Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: The College of Fisticuffs Bard!
I also dabble in art on here (my art thread)
In my games, some I like:
Tortle ranger's heart is really in ornithology and really came from Chult to Faerun mainland to broaden the range of birds addressed in his sketchbooks, and adventures as a means to explore remote areas with secure company that may grant him new sightings. Oddly he's very ambivalent about Kenku, Aarococra etc.
Hobgoblin Wizard with archaeology background. Basically sent to survey the world for magical weapons of mass destruction to further the security of his nation. Think Indiana Jones by way of Worf from Star Trek and when Indy would say "That belongs in a museum!" substitute "weapons laboratory." He "manages" in a number of senses a literal traveling band whose act consists of two bards, as well as a Tabaxi rogue who can do backup bagpipes and acrobatics and a Tiefling "strong person" who doubles as stage security. They're not as successful as the band thinks. Rather the Wizard uses accounting tricks to make it look like his honorarium and stipends from his nation are proceeds from the shows.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Saw a stream where only one is really cliché - pretty much lived his whole life as a criminal. The others ran out of money for various reasons:
Left the professional and legal but slightly taboo extreme fighting scene when she discovered corruption but still has bills to pay for food and home. She had been one of the more famous names in the circuit - no person had beaten her once she became #1.
Used all his estate's money to fund experiments that would get scooped or sabotaged by a rival and needed more funds for experiments.
Was an exchange student but she couldn't find a job to pay for uni.
And the last one: Well... was actually really rich and didn't need any money at all but just thought it'd be a fun thing to do.
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.
Oh, another one that isn't mine (a friend played this one) but that EricHVela's last line reminded me of:
A rich old mind who had always wanted to be a heroic adventurer, especially a paladin. He finally decided in his old age to give it a go, and he literally paid an Order to take him in and make him a paladin. Turns out over the campaign he really developed into quite a good example of a paladin and made a lot of sacrifices along the way, but he was definitely played as a silly, clumsy old man the majority of the time.
This was for a more villainous character, but I think it still fits. A young human teen led a normal life until his father realized his mother was cheating on him. The boy's father left in the middle of the night without a word. Since his mother was having an affair with someone else, she wasn't able to keep him, and he was going to be sent to an orphanage. Angry and betrayed, the boy murdered his mother and fled out onto the streets where he fought for three years just to stay alive. When he finally got a chance to get into the outside world, he took it. He wanted to find his father and kill him, just like he had killed his mother.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew: Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I play a Totem Barbarian (Badger), who was a former paladin of The Badger Queen (Basically the deity of badgers, which is a reskinned, fluffy Tarrasque), before he suffered a freak accident where he lost almost all of his memories and ended up in a strange land (a bit cliche, but it gets better). He has lost almost knowledge of his past life, except the fact that he loves badgers. He dresses in badgerskins and wears a poorly-made badger mask (Think Bokoblin Mask from BOTW). He is convinced he is a badger and will only respond to "Badgerman", and is more-or-less seen by the party as a deranged furry with a greataxe. The rest of the party thinks he is absolutely stark raving mad with his talk about going on a quest to find some "Badger Queen", and think he's delusional. Contrary to the beliefs of the whole party, and just between the DM and I, the Badger Queen DOES exist, and they will be in for quite a shock when they realize that his incoherent mumblings about his crusade for badger worship turn out to be true.
Life is very busy unfortunately, gone from most Pbp's indefinitely.
If you'd like to contact me, I am on Discord at GreatAxeblade#7595, always happy to chat :)
Homebrew races: ~Otterfolk! Play as a otter!~ Playable Dryad! (Literally just the monster sheet ported to player race)
Sauce Archpriest!- Join the Supreme Court of Sauces! Join the Cult of Cults! EXTENDED SIGNATURE Tooltips
One of my characters, a paladin named Kite, travelled from her homeworld to Toril to Lesta so that she could apply for a job. She's currently waitlisted but is optimistic.
— δ cyησ • τηε crσc mαsτεr • hε/hιm δ —
“sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.”
——————| EXTENDED SIG |——————
Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
cynophobia_'s signature reminded me that a good motivator can be "You have less than a week to live - maybe only a couple of days before it's already too late. Go find a cure. NOW!" (...but as such stories go, it turns out that it's not that simple...)
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.
My first character was a barbarian blacksmith. His motivation was literally his home village already had a blacksmith and didn't need a second, so he was looking for a place to set up his own business. Also he was a half Orc who lived in a village of pure humans so everyone was really supportive of him going as far away as possible to set up his new business.
My Paladin is the second son of a Noble Lord (A Count). He and his older brother are expected to perform as ambassadors and army captains until they come of age to assume their titles, Baron (and his older brother to ascend to the title of Count when their father passes or steps down). They perform these duties between the time they are 21 and 30. So my Paladin is out acting as a diplomat which requires him to travel and fix problems as he travels on this assignment. Much of his travel takes him outside the boundaries of his father's March.
My Bard wanted to become a bard by watching bards that traveled through the town of his birth. He got the money to go on to Bard University for study after he had learned very much about music. In University he found out that many bards lead modest lives like traveling actors would. It wasn't the grand vision he believed it would be to go out and record the great events of his time and write about them in song and verse. He hooked up with some adventurers going to the frontiers and thought he might fulfil his desires yet. But when he got there he found himself restless while the party did small jobs for the town council. He decided to begin a small caravan group that he wants to grow into a large trading company and use that as a front for a spy network.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
In my previous group several character had their own motivation:
- Rogue is a spy, making a name for himself with an end goal to get knighted for his heroics and spy on the nobility of the the country.
- Bard is seeking a way to lift the curse that transformed her into kobold. Ransacking ancient tombs tent to unearth magical artifacts that can do such thing or failing that polymorph her back to her true form.
- Druid just hangs around is friends. His grove was destroyed by a volcanic eruption so he have no other ties to the world.
- Barbarian is an old dude at the end of his fighting years who seeks a worthy death.
- Priest is there to kill undead and maybe dragons to increase his rank in his (very militant) church. He's gunning for the not!pope's throne, so he needs to outdo the current one in the scope and power of ungodly creatures he destroyed.
Cleric, whose goal is to compile a massive tome ‘nature documentary’ about the undead, how to classify, study, and kill them, and all their different types.
◎
Dragonborn on a mission from god. Said dragonborn is a wizard, not religious at all and actually quite dislikes the god, and has made it their life mission to become a lich just so their soul won't go to the god when they die.
Pure spite. She couldn't pay tuition for wizarding school so they refused to accept her, even though she had more natural talent than most of their students. So she decided she was going to become a more successful wizard than the school's most famous student, and do it with zero formal education. She succeeded, wiping the floor with all of the realm's greatest threats (and possibly becoming a minor goddess in the process, but that freaks her out so she very determinedly ignores it).
To a lesser degree she was also motivated by the fact that she and her mother promised each other they wouldn't be thieves any more and she really didn't know what else to do with her free time.
Jude, He/They
Former gnome evocation wizard and dhampir fey wanderer ranger, current simic hybrid aberrant mind sorcerer
Rookie Call of Cthulhu Keeper