Hey guys. I'm very new to DnD but so far, although I'm currently participating in one campaign and don't know when another will open up for me, I've been very excited to create a variety characters for the fun of it. I've built a bardbarian, an edgy teenager whose pyromancy is as wild as her teenage angst, an arrogant elf who got his wild magic sorcery after annoying a powerful sorceress with terrible pick-up lines (ex: "Words cannot describe your beauty. But numbers can. 3/10. I'm the best you've got, sugar."), and many more. But no matter how many characters I make, I always find it difficult to craft a compelling backstory for them. How do you all create your backstories? What are the greatest inspirations for your backstories? What are the must-haves of backstories? And what should I avoid at all costs for my characters' backstories? Thank you all for your feedback.
That Wild Magic elf sounds oh-so annoying, but also downright fun.
There are three things I personally ensure I cover in a backstory.
Why aren't they an average person? (Could be how they got their powers, or some event that drove them out of normalcy)
Why are they going on this adventure? (or) Why would they adventure with other people?
What are the worst things that could come back to bite them?
None of these are just clearly answered, but they form the backbone of the character and create opportunities to fill in backstory details that make a person.
The last one, for me, is very important. As a DM I always prefer characters that have 'knives' in their backstory. People they care about that I can mess with, people that they've done wrong that might come back, deals that they've struck that may be more dangerous than first appeared. Something that, if I chose, I could introduce in the game and the character/player would immediately connect to.
I'd personally avoid a character that is 'reluctantly' adventuring, or 'reluctantly' joining the party, unless you feel confident in your ability to always come up with reasons why they still stay/adventure/socialize/etc. To me, lone wolf characters are a better fit for video games, in D&D you need to work in a group, so developing reason for connection is pretty important.
For better or worse I create all my characters using the "This is Your Life" section in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. It has tables for you to roll pretty much everything. Most importantly it has a load of tables for life events.
I often find while rolling for background, family, siblings, and life events - a story can emerge and then you can fudge the rolls or pick and choose certain events and then just flesh out the story from there. Basically the rolling just acts as a framework to build around. I do this because my imagination is terrible and I need the inspiration. Of course it probably means nearly all of my characters are cliche in some form or another but I think that's okay. It has led me to making 17 (and counting) very different characters which I'm happy with. I doubt I will ever play them all.
The only required element I can think of is "where were you born." But of course there is so much more everyone should include.
I write where (s)he was born, to who as parents, with how many brothers and sisters, and where (s)he falls in the order. I include the profession of the dad (parents) and an explanation for why this character didn't take up that profession. I include at what age the youngster left their family home, and if it happened, what significant events happened before the character left home. I write how the character came to be in this character class and where they were when they officially started as an adventurer with zero experience points.
Other things I add are childhood friends, close relatives and such that extend their roots out from the immediate family. I try and include any training they had that might explain why they have a talent for medicine or some other skill not required for character formation. I would like to include their mentor's name and position, along with friends associated during their training days. One of these friends is usually in the party. If they follow a particular god, then I try and explain that too. I'm generally not big into being specific about gods in the game though.
If I want to have special identifying marks on them, an explanation for how they got that scar, or why their hair is white, or they keep one half of their head shaved, or ...
And sometimes I give an indication if they would want to return home or if they are through with that place forever.
I like the players in my games to try to, at the very least, answer three questions:
What in your past made you want to adventure? Did you lose a loved one? Was there a quest that's been past down each generation? Did you find yourself destitute and adventuring was the only way to survive?
What motivates you currently to continue adventuring? Are you trying to reclaim your rightful place in an order? Did you find the name of the creature/person who destroyed your tribe? Is the money and fame worth the risk?
What is your ultimate goal before you retire? Obtain a status where no one can challenge your authority? Lay your family to rest and know you've done them proud? Gain enough money to own your own land and rule?
Then, if the players are of a mind, if they want to detail more, they can. It's up to them to put all the extra fluff into their background. I'll simply look it over and, if necessary, make adjustments or ask more questions to fill in any blanks or inconsistencies.
But no matter how many characters I make, I always find it difficult to craft a compelling backstory for them. How do you all create your backstories? What are the greatest inspirations for your backstories? What are the must-haves of backstories? And what should I avoid at all costs for my characters' backstories? Thank you all for your feedback.
So my approach is a bit different than others, and I know some will disagree with me. That's fine. I decide right at the offset:
1) Is my character a power gamer or are they a story driven character?
If they are a power gamer, I roll for ideals, bonds, etc.I choose my class first and and figure out how I want the character to function. I build the character all the way out to whatever the max level for the campaign to see what they'll get. After that, I decide on the backstory based on the character's abilities. A Warlock may just have Eldirtch Blast, or they may have a powerful magical energy blast they learn how to use and harness over time. Maybe they don't even know the name. How did the character learn about that power? How did they make their pact? What happened prior to making the pact that motivated them? Just write down some answers and get a paragraph or two going, and eventually after asking enough questions you arrive there with a suitable backstory.
If I build the backstory first and then the character, I start with the race and background - what did they do? Then, who taught them, or how did they learn their unique abilities? That outlines what the class will be - then you just go crazy before hand and tell your story and build the character mechanically for that. This can make games far more challenging than an optimized character (Not that you couldn't - I wanted to play a healer who was a dwarf and obsessed with smithing, forge cleric wound up being a great fit and I love my dwarf cleric now).
Ultimately, either way you go, just ask questions about context. Who is your character? What is their occupation? Where do they sleep at night? Do they have family, if so, who? Are they from around here?
If you keep asking questions, eventually the backstory writes itself.
What are the "must-haves" in a background? Nothing.
The background is the boring stuff in your character's life that happens before the interesting stuff (the game :-).
It is nice to know why your character became an adventurer and what drives them and what their ultimate goal is (some GM's will require those from players) but those things can be invented at the table during play.
Some players thrive on backstory and bring pages and pages of it to the table. I usually only have two or three paragraphs for my characters. Some players have none. All of these players are right, because backstory is for the player, not for the GM or the rest of the table.
So, if you have no background, don't sweat it. If you find yourself writing five pages of story, don't sweat it either. Whatever works for you.
Just make sure your character can work together with other and have an innate reason to adventure.
Nothing is more tedious for DM's and your fellow players to have to cater everything to make sure your annoying character is motivated to come along on adventures and missions. You should especially be mindful of this when building edgy characters.
This might be an unpopular opinion: when it comes to character story/personality--not to be confused with character actions (ie., actual gameplay)--there are no cliches or tropes that must be avoided. The only thing that should be avoided is being boring.
Character with a tragic past where their entire family was murdered by BBEG? Boring.
Tragic past where entire family was murdered because the character has a nervous speech impediment, accidentally mispronounced the name of a foreign dignitary, caused a 13-year war, and now goes into a momentary catatonic state whenever someone mentions a word that's difficult to pronounce? Not boring.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I know this isn't related but I love the title you have sigred.
I loved being the drunk bird in that scenario. 😂
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I just try to answer two simple questions: what is the character like? How did they get that way?
Those can answer anything from class mechanics, hero "origin stories," or just basic personality traits. Just bear in mind your character didn't develope on a vacuum, they are the way they are because something influenced them to be that way.
As for cliches and tropes? Embrace them. They're the shorthand of character development. They'll get you in the game, set up building blocks, but as your character responds to their environments and you get comfortable in their role, those cliches will evolve into something more unique. Static characters are boring characters, so the important thing is to react to things.
Though, bonus points if you can avoid dead parents. You don't have to, a lot of great heroes have dead parents in their backstories, but still, bonus points.
In addition to the excellent suggestions made by others, a few other questions I usually ask myself as I design a character's backstory:
What does my character enjoy doing when not adventuring? Similarly, if my character had to ride in a wagon or in a refugee ship with the common folk for days on end, what would he/she/they be doing or want to talk about? Would my character be comfortable in that situation? Alternately, consider your character's reaction to having to attend a super-classy dinner with 3 types of forks and 3 types of spoons in a mansion with lot of nobles. How would that person react to that kind of situation?
Does my character have any particular habits? What makes that person distinct from anyone else who happens to have the same race and class? Favorite memory? Any phobias?
It's also interesting to create some kind of tension between your character's principles/quirks and their occupation. An assassin who hates the sight of blood. A professional soldier who hates being told what to do. A cleric who questions her own faith. A barbarian who abhors the things he thinks about when he goes in the rage state and takes drugs to forget about it. Complex characters are not only One thing. They have multiple desires, some that are in conflict with other desires.
Honestly, the only part of a character's backstory that you absolutely MUST have is the reason that you are embarking on the current adventure. Because you have to explain what you're doing at the game! And that can be any reason at all; of my last three characters, one was motivated by a sense of loyalty and devotion to his deity, one was exiled by his family because of a scandal and had no choice but to sail to a new continent, and one simply wanted opportunities to do field research for her arcane studies.
Outside of an explanation of why your character is part of the game's adventure, you can have as little or as much backstory as you like. I've written just a couple paragraphs of backstory for a character; I've also written a literal 15,000-word novella/novelette for a character backstory. (And guess what - most of it never came up in game! It helped me inform my character's personality for role-playing purposes, but it didn't factor into the plot of the game very much.) I find it generally helps to have a handful of NPC characters sketched out that your PC has some sort of relationship with; this could be family members, friends, students or teachers, rivals, etc. But including those NPCs gives the DM a chance to incorporate them into the game later, which is always fun.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I went through a season where I had thorough backgrounds but the more I play the more I want my character to grow IN Game rather than be already established. This doesn't mean that he doesn't have a history but he isn't going to be set in stone at level 1. I want to leave room for them to be shaped by the adventures we share.
Justify skills and abilities. Any history for a character I do answers how they learned their proficiencies and so on. This is a great place to add a mentor, parent, or whoever.
In my head I view adventurers rare and many class names are meta-terms describing skill sets for the game so I find my character's place in the world. My "ranger" is a known woodsman and regularly returns to town to sell various pelts and such to the local tanner. My fighter is a hearty warrior who is in town between caravan guard jobs. In other words, I give them a mundane place in the world. This doesn't mean they are opposed to adventure or reluctant just that they have a life prior to getting here.
Connections to where we are/what's going on. Sure characters might have adventure hooks in there backgrounds and rivals and former enemies lurking for the DM to use or not. But what about my character's relationship not just with the game rules but, why am I here? In this town, or where ever we are starting; the promise of adventure, just passing through, this is my home, I got a job and it landed me here, and so on.
No matter if I play something outlandish and fantastical or a lowly halfling street urchin who is getting his first big break. I try to answer the above questions. For outlandish characters it begs the question and provides some answers to their place in the world.
I do really like This Is Your Life but you need to know your main gimmick it trope that your going for first. But I do like using this to create the details that aren't usually thought about such as their life events and his that's shaped them and their families as well.
The most cliched backstories are the ones based on the most famous superheroes. The "I became an adventurer bc I must avenge my parents that [INSERT MONSTER TYPE] killed when I was a kid" is really just a reskin of the Bruce Wayne/Batman backstory. Edgelords love this one, it seems, but it rarely inspires memorable role playing experiences because the emotionally closed off nature of most people who choose this kind of backstory tends to lead to stories where that PC doesn't develop or grow, which is highly reflective of how Wayne/Batman is still stuck as an angry orphan in his own mind. Batman is a billionaire who needs therapy, FR.
Or the Drizzt backstory: I am misunderstood by horrible, evil, no good, abusive, very bad species/race who are also my parents. But I am totally, 100% different from them for flimsy reasons. This actually may have the seeds to be a pretty good backstory, but the emotional maturity arc of a character who grew up in a horrible, evil, no good, abusive family while also being surrounded by a speices/race that is also horrible, evil, no good, and abusive is A) generally going to be pretty rough for a long time even for one of the best fighter/barbarian/rogue/etc. in the world, which is difficult to pull off without serious buy-in from the DM and at least 1 other player and B) that PC would probably
start off as an abusively harmful person to others or to themselves. This is very Adult-themed material, not necessarily in the NSFW way, but this PC is likely to be leaning towards the Evil alignment (if abusive to others) or not particularly effective as a hero (if prone to abuse themselves).
Not many players or tables would want to commit to that kind of storytelling, which is too bad, but well, most people play D&D to escape from the real world, not to engage with it even deeper.
First thing to decide - how heavy into acting ROLEplaying do you want to go? If you want deep antsy/artsy character there are a ton of tables and tropes to draw on. I’m not into that but some of the folks above clearly are so you can reread their posts. I’m typically starting with a basic species + class/mc idea to try. So I use the builder and start with the species, then the attributes then the background and finally the class(es). Then I fill in enough background to explain their training, powers, skills, feats, etc and some motivation to leave home and adventure ( which can be as simple as youthful wanderlust. At that point I have a ( for me) playable character. If we are starting at higher levels then the backstory needs to include enough action to explain the levels the PC has.
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Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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Hey guys. I'm very new to DnD but so far, although I'm currently participating in one campaign and don't know when another will open up for me, I've been very excited to create a variety characters for the fun of it. I've built a bardbarian, an edgy teenager whose pyromancy is as wild as her teenage angst, an arrogant elf who got his wild magic sorcery after annoying a powerful sorceress with terrible pick-up lines (ex: "Words cannot describe your beauty. But numbers can. 3/10. I'm the best you've got, sugar."), and many more. But no matter how many characters I make, I always find it difficult to craft a compelling backstory for them. How do you all create your backstories? What are the greatest inspirations for your backstories? What are the must-haves of backstories? And what should I avoid at all costs for my characters' backstories? Thank you all for your feedback.
That Wild Magic elf sounds oh-so annoying, but also downright fun.
There are three things I personally ensure I cover in a backstory.
None of these are just clearly answered, but they form the backbone of the character and create opportunities to fill in backstory details that make a person.
The last one, for me, is very important. As a DM I always prefer characters that have 'knives' in their backstory. People they care about that I can mess with, people that they've done wrong that might come back, deals that they've struck that may be more dangerous than first appeared. Something that, if I chose, I could introduce in the game and the character/player would immediately connect to.
I'd personally avoid a character that is 'reluctantly' adventuring, or 'reluctantly' joining the party, unless you feel confident in your ability to always come up with reasons why they still stay/adventure/socialize/etc. To me, lone wolf characters are a better fit for video games, in D&D you need to work in a group, so developing reason for connection is pretty important.
For better or worse I create all my characters using the "This is Your Life" section in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. It has tables for you to roll pretty much everything. Most importantly it has a load of tables for life events.
I often find while rolling for background, family, siblings, and life events - a story can emerge and then you can fudge the rolls or pick and choose certain events and then just flesh out the story from there. Basically the rolling just acts as a framework to build around. I do this because my imagination is terrible and I need the inspiration. Of course it probably means nearly all of my characters are cliche in some form or another but I think that's okay.
It has led me to making 17 (and counting) very different characters which I'm happy with. I doubt I will ever play them all.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
The only required element I can think of is "where were you born." But of course there is so much more everyone should include.
I write where (s)he was born, to who as parents, with how many brothers and sisters, and where (s)he falls in the order. I include the profession of the dad (parents) and an explanation for why this character didn't take up that profession. I include at what age the youngster left their family home, and if it happened, what significant events happened before the character left home. I write how the character came to be in this character class and where they were when they officially started as an adventurer with zero experience points.
Other things I add are childhood friends, close relatives and such that extend their roots out from the immediate family. I try and include any training they had that might explain why they have a talent for medicine or some other skill not required for character formation. I would like to include their mentor's name and position, along with friends associated during their training days. One of these friends is usually in the party. If they follow a particular god, then I try and explain that too. I'm generally not big into being specific about gods in the game though.
If I want to have special identifying marks on them, an explanation for how they got that scar, or why their hair is white, or they keep one half of their head shaved, or ...
And sometimes I give an indication if they would want to return home or if they are through with that place forever.
I like the players in my games to try to, at the very least, answer three questions:
What in your past made you want to adventure?
Did you lose a loved one? Was there a quest that's been past down each generation? Did you find yourself destitute and adventuring was the only way to survive?
What motivates you currently to continue adventuring?
Are you trying to reclaim your rightful place in an order? Did you find the name of the creature/person who destroyed your tribe? Is the money and fame worth the risk?
What is your ultimate goal before you retire?
Obtain a status where no one can challenge your authority? Lay your family to rest and know you've done them proud? Gain enough money to own your own land and rule?
Then, if the players are of a mind, if they want to detail more, they can. It's up to them to put all the extra fluff into their background. I'll simply look it over and, if necessary, make adjustments or ask more questions to fill in any blanks or inconsistencies.
You want conflict, at least one personality quirk that is unique to your character and stuff your DM can integrate in the story.
So my approach is a bit different than others, and I know some will disagree with me. That's fine. I decide right at the offset:
1) Is my character a power gamer or are they a story driven character?
If they are a power gamer, I roll for ideals, bonds, etc.I choose my class first and and figure out how I want the character to function. I build the character all the way out to whatever the max level for the campaign to see what they'll get. After that, I decide on the backstory based on the character's abilities. A Warlock may just have Eldirtch Blast, or they may have a powerful magical energy blast they learn how to use and harness over time. Maybe they don't even know the name. How did the character learn about that power? How did they make their pact? What happened prior to making the pact that motivated them? Just write down some answers and get a paragraph or two going, and eventually after asking enough questions you arrive there with a suitable backstory.
If I build the backstory first and then the character, I start with the race and background - what did they do? Then, who taught them, or how did they learn their unique abilities? That outlines what the class will be - then you just go crazy before hand and tell your story and build the character mechanically for that. This can make games far more challenging than an optimized character (Not that you couldn't - I wanted to play a healer who was a dwarf and obsessed with smithing, forge cleric wound up being a great fit and I love my dwarf cleric now).
Ultimately, either way you go, just ask questions about context. Who is your character? What is their occupation? Where do they sleep at night? Do they have family, if so, who? Are they from around here?
If you keep asking questions, eventually the backstory writes itself.
What are the "must-haves" in a background?
Nothing.
The background is the boring stuff in your character's life that happens before the interesting stuff (the game :-).
It is nice to know why your character became an adventurer and what drives them and what their ultimate goal is (some GM's will require those from players) but those things can be invented at the table during play.
Some players thrive on backstory and bring pages and pages of it to the table. I usually only have two or three paragraphs for my characters. Some players have none. All of these players are right, because backstory is for the player, not for the GM or the rest of the table.
So, if you have no background, don't sweat it. If you find yourself writing five pages of story, don't sweat it either. Whatever works for you.
Just make sure your character can work together with other and have an innate reason to adventure.
Nothing is more tedious for DM's and your fellow players to have to cater everything to make sure your annoying character is motivated to come along on adventures and missions. You should especially be mindful of this when building edgy characters.
This might be an unpopular opinion: when it comes to character story/personality--not to be confused with character actions (ie., actual gameplay)--there are no cliches or tropes that must be avoided. The only thing that should be avoided is being boring.
Character with a tragic past where their entire family was murdered by BBEG? Boring.
Tragic past where entire family was murdered because the character has a nervous speech impediment, accidentally mispronounced the name of a foreign dignitary, caused a 13-year war, and now goes into a momentary catatonic state whenever someone mentions a word that's difficult to pronounce? Not boring.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I loved being the drunk bird in that scenario. 😂
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
I just try to answer two simple questions: what is the character like? How did they get that way?
Those can answer anything from class mechanics, hero "origin stories," or just basic personality traits. Just bear in mind your character didn't develope on a vacuum, they are the way they are because something influenced them to be that way.
As for cliches and tropes? Embrace them. They're the shorthand of character development. They'll get you in the game, set up building blocks, but as your character responds to their environments and you get comfortable in their role, those cliches will evolve into something more unique. Static characters are boring characters, so the important thing is to react to things.
Though, bonus points if you can avoid dead parents. You don't have to, a lot of great heroes have dead parents in their backstories, but still, bonus points.
In addition to the excellent suggestions made by others, a few other questions I usually ask myself as I design a character's backstory:
What does my character enjoy doing when not adventuring? Similarly, if my character had to ride in a wagon or in a refugee ship with the common folk for days on end, what would he/she/they be doing or want to talk about? Would my character be comfortable in that situation? Alternately, consider your character's reaction to having to attend a super-classy dinner with 3 types of forks and 3 types of spoons in a mansion with lot of nobles. How would that person react to that kind of situation?
Does my character have any particular habits? What makes that person distinct from anyone else who happens to have the same race and class? Favorite memory? Any phobias?
It's also interesting to create some kind of tension between your character's principles/quirks and their occupation. An assassin who hates the sight of blood. A professional soldier who hates being told what to do. A cleric who questions her own faith. A barbarian who abhors the things he thinks about when he goes in the rage state and takes drugs to forget about it. Complex characters are not only One thing. They have multiple desires, some that are in conflict with other desires.
Honestly, the only part of a character's backstory that you absolutely MUST have is the reason that you are embarking on the current adventure. Because you have to explain what you're doing at the game! And that can be any reason at all; of my last three characters, one was motivated by a sense of loyalty and devotion to his deity, one was exiled by his family because of a scandal and had no choice but to sail to a new continent, and one simply wanted opportunities to do field research for her arcane studies.
Outside of an explanation of why your character is part of the game's adventure, you can have as little or as much backstory as you like. I've written just a couple paragraphs of backstory for a character; I've also written a literal 15,000-word novella/novelette for a character backstory. (And guess what - most of it never came up in game! It helped me inform my character's personality for role-playing purposes, but it didn't factor into the plot of the game very much.) I find it generally helps to have a handful of NPC characters sketched out that your PC has some sort of relationship with; this could be family members, friends, students or teachers, rivals, etc. But including those NPCs gives the DM a chance to incorporate them into the game later, which is always fun.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I love the old 10 minute background style.
I went through a season where I had thorough backgrounds but the more I play the more I want my character to grow IN Game rather than be already established. This doesn't mean that he doesn't have a history but he isn't going to be set in stone at level 1. I want to leave room for them to be shaped by the adventures we share.
Justify skills and abilities. Any history for a character I do answers how they learned their proficiencies and so on. This is a great place to add a mentor, parent, or whoever.
In my head I view adventurers rare and many class names are meta-terms describing skill sets for the game so I find my character's place in the world. My "ranger" is a known woodsman and regularly returns to town to sell various pelts and such to the local tanner. My fighter is a hearty warrior who is in town between caravan guard jobs. In other words, I give them a mundane place in the world. This doesn't mean they are opposed to adventure or reluctant just that they have a life prior to getting here.
Connections to where we are/what's going on. Sure characters might have adventure hooks in there backgrounds and rivals and former enemies lurking for the DM to use or not. But what about my character's relationship not just with the game rules but, why am I here? In this town, or where ever we are starting; the promise of adventure, just passing through, this is my home, I got a job and it landed me here, and so on.
No matter if I play something outlandish and fantastical or a lowly halfling street urchin who is getting his first big break. I try to answer the above questions. For outlandish characters it begs the question and provides some answers to their place in the world.
I do really like This Is Your Life but you need to know your main gimmick it trope that your going for first. But I do like using this to create the details that aren't usually thought about such as their life events and his that's shaped them and their families as well.
The most cliched backstories are the ones based on the most famous superheroes. The "I became an adventurer bc I must avenge my parents that [INSERT MONSTER TYPE] killed when I was a kid" is really just a reskin of the Bruce Wayne/Batman backstory. Edgelords love this one, it seems, but it rarely inspires memorable role playing experiences because the emotionally closed off nature of most people who choose this kind of backstory tends to lead to stories where that PC doesn't develop or grow, which is highly reflective of how Wayne/Batman is still stuck as an angry orphan in his own mind. Batman is a billionaire who needs therapy, FR.
Or the Drizzt backstory: I am misunderstood by horrible, evil, no good, abusive, very bad species/race who are also my parents. But I am totally, 100% different from them for flimsy reasons. This actually may have the seeds to be a pretty good backstory, but the emotional maturity arc of a character who grew up in a horrible, evil, no good, abusive family while also being surrounded by a speices/race that is also horrible, evil, no good, and abusive is A) generally going to be pretty rough for a long time even for one of the best fighter/barbarian/rogue/etc. in the world, which is difficult to pull off without serious buy-in from the DM and at least 1 other player and B) that PC would probably
start off as an abusively harmful person to others or to themselves. This is very Adult-themed material, not necessarily in the NSFW way, but this PC is likely to be leaning towards the Evil alignment (if abusive to others) or not particularly effective as a hero (if prone to abuse themselves).
Not many players or tables would want to commit to that kind of storytelling, which is too bad, but well, most people play D&D to escape from the real world, not to engage with it even deeper.
First thing to decide - how heavy into acting ROLEplaying do you want to go? If you want deep antsy/artsy character there are a ton of tables and tropes to draw on. I’m not into that but some of the folks above clearly are so you can reread their posts. I’m typically starting with a basic species + class/mc idea to try. So I use the builder and start with the species, then the attributes then the background and finally the class(es). Then I fill in enough background to explain their training, powers, skills, feats, etc and some motivation to leave home and adventure ( which can be as simple as youthful wanderlust. At that point I have a ( for me) playable character. If we are starting at higher levels then the backstory needs to include enough action to explain the levels the PC has.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.