Post/Author/DateTime	Post
AnonymousInternets 09-27-07, 02:26 AM	I'm mostly curious to see what you imaginativos have come up with. What are the most interesting backstory twists/elements you've written/seen in a character? Most of my characters have had pretty straightforward backstories. :X Probably the most interesting of my characters was a young dwarf that grew up with a Delver after getting lost in the caverns. He grew up to be a gemcutter who appraised rare stones based on taste. (I never got to play him though. :()
CrimsonDeath 09-27-07, 03:13 AM	I write a lot of backgrounds I never get to use. Like the Shifter who was orphaned and then raised by Dwarves.
Tjuk 09-27-07, 10:11 AM	A human wizard, which got enslaved by drow, he got brainwashed by dark magic the drow use, and then released as a spy for the drow for the surface land. Now far away from the drow, he is able to focus his mind, and slowly is getting flashbacks of his real past.... making him one disturbed psycho person not knowing who to believe or to trust.
keyman 09-27-07, 10:34 PM	Here's some info from one of the most interesting games i've run in... 1) Psion character (L14-L20) Has a psionic mentor who communicates through precognitive flashes and mentors and trains him through dreams, and sometimes manifesting powers at a critical time to save the character from certain doom. - - - Unbeknown to the PC, said mentor is actually an EPIC level Unbodied character who created the PC's body and possessed it. The PC is nothing but an independent personality created from a facet of the EPIC Psion's mind. This PC has no knowledge of this epic Psion other than what he knows through the dreams/flashes. This was roleplayed to perfection in that the person playing the PC never knew the details below the - - - until they finished the campaign. DM set the special manifestation as a special 1x day ability that manifested a defensive power (Timeless Body) during critical moments. 2) ??? character (L15 - L19) Another character in the same party above was given an amnesiac character. His character sheet had 3 of the base ability stats listed, gear list and a small subset of skill ranks/abilities that he's "discovered" so far (no other game info given). His character sheet was filled in as time went on. His character sheet background mentions that he's a bit wary of the PC character above, but he doesn't know why (our EPIC character above was the one that wiped this character's mind ;P) 3) Chameleon character (ninja/chameleon PRC, fighter focus) He's tracking down an escaped fugitive, whom he's tracked down to the party he's in now. Unfortunately, his quarry is another chameleon master. He needs to retrieve the fugitive and the relic that the fugitive had stolen. 4) Chameleon character (ninja/chameleon PRC, heal magic focus) Escaped fugitive hiding as the party's healer. Unfortunately, she gave the relic she stole to our amnesiac party member above and is now apprehensive in reacquiring it (relic itself has a backstory and plot implications for the whole campaign). + a couple of other chracters that are being tweaked for another campaign being run. Needless to say, the game involved a little more DM interaction than normal but made for a very memorable RPG game.
Zousha_Omenohu 10-03-07, 02:48 PM	Thinking of creating a character with this kind of a backstory. He's an elf whose parents were killed in an orc raid while he was just a baby, but he was saved by a dwarf who was passing through the area and drove the orcs off. Since the rest of the elves were killed and the dwarf was a big softie, he brought the elf child home to his clanhold and raised him like a son. Later the dwarf married and had a biological son, so technically the elf has a brother. Thing is, since this elf's been raised in dwarf culture, rather than that of his own race, he acts like a dwarf, wearing heavy plate armor rather than chainmail and carrying a hammer or axe instead of a sword or bow. Eventually he may take the Stoneblessed PrC (Races of Stone). How does that sound?
CrimsonDeath 10-03-07, 03:02 PM	How does that sound? Sounds basically like the backstory for my Shifter. A character I'm currently building is a Changeling whose mother was a "passer" (that is, she adopts a single non-Changeling persona and immerses herself in it permanently) who married a non-Changeling. When she had a Changeling baby (my character), she swapped him for a non-Changeling baby of the appropriate race. So, he was raised in a non-Changeling household, with no idea who his real parents were, which has left him a little bitter and paranoid. He winds up being a Psion (telepath) and spends most of his time in a Half-Elf persona. I'm currently debating whether to tell the other players that he's actually a Changeling.
Talisman 10-11-07, 12:17 AM	Not me personally, but I was the GM... Dwarf Necromancer. This character was a highly intelligent, magically-inclined, slightly crazy dwarf, in a culture that used "both kinds of weapons--hammers and axes!," and where your advancement options were (1) warrior, or (2) priest. He took (was bullied into) one level of fighter, then went necro. Accidentally killed his grandfather with uncontrolled necromancy powers and got banished. At the end of the campaign we had some time-travelly weirdness and the character went through fighter, rogue, and non-necromantic mage personas, and ultimately killed the psycho lich who was his potential future self. He ended up as an evoker.
Olpolokk 10-11-07, 02:12 AM	Good guy goes undercover to the bad guys side then turns bad then loses his memory and becomes good again and finally he gains his memory back but remains good for now.
ghastcow 10-11-07, 08:18 PM	Oedipus Rex is a pretty good one, but a D&D one... Child of a prostitute/criminal mastermind who gives him up to the church to be taken care of. He becomes a 'holier-than-thou' evil smitin' mofo, then he is forced to find and arrest his mother. She reveals her identity and tells him of the birth mark on his back, out of rage, he kills her and, with no witnesses, cleans his and leaves the scene. He is filled with all kinds of self-doubt and questions of his own identity, on top of the crushing guilt that he killed his mother and is too ashamed to even begin to confront it.
Gejiin 10-12-07, 02:04 AM	I saw many background stories, both tragedies and epic tales. One of my favorites tastes more like a tragedy: I wasn't playing that character, the idea comes from one of my friends. Takasugi Shinsaku, a Samurai from Oriental Adventures, in an oriental campaign. Takasugi Shinsaku was raised in the small town of Wuekiju, where he was a samurai serving his daimyo, who was actually his father. The character's story revolves around the fact that Shinsaku did something awfully dishonorable, something for which, according to the Bushido, he should deserve nothing less than death (the story never tells what the samurai exactly commited). His own father prepared the ceremony and started the motion to kill his son, but stopped at the last minute, realizing he wasn't able to kill his own son. Instead, the father decided: "You shall wander off the world and never come back, unless you get all seven virtues of the Bushido tattooed on your body and understand each of these virtues perfectly. Only then will you truly understand the gravity of your act." The samurai went off, troubled and torn apart. He travelled far away to a land named "Kayar" (similar to India) where he started to find enlightenment. From this moment, the goal of the character was to try to understand each virtue (Courage, Righteousness, Courtesy, Humility, etc.) and get them tatooed on himself. Nothing too exceptional, but the player explained me what made this background story exceptional: "When Takasugi Shinsaku will finally 'find' all of the virtues", he says. "The character will understand really well the Bushido; he will come to understand that what he did that made him a Ronin was awfully dishonorable and that he deserves death. So, at this moment, Shinsaku will simply end his own life." To make things short: the achievement of the character's goal will inevitably lead him to his own end.
Operation_Shoestring 10-14-07, 08:03 AM	Galdon Thep was a charismatic and athletic man, well loved by most who knew him and with a natural gift for leadership. It surprised few when he wascalled as a Paladin. Sir Galdon was diligent in his service, and won renown for bravery and fairness. None know how he came to posses it, but upon the head of the man who was once Galdon Thep now rests a Helm of Opposite Alignment, and evil artifact of some dark go which twists the very mind of a man rendering a virtuous man a base and vile evildoer. Galdon Thep ended, and the Reign of Terror of the Blackguard known as Bloodreave began. This is an interesting villain. He cannot enter anti-magic fields, and flees from them. if the players discover this and force him into one, Galdon Thek's persona will resurface, disoriented but knowing that something terrible has occurred. However, upon leaving the effect of an anti-magic field, Thep is subsumed and the Bloodreave persona takes over again. This gives the players an interesting moral quandary, as well as a puzzle to figure out when fighting him.
Stormbrand 10-14-07, 09:09 AM	A paladin, virtuous and heroic from his first breath. Grows up an absolute saint, passionately caring towards others. Eventually learns he is illegitimate, his father was not the most faithful of husbands. Which is why the woman he thought was his mother hated him so much. Eventually, the paladin learns he is an aasimar, and is overjoyed with the news. Most of what he knows of his genetic mother is she is a 'witch' (arcane spellcaster), and since the rest of his family are fully human, she must be the source of his angelic blood. Indeed she is. Although not as expected. Think World of Warcraft Blood Knight meets Acolyte of the Skin. In pursuit of power, this witch absorbed the essence of an outsider. Knowing that demonic essence led to side effects and dangerous corruption, she decided to summon an angel and absorb it's essence, destroying the angel in the process. Her research into this finished during her pregnancy. So the source of the paladin's holy nature was being annointed in the blood of a murdered angel.
Hyooz 10-16-07, 02:45 AM	I have a necromancer I'm running currently who refuses to animate the undead. He was a bit of a magical prodigy as a child, and his village rallied around him because he had the chance to do something great. Eventually, however, his parents were killed by a plague, and since he was the only magically inclined one in the village, he took it upon himself to find a way to ressurect them. Since he didn't have anywhere near the training required for an actual ressurect spell, he delved into necromancy, and still was only able to get anywhere near casting a spell of that level because the moons and plane aligned just right to give him the boost he needed. Well, long story short, zombies aren't people. He was forced to kill them (again) and the village expelled him (he was about 16 at the time.) And he wandered the world surviving how he could until he discovered an injured baby raptor. It had some form of back injury, and so to help it, he grafted wings into the creature's back, and kept it with him as a pet. (Don't ask why wings fixed it.) In doing this, he gained some prestige, and was taken on in House Medani as a secret advisor for criminal cases. That's where my campaign begins.