Every year I publish a look back at my favorite writing, podcast and video appearances for the year. This helps me remember what I’ve done, re-up things to people who discovered me late in the year and when attempting to freelance gives me a handy spot to find work to share with editors and other hiring managers.
The most popular story in the history of Full Moon Storytelling is no longer about sports. My essay on how to use third places to amplify verisimilitude surpassed the sports and cultures essay and then lapped it, twice in just a year. This helped boost Full Moon Storytelling to have 74% more views than last year and in 2023 it had more total views and visitors than the total of either from its founding in 2014 to 2022. Federating via WordPress helped contribute to that growth as well.
D&D: Honor Among Thieves had an interesting release. Opening week was fine, but not great. The falloff was significant, and yet there are many reasons to think that there will be a sequel. It was a massive success when it came to marketing D&D and is one of the most streamed movies of 2023. My fascination with the mainstreaming of the hobby by Hollywood is one of my favorite writings.
Ended the year as the 8th most popular movie to purchase on Google, Rakuten and Amazon.
It spent 246 days in Google’s top 10 most purchased movies & shows again globally. That’s basically every day it was available.
On Paramount+, its primary streaming platform, it spent 228 days in the top 10 globally good for 9th overall. It spent the weekend in 6th worldwide and 4th in the USA on P+
On iTunes it finished 12th, with 224 days in the top 10.
In Asia it was streamed on HBO Max. It spent 83 days in the top 10 globally for HBO movies, despite only being available in limited markets.
In much of Latin America it was on Star+. It finished 11th among movies on that platform, spending 46 days in the top 10.
Backgrounds continue to be my specialty. The most popular released this year was the Weaver, working its way into the top 5 all time.
During a vacation I saw roads with funky names and decided they can inspire D&D and other fantasy settings. You too can find inspiration in normal places.
Why do I keep a d20 in my pocket? Because it gives me a sense of belonging.
I sponsored two soccer teams. Our Flag Means Offside FC and What We Do On The Sidelines FC had opposite records on the field, but they’re both #1 in my heart. I’ve already sponsored a spring 2024 team. I can’t wait to see the new jersey.
Sounders and other soccer
Back in 2008 I founded Sounder at Heart. In 2019 I left to work for Tacoma Defiance and Reign FC. This year the current Managing Editor, Jeremiah Oshan took the site independent. As part of that effort I took over the twice-weekly newsletter now called the Ship’s Log.
I also help maintain the Depth Chart and cover Defiance.
Risk Intelligence
For Factal I also help with a newsletter — Benchmarker. Similar to the SaH newsletter, the open rates are climbing, click-through rates are climbing and distribution is growing. Mostly, my job there is to help people within Global Security, Business Continuity, Resilience and Crisis find our free resources (and then our paid service). The work we do there helps keep people alive and business operating. You can read more about that in our annual recap.
People outside of security and continuity fields will enjoy things I don’t do — the Factal Forecast and The Debrief. The Forecast is our editors’ look at the planned news of the next week. The Debrief dives deep into an issue that isn’t on the front page of US media, but needs attention.
Spelljammer is already on printing two. That’s because they need to make some changes to the Hadozee for reasons of insensitivity. They’re good changes and Wizards of the Coast is changing the processes that allowed the culturally insensitive material to appear first too. This new printing has other errata too.
The one that sticks out is the addition of Feats to every Background.
“These backgrounds each give a feat. If a character takes a background from elsewhere and doesn’t get a feat from that background, the character gains one of the following feats of the player’s choice: Magic Initiate, Skilled, or Tough.”
Dragonlance will have something similar. For Dragonlance this was because these are characters in a war. They must be stronger, tougher, etc. In Spelljammer it kind of makes sense. Normal people aren’t space halflings and asteroid dwarves.
Similar to the Dragonlance decision my world has an additional feat at first level. In the case of the World of the Everflow these choices are;
Kin get a Bonded Companion.
Ken get a feat that grants a cantrip.
Kon get Artificer Initiate and the Rock Gnome’s tinker ability.
Similar to the Dragonlance decision to add Feats this was done to add flavor, speaking to the types of powers that people from various continents have.
With One D&D’s playtest we know there’s a chance at adding Feats for everyone at 1st level.
What if the One D&D system of 1st Level Feats was added to 5e now?
You could add Feats to any character in the current game with a minor, but not overwhelming, increase in power with a few simple guidelines.
Only allow Feats that don’t have a +1 to an attribute.
Don’t allow the +5/-10 Feats.
Don’t allow Lucky.
Don’t allow Polearm Master
That’s it.
Now you can have flavorful feats in your 5e game at 1st level.
Instead, attach Feats to Backgrounds
Now, my current world attaches Feats to racial choices, but one could choose to go the path of Dragonlance, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven. Each of those books assigns their unique Backgrounds specific Feats for flavor.
A more flexible system would be to attach Feats on a small curve. Those Feats would be selected to emphasize specific stories typically told regarding that Background.
Actor reminds me of Paden Fain. Artificer Initiate seems obvious. Linguist fits the wanderer mold. Ritual Caster makes sense to capture the one who picks up hedge magic.
Putting those on a chart with a curve using two dice can influence the commonality of the Feats.
Roll 2d4 or choose your favorite.
Magic Initiate
Tough
Linguist
Actor
Skilled
Ritual Caster
Artificer Initiate
Since it looks likely that Before We Were Heroes won’t be ready before the 2024 edition, I’m thinking of adding that Feat guidance to each listed Background.
Have another Background you’d like a Feat Chart for, ask in comments.
Since Dungeons & Dragons is anachronistic, most people, and basically every player character, know how to write. But what about those that know how to write and count better? The late middle ages were a time when there was a rapid need for more writers, more accountants. Guilds needed to track the money they were bringing in.
If your D&D world has many guilds it would have many clerks. Some of those clerks may get bored of quill and ink, or precisely measuring liquids, or whatever mundane task their employer has for them — so they head out on adventures, which is what happened in real life too. Lots of clerks got involved with murdering.
You are someone who counts fast, keeps precise notes, reads for others, writes for others. You are meticulous and detailed. When
Skill Proficiencies: Investigation, Insight Tool Proficiencies: Calligrapher’s Tools Languages: One language Equipment: Common clothes, tabard, abacus, merchant’s scale, jar (precisely 1 quart), pouch, signet ring, 10 gp
Feature: Measure Twice
You can rapidly and accurately account for large quantities of coins or other staples, assessing their value using just a single action. Clerks are also able to stretch large quantities of staples further than expected. If you need more than 50 of an item a Clerk needs 10% less of that item. For example, 900 ball bearings works just as well for a Clerk as 1000. Or if others would need 50′ of rope the Clerk can make do with 45′.
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Alternate Background: Tax Collector
You are a representative of the government, collecting fees and taxes for the services they provide. Maybe you work at a toll bridge, a city gate, or you wander to various farms. Some pay in gold, most in silver or even copper. You’ll take barter too. The Barony needs the funds however it can get them.
A just collector may go easy on a family in years of struggle. An unjust may continually take. Your character’s behavior and history is up to you.
The Tax collector has the same skills, tools, and languages as the Clerk. The difference is in their Feature and in their role in society.
Feature: Forgotten Refund
Knowing the ways of governments you are able to assume the debts of a group that owe. You can also find a way to get a tax refund for yourself or others, or avoid paying the full amount. If normally the government takes 10% you would only pay 5%. If you are short gold, you may visit another tax collector, if one can be found, to get 5 times your proficiency bonus as a refund.
Design Goals
Clerks were so common in the late middle ages they killed a lot of people. Which sounds a lot like D&D adventurers, so why not have a Background based on them. Sure, they could be represented by Sages and Acolytes or other thinkers.
But, I’ve watched too many Clerks movies, and so needed to honor the OG clerks in a special way. Don’t be murdered by clerks, be the clerks that murder.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
Tea, tisanes, rooibos, herbal concoctions and other similar hot drinks are staples in many cultures of the real world and fit so many Dungeons & Dragons cultures as well. The sub-culture around ceremony and expertise makes sense as a Background in 5th edition.
Why would a Tea Master go adventuring? They could be searching for a new supply; have run out of their own supply; know that there is a threat to the trade routes they depend upon; heard from the nobility of a need for the government; have a loyal customer that needs aid. A Tea Master like many service types develops a relationship with the people they serve. Those connections are easy to leverage into relationships that help power story — plus they have tea.
You are a server of fine teas. Maybe you worked in a tea shop, or were a tea merchant, or were the tea master for a noble estate. You prepare teas and small bites of food for the thinking peoples in the area. This can be as simple as a cuppa or an elaborate ritual.
You may be an expert in particular types of tea (powders, fermented, naturals, or combination). These teas and tisanes may come from your local community or come from other lands far from your origin. Regardless, you start with 24 servings of your favorite tea or tisane (tisane=herbal tea). When creating your tea master consider the peoples you served tea to in the past, consider who taught you the ceremony(ies) you know. Use these flavor decisions to embrace your role as a Tea Master.
Skill Proficiencies: History and Insight. If you are using cultures rather than languages, then replace history as per those rules. Tool Proficiencies: None Languages: Two languages Equipment: Alms box with 25 silver, bell or whistle or hand drum, tea set for 6 including tea for 4 ceremonies for 6 (10 pounds and 25 gp value), fine clothes, waterskin
Feature: Tea Ceremony
Performing a 1 hour ritualistic ceremony you serve tea often with small plates of food, but that is not required. The ceremony is patient and calming, shifting NPC attitude from hostile to indifferent or indifferent to friendly, if the NPC can be convinced to partake in the full ceremony. PCs partaking in a tea ceremony can use Hit Dice to heal as if the time was spent on a Short Rest.
Personality Traits that make sense for the Tea Master could be from the Acolyte, the Guild Artisan, the Hermit, or the Sage. Mix and match these as necessary.
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There are a few reasons I wanted to make the Tea Master. During my time in the Middle East I experienced a couple versions of tea ceremonies. These were done as a welcome to a home or to a camp. In my personal life I have also experienced the elaborate high tea that used to be part of the nobility of England. These seemed to fit the social portion of D&D, especially as they stretch back in time to the days which inspire our stories.
Within fiction there are two tea ceremonies that stand out in my mind — both from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Tumnus uses a tea ceremony to distract and then poison Lucy. The Witch uses a tea ceremony and foods to make Edmund think that she is not a threat. Both examples fit the literature that inspires our game.
There was also a desire to make the tea ‘rules’ different than coffee ‘rules.’ The two are similar in that they are water with vegetation that often provides stimulation as well as being from locales far from the founding cultures of the game. Both belong in D&D, because they were in Europe in the era that inspired the game AND because D&D is about much more than Europe.
Another goal was to remove specificity of culture from the tea ceremony. Tea ceremonies do not have the direct lineage that coffee does (coffee houses have a direct lineage to Ottoman cafes). Tea is a more widespread crop with various cultures celebrating the leaf. So make your tea ceremony your own. Celebrate a real culture, create a pastiche, or invent a new one — do it honoring real cultures that you are a member of or that you’ve studied.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
As a horde of humans riding guard drakes crests the Blue Hills, the chappe telegraph operator builds the signal that will reach the Larton Keep now that war has returned to the range. Using whistles, a youngster tells the village miles away that four sheep are lost so they’ll be home late, could his family please have tea ready for when they return.
A thrumming beat injects itself into the air as an owlbear stalks a deer. Knowing the bear is nearing a sacred vale a group of druids and rangers work to separate hunter and prey, for there will be no killing in Frannet’s vale.
You have the ability to converse over miles, sending messages for a government, faction, or some other organization. In war societies seek your aid to help units communicate. In peace you and other Far Talkers help connect towns and cities, or just keep two distant wizard towers in touch.
Familiar with how the weather impacts your mode of speech you have learned the winds and rains of many lands. Expected to see or hear things at a great distance your senses are strong. You may be an expert at the drums, but you have heard of others who use whistles, tree beating, smoke, flags, or other instruments. No matter what tool is used your messages are simultaneously public and semi-secret.
Skill Proficiencies: Perception, Nature Tool Proficiencies: One musical instrument Languages: One additional, plus the ability to Far Talk in Intelligence bonus languages (minimum 1) Equipment: A symbol of service to a government or large church, a gaming set, a spyglass or musical instrument, traveler’s clothes, a notebook with notation for your type of far talk, 1 day rations, pouch with 2 gold
Feature: Far Talking
Using your chosen tool you can communicate over a distance of 6 miles when outdoors, and twice normal speaking distance when indoors, in a number of languages equal to your Intelligence bonus (minimum 1). Extreme weather may make those long-distance conversations more difficult.
When you meet another practitioner of the Far Talking arts they are always one step friendlier than their companions or social situation would indicate. For example if two scout groups from warring nations met their far talkers would be indifferent while everyone else was hostile. This is true even when the far talkers in question use different languages and tools to talk.
Learning Far Talking
A character without the background can learn Far Talking per the rules to learn a new language. They would then learn one method of Far Talking for a single language.
Some groups of druids, rangers, and their allies might spend time learning Druidic spoken via Whistle Cant. A fleet of pirates could all know Yodeling. Have fun with this.
As always, seek ways that cantrips would enhance these. Those that rely on sound would be amplified by Minor Illusion, Thaumaturgy, and can you imagine Thunder Clap sent through a massive bugle-like device. Those that need light can be made more useful by Prestidigitation, Dancing Lights, Light, and Minor Illusion. A world of magic would have Far Talkers that can speak across many miles.
Personality: Use the Soldier or Folk Hero personality traits for now. When the Background project is done each new Background will have traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws that are unique to the Background.
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Design Goals
The Far Talker started out from two different ideas — I wanted to create Whistle Cant as a kind of alt-Druidic and my desire for the Messenger Background. The Messenger became two different Backgrounds. That Messenger will focus on the people who deliver physical messages by walking, running, riding, etc. The Far Talker is the other version. Rather than become Druidic, Whistle Cant became a type of Far Talking, and one of several examples of alt-languages that a Far Talker might specialize in.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
Picking herbs from a backyard garden, a hot house, or a forest outside of town the herbalist collects natural items that aid and harm. An herbalist can heal, poison, invigorate. They know the powers of plants and fungi to change how humanoids and beasts experience the world.
You are a naturalist. You use the art and science of foods and other natural goods to change the way people experience the world. Maybe your favorite tisane helps awaken the weary, or heal the hurt, or cure a disease, or puts people to sleep. A poultice could stop blood flow, or cool the overheating.
There’s power in the natural world and your various recipes. Clerics count on gods. Druids channel the magic of nature. An herbalist knows that life interacts with itself in interesting ways. There’s a magic to that, it’s just not ‘magic.’
Skill Proficiencies: Nature, Survival Tool Proficiencies: Herbalist Kit Languages: Druidic Equipment: Sickle, 2 candles, Scroll case with 5 pieces parchment or a notebook, common clothes, component pouch, herbalism kit, 2 vials (1 w/ either antitoxin or healing potion)
Feature: A Dash of This; a Dollop of That
Using a short rest, you can always find the various fungus, plants, and whatnot needed to make antitoxin, healing potions, poison, or coffee-like substances. Your recipes manifest as salves, poultices, potions, pills, or any other way to deliver the ingredients. Any of your recipes take just a Bonus Action to use as they are more potent than typical.
The personality traits, ideals, bonds of flaws of the Acolyte, Folk Hero, Hermit, Outlander, and Sage all make sense to borrow from during the playtest of this Background. When published all Backgrounds will have unique character traits.
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Herbalist Design Goals
Again, this design exists because the Guild Artisan puts most Backgrounds that are related to Tools into a Guild. That’s fine for some stories, but it ignores so many others.
A rural or farm community Herbalist is common in the lore upon which D&D is based. These can become Druids, Rangers, Clerics, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks most commonly. There’s also a fit with certain Barbarians, Monks, and Paladins. Frankly, a Rogue (Assassin) and Paladin (Devotion, Ancients), and even a Fighter (Eldritch Knight). Because frankly every background should have a story with every core class.
There was also a desire to have access to Druidic, my least favorite D&D language, at a Background level. A couple Backgrounds grant access to Thieves Cant, and it makes sense to have at least one grant Druidic. Shortly, there will be a post about a new take on Druidic that expands it to cover at least one more class and a couple more Backgrounds soon.
Nynaeve al’Meara from the Wheel of Time is a foundational character for this Background.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
The clattering of tin as they come over the hill; a belly laugh as the tinker learns of some gossip from mother; the circle of enraptured youth as a tale that is at most half-true is told; the fussing over a minor repair for a family that has no goods to offer in service.
In fantasy the Tinker is a trope that captures a travelling fixer who knows news, rumor, and myth. Their wealth rides a donkey or canoe with them and every community on their circuit is home and an unknowable set of peoples. Now, you too can play a Tinker.
Maybe you grew up in a family of smiths, or were raised by bards, or maybe you were kind of good at a lot of arts, but not really good at one in particular. Whatever your past you decided to leave the ‘civilized’ world and help those families on the frontier. When things break you fix them.
When communities break you share that information with others who need to hear it. You carry as much information as you do tin. Your donkey is your only friend on the trails throughout the wilds. Everyone you meet trusts you, even the bandits, brigands and raiders. They need your services too.
Skill Proficiencies: Performance, Insight Tool Proficiencies: Tinker’s Tools, Vehicle (Land or Water) Languages: None Equipment: Donkey/Mule/Pony (if water vehicles chosen a canoe, rowboat or skiff is appropriate), Tinker’s Kit, 1 Pound Each Tin, Copper, Iron, Pack Saddle, 3 Pots, Traveler’s Clothes, Pouch with 5 Gold
Feature: I Can Fix It
Facing a mundane device that is broken you are able to fix it, even if you don’t have the proper supplies and parts. This repair may only last a few minutes or a few hours, though it is enough for the device to last through it’s next use. You may wind up using a copper coin, or a bit of string, or a knife during this repair. This feature can be used to fix ammunition, traps, broken wheels, or other adventuring equipment. The repair is not permanent.
Tinker Design Goals
Throughout the literature that inspires Dungeons & Dragons are tales of itinerant workers who travel the barely civilized wildernesses drifting between villages. Primarily they are fixers, using bits of tin, copper, iron, leather, etc to repair farming tools or kitchen utensils in the homesteads too far from smithys.
The fiction also has these tinkers as storytellers. They aren’t bards, as their magic is just the magic of carrying tales of other households, villages, and empires to people who long for information, but don’t want to live in places where information is common. The Tinker tells their tales around a fire or a meal, informing the group through storytelling. At their next stop they will share what they’ve learned. Every encounter is a bit of knowledge to share in an attempt to connect the frontier lands despite weather and monsters that keep those connections broken.
For these reasons the Tinker has Performance and Insight. Consideration was made for History. That would seem to indicate an intellectual rather than a tale-teller. Insight made sense because of the way the literature has the Tinker connect to the families year after year.
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Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
In a city you might be part of a guild, where in rural communities you could be the only midwife for miles. You are there to aid during pregnancy and birth. Your role goes beyond just those times, as you are also the confidant within the region. Your charges trust you, confide in you, and know that you will support them in their time of need.
You are capable of calming emotions during impassioned times, trained in techniques of general healing, when you are present life is honored and saved. Whether itinerant or attached to a guild, your role within the community is respected. Those who don’t need your services still hold you in esteem, if from a distance.
Skill Proficiencies: Insight Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit Languages: None Cantrip: Spare the Dying Equipment: Druidic focus or religious symbol, healer’s kit, traveler’s clothes, flask, jug, steel mirror, soap, 5 gp
Feature: Welcome to our home
Folk that care for families will always welcome a midwife into their house. They will not fight for the midwife, but will help them hide, provide some food or provisions for the midwife and their friends if able, and share the gossip that caregivers invariably know about a community.
Characteristics: For now, use those from the Folk Hero or pick & choose your favorites. Whenever my background project sees full publication there will be unique characteristics for each of them
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Midwife Design Goals
First and foremost, this design is to honor my late mother-in-law. She was a maternity nurse, and through her I met many other nurses. Secondly, the background leans into Call the Midwife, which my wife watches regularly. There is a bit of inspiration from Nynaeve al’Meara (Wheel of Time) and her time as Wisdom of Emond’s Field when she cared for the community as a healer and confidant for the women of the community. As there is no healer among official D&D products, the Midwife attempts to fill some of that niche (as will the Barber, the Apothecary, and the Healer).
Like the Remarkable Drudge, the Midwife grants a cantrip at the cost of a skill and a tool/language.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
On a family vineyard with vines as thick as hippogriff legs you work the grapes. The slow, tedious springs and summers on the hard scrabble rocks are exhausting, the harvest a frenzy of activity. Then the fun starts, as does the waiting.
The vintner enjoys all of this time, but the apex of their art is the finished bottle, and sharing it with others. They carry stories in their bottles. Stories of grapes, of skies full of wyvern, of the journey past the bandit camps, of that one time the mage saved their vines, and that other time when the druid thought they were helping.
Every bottle has a story as does every person who sips it. The vintner is not just an expert at crafting wines. They are a marketing specialist and a storyteller. Each barrel, every cork, each wineskin, every jug – another tale to tell is discovered. The vintner may not have intended to travel the lands on quests, but they know whenever they return to their villa and vineyard they’ll have new discoveries to share.
The following rules are a pre-publication example of a Vintner – a background for the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
Skill Proficiencies: Nature and one of Deception or Persuasion Tool Proficiencies: Farming Tools, Winemaking Tools Languages: None Equipment: Farming Tools, common clothes, 1 pound of cheese, 3 wine skins, 3 small cups or glasses, 10 gp
The vintner has a knack for storytelling and conversation. Through pouring a tasting and chatting they are able to learn a tale from the person’s past. Sometimes these are of an adventure, or a foible, or a mystery that needs to be solved, and at the rarest times these tales are things that were supposed to always remain hidden.
Characteristics: For now, use those from the Guild Artisan or pick & choose your favorites. Whenever my background project sees full publication there will be unique characteristics for all of them.
To more capture the feel of the pseudo-Mid Ages/Renaissance period the Vintner is the grower, the maker, the taster, the seller. Plus, that type of specificity gets anti-5e pretty quick. While the Guild Artisan can capture this background, it forces the artisan into a guild. Many adventurers pride themselves in their independence. The Vintner had to be a solo gig.
The choice of Deception or Persuasion is out of a desire to represent the different angles in marketing that can occur within the flavor business.
When it came to tools versus languages there was a part of me that wanted a language rather than second tool, but that was hampered by two things. First, I generally frown on how D&D handles languages. Second, if I’m bundling growing in and have developed Farmers Tools, let’s use the Farmers Tools.
The feature, which uses a Chinese proverb rather than the Latin In Vino Veritas, is an attempt to capture the flow of story and words as friends and even enemies commune over a bottle(s). As a DM having a player with this feature helps grant so many clues in new ways.
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Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
Some heroes work the earth, till the fields, care for orchards, manage vineyards. The adventuring life was not part of their blood. There is no heroic act of rebellion or violence in their past, like the Folk Hero. They show their potential and heart every day. Some rise early, work late, and rest hard. Others understand nature, harnessing those forces to do as little as possible until harvest comes.
All are connected to the land. Whether serf or free, whether rural or within the city, the farmer raises crops not just for their own family, but to supply a larger group. They are the blood of a civilization – vital.
Some farmers do not get to remain in the pastoral life. They can be conscripted into battles, inspired by a local bard, maybe their debts force them to work with a local gang, Whatever took your farmer away from their homestead to the adventure they are on now that homestead, connection to earth, and family is a part of them forever.
The following rules a pre-publication example of a Farmer – a background for the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Nature Tool Proficiencies: Farming Tools, Vehicles (Land or Water) Languages: None Equipment: Farming Tools, common clothes, beast of burden (donkey, mule, dog, etc) or cart, basket, 2 days rations, wine skin, 2 gp
Feature: Horn of Plenty
Through your knowledge of foods, their qualities and usefulness, combined with an uncanny knack for preparation you are able to stretch food supplies. A meal that would normally serve one serves two. They are both content and satisfied. A harvest in which you participate is also more effective – your senses help find a few more plants that are ready, branches that are missed, or mistakenly dropped produce. Those harvests produce more food, resulting in an increase in gold or barter value of 50%.
Characteristics: For now, use those from the Folk Hero or pick & choose your favorites. Whenever my background project sees full publication there will be unique characteristics for all of them.
Alternate: Beekeeper
https://fullmoonstorytelling.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/pexels-photo-3577458.jpegPhoto by FRANK MERIu00d1O on Pexels.comDrop Athletics for Sleight of Hand. This is to represent the deft hands of someone who does their best to avoid being stung too frequently. Their loads also tend to be lighter compared to farmers who carry bushels of apples, shovel manure, dig irrigation, etc.
Alternate Feature: Sweets
You always have some honey – tiny jars, little wax sticks, hard candies, the format is up to you – to give away. Generally those who are gifted your sweets welcome the gift and have a positive impression of you and your group. These gifts can act as a salve to harsh spirits or a reward for previous help. They can also be traded for other uncommon goods that you may be in need of.
Originally included as an option for the Remarkable Drudge, Farmer’s Tools are a must have for any farmer.
Farmer’s Tools
Cost: 5 gp | Weight: 7 lbs
Proficiency with farmer’s tools means that you are familiar with the operations of a farm, orchard, vineyard, or other cropland. You are knowledgeable in the typical crops within an area, to include when to plant and harvest them. You also know their market value in most lands.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons
From the Greatest Showman, to Newsies, to the nameless town criers belting out “Hear ye, Hear ye” the fiction that inspires our gaming has included symbols of governments, news guilds, carnivals, circuses, and religious orders in the streets are regularly part of the scenery. Some of these people would be dragged into heroic adventures.
Amadin the Barker is one of these. Originally a barker for a travelling carnival, this fey hobgoblin fits within the normal world because of the cover of the carnival. Their exotic lineage belongs among the strongmen who aren’t strong, the acrobatic performers, the owlbear trainers, and the oracles without magic.
Created through a series of polls and prompts on Twitter, Amadin the Barker is discovered to be a Blessed Warrior Paladin of Redemption. They are generally peaceful, able to help their circus make money, prevent serious loss of live, and work to redeem themselves.
Peace. Innocence. Patience. Wisdom.
They swear upon these values. Sure, they are a warrior when needed. Those needs are rare. Amadin’s greatest tool is their booming voice and their desire to help the peoples who took them in when they were a stranger.
Skill Proficiencies: History, Persuasion Tool Proficiencies: None Languages: Two of your choice Equipment: A noisy instrument (bell, gong, horn, drum), fine clothes (a Barker should have a costume), common clothes, scroll case, 3 sheets of parchment, quill, jar of ink, 15 gp
Feature: You Will Hear Me
When in a crowd, or during a heated discussion, your words always break through the background noise. When you shout out, or clap, or ring the bell, etc., the attention of the multitudes shifts to the Crier/Herald/Barker who can make an appeal to them. Your pronouncements carry the weight and heft of your organization.
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Barker Design choices
Skills: Persuasion was obvious. That’s where this background had to start. Their whole role in society is to convince people to do things. The other choice came down to Insight or History. Insight made sense because reading a crowd may be necessary, but History fits the idea that the symbol of an area’s governance or a news guild or a traveler would have this level of knowledge. If a campaign is using Culture rather than Language, drop History for Insight.
Tools: One of the spaces I’m exploring is giving various Backgrounds tools that they possess that they aren’t necessarily proficient in – in this case a musical instrument. The Crier may use a gong to gain attention. They don’t need to know how to perform a musical piece.
Languages: With two more slots and the modern cosmopolitan nature of default D&D granting two languages makes sense.
Equipment: The non-proficient instrument is a little note that some Criers need an assist before they gain attention of the masses. Most backgrounds do not include two sets of clothes. In the case of the Crier/Herald they should have fine clothes for official duties and look common when not. For a Barker replace the fine clothing with a costume, if you’d like.
Feature: First off, yes, I modified the Sounder at Heart motto for this one. You Will Hear Me captures the feel of a person standing in the crowd and demanding attention. A character could use this as a distraction, or a rallying cry, or maybe as a way to start a charity drive. As always, the feature fits into social and exploration moments more so than combat.
For personality attributes use Folk Hero, Scholar, Noble, or others that fit. The finished product, whenever it is done will include unique characteristics for all 40 or so Backgrounds.
Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons