Adventuring is a high-risk, high-reward occupation. In most cases, to want to be an adventurer, you have to be a little crazy, or a little desperate, or both! But it's an equal-opportunity occupation: An adventurer might be a peasant looking for a way to get rich, a disgraced noble seeking to reclaim their honour, a scholar looking for historical or arcane knowledge, or a seventh-born child who stands to inherit approximately nothing from their family. Some adventurers are more like killers-for-hire mercenaries, while others are more focused on finding wealth or magical secrets. Your character needs to be someone who is able to at least tolerate working as part of a team.
But everyone comes from somewhere, and your character’s backstory is a key mechanism for me, the DM, to create character-specific quests, rewards, and opportunities for character growth. They can also help you identify how your character would act, and make them feel more grounded in the world. The more detail there is in your backstory, the better—for you and for me.
Take some time to flesh out your character, thinking about their class, abilities, and skills as you go. Here are some specifics to that process:
I’ve provided some sample names for each ancestry on the wiki, and the Player’s Handbook has more suggestions for each race as well, but don’t feel constrained by them. If you chose your ancestry using the “more flexible” method based on parentage and upbringing, you could also draw inspiration from the “upbringing” side of things. For example, a human raised by dragonborn would probably have a dragonborn name.
If you are having trouble choosing a name for your character, try one of these generators:
Any of the backgrounds listed in the Player’s Handbook is completely fine. Each one has some sample ideals, bonds, and flaws, which can be a good way to flesh out your character’s motivations. Don’t feel too constrained by the list of backgrounds, or the lists of ideals/bonds/flaws—feel free to mix and match. Some backgrounds do offer proficiencies in tools or languages, though, so take a look for something that feels appropriate for your character. Write down all of this info in the various spots on your character sheet.
Alignment, and in particular order/law and chaos, are key aspects of the world of Tellaria. So, there's a separate page just for Alignment. Pick an alignment and write it down on your character sheet.
Once you have a class, take a look at start of the section for your class in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything for some additional backstory-related questions. For example, clerics can identify a temple to which they belong(ed), rangers can answer how they came to have a sworn enemy, etc.
I would also highly recommend using the questions and tables in the “This Is Your Life” section in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything to guide some further character development. See the zip file under “4. Describe your character”.
If your character would worship or serve a deity, you can take a look at the deities of Tellaria. They might also be part of (or interested in joining!) one of the major organizations.
Take some time and write down some answers to these questions, as well as any other details you are inspired to create! I need answers to the first two questions; the rest are not required, but are highly encouraged. Make sure to send these details about your backstory to me when you're finished. Keep in mind that your character's backstory can evolve over time—if you have other ideas or details to add as the adventure progresses, I am happy to hear about those too!
Design how your character looks! We will be trying out the use of a virtual tabletop, so we need some artwork to represent your character's portrait. You can use a tool like Hero Forge (just take a screenshot at the end), find some artwork online (e.g., here or here), draw your own, commission an artist to create something, try using an AI tool like Midjourney or DALL-E, or whatever else you wish! The main thing is that it needs to look recognizable at a size of about 128x128px. This isn't set in stone—we can always switch your character's portrait later.