Sadistic Assassin (5e Background)

This content deviates from 5e standards. Its use could dramatically alter campaigns, take extreme care.

Caution - Here there be monsters! This content intends to provide a different experience, or goes beyond the scope of the anticipated subjects and situations, than the 5e rules were intended to handle. Some portions of the content below may not be what you expect from traditional game content. When implementing this content, DMs and Players should read over all the information carefully, and consider the following specific notes of interest:

This background is a slight combination of something like criminal and the torturer. It is essentially an assassin but with added psychological implications. However, this background is more specific and narrow than official content and so may not be suitable at all tables.

Sadistic Assassin

By Daikazoku 63

Sadism is deriving pleasure from the suffering of others, like an intensified form of schadenfreude. Assassins with this mentality often find themselves in a predicament. Do they want to finish off their prey quickly and without a mess? It would be in their interest to avoid attention. Or, do they follow their instinct to torture and spill blood needlessly for pleasure? Not all of them are crazy killers all the time. Many repress and hide their true selves until the moment is right. Some are psychopaths and some are sociopaths. As assassins, however, they need a more capable façade to attract hirers for assassination jobs. Others ignore the monetary facet of assassins and just go murdering on their own. The line blurs here between assassin and a plain serial killer.

When making a sadistic assassin, consider what trademark ways they torture their victims to indulge in their sadism. If they don't, do they instead repress their urges on the job, only to go murder elsewhere another time for pleasure? How do they hide their urges to hurt others? Is this sadism some psychosomatic symptom of a trauma or an abused life? Did they take up the assassin profession to satiate their urges? What other ways can they revel in their sadism? People sometimes take pleasure from other's suffering in ways that may not involve blood and gore, after all.

Skill Proficiencies: Intimidation, Stealth

Tool Proficiencies: Poisoner's kit, torture tools

Equipment: A set of common clothes, Poisoner's kit or torture tools, a book logging the records of your victims, and a belt pouch of 15gp

Sadistic Nature

These are options that you may choose from to decide what fuels your sadistic tendencies. You may come up with your own if none of these apply to your character.

d6	Specialization
1	Interrogation. You are sure that your techniques are completely efficient and you will take all the time you need to get what you want. You always kill those you interrogate in the end.
2	Business/Revenge. Your victim has done something terrible to you, someone you cared for or to your client, and now it has to pay. You subject them to an extended period of torture before finishing the job. The more personal the act, the longer it will go on for.
3	Self-Satisfaction. You relish in the act of torture and do it simply out of desire and enjoyment. If you have the chance to do so, you will gladly accept.
4	Vigilante. The victim has been accused of a punishable crime and you are the instrument of divine justice. You apply a suitable degree of torture to your victims that is equivalent to the crimes they have committed. You will only kill them if their crime included death as well, or if their act was irrecouncilable.
5	Under Command/Charmed. You are under the service of another to torture and kill, whether of your will, through blackmail or through magic. For reasons specific to your circumstances, you are unable to quit. Should you possess the ability to do so, there are consequences that may follow or bring you to your own death.
6	Balance. There was a lack of someone doing so, and therefore you are the one who has filled the void. For whatever reason, you thought that an assassin that tortures their victims was required in your society, and so you now serve the criminal underworld as such.

Feature: Hidden Self

To conduct your grisly acts of pleasure, you must have a safe place to do so. In the underworld of society, where the unseen workers of darkness walk crooked roads and make breakable deals, you may have a residence there. Or you could have knowledge of some small, secluded spot, hidden from all public eye in the wilderness maybe, that only you know how to access, where you did your bloody acts. You may take shelter there from danger when in times of need. Discuss with your DM where this location might be. Perhaps it's close to home, or with a person that you vaguely trust with your secrets.

Suggested Characteristics

A sadistic assassin doesn't have to be the typical bland psycho. They can have a rainbow of colorful personas covering their grisly work.

d8	Personality Trait
1	I tend to keep a souvenir of my victims for reasons only I know.
2	I enjoy the gold I get from my work nearly as much if not more than my work itself.
3	Occasionally, I take torture jobs and kill the targets for fun, then lie about how they died or got away to my client
4	Death doesn't faze me. I knock on her door all the time to show her my work
5	I like to show off my work to those in the business. Some find my sadistic nature disturbing, while others find it a welcome means of entertainment.
6	I like to find creative ways to complete my work. The regulars tools and available means to torture and kill can be dull.
7	I actually don't like death, but my sadistic tendencies push me too far.
8	I like to kill quickly and move on, but my sanity is challenged my obsessive sadism and I drag things on compulsively.

d6	Ideal
1	Creativity: I´m always crafting new tools and thinking of different methods to use. (Chaotic)
2	Aspiration I like to be the best at what I do, and be recognized for it (Any)
3	Sadism The more pain and anguish I inflict upon someone, the more I enjoy it (Evil)
4	People I don't harm those who don't deserve it and often let such targets go (Good)
5	Humanitarian If you aren't fazed by the torture I inflict, whether physically or mentally, I'll let you go (Lawful)
6	Self-Knowledge The more I learn from my job, the better I get at it. (Neutral)

d6	Bond
1	A person close to me was harmed by person I cannot find. One day, they will be subject to my non-existent mercy.
2	My work must be recognized as legendary above all others.
3	I see my work as a calling that must be answered.
4	My work is an addiction and I cannot stop.
5	The truth must be known, and the truth is found in knowing.
6	My methods are a reflection of who I once was, and serve as means of remembering as well as a creative way of doing away with my victims.

d6	Flaw
1	I secretly feel disgusted by the things I do to my victims.
2	I never come up with a plan, and ignore one if it is devised by another.
3	Sometimes I feel compelled to harm those I care about.
4	I no longer comprehend how others think after exposure to my work has warped my perspective.
5	I occasionally experiment in hurting myself if I do not partake in my work for too long.
6	Violence is my answer to almost any challenge.
7	I have no idea what I'm doing when I work, but my targets usually die in the end.
8	I judge others harshly, and maybe myself even further.

5.00

(one vote)

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