Dice Rolls
Before we get started, a reminder about how I'm generating dice rolls.
I'm using the dice rolling feature of DuckDuckGo's search engine. It can handle rolls of any standard die type, but it isn't able to roll a d100. Therefore, to get a d100 result I'll roll two d10s instead.
Take a look at the sample image below:
For most rolls, the big bold number at the top is the result. For example, if a random table required me to roll 2d10 and add the results together, then the result of this roll would be 5 + 8 = 13.
Whenever a table instructs me to roll d100, however, the two boxed numbers below are read left to right to get the result. 5 and 8 = 58. A 10 in a box is actually a 0. If I roll a 10 and a 9, for example, the result is 09. In the event that I roll two 10s, then the result is 100.
So, where were we? Last time, I'd rolled up the character's race and sex using @TheKindGM's Character Creation Tables, and started on the This is Your Life tables from Xanathar's Guide to Everything. I'd completed the first section, Origins, which means we're moving on to Personal Decisions.
For ease of reference, here's the summary of everything we've learned about this character so far.
The Character So Far!
- Our character was born female.
- She is a human (therefore so were both of her parents, and her siblings).
- She was born in the family home, which was a mansion.
- She is from an aristocratic lineage, but the family no longer has its wealth and properties.
- Her mother was the sole heir of said aristocratic line and a noted academic. She married for love, not politics. She has since seemingly abandoned the family, but unknown to the family there are mysterious reasons why she had to leave. She is or was neutrally-aligned.
- Her father was a simple farmer until marrying the character's mother. His being out of his depth after the mother left may have exarcebated the family's already waning fortunes. He was eaten by a monster around 3-4 years ago. He was neutrally aligned.
- She has an older brother, who now works as a major domo or butler. He is trying to shoulder the responsibility of regaining the family's lost fortunes alone. He is neutrally aligned.
- She has a younger brother, who is now an adventuring rogue. He is neutrally aligned.
- She and her younger brother are likely motivated by the desire to help rebuild their family fortunes, and because of the loss of their father to a monster.
- All three siblings are friendly with eachother.
- Other than her siblings, the character had few friends owing to the perception that she was somehow different or strange.
- At the time of the game start, the character is roughly 22 and a half years old.
Personal Decisions
This next section is to do with the character's background and class, fleshing out the decisions following their childhood.Background
First up, we're instructed to decide the character's background. Once we do, the guide presents additional tables pertaining to decision points related to the chosen background. However, it only provides these for backgrounds from the Player's Handbook, not any of the additional sources available. For the sake of this exercise, I'll stick to the Player's Handbook so we can make full use of these tables.Rather than choosing the background, I want to randomly determine that as well. We've used @TheKindGM's tables so far, but for this I actually prefer the tables in @giffyglyph's Darker Dungeons. The reason is the distribution of the odds. The Kind GM's table uses a d20, which means half of the results have a 5% chance, and others have a 10% chance. Because @giffyglyph's table uses a d100, allowing for a more incremental distribution, the results are more even. So I'll be using that table, and rolling d100. Since all the "I became a [background] because..." tables in XGtE require a d6, I'll go ahead and roll that now too.
As explained in the "Dice Rolls" sidebar, the result of the first of these two rolls is actually 68. This means that the character's background is as a Sage. Referring to the "I became a Sage because..." table in XGtE, a 6 means "One of my parents or a relative gave me a basic education that whetted my appetite, and I left home to build on what I had learned."
This result isn't too controversial, lining up quite nicely with the results we already have. We already know the character has come from a wealthy background, so it isn't too surprising that they would receive an education. However, since the character's father was a farmer, then it is likely that the character's initial education came from her mother, who was both aristocratic and a noted academic. The fact that the character chose to follow in her mother's footsteps despite the mother's abandonment might hint at complicated feelings.
Since we know the background now, we might as well roll on the background charts from the Player's Handbook.
Specialty
Here we have a d8 roll to determine what kind of Sage our character is.
An interesting result: "discredited academic"! Clearly she was exploring an avenue of research others found foolish, or forbidden. To further tie this character's destiny to that of her mysteriously disappeared mother, I'm inclined to say that she discovered her mother's controversial research and tried to continue it. Perhaps the academics who drove her out of the field know more than they've let on and were actually trying to do her a favour, stopping the research before she disappeared too (or something worse). Discredited academic is a perfect background for an adventurer in any case, since she needs a new way to bring in the bread and butter... and perhaps continue her research.
Personality Trait
Next up is another d8 to determine one of her defining traits:
"There's nothing I like more than a good mystery." This is a fun result since it tells us something about the character's interests. In a world with printing presses, she might be a mystery novel enthusiast. It's a great hook for an adventurer, since it won't be difficult to tempt her to investigate goings on. Plus, when she finally learns that there was more to her mother's disappearance than mere abandonment, she'll be tireless in looking for the truth.
Ideal
The character's ideal is a d6 roll.
This result gives us: "No Limits. Nothing should fetter the infinite possibility inherent in all existence. (Chaotic)"
So what to make of this? We know literally her entire family have been Neutral, so this is unlikely an attitude the character has been taught during her upbringing. It might be that she has come to accept the randomness of events thanks to the events that have happened to her (birth as a sorcerer, violent death of her father, abandonment by her mother, betrayal by academic mentors). She believes she is justified in what she does and outcomes she seeks, because all things are possible, but is accepting when other results come to pass.
Bond
Another d6 roll determines the character's bond:
"I’ve been searching my whole life for the answer to a certain question."
The obvious question here would be "why did my mother abandon me?"
Flaw
A final d6 roll determines the character's chief flaw:
This result is "I can’t keep a secret to save my life, or anyone else’s."
Well that'll certainly be interesting in light of of the character's dangerous research!
Class Training
Next up, XGtE asks us to decide the character's class if we haven't already, then presents supplementary tables. Again, we want to decide the class at random. I'll use @TheKindGM's table again this time, since a d12 to choose between 12 classes seems simple.
Okay! This is a fairly interesting result. Not as interesting as a Sage Barbarian, perhaps, since anyone from any walk of life could also be a Sorcerer, but still somewhat unusual. You'd normally associated a highly educated spellcaster with a Wizard, right? This character, in spite of her innate magic, was unwilling to simply rely on that natural talent.
The Sorcerer is one of the few classes that picks its archetype at 1st level, which makes sense because their Sorcerous Origin explains the bloodline that causes them to have their powers. We might as well figure that out now! I'll use @TheKindGM's table, but replace the 6 result ("reroll") with the Giant Soul bloodline that appeared in Unearthed Arcana.
A result of 3 means she has the Shadow Magic Bloodline! "You are a creature of shadow, for your innate magic comes from the Shadowfell itself. You might trace your lineage to an entity from that place, or perhaps you were exposed to its fell energy and transformed by it." Interesting. I won't settle on the exact reason for this origin for now, but the idea that the character could have been transformed by contact with energy from the Shadowfell is intriguing. Could this be connected somehow with the reason for her mother's disappearance? Perhaps the mother, who was herself an academic, was researching the Shadowfell and may have been somehow responsible? Food for thought.
As an aside, the Shadow Magic Sorcerer result present another possible question for our character's bond: "what is the origin of my powers?" Hell, why not ask both?
The Shadow Magic archetype has a Quirks table, so let's roll on that now!
Her quirk is "When you are asleep, you don’t appear to breathe (though you must still breathe to survive)". Weeeeird.
Life Events
At this point, I move onto the Life Events section of XGtE. The first table is Life Events by Age, which lets us determine both a character's age bracket and the amount of significant events that have occurred in their past. For this character we can skip rolling age, since the events from her past already led us to discovering her approximate age last time: 20-25. I decided to split the difference and say she's 22. According to the table, characters aged 21-30 can have 1d4 life events, so let's roll that now.
Well, if you had any doubts about the authenticity of my rolls throughout this process, I hope this persuades you! I would not have chosen to have to do four of these. Ah well, all the more reason to get right to it!
The Life Events table is a d100 table which generates events such as personal tragedies, wartime experiences, love/marriage, and so on. Generally, they involve rolling on further supplementary tables. In the interest of efficiency I'm going to roll all four events at once.
Event 1 (48): Made a Friend of an Adventurer
The first major event generated is the friendship of an adventurer. This means rolling on a number of supplementary tables to establish a bit more about this NPC (as we did for the character's parents and siblings last time). I'll be rolling on the following supplemental tables: Alignment (3d6), Class (d100), Race (d100), and Status (3d6).
In order, these results mean that the adventurer friend is a Neutral Evil Rogue Human who is Alive and Well.
An interesting friend! Still, we know that the character herself is Neutral and indeed, her own brother is a Rogue, so it's not that odd that she would befriend one. Obviously they have found common ground and the character is willing to look past their friend's selfishness, or they exclude their friend from any evil behaviour.
How did they become friends? Well, they're both adventurers, so the obvious thought is that they joined up as members of the same adventuring party in the past.
Event 2 (92): Committed or Was Wrongly Accused of a Crime
This is a rather interesting event. My feeling is that the character and her family are largely hard-working and law-abiding. Even her Rogue brother is likely the dungeon-delving kind rather than explicitly criminal. That said, we know that the character has chaotic leanings from her Ideal. Could she have genuinely committed the crime, though? Well, she has an evil-aligned Rogue friend. They could have roped the character into something. Or she could have been caught up in one of the friend's schemes and scooped up as an accomplice by the guard.In any case, we need to figure out what the crime is, as well as the punishment, so there are two tables to roll on.
A 7 means the crime was extortion, and a 6 on the punishment table suggests that while the character did commit or help with the crime, she was found not guilty by the authorities.
Okay, so our character's not so innocent. Extortion is a fairly fitting crime, too, since we know that she and her brothers are desperately trying to recover the family fortunes. We might as well tie together the seeds we've already got, so let's say that the evil Rogue friend persuaded her into a "harmless" money-making scheme, perhaps by explaining that the target of the extortion is no saint themselves. Clearly it went wrong and they got caught, but just as clearly they got away free. I'm thinking that the Rogue friend was able to pay off an official. The character hasn't attempted criminal enterprise since.
Event 3 (42): Made an Enemy of an Adventurer
A very interesting result considering the opposite has happened in the first event. Potentially, this could be the same person. If they are different people, I'd be tempted to combine the two into a single event where our character made a choice that gained the friendship of one adventurer and the enmity of another. So the first thing I want to do here is roll a d3, as I'm going to weight it slightly towards being a different NPC. On a 3, it's the same person.
There we have it: she's not lost her earlier friend! So this enemy is someone else... Let's see who they are.
Hm. This NPC is a Neutral Good Bard Elf who is Alive and Quite Successful. So, at some point our character managed to piss off a moderately famous adventuring entertainer! Who is to blame? That's a d6 roll, with an odd result meaning our character caused the rift, and an even result suggesting that the NPC is at fault.
Okay, so our character did something to cause this enmity... what could it be?
I like the idea that this NPC was a former friend. Perhaps the bard was part of the same party with our sorcerer player character and the rogue friend. A decision made during an adventure seems like it has the potential to cause a rift. Maybe the bard was left for dead? The adventurers could have gotten in over their heads, the bard seemingly cornered by a powerful monster, and was abandoned by our character who lacked the abilities or tools to save them. Maybe she went for help, but by the time she returned both the bard and the monster were gone. She had somehow survived by her own cunning, and would later escape the dungeon on her own and go on to be a famous adventurer after joining up with another party. She still blames our sorcerer for her near-death.
Event 4 (18): Good Fortune
A good fortune event means rolling on the d10 Boons table. Boons range from the fairly mundane (a little extra gold or a weapon) to something slightly magical (a spell scroll or healing potion), to an animal like a riding horse or even a servant.
This result means "you saved a commoner who owes you a life debt". The commoner travels with our character as a servant. This holds up an interesting mirror to the story I just concocted about her enemy, and suddenly I'm wondering if the two events are linked.
Perhaps our character had a choice to save either a friend or an innocent, and chose the innocent. A fair and moral choice, but the person not chosen could certainly be justified in holding a grudge! A former friend was lost, but a loyal new friend was gained in turn.
We need to generate some details about this commoner. We can exclude Class, as well as Status (we know they're alive already). We'll want to roll on Alignment and Race. It would be possible to roll on the Occupation table too (though some of the occupations aren't suitable for a commoner, so rerolling might occur). However, I'm inclined to simply pick the commoner's occupation based on what has already been determined. If we assume that the choice the character made to save a commoner at the expense of her ally occurred when she and her adventuring party were on a quest to some dungeon or defeat a monsters, there are only limited occupations that might reasonably be in the area. I'm going to rule that they had taken on a mission to kill a monster which turned out to be too deadly for them, and the NPC was a hunter who happened to be in the woods nearby and stumbled onto the monster's path. In saving the hunter, our character left behind her friend in a seemingly impossible situation, perhaps trapped in a dead end. Miraculously she managed to get out herself, though perhaps not without injury, which is why she couldn't immediately rejoin with the group.
What kind of monster? Maybe something like an ogre would fit the bill: Novice adventurers might have thought that they could kill such a monster but be completely out of their depth. Yet it would also be possible to escape from it.
Right. Now that's sorted, let's roll for Alignment and Race.
An 8 for Alignment means Neutral Evil! It seems our hero has a bad habit of surrounding herself with bad influences. A result of 31 for Race means the NPC is a Human.
And we're done!
That's it! An entire character with their background has been generated. There are still a few things left to do, such as describing the character physically and further fleshing out of specifics: the names of the character, their family and friends; deciding where in the setting she was born, where she studied; and so on. But the tables have given us almost everything necessary to begin playing this character and for the player and DM to be able to craft amazing stories with them.What We Now Know
- Our character was born female.
- She is a human (therefore so were both of her parents, and her siblings).
- She was born in the family home, which was a mansion.
- She is from an aristocratic lineage, but the family no longer has its wealth and properties.
- Her mother was the sole heir of said aristocratic line and a noted academic. She married for love, not politics. She has since seemingly abandoned the family, but unknown to the family there are mysterious reasons why she had to leave. She is or was neutrally-aligned.
- Her father was a simple farmer until marrying the character's mother. His being out of his depth after the mother left may have exacerbated the family's already waning fortunes. He was eaten by a monster around 3-4 years ago. He was neutrally aligned.
- She has an older brother, who now works as a major domo or butler. He is trying to shoulder the responsibility of regaining the family's lost fortunes alone. He is neutrally aligned.
- She has a younger brother, who is now an adventuring rogue. He is neutrally aligned.
- She and her younger brother are likely motivated by the desire to help rebuild their family fortunes, and because of the loss of their father to a monster.
- All three siblings are friendly with each other.
- Other than her siblings, the character had few friends owing the perception that she was somehow different or strange.
- She is a Shadow Magic Sorcerer.
- When she sleeps, she doesn't appear to breathe (though she does still need to breathe).
- At the time of the game start, the character is roughly 22 and a half years old.
- She became a Sage because her academic mother gave her a basic education that whetted her appetite, causing her to leave home to build on what she had learned. She was unwilling to rely on her magical talent alone
- Background Specialty: "Discredited academic". She found her mother's research and tried to continue it, then was driven out of the academic field by people she thought had been friends and mentors. Unbeknownst to her they know more about her mother's disappearance than they have said, and are trying to prevent her from making the same mistake.
- Background Personality Trait: "There's nothing I like more than a good mystery."
- Background Ideal: "No Limits. Nothing should fetter the infinite possibility inherent in all existence. (Chaotic)"
- Background Bond: "I’ve been searching my whole life for the answer to a certain question." - In this case, we've come up with two questions: "What are the origins of my sorcerous power?" and "Why did my mother abandon me?"
- Background Flaw: "I can’t keep a secret to save my life, or anyone else’s."
- She became an adventurer and joined a party which included a Neutral Evil Human Rogue and a Neutral Good Elf Bard, whom she befriended.
- Her Rogue friend once persuaded her to extort an unsavoury type, but it fell through. They managed to wiggle free of the consequences thanks to greasing palms in a corrupt system.
- On an adventure to slay an ogre which turned out to be too powerful she was forced to choose who to save: her friend the bard or a hunter who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She chose the hunter, earning a loyal comrade. The elf miraculously survived despite being cornered, but was injured in the escape and was delayed in returning to town, and assumed to be dead. They went on to become a successful adventurer, but still bear a grudge for the perceived betrayal.
- Her loyal servant is a Neutral Evil Human hunter (of the mundane animal variety).
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