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Hey guys, Dfsearles here. I have noticed in the past how some people have trouble creating a backstory for their character, I wanted to show you how easy it can be to create one with the Paizo Character Generation Rules found in the Ultimate Campaign Guide. Come with me now as we explore the creation of my Human Wizard. Note: we know the following information before even creating the character:
Adult Human Male, I have chosen to study Thassilonian Lore, and he will be one of the people who was brought forward in time. Everything else prior to his transport is up for grabs so without further ado...
To begin, we open our book to the character creation guide and follow along. For our charater we start at Table 1-19: . A 64 grants us City or Metropolis. This fits perfectly with my background, so we came from Thasilon.
Table 1-20: Oh good, anything below a 50 means my parents are still alive. For our background write-up, lets assume they came to the future with me.
Table 1-21: . We now know we have 1 sibling who is Older than us.
Table 1-25: So we ended up rolling Lower-Class Birth, which is an interesting development for my character as he is a wizard. I wonder how that will play out ;). Reading along, had I gotten an 85, that is Born out of Time. This exactly fits my character as I'm from 900 years in the past! Well, there is no rule that says I can't use both, since we are discussing my time prior to the jump, and now the jump has occurred.
Table 1-26: . OK, this is just freaking great, My parents were peasants! No wonder I had a lower-class birth!
Table 1-29: Magical Gift. Could this be any more perfect? The book describes this as having found, stolen, or given a magical item. Since we know I'm going to be a wizard, lets call this a Shiroden Totem, which will become my Bonded Object as a Wizard.
So, to summerize what we have from step 1. Born in the Ancient City of Thasilon, our young wizard grew up on the streets of the city, to two peasant parents, who worked hard to provide for him and his older brother. One day, He happened across a small object, he immediately recognized this as a shiroden totem, one that the mightiest of Runelords coveted. It exuded magical energies and so, our young friend took it, in hopes that one day he could turn the Runelords own magic against them.
Wizards of course will be found in the back part of this section under table 1-50: We rolled up, Storied Lineage, which doesn't quite work out for our character's background, who's parents were peasants. However, The Way Things Work describes us as magic coming alive the first time we held a magic object. Now this fits perfectly with our character so lets roll with this instead.
Table 1-51: Wow, a well-Connected friend! Perhaps in the acadamy where I studied I met this person and trained with them, always helping eachother improve and testing eachother, him being better than me of course, who went on to be an apprentice for a court wizard? Hey, it could happen!
Essentially, this section is going to be used to determine our alignment, as well as flush out the last bit of background for our character. Since we don't want an evil character, we are going to roll a d12 for Conflicts instead of a d20.
Table 1-52: . Neglagence. We caused someone else suffer from our own inaction. hmm... interesting, we also net 2 CP, keep this information handy!
Table 1-54: So, due to our own Negligence, a commoner suffered. Finally we have
Table 1-55: . Family (3 CP) is the reason! hmm... now for a narrative.
My brother and I were walking through the streets of the city, feeling our bellies rumble from the little food we were given living as peasants. Ahead of us we saw a commotion and noticed a well known commoner arguing with one of the local merchants. Now this merchant happened to be a good friend of our, whom not only we, but people from all over the country would come to see. The commoner started issuing insults and slander against our good friend, but what he didn't know, was that our friend wasn't alone, but our friend didn't know that either! My brother and I though, saw the figure slip through the crowd, his knife drawn and ready to attack. I started to head in and warn the Commoner, but my brother grabbed my arm and stopped me. Better off, he told me, as the Commoner was struck down just as he raised his hand to strike the merchant. Once the Commoner fell to the ground, my brother and I rushed in. The merchant dragged us, and the body, to the back of his shop. That's when I felt the drawing of power. The commoner had about his neck an amulet, shaped like seven pointed star. A Shiroden, symbol of the Runelords, who plagued our lands. This was no meager Commoner, but one of their worshippers. The merchant and my brother could tell I felt the power radiating from the amulet, so the merchant took it, and gave it to me. He told me to learn all I could about the magics of the Runelords, and use it against them to free our people.
With this narrative, how do I think my character would have reacted. I don't think my character would harbor any guilt about the commoner being killed, in fact, once he discovered the truth of the murder, I think he was glad he hadn't stepped in. However, even though he got a magical item and opened up his future to a whole new life, I don't think he enjoyed it, so lets give him no guilt (+2 CP).
OK, so now that the conflict has been resolved, lets determine our alignment. with a total of 7 CP, we need to distribute these points along the two alignment axises, with Lawful-Good being at the lowest end of the spectrum. Good motivates my character through and through, wanting to overthrow the Runelords and bring peace to the land, no matter the cost. This means I'm going to place all 7 points onto the L/C track, giving me a final outcome of 7-0 or Chaotic Good. Normally at this time we would select a religion, but I am going to forgo that for now, as it really isn't important for my character.
Table 1-56 I've had a girlfriend or two, but nothing really substantial, I guess I spend to much time with my nose in a book.
Man, that was a lot of work, and took me nearly an hour to come up with it all! But you know what? I kind of like what we got. So now the last step is to take all the information and make a couple of paragraphs. By reading though you can see that we pretty much did that! so now its just copy and past and create our new hero!
If you enjoyed reading how this character was fleshed out, leave me a note! Are there any other books or systems you'd like me to show you? I'll learn it as best I can and show you a breakdown just like this one. Did you see anything that catches your eye and I could improve upon, I'm more than happy to listen to that as well.
