You were trained as a servant of a particular god or gods. Whether or not you have access to divine magic, you are authorized to perform the rites of your faith, and you are recognized and respected by its faithful.

What gods do you worship? Why did you leave the confines of your temple and take up a life of adventure? Have you turned your back on your faith, or do you seek to advance it?

Those that lack homes, ask for alms, and other impoverished folk have been, broadly, left behind by whatever society they are a part of. You were part of those huddled masses, doing everything you could to survive, but going to bed hungry more often than not.

How did you escape that life? What was the turning point for you? Who did you leave behind? What scars do you bear from that time?

You were raised as a cube herder, a hard and dangerous profession with long days and lonely nights. You’ve packed it all in to seek your fortune as an adventurer, far from the familiar acrid smells of your herd.

Why have you gotten out of the saddle? What caused you to leave the range, perhaps never to return? What did you leave behind you—and whom?

You are skilled at hunting monsters in underground environments. You have spent much of your training alone in the dark, honing your senses to pick out the slightest sound or notice the most subtle disturbance in loose sand. You are relentless in your pursuit, for you know the danger your quarry poses.

Are you a guardian of your community, or do you hunt for sport? Do you work alone, or do you hire yourself out as a guide for bored nobles in search of excitement? What monster have you sworn to catch?

Your homeland is barred to you and you wander strange lands. You will never be mistaken for a local but you find ready acceptance among other adventurers, many of which are as rootless as you are.

Are you a banished noble? A refugee from war or from an undead uprising? A dissident or a criminal on the run? Or a stranded traveler from an unreachable distant land?

You were raised a farmer, an occupation where the money is short and the work days are long. You’ve become an adventurer, a career where the money is plentiful but your days—if you’re not careful—may be all too short.

Why did you beat your plowshare into a sword? Do you seek adventure, excitement, or revenge? Do you leave behind a thriving farmstead or a smoking ruin?

No one can be sure how a fey chooses what mortals to spare, transform, help—or simply abide for a time. Your unlikely host may have been a creepy gremlin, a stern satyr, or some similar denizen of the Dreaming. They spared you from many of that realm’s dangers all while you somehow resisted the inevitable change the Land of Faerie visits upon most mortals who remain too long. Even so, now no matter where you travel you carry a bit of the fey realm with you.

Spirits exist. It’s a simple fact of reality that most people forget until the specter of some long forgotten soul appears before them. But for you, it’s a constant reality. For some, the spirit that follows them has been there since childhood, as an imaginary friend or a monster in the dark. For others, the dead come at a later date, often in the wake of a terrible tragedy.

You lived for years alone in a remote shrine, cave, monastery, or elsewhere away from the world. Among your daily tasks you had lots of time for introspection. 

Why were you alone? Were you performing penance? In exile or hiding? Tending a shrine or holy spot? Grieving?

Through intense training by a master of the art, you’ve made your body a deadly weapon and you have speed and precision to use it effectively. What called you to leave such training in favor of adventuring?

This type of skill doesn’t come lightly. How did you receive such training? Who was your teacher? What kind of combat did you study? How do you use it? Have you chosen to dedicate yourself to this path, or do you use this experience to further your studies elsewhere?

Whether you were driven by personal vendetta, fueled by stories of renowned figures, or something else entirely, you’ve made a career out of hunting monsters. This is dirty, dangerous work, but not as fatal as the average person might believe—an individual skeleton or giant rat can pose a serious threat to a commoner, but with the right tools and preparation even an amatuer hunter stands a better-than-even chance. It’s a good living for those willing to put up with the risks…and the ichor.

You have done what few have managed: you have aged gracefully out of adventuring. Maybe exhaustion overtook you, maybe you had accomplished all you had dreamed. Whatever happened, you have done exceedingly little since then. Maybe you drank yourself into darkness each night, or maybe you’ve been content to just watch the flowers glow on a small plot of land you’ve bought yourself.

What pulled you back into a life of adventure? Do you want to go back to retirement? What drives you, and what beckons you to stop?

Once you were drawn deeply into a hivemind, such that you lost your sense of self entirely. When the hivemind ended, you had to rebuild your identity, and even now decades later you sometimes feel like nothing mattered as much as when you were bonded so fully with the minds of others. You have a knack for understanding people’s thoughts, but likely have drifted through life, perpetually disappointed by the shallowness of all your relationships, accomplishing little of note. Consider what has shaken you out of this long fog to begin adventuring.

Salvager, picker, vulture, or treasure hunter, whatever you call yourself, you’ve made a living off of going through wrecked and decommissioned ships and structures and taking the best of it.

Did you choose this life, or were you forced into it by circumstance and hard living? Were you part of an organized crew of government contractors methodically breaking down wrecked crafts in space, a solo picker scrabbling over the best pieces, or a self-proclaimed treasure hunter looking for mysterious in long-abandoned ruins?

Whether it came from army training, time with a mercenary band, a military education, or some less-conventional source, you’ve been taught the art of war. Battle is far more than just swinging a sword, after all, and you likely spend as much time with tactical manuals and maps as you do conventional weapons.

Where did you gain this level of tactical ability? Do you hire your skills out to the highest bidder or did you take jobs on moral grounds? Or do you just seek out excitement and adventure to test your skills?