Since Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy setting, you have magic in the same, I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone. How much magic you have to vary a lot. Some worlds in D&D have a ton of magic with lots of people being able to use small spells and little things, like curing a small wound are going to be magically done or lighting a fire, magic might be faster. There are going to be other fantasy worlds where magic is extremely rare. If you have magic, you have way more value to the nations because of what you can do. In either of them, the PC’s (Player characters) who have magic are going to end up being more powerful than most other casters, because, otherwise, those characters would be saving the world, and you’d still be a farmer.

But within magic, there are a number of different ways that you can get magic or use magic. Which, mechanically speaking, are represented by the different classes you can be. A Cleric and Paladin get their magic from their gods whereas a Druid gets it through nature, a Sorcerer just has it, and a Wizard needs to learn it. That doesn’t even touch on the bard who signs theirs (but just kind of have it) and the Warlock who has made a deal for it. If you know you want to be a magic user, picking your class can help determine what sort of background you have because of how you got the magic.

Bard – This magical mischief maker generally gets their spells from their ability to weave word or song in such a way to alter the world around them either for attack or entertainment. A bard is generally going to be someone who has been trained, but not to improve their magic, but their performance ability. I think that the bard is a class that can be generally used for most backstories.

Cleric – The first of our magical classes that gets their magic from the divine. The god that they are worshiping is giving them the powers and has chosen them as special. In particular, they are giving them powers to help people, and while combat might not be their strong point, but healing and aiding other characters is what that character is going to be the best at. With a cleric, your backstory can be anything but you might want to focus more on a religious background and have it something you’ve been a part of for a while, not something that you just picked up.

Druid – The hippy of the magical classes, the druid is all about nature and their attunement to nature. In some ways, I would say that a Druid is a bit like the Cleric in that they get their magic from the divine, but for the Druid their divine is their connection to nature. The Druid is going to be the caster who has the most connections to nature and natural changes in the world. The outlander or hermit backgrounds actually make a lot of sense for a background for the Druid, because you need that strong connection with nature that makes most sense to be gotten on your own. The trick can be connecting back into the group.

Paladin – Our second divine caster, the Paladin is what is know as a half-caster. What that means is that they have a more limited spell selection and a smaller number of spell slots with which to cast spells. What the Paladin does get is some of the healing abilities of the Cleric but much better punching power with their ability to handle weapons. They also get the ability to channel their divine magic into even more damage, at the cost of casting spells, but I still feel like it’s a spell like affect and is part of their magic. For a Paladin, your background can be much more open, because while they do have that divine magic from a god, their devotion to their religion is less strictly guided like a Cleric’s feels, though, they do need to maintain that collection.

Ranger – Another and last half caster, the Ranger pulls a little bit like the Paladin does from the Cleric, but for the Ranger it’s from the Druid. They get some of the connections to nature that the Druid has, but also then gets more focus in their magic for hunting down their enemies. Unlike the Paladin who has extra abilities they can do with their magic, the Ranger is more focused on just using their spells as spells. Their background is generally going to be fairly open, being a scout in the military or being a hermit all make sense, and even some of the more scholarly ones can make sense.

Sorcerer – The natural of the magic world, the bard might just use music, but the Sorcerer just gets magic. And they get amazing control over their magic. The Sorcerer is an interesting class in that they get things called meta-magics and meta-magic points that they can use to improve their spells. This might mean that they can cast them farther or do so silently so it can’t be countered. This allows a player to specialize their character so that their Sorcerer feels different from others. The Sorcerer definitely can come from any sort of background since their magic can be something that just newly manifested. It’s the magic class that you do if you don’t want to be beholden to anyone or anything.

Warlock – If the Sorcerer isn’t beholden to anyone or anything, the Warlock 100% is. They’ve made a pact with some powerful being, fey, elder god, or demon that is giving them their powers. And the Warlocks magic works differently than everyone else’s. They aren’t a half caster, but they aren’t really a full caster. They get invocations that can really make their cantrips much better so they don’t need as many high level spells, which is good, because they don’t get many spell slots. But when they cast a spell it’s always at the highest spot possible. I don’t know that they are that much harder to play than other casters, but how they work makes less sense. They, because they can have just gotten their magic, do have it in common with the Sorcerer that most any background works.

Wizard – Final one and definitely the most iconic. The Wizard has learned magic. You could say that Bard might be considered a bit of that if you consider them learning their craft of storytelling and performance, but for a Wizard, there are Wizard schools and you study and you need a spellbook to be able to prepare spells for the day. But, as a Wizard, you have access to more spells than any other class. Their specializations also makes it easier for them to learn more spells in certain areas, and while other classes can be capped on how spells they know, a Wizard can always add in more spells if they have the time and money to transcribe them into their spell book. A wizard, the Sage background makes the most sense because they’ve spent at least some of their life in school, but that might not be the defining feature for them.

That’s a lot just looking at the classes and how they use magic, I’m going to spend some time coming up here going into more topics on magic such as spell slots and spells known or high or low magic worlds that I touched on that the top of the article. Some of them will be more player focused and others more dungeon master focused. Is there a certain type of caster that you gravitate to?

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Tieflings, for those not familiar, are tainted in their bloodline somehow by demons. Mainly, the lord of the nine hells. In the players handbook you get the rules for creating a character who has some influence of Asmodeus in their bloodline. In Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, you get it for the rest of the Lords and Ladies of the nine hells. All Tieflings are generally charismatic as they all get an improvement to that stat, that generally makes them good at being Warlocks which makes a ton of sense. However, Bard and Sorcerer are also Charisma casting races. Most interestingly, the Paladin is also Charisma based, so that could make a really interesting role playing experience. As you’d expect, the main feature for a Tiefling is that they are resistant to fire.

Now, how that infernal influence gets into your bloodline is going to be up to you as a player. You could have had a relative that screwed one of the Lord of Hell, but that isn’t the only way. If your family worshiped one of the Lords of Ladies of Hell for a long time, it’s possible that they just became tainted through that and spawned the PC. I think that either of them provide some interesting role playing opportunities, but the biggest thing that the Tiefling provides for role playing is the fact you look different and that tells people that somehow your family consorted with someone evil.

Tieflings, themselves, don’t have to be evil, but might lean towards that alignment. And even if you don’t, again, people aren’t going to trust you, because you are very different. In the PHB (players handbook), you feel like most likely a Tiefling came from a human line, but there is no reason that your Tiefling couldn’t be based size wise off of some other race. But, back to my main point, the distrust of your character is going to be something that you are going to have to role play out with your DM. Maybe even your party doesn’t fully trust you because you are a Tiefling, and I find this interesting, because as a charismatic humanoid, you are not just naturally magnetic. It’s more of a situation that you can just sit down and win people over if they give you the time and aren’t running screaming when they see your horns and tail.

So what are some backstory ideas for playing a Tiefling?

When you were born, there was a lot of shock in your community, and you were tossed aside and left to die. However, the old Priestess in your town wouldn’t allow that to happen and went and took you from the woods where you had been left. She, in secret for several years, raised you and taught you the ways of the church. When you reached the age of ten, a new priest came to town as the priestess was getting old and frail. He didn’t treat you as well, but he promised the priestess he wouldn’t kick you out or abandon you. When you were old enough, he told you it was time to go on a mission and spread the word of your god to others and help where you could. So you went out and found a group that seemed to be doing good.
Class: Paladin
Alignment: Neutral Good
Background: Acolyte
Note: I would play some into the tension between the infernal and the divine.

Your parents told you that the village you had been born in burned when you were young, and that’s why you lived all alone with only a few close family friends who had been able to survive. You found out later that might have been the case. As you grew to know more, you found out that your parents and their friends were worshiping a devil. And it turned out, as you overheard, that the village had burned because the village hadn’t wanted your family there when you were born, and your family and their friends had burned it to the ground while everyone was trapped in the temple. That didn’t sit well with you, so when you were a teen, you escaped and started wandering the woods, hunting and gathering as you needed. Then, one day, there was a tug on your heart and you went into a village, in disguise to see the humans as thralls and your family and their friends controlling them. You knew they had to be stopped.
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Background: Outlander
Class: Ranger

Being a Tiefling is generally looked down upon, but you were bred to be that way. Your kingdom is very pragmatic living in the shadows of a Red Dragon. Tieflings really make good firefighters being able to handle the heat and flames better than any humans. So each generation, a few women are selected to be part of the ritual and give birth to Tiefling children. However, your mother had told you that when she was carrying you a seer had told her that you were going to be important at a time when the world was in flames and that you could bring on the end of the world. You didn’t want to do that, but as compared to other Tieflings, it quickly became obvious that you had more power and that whichever Lord of the Nine Hells had sired you was helping keep you alive. Now you’re running, hoping that will protect you from what the seer foretold.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Background: Haunted(?)/Soldier(?)
Class: Warlock
Note: What I like about this idea is that your character has a different feeling Warlock patron because they were given it as a way to defend themselves and stay alive, not because they made a deal, could offer some interesting role playing options.

So, what about you? Have you played a Tiefling before? How easy are they to play in your opinion? How hard are they to fit into the group?

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The first one alphabetically is the acolyte. You’ve spent time in service to your deity. For example, maybe you started as someone who assisted the priestess as a child and then rose all the way up in the ranks to become the high priestess yourself. As I mentioned, there could be a large gap of time since the period when you were in service to your deity, but even though it could be something you did a long time before you started adventuring, it can still be a part of who you are as an adventurer. It is just a piece that has helped define who you are as a person.

There are a number of obvious classes that make the “most” sense to go with if you are an acolyte, the first being cleric. If you’re a cleric, that’s exactly what your job was in the temple that you served in, and it makes perfect sense. Next, there is paladin. This also makes a ton of sense; you are a knight in service of a deity. And then there is the monk — while the monk in Dungeons & Dragons is as much a ninja as a monk, they can make sense as an acolyte, as they trained in a monastery and have devoted their body and actions to their deity. I’m probably not going to write out much of a background for any of those classes, but I’m going to give you some weirder options or show you how you can play against type. Let’s see what some of those look like now:

I spent so many years in service of Tymora, the goddess of good fortune, and I had worked my way up into the temple. I loved the life as I spent time drinking and eating with the rich and famous of my home city. Life was great, and I was close to becoming the high priestess in my town, until my rival, Gerhim Methezar, lied to the leaders of the religion and told them I’d been preaching lies and accepting bribes. I was branded a heretic and cast out penniless onto the streets. I hate it out here, and I hate Gerhim for what he did to me. In my weakness, a voice came to me and offered me hope, offered me power, and offered me a way to get revenge. I will prove Gerhim for the liar that he is, and regain my spot in the temple of Tymora — until then, I’m going to be a thorn in his side.

Class: Warlock
Alignment: Lawful Neutral

For this one, I really leaned into the idea of being kicked out and wanting revenge as the bond and then loving rubbing elbows with the elite as a personality trait. The ideal that I used was around wanting power in the faith, and the flaw is picking a goal and becoming obsessed with it. I’m not going to break down all of them like this, but I wanted an example of how I wrote a backstory with using specific aspects from the handbook, even though I didn’t pick them out ahead of time.

I’m also going to be adding in alignments. I doubt you’ll ever see any acolyte character be actually evil, but in this case, the character might border on lawful evil at times, especially when it comes to undermining Gerhim and gaining back their old position, because of their obsession with getting their power back.

The gods speak to me and through me. That’s how the temple of Mystra found me. They seek knowledge, and I had a knowledge that they didn’t have access to. I was raised in their temple as an oracle of the gods and never knew what real life was like. Things were great until one of my visions was wrong. I don’t know what happened — maybe we interpreted it wrong, but people lost their lives, and I do not consider that acceptable. I ran away that day, but the visions didn’t stop coming. Now I’ve had another vision, about a lost relic of Mystra. I can prove to myself that I am worthy of returning to the temple if I can find this relic and bring back a piece of lost knowledge.

Class: Wizard – Divination
Alignment: Lawful Good

Life was hard for me growing up; I was living on the streets and having to steal. I made the mistake of breaking into a temple of Bhaal. They had some very nice things in there, but they caught me. According to their beliefs, that would be enough to have me put to death, but instead, they had some pity on me — I guess it was pity, anyway — and they put me to work. Apparently, no one else had ever gotten as far into the temple as I had. I didn’t love the work they made me do; it was messy work, and as my skills were honed, the work became so violent that after one mission I didn’t feel like I could return. So I didn’t. I ran away, and now agents of Bhaal are trying to track me down. But they trained me well, and with a lot of skill and a bit of luck, I’m sure I can stay ahead of them. Time to find a crowd to blend into and pretend like I’ve had a normal life.

Class: Rogue – Assassin
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

This is definitely one that you could go evil with — just swap it around so that the temple of Bhaal has burned your character because of some mistake done on an assassination, and now you have a character who is still on the run from them but who enjoys the killing and being a rogue if you’re playing an evil campaign.

I loved living in the church, I spent my youth at the foot of the eldest priest listening to the stories he told. I memorized every single one of them, as I asked him to tell them over and over again. When he passed away, the temple in my little town didn’t get another priest, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I took up traveling. It felt like the right thing to do — seeking out those who are part of my faith so that I can listen to their stories and add them to my knowledge, so I can spread the word to the masses who might not have heard the stories before. There’s a proverb for everything, and I know them all. Unfortunately, life on the road is a bit tougher than life in the temple, but I will not give up my mission to bring these teachings to the masses. However, after a run-in with some people who claimed to be following my deity who then robbed me, I probably should figure out a better way to travel — I’m sure there is someone out there who would let me travel with them and whom I can share my message with.

Class: Bard – Lore
Alignment: NG

How have you played an acolyte before? Is your character a strict follower of some deity, or a former disgraced member who has been kicked out?

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What is a Background?

Seems like a pretty straightforward question and answer. A background is what your character did prior to becoming an adventurer. The less straightforward part is that your character might not have done that thing in a while. For example, if you were an urchin and you’re now 50 years old, you weren’t an urchin that recently. It can also be very recently, though; maybe your adventuring started when you, with the criminal background, were caught by the owner of a mansion and instead of reporting you, they were impressed by your skills, so they hired you to do a job for them and leave them alone, and that’s where the game is starting.

I like it when players use their background to enhance a mystery or something in their backstory that I as the DM can grab onto as a plot hook. It doesn’t have to be a huge plot hook, but if there is something interesting, like an intriguing NPC or place or monster that is in your background, that helps me flesh out the world so that as a player, you feel more connected. Even if you’ve closed your past off — everyone is dead, I now have a traumatic event that happened in my past, etc. — how do you react when something like that happens again?

How Much Should You Use the Book for Backgrounds?

This is a situation where there isn’t really a right answer. As much or as little as you need to. The nice thing about the backgrounds from the player handbook (PHB) is that it helps you figure out things like flaws, personality traits, etc. if you’re having troubles or you only have a loose idea. The downside is that sometimes people feel beholden to use the ones that are in the book. I let my players tweak things as needed, or if they have an idea for a flaw, bond, personality trait, or ideal already, we make it so it works in the game. What you’re trying to avoid is making a character that is Batman and who doesn’t really have a personality, flaw, or bond.

Wait, What’s All in a Background?

A background is something that you’ve done in your past that was an important part of your life. We kind of covered that in the first part, but this is something that defines you heavily at the start of your game. Things can change as your character develops and as possible flaws are overcome or bonds aren’t bonds anymore. Let’s talk about the different parts of a background, though.

You generally start by picking out a single background — it might be that you were an urchin or criminal as mentioned above, but maybe you spent most of your life studying and were a sage, or you did something amazing and became a folk hero. There are a number of these options in the PHB and more in other books. I don’t have all of the other books yet, but I’ll probably be adding some as time goes on.

In each background, you have a few tables that you can roll on or pick from, and this is what I was talking about in the above section. Each background has a table containing personality traits, and then tables for flaws, bonds, and ideals as well. You can roll on them and get a random one to help you figure out your characters backstory, or you can pick, choose, and alter them so that they fit the backstory you already had planned for your character.

The reason that they do this is to give you a spot to start roleplaying from. It helps you fish around less to start a game to find your character if you have a baseline. It also gives you some things, like different proficiency depending on the background you took. Maybe as a Sage you are now proficient in investigation and knowledge about the arcane, but for a criminal background, it might be that you are proficient at sleight of hand and deception. Along with that, it gives you some ability or trait that you can use. For example, if you are a soldier, even retired, other soldiers still recognize your rank. Or if you’re a Guild Artisan, you can also go to the guild of your craft, but those seem to come up less. It also gives you some gear, if you’re getting gear that way, and possibly some more languages.

What If I Have Multiple Backgrounds?

Now that you’ve heard more about different backgrounds, you might be thinking that you fall into multiple categories. That’s certainly possible, so I’m going to go into story mode with you and talk about two different characters, Silver and Syldi.

Silver had a rough life and saw many horrible things. He didn’t know all of what was going on, but has been haunted by some of it. He also didn’t grow up well and was on the street and poor as an urchin. Those two things shaped him into the god-fearing man he is today. So, when Silver was looking at different backgrounds, the player didn’t feel like a single one quite fit. So instead of just picking one, he combined two. He took the skill proficiency, and gear from just one, but when building out his bonds, personality traits, flaws, and ideals, he worked from both lists. That’s one way you can get a couple of backgrounds into the same character.

Syldi, on the other hand, grew up on the street, barely making it. She had to steal from street vendors and eventually caught the eye of the local thieves’ guild. She started working with them until she was able to land on her feet and become a bartender (at least part-time) at the Queen’s Retreat. Syldi would make sense to have a combination of criminal and urchin background. However, Syldi was a thief because of necessity, not because it’s something that she really wanted to do. Her being a criminal wasn’t a defining feature of her as compared to being an urchin, and while she has thief skills (and is actually a Rogue with the archetype of thief), those are because she was an urchin, not because she was a criminal. So, that’s one kind of thing you can lean into; maybe there is one that is more important so that is the one you really get your skills from.

But What if None of Them Are Right?

With Dungeons & Dragons, playing the game and creating characters is more of an art than a science, I’d say. If you can’t find something that works as well as you’d hoped, work with your DM. Maybe the Sage options don’t quite match what you are looking for, because you want to be a student still, and a sage seems like they’d know too much. Work with your DM on it — maybe there are parts you can use from the sage, but then tweak the other parts or come up with your own. There’s nothing that says that you can’t come up with your own background, and if you have a great idea for one, run it by your Dungeon Master.

However, if your background idea gives you four new skills, a bank full of platinum pieces, and the ability to mind control any person within twenty miles of you into giving you their home as your own so you always have a spot to stay, that might be a bit overboard, and as a DM, I’m going to nix that. Certainly, though, come up with your own ideas and skills within reason. Even if you only get a couple of skills like most classes do, don’t give yourself the option of the two best ones for yourself; look at how other backgrounds do it and balance that out on your own. Your student might have skills that look more like a sage, but maybe you’re a student of martial arts; if so, don’t give yourself investigation and stealth because those seem the handiest. You’re probably not getting much investigating done if you’re practicing your sweet kung fu moves.

The same goes with your background traits such as personality, bond, flaws, and ideals. You probably don’t have a personality trait that everyone always likes you. If you suggested that as a personality trait in a game that I’m running, I’d either tell you just get the Charm Person spell or that maybe it’s your flaw — you think everyone likes you. Or, if you decide that your bond is to the empire because you’re the sister of the emperor, that can work, but don’t expect that to get you what you want. You’re going to have to defend the empire against the common folk who think the emperor sucks, and oh, by the way, while it opens a lot of noble doors for you, the emperor is pretty sure you’re trying to steal his throne, but thanks for the plot hook.

Basically, just be reasonable about it. I’ll nix anything as a DM if it is too strong. However, if your DM isn’t going to do that, don’t take advantage of it. The game is meant to be fun for everyone, so come up with your really fun background that the DM is going to enjoy and that you’re going to enjoy; just don’t take away from the fun of the other players.

Finally, What’s the Difference between a Background and Backstory?

This is a question that is pretty simple. Your background is basically your skills that you gained through your backstory. The backstory you choose is going to be what really shapes who you are as a character, and you can slot your background into it. That means, if you’ve spent your whole life apprenticing to be an armorer in the mines of Moria, you don’t have the criminal background. You can work at it from either direction; you can use your background to create your backstory and use those traits, bonds, flaws, and ideals to flesh out what happened to you. Or you can work it from the other direction, where you have a story and pick the background that works for you in that backstory.

Now that you have an idea of how backgrounds work, we’re going to delve more into some of them, and I’ll be giving examples like I did with the classes as to how you can use backgrounds and potentially turn them into something different than what your typical sage or urchin or criminal is like.

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One of the nice things about a sorcerer is that their spell-casting is based off of charisma. That means that you don’t end up being a spell book caster, like a wizard can often be played; instead, you can play a character whose magic is sourced from something bigger than life. My mental picture is similar to Shiny Chariot from Little Witch Academia — someone who is a showperson who wants to make people have a great time, so they put on big shows. Now, that isn’t the only way you can play it, but since you’re going to have a lot of charisma, there will always a slight element of showmanship, or of people deferring to you, but that might just be because you are a man or woman of the people and are easy to approach. Or maybe you cast wild magic and you are just the crazy uncle whom everyone loves and wants to spend time with but who they don’t take too seriously.

Another big thing for the sorcerer is the idea of meta magics. These are ways that you can focus your magic, and are one of the biggest mechanical parts of playing a sorcerer. Maybe you are a careful caster who has area of effect spells, but you can mold your spells around your allies so that they don’t end up being hurt by your magic. Or maybe you are all about letting the world burn, or at least all of the evil zombie horde burn, and you are casting twinned spells and covering the whole battlefield in fireballs.

There are many other directions you can take it, as well — let’s look at a few examples:

Growing up in the wild, there wasn’t that much to entertain yourself with, which was okay, because mainly you just needed to help around the house. But when you got a chance to go exploring, you did, and found that there were caves nearby to explore. One day, you found a glowing stone in one of the caves. Being a young kid, you didn’t think much about it, so you immediately went and touched it. It transported you somewhere — you really aren’t sure where, and you weren’t sure for how long, but when you came back to the cave, ten years had passed, and you now had powers that you didn’t have before. It was scary, and there were things happening that you couldn’t control.  You had to leave your village behind, and seek out answers and how to control your magic.

Class Archetype: Wild Magic
Background: Sage/Folkhero

There were legends in your society that there was some great power in the storm. The storms would come down over the mountains with the fury of the gods, and they always brought destruction. When one of these massive storms came through, it destroyed your family’s house and killed your parents. You were taken in by the church, and that is where you learned more about the storms. The storms became more frequent and more powerful as time went on. One day, when you knew a storm was coming, you slipped out of where all the other acolytes had hunkered down and walked into the face of the storm. It seemed like the storm was angry with you, or with someone. You spoke to it, and it spoke back to you. You asked what was wrong, it told you, and you offered to help. When the storm passed, most of your village had been destroyed, but you were still standing, and had new powers. You now have a quest from the storm that you’re going to need help completing.

Class Archetype: Storm Sorcerer
Background: Acolyte

As a young child, you were sent to the church by your parents, like all seventh children — with so many siblings, there wasn’t any way for your parents to support you. You joined the standing army of the church and were supposed to be trained to be a paladin. But the gods never spoke to you, and you never got the powers. But the church didn’t give up on you; they never let someone they had trained go. But you became a simple infantryman while watching others gain powers and become paladins. There was a horrible battle that you were forced to fight in, and the rest of your unit were killed. You weren’t sure how you survived, and as you sat among their corpses, you cried out to the gods to strike you down as well. Then, you heard it — an answer. The answer was no. You were called to be a scion of the gods, and you felt a strange power well up in you. When you returned to the army and told them what had happened, you were kicked out of the army as a heretic. Now you need to complete a mission for the gods and prove yourself to the church.

Class Archtype: Divine Soul
Background: Acolyte/Soldier

Have you played a sorcerer before? What type of sorcerer have you tried? Do you find the meta magics too confusing? What was your sorcerer character’s origin story?

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Mechanically, it comes down to their ability to deal extra damage by using punches as extra attacks or being able to jump in and out of combat quickly using their ki abilities. Monks can often do minor magic with their ki points, but they aren’t generally considered a magic-focused class, and they are going to be spending most of their time in the fray. People often play them as ninja characters, like Nimrose was in Dungeons & Flagons. Her main weapons were shuriken and nunchaku. However, there are plenty more ways to play a monk, and with the different class paths a monk can choose from, they can look very different depending on how you want to play them. How a monk uses and manipulates ki is really how you determine what type of monk you are and where you fit into a monastic tradition. While a monk following the Way of the Shadow is a ninja-/assassin-style character, a monk following the Way of Tranquility gets features that allow them to use ki, but not for violence.

The monk is also interesting because so many backgrounds can work with it. We’ll look at some possibilities in my backstory ideas:

From a young age, you’ve been trained to be an assassin. You don’t know who your parents were, though you assume they are dead because you ended up living with a relative who hated you. Eventually, you ran away and decided that you could make it on your own on the streets. Things weren’t as easy as you hoped on the street, and one cold night, you found your way to a monastery. They let you in and gave you a place to live. They saw in you the potential of someone who had learned to sneak around on the streets, and they started training you and brought you into the shadow organization that the monastery housed. The code of your monastery now leads you still as you take jobs and are asked to kill. The master of your monastery was killed recently, and you’ve taken it upon yourself to right the wrong and find out who killed him.

Tradition: Way of the Shadow

Background: Urchin

As a scout for the army, you’ve seen killing for years. You’ve tried to avoid as much battle as you can, but that wasn’t possible. You don’t want to see death anymore, and you’ve taken it upon yourself to find a peaceful way of life. On the higher reaches of a mountain, you found a place where you could spend time with others who were like-minded, where you could try to find inner peace. A dragon has also found this mountain, and as one of the few of the monastery who has spent time in the world before, you feel it is your duty to help find those who can rid the world of the dragon. Maybe if you can help others, they will in turn help you. Hopefully they understand that you just want to help without hurting anyone.

Tradition: Way of Tranquility

Background: Soldier

As a youth, you joined a monastic order and loved your life in solitude. Training and self-discipline are things that meant the most to you. You hadn’t realized that there were those leading your order who sought to bring back an ancient deity. This deity had been locked away for a reason, and when you found out what was going on, you didn’t know what to do. You ran away, going to a city on the far side of the continent. You started drinking, and you weren’t sure what meaning you had in your life anymore. Now you believe that you were sent here to find those who can help stop your order from bringing back the deity — after you have another drink.

Tradition: Way of the Drunken Master

Background: Acolyte

Your parents sent you away at a young age to learn the arts of a monastic order. This is normal for your family; your father before you had gone here, and that is where he met your mother. That was how it had been for the generation before, as well. The grace and fluidity of the order helps train your mind and body for the life you were supposed to have ahead of you. Then you got the news that your parents had been arrested, accused falsely of having stolen the treasures from a town where their troupe was performing. You left, your training nearly complete, and are headed there to free them and prove their innocence.

Tradition: Any

Background: Entertainer

Have you had a chance to play a monk before? Did you lean into the Eastern traditions that are inherent in the class, or did you seek to play something different?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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