Keeper

Your life has been chiefly defined by your charge to protect a great treasure or secret which must be kept from the prying eyes of outsiders. Whether you were tasked with protecting a sacred artifact, concealing the true heir to the throne, or maintaining the seal on an ancient curse, the time has come to step into the wider world.

How have events conspired to make you leave your post? Will the forces that threaten your charge overwhelm you unless you actively seek them out? Did other members of your order banish you for disgraceful actions? Or have you realized you were deceived into defending a great evil and are now seeking to make things right?

The Keeper background can be used to represent membership in the Silence (see Notable Organizations: The Silence), but it may also be used to represent enrollment in other secret societies with similar goals.

Ability Score Increases:+1 to Wisdom or Charisma and one other ability score.

Skill Proficiencies: Two from Deception, Insight, Intimidation, and Perception.

Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit

Suggested Equipment (Cost 33 gold): Common clothes, disguise kit, signet ring, vestments

Feature: Duty of Care. You may select an object, location, or creature other than yourself to serve as your charge, working with your Narrator to make sure that your choice fits well within the game. You gain an expertise die on Insight and Perception checks to identify direct threats to your charge, as well as on Deception and Intimidation checks made to directly protect your charge. You may change your charge with permission from your Narrator, though keep in mind such a change likely involves a significant shift in your circumstances, morals, or goals.

Adventures and Advancement. There are those in the world who would seek to abuse, destroy, steal, or profane the secret your protect. If you are a member of an order, other members are willing to provide you (and potentially your party) with a lifestyle dependant on their own, and potentially with other forms of assistance on your travels, as long as doing so does not endanger their own mission. If you keep your charge faithfully, you may be promoted through the ranks, gaining a cover identity that provides you an appropriate lifestyle as well as the free service of up to 2 acolytes or 1 scout , depending on your needs.

Alternatively, if you are acting on your own, you may need to selectively bring others into the fold in order to assist you with keeping your charge. As your reputation spreads in certain circles, you gain the free services of NPCs relevant to your mission and skills and whose maximum total CR is no more than 1. Examples include: 2 apprentice mages , scouts , or soldiers ; 4 acolytes ; 8 bandits , cultists , guards , or warriors .

Keeper Connections

1. The elder who first inducted you into your charge.
2. The amateur sleuth who suspects your secret.
3. The love interest you must not reveal your charge to for their own protection.
4. The adolescent who stumbled into your secret, whom you must now bring into your confidence.
5. Your equal and opposite in the ranks of the enemy organization who always seems to have a leg up on you.
6. The small child who serves as your charge and who does not understand their importance.
7. The thief who stole one of the treasures in your charge and whom you are now hunting.
8. The small business owner who is secretly a member of your order.
9. Your former comrade and friend who betrayed their charge.
10. The disembodied voice that has haunted you ever since you took up your charge.

Keeper Mementos

1. A tome in an unknown language containing the secrets of your charge.
2. A single piece from a once-renowned artifact, now shattered.
3. A rough charcoal sketch of a family member: your only remaining possession from your past life.
4. A false tooth filled with an ingestible poison that you are instructed to break upon capture.
5. An ornamental board game piece which can identify you to other members of your order.
6. A historical document that proves the identity of the true heir to a kingdom or large organization.
7. Scars from when you withstood torture, either to keep your charge secret or to prove you could be trusted upon induction.
8. An exhaustive list of the names of everyone who knows your charge—now if only you knew who they were...
9. A locked box containing your charge which resists all attempts to open it. Someday, you’ve been told, someone will come to you with the key.
10. A music box whose melody serves as the password to your order’s headquarters.