Character Archetypes.

Summary:

Information, used without express written permission, about the Eberron suggested archetypes.

Character Archetypes.

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I would like for those of you who will be playing Eberon to look at the 11 archetypes that are given in the Player's Guide to Eberron. these are guidelines for role-playing, and include a loose background. I would like each of you to choose one of these before we actually generate the numbers.

Again, for those of you who will find this idea abhorrent, these are loose descriptions, your motivations and personalty are still yours to craft, but the broad archetypes will help you narrow that personality down to something much more devoloped and unique. They are meant to be a simple framework within which you can let you creativity run wild.

These are reproduced here without permission. They are offered free and will, in no way, create any profit for this site, it's creators, members, or hosts. it will be deleted in a few days after it is no longer useful to our gaming group. Please don't sue me, and if you do, i live in poverty, so good luck.

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CHRONICLER

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What a story!
-Kalva Dannor, gnome bard

When you can sell a story to a publication such as the
Korranberg Chronicle or the Sharn Inquisitive, everything that
happens around you starts to look like a story that needs
to be written. You seek out adventure wherever you can
find it—but you sometimes act more like an observer than
a participant.

Adventuring: You grew up reading about the Last
War in the pages of the Korranberg Chronicle, and thought that
it sounded exciting. You imagined yourself huddled in a
tent near the front lines, scrawling a dispatch that you
would send back to Korranberg to be read across the Five
Nations. Of course, once you finally got a j ob writing for a
small local chronicle, you spent more time talking to farmers
about their crops than you did doing anything remotely
resembling adventuring. Now you've made it: You travel
with a group of adventurers, write about your experiences,
and sell the stories to any chronicle that buys them. At least,
sometimes you sell the stories.

The primary criterion by which you judge whether
to undertake an adventure is whether or not you think it
will make a good story. By "good story,'' you might mean
one that's dramatic and exciting, or you might mean one
that will sell. Other factors are less important: Will your
participation make a difference in the world? Are innocent
lives at stake? Does the adventure itself pay well? It doesn't
matter—as long as it makes a good story.

If nothing else, an adventure could at least get you close
to a big story that's otherwise unrelated to the adventure
itself. If someone wants to hire a group of bodyguards for an
airship journey, you might not show any interest at all—until
you learn that an important noble or famous diplomat will
be on the same airship, on a mysterious mission. Now that's
a good story!

Personality: Young chroniclers approach their task
with exuberant enthusiasm, excited at the prospect of turning
their experiences into gripping tales that will thrill a
new generation of readers. Is that you, or has your attitude
devolved into a bitter cynicism? It's easy to fall into the jaded
view that chronicling is a pretty word for lying, trying to
make the horrors of war or the terrors of the world sound
exciting. But hey, excitement sells stories, so you'll make the
story as lurid as possible to make the sale.

Behavior: Take notes about everything your companions
do. You might even be tempted to hang back out
of combat for a moment or two while you finish scribbling
your notes about the events that led to the combat. (Don't
take this to the point where your allies become angry at your
inaction. Finish j o t t i ng down notes instead of moving in
between spells or other helpful actions.) Most important,
act as though you were a character in an exciting story that
will be told around the world—be dramatic, be dynamic,
take risks, and live large.

Language: Words are your livelihood, so talk a lot.
Describe your own actions as if you were writing them for a
popular audience. You might refer to yourself in the third
person, either by name or as "your intrepid chronicler"
or "your humble scribe." Describe the actions of your
companions and your enemies in the same way. When your
companions do something dramatic or memorable, narrate
what happened, even as you continue fighting.

Variants: You could be an aspiring storyteller hoping
to gain experience so you can "write what you know." You
might write for the chronicles, but with a focus on exposing
corruption or scandal rather than telling t h r i l l i ng tales.
Or you might simply enjoy being where things are happening,
or being around famous and important people, and
writing for a chronicle is an effective way of accomplishing
that goal.

DEVOTEE OF THE HOST

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Sovereigns preserve us.
—Kuduth, half-elf cleric

Even if you're not a cleric, the deities of the Sovereign Host
are important to you. You were brought up to show them
proper reverence, and devotion to the ideals they represent
guides your every step.

Adventuring: You have been profoundly influenced
by a particular cycle of myths relating to the Sovereign Host
and the Dark Six—myths that are no longer widely told, but
that have inspired countless generations of heroes to take
up arms against the forces of evil in the world. These myths
are collectively called the Rebellion Saga, and they speak of
the original and ongoing rebellion of the Dark Six against
the rule of the Sovereigns. According to these ancient
tales, it is the work of the devout to bring the Dark Six back
into the fold, which will be accomplished by quelling their
rebellious followers.

Naturally, reuniting the Dark Six with the rest of the pantheon is
not likely to happen any time soon, although certain apocalyptic
groups believe in its inevitability. Thus, for most adventuring
devotees, quelling the rebellion by slaying monsters,
imprisoning necromancers, and proselytizing changelings
is little more than a good long-term justification for actions
that also make sense in the short term, by making the world
safer for the civilized races of Khorvaire.

Personality: Your devotion to the Host shines through
everything you do—at least, you hope it does. When you
enter battle, you try to reflect the strength of Dol Dorn
and the honor of Dol Arrah. You offer prayers to Olladra,
Arawai, and Balinor before eating, to Onatar before
using your crafting skills, and to Aureon every time you
cast a spell. You protect families and villages in imitation
of Boldrei, and you guard caravans and merchants for Kol
Korran's sake.

Behavior: Your devotion is your defining characteristic,
but it describes little about your personality. You
are not necessarily a prude, a pacifist, or a philanthropist,
though you might be any of those things. You try to wrap
everything you do in a shroud of religious devotion. You
probably don't do it consciously to try to impress others;
rather, you do it because that's how you've learned to do
things. You might feel that everything you make should
be dedicated to Onatar, but the prayers you recite out of
habit while crafting are only the outward expression of that
intrinsic belief.

Language: Prayers, oaths, and invocations pepper
your speech. Generic invocations of the Sovereigns serve
many purposes, such as "Sovereigns preserve us! " or simply
"Sovereigns!" used as an expression of surprise or frustration.
Curses often use the names of the Dark Six: "Aureon's
Shadow!" or "Keeper take you!" are common ones. Feel
free to improvise short prayers to Dol Dorn for wading into
battle, to Olladra before eating, and so on.

Variants: You might be devoted to a particular deity of
the Sovereign Host rather than the entire pantheon. If you
worship the Silver Flame, look at the Templar of the Silver
Flame prestige class instead. If you follow the Path of Light
or revere the Undying Court, your specific motivations and
oaths will vary, but your basic personality could resemble
either this archetype or the Silver Flame templar.

HOUSE RENEGADE

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I prefer not to use my family name, thank you.
-Gaven, half-elf ranger

Sometimes being a member of a dragonmarked house
means power, prestige, and influence. Sometimes it means
living firmly under the thumb of a controlling relative
until you can find a way to escape. Congratulations—you've
found a way.

Adventuring: You adventure because it's better than
the alternative, a tightly controlled life as part of a dragonmarked
house. Your family thinks you should be home,
putting your talents to use in the service of your house.
Your mother wants you where she can keep an eye on you
and make sure you don't get into any trouble. Your father
wants to find you someone appropriate to marry and keep
your children close at hand.

Fundamentally, you adventure because you know your
family hates it. You might not know yet what you want to do
with your life—adventuring might just be something you're
doing to kill time until you figure it out—but you know it
won't involve the work of your house.

Personality: Clearly, you've got a rebellious streak.
You don't necessarily reject all authority, but you certainly
don't like to be under anyone's thumb. You can be sardonic,
cynical, and harsh sometimes, especially when the people
around you start sounding like they think they own you. But
you're not bad at heart. Is it so wrong to want to shape your
own destiny?

Behavior: Even though you've probably been disowned,
you're used to a life of relative luxury, and your
habits and mannerisms reflect that. You prefer to stay in
upper-class hotels rather than common inns, and to feast
in a private dining room rather than squeeze in to a spot at
the board to get your share of stew with the peasants. That
said, you have a lot more respect for the working classes than
most people of your station, and you're not inclined to boss
people around or expect doting service. These people have
aspirations and dreams of their own—you can't followyours
without encouraging them to follow theirs.

Language: You were brought up well, and your manner
of speaking reflects that. You have an educated vocabulary
and a solid grasp of correct grammar. You avoid slang and
vulgar language, unless you intend to shock or provoke.
Of course, house renegades live to shock and provoke,
especially when they know that others have preconceived
notions of how they ought to behave and want to shake up
those opinions.

Variants: You might be a younger child of a noble
family rather than a dragonmarked house, or even a former
rising star in a church hierarchy fleeing from the controlling
influence of a religious mentor. In addition, your
reasons for fleeing your family might vary: Perhaps you
committed a crime, or a change in power in your house left
you out of favor.

HOUSE SCION

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Yes, father, I realize this reflects poorly on our house. I apologize.
—Ural d'Orien, human sorcerer

Forget the noble families of Galifar—the real power lies in
the hands of the dragonmarked houses. You are a member
of one of those houses, and though power comes with any
number of responsibilities, you welcome your familial
duties as a reasonable price to pay for the social, political,
economic, and magical power to which you are heir.

Adventuring: Adventuring has to fit in with the duties
that come to you by virtue of your house membership. With
luck, the two coincide perfectly: You undertake adventures
at the behest of the head of your house or some other prominent
figure (perhaps a parent), performing missions that
advance the aims of the house or simply bring treasures into
its coffers. When you're not so lucky, you still need to bear
your house's interests in mind—looking for opportunities
to advance your own house or deal a setback to a competing
one. Any secrets you unearth or treasures you claim can
benefit your house, and anything that hurts another house
helps yours.

Personality: You were born to power and have come to
view it as your birthright. You can be imperious, arrogant,
and spoiled at times, and at the best of times you are smugly
superior. You can also be calculating, dispassionate, and
even amoral, depending on your alignment—the demands
of your house sometimes do not coincide with the expectations
of traditional morality. You are comfortable in rigid,
well-defined structures of authority, as long as you know
your place in them.

Behavior: You are used to a life of comfort, and take
pains to keep up to that standard while adventuring, perhaps
even to the point of using Leomund's secure shelter while
traveling through the jungle so that you can rest comfortably
at night. Depending on who your adventuring companions
are, you might see their company as a necessary evil for the
work you must do, preferring the company of others while
you are in cities between adventures. You might even spend
the evenings, while your companions are sharing tales
around the campfire, writing letters to your true friends
and dear family members back home.

Language: You were brought up well, and your manner
of speaking reflects it. You have an educated vocabulary
and a solid grasp of correct grammar. Avoid slang, vulgar
language, and even contractions.

Variants: Rather than a member of a dragonmarked
house, you could be part of a noble family, such as one of the
noble houses of Galifar or a prominent family of Aerenal.
Alternatively, you could be part of the rising middle class
in one of Khorvaire's splendid metropolises, born to wealth
without any privilege of name or title.

INNOCENT VICTIM

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Why is all this happening to me?
-Lira Raevan, human bard

Bad things happen to you all the time, but through a combination
of amazing luck, phenomenal resourcefulness,
and maybe a dash of a greater destiny, you always seem to
come through.

Adventuring: Most people adventure because they
choose to, for one reason or another. Not you. If you had
a choice in the matter, you'd be back home living a quiet
life where nothing extraordinary ever happens. But ever
since the day when the Emerald Claw agents burst into your
home looking for you, or you woke up and found yourself
in a strange forest with a dragon saying you were part of the
Prophecy, or you manifested psionic or magical powers you
never knew you had—ever since then, this lightning-rail
ride of a life has been moving so quickly that you don't know
how to jump off and get things back to normal.

Maybe there is something special about you. You
could have unusual powers, or play a key role in a prophecy
(draconic or otherwise), or maybe a shard of an ancient
artifact is embedded in your flesh. For whatever reason,
other people are far more interested in your life than you
yourself used to be. You've managed to keep one step ahead
of them so far—or maybe you haven't, and "they" are your
adventuring companions.

Personality: You are somewhat bewildered about all
the events that have brought you to this point in your life.
You don't understand why people are so interested in you,
and you often wish they'd just leave you alone. You'd rather
not go through all these harrowing adventures, but some
greater force in the world seems to have decreed that adventuring
is your lot in life, so you've had to figure out how to
make the best of it.

Take care not to degenerate into constant whining and
complaining, or your companions will quickly tire of both it
and you. You've been thrust into the spotlight against your
will; if you speak softly and try to deflect that attention,
maybe things will quiet down soon. Also, don't assume that
every adventure should be about you and the people who are
after you. Don't ever believe that you are as important as
people seem to think you are.

Behavior: Cling to the illusion of being an ordinary
person yanked unwillingly into a life of adventure for as
long as possible. Practice your crafting, profession, or
performing skills as if you intend to make a living with
them someday. Rely on your adventuring companions for
some degree of protection, while looking for ways to contribute
materially to any situation without intentionally
meaning to.

Language: You are soft-spoken and unassuming.
Downplay your own importance and any successes you
accomplish. If you kill a grick with your sword—well, that
sure was lucky, wasn't it? And those agents of the Chamber,
they couldn't possibly be looking for you.

Variants: You might suffer from amnesia, and your
adventuring career is an attempt to recover the knowledge
and abilities you have lost. If others are interested in you,
it's because of who you were before losing your memory—in
which case your enemies might hold the secret to uncovering
your own past.

INQUISITIVE

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If you're the ambassador, I'm the Lord of Blades. Now, how about the truth?
—Creilath Movanek, half-elf master inquisitive

As a resident of one of Khorvaire's great cities, you've spent
far too much time immersed in its shadows. You've seen it
all, and nothing fazes you anymore.

Adventuring: Adventuring, to you, is all about investigating
crimes and making sure the criminals get what they're
due. You probe murders, find missing people, stop blackmailers,
and break up smuggling rings. Your investigations
are not necessarily limited to such mundane problems: You
might unmask a rakshasa posing as a city councilor, find the
possessed ancient mask that forced the professor to commit
all those grisly murders, or dispel the magic keeping the
house scion's son in his comatose slumber.

This archetype is best suited for a campaign with a
limited geographical scope, whether it takes place in a
single metropolis (such as Sharn) or hops from city to
city. Occasional adventures might take you out into the
wilderness, but you're most at home in dark alleys and
bustling roadways.

Personality: The city's underbelly can be a bleak place,
and that fact has certainly had an effect on your disposition.
You're so used to corruption and crime that you don't
expect to meet honest people, and you're surprised at acts of
selflessness and sacrifice. "Jaded" doesn't begin to describe
how cynical and bitter you can be in your worst moments.
You've been cheated so many times that you always ask for
money up front. You've seen so much hatred and death that
nothing shocks you at this point—or at least that's the image
you project.

Deep inside, there might be a part of you that still mourns
over every corpse you find sprawled in an alley, still grieves for
the lost soul of humanity and its kin, and still believers there
might be some hope and goodness left in the world. But you
know full well that if anyone sees that tiny part of you, they'll
exploit it—or at least mock it mercilessly.

Behavior: Cultivate behavior that conveys just how
tough you are. Sharpen your sword or fiddle with a dagger
during down time. Never open a door when you can kick it
in. You might be able to talk your way out of tricky situations,
but you should also be prepared to fight your way out:
The kinds of people you deal with usually prefer to fight.

Language: The wisecrack is like an off-hand weapon
for you. In every battle, you can attack with your primary
weapon and get in a verbal barb or two as well. Even when
you're not in combat, your speech reflects your cynicism.

Variants: You might be a freelance investigator or work
for a law-enforcement organization. For a slightly different
take on this archetype, you could work in espionage, focusing
on intrigue among nations or dragonmarked houses
rather than crime on a local scale.

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PLAYING AN INQUISITIVE

There's a fine line between playing an archetype and
parodying a stereotype, and the inquisitive might be the
most prone to crossing that line—if only because the fine
prose of Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) has itself been
subjected to so much parody and unflattering imitation.
Playing an Eberron inquisitive as a bad Philip Marlowe
imitation can drive the whole world into parody. If you
drink Zil brandy, wait for a call on the speaking stone, and
talk like Humphrey Bogart on a bad day, then Eberron starts
to look like a ridiculous parody of the modern world, with
magic simply duplicating all the technological wizardry of
Earth's 1930s.

You can be hard-bitten and tough as nails and still
fit into the magical/medieval world of Eberron. Think
about the essence of your character—a tough nut who
has seen the worst the world has to offer but refuses to
be corrupted by it—and strip away the elements that have
become stereotypical. You don't need to rely on old cliches
of behavior and language.

OUTLANDER

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Your cities have made you soft and weak!
—Corrash, halfling barbarian

Like a wolf cut off from its pack, you are a member of a
barbarian culture (not necessarily an actual barbarian)
away from your tribe. You wander through the civilized
world bewildered and isolated, looking for companions
you can rely on.

Adventuring: Your goals and approach to adventuring
are probably closely linked to the reason you left your
homeland and family. You might be on a quest to find some
item or piece of knowledge of significance to your people—a
relic that can cure the plague ravagingyour clan, a tome that
will reveal the nature of the demon that hunts them, or an
artifact that explains your people's history or some aspect of
it. Alternatively, you might be seeking to prove yourself—to
exonerate yourself of a crime, to win the hand of the chieftain,
or simply to secure your position as an adult in your
community. Or you might have been banished from your
clan for a crime you actually did commit, and are forever
unable to return.

You might eventually grow so accustomed to life among
more civilized people that you don't want to r e t u r n , or
become restless and uneasy among your own people when
you see them again.

Personality: Your attitude toward civilization is your
defining characteristic. Decide how you view the civilized
society around you as well as your sophisticated allies, and
try to see everything around you through that lens. Do you
maintain a superior contempt for their soft and weak ways,
or do you find those ways alluring? Do you wander wideeyed
through the magnificent towers of Sharn, marveling
at the achievements of magic and technology, or do you feel
trapped any time you're forced to remain indoors?
When you return to lands that are more comfortable
and familiar to you, change your behavior drastically—take
on more of a leadership role, or revert to a role like the one
you have in your homeland, whatever that role might be.

Behavior: Most outlanders make some effort to practice
the traditions and rituals of their homeland no matter
how far they travel. You might do this simply out of habit,
even if you repudiate the beliefs and mores of your people.
These minor rituals might include hanging charms around
a sleeping place, pouring out wine to the cardinal directions
before drinking, taking souvenir body parts from slain
foes, or invoking the names of patron spirits or totems at
frequent intervals.

Language: Even if you are not entirely comfortable
speaking Common, you are just as capable as anyone of
expressing complex thoughts and sophisticated ideas in
your own language. Scatter phrases of your native language
into your speech. Struggle for words sometimes, as if
trying to find the right way to express something complex
or idiomatic that comes naturally to you in your native
tongue. Avoid accents unless you can pull one off without
sounding goofy.

Variants: Warforged as a race are similar to outlanders
in that human society can seem strange and alien to them,
but they have nothing to compare it to, except perhaps a life
in the military during the Last War. As an alternative, your
background might be considerably more exotic: Perhaps
you were raised by wolves or a lammasu, or brought up on a
different plane of existence.

RESTLESS WANDERER

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It's time to stretch my legs, flex my sword arm, and give this quill something
worthwhile to record.
—Thunvarch, half-orc bard

The world is a big place, and you have no desire to settle
down until you've seen it all. You move from place to place
as freely as the wind—blowing through the boring spots,
lingering for a while in more interesting locations, and
sometimes kicking up a storm.

Adventuring: Adventures are what happens to you
while you travel. If you seek out adventure, it's because a
place sounds interesting, not because there's anything in
particular you want to accomplish there. You are eager to
visit new places, try new modes of transportation, see creatures
you've never seen before, and (at least to some extent)
do things you've never done. If you can also learn new abilities,
acquire more treasure, and otherwise improve yourself
along the way, that's even better.

Personality: You've always had trouble sitting still.
Perhaps you grew up in a tiny village where there was
nothing to do, and yearned for a taste of the wider world.
Some experience of the world beyond your village might
have sparked your wanderlust: Perhaps a traveling troupe of
actors or musicians came through, or a party of adventurers
stayed in the village for a couple of weeks while exploring
nearby ruins. That experience gave substance to your
dreams of a different life—you might even have followed
the travelers out of town, launching your life of wandering
in a dramatic way. You still retain some of that youthful,
wide-eyed dreaminess and a sense that the world is full of
wonders just waiting to be explored. You are not necessarily
naive about life's harsh realities, but you retain a sense
of wonder that no amount of bitter experience has yet been
able to quash.

You might have a particular interest that gives a focus
to your wandering. Perhaps you are particularly drawn to
spectacular natural wonders such as the Goradra Gap or the
Guardian Trees. Or maybe you're fascinated with ancient
ruins, great monuments, or exotic cultures.

Behavior: Stay on the move. Whenever you feel that a
dungeon room, a site, a nation, or even a continent has shown
you all it has to reveal, it's time to move on. You can spend all
the time you want searching the rooms of a dungeon—as long
as there are interesting things to find. But you should be the
first member of your party to call a halt to tedium whenever
it arises and get things moving again.

Language: Your mind wanders even faster than your
body, making your speech seem disconnected at times.
Pepper your conversation with wide-eyed observations
about the sights, sounds, and smells of whatever place
you're exploring now and comparisons to places you've
been before.

Variants: Not all wanderers are motivated by wanderlust.
Instead, you might be on the run—a fugitive hunted
by agents of a widespread organization, such as the Dreaming
Dark, the Aurum, the Chamber, the Lords of Dust,
or a dragonmarked house. If you stay in any one place too
long, they're certain to find you. So you keep moving, you
try to avoid attracting notice, and you don't talk much
about your past.

SCHOLAR-ADVENTURER

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What I haven't figured out yet is whether there's any connection between the
Tablet of Shummarak and the Place of Imprisonment mentioned in the Ser -
pentes Fragments. If there is, that could explain a lot.
—Janik Martell, human extreme explorer

Eberron is rich in history, and equally rich in people who
study history. Not content to sit in a library surrounded
by dusty tomes and crumbling potsherds, you do your
research in the field—whether in the cyclopean ruins of
Xen'drik or the ancient tunnels of Dorasharn beneath the
City of Towers.

Adventuring: For you, history is about discovering
the mysteries of Eberron's ancient empires by exploring
the ruins of Xen'drik's lost kingdoms and the remnants
of goblin civilization in Khorvaire. You yearn to discover
mighty artifacts and lost magical secrets. You hunger for
knowledge about the past, and you have never been content
to gain your knowledge from other people or the books
they write. You want to d r i n k from the source, and that
means adventure.

Personality: You combine a solid grounding in academic
research and established knowledge with a thirst for
action and adventure. You have an inquisitive mind and are
always wondering about the reasons why things happen and
possible connections between apparently unrelated events.
Your collection of scholarly tomes is like a group of old
friends—you don't necessarily see them every day, but you're
happy to spend hours in their company whenever you can.
Your name is well known in academic circles: Some of your
fellow scholars praise you to the skies, while others dismiss
you as a hack.

Behavior: Take notes on everything. Copy diagrams
and inscriptions into your notebooks. Collect samples of
body parts from unusual monsters—or even entire monsters,
if you can transport them. Treat shattered ceramics
and magical relics as equally interesting, even as you recognize
that magic items are more valuable and far more useful.
You might be hesitant to use anything or go anywhere until
you have properly researched it, or you might rush in to do
your research on-site.

Look for opportunities to use your various areas of
knowledge. They might not happen very often, but that
just makes it all the more memorable when you do glean
some useful information from your studies of architecture
and engineering!

Language: Drop the names of scholars both renowned
and obscure into your conversations. Introduce theories
and observations by citing tangentially relevant research.
When you encounter a monster, try to come up with a useful
reminder about its capabilities to share with your companions,
gleaned from the knowledge you've accumulated.

Variants: You need not be obsessed with ancient history
and long-lost secrets—the world has its share of contemporary
secrets as well. What caused the Mourning? What is the
truth behind the Blood of Vol? What lies in the interior of
Argonnessen? Who are the mysterious rulers of Riedra?
These questions are out there, waiting for you to explore
them and plumb their depths.

STREETWISE SCOUNDREL

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Don't ask how I know this guy, I just know this guy who can help us out,
all right?
—R'kash, shifter rogue

Not every hero is born to privilege in a noble family or a
dragonmarked house. You certainly weren't, though you
might hesitate to call yourself a hero. The streets are your
home—the gutters, t r u t h be told—and you know the back
alleys and the criminals of your home city as well as you
know your own gear.

Adventuring: If there's a better way than adventuring
to earn a quick fortune, you haven't found it yet. It's
a perfect deal: You can make use of the survival skills you
learned growingup on the streets, you gain some measure of
respectability, and you occasionally find bags of gold pieces,
which hold more money than you can imagine anyone actually
using. (Though you're more than willing to try.)

The driving force in your adventuring life is, whether
you admit it or not, a burning desire to escape the circumstances
you grew up in. You want to make a life for yourself
that's better than the poverty and crime that defined your
youth. You want money, certainly, but more than that you
want respect, dignity, a sense of meaning and purpose, and
a shred of hope. You definitely do not want to die, alone
and friendless, and be left to rot in an abandoned sewer
tunnel. In your adventuring career, that's one risk you
would just as soon not take. You want to live to enjoy your
hard-earned wealth.

Personality: You know the ways of the street. You're
acquainted with unsavory characters, you know how to get
certain things done even if they're not quite legal, and you
have more than a passing familiarity with the slang, signals,
and methods used by criminals. You might not be an outlaw
yourself—at least, not now—but the criminal underworld is
your world, for better or worse. You have a sense of ethics
and honor, primarily focused on the idea that you don't turn
on your friends. But actions that might make a paladin of
the Silver Flame cringe are just the way things get done to
your mind—actions such as paying bribes, fencing valuable
goods, or stealing magic tomes from your enemies. You're
wary of officers of the law, even if you have committed no
crimes. You've had too many bad experiences with the town
watch arresting you or your friends for no good reason other
than your poverty.

Behavior: You're fidgety. You pick things up and put
them back down, fiddle with moving parts, or pace if you
have nothing interesting to hold in your hands. When you're
in a small room, you stay on your feet near the door—you
don't want to be trapped. When your companions are talking
to the city watch, you stay in the back of the group or
out of sight completely. But when they need to find the lost
goblin shrine in the depths of Sharn, you step right up and
lead the way. That's your chance to shine.

Language: You speak the language of the street. Slang
is your native language, and your grammar is probably poor
by the standards of a noble or otherwise well-educated individual.
You talk tough to back up your swagger and wisecrack
to deflect any probing questions about your background.
You probably know words and expressions that would make
a sailor blush, and you might forget not to use them in
respectable company—especially when you're very angry.

Variants: Perhaps you were not born poor, but fell
into poverty at a young age. Your parents might have been
disowned by their dragonmarked house, or they staked all
their money on a business venture that failed. Perhaps they
were natives of Cyre who lost everything they had on the
Day of Mourning. In this case, your driving ambition is
not so much a matter of wanting what you could never have
as a child, but of regaining the status that should have been
yours by birthright—the wealth and power you deserve.

WAR-TORN HERO

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After a hundred years of fighting, any idiot could see that the whole war
was pointless.
—Dania ir'Vran,-human fighter

Khorvaire is largely defined by the travails of the Last War,
and that is just as true of its adventurers. You fought on the
front lines of the Last War. You killed a great many enemy
soldiers, and you carry plenty of scars—on your body and
on your soul.

Adventuring: You adventure because you can't think
of anything else to do. You joined the army as soon as you
were old enough and never learned a peacetime trade.
Alter years spent in war, you can't just go back to your place
of birth and learn to be a blacksmith. Your home might
not even be there anymore. Adventuring seems like the
only option left to you, and it offers the opportunity to
continue using the skills you learned on the battlefield.
In some cases, it might even be a literal continuation of
your wartime activities—such as chasing Valenar raiders
across the Talenta Plains or racing Emerald Claw agents
to Xen'drik ruins.

As a member of an adventuring party, you have a sense
of belonging and companionship. You have a steady source
of wealth, more than enough to live comfortably. You have
some sense of purpose and meaning in your life. You've
made a reasonable approximation of the one thingyou really
want and can never again have: a home where you belong.

Personality: The war savaged your soul far worse
than it could ever hurt your body, and you remain bitterly
wounded. Your life is a contradiction. Violence sickens you.
You saw so much death and mutilation in the course of the
war that you had to steel yourself to it; still, you can never
shake the waves of disgust that course through you when
violence is necessary. But you live by violence, and you're
not sure you know how to give it up.

Behavior: You cling to the discipline of military life
because it is comfortable and familiar. You rise early in the
morning and practice weapon or spell routines. You like to
know the chain of command in your adventuring party and
prefer clear orders about standard operating procedure.
Even if some chaotic part of your belief system chafes at
these disciplines, a larger part of you relies on them to give
meaning and structure to every day. Without them, your life
might just fall apart.

Language: Yours is the language of combat. You have a
rich vocabulary to describe the maneuvers of the battlefield
and various aspects of your daily life. You speak of base camps
and rations, of reconnaissance and sabotage. To some extent,
just like your practice of military discipline, using military
terminology helps to keep your life ordered in your mind.

Variants: The warforged as a race are almost by definition
war-torn heroes. However, their emotional response
to the transition from wartime to peace varies widely,
and warforged are less bitter and wounded than war-torn
humanoids. Awarforged has no memory of a life before the
war to idealize and attempt to recreate. Warforged find it
extremely difficult to shake military practices and jargon
that are part of their earliest formative experiences.

Archetypes Done.

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Please read through these and think about your choice. we will discuss it during character gen. Please do not be afraid to use these as a jumping offpoint so long as you take into consideration your character's reasons for adventuring, her personality, her behavior, and her speech patterns.

I will be granting, and maybe even penalizing player's action points based on their role-playing.