Blighted Birthplace

Your homeland borders a wounded land. Growing up, your friends and family were often threatened by incursions of monstrosities and aberrations into your territory. There were desperate, bloody battles, and people you knew perished in the fighting. You bear the memories and the mental scars from these experiences, and they have shaped the person you are today. Compared to many who hail from lands that are safer overall, you are noticeably different.

Living so close to a wounded land has conditioned you to be prepared for the horrid things that emerge from those cursed places, and it has given you the knowledge and foresight to deal with other, more mundane threats as well.

Skill Proficiencies: Nature and Survival

Tool Proficiencies: One type of artisan tools

Language: Choose any one

Equipment: Armor appropriate to your class, one weapon, ordinary clothing, and 1d10 gold pieces.

Defining Events

d8	Event
1	I had the misfortune of being born near one of those cursed wounded lands.
2	When I was young and foolhardy, I moved near a wounded land in search of excitement.
3	As I was growing up, the lands near me were ordinary, but they slowly began to change into the nightmare they are today.
4	I was an unwanted orphan. Rather than live at the mercy of others, I found a home near the wounded lands.
5	My parents were killed during an incursion from a wounded land. I will dedicate my life to fighting back.
6	My kingdom banished me to the wounded land.
7	I woke up just outside the border of the wounded land and I know not why.
8	I felt a calling to the wounded lands I cannot explain.

Suggested Character Traits

Those who were raised near a wounded land are often grim, sullen, and fatalistic. Everybody there saw more than their share of hardships, and many of them had to fight to keep the atrocities from taking root within their own lands. Nobody is spared the horrors, and even while people in this environment learn to live with it, it changes them on a fundamental level, making them more guarded, less likely to trust others or their environment, and it leaves them expecting twisted things to rise out of the earth and attack them at any moment.

Traits

d8	Traits
1	The one thing I’ve learned in life is that you have to take care of yourself.
2	Above all else, I am a survivor.
3	I attack the threats before they can attack me!
4	There are wondrous secrets to be unearthed in the wounded lands.
5	I am not afraid to look into the darkness.
6	I didn’t ask for trouble, but since it found me, I intend to give it right back.
7	Don’t call it madness. After what I’ve seen, madness doesn’t even begin to describe it.
8	I don’t fight because I want to. I fight to save my people.

Ideal

d6	Ideal
1	Faith. I trust my deity will guide my homeland through these dark times.
2	Change. Only through struggle can we bring about an end to the evil that has infested these lands.
3	People. I fight to protect my people, who are threatened by the wounded lands.
4	Might. Our survival is dependent on our strength. We must rise to the challenge and beat back the evil.
5	Honor. On my honor, I will destroy the evil infesting the wounded lands, or I will die trying.
6	Change. Change is inevitable, but this change is much too long in coming for my liking.

Bonds

d6	Bond
1	I pulled an injured wizard to safety at the border of the wounded lands. He now owes me a debt of gratitude, and I am waiting on just the right moment to collect.
2	I know a sage in a nearby city who is researching a way to rid the wounded lands of its evil.
3	A ranger in a nearby woods helped me out of a tight spot against some monstrosities.
4	I befriended a small community of dwarves who said they would help if I send for them. This is not a favor I should overly take advantage of.
5	There is a fiend who opposes the wounded land. His reasons are his own, but he has offered to grant the occasional boon to help me eradicate them.
6	The leader of a group of monster hunters has taken note of my talents and has offered to recruit me. Though I declined the offer, they might prove to be valuable allies.

Flaws

d6	Flaw
1	The horrors I have witnesses have taken their toll. I sometimes wake in a cold sweat, or get lost in traumatic memories.
2	I often feel guilty for remaining alive while so many I knew have succumbed to the horrors of the wounded lands.
3	I am primarily concerned with my own survival. In these lands, sticking your neck out for others just gets people killed.
4	I am quick to startle and sometimes jump into action when there is no threat present.
5	I have little patience for those who have not witnessed the horrors of the wounded lands themselves.
6	A could get away from the wounded lands. By all rights I should. But there is some compulsion within me that makes me continue a fight that might prove to be unwinnable.

Blighted Birthplace is a background for people whose lives have been touched on a fundamental level by their proximity to such a hostile and chaotic place. It is entirely possible to be from one of these areas without being so greatly affected by it. There are those whose parents or guardians managed to keep them both safe and sheltered from the darkness throughout their formative years. Some are simply not as susceptible to the psychological effects of the horror. Still others have trained their minds to view the constant struggle as an epic battle in which they are at the center, casting themselves as heroes and saviors in their own minds and casting the losses as heroic sacrifices.

Many individuals are found near wounded lands who were not born and raised in the area. Paladins, rangers, and druids are especially drawn to such areas because they view these as places where they can use their talents to make a measurable improvement in the world. Likewise, fighters and rogues sometimes find themselves in these areas after joining mercenary companies that are dispatched there.

In fact, the populations of adventurers and warriors is a larger percentage than is normal since ordinary folk, such as farmers and artisans are afraid to settle there.