Every Backstory Ever in Dungeons and Dragons

KONGOL! IS THAT A LEGEND OF DRAGOON REFERENCE?! if it is that's awesome, I'm actually writing a campaign based off of it(still keeping it original tho)

Killer McStabyoutodeath honestly sounds great, ending world hunger is one of the biggest achievements one could have

Mine is the Secretive

My current character is the childhood trauma-

forgot one, the self insert

That last one kinda...kinda hits different...

I almost exclusively write the last type of backstory.

one of my players said their character was from the feywild so I just rolled with it but the entire time they thought the feywild was like a regular forest in the material plane

Dude that last one… someone text him and see if he’s okay 😂

I ended up with the amnesia one because the first time I played, I didn't know we were supposed to HAVE a backstory and panicked. LOL. Now I have it fleshed out into a pretty good story and it tracks my personally because I had memory loss from a concussion, so I can play the "I have a vague memory knocking at the door" perfectly because I'm used to it IRL

I'm currently playing for the first time as a Satyr Bard with a loving single mother.

She's f**king dead, isn't she?

I actually have a character I plan to reset to lv1 so I can play her again who went from normalish monk backstory to trough out her adventure all of the pc's and npcs had either abandoned her without warning, mentally abused her, or betrayed and backstabbed her at ever turn, and now after dying and being resurrected in a alternate world she will understandably be starting out with massive trust issues and depending on how the other pc's treat her she may actually be able to work through her trauma and learn what it means to have real friends who won't try to sell her soul so they can get a cool sword (if it isn't obvious I am very salty about how my pc was treated in the game I ran her in and it's been 4 years)

Letting the dm decide on the backstories is extremely funny when the party of 8 decides to let the dm write it because its everyones first time. 2 years in and tomorrow is my final session of dm' ing before college and I couldnt have been happier with how it turned out.

I was in my SIX the musical phase when I was first thinking of my character’s backstory, which resulted into part of it being about how her elven mother was beheaded by “King Henerico VII,” who was her husband who even divorced his first wife just to be with her. Even my character’s name was based on Queen Elizabeth I’s name (her name is Bethessa).

My character ended up being an innocent elven eight-year-old warlock/wizard (I honestly wanted her to be a witch with a sidekick before) and her relationship with her fiend is akin to a sibling relationship and they are each other’s ride or die with no strings attached.

My character’s backstory is fourteen paragraphs long, so this was all I could type.

i have the secretive, and they are gonna eventually tell somebody though

I’m in my first Campaign now. I made my character a half orc ranger. My backstory is that I lived in the swamp until one day dwarfs kicked me off my land (for a reason I don’t know, but let the DM decide).

My backstory is Shrek and my ultimate goal is to get my land back.
By the end of the 2nd session, I found a love interest and the 6th session an animal companion. Shrek speed run.

here's my backstory. my character was a druid accused of whitch craft, and attempting to drug people with potions of animal friendship, so he was cast out and he wants to find out the true witch who caused all this (but the drugging he did do)

I took 7 months to figure out my character's backstory

I'm an illusion wizard. No, I mean I'm an illusion of a wizard. Well I am an illusion wizard but also an illusion of a wizard. Okay wait just listen. The real me that is a master wizard learned to make illusions well, real for longer than just a minute. So he made me, well himself. But the illusion of himself made real is me. Yeah, I know it's confusing. I'm just trying to make a reality of my illusory life.

The backstory of my illusion wizard.

I'm actually creating a bard who left royalty because they hate how fake other royal people are and wanted to travel. And a few other things. If someone recognizes him as royalty, he plays dumb and says they must be mistaken. 😅😅😅

I'm not using him yet because I'm already using a rogue. Besides I want to come up more ideas for this poor bard and make him have trauma.

I am now very concerned for my character's loving parents and quaint small village.

You forgot "the subverting"
"So, he's a barbarian, who spent most of his life reading books, is very well educated, knows the royal manners and... wait, why is he barbarian again?"

hades:i do not control the die.....die as in dice

I just say abuse bam backstory

I sadly havnt played my first campain yet but i try to do one

But I have one characters backstory i made once still:
,,lived alone in the forest since childhood with big memory issues till a Rouge found them and teached them all they knew even with the memory issue they had and made the teaching and learning difficulty before the Rouge one day left without a Single word making them wonder if the Rouge needed too or if they were such a time waste that they left them, so now they are an andventurer to learn the best they can on there way to find that Rouge again to try there best to show them that they havnt wasted there time on them"

Sadly the Party i found for wich i made the Charakter and Story disinvited me from there campain a day before really was hyped to start dnd and with the character i designed and planned🥲

I made a rouge with a non tragic backstory not to be different or the stats, but because of roleplay with having this weird random guy who just likes stealing, he once randomly stole a picture of some random guys wife then tried to sell it, no one bought it.

my backstory actually is a combination of half of those(a book, a secret, a trauma, both bad and good life altogether)

Now, imagine being a changeling and having different backstories for each persona…
I don’t have to imagine. I’ve also decided to make each persona into a full character I can play in different games. I’ve finished one backstory completely… it’s five pages long on a google doc. I can never just write something simple, and this ends up being a problem.

see, i have many, many characters, not neccesarily DnD ones, BUT all of them are childhood truama. because i like it

I love the Killer McStabyoutodeath name very much.

Loved the Legend of Dragoon reference with Kongol the Goliath

Hmm, Paultin Seppa was tragic, plus let dm choose, plus childhood trauma, plus secret. So you can have more than one.

Hey you forgot the one who trys to connect his characters to make one fluid universe so they can make 50 spare chareters! (Thats me!) The Paladins of Lord von zieks is my collecton of chareters I have in reserve. This is the life of a 5e paldin main

Was that "Kongol" character a reference to Legend of the Dragoon? Because if it is I absolutely love it!

Lol

Thats why Pathfinder 2e is more superior than DnD because the Deep but easy Character Creation make your Backstory not so fishy like the boring stereotypes in DnD :D

I am the book type, despite never having played dnd and haven't bought any dice yet. Also no group.😂 Maybe one day I can use that character and then it dies in its first battle.😄 Until then I write more and refine the backstory.✨

The worst part about making a character is wanting to build for them a unique backstory with any form of loss or trauma, then being worried that everyone thinks you or your character are "too edgy".

My name is Zeno, I was an ordinary half elf, nice parents, had a good pet, and a talent in music that went to another level. My main instrument was the violin, I was a natural at it, I played flute on the side as well. my music could affect people on another level, people who listened in on my music felt uplifted or healed by the beautiful tunes. There was a war going on at the time, between the Half-Elves and the Dark Elves, the dark elf king was sick, so the half-elves saw a chance. I realized that prices for food were going up due to more rations being needed for the war, since my family was poor and had been struggling to put food on their plates. I thought to myself that he could likely profit off of my healing tunes, so I started playing the Violin in public with a tip box sitting next to me, and at the end of every session, I would come back with money to pay for my family’s lunch and dinners far to come. During one of my sessions, I spotted an old woman next to a rapidly growing flame, although it brought my pay down much more, I played a sour note, knowing that it would send a shockwave that could either put out the flame, or ignite it even more. I took the chance, and somehow made the sour note fit in with the tune. Not only did it raise my pay, but it put out the fire and saved the woman’s life! The town itself saw me as a hero, while my parents told me not to be going out in public as much, and when I asked them why, they wouldn’t answer. This cycle would go on for another year, until the war died down and prices went down on food. One fateful night, I woke up to the sounds of fire, my house was being burned down by two dragonborns. I went to my parents room to check on them, but they weren’t there, and the two dragonborns were gone. As the fire grew closer to me, it caught on my cheek first, it fell down like a tear. I was burned alive, and killed. I was in some sort of limbo, but then a Dark Elf swooped in and got me out of there. I was revived somehow! I asked him who he was, but he just responded saying “An angel watching over this world.” He almost looked like he was glowing blue. I looked away from him once and he was gone, it almost felt like he had dissolved away. I was traumatized for the rest of my life, the only thing I could do was try to find who had killed my parents and burned my house down. I wasn’t just upset, I was shocked. I fell to the ground and wept. It may sound bad, but it would only get worse from here, as I remembered that my Violin was burned down with the house too. The only way I could hide how I really felt was to bottle up all my trauma and pretend that everything was just fine. All I was left with was the flute I only ever used if my Violin act ever felt out of tune.
From then on the war between Dark Elf and Half-Elf would make its presence known once again, the war was started up wrongly by my own kin, the Half-Elves. So I would steal from the Half-Elf troops and bring their rations to the Dark Elves, I would have to hide my face and ears though. If they knew I was a Half-Elf then, they would’ve thought the food was poisoned. On one of my many trips, I forgot to change into my stealth outfit and got caught by a Dark Elf knight. The knight thought I was stealing from them, under orders of the Half-Elf king because I was holding what looked to be their rations, and I was a Half-Elf trespassing in their territory anyways.
The knight brought me to the Dark Elf king to discuss my punishment. Before they could begin, I asked if I could have a word to defend myself, the king agreed and let me speak. I began a speech “I am innocent, and I shall prove my innocence right now. I have no attachment to the Half-Elves, they restarted a war that ended a year ago, I was stealing from my own kin, my people! Simply because I thought that you kind deserved help in a war started unfairly. I have been stealing rations from my own people, and sneaking into your camps and dropping food, weapons, and water down to your starving infantry and your soldiers. There may have been word spreading throughout your castle that you had a secret supplier for your soldiers, the only reason your soldiers didn’t find me suspicious was because I covered my face and ears with a stealth outfit, if they knew I was a Half-Elf, they probably would’ve sent me to prison, thinking I poisoned the food and water. If you are to be so stubborn as to send me away or to kill me, your ally, then maybe I was helping the wrong side of the war. Your soldiers ate the food I gave them, and drank the water, they are alive and well, you have no reason not to trust me.” I heard the king clapping, saying that I had won him over, and that I was home free. He even offered me a spot as a knight in training. I trained for years, and finally became a Dark Elven knight. In my off time, I befriended the king's son, Prince Elbond, we made great friends, and a great team as well. We would go out to the training yards every day and train together, on horses, with swords, axes, hammers, and bows. One day I even asked the king if I could get a new Violin, he said yes, and I started practicing my bardic magic as well. The time had come for the prince to choose his allies on the royal guard, the royal guard held three spots on it, one reserved for the prince himself, and two hand picked soldiers picked by the prince, and luckily, I was picked!






Me and Elbond did many quests together, we even fought in the Half-Elf and Dark Elf war.
While in public or during war, I would have to wear a mask to cover my shorter ears (Half-Elves have shorter ears than normal Elves) I fought well in the wars, my skills were better than the average Dark Elf soldier, it was obvious when watching the wars, I stood out. My fighting style was careless and one time during battle, I was stabbed through my chest, the blade punctured my heart, I bled out and died. But then I heard something… it was the same Dark Elf that saved me at the burning house. I was revived again, it couldn’t have been a coincidence that I was killed and revived twice by the same person. I had a scar under my eye shaped like a tear, right where the fire first started, and now I have one on my chest. I was revived shortly after the battle had concluded, so when I ran back to the castle, I saw the king speaking to his servant about how his favorite soldier was killed in battle, I saw Elbond come up behind me, surprised that I was even there, he heard that I had died. He told me that he was banished from the kingdom for being a threat to the king’s throne. Since he was going to leave and find who killed his father as an outlaw, I joined him since the king was corrupt anyways, and everyone thought I was dead, yup that’s my past.

Guys! I'm a newbie to roleplaying games and I already have my first character, here's his backstory (it'sactually not DnD but another, very similar game that is copying it but it also has a bit different mechanics, classes and races, you can play in only one world on a massive continent called Ynev and it's more easy to access in my homeland). Feel free to judge:
Tieru Shataqua, the half-elf bard has an interesting family. He has 3 siblings, but none of them are from the same race. The story starts long before he was even born. Two elf wizards, Ylthin and Ossir were married and lived together in a city called Pyarron (it's a very small country of the game, just one city, but it's language is very widely spoken and it's also a huge political force with it's allies, not to mention that the most popular religion of that world was started there). They had a son called Alaron, who also became a wizard. One day, Ossir was asked to destroy a cult on a land very far away (the priests already had enough problems without that cult and they needed help) so he and a couple of other adventurers decided to go and clean the land up. Time has passed, but Ossir didn't come back. Ylthin waited for more than a hundred years (elves have a quite long lifespan in this game too), but at one point she had to accept that her loved husband was dead. She decided to marry a human trader called Duncan Arietes, and they had a child together, and yes, you guessed that right, that's our guy Tieru. When Tieru was 18 years old, an unexpected visitor arrived to their house: Ossir. Turns out, he didn't die, he simply got to a place where he couldn't come back from for such a long time, but he never gave up the hope to see his family again. Needless to say, this created some problems in everybody's personal life. After a long fight, some kamikaze exploding donkey statues (don't even ask), and other weird things Ylthin decided to be with her first husband. Duncan had some words about elves and relatives that were said to be dead but I won't type any of it since probably children can be found here too. Anyway, he moved to another place called Lar-Dor and married a human woman called Maeve who is a painter (he had enough of adventurers), and they had twin daughters (Ellaine and Irina) together. This is all that's known about him after the incident. At the end Tieru and Ossir got very close to each other and he realised that Ossir was a better person than Duncan who often cared more about work than his very own family. Tieru was always interested in magic so he tried to be a wizard like 75% of his family, but he was too cheeky with the teachers and too curious about some secrets of the library's books that were locked away. ("They wouldn't be hidden in the principal's office if they weren't interesting"). So he couldn't become a wizard, druids, rangers and sorcerers don't exist in this game, he wasn't close enough to any gods to become a priest/paladin, he's not focused enough to become a fight artist/sword artist (they are the monks of this game), warlocks are evil and two unique magic using casts in this world are also not for him (witches are exclusively women and in most cases they are also evil, and fire-wizards worship a god he's not a big fan of plus they can only learn in one city called Ordan) the only choice for him was the bard. And it could hardly fit him more. He has always been good in music, and his other skills are also perfect for it. He has 19 for Beauty (it's the Charisma of this game) and Intelligence (there's a different mechanism with stats, you don't roll with your dice but everybody gets 145 points to share between these stats: Strenght, Stamina, Speed, Agility, Health, Beauty, Intelligence, Willpower, Astral and Detection, with 20 being the max and 10 the average person's stat except in the case of the first two where it's 12 since simple peasents work a lot so they become quite strong too). After he finished school, he wanted to see more of the world, increase his knowledge and try out his abilities, so now you can find him on the roads of Ynev's southern half, waiting for his first adventure. His life's next chapter.

I say it again, feel free to write whatever your opinion is in the reply section, I'm happy to recieve criticism if it can help me to get better. And also, I'm not a native English speaker so I'll be happy to get corrected about an English mistake too so I can learn more.😊

My boyfriend said I was basically Batman, because, on my first character, I was seeking revenge on the person who killed my in-game wife and son.

Mines Non Tragic mixed with a bit of secrecy. My DM knows all about it and so do I but noone else in the party does yet

He forgot one of the funniest backstory types. The "I'm in it for the bag" backstory. Motivation? Bread. Skills? Hustling. Childhood? Selling chocolate bars during recess. Parents? Rentoid. Patron? Banknotes

Barbarian: has lost his father when he was a baby. has had to grow up in a colossium to survive or die. has had to fight his mother to the death for his freedom

Paladin/Sorcerer: was eventually adopted into a wealthy, wood elf family after losing both biological parents when he was a baby. has lost his adopted father to a warlock. has lost some of his paladin friends to the "One Winged Paladin"

Monk: has lost the vast majority of his tribe to a horde of trolls

Rogue: has lost everyone in his village to a goblin raid

Wizard: UA

A while back me and a group of friends wanted to try dnd, I was the only one who had actually played before. One of the players (I dmed ) wanted to play a gnome and part of his backstory was that his parents were sold in Home Depot when he was young which we reworked into them being sold into slavery

villain character "I didn't have much growing up, just loving parents, a mansion, a large successful company to inherent, small stuff like that you know."

Royal is spot on lmao! My character kinda doesn’t care, she’s away from home and there’s a war going on so she’s trying to get back to her people
She does flaunt her status sometimes though