The first thing you notice about this adventurer is
1
the pus-yellow fruiting bodies of some fungal infection peeking out the ends of their sleeves.
2
the cauliflower-burst of their nasal cartilage.
3
the blood leaking through the bandages wrapped around their torso.
4
the flamboyant ruffles of their fashion.
5
the glinting of golden disks punched through their earlobes.
6
their copious, iridescent sweat, and their habit of shying away from open flames.
7
the weeping boils that hang from their neck.
8
that they always stand with their back to the wall, never look at any one thing for more than a few seconds.
9
their dragging limp.
10
that they’ve got more scars than smooth skin.
11
their side-glancing glass eye, and the way they bob their head like a pigeon when they stare.
12
their purple, potion-stained lips.
13
the religious tattoos, one for every faith, that ring their limbs like cilices.
14
their dented, rusty hook-hand.
15
the Glasgow smile splitting their cheeks.
16
their awful stench, poorly concealed by cheap perfume.
17
their mane of greasy hair.
18
their bulbous, gin-blossomed nose.
19
their mouthful of pearly dentures.
20
their raw red fingertips, chewed down to the cuticles.
D20
This adventurer wields
1
a moldering grimoire, spitting words not meant for human throats to warp the world.
2
honeyed words, deep pockets, and a squad of ferociously professional mercenaries.
3
grenades and a custom multi-barrelled pistol.
4
a stiletto and a knack for sneaking close to sink it silently between ribs.
5
the claws and acid-spraying sphincters inflicted on them by mutagen exposure.
6
fragile glass globes swirling with noxious vapours
within, one that suffocates, one that melts skin (and only skin), one
that congeals into glue, a new infliction with each.
7
a lead-weighted net and barbed spear.
8
a pair of flails and a dancing step that somehow passes under every swing of the two.
9
but a lyre, the strummed strings of which stir the hearts of beasts and stones.
10
hyperdeveloped muscles and crushing fists.
11
daggers and javelins chiselled from the bones of monsters.
12
a sword and shield of verdigrised bronze wrested from the withered hands of a raided barrow.
13
a blowgun and darts loaded with diseased and envenomated flesh.
14
a bow and the loyalty of a pack of war-dogs.
15
the dregs of divine potence leaked from a dying god.
16
a great flamberge that could cleave a man’s neck in its inward curve.
17
a rapier and a mastery of fencing esoterica.
18
a rousing zealotry and a brutally flanged mace.
19
a keen eye and an arquebus.
20
a hive of locusts that share their face, and lair within their flesh.
D20
This adventurer used to
1
be an itinerant farmhand.
2
peddle ineffective medicines to ignorant folk.
3
be a distant heir to a failing noble house.
4
be a fur trapper on the wild frontier.
5
be a shepherd who moonlighted as a poacher on royal forestland.
6
be an often-chastised novitiate in an ascetic cult.
7
be a ratcatcher who sometimes tangled with bigger, more awful vermin.
8
be the squire of an impoverished hedge-knight.
9
be the herald of a burgher with pretension to aristocracy.
10
manage an apiary.
11
toil in lung-blackening mines.
12
be a charcoal-burner.
13
fight for a fistful of coins.
14
be a barber-surgeon.
15
be a minor government functionary.
16
a harpoonist on a whaling vessel.
17
be a tosher dredging up rate treasures from filth.
18
be a lamplighter in the city.
19
be a prostitute.
20
be an urchin begging and stealing on the street.
D20
They started adventuring
1
out of lust for gold.
2
to escape the merciless arm of the law.
3
because they’ve got an extravagant death-wish.
4
because they romantically idealized the lifestyle.
5
to prove to themself that they’re brave.
6
to escape their reputation as the village idiot of their home.
7
to follow their crush, who was another adventurer.
8
due to a burning curiousity about the buried mysteries of the world.
9
because that was the vocation that most tolerated their taste for violence.
10
for the excitement of the open road and opened grave.
11
to earn the bride price set by their beloved’s father.
12
to pay off their gambling debts.
13
to earn remittances for their impoverished community.
14
to exterminate monsters and stake out a safe territory for humanity.
15
at the behest of a mystical vision.
16
to find a cure for a mysterious disease that uncoiled their mortality.
17
to kill acceptable targets with impunity.
18
because they believed they deserved a higher destiny than the one they seemed on track for.
19
as a step along their quest for meaning.
20
to bring glory and riches to their people.
D20
This adventurer’s darkest secret
1
is that they once killed their partner over a huge haul.
2
is their inhuman heritage.
3
is that they’ve come to worship the dark itself, which whispers to them when they go down below.
4
is that they’re intermittently possessed by the spirit of a monster they killed.
5
is that they accidentally resurrected an ancient horror in its prison-tomb, now bound to their blood.
6
is that they sold their soul to a grinning toad-thing to survive an encounter that killed the rest of their party.
7
is that they faced their doppelgänger, and now they’re not sure whether they’re the original or the copy that survived.
8
is that they earned enough to retire comfortably some time ago, and continue to risk life and sanity for the thrill of it alone.
9
is the depravity they must engage in to feel anything anymore.
10
is the criminal connections they cultivated to fence their loot.
11
is the foul child they begat with an inchoate thing in the bowels of the earth.
12
is that they seek deadly vengeance against a powerful patron that led them to near-doom.
13
is that this isn’t the world they were born in.
14
is that an oracle foretold that they would bring a terrible fate on those they hold dear.
15
is that they stole a dead adventurer’s identity to escape justice.
16
is the addiction that eats up any winnings they wrest from the jaws of death.
17
is that they faked their successes and paid off the spreading of stories of their exploits.
18
is that they sold out their fellows to tax-men and debt-collectors for kickbacks.
19
is that they’ve transcended mere humanity, and must force themselves back into mortal guise to blend in.
20
is that they allied themself with beastly abhumans.
