Whether it came from army training, time with a mercenary band, a military education, or some less-conventional source, you’ve been taught the art of war. Battle is far more than just swinging a sword, after all, and you likely spend as much time with tactical manuals and maps as you do conventional weapons.

Where did you gain this level of tactical ability? Do you hire your skills out to the highest bidder or did you take jobs on moral grounds? Or do you just seek out excitement and adventure to test your skills?

You’ve had to make a living with your fists, but you’ve never had time to develop a particularly attractive style of fighting. The world is a rough place to make it in, and if that meant breaking a chair over your opponent’s head or taking them down with a grapple, then so be it.

With this brutal fighting style at your disposal, did you seek out excitement and opponents or was fighting for pay merely a grim reality? Did you leave a trail of broken bodies or reluctant admirers in your wake?

+1 to Strength or Dexterity, and +1 to Constitution.

Through intense training by a master of the art, you’ve made your body a deadly weapon and you have speed and precision to use it effectively. What called you to leave such training in favor of adventuring?

This type of skill doesn’t come lightly. How did you receive such training? Who was your teacher? What kind of combat did you study? How do you use it? Have you chosen to dedicate yourself to this path, or do you use this experience to further your studies elsewhere?

Whether you were driven by personal vendetta, fueled by stories of renowned figures, or something else entirely, you’ve made a career out of hunting monsters. This is dirty, dangerous work, but not as fatal as the average person might believe—an individual skeleton or giant rat can pose a serious threat to a commoner, but with the right tools and preparation even an amatuer hunter stands a better-than-even chance. It’s a good living for those willing to put up with the risks…and the ichor.

No one can be sure how a fey chooses what mortals to spare, transform, help—or simply abide for a time. Your unlikely host may have been a creepy gremlin, a stern satyr, or some similar denizen of the Dreaming. They spared you from many of that realm’s dangers all while you somehow resisted the inevitable change the Land of Faerie visits upon most mortals who remain too long. Even so, now no matter where you travel you carry a bit of the fey realm with you.

You left adventuring for your own reasons and set up to what you long considered to be an honest profession. Whether it was tending bar at a tavern, mending broken tools at a blacksmith, or some other work, it has kept you in relatively good shape, even though you may be constantly looking over your shoulder.

What caused you to quit a life of adventure? What drags you back? What are you leaving behind?

Most researchers take a very slow, methodical approach to their studies, carefully changing one variable at a time and recording every boring result. You, however, take a far more proactive approach, often to unearthly—or even explosive—results. This disturbing, unconventional, or dangerous undertaking may have cost you friends, respect, and even a digit or two. Perhaps you conducted your experiments in secret because of the stigma attached to your field of study, or maybe you joyfully invited the entire academy to view your ongoing work.

You were raised as a cube herder, a hard and dangerous profession with long days and lonely nights. You’ve packed it all in to seek your fortune as an adventurer, far from the familiar acrid smells of your herd.

Why have you gotten out of the saddle? What caused you to leave the range, perhaps never to return? What did you leave behind you—and whom?

You have done time. Quite a lot of time, in fact; enough to fully acclimate to the life of a prisoner, whether you deserv ed it or not. Your time incarcerated has shaped you as an individual and it is highly unlikely that you bear much resemblance to the person you were before you went inside.