i'm looking for some examples of Hermit Discoveries. Any suggestions?
The only example we've had so far is a Warlock Hermit who 'Discovered' a weak point in reality that (with the right rituals he didn't know) could open a portal to the Far Realm.
One of my players chose hermit for her PC's background, and I'm a little stumped as to what to do with it myself. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't also chosen "Should my discovery come to light, it could bring ruin to the world" as her bond.
I created a transmuter wizard with a tinkered background. He works for the crown in the mint extracting rare metals (i.e. platinum - go look up the process, it's not easy) and creating alloys such as electrum. Through his alchemical experience, he discovered a very special metal that he's never heard of, and guards this secret as if it were his own life. The details of the metal are to be determined, hopefully sometime in the near future.
Whatever it is though, I think that the key to a great discovery is not knowing how it will change the world, but knowing that it will.
Just off the top of my head, Lord of the Rings, Gollum and the one ring would be an example of the hermit background feature. However limit objects such as the one ring as only plot devices, no at-will invisibility. 
How about: All the forces of fate are controlled by cosmic polyhedrons, the most powerful of which as 20 sides....
BurnVictm9 wrote:
Luke-Lightning wrote:
I think you need to use a secret that correspondes with your campaign. For example, if you play LMoP hermit can know about Venomfang living at Thundertree, Spider's Web spreading around Phandalin or Secret of Spellforge.
That there is a god who was stripped of his godhood running around on the material plane.
A "skeleton key" for proper portals throughout the realms
The proper place to awaken the Tarresque
Recipe for the Elixir of Immortality
True Name of a Demon Lord
Sure the last two could be seen as over-powered, but a smart person knows such secrets are dangerous things to try and take advantage of, and may cause more personal harm than good. (Try making a Demon Lord your lapdog and eventually it will end, very very very badly for you)
Who put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop.
I decided if a player makes a hermit that could be a guard, he squats in a pyramid where the four leylines to the four other dimensions converge. By spending time there, he gained knowledge of the four warpgates on the campaign's overland travel map. So when I put the hexmap down, I'll privately reveal to him the four hexes with the warpgates, and the knowledge of which Big Baddy is guarding them. He'll start the campaign knowing some stuff that would otherwise take a lot of travel, searching, and chit-chat.
I could also make it a sense to keep it mysterious. "You feel moving into this region has brought you closer to the Feywild, yet further from the Abyss."
There are also conspiracy thoery generators online.
Here is a Discovery that I drafted up for a player who created a Half-elf Circle of the Moon Druid for my Forgotten Realms campaign. Note that, among other things, this discovery grants the player access to dinosaur wildshape forms, which places it on par with other background features in terms of granting a useful perk to a character.
One possible discovery: many of the highest level people in the town/city/region/kingdom/continent have been replaced by dopplegangers! Or - the heir to the throne is a doppleganger!
Another: the king/mayor/duke has made a pact with a powerful devil and is secretly and subtly leading everyone under his rule into perdition.
Another: You know the seven rituals that can return the gods to the land. Each requires a major quest to complete.
Or: You know the rituals to banish the devils/demons/undead/Far Realms horrors that plague the land. Each requires a major quest and require for you to be at a precise location at a precise time to carry it out, but once you perform the first one you will be the target of the great evil you are trying to banish.
Or: You have learned of the secret threat of a great lich/dracolich that engangers the known world, and the secret location (or how to figure out the locations) of its phylacteries.
Two more from Campaigns in our area: the location of a stable portal to Sigil that has persisted for millenium, but only opens under certain astrological circumstances; and one had a more simple of knowing some of the secret plots of the underwater races against the surface world
SpedGuy wrote:
Luke-Lightning wrote: