Whether you’re a celebrated chef, musical superstar, or popular influencer, you’re famous. Your name and face are across billboards, advertisements, and merchandise galore, and people love—and love to hate—you for it.

Did you come to the public’s attention by winning a famous cooking competition, putting out an innovative new album, or just being wealthy and controversial? Did you step gracefully down from the pedestal you were put on, or were you pushed? Do you want to return to prominence or would you prefer a quiet retirement?

People call you a con artist, but you’re really an entertainer. You make people happy—the separation of fools and villains from their money is purely a pleasant side effect. 

What is your most common con? Selling fake magic items? Speaking to ghosts? Posing as a long-lost relative? Or do you let dishonest people think they’re cheating you?

Perhaps you broke an oath or angered a god, or your parents promised their child’s soul to a fiend. Whatever caused it, you are cursed. The power that laid this upon you has not necessarily made itself known, but its effects are felt regardless. It has shaped your life and interactions with others, made you wary and careful. A tiny slip, a failed moment of etiquette, a dirty glance—any may trigger the curse.

How did you become cursed? Are there those who sympathize with your plight? What transgressions might trigger the curse’s worst effects? What does the curse do?

You are a follower of a religious movement, whether new or ancient. Your devotion to the faith is anything but casual, representing years of service and training as a disciple or for ordination. Your religion might be common or obscure, open or insular. Some traditions disparage science as an aberrant way of thinking, while others inflate scientific discoveries into eschatological dogmas.

It doesn’t matter how far apart the worlds are or how many peoples live in the cosmos, communication is still key when it comes to peaceful coexistence. As such, individuals prepared to engage with outsiders are always well-valued. As a diplomat, you are a representative of a world, company or culture to the stars beyond. You act to present the ways of your people in a positive light and further their interests, and learn about the ways of other people either as a form of knowing your enemy or as a means of achieving empathy.

Countries, planets, federations, the Fleet— they all think they hold power with their big decisions and lofty ideals. You know who is really boss because you worked under them. Corporations stretch their reach throughout the galaxy, entrenching their products and agents into every life activity. Their end goal is always the same: profit. You know because that was your end goal as well before you finally left their employ.

Why did you quit corporate life? What kind of riches did you leave behind? What field were you in? Which previous colleague do you hope to never see again?

You’re a performer who knows how to dazzle a crowd, an artist but also a professional: you never forget to pass the hat after a show.

Are you a lute-strumming singer? An actor? A poet or author? A tumbler or juggler? Are you a rising talent, or a star with an established following?

You served – and may still serve – an organization trying to influence events--either a public entity, a criminal organization, or a secret society that the public only knows through rumors and whispers.

You haven’t met your match at dice or cards. A career of high stakes and daring escapades has taught you when to play close to the chest and when to risk it all—but you haven’t yet learned when to walk away.

Are you a brilliant student of the game, a charming master of the bluff and counterbluff, or a cheater with fast hands? What turned you to a life of adventure: a string of bad luck, or an insatiable thirst for risk?

You haven’t met your match at dice or cards. A career of high stakes and daring escapades has taught you when to play close to the chest and when to risk it all—but you haven’t yet learned when to walk away.

Are you a brilliant student of the game, a charming master of the bluff and counterbluff, or a cheater with fast hands? What turned you to a life of adventure: a string of bad luck, or an insatiable thirst for risk?

After a long period of captivity, you returned to the surface and were welcomed with open arms, despite your scars and aged appearance. You’ve resumed the life you left behind, re-establishing old connections. The only problem is, it’s not your life to which you’ve returned—you are an imposter.

Whose identity did you adopt? Did you do so with their blessing, or did you leave them for dead? Might they return one day? If so, whose story will be believed?

Your life has been chiefly defined by your charge to protect a great treasure or secret which must be kept from the prying eyes of outsiders. Whether you were tasked with protecting a sacred artifact, concealing the true heir to the throne, or maintaining the seal on an ancient curse, the time has come to step into the wider world.

You are aware of your counterpart, of course. But more than that, you loathe them. You have started your adventures, at least in part, in order to find this person, remove them in some fashion, and take their place.

Have you located your counterpart yet? Why do you seek to replace them? Are they repugnant and you would right their wrongs? Do you seek to balance the universe? Or do they simply have the life that you were meant to have? What if you do eventually find them—and realize you have no wish to fulfill what was once your burning ambition?

Far from the tawdry confines of the limelight, you wield another form of social power. One ruled by bloodlines and good breeding and a complicated hierarchy of rules and manners you’ve lived among since birth.

Just how highly does your family rank among the rich and powerful? What secret societies and powerful friends can you call on? What lengths will you be told to go to in order to protect your family’s good name?

You served your apprenticeship among merchants and traders. You’ve traveled dusty miles and haggled under distant skies.

Why are you living a life of adventure? Are you working off your debt to the company store? Are you escorting a caravan through dangerous wilds?

Are you raising capital to start your own business, or trying to restore the fortunes of a ruined trading family? Or are you a smuggler, following secret trade routes unknown to the authorities?