Every hero has something that drives them forward, an inner spark or outward goal that compels them to risk everything for a life of adventure. Choosing a destiny provides important roleplaying cues and features that help shape your character’s identity. Why are they an adventurer? What drives them into a life of danger? Is destiny thrust upon them by circumstance, or do they have a burning desire for a future they wish to claim for their own? 

Motivation

Each destiny has a table of example motivations that represents the heart of your character’s desire to be an adventurer. Feel free to select a motivation, determine one randomly, or create one that you feel matches the destiny.

Inspiration

The Narrator awards inspiration, a resource which grants you an edge in important moments, when you roleplay your character according to your destiny. Each destiny has a source of inspiration which describes acts of roleplaying that should be rewarded with inspiration (although it remains at the Narrator’s discretion). Additionally, the Narrator can award inspiration whenever they feel a character has been particularly clever, engaging, or heartfelt in their roleplaying.

Once you have inspiration, you can save it indefinitely. Whenever you or an ally you can see makes an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check, you may spend your inspiration to grant advantage to that roll. 

Alternatively, you can spend inspiration to use the inspiration feature unique to your chosen destiny. 

You either have inspiration or you don’t; if you already have inspiration and do something worth rewarding inspiration, you do not gain a second use of inspiration.

Fulfilling Your Destiny

Each destiny includes a fulfillment feature that you gain when you achieve your destiny, a momentous event usually at the end of a major story arc in the narrative (indicated by the Narrator). Even if your destiny remains outside of your grasp, it is close enough at hand that you automatically gain its fulfillment feature when you reach 16th level.

If you fulfill your destiny early in a campaign, at the Narrator’s discretion you may select an additional destiny. You retain your original destiny’s features and gain the source of inspiration and inspiration feature of your new destiny. You cannot gain a second fulfillment feature. 

Changing Your Destiny

Motives change over time, as do the stories we tell. Whenever you gain a class level, you may choose to change your destiny. You lose any features provided by your current destiny and select a new destiny, gaining its source of inspiration and inspiration features. 

Alignment Traits

Some destinies or class features grant an alignment trait: Chaotic, Evil, Good, or Lawful. Alignment represents a common moral disposition, and some items or spells may affect creatures with an alignment differently. You can never have two opposed alignment traits (Chaotic and Lawful, or Evil and Good).

The next step in creating your character’s origin story is choosing their background. A character’s background tells a story about the life they have chosen to lead, separate from the culture they were raised in. This step can be used to tell nearly any story; how your character became an adventurer, why they claim a culture other than the one associated with their heritage, or how they began their journey towards finding their place in the world. 

While picking a background does not have to complete your character’s story, it provides a sturdy base for developing that story. A character’s background typically reflects the individual training they have sought out or been given, rather than the common heritage and culture which they shared with their first community. One of the most important questions you can ask when choosing your background is how does this relate to your character’s current adventuring status? Did they leave a job they loved to adventure out of a sense of duty, or were they forced out of their home? Did they spend their inheritance on adventuring gear in search of excitement, or did they save their meager wages until they could embark on a journey bigger than themselves? After being dealt their cards in life, how did they make the most of it—or did they set off in search of a new hand? 

The backgrounds in this chapter provide mechanical benefits, such as ability score increases and proficiencies, as well as more roleplay-oriented benefits. As with the other origin sections, you gain the benefits of only one background. The following sections appear in the descriptions for most backgrounds. 

Ability Score Increase

Each background increases one of a character’s ability scores by 1 and allows you to increase a second ability score of your choice. This reflects the abilities utilized or valued the most by that background. 

Proficiencies

Most backgrounds grant proficiency with two skills. 

Additionally, many backgrounds grant proficiency with an appropriate tool set (or multiple sets). 

If your character would gain the same proficiency from multiple areas, such as a heritage or cultural trait or class feature, they may instead choose a new proficiency of the same type (skill or tool).

Languages

Like cultures, your background can also allow you to learn additional languages. Provided there is no disability or condition that prevents them from doing so, characters are considered to be able to speak, read, write, and sign the languages granted by their background. 

Connections

Each background provides examples of one acquaintance, ally, or enemy that has had an effect on your character’s life. This could be a childhood friend, a sparring partner, or even a business competitor. Make sure to include your Narrator when choosing your connection; you never know when they’ll show back up.

Equipment

Suggested equipment sets are included with each background, along with an associated gold cost. 

Memento

Each background includes options for a memento. This is a sentimental item reflective of your background and the occurrences that have built you into who you are, typically worth less than 30 gold.

Background Feature

Every background comes with a feature that helps determine how your character interacts with the world and people around them. While they rarely provide a set mechanical benefit, they can provide you with a reliable way to find information, shelter, or even financial support.

The second step in the origin creation process is choosing your character’s culture. This is the culture they were raised in, or that of their parents, and does not need to be related to their heritage; a character’s culture can be used to represent their past as a refugee, adoption into a new family, or being raised outside of their heritage for any other reason. The culture you choose provides your character with a number of proficiencies and traits that they would have learned through living amongst that culture, or that members of that culture are often trained in. 

For each heritage option presented, there are a handful of suggested cultural options. When building your character’s origin, you can choose only one culture to gain traits from. Each culture listed in this chapter includes a description of what sort of life a character from that culture would experience—this description can range from the morals and traditions instilled in them to how they found themselves a part of that culture to begin with. The following sections appear in the description for most cultures.

Cultural Traits

Each culture contains a range of traits. You gain all of the traits associated with your chosen culture, unless the text says otherwise.

Languages

This section details the languages that a character can read, speak, write, and sign, provided there is no disability or condition that prevents them from doing so. When given a choice of language, consider choosing one from the Languages sidebar that further brings your character to life—this decision could be impacted by their family, previous occupations, or even a special interest.

The narrator may include additional languages based on the game’s setting, but the following languages are a default part of Level Up: Abyssal, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Common, Deep Speech, Draconic, Dwarvish, Elvish, Giant, Gnoll, Gnomish, Goblin, Halfling, Ignan, Infernal, Orc, Primordial, Sylvan, Terran, Undercommon.

Signing. You must have at least one hand free to communicate by sign, and the creature you are communicating with must be able to see you. When attempting to make subtle signs, to remain unnoticed you must succeed on a Sleight of Hand check against the passive Perception scores of observers.

Narrator Note: Some cultures do not place the same emphasis on differentiated genders as other cultures might. Gender differentiation in various languages can be limited, and outsiders can experience culture shock at the gender equality and ambiguity in societies new to them. Most of these cultures draw from the same pool of names regardless of gender with some pronunciations of each name occasionally belying a subtle, often unintentional gendered inflection. People raised in such a culture find it important not to get too upset with minor mispronunciations, and in fact many accommodate foreigners by stating the most appropriate pronouns in the guests’ language and asking for their pronouns in return.

The first step in the origin creation process is deciding on a heritage such as a dwarf, elf, or halfling. Each of the eight heritages listed in this chapter include unique, biologically inherited traits as well as details about their physical appearances. While this may seem like the most important step, keep in mind that nurture plays as much of a role in development as nature; while you may be used to seeing fantasy media portraying lithe, agile elves, the culture and background you choose can provide the stepping stone needed to create a hulking elven berserker. While it may affect how the world perceives them, an adventurer should never be limited by their heritage.

When building your character’s origin, you can choose only one heritage to gain traits from. The Mixed Heritage rule should be consulted for characters with multiple heritages. 

The following sections appear in the descriptions for most heritages.

Age

This section details the average age at which a character of this heritage is considered to have reached adulthood, as well as their typical life span. Your character can be of any age, which could also be an opportunity to explain away significantly low or high ability scores. 

Size

All creatures are assigned a size, ranging from Tiny to Gargantuan. Medium and Small are the most common sizes for adventurers. 

Speed

While other factors may influence how fast you are, each heritage has a base Speed. This determines how far you can move on your turn during combat and while traveling. 

Heritage Gift

In addition to the traits granted to all characters of the same heritage, some include multiple gifts for you to choose from to further diversify your character. When multiple options are presented, you may choose only one heritage gift.

Paragon Gift

Later in their adventuring career, each heritage grants a paragon feature. This could be a completely new feature, or something that improves or offers a new way to use a trait already granted by the heritage.

Any Culture

You can choose any culture for your character, even if it is not listed alongside your character’s heritage. A dwarf can grow up in a wood elf culture , and a tiefling can hail from a cosmopolitan city.

In addition to the cultures generally associated with each heritage, there are also several general cultures you can choose from.

Mixed Heritage

With your Narrator’s approval, you can choose a heritage gift from a heritage other than the one you originally chose; this allows for the easy creation of adventurers with parents of two different heritages, or use of bases other than human for heritages such as tieflings. For more flavor, you and your Narrator may even decide that this affects things such as physical appearance, life span, or size in a way that is unique to your character.

What makes your character who they are? What have they experienced? When building your character, their upbringing—and by extension the culture they were raised in—can have as much of an impact as their heritage. By splitting your adventurer’s origin into four parts— Heritage , Culture , Background , and Destiny —there is ample opportunity to create wildly diverse characters with skill sets that reflect their lives in the most accurate way possible.

Building Your Origin Story

The prevalence of each heritage and culture can vary between various settings and different campaigns. Only you know what story you are trying to tell with your character, and only you know the best way to build that character’s origin. Anything is possible in a magical world and all of the heritages , cultures , and backgrounds presented in this chapter—as well as those you might build yourself—are viable options for an adventurer of any class . However, to ensure your character fits your specific game and setting, you should always have a discussion with your Narrator about the character options available to you prior to character creation. 

Your heritage solely influences your character’s physical appearance and traits, while your culture influences those traits that would be learned or developed over time. Your background reflects the path you have chosen to take, or a path you have been pulled into, independent of your heritage or culture . This grants you things like proficiencies with skills , languages, and tools, and bonuses to certain ability scores to represent the areas of your life that have seen intentional improvement. Finally, your destiny describes your character’s goals and motivations. The following sections are designed to walk you through the four-part origin story, and to help you build your ideal adventurer.