Ask the dm more about the setting. Every dm(inluding myself) I have ever met loves it when you invest in their campaign world like that. As for professions check out hired professionals section in ult equipment or pfsrd and you can get a pretty good idea for relative wealth level of different jobs. Another thing you might ask is if there are public libraries in the world so our parents need not have bought most/any of the books
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Check with the dm is sound advice. They should be able to weave your history into the setting. I play an Eberron Changeling (shape changer) that is threaded through a lot of campaign backstory and loaded with all the adventure hooks needed. Having an extensive and interwoven background makes the character a lot more real and easier to play.
So funny that this thread popped up today, as I'm sitting here on my day off attempting to novelize the backstory of the character I've been running across multiple campaigns for the past few years, Oreth.
This is the tale of a good man.
He was not born of divinity, not of heroism or villainy, not of insurgency or royalty, but of normal, mortal, humble stock. He slopped pigs and mucked s!$% the first fifteen years of his life, the only son of a serf whose wife gave her life to give him his. The thatched hut with the peat roof required constant mending; the borders of the farm needed constant guarding, and, when the illness set in, his father needed constant tending. He did those things, but in his fifteenth year – maybe it was early in his sixteenth – his father passed away, peacefully, in his sleep, as ordained by Urgathoa’s blessing. The boy – now a man – made his prayers to the goddess of disease, and to Pharasma, the goddess of death, and sold the pigs to his neighbors, the LaFontaignes, before making a pyre of the home in which he had lived his childhood. With the meager coins in his belt – barely enough to fill his strong farmer’s hand – he left, following the sound of a silent bell tolling in his mind. His name was Oreth Ustadoth.
He followed that bell to his Lord’s residence to learn that the Countess Livgrace was not the source. He followed it to Cormegi Manor and fought the corpses there; the echoes of the bell rang in that fetid ruin, but neither was it the source. Into Ulcazar and the infamous Monastery of the Veil he traveled, and there he learned the first of the secrets of the Lady of Graves. The Bones Land in a Spiral, the holy text of Pharasma, opened his eyes, but the bell tolled from elsewhere. A year of study in that thin air, a year of learning from the monks and libraries there, and he felt no closer to the bell he sought.
He grew in his faith and in the strength of his arms; he armed, upgraded, and rearmed again several times over those first years until, finally, he believed the silent sound called him to itself. He traveled into the Furrows.
The Furrows had, not quite twenty years earlier, been the site of the great War Without Rivals. The counties of Ardeal and Barstoi, for six years, threw the Ustalavan countrymen to fight, bleed, dig trenches, and die unburied among the fruit trees of the Furcina Plain; their weapons of war, machines of destruction, and wracked souls remained there, and the reverberation of the bell in Oreth’s heart called to him. An absence, a void, a sucking wound as that of a man stabbed through a lung filled his every sense as he waded into the orchards of the dead. His judgment rained down as he stalked through the Peasant Graves into Dead Man’s Maze, striking quiet – silence – into the bones of the hungry corpses. The wicked morning star he had recovered long ago in the first undead haven he stormed at Cormegi Manor ceased ringing as it was lubricated with the old, black blood of angry soldiers from a generation before who gave their lives for an unjust, greedy cause that served no purpose other than to stroke the egos of its proprietors. It smashed, it crushed, it tore monstrously; for seven days and nights without respite, Oreth Ustadoth rampaged through this wasteland until he reached the House of Ensland. The bones of his forefathers closed in behind him, driving him forward, until he crossed into the gates at Ensland.
There, the dead fell back, leaving Oreth alone on the cold, quiet grounds. The air there was still, dry, and silent; the invincible smell of dry decay from the charnel fields beyond did not permeate the courtyard. The bell’s sonorous silence was overwhelming, easily traced into the great, rickety House. He followed it inside.
But, in a more direct response to your question, ABSOLUTELY. Speak with your DM and research in whatever sources to which you have access; if the setting is Golarion, and with my particular... specialization, I'd make her family shopkeepers in the county of Sinaria in Ustalav, probably in Karcau, so that the hags of the Graidmere Swamp would have access. Of course, those aren't the only hags in Golarion!
I'm starting a game soon and have chosen a rough concept for my character. A changeling bard, with the detective archetype. I have experience RP'ing, but don't know much about the setting to write something cohesive for my backstory. Any recommendations to build my general familiarity with the setting?
Ex. Based on where hags are most frequently found, what might my options be for her father's background? She has high INT and CHA, and will probably be a bit more reclusive and bookish, though she can be more talkative and persuasive when needed. What sort of occupations might someone's parent/adoptive parents if the child is abandoned and found have that would allow for the luxury of being well read?
I believe Millers (in rural communities) were often well off as control of bread was vital
Butchers were another well off profession but I think that came much later as in the Golarion type setting the assumption probably is that most meat comes from animals owned by nobles. But maybe not in the cities...
There are universities in Golarion (definitely in Ustalav, Korvosa and Absalom).
Are you taking any of the sub traits to tie you to a type of hag? E.g. the Sea Hag traits would put you near the Sea. (Sea Hags are a confusing one as they can't shape change without class levels and have a horrifying appearance)
Is her father's background particularly important? Is he one of the people who raised her or is he dead or missing? If it is the latter you can let the GM fill that part in as a surprise as you go on...
As an aside is there a reason why you have gone for detective bard? The Investigator class now exists that is just as good at knowledge skills due to inspiration. I have also found the idea of Bardic performance for a detective bard a bit confusing (just a personal thing - doesn't link well for me)
Or are you just using certain books?
Ask the dm more about the setting. Every dm(inluding myself) I have ever met loves it when you invest in their campaign world like that. As for professions check out hired professionals section in ult equipment or pfsrd and you can get a pretty good idea for relative wealth level of different jobs. Another thing you might ask is if there are public libraries in the world so our parents need not have bought most/any of the books
Agree 100% with the comment on DMs loving investing in the world
I would be ecstatic if my players were looking into things like that. One of mine didn't even show up to the first session with a character.
There is so much lore to try and link into.
I had it pitched to me that some players prefer a blank slate than a pre-existing world to fit in. I personally cannot understand this but I think some players strongly differ on this area
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It's a lot of fun to do too. Why is your changeling so bookish? Is she trying to research about her 'mother'? Is she more into troubleshooting for her adoptive family? Perhaps she was adopted by clergy, or scribes, or wizards, or even nobility (who themselves could be any of those). All of them have access to books, a reason for a hag to drop a kid off, an excuse to be a bookish shut-in, and a way to use that to get the skills needed for a detective bard or investigator.