One Unique Thing

Each character should have one unique feature you invent for him or her when you create the character. Your  one unique thing is an unusual trait that sets your character apart from every other hero. The moment when  all the players sit down together with the GM to create their characters’ one unique thing is often the moment  when a campaign comes to life. 
The intent is not to create a new ability or power that will help you in combat; your character class already comes loaded with firepower and combat moves. The intent is to hint at a unique story that you and the GM will take advantage of and learn more about in the course of the campaign. Good one unique things (“uniques”) frequently provide clues to how your character engages with the people, places, and things of the game world. Sometimes good uniques drip with obvious story hooks for you and the GM. Other times they’re a promise of a mystery to be unfolded later.

• No combat bonuses, no combat powers: To repeat - a unique feature shouldn’t provide general practical value in combat. Not as a bonus you can count on. And not as a power or defined ability you can count on in combat. If you find yourself asking, “What type of action do I need to use my unique?” or “When do I get this bonus?” you are asking the wrong questions. If a unique does amount to having a power, it should be a non-combat power that opens up new angles on the story. Talking with trees (whose voices are in the control of the GM)? Being such a party-animal that you can eat most anything (including maybe some poisons)? Always telling the truth in a way that other people know you are telling the truth? All okay. These powers open up roleplaying opportunities.
• Hints of power: Some uniques can suggest that there are powers that might be associated with the character’s unique status or strange history. The suggestion and the possibility are fine—this is the stuff that fantasy protagonists are made of, the hint that they might be capable of extraordinary things. But hints rather than definite powers are best. Any powers or abilities that surface out of your unique could come as a surprise to you and will come as part of the cooperative story you and the GM will weave over the campaign. For example, if your character’s one unique thing is that they were born from a virgin impregnated with the blood of Tiamat, then you might be the only PC able to sense the growing power of a nearby sorcerer who is tied to chromatic dragons. That’s a cool story angle in the GM’s control, not a sense-magic-related-to-dragons power you control yourself.
• Campaign pivots: Some uniques are so exotic or compelling that they will create a strong impetus for the campaign to revolve around their storyline. That should be a good thing. Uniques are meant as one of your opportunities to add to the story of the campaign. It’s possible that you will surprise the GM with plots or details they hadn’t realized existed or were going to be part of the campaign, and that’s part of the fun of running—the GM gets to be surprised as often as the players. Of course, not everyone can be on center stage at once. When every PC ends up with a potentially world-shaking plot suggested by the long-term consequences of their unique, the GM decides which stories will play out in which sessions and in which tiers.
• Characters’ uniques can grow: As characters rise in power through power tiers, new revelations and the natural consequences of dozens of dramatic storylines will shape and redefine their uniques. Stories grow, and that’s as it should be. 
• Art, not science: The one unique thing feature deliberately dances along the line between solid rules and improvisational storytelling. Try using our guidelines first. Then if you’re comfortable with the system, a high-powered campaign where everyone’s unique comes loaded with true powers won’t pose as many difficulties. 
• Story effects are great: Sometimes your unique will have a practical effect on what your character can do in the world, but it’s within the context of the story, not the rules. Characters who are unique tend to have an impact on people and on magical events, so if plots in the story are afoot because of your existence, it’s certainly also the case your one unique thing may provide unexpected resources for you or the GM to create and suggest during play.
• Suggested backgrounds and icon relationships: Quite often your one unique thing will suggest backgrounds and relationships that you’ll be choosing in the next stages of character creation. That’s fine. It makes perfect sense for a character whose unique is that they are a bastard child of the Queen of Dorwine to have a relationship with her and some sort of background related to their history around the Dorwinian court or wherever they lived in exile. But you don’t have to work for this type of link, and don’t force it if it’s not what you want.

Example Uniques

1. “I am a deathless pirate whose soul is trapped in a gem controlled by Ashanvaraxx, the blue dragon.”
2. “I am one of a couple dozen surviving members of the Order of the Koru, a group of rangers who  move through Shixra on or beside the Koru behemoths."
3. “I am the bastard son of the Queen of Dorwine.”
4. “I am the oldest elf in the world.”
5. “I cut off my own arm to show how tough I am."
6. “I hear pain as music. Sweet, sweet music."
7. “A paladin of Nimriel cut off my arm where I was holding a demon-bow . . . and in doing so, cut  all the evil out of me, so that I am now a paragon of the Brisingelion.”
8. “I am a dwarf who was born covered in scales from the egg of a dragon.”
9. “I am a former cultist.”
10. “I am the reincarnation of a long dead Scion. I don’t know which one yet.”
11. “I am the three-time winner of the dwarven drinking championships.”
12. “I was the rudest lady-in-waiting of the Resplendent Courts.”
13. “Unknown to me, I am fated to destroy Kanchelsis, Lord of Vampires, but probably not in this age.”
14. “I am the daughter that one of the leaders of the Circle of 12 Seals doesn’t know he has. Unfortunately, I don’t have any proof, but I believe what my late mother told me.”
15. “I snuck into Oolene's demesne in Sanctum to steal stuff, and ended up eating some sacred bread that maybe I shouldn’t have. I have no idea what, if anything, is going to happen to me.”
16. “Unlike other sorcerers, I charge up my arcane batteries by suffering.”
17. “I’m the only elf to be called into the dwarven priesthood—ever.”
18. “I see dead people.”
19. “The stars sing to me. Sometimes they tell me things, and sometimes those things are true.”
20. “To you I might look like a halfling sorcerer, but I’m a dragon that’s been stripped of its mighty form  and power. Not that I’ll ever tell anyone that.”
21. "I was cursed by a powerful fey to slowly turn into a tree."
22. "I'm the best bard in the land and everyone knows it... except the people I adventure with."
23. "My mother was a library. Not a person who loved books, literally a library."
24. "An enchantment I made that keeps drink chilled and fresh for months at a time that could be used by anyone put me in the history books, made me venerated in every pub across the land, a household name to anyone who brewed, drank or traveled in untamed lands and, most importantly of all, made it so I never have to pay for another drink for the rest of my life."
25. "My heart has been replaced with one made from black glass. I don't know who did it or why."