Inheritor 5e
You are the heir to something of great value – not mere coin or wealth, but an object that has been entrusted to you and you alone. Your inheritance might have come directly to you from a member of your family, by right of birth, or it could have been left to you by a friend, a mentor, a teacher, or someone else important in your life. The revelation of your inheritance changed your life, and might have set you on the path to adventure, but it could also come with many dangers, including those who covet your gift and want to take it from you – by force, if need be.
Source: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
Skill Proficiencies: Survival, plus one from among Arcana, History, and Religion
Tool Proficiencies: Your choice of a gaming set or a musical instrument
Languages: Any one of your choice
Equipment: Your inheritance, a set of traveler's clothes, the tool you choose for this background’s tool proficiency, and a pouch containing 15gp
Features
Inheritance: Choose or randomly determine your inheritance from among the possibilities in the table below. Work with your DM to come up with details: Why is your inheritance so important, and what is its full story? You might prefer for the DM to invent these details as part of the game, allowing you to learn more about your inheritance as your character does.
The DM is free to use your inheritance as a story hook, sending you on quests to learn more about its history or true nature, or confronting you with foes who want to claim it for themselves or prevent you from learning what you seek. The DM also determines the properties of your inheritance and how they figure into the item's history and importance. For instance, the object might be a minor magic item, or one that begins with a modest ability and increases in potency with the passage of time. Or, the true nature of your inheritance might not be apparent at first and is revealed only when certain conditions are met.
When you begin your adventuring career, you can decide whether to tell your companions about your inheritance right away. Rather than attracting attention to yourself, you might want to keep your inheritance a secret until you learn more about what it means to you and what it can do for you.
Inheritance Table
| d8 | Object or Item |
|---|---|
| 1 | A document such as a map, a letter, or a journal |
| 2-3 | A trinket |
| 4 | An article of clothing |
| 5 | A piece of jewelry |
| 6 | An arcane book or formulary |
| 7 | A written story, song, poem, or secret |
| 8 | A tattoo or other body marking |
Suggested Characteristics
Use the tables for the Folk Hero background as the basis for your traits and motivations, modifying the entries when appropriate to suit your identity.
Your bond might be directly related to your inheritance, or to the person from whom you received it. Your ideal might be influenced by what you know about your inheritance, or by what you intend to do with your gift once you realize what it is capable of.
Should You Be An Inheritor?
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Inheritors are painted as a figure of destiny- somebody that’s bound to an object of significance. Whether they’re intended to protect it, wield it against evil, or destroy, an Inheritor usually has some direct ties into the plot. The option presented in the Sword Coast Advneture’s Guise introduces the premise, then reduces it to its most mundane. It can be a fine jumping off point, but balancing your importance in a party can be a challenge, making this a background not for every table.
Feature: Inheritance
Inheritance bequeaths you an object of supposed significance. Sometimes you have it to start, othertimes you’ll discover it later, but this object exists in the world.
This feature is one of the most open-ended in the game. It's entirely between you and your DM to decide what it is, how it works, if you have to seek it out, and how that affects the narrative. It can be as inconsequential as a trinket passed from parent to child or as critical as a Moonblade rightfully yours that the entire story revolves around.
This kind of background feature usually requires a lot of DM and player work to get right. When done well, though, it adds a huge boon to the table that will encourage you to engage with the world and encourage your friends to do the same.
It does run the risk of painting one character as “more important” than others, though- it can be socially tricky to get the balance right, especially given how vague this feature is phrased as.
At its worst, it's a bonus trinket. At its best, you’re the sole creature that can defeat the campaign's villain and ascend to godhood.
Skills:
Survival usually comes up at least every couple of sessions. It helps track foes in all forms of terrain, or otherwise detect signs of danger or general course of activity that could be dangerous.
None of Arcana, History, or Religion are particularly useful. Of the bunch Arcana likely is coming up most frequently as a tool for identifying magic and its impact on the world, but all three won’t be getting used on an average adventuring session.
Other Proficiencies
A musical instrument or gaming set is slightly more relevant than a second language- I’m not thrilled with it, but it does open some doors to navigate cultural events. Having a method to engage in different kinds of performance will give you more actionable choices to engage the world with over an additional language. Gaming sets are about as relevant as languages, that’s to say, not particularly relevant beyond flavor.
Equipment
Your equipment is impossible to quantify in terms of power, as your Inhertiance plays a massive role in it. If that inheritance is a magic item, you’re starting off on another level than many of the other players. If it’s just a trinket, you’re left with an instrument or gaming set, which isn’t nothing, but not the best.
Bonus Tables
You get a single unique table here for your inheritance, with the rest being pushed over to the Folk Hero background. The d8 inheritance items are about as generic as you can get, and usually will be ignored as you and your DM come up with an object fitting the narrative better.
The Folk Hero tables do at least match the flavor a lot of inheritors will be looking for. It's still a shame they don’t get unique traits referencing their relationship to their inheritance.
All Together
Inheritor runs the risk of being a campaign’s main character to its detriment, while also having the real possibility of never coming up and leaving you feeling like you lack a background. I wouldn’t bring this to most tables- I’d talk to the entire group about it prior and get everyone’s thoughts on it before sticking it on a character sheet.
Beyond the gimmick, it’s a Player’s Handbook background whose feature ranges from pointless to critical to the campaign. The skills aren’t particularly notable, nor are its bonus proficiencies.
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