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A good way to add flavor to a character is to believe in some things that others don't, without it being a pillar of his identity.
I'll open with a couple real life ones my family brought with us from Eastern Europe that may not be commonly known.
I encourage you to share ones from real life, or invent new superstitions!
1: Spiders are harbingers of good news, killing one will make it bad news.
2: If you step over someone, they will stop growing unless you step back over them to undo it.
3: Never call a black cat lucky. Hopefully the cat's getting run over is a horrible coincidence, but I still hate myself. Don't test it.
4: Never walk under a ladder. Something will fall on you. If someone is using the ladder, 2 people will get hurt.
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5. Never draw your blade unless it will be used in combat, or else it will fail you when you need it.
6. A new blade should be blooded with it's owner's blood before being used, so that it will know where it's loyalties lie.
7. Leave piles of uncooked rice near a window in a newborn babys room to ward off evil spirits(they will count the grains and be burned by the light of the rising sun).
8. Don't let dead monsters go to waste and attract flies, use every part, of every monster, even the humanoid ones.
In hindsight, I wish I'd have never told them Reefclaws were edible :-)
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9. Whenever you kill anything larger than an insect, say a few words of prayer and apologize to it's departing spirit to shoo it's soul off to the afterlife, so it doesn't hang around and haunt you out of spite.
10. Salt and / or iron nails repel / restrain restless spirits. Sleep with a little salt on your lips, or some iron nails on a necklace, to prevent possession. (Nightmares are a sure sign of attempted possession! It's more common than you people think! Protect yourselves!)
11. Salting a meal doesn't just flavor it, it drives evil spiritual energies from the meat that could cause illness (as most animals resent being killed, and that resentment lingers in their flesh to spiritually poison those that eat them). Thoroughly cooking it on an iron spit or iron grill also works. You don't have to salt (or grill) plant matter, 'though.
12. Certain entities can hear their names spoken aloud, and so you never speak the name of an evil god, demon, devil, etc. referring to them only by their 'nicknames' like 'The Mother of Monsters' or 'The Prince of Lies.'
13. Thirteen of anything is anathema to you. If you reach a level where you can prepare thirteen spells a day, you will prepare only twelve, and then cast one (such as mage armor), before filling that last spell slot. If you are owned thirteen gold in 'change,' you will insist on 12 gold and 10 silver, instead, or even accept less, if you absolutely must (you're superstitious, not stupid!).
14. [For a spellcaster] You believe that other forces can use your hair, nail clippings, etc. to cast spells upon you, and so gather up or destroy all such remnants, using magic such as prestidigitation to clean up after yourself, or purify food & drink to transform your waste into clear water and burning hair clippings, blood-soaked bandages, etc. to fine ash and scattering it into the nearest river or sea, to prevent anyone from ever gaining access to these materials to use against you. You are, occasionally comically, paranoid about people stealing your 'precious bodily fluids.'
15. You've heard tales that your father and his father before him were dragged off into the shadowed corners of their bedchambers by strange hounds that seemed to crawl from the angled corners themselves. You never sleep near a wall or corner, and always surround your sleeping area with a curving circle of chalk or string or wax, which you believe will repel these creatures that come from the sharp angles.
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15: Aberrations from beyond are afraid of circles because some have been summoned and just left there for centuries.
16: Never break a circle. If a house has a permanent summoning circle in it, have an exorcist make sure there is nothing in it before tearing the structure down. Some ruins have only the circle still intact because what ever attacked the civilization was trapped and abandoned.
17: Never leaving a building by the same door you entered, otherwise the evil spirit (or demon, devil, etc.) will continue to follow you.
18: Never speak your deity's name needlessly, otherwise it will divert their attention to you, and away from one who truly needs it.
19: Ratfolk love cheese and will stop what they are doing to eat it.
20: Dwarves are very possessive over mithral and believe it is their metal, and will kill any non-dwarf that possesses it.
21: Halflings are really human children that were kidnapped by evil fey but escaped.
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22: (Borrowed from the 'The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries') Maxim 17: The longer everything goes 'according to plan' the bigger the impending disaster.
23: Never bring a musket to a sword-fight.
24: If your blade does not draw blood in combat, feed it some of your own, that its spirit may remain sated until the next time it is drawn.
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25. Fairies lose their invisibility when they sneeze; that's why you pepper your belongings.
26. Daisies help to ward off possession. That's why maiden wear crown of daisies and why you wear one by your heart.
27. Always enter a dungeon and other haunted place backwards. This way spirits will think you left instead of entered
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28. Naming a new weapon that has yet to see combat is deadly to the owner.
29. If your horse throws a shoe while you are tracking someone they mean to ambush you.
30. Goblins are afraid of rabbits, tie a rabbit foot to anything you want goblins to leave alone.
31. It is ill fortune to seek a Harrow reading while pregnant.
32. Blacksmiths never concentrate radioactive metals. There is supposed to be a crater where a lost city blew up.
33. That science and magic can't coexist is a superstition. While petroleum based plastics have anti magical properties, celluplastics augment nature magic and can be magicked by druids.
34. Golems, robots, and androids should never be brought to a haunted house. Actually, they can be haunted, but once free willed they will want to "live it up" or avenge their death. I always thought Jennie from My Teenage Robot Life went to a haunted house and started acting like a person.
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35. There is a such thing as luck.
36. Dice can be lucky.
37. Dice lose their luck if you let another player use them.
38. Organizing your dice so the highest number is facing up will somehow make it more likely to roll that number when you toss them.
....what? He didn't say it had to be IN CHARACTER superstitions!
35. There is a such thing as luck.
36. Dice can be lucky.
37. Dice lose their luck if you let another player use them.
38. Organizing your dice so the highest number is facing up will somehow make it more likely to roll that number when you toss them.
....what? He didn't say it had to be IN CHARACTER superstitions!
Indeed, he started with 2 real life ones.
39. Step on a crack, you break your mothers back. Now that my Mom's dead, I don't worry about cracks. If you live in a mining town, stepping on cracks may lead to falling damage.
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These are some I heard growing up:
40. If a snapping turtle bites you it won't let go until it hears thunder.
41. If a snake dies belly up it will storm soon.
42. If the wind blows the leaves on the trees upside down it will rain.
43. If you're eating a hardboiled egg and the yolk cracks, you'll go blind.
44. Lentils are supposed to be a lucky food. Something to think about when making a potion of luck.
45 Do not accept a passenger wearing night clothes or slippers (someone is probably chasing them).
46. If onions don't make someone's eyes water, it means they have a cold heart.
47. If you sneeze for no apparent reason, someone is dreaming about you.
48. When you remove your shoes indoors, if you leave them with the toes pointed toward the door, they will help guard against spirits. But if spirits are already in the room, it will anger them.
I've heard 47 as if you get hiccups, someone is thinking about you.
49: Sighting a Black Fox brings good luck, impeding one brings disaster
50. Letting a cat sleep with a baby will allow it to steal the baby's breath and kill it.