Once you were drawn deeply into a hivemind, such that you lost your sense of self entirely. When the hivemind ended, you had to rebuild your identity, and even now decades later you sometimes feel like nothing mattered as much as when you were bonded so fully with the minds of others. You have a knack for understanding people’s thoughts, but likely have drifted through life, perpetually disappointed by the shallowness of all your relationships, accomplishing little of note. Consider what has shaken you out of this long fog to begin adventuring.

You lived for years alone in a remote shrine, cave, monastery, or elsewhere away from the world. Among your daily tasks you had lots of time for introspection. 

Why were you alone? Were you performing penance? In exile or hiding? Tending a shrine or holy spot? Grieving?

Spirits exist. It’s a simple fact of reality that most people forget until the specter of some long forgotten soul appears before them. But for you, it’s a constant reality. For some, the spirit that follows them has been there since childhood, as an imaginary friend or a monster in the dark. For others, the dead come at a later date, often in the wake of a terrible tragedy.

You were raised a farmer, an occupation where the money is short and the work days are long. You’ve become an adventurer, a career where the money is plentiful but your days—if you’re not careful—may be all too short.

Why did you beat your plowshare into a sword? Do you seek adventure, excitement, or revenge? Do you leave behind a thriving farmstead or a smoking ruin?

Your homeland is barred to you and you wander strange lands. You will never be mistaken for a local but you find ready acceptance among other adventurers, many of which are as rootless as you are.

Are you a banished noble? A refugee from war or from an undead uprising? A dissident or a criminal on the run? Or a stranded traveler from an unreachable distant land?

You were trained as a servant of a particular god or gods. Whether or not you have access to divine magic, you are authorized to perform the rites of your faith, and you are recognized and respected by its faithful.

What gods do you worship? Why did you leave the confines of your temple and take up a life of adventure? Have you turned your back on your faith, or do you seek to advance it?