Decided to start a new campaign, Human Fighter, probably a solider. Roll 3d6+10 for age, get a 25 year old character.
—Roll for stats. Score two 15’s, 16, two 12’s and a 14. Awesome array for a solo character! Human Variant gives me Strength, Wisdom and Constitution at 16’s, I put the 12’s on Dexterity and Intelligence, and the 14 on Charisma. Initially, I had set a high dexterity and lower wisdom, but Wisdom is so useful for insight, persuasion and animal handling, and dexterity on an armored fighter is more useful thematically than actually valuable during play.
—Roll on Kassoons Backstory Generator until I get one I liked:
Race: Human
Birthplace: Home
Current Age: 25
Charisma: 14 (2)
Parents: You know of your parents.
Mother: Rosabel Ramsey, Lawful Neutral Human Fighter that works as a Merchant. Your relationship was friendly. She is alive and well.
Father: Don Ramsey, Neutral Human Rogue that works as a Politician. Your relationship was friendly. He is alive and quite successful.
Siblings: None
Family: You were raised by your mother. Your father abandoned you.
Lifestyle: Poor. Grew up in a rundown shack
Childhood: You had a few close friends and lived an ordinary childhood.
Life
Background: Soldier (I switch it to mercenary for the persuasion skill)
Motivation: The local lord forced you to enlist in the army.
Class: Fighter
Origin: You squired for a knight who taught you how to fight, care for a steed, and conduct yourself with honor. You decided to take up that path for yourself.
Events: 3
You made an enemy of an adventurer, you were at fault.
Tagga Roscoe, Neutral Half-Orc Wizard that works as an Academic. Your relationship was friendly. She is missing.
You spent time working as a Soldier. (3d6 X 10 xp)
You gained a bit of good fortune. A distant relative left you a treasure map. (was a stipend, but why adventure with an 8 year stipend?)
—Create Actual Backstory —
Berick was born to a young couple, blinded by more love than common sense. His mother, Rosabel, was from an affluent merchant family, but his father, and her “true love” was an ambitious youth eager to move up in the world. Shortly after Berick was born, his father left his mother, marrying the daughter of a minor noble in whose distant court he would then serve. Abandoned by her husband and shunned by her family, Rosabel struggled to support herself and her young son working as a book keeper at a frontier trading post.
Berick knew most of the kids in the trading post, and had a few good friends among them, and with his strength, size and good nature, was well respected by the other kids his age.
When the goblin war engulfed the frontier, Berick was scarcely ten years old, but looked a fair bit older due to his size. The lord of the land, desperate for men, levied a draft, the boy was called up with older youths.
It wasn’t but a fortnight before the mistake was realized, but Berick had worked hard to keep up with the rest of the company’s training, and the force had marched nearly 300 miles in that time. Too far to simply send the child off on his own, and it being unjust to simply abandon the boy, a minor knight in the company took the boy in as a squire, having him tend his horse and maintain his weapons, while also teaching the boy to fight.
The campaign went well, though Berick stayed with the baggage during all of the fighting. He learned a bit of goblin while helping guard captives, and listened carefully to the stories his master told.
That war ended and the years rolled by, Berick came of age and continued to serve in His Lordship’s army as a regular man-at-arms. Mostly, this work consisted of long nights of boring guard duty, patrolling the streets during trade days, and patrolling the desmesne or escorting valued merchants along trade routes. He fought a few goblins and bandits, but saw no action that any hardened veteran would brag about.
One night, while on guard duty in his lord’s castle, he thought he saw a visiting wizard, the half orc Tagga Roscoe, sneaking out of His Master’s chambers with something like a magical tome partially hidden in her robes. He called on the half orc to halt, accusing her of theft, this created a ruckus in the courtyard as the wizard initially tried to flee. Berick apprehended her, and it was discovered she had nothing suspicious on her person, certainly not a heavy spellbook. Angry at being falsely accused, Tagga swore Berick would pay for the insulting slur against her character, and departed the area not being seen since!
After serving nearly eight years, Berick recieved a letter from his mother’s brother that his grandfather had died. The grandfather felt guilty about disowning his daughter and her son, but hope to make things right and was sending Berick a map he had obtained in a trade that would, hopefully, lead to a great treasure hidden someplace in the Felsmark. The map was sealed with the letter, along with the uncle’s best wishes.
—Then, since I have been tinkering with Fantasy Grounds, I spend an inordinate amount of time building my character in that VTT, and then an NPC version of it, since I heard it would be easier to manage (screen real estate is in short supply for me, so if I can run a battle without a character tab open, I will). I also imported a “Nation”, “Region” and “Zoomed Region” map into the VTT.
I plan to play the Keep on the Borderlands 5e conversion by Goodman games, and had previously set up these layers about “what is beyond the Keep and why is it where it is on the frontier”. I build these maps in Worldographer, which is a nice program, since it lets you build a world at three different zoom levels, but export/import can be a pain. I also imported the Caves of Chaos map, and spent way too much time drawing doors and messing with line of sight in the VTT, but I am still learning the system’s features. I pretty much know the layout after all these years (having first explored the Keep on the Borderlands when I was introduced to gaming as a young teen). I just want to play through it after this character gets a level or two behind him. I also threw in a map of the Keep itself, just in case.
I also jot down the history for this campaign:
975, Berick was born in Caravos
985, There was a Goblin war on the frontier, and Berick was drafted into the army, serving as a squire until he came of age.
991, The Goblin War is over, and at 16 Berick has come of age in terms of being fully enlisted as a soldier.
1000, Campaign start. Berick receives word of his uncle’s death and receives a treasure map as an inheritance.
Now it is time to actually get started, arriving at “Farwatch” the Keep on the Borderlands.
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