The primary goal of your character's backstory is not to define every aspect of their past, but rather to determine their motivations and personal quests. The total amount of backstory and character description should be at least 3-400 words. If you are unsure about what you need, or have trouble deciding, talk to the DM, and they will help you orientate your character in the world.
If you have trouble thinking of a name, the name generator can provide plenty of inspiration. Don't be too bound by the race selection in the generator, adventurers have all sort of names!
For examples of a good backstory, read the character pages for Aurora nan Estiae, Geniweave Mageblood, or Sigyn Spiritspear. If you want, you can also present your backstory in a different way, perhaps as a series of letters or diary entries, but you still need to answer the same questions. You do not have to write it narratively, a list of bullet points works equally well.
Make a character that wants to adventure
The most important thing when making a good character is that they should be willing to work with an adventuring party and willing to go on heroic quests! Be wary of making a loner who does not care for other people's problems.
It is also strongly preferred to make a character from the local area (or who has spent considerable time there) - this gives them a connection to the world, and probably some knowledge that an outsider would not have. For example, if you create an elf, making them a traveler from a far away land is less interesting than if they come from Maeral, Covenant, or Tembridge.
Questions and Answers
These are some good questions to answer in a backstory, roughly ranked in order of importance. You do not need to include all of them, especially towards the end of the list. There are also class-specific questions that dive a bit deeper.
- Why are they an adventurer?
- What are the goals that they wish to fulfill by adventuring?
- Where do they come from?
- What do they look like? How old are they?
- What does their equipment look like?
- Who, if anyone, trained them? How long did this training take?
- Which gods, if any, do they worship? Why?
- What does your character call their profession? For example, a barbarian will probably not call themselves a barbarian.
- Do they have some figure of the past that they look up to?
- How do they fight? What types of weapons and spells do they prefer?
- What does their magical powers look like?
- Do they have any tattoos, scars, or other markings on their body?
- What are some quotes that represent your character's personality?
Personal Quests
Why are they an adventurer? What made them choose that route in life? Having a clear goal that the character wants to achieve lets the DM weave your character into the story, which leads to some of the most rewarding adventures. Ideally, the resolution will also help them progress as a character. The DM will work with you to integrate your quest in the overall narrative, perhaps by tweaking some minor details and giving you an initial clue to follow.
If you need inspiration for a personal quest, look at the quest hooks. You can also look at the items page for treasures your character might be after (in particular, the paragon items make excellent quest goals). You can also coordinate with the other players in the party to have a shared quest, which can make for a fun bond.
Allies and Enemies
If you have 2-5 allies and enemies (with names) that the DM can include in the adventures ahead, they are way more likely to show up. If your character has a familiar or other pet, make sure they have a name too.
Personality
Do not neglect the traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws! While they may seem like unnessecary bookkeeping, they can inspire roleplay and help you bring your character to life.
A method that works well is to collect a few ideals that your character embodies or believes in, and let them serve as inspiration for the other parts of the personality. For example, a character who idealizes Civilization might not enjoy sleeping in rough circumstances, and someone who values Initiative might be rash to take action, often leaping in without a plan.
Your character's personality isn't static and unchanging, and all adventures leave marks on those who go on them. As your character becomes more experienced, their personality might change to reflect this. Just like any other part of your character sheet, you should update what you've written when this happens to reflect your character as they currently are, not what they started as.
You should have between one and three of each of these. If you only have one, the character has a tendency to become single-dimensional. Remember, character growth happens in the hard choices.
Ideals
When looking for ideals, check the pages for your class, race, background, and deity for inspiration. These are archetypal examples, and will help your character fit in in the Estian Sea, but as always you might chose to contrast with the norm.
Traits
Traits are the most general parts of a character's personality. It could be a mannerism, a way of speaking, a habit, a catchphrase, or something else that others would recognize you by.
Bonds
Bonds are your motivation for being an adventurer, and what you want to accomplish by doing so. This should be informed by your backstory and your personal quests.
Flaws
Flaws make a character far more interesting, especially when they really impact how you play the character. A flaw can be an extreme version of one of your Ideals. You can also choose a phobia or vice for your character, such as a fear of spiders, or an addiction to Sanguine Fizzle. It is important that this is something that could be encountered in the campaign - an irrelevant phobia is not a flaw. Talk to the DM for suggestions on what a relevant phobia might be.
Alignment
Alignment follows actions, not the other way around. However, evil characters are problematic in their own right, and may require approval by the DM on creation. Remember, you are a protagonist of the story. The ideals of your characters suggest an alignment, but this can be easily tweaked by rewording or reinterpreting them.
You should also consider how your character falls on other scales than lawful-chaotic or good-evil, such as introvert-extrovert or logical-emotional.
Putting it all into practice
We will now try to make a character personality, one step at a time. For this, we imagine Silwe nan Iacaris, an elven fighter of the Wardens who reveres Uller. When you create your character, you do not need to include where the Ideals come from, or which Ideal inspired another part of your personality.
Ideals
From his character elements, we might choose the following Ideals for Silwe:
- Command: If we do not follow our orders, the whole system fails. (Lawful)
- From his Fighter training
- Mastery: Be it art or music, magic or swordplay, there is virtue in perfection. (Any)
- From his elven heritage
- Pursuit: I enjoy the hunt more than the spoils. (Evil)
- This combines Ideals from Uller and the Wardens
Together, these three already paint a picture of a strong-willed bounty hunter who will not allow his orders to be ignored. From this, a dexterity based Fighter with high wisdom would fit well. We are probably taking the Battle Master subclass, and proficiency in Athletics, Stealth, Survival, and Intimidation.
Traits
Thinking on our chosen Ideals, we might come up with the following traits for Silwe:
- I always keep my weapons close, even when I do not expect combat
- From Pursuit
- A day without physical exercise, be it combat or a long run, is a wasted day
- From Mastery
This is fleshing out our character, and we can start to imagine how we would roleplay him.
Bonds
For Silwe's bonds, they are often more related to the actual backstory than his personality, but they can still be informed by both. We might settle on the following:
- I seek the assassin who killed my former commander and took his sword
- This is a personal quest that Silwe has talked with the DM about
- The DM has likely given Silwe a clue to get started on this quest
- I want to advance in the ranks and gain a command of my own
- From Command
- This is a more long-term goal
Flaws
The last part of Silwe's personality are his flaws, which we create by taking his ideals to their extreme.
- I never question orders from my superiors
- From Command
- I am slow to trust outsiders, especially those who I see as weak
- From Mastery
Alignment
After constructing his personality, it is much easier to conclude that Silwe is Lawful Evil. As always when playing characters on the Evil side of the spectrum, it is important to still work with your party.
Adapting to your starting level
It is important to tailor your characters backstory to their level. If you are starting at third level, it is not appropriate for a character to be a renowned dragonslayer. On the other hand, if you are joining a campaign at ninth level, a character that is going on their first adventure is going to feel equally out of place.
Hinting at a subclass
Some classes are easier to roleplay without their subclass than others. If you are a first-level cleric, you should still have a deity in mind, so that your eventual subclass choice makes sense. Just because you haven't received your domain powers doesn't mean that you are not already a follower of a certain god. Likewise, Warlocks and Sorcerers probably know their patron or source of magic even at first level, but have to wait a bit before receiving any unique powers from it yet.