Former Adventurer

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?

Ability Score Increases: +1 to Constitution and one other ability score.

Skill Proficiencies:: Insight and either Animal Handling, Medicine, Nature, Performance, or Religion.

Tool Proficiencies:: Your choice of one type of artisan’s tools, smith’s tools, herbalism kit, or sewing kit and one kind of vehicle of your choice.

Suggested Equipment (Cost 3-52gold): One set of tools granted by this background, common clothes

Feature: Moments of Faded Glory. Though in many ways you have slipped from the heights of your prowess, moments of greatness do occur. Once per long rest, when you roll a critical on an attack or to cast a spell, you add an expertise die to your next saving throw or attack roll, whichever comes first

Adventures and Advancement. Some are able to wed their lives as adventurers to that of a humble shopkeep or other mundane profession, and their businesses often benefit from their reputations. When you gain a stronghold and its type matches what you did for a profession outside of adventuring, you gain an additional follower above and beyond what the stronghold would normally award. As people connect your name with the business, it can support you at one higher level of lifestyle than you otherwise would be.

Former Adventurer Connections

1. A former enemy turned lover or best friend with whom you have made your new life
2. A compatriot in arms who never left the life behind and has vowed to bring you back into the fold—by force if necessary
3. Someone you helped in your past life, set on repaying the debt.
4. Your one remaining fan or follower from a time of past glory.
5. The blacksmith or other artisan who worked on your famed weapon or artifact.
6. An adventuring companion from the old days you retired with, who has taken a vow of peace.
7. A companion you—wrongfully—heard was dead.
8. A old friend or lover whose affection has long turned to hatred.
9. A former ally who thought they saw you die.
10. An ally who thinks your coming out of retirement is a betrayal of your new ideals.

Former Adventurer Mementos

1. The weapon that carried you through countless past battles, which has spent the last few years gathering dust.
2. A cherished cameo or piece of jewelry from a fallen ally.
3. A piece of treasure you gained on a long ago quest that you can’t even remember.
4. A small brass insect that is made of gears and other intricacies, the purpose of which you never knew.
5. A bent and twisted old lock pick, no longer usable.
6. A lock of hair of someone who you used to know
7. A jar of sand, soil, or water from one of the furthest places you’d ever been from home.
8. A seedling in a small pot that you have tended for over a decade, but it never seems to grow or even need water.
9. The weapon your best friend wielded, right up until they died
10. Broken pieces of armor or a weapon that you have been unable to part with.