Manerray’s Apprentice (Background)

You have apprenticed to a manerray. You may return to the craft later, you may do it between adventures, or you may leave death behind you until it eventually catches up with you. Regardless of your choice, your education was in the tutelage of a gravedigger. You may be the manerray’s child, but more likely you were an orphan. If you remember your parents, the last time you saw them was at their wake. If you were too young to know them, that was certainly as much heartbreak as it was a mercy. You were raised among the skulls and bones of the ossuary, helped your master prepare the departed for their final journey, and learned to live with and among death.

Skills: Medicine, Nature
Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit
Equipment: Shovel, 1 Herbalism Kit, Mourner’s Clothing, lantern w/ 1 oil flask, and a pouch containing 30 GP.


Feature: Deadeye: You can examine a corpse with a Medicine check to determine fine details about the nature of its death. DC 10 for basic information (natural, stabbing, poison, etc.) 15 for detailed information (weapon type, strength of user, type of poison) and 20 for in-depth (mood of the attacker, reconstructed murder scene, supernatural death)


1d10 How did you come to apprentice to the manerray?


1. I am the manerray’s child.
2. I don’t know. My master never speaks of my parents.
3. My parents died when I was young. Their story is interesting, but not really connected to me.
4. My parents got sick. The doctors couldn’t help them, at least not in time.
5. Orphan green. My parents were either killed by greenskins, or I was discovered among their green-skinned bodies when the Maecodians killed them.
6. War orphan. I watched as my parents were cut down by their fellow men, either bandits or some other settlement’s military.
7. Monster bait. The monster came and my parents hid me in the closet. I saw what was left of them when the villagers carried me out.
8. Keeb raid. My parents were killed by a rogue elf warband. Their bodies looked like pincushions from all the arrows in their backs.
9. Dead destiny. The undead monstrosity charmed its way into my home. I don’t know why it spared me.
10. My parents were in a cult. I suppose I’m lucky that they didn’t slit my throat before they slit their own.


D8 Personality Trait
1. I have a bad case of gallows humor.
2. I am unflappable, even in the face of imminent death.
3. I crave escapism, and thus am extremely well read and a thoughtful critic.
4. I don’t like to let perfectly good materials go to waste, and will save as much as I can.
5. I live my life as if every day will be my last. One day, after all, I’ll be right.
6. I take solace in religion or philosophy.


D6 Ideal
1. Comfort. There is enough suffering in this world. Someone should ease it. (Good)
2. Greed. Death is good business. (Evil)
3. Revelry. Life’s short, get a hip flask. (Chaotic)
4. Ritual. The traditions and norms of our forebears separate us from the animals. (Lawful)
5. Nihilism. Nothing matters, we’re all dying anyway. (Apathetic)
6. Professionalism. It’s a dirty, often smelly job, but someone has to do it. (Any)


D6 Bond
1. I want to find out exactly what happened with my parents.
2. One day, I will return to my old master and take over for him.
3. It’s my job to stand against the undead. While I’m young, I’d prefer to do it proactively.
4. I owe my life to my community. Time to pay it back.
5. I want to enjoy every second of this life before I pass on.
6. I have felt a calling: to speak for the dead and find them justice.


D6 Flaw
1. I am jaded and have trouble connecting with death – mourners are crying over a natural process.
2. I prefer the company of the dead to that of the living.
3. I am enough of a nihilist that my own safety is a secondary thought.
4. I am fascinated by death, and will try to closely examine any corpse I can get near.
5. I am cheerful almost all the time, and it’s especially noticeable when it’s inappropriate.
6. I ritualize anything if I do it enough times.