DND 5e Backgrounds You Can Use

Here, your character belongs to the noble family, which owns dozens of land, collects taxes, and has a significant political presence and influence throughout the land. Given your family background, your character understands wealth, power, and privilege. However, you can choose to develop your character in two ways. Firstly, your character is born with a silver spoon and is unfamiliar with discomfort, is a disinherited scoundrel, and has a disproportionate sense of entitlement. Or on the contrary, despite being born with a silver spoon, your character knows how to make his way in society by being an honest and hard-working landowner who deeply cares about the people who live and work on his land. 

Your level of authority can be discussed with the help of the dungeon master.

There’s no place better to start than the acolyte. If you look in the player’s handbook, you will see that an acolyte is nothing more than a member of the church, convent, or faith organization. When you pair your character with an acolyte, it means that your character has spent his life in the service of the church, working for the pantheon of gods. 

If you are an acolyte, your followers/companions heal for free at a temple, shrine, monastery, and every other faith organization. People sharing your religion will follow and support you in your quest. Also, you can learn any two languages of your choosing.

When near a temple, you can call upon priests asking for their assistance. Note that the priests will only assist you in non-hazardous situations and if you are in good standing with the church/temple/shrine. 

A charlatan is someone who always has had their way with people. All it takes are a few conversations for you to figure out what makes someone tick so that you can tease them. Another added advantage is that only a few leading questions will have them spilling out everything you need to know. 

In DnD 5e, a charlatan grants your character with common sense. People trust in you to deliver, and you deliver as promised. With the help of the dungeon master (DM), you can come up with some of your questions. Paring your DnD 5e character with this background makes you highly skilled at the art of deception. Those seasoned to DnD 5e known that deception makes up for a majority of the gameplay. Also, a Charlatan rewards you with proficiencies that can be utilized without the expense of a magical resource or have any lingering effects whatsoever. 

Just like the name suggests, building up the Entertainer background in DnD 5e will turn you into a charm in front of the audience. You are granted the ability to make an entrance, entertain, and thrive amongst people. Your sense of poetry can cure anyone of grief and shower people with much-need joy in their lives. Dance, humor, and poetry are some of your greatest skills, and art is your whole life. This is a fun background when you play a character primarily intended towards rogues or bards. 

As an entertainer, you can choose between different skills such as an actor, singer, poet, jester, juggler, singer, storyteller, etc. You can choose between any of these skills to add a chunk of flavor to your character.

This character is somewhat similar to the folk hero. The only difference is that an outlander has been born and brought up in the wilderness far away from the perils of civilization. You’re a survivor by heart who has survived the most adverse of conditions. Also, you can easily comprehend the only thinking creature in any direction. 

As the name suggests, an outlander background means your character excels in remembering maps and knowing the geography of the terrain he is in. All it takes is a single look for you to figure out and recall the overall layout of the terrain and the settlements on and around the terrain. Also, you can easily find food and fresh water for yourself and five other people every day. Since you’ve grown up in the wilderness, you are a natural explorer who ultimately adapts to the ways of the wild. 

The Folk Hero is another unique background to go with. When your character is a folk hero, he ultimately hails from a humble social rank but is destined for greatness. People of the hero’s home village regard you as the champion and as the village’s only hope against monsters, tyrants, and other such threats. When destiny calls, you become your town’s first line of defense against any pertaining threat. 

This background makes you an adventurer way before you actually become an adventurer. As a folk hero, survival is your most common trait, and you can ultimately survive every threat and adverse condition thrown at you. Since you hail from a humble social rank, you fit in easily with the common folk. When on an adventure, you can always find a place to hide, rest, and recuperate among other people.

As a sage, your DnD 5e character has spent his entire life acquiring knowledge of the universe. You have the lore, manuscripts and have listened to some of the most excellent experts in the world. All these efforts have made you the master in your preferred area of expertise. As a sage, you can choose your character to specialize as an alchemist, astronomer, discredited academic, librarian, professor, researcher, scribe, and many more. In addition, you can learn any two languages of your choosing. 

A sage carries several equipments whose usefulness varies according to the campaign requirements. Your thirst for knowledge has made you the greatest researcher known to mankind. For example, if you come across lore you haven’t heard or read before, you can automatically figure where, when, and from whom you can obtain it. 

Getting this background makes your character a member of the Artisan’s guild who is skilled in a particular field and works in close harmony with the rest of the artisans guild. Everything you know is passed down to you when you worked as an apprentice to a master artisan. And under the sponsorship of your guild, you have now become a master guild artisan/guild merchant yourself. 

As an artisan, you are free from the feudal social order and spend most of your time mastering your skills. If you are a guild merchant, you sell the work of others or help your guild get the supply they need. You either transport goods from one place to another via ship or caravan or bring in the supplies for your guild by purchasing them from your local seller. 

If your character possesses the Hermit background, it means that he has lived his entire life in absolute secrecy. Your character has spent his formative years alone in a monastery far, far away. However, his time away from the feudal society has helped him found peace, clamor, and answers to all the questions he is looking for. 

The Hermit background is not interesting or exciting unless and until you put a spin on it. From your time apart, you have acquired many notes that have aided you in your survival. Also, you have a real knack for medicine, because of which you always carry a herbalism kit with you. Although you have spent your formative years away from society, this has helped you made a powerful discovery. The nature of this discovery is entirely dependent on where you spent your time growing up.

Getting this background ultimately makes your character an experienced criminal with a history of breaking the law on countless occasions. Growing up, your character has spent an insane amount of time amongst criminals and has cultivated contacts in the world of crime. Your survival is entirely dependent on break the rules and regulations every time an opportunity presents itself. Looking at it from a mechanical angle, there are zero differences between the criminal and spy background in DnD 5e. As a criminal/spy, you get to choose specialties such as blackmailer, burglar, hired killer, enforcer, and several other specialties. 

One of the key features of this background is criminal contact. This means that you have a reliable liaison who links you to other criminals in the underworld. 

If you compare the Sailor and the Outlander, you will find that nothing much separates the two. Just as the outlander has spent his entire life surviving in the wild, the sailor has sailed on a seagoing vessel for years, braving the deadliest storms known the humanity. You have fought against those wanting to sink your boat to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Given that you have spent the majority of your life on the sea, one of your key features is that you can ensure a safe passage for yourself and your mates every time needed. 

In times of need, the ship’s crew will help you seek asylum somewhere on the ship. However, note that the crew will only help you and your companions if you assist the crew during the entire voyage. The usefulness of this feature will vary based on the type of campaign you are running. 

Just as the sailor has been of the sea his whole life, war is the known only thing known to a soldier. As a soldier, you have spent your entire life training to be a warrior. You started training right from a young age and have studied all the uses of combat weapons and armor, know all the survival techniques, and how to stay alive on the battlefield. As a soldier, you are a part of the local militia who rose to overthrow the oppressive government. This mercenary works for coins or a legitimate soldier in the National Army. 

You can work with your DM to figure out which military organization you belong to. In addition, the DM will walk you through all the ranks you have progressed and the type of experiences you have had during war.

Just like the Outlander, the urchin is skilled in remembering all the secret patterns. He can flow through the cities and find passages through the civilization that others have missed. You are an orphan who was raised on the streets with no one to watch over you. From an early age, you have learned how to survive and provide for yourself. You have fought mercilessly over food and water. At the same time, you have always looked out for others like you and also for others who will go to great lengths to steal something from you. 

Being an anthropologist from the primeval, ancient lost lands to the modern bed of civilizations, a fascination with diverse cultures has always been second nature to you. Your knowledge expands to the realm of philosophies, rituals, laws, customs, religious beliefs, languages, and the larger arts. You have learned everything there is to know about the empires, tribes, and other miscellaneous forms of society. 

One of the most fascinating DnD 5E backgrounds, here you can communicate with humanoids who will not be speaking your tongue. By sheer observation, you must learn their gestures, expressions, and important words in one or more days to facilitate rudimentary communication.

Before taking on adventures, you have spent a considerable part of your youth crawling in the dust and pilfering relics of questionable legitimacy from ruins and crypts. Sure, you have managed to finally sell a few of those and earn ample coins to get yourself proper adventure gear, but you have still held on to one item with great emotional value. You must roll on the Signature Item table to view what you have, or you can even choose an item from the table.

While entering a ruin or a dungeon, you can aptly ascertain its intended purpose and gauge its builders, be it elves, dwarves, humans, yuan-ti, or otherwise. Moreover, you can also wager an educated guess about the monetary value of art items that are more than a century old. 

Your in-depth knowledge of the bureaucracy’s workarounds allows you access to the records and inner functionings of any government or noble court you come across. You know their movers and shakers, the best people to approach for favors, and the current interests of the bunch.

The bureaucratic organization or noble court where you got your start is indirectly or directly associated with your bond, which could very well pertain to specific individuals in the group, like your mentor or sponsor. As for your ideal, it might be concerned with the prevailing philosophy of your organization or court.

This is an interesting one in the D&D 5E list of backgrounds. A faceless character embarks on adventures behind the masque of a public persona. This masqued persona is as natural to them as their clandestine, so-called “true” face, but it still disguises their identity. You must roll on the Faceless Persona table to chalk out your persona, or alternatively, work with the DM to formulate a persona unique to your character that suits the tone of your game.

Many of your fellow adventurers will know you as your chosen persona. Those who attempt to learn more about you, be it your weaknesses, origins, or your overall purpose, find themselves stymied by your masque. Donning a disguise and behaving as the chosen persona make you unidentifiable.

There’s always someplace worth putting up a performance, be it an inn, a tavern, a circus, or even a theater or a noble’s court. You will be provided free meals and lodging as long as you perform daily. Moreover, your varied performances qualify you as a local figure who people might take a liking towards.

Like every good entertainer, you must be versatile and spice up performances with diverse routines. You can pick one 1 to 3 routines or even roll on the table to determine your expertise as a performer. If you want success, hold your audience’s attention through your flamboyant personality. Your audience will typically err toward the romantic and high-minded ideals about finding beauty in art.

A knighthood is one of the lowest noble titles in most societies, but it can also be a path to a higher status. If you want to be a knight, select the Retainers feature in place of the Position of Privilege feature. You may choose to include a banner or another token from any noble lord or lady to whom you have offered your heart in a chaste devotion as an emblem of chivalry and courtly love.

You will typically have the services of 3 retainers, which will remain loyal to your family. They are essentially attendants, messengers, or majordomo. One of them is a noble serving as a squire in exchange for training towards his own knighthood; another two can be a groom for your horse’s upkeep and a servant to polish your armor.

They can all perform mundane tasks, but they will not fight for you or follow you into dangerous areas such as dungeons, and they will leave if they are abused or endangered too often.