Backgrounds

Backgrounds represents your character's life and/or profession before becoming an adventurer.

• Acolyte - You have spent your life in service of a temple, monastery, or other religious or philosophical institution, usually as a member of the rank and file clergy that preform rites and rituals and manage the day to day aspects of said institution.
  • Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Religion
  • Languages: Two of your choice
  • Equipment: A holy symbol (a gift to you when you entered the priesthood), a prayer book or prayer wheel, 5 sticks of incense, vestments, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from the location of your choice.
  • Feature: Shelter of the Faithful -
    • As an acolyte, you command the respect of those who share your faith, and you can perform and facilitate the religious ceremonies associated with that faith or philosophy. You and your companions can expect to receive free healing and care at a temple, shrine, or other established presence of your faith. Those who share your religion will support you (but only you) at a modest lifestyle. You might also have ties to a specific temple dedicated to your chosen religion or philosophy, and you have a residence there. This could be the temple where you used to serve, if you remain on good terms with it, or a temple where you have found a new home. While near your temple, you can call upon the priests for assistance, provided the assistance you ask for is not hazardous and you remain in good standing with your fellow acolytes.
  
  
• Anthropologist - You have always been fascinated by other cultures and the civilizations long since ruined by the bombs. By studying other cultures’ customs, philosophies, laws, rituals, religious beliefs, languages, and art, you have learned how tribes, empires, and all forms of society in between craft their own destinies and doom. This knowledge came to you not only through books and scrolls, but also through first-hand observation—by visiting far-flung settlements and exploring local histories and customs.
• Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Religion
• Languages: Two of your choice
• Equipment: A leather-bound diary, a bottle of ink, an ink pen, a set of traveler’s clothes, one trinket of special significance, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Adept Linguist -
  • You can communicate with humanoids who don’t speak any language you know. You must observe the humanoids interacting with one another for at least 1 day, after which you learn a handful of important words, expressions, and gestures—enough to communicate on a rudimentary level.


• Archaeologist - An archaeologist learns about the long-lost and fallen cultures of the past by studying their remains — their bones, their ruins, their surviving masterworks, and their tombs. Those who practice archaeology travel to the far corners of the world to root through crumbled cities and lost ruins, digging in search of artifacts that might tell the stories of monarchs and high priests, wars and cataclysms.
• Skill Proficiencies: History, Survival
• Tool Proficiencies: Cartographer’s tools or Navigator’s tools
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: A wooden case containing a map to a ruin or dungeon, a bullseye lantern, a miner’s pick, a set of traveler’s clothes, a shovel, a two-person tent, a trinket recovered from a dig site, a compass, and a pouch containing 25 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Historical Knowledge -
  • When you enter a ruin or dungeon, you can correctly ascertain its original purpose and determine its builders, as long as they are of a race known to you. In addition, you can determine the monetary value of art objects and other artifacts of intrinsic value that are more than a century old.


• Athlete - You strive to perfect yourself physically and in execution of everything you do. The thrill of competition lights fire in your blood, and the roar of the crowd drives you forward. Tales of your exploits precede you and might open doors or loosen tongues. Even in a post-apocalyptic world, there is no shortage of fans who adamantly support their favorite team in competitions of skill and aptitude. The most common sports still played in the wastes are slightly altered versions of pre-war favorites like baseball, basketball, and racing.
• Skill Proficiencies: Acrobatics, Athletics
• Tool Proficiencies: Vehicles (Land)
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: A piece of equipment from the sport you participate in, a lucky charm or past trophy, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Echoes of Victory -
  • You have attracted admiration among spectators, fellow athletes, and trainers in the region that hosted your past athletic victories. When visiting any settlement within 100 miles of where you grew up, there is a 50 percent chance you can find someone there who admires you and is willing to provide information or temporary shelter.


• Charlatan - You have always had a way with people. You know what makes them tick, you can tease out their hearts’ desires after a few minutes of conversation, and with a few leading questions you can read them like they were children’s books. It’s a useful talent, and one that you’re perfectly willing to use for your advantage. You know what people want and you deliver, or rather, you promise to deliver. Common sense should steer people away from things that sound too good to be true, but common sense seems to be in short supply when you’re around. The bottle of pink-colored liquid will surely cure that unseemly rash, this ointment — nothing more than a bit of fat with a sprinkle of silver dust — can restore youth and vigor, and there’s a bridge in the city that just happens to be for sale. These marvels sound implausible, but you make them sound like the real deal.
• Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Sleight of Hand
• Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit, Forgery kit
• Equipment: A set of fine clothes, a disguise kit, tools of the con of your choice (ten stoppered bottles filled with colored liquid, a set of weighted dice, a deck of marked cards, or a signet ring of an imaginary duke), and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: False Identity -
  • You have created a second identity that includes documentation, established acquaintances, and disguises that allow you to assume that persona. Additionally, you can forge documents including official papers and personal letters, as long as you have seen an example of the kind of document or the handwriting you are trying to copy.


• Clan Crafter - The dwarves are well known for their artisanship and the worth of their handiworks, and you have been trained in that ancient tradition. For years you labored under a dwarf master of the craft, enduring long hours and dismissive, sour-tempered treatment in order to gain the fine skills you possess today. You are most likely a dwarf yourself, although that is not necessarily the case. Even the most savage among the dwarven clans of the wastes would not turn away a truly willing volunteer who proves that they are a benefit to their cause. The one stipulation, however, is that non-dwarves are required to swear an oath pledging that they will never take on an apprentice, for only dwarves are fit to teach their craft.
• Skill Proficiencies: History, Insight
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of artisan’s tools
• Languages: Dwarvish or one other of your choice if you already speak Dwarvish
• Equipment: A set of artisan’s tools with which you are proficient, a maker’s mark chisel used to mark your handiwork with the symbol of the clan of crafters you learned your skill from, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 5 units of currency from a location of your choice and a gem worth 10 units of that same currency.
• Feature: Respect of the Stout Folk -
  • As well respected as clan crafters are among outsiders, no one esteems them quite so highly as dwarves do. You always have free room and board in any place where dwarves dwell, and the individuals in such a settlement might vie among themselves to determine who can offer you (and possibly your compatriots) the finest accommodations and assistance.


• City Watch / Investigator - You have served the community where you grew up, standing as its first line of defense against crime. You aren’t a soldier, directing your gaze outward at possible enemies. Instead, your service to your hometown was to help police its populace and protect the citizenry from lawbreakers, malefactors, and the horrors of the wastes. Even if you’re not city-born or city-bred, this background can describe your early years as a member of law enforcement. Most settlements of any size have their own constables and police forces, and even smaller communities have sheriffs and bailiffs who stand ready to protect their community.
• Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Insight
• Languages: Two of your choice
• Equipment: A uniform in the style of your unit and indicative of your rank, a horn with which to summon help, a set of manacles, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Watcher’s Eye -
  • Your experience in enforcing the law, and dealing with lawbreakers, gives you a feel for local laws and criminals. You can easily find the local outpost of the watch or a similar organization, and just as easily pick out the dens of criminal activity in a community, although you’re more likely to be welcome in the former locations rather than the latter.


• Company Artisan / Merchant - You are a member of an artisan company that produces and sells refined goods. This company can produce and sell guns, explosives, medicines, drugs, implants, or any other number economic wasteland staples. Despite now primarily being an adventurer, you are well regarded in your field. You most likely obtained your skills via an apprenticeship to someone else, with whom you still have a working relationship.
• Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Persuasion
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of artisan’s tools
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: A set of artisan’s tools (one of your choice), a letter of introduction from your guild, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Artisan Membership -
  • As an established and respected member of an organization, you can rely on certain benefits that membership provides. Your fellow associates will provide you with lodging and food if necessary, and pay for your funeral if needed. In some cities and towns your organization will have a building that offers a central place to meet other members of your profession, which can be a good place to meet potential patrons, allies, or hirelings. Some of these groups can wield tremendous political power in the communities they benefit. If you are accused of a crime, your group will support you if a good case can be made for your innocence or the crime is justifiable. You can also gain access to powerful political figures, if you are a member in good standing. Such connections might require the donation of money or magic items to the guild’s coffers.


• Cloistered Scholar - Few true bastions of knowledge still exist in the nuclear wasteland, and those that do are often secluded from the general population. You spent an extended period of time as part of one of these sources of knowledge. Whether as part of the enigmatic Enclave, sealed away in a Vault, a cog in the machine of the Scions, or some other secretive society with access to pre-war knowledge, you have studied with them extensively and expanded your knowledge of the world far beyond what the common wastelander could hope to achieve. For whatever reason, you have now separated from this cloister and, whether you still have ties to them or not, you are off to learn more about the post-apocalyptic world.
• Skill Proficiencies: History, plus your choice of one from among Arcana, Nature, and Religion
• Languages: Two of your choice
• Equipment: The scholar’s robes of your cloister, a writing kit (small pouch with a quill, ink, folded parchment, and a small penknife), a borrowed book on the subject of your current study, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Archive Access -
  • The few remaining enclaves of knowledge in the wastes are notoriously selective with who can view their archives, but are much more likely to trust you. Towns and communities of every size also tend to have records and archives that they keep under a similar lock and key, but you can potentially loosen those locks with your pedigree.


• Criminal / Spy - You are an experienced criminal with a history of breaking the law. You have spent a lot of time among other criminals and still have contacts within the criminal underworld. You’re far closer than most people to the world of murder, theft, and violence that pervades the underbelly of civilization, and you have survived up to this point by flouting the rules and regulations of society.
• Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Stealth
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set, thieves’ tools
• Equipment: A crowbar, a set of dark common clothes including a hood, and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Criminal Contact -
  • You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you.


• Entertainer - You thrive in front of an audience. You know how to entrance them, entertain them, and even inspire them. Your poetics can stir the hearts of those who hear you, awakening grief or joy, laughter or anger. Your music raises their spirits or captures their sorrow. Your dance steps captivate, your humor cuts to the quick. Whatever techniques you use, your art is your life.
• Skill Proficiencies: Acrobatics, Performance
• Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit, one type of musical instrument
• Equipment: A musical instrument (one of your choice), the favor of an admirer (love letter, lock of hair, or trinket), a costume, and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: By Popular Demand -
  • You can always find a place to perform, usually in an inn or tavern but possibly with a circus or at a theater. At such a place, you receive free lodging and food of a modest or comfortable standard (depending on the quality of the establishment), as long as you perform each night. In addition, your performance makes you something of a local figure. When strangers recognize you in a town where you have performed, they typically take a liking to you.


• Faceless - Being who you are, you could never be a hero. Whether due to your class, your people, your family, or your sins, something about you prevents you from effectively pursuing the path you’ve chosen. Even so, that doesn’t stop you. You’ve left your old face behind, taking on a new persona, becoming something more. Characters with the faceless background don a disguise — literally or otherwise — as they adventure. This persona might be dramatic or subtle. In a way, though, many characters have such larger than life personalities. Therefore, this background largely focuses on detailing the hero behind the mask.
• Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Intimidation
• Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: Disguise kit, a costume, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Dual Personalities -
  • Most of your fellow adventurers and the world know you as your persona. Those who seek to learn more about you—your weaknesses, your origins, your purpose—find themselves stymied by your disguise. Upon donning a disguise and behaving as your persona, you are unidentifiable as your true self. By removing your disguise and revealing your true face, you are no longer identifiable as your persona. This allows you to change appearances between your two personalities as often as you wish, using one to hide the other or serve as convenient camouflage. However, should someone realize the connection between your persona and your true self, your deception might lose its effectiveness.


• Faction Agent - Everyone needs agents, from a lowly caravan operation, to a full fledged organization like Z.A.G. Boots on the ground make the world go 'round. Your specific place within your chosen organization, faction, or corporation will vary highly depending on the field of industry that group is involved in. An agent of the Gun Runners would likely double as a merchandise guard, or a merchant themselves, and an armed caravan escort. On the other side of the coin, an agent of an organization such as the Scions might see you as part of a military lifestyle, preforming sweeps of ruins alongside a team to scavenge any pre-war technology that still works, or mediating negotiations with the locals to hand over their tech.
• Skill Proficiencies: Insight and one Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma skill of your choice, as appropriate to your faction
• Languages: Two of your choice
• Equipment: Badge or emblem of your faction, a copy of a seminal faction text (or a code-book for a covert faction), a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Safe Haven -
  • As a faction agent, you have access to a secret network of supporters and operatives who can provide assistance on your adventures. You know a set of secret signs and passwords you can use to identify such operatives, who can provide you with access to a hidden safe house, free room and board, or assistance in finding information. These agents never risk their lives for you or risk revealing their true identities.


• Farmer - Scavenging old-world food is one way to stay fed in the wastes; however, farming is a much more safe and sustainable way to live. After the fallout, not many traditional crops grow; but there are some hardy strains of corn, carrots, and potatoes that survived, with magic and science making new edible plants possible every year. As a farmer, you were just trying to survive; sure, you might have made some extra money by selling your crops, but most wasteland farmers only make enough to keep their family fed and maintain a humble and remote lifestyle. For whatever reason, your life as a farmer has ended and you have taken up the mantle of an adventurer. Maybe your family was wiped out by raiders, leaving you with no one to provide for, or perhaps a plague of mutated locust rendered your fields barren for several years; either way, your time tilling the fields from dawn till dusk is over.
• Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from out of Athletics, Animal Handling, Survival, or Nature.
• Tool Proficiencies: Vehicles(Land)
• Equipment: a set of worn travelers clothes and a pouch containing 3 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Living Off the Land -
  • You don't do it for a living anymore, but you still know how to find, identify, cultivate, and raise crops. You have advantage on Survival and Nature checks to forage and identify wasteland vegetation. If you stay anywhere for a month or longer, you can produce crops that allow you to live a poor but sustainable lifestyle during that time.


• Far Traveler - You hail from very far away. Whether you came from a backwater town across the continent or through a mystical rift, it's clear that you're not from around here. Your appearance, the way you talk, and/or your abilities may be what marks you as an outsider. Although you will undoubtedly find some of your new home's ways to be strange and discomforting, you can also be sure that some things its people take for granted will be to you new wonders that you’ve never laid eyes on before. By the same token, you’re a person of interest, for good or ill, to those around you almost anywhere you go.
• Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Perception
• Tool Proficiencies: Any one musical instrument or gaming set of your choice, likely something native to your homeland
• Languages: Any one of your choice
• Equipment: One set of traveler’s clothes, any one musical instrument or gaming set you are proficient with, poorly wrought maps from your homeland that depict where you are in the world, a small piece of jewelry worth 10 units of currency from a location of your choice in the style of your homeland’s craftsmanship, and a pouch containing 5 units of that same currency.
• Feature: All Eyes on You -
  • Your accent, mannerisms, figures of speech, and perhaps even your appearance all mark you as foreign. Curious glances are directed your way wherever you go, which can be a nuisance, but you also gain the friendly interest of scholars and others intrigued by far-off lands, to say nothing of everyday folk who are eager to hear stories of your homeland. You can parley this attention into access to people and places you might not otherwise have, for you and your traveling companions. Noble lords, scholars, and merchant princes, to name a few, might be interested in hearing about your distant homeland and people.


• Fisher - You have spent your life aboard fishing vessels or combing the shallows for the bounty of the ocean. Perhaps you were born into a family of fisher folk, working with your kin to feed your village. Maybe the job was a means to an end — a way out of an undesirable circumstance that forced you to take up life aboard a ship. Regardless of how you began, you soon fell in love with the sea, the art of fishing, and the promise of the eternal horizon, no matter how hazy it looks in the post-apocalyptic sunlight.
• Skill Proficiencies: History, Survival
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: Fishing tackle, a net, a favorite fishing lure or oiled leather wading boots, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a belt pouch containing 10 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Harvest the Water -
  • You gain advantage on ability checks made using fishing tackle. If you have access to a body of water that sustains marine life (which is understandably rare in most of the irradiated world), you can maintain a moderate lifestyle while working as a fisher, and you can catch enough food to feed yourself and up to ten other people each day.


• Folk Hero - You come from a humble social rank, but you are destined for so much more. Already the people of your home town regard you as their champion, and your destiny seems to calls you to stand against the tyrants and monsters that threaten the common folk everywhere.
• Skill Proficiencies: Animal Handling, Survival
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of artisan’s tools, vehicles (land)
• Equipment: A set of artisan’s tools (one of your choice), a shovel, an iron pot, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Rustic Hospitality -
  • Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.


• Gladiator - A gladiator is as much an entertainer as any bard or circus performer, trained to make the arts of combat into a spectacle the crowd can enjoy. This kind of flashy combat is your entertainer routine, though you might also have some skills as a tumbler or actor.
• Skill Proficiencies: Acrobatics, Performance
• Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit, one type of musical instrument
• Equipment: An inexpensive but unusual weapon or a musical instrument (one of your choice), the favor of an admirer (love letter, lock of hair, or trinket), a costume, and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: By Popular Demand -
  • You can always find a place to perform in any place that features combat for entertainment — perhaps a gladiatorial arena or secret pit fighting club. At such a place, you receive free lodging and food of a modest or comfortable standard (depending on the quality of the establishment), as long as you perform each night. In addition, your performance makes you something of a local figure. When strangers recognize you in a town where you have performed, they typically take a liking to you.


• Haunted One - You are haunted by something so terrible that you dare not speak of it. You’ve tried to bury it and run away from it, to no avail. Whatever this thing is that haunts you can’t be slain with a sword or banished with a spell. It might come to you as a shadow on the wall, a bloodcurdling nightmare, a memory that refuses to die, or a demonic whisper in the dark. The burden has taken its toll, isolating you from most people and making you question your sanity. You must find a way to overcome it before it destroys you.
• Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from among Arcana, Investigation, Religion, or Survival
• Languages: Choose two, one of which must be Abyssal, Celestial, Deep Speech, Draconic, Infernal, Primordial, Sylvan, or Undercommon
• Equipment: A monster hunter’s pack (containing a chest, a crowbar, a hammer, three wooden stakes, a holy symbol, a flask of holy water, a set of manacles, a steel mirror, a flask of oil, a tinderbox, and 3 torches), one trinket of special significance, a set of common clothes, and 1 unit of currency from the location of your choice..
• Feature: Heart of Darkness -
  • Those who look into your eyes can see that you have faced unimaginable horror and that you are no stranger to darkness. Though they might fear you, commoners will extend you every courtesy and do their utmost to help you. Unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them, they will even take up arms to fight alongside you, should you find yourself facing an enemy alone.


• Hermit - You lived in seclusion — either in a sheltered community such as a monastery, or entirely alone — for a formative part of your life. In your time apart from the clamor of society, you found quiet, solitude, and perhaps some of the answers you were looking for.
• Skill Proficiencies: Medicine, Religion
• Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism kit
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: A scroll case stuffed full of notes from your studies or prayers, a winter blanket, a set of common clothes, an herbalism kit, and 5 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Discovery -
  • The quiet seclusion of your extended hermitage gave you access to a unique and powerful discovery. The exact nature of this revelation depends on the nature of your seclusion. It might be a great truth about the cosmos, secrets of the worlds undoing, the powerful beings of the outer planes, or the forces of nature. It could be a site that no one else has ever seen. You might have uncovered a fact that has long been forgotten, or unearthed some relic of the past that could rewrite history. It might be information that would be damaging to the people who consigned you to exile, and hence the reason for your return to society. Work with your DM to determine the details of your discovery and its impact on the campaign.


• Inheritor - You are the heir to something of great value — not mere coin or wealth, but an object that has been entrusted to you and you alone. Your inheritance might have come directly to you from a member of your family, by right of birth, or it could have been left to you by a friend, a mentor, a teacher, or someone else important in your life. The revelation of your inheritance changed your life, and might have set you on the path to adventure, but it could also come with many dangers, including those who covet your gift and want to take it from you — by force, if need be.
• Skill Proficiencies: Survival, plus one from among Arcana, History, and Religion
• Tool Proficiencies: Your choice of a gaming set or a musical instrument
• Languages: Any one of your choice
• Equipment: Your inheritance, a set of traveler’s clothes, the tool you choose for this background’s tool proficiency, and a pouch containing 15 units of currency from the location of your choice.
• Feature: Inheritance -
  • Work with your DM to determine what your inheritance is and how it might influence the course of the campaign you are a part of. Based on that, it could provide any number of boons or hindrances to you and the party along the way. This significance may be something your character learns over the course of the game. When you begin your adventuring career, you can decide whether to tell your companions about your inheritance right away. Rather than attracting attention to yourself, you might want to keep your inheritance a secret until you learn more about what it means to you and what it can do for you.


• Investigator - You relentlessly seek the truth. Perhaps you’re motivated by belief in the law and a sense of universal justice, or maybe that very law has failed you and you seek to make things right. You could have witnessed something remarkable or terrible, and now you must know more about this hidden truth. Or maybe you’re a detective for hire, uncovering secrets for well-paying clients. Whether the mysteries you’re embroiled in are local crimes or realm-spanning conspiracies, you’re driven by a personal need to hunt down even the most elusive clues and reveal what others would keep hidden in the shadows.
• Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from among Insight, Investigation, or Perception
• Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit, thieves’ tools
• Equipment: A magnifying glass, evidence from a past case, a set of common clothes, and 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Official Inquiry -
  • You’re experienced at gaining access to people and places to get the information you need. Through a combination of fast-talking, determination, and official-looking documentation, you can gain access to a place or an individual related to a crime you’re investigating. Those who aren’t involved in your investigation avoid impeding you or pass along your requests. Additionally, local law enforcement has firm opinions about you, viewing you as either a nuisance or one of their own.


• Knight - Though traditional knighthoods are rare in the wastes, the concept still carries on. In other settings, knights have noble ranks, but in the Weird Wastes, they're simply members of a knightly order. These orders are usually small and relatively obscure, but they all have various core tenets and codes of conduct that separate them from your average collection of people with swords. In their various communities, they are usually considered heroes or people of important or influence.
• Skill Proficiencies: History, Persuasion
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: A set of fine clothes, a signet ring, a scroll of pedigree, and a purse containing 25 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Retainers -
  • As a member of importance to your order and the community you serve, you have been assigned several retainers to assist daily tasks so that you might focus on the more important issues. Your retainers are commoners who can perform mundane tasks for you, but they do not fight for you, will not follow you into obviously dangerous areas (such as dungeons), and will leave if they are frequently endangered or abused.


• Mercenary - As a sell-sword who fought battles for coin, you’re well acquainted with risking life and limb for a chance at a share of treasure. Now, you look forward to fighting foes and reaping even greater rewards as an adventurer. Your experience makes you familiar with the ins and outs of mercenary life, and you likely have harrowing stories of events on the battlefield. Now you’re looking for something else, perhaps greater reward for the risks you take, or the freedom to choose your own activities. For whatever reason, you’re leaving behind the life of a soldier for hire, but your skills are undeniably suited for battle, so now you fight on in a different way.
• Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Persuasion
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set, vehicles (land)
• Equipment: A uniform of your company (traveler’s clothes in quality), an insignia of your rank, a gaming set of your choice, and a pouch containing the remainder of your last wages (10 units of currency from a location of your choice).
• Feature: Mercenary Life -
  • You know the mercenary life as only someone who has experienced it can. You are able to identify mercenary companies by their emblems, and you know a little about any such company, including the names and reputations of its commanders and leaders, and who has hired them recently. You can find the taverns and festhalls where mercenaries abide in any area, as long as you speak the language. You can find mercenary work between adventures sufficient to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.


• Noble - Nobility has a different face in the Weird Wastes than in other settings. Instead of complex titles or birth relations to a person in power, nobles of the wastes are simply the people with the most influence in their community. This could be due to a career in an appointed position of power, from connections with wealthy businesses that your community relies on, or just from being extremely well respected among your peers. No matter the case, people of noble privilege are treated to a myriad of privileges the common folk will never see.
• Skill Proficiencies: History, Persuasion
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set
• Languages: One of your choice
• Equipment: A set of fine clothes, something to identify who you are and your importance, and a purse containing 25 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Position of Privilege -
  • Thanks to your position, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high status treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a person of importance if you need to.


• Outlander - You grew up in the wilds, far from civilization and the comforts of town and technology. You’ve witnessed the migration of herds larger than forests, survived weather more extreme than any city-dweller could comprehend, and enjoyed the solitude of being the only thinking creature for miles in any direction. The wilds are in your blood, whether you were a nomad, an explorer, a recluse, a hunter-gatherer, or even a marauder. Even in places where you don’t know the specific features of the terrain, you know the ways of the wild.
• Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Survival
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of musical instrument
• Equipment: A staff, a hunting trap, a trophy from a beast you killed, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Wanderer -
  • You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.


• Raider - Eat, sleep, kill, scavenge, repeat. You used to be part of a roving gang that preyed on civilians, merchants, and anyone else unlucky enough to venture through your turf. This life is brutal and numbing, usually full of drug use and constant adrenaline. There are rarely any old raiders, you either die or you get out of the game early. Raider gangs are usually the lowest of the low, outlaws from surrounding settlements, deranged psychopaths, and everything in between. They are considered a plague on the wastes and several institutions across the continent were founded for the sole purpose of eradicating raiders from the face of the earth.
• Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from out of Athletics, Stealth, Survival, and Intimidation.
• Tool Proficiencies: Vehicles(Land)
• Weapon Proficiencies: Firearms
• Equipment: a trophy from your favorite raid, a pouch with 3 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Street Cred -
  • It's easy to tell; you've taken lives, a lot of them. People in the settlements of the world might recognize that and react in various ways. Some might fear you and give you exactly what you want, while others might resent your existence and do everything they can to bar you from the community. In rougher company, such as with most raiders, they will most likely respect this side of you and offer you and your companions food, shelter, and aid; however, you know just how easy it is to wear out your welcome with folks like these.


• Sage - You spent years learning the laws of the universe and researching the metaphysical changes that have taken place since the bombs fell. You scoured manuscripts, studied pre-war ruins, and listened to the greatest experts on the subjects that interest you. No matter you focus, your efforts have made you a master in your fields of study.
• Skill Proficiencies: Arcana, History
• Languages: Two of your choice
• Equipment: A bottle of black ink, a quill, a small knife, a letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Researcher -
  • When you attempt to learn or recall a piece of lore, if you do not know that information, you often know where and from whom you can obtain it. Usually, this information comes from a library, scriptorium, university, or a sage or other learned person or creature.


• Soldier - War has been your life for as long as you care to remember. You trained as a youth, studied the use of weapons and armor, learned basic survival techniques, including how to stay alive on the battlefield. You might have been part of a standing national army or a mercenary company, or perhaps a member of a local militia who rose to prominence during a recent war. Many factions and companies of the wasteland actively retain and train soldiers for various purposes. Whatever your experiences were, you decided to part ways with that life and explore the wastes, but the training you received will stay with you no matter where you go.
• Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Intimidation
• Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set, vehicles (land)
• Equipment: An insignia of rank, a trophy taken from a fallen enemy (a dagger, gun, or piece of a banner), a set of bone dice or deck of cards, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Military Rank -
  • You have a military rank from your career as a soldier. Soldiers loyal to your former military organization still recognize your authority and influence, and they defer to you if they are of a lower rank. You can invoke your rank to exert influence over other soldiers and requisition simple equipment or horses for temporary use. You can also usually gain access to friendly military encampments and fortresses where your rank is recognized.


• Urban Bounty Hunter - Before you became an adventurer, your life was already full of conflict and excitement, because you made a living tracking down people for pay. Unlike some people who collect bounties, though, you aren’t a savage who follows quarry into or through the wilderness. You’re involved in a lucrative trade, in the place where you live, that routinely tests your skills and survival instincts. What’s more, you aren’t alone, as a bounty hunter in the wild would be: you routinely interact with both the criminal subculture and other bounty hunters, maintaining contacts in both areas to help you succeed. You might be a cunning thief-catcher, prowling the rooftops to catch one of the myriad burglars of the city. Perhaps you are someone who has your ear to the street, aware of the doings of thieves’ guilds and street gangs. You might be a “velvet mask” bounty hunter, one who blends in with high society in order to catch white collar criminals running corrupt rackets out of otherwise reputable establishments. As a member of an adventuring party, you might find it more difficult to pursue a personal agenda that doesn’t fit with the group’s objectives — but on the other hand, you can take down much more formidable targets with the help of your companions.
• Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from among Deception, Insight, Persuasion, and Stealth
• Tool Proficiencies: Choose two from among one type of gaming set, one musical instrument, Vehicles(land), and thieves’ tools
• Equipment: A set of clothes appropriate to your duties and a pouch containing 20 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Ear to the Ground -
  • You are in frequent contact with people in the segment of society that your chosen quarries move through. These people might be associated with the criminal underworld, the rough-and-tumble folk of the streets, or members of high society. This connection comes in the form of a contact in any city you visit, a person who provides information about the people and places of the local area.


• Urchin - You grew up on the streets alone, orphaned, and poor. You had no one to watch over you or to provide for you, so you learned to provide for yourself. You fought fiercely over food and kept a constant watch out for other desperate souls who might steal from you. You slept on rooftops and in alleyways, exposed to the elements, and endured sickness without the advantage of medicine or a place to recuperate. You’ve survived despite all odds, and did so through cunning, strength, speed, or some combination of each. You begin your adventuring career with enough money to live modestly but securely for at least ten days, but how did you come by that money? What allowed you to break free of your desperate circumstances and embark on a better life?
• Skill Proficiencies: Sleight of Hand, Stealth
• Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit, thieves’ tools
• Equipment: A small knife, a map of the city you grew up in, a pet mouse, a token to remember your parents or guardian(s) by, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: City Secrets -
  • You know the secret patterns and flow to cities and can find passages through the urban sprawl that others would miss. When you are not in combat, you (and companions you lead) can travel between any two locations in the city twice as fast as your speed would normally allow. Additionally, you are more likely to find secret areas beneath the sprawl as you search for the quickest route between two points.


• Vault Dweller - You spent your formative years in a vault, living in comfort compared to the people of the wastes. Experiences within vaults can vary, but for the most part, vault dwellers always had running water, food to eat, and even training in old-world skills such as engineering, science, reading, and writing. Most vaults opened about 180 years after the bombs fell, and some of most successful ones remained cloistered communities long after that time. When you finally ventured into the wasteland, you were easy to pick out of a crowd, like as a fish out of water, but over the years you probably learned how to blend in better. The skills you learned in the vault are you lifeline in the wastes and will last you a lifetime.
• Skill Proficiencies: Choose two from out of History, Medicine, Insight, Athletics, or Persuasion.
• Tool Proficiencies: One artisan tool or musical instrument of your choice.
• Languages: One of your choice.
• Equipment: A canteen, a suit with the your vault's identifying number, and a pouch containing 10 units of currency from a location of your choice.
• Feature: Friendly Relations -
  • There are many vaults throughout the wasteland that are still functioning communities. These settlements are often extremely trepidatious of outsiders, with most of them permitting little to no outside visitors that they aren't expressly familiar with. You serve as the bridge between these settlements and your party, allowing them to rest and recover in the luxury of the old world. Additionally, you might be granted discounts from any vendors that live there.