Assistant (5e Background)

Assistant

Your life before adventure was marked by its mundanity. Under the supervision of your higher ups, you have helped keep shops running, taverns full or farms working. This is the simple life many lead, but this is not the life cut out for you. You feel compelled towards adventure, with reasons ranging from a dramatic event which forced you into it, or a growing boredom with your current career. You know how shops are run and helped, can get on common terms with others in your previous trade, and up to this point have experienced, with joy or regret, the new active life of adventuring.

Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Persuasion

Languages: Two of your choice

Equipment: A keepsake from your previous career, a set of assistant's clothes, a small book with common phrases in Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Gnomish and Undercommon, a pouch containing 15 gp.

Previous Profession

There are many professions which need some sort of assistant or apprentice in order to function. Many of these are found in towns or cities, though some are more rural in nature. Wherever you are from, the life of being told what to do is shared everywhere. Choose the previous profession you helped in, or roll on the table below.

d6	Specialization
1	Stablehand
2	Library Clerk
3	Waiter
4	Squire
5	Apprentice Alchemist
6	Shop Assistant

Feature: Common Ground

Your time spent assisting others mean that you can empathize with those with jobs like yours. You can talk freely about your past with assistants of yours or other professions, be it stablehands, bartenders, or library clerks. Assistants typically enjoy the attention, and are inclined to trust you. These assistants can tell you much of the local gossip and information about the area, can be convinced to help you in minor tasks, and can talk enough about their profession in order for you to quickly get the gist of it.

Assistants will often be more than happy to suggest you as a helping hand to their employer. You will be paid at a rate from 2 sp to 1 gp per hour. During work you can talk with other assistants freely and your employer on less distant terms. Any profession you have worked well for without issue are more inclined to favor you. They may give you or party members better treatment, offer discounts or trust you more than the average customer, if of course you or your party members haven't caused any trouble.

Suggested Characteristics

Assistants come from the lower classes in society, and may miss or despise their past profession. However, their training has leaned them towards a practical way of thinking. Their practicality, knowledge of commoners' lives and wanting to escape it may shape their ideals. Their bonds could be to their old employer, an assistant friend or an unique customer. Their flaws could be shaped by an overly simplistic view of the world, or excessive recklessness or caution due to their newfound freedom.

d8	Personality Trait
1	I despise people who are significantly more well off than me, and treat them with disrespect.
2	I will always go on the side of talking a situation out rather than it descend to violence.
3	I am eager to be taught new things by more experienced adventurers.
4	I can deal with situations of rising anger and arguments coldly and calmly.
5	I will revel in any moment of fame I get.
6	I often zone out when people drone for too long, but I have learned to hide this from dealing with it in the shop.
7	I always attempt to barter the prices of goods.
8	I am humble and get surprised and flustered whenever someone praises me.

d6	Ideal
1	Freedom. The boring life of an assistant wasn't for me. Now with this vast life ahead of me I can at last live. (Chaotic)
2	Heroism. Why stay in a shop when I could help solve the issues plaguing the land? (Good)
3	Might. I have spent too much time being told what to do. It's time to change that. (Evil)
4	Discipline. I will do what I have been told to, and I will do it well. (Lawful)
5	Fulfillment. Adventuring brings meaning to my life. (Any)
6	Opportunity. Anyone should be given an equal chance to rise. (Neutral)

d6	Bond
1	My old employer had his business looted, and I am doing this in order to help him.
2	A mysterious customer once came into the premises and secretly handed me a scroll in a language I do not understand. What does it say?
3	An old regular told me every night of his adventuring stories. I am doing this to show how he inspired me.
4	My brother owns the family business while I do the cleaning. Wait until I show them what I am made of.
5	Life was okay as an assistant until a work friend of mine became an adventurer. I regret not going with them.
6	I still enjoy the work that I did, and find any reference or temporary return to it wondrous.

d6	Flaw
1	I pretend to know a lot more about my profession than I actually do.
2	I am needlessly reckless or cautious due to my limited training as an adventurer.
3	Abstract ideas bore me, as do overcomplicated plans.
4	I will instinctively listen and obey to authority, as I fear the consequences of not doing so.
5	I get easily nervous and may not share ideas or information on the assumption the other party members already thought of it and know about it.
6	I get overly defensive about my humble past, and I am ready to lie about it or insult the person who asks.

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