Unique, setting-specific origin options that ground your character in the soil, faith, and folklore of the Vale. 

Secular Backgrounds

Forestbound Villager
Raised where the trees outlive bloodlines. You come from an isolated woodland community shaped by superstition, harvest cycles, and reverence for the land. You learned the old routes, honored sacred stones, and made offerings to gods no city-dweller would dare name. When others took shelter from storms, you listened to the woods. Whether tending a snareline or following an elk track across a frozen ridge, you lived as part of the land, not above it.

• Skill Proficiencies: Survival, Religion

• Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit, Woodcarver’s Tools

• Languages: Sylvan

• Equipment: A set of hunting snares, a flask of preserved forest herbs, common clothes, a small hand-carved idol, and a pouch containing 10 gp

• Feature: Old Pacts – You can recognize signs of sacred woodland, old leylines, or pact-bound glades. Once per long rest, you can find a hidden trail, shelter, or totemic marker tied to ancient forest rites.

Gravetender’s Apprentice
You walked beside the dying and wrote their final truths. You served as a novice in rites of passage watching, recording, and preparing the dead for their final journey. You copied names into ashbooks, mixed the ink for bone-etched prayers, and learned to light the right number of candles without being told. You have seen grief turn to peace, and corpses left too long to rot into something worse.

• Skill Proficiencies: Medicine, History

• Tool Proficiencies: Calligrapher’s Supplies, Mason’s Tools

• Languages: Celestial

• Equipment: A vial of blessed ink, a bone-scribed prayer token, priest’s robes, and a pouch containing 5 gp

• Feature: Rites of Passage – You can sanctify corpses to prevent undeath. Funeral priests and mortuary caretakers will offer assistance if you identify yourself.

Blight-Watcher
You’ve seen what the forest is becoming. You studied the signs of unnatural growth blight, mutation, and spiritual rot in the wilds. You know what bark should feel like, what rot smells like, what birds stop singing before a grove twists. You may have worked beside herbalists, wardens, or even broken druidic orders trying to stem the change. Or you may have watched it alone.

• Skill Proficiencies: Nature, Perception

• Tool Proficiencies: Alchemist’s Supplies, Poisoner’s Kit

• Languages: Druidic (read-only)

• Equipment: A sealed vial of corrupted soil, a handwoven ward charm, explorer’s clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp

• Feature: Tainted Knowledge – You can detect whether a plant, creature, or terrain has been corrupted by unnatural forces once per long rest. Druids and herbalists may treat you as a trusted informant.

Hearthborn Scion
You come from a household of quiet power. Your family held influence earned through piety, stewardship, or tradition and that legacy endures. You grew up surrounded by stories, expectations, and unspoken alliances. Whether your family's strength came from law, land, or temple favor, your name still opens doors in places where memories run deep.

• Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Persuasion

• Tool Proficiencies: Cook’s Utensils, One gaming set

• Languages: Common

• Equipment: A signet ring, a sealed letter of thanks, common clothes, and a pouch containing 15 gp

• Feature: Quiet Reputation – You can secure food or shelter among those who respect your lineage. Local officials and elders may treat you as someone of inherited importance.

Runeward Outcast
You were marked by blood, magic, or mistake. The rune, the scar, the hunger in your bones it lingers. You were cast out by a village, order, or even your own kin. But you have found others. The marked find each other. And in you, some see a warning. Others see a mirror.

• Skill Proficiencies: Arcana, Intimidation

• Tool Proficiencies: Tinker’s Tools, Cartographer’s Tools

• Languages: Infernal

• Equipment: A broken talisman, chalk scrawled with glyphs, traveler’s cloak, and a pouch containing 5 gp

• Feature: The Mark Remains – You can sense when others are cursed, transformed, or touched by similar afflictions. Those who share your fate may offer aid or seek your insight.

Unproven Oathsworn
You trained for duty but were never called. You studied the code, wore the armor, practiced the rites. Maybe the war ended. Maybe the order fell. Maybe you fled. Still, your posture, your discipline, your silence all say: I was ready. Some still believe you were.

• Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Insight

• Tool Proficiencies: One martial weapon, Land Vehicles

• Languages: Celestial

• Equipment: A training tabard, a faded oath scroll, whetstone, and a pouch containing 10 gp

• Feature: Chain of Service – You recognize military structures, ceremonial ranks, and doctrine. Soldiers and officials may assume you are one of their own.

Glade-Walker’s Foundling
The forest raised you. Maybe you were abandoned. Maybe you wandered too far and never looked back. Maybe something ancient claimed you. Whatever the reason, your hands know bark better than stone, and beasts have shown you more kindness than people.

• Skill Proficiencies: Stealth, Animal Handling

• Tool Proficiencies: Woodcarver’s Tools, Herbalism Kit

• Languages: Elvish

• Equipment: A bark mask, carved idol, traveler’s clothes, and a pouch containing 5 gp

• Feature: Wild Kinship – Once per long rest, you may communicate basic intent to non-magical beasts. Forest creatures may guide, warn, or protect you in simple ways.

Writ-Bearer
You carry truths others would rather forget. You were trained to read what no one else would read, to carry records through warzones, or to keep secrets behind wax seals. What you know could burn villages. What you carry might already be cursed.

• Skill Proficiencies: Investigation, Deception

• Tool Proficiencies: Forgery Kit, Calligrapher’s Supplies

• Languages: Draconic

• Equipment: A sealed scroll case, a wax stamp with a false crest, hooded cloak, and a pouch containing 15 gp

• Feature: Keeper of Secrets – You can forge or decipher legal, magical, or religious documents. Lore-brokers and archivists may offer guarded trust.

Vale Cartwright
You traveled between hamlets, trading wood, salt, and rumor. You knew the back trails, the bridge tolls, the names of every dog between four villages. You learned what to carry, who to trust, and when to keep your mouth shut.

• Skill Proficiencies: Animal Handling, Persuasion

• Tool Proficiencies: Carpenter’s Tools, Land Vehicles

• Languages: Common

• Equipment: A carved walking stick, route map, marked trade ledger, and 10 gp

• Feature: Road-Familiar – You know forgotten trails, seasonal hazards, and which villages offer hospitality to travelers. You can usually secure shelter in rural areas.

Old Quarry Hand
You labored in the Hollows before they were sealed. You knew the sound of a crack in stone before it opened. You saw what was buried, what should have stayed buried, and what couldn’t.

• Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Investigation

• Tool Proficiencies: Mason’s Tools, Miner’s Tools

• Languages: Dwarvish

• Equipment: A stone chisel marked with a quarry sigil, worker’s gloves, hooded cloak, and 8 gp

• Feature: Echoes Below – Once per long rest, you can sense the presence of hollow spaces, tunnels, or structural weakness within 30 feet through vibration and touch.

Militocracy Defector
Once trained under the banner of New Antioch, you walked away. You learned their tactics, their orders, their words. And then you broke from them. But you still move like one of them. Sometimes, that’s enough.

• Skill Proficiencies: History, Stealth

• Tool Proficiencies: Smith’s Tools, One martial weapon

• Languages: Common

• Equipment: A stripped insignia, old orders, altered identification papers, and 10 gp

• Feature: Unwilling Veteran – You can pass as a low-ranking agent of the Church Militant with forged documents. You know how to navigate checkpoints, requisition posts, or minor command structures.

Religious Backgrounds

Matran Firekeeper (Matra Hearthborn)
You kept the hearth for a family not your own. In kitchens, shrines, and village commons, you honored the sacred fire not as a weapon or a warning, but as a gift. You stirred pots before dawn, tended flames through storm and snow, and welcomed strangers in need. Through these small acts, you found a place in Matra’s unspoken covenant: feed the hungry, warm the cold, and guard the flame that others forget.

• Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Medicine

• Tool Proficiencies: Cook’s Utensils, Brewer’s Supplies

• Languages: Common

• Equipment: A clay vessel with Matran glyphs, a stitched apron, a pouch of salt, and 10 gp

• Feature: Bread and Warmth – When you offer food or shelter, common folk treat you with trust and familiarity. Inns and homesteads may offer refuge if you ask nothing in return.

Silent Root-Tender (Serenna of the Grove)
You were raised beneath leaf and stone, learning the rites of life, decay, and the quiet balance between. You tended to glades where roots wrapped bones and prayers grew from moss. In the service of Serenna, you offered antlers, ashes, and silence. You understand that some things must be buried and some must be nourished to grow again.

• Skill Proficiencies: Nature, Religion

• Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit, Mason’s Tools

• Languages: Sylvan

• Equipment: Prayer stones, sap vial, dried grave flowers, traveler’s robes, and 5 gp

• Feature: Grove’s Memory – You can intuit the age, health, and spiritual resonance of trees and glades. Druids and wild-priests recognize your rites.

Wet-Paged Mourner (Thul of the Wet Pages)
You served death not with a blade, but with a pen. You kept the names of the unclaimed, wrote elegies no one would read, and etched memories into soot-damp paper. In temples, crypts, or wandering pilgrim wagons, you recorded the lives of those nearly forgotten. You believe remembrance is its own kind of salvation.

• Skill Proficiencies: History, Insight

• Tool Proficiencies: Calligrapher’s Supplies, one musical instrument

• Languages: Celestial

• Equipment: A soot-charred journal, funerary cloth, carved memory token, and 10 gp

• Feature: Remembrance – You can recall obscure deaths, lost names, or buried rites with precision. You are welcome in ossuaries, graveyards, and mourning shrines.

Child of the Watcher (Lady of the Forest)
You carry a mark not seen, but felt. From the moment you first wandered alone into the woods and returned changed, the Lady watched. You dream in petals and frost. Birds land beside you, unafraid. You do not remember taking any vow but you know one was made. And kept.

• Skill Proficiencies: Arcana, Survival

• Tool Proficiencies: Woodcarver’s Tools, Herbalism Kit

• Languages: Elvish

• Equipment: A cedar token, frost rose seed pod, small animal bone, and 5 gp

• Feature: Forgotten Oath – Once per long rest, you may whisper a desperate plea to the Lady. At DM discretion, you receive a symbolic or practical boon a vision, omen, safe crossing, or animal sign.

Ash-Bearer of Valtric (Valtric Hollow-King)
You served a throne long-empty. In forgotten chapels and fading courts, you learned the language of oaths no longer sworn. You bore the ash of failed crowns and recited decrees to empty rooms. Though no sovereign answers, the weight of that silence still bends the knee.

• Skill Proficiencies: History, Insight

• Tool Proficiencies: Calligrapher’s Supplies, one gaming set

• Languages: Celestial

• Equipment: A seal of office stripped of rank, folded parchment with forgotten laws, common robes, and 10 gp

• Feature: The Empty Seat – You can identify and interpret ceremonial law, abandoned doctrines, or regional authority tied to Valtric. In such places, local officials may defer to your counsel.

Tithe-Keeper of Arven (Arven of the Open Hand)
You honored every exchange not just coin, but kindness. You tracked debts with ink and prayer, ensuring balance in both trade and soul. Whether behind a merchant’s stall or seated at the village feast, you carried the weight of Arven’s open hand: to give, to tally, and to settle what is owed.

• Skill Proficiencies: Persuasion, Insight

• Tool Proficiencies: Cook’s Utensils, Jeweler’s Tools

• Languages: Common

• Equipment: A scale of tin and brass, a ledger of village trades, a worn copper charm, and 15 gp

• Feature: Table of Fair Weights – You can identify unjust trade or exploitative pricing on sight. Merchants and households will trust your word in matters of barter or dispute.

Bound-Stone Initiate (Durek the Bound)
You took the oath with blood on stone. You trained in a hall where weapons were sacred and silence was kept until broken by challenge. Under Durek’s gaze, you were taught to bow before no ruler but the weight of your own vow. You did not fight to win. You fought to remember.

• Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Religion

• Tool Proficiencies: Smith’s Tools, One martial weapon

• Languages: Celestial

• Equipment: A sparring token, a knotted oath-band, an iron nail engraved with your vow, and 10 gp

• Feature: Dueler’s Recognition – You may challenge another to formal combat once per long rest under Durek’s rite. Warriors, mercenaries, and honor-bound orders may respect your role and accept arbitration.

Whisperwarden of Velas (Velas the Velvet Eye)
You kept vigil where others fled. In sickbeds, crypts, and dream-halls, you watched over the restless and whispered them into stillness. Whether healer, hospice servant, or priest of mercy, you carried Velas’s candle and never let it go out.

• Skill Proficiencies: Medicine, Arcana

• Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit, one musical instrument

• Languages: Elvish

• Equipment: A pale candle that never burns down, a silken veil, sleep-powder sachet, and 8 gp

• Feature: Dream’s Rest – Once per long rest, you may soothe nightmares, trauma, or magical unrest through whispering rites. You are treated with reverence by healers, caretakers, and dream-walkers.