Hell’s Rebels includes some traits in its Player’s Guide that can be assigned to PCs to tie them to the campaign either by providing a motivation or by giving them additional ways to contribute. A PC could be a minor worker in the opera, or a fed-up citizen, or interested in the city’s history, and so on.

I don’t think those quite fit what I have in mind for my solo campaign. They are suitable as backgrounds for level 1 starting characters and their mechanics can be useful at the start, but pretty much cease to be a factor in the story once the “main plot” kicks in.

Despite being released six years earlier than Hell’s Rebels, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting for D&D 4e does a much better job at allowing players to create characters who are deeply involved with the campaign at hand. More than starting motivations, its character themes provide entire story arcs that will remain relevant throughout the entire campaign.

I want the same thing for my game, so I’m going to replace the relatively generic reasons given in the Hell’s Rebels player guide with something that’s narratively on par with Neverwinter’s themes. I want them to not only be more exciting, but also to reflect the increased starting power of Dungeon Fantasy characters. They’re going to be key players in the rebellion from minute one of the campaign. Why just be a random history buff when you can be The Last Archivist instead? This status might be reflected in some of their traits, but the story consequences are the main thing here.

Here are the “character themes” I intend to use. There are five, one for each of my intended PCs, but presenting them separately will help provide some inspiration to other GMs who want to do the same thing whether in GURPS or another system. I’m using Dungeon Fantasy archetype and ancestry names instead of those from Pathfinder, but the correlations should be pretty easy to deduce. Each of them also has plot ties to some of the game’s possible allied factions.

Each theme bellow includes a short background description, and paragraphs listing prerequisites, benefits, and drawbacks. These are mostly story-related, but they might also add optional mechanical traits to your character’s template. You can buy these right away with your starting points, or buy them later with earned points like any other template trait.

The Sixth Raven

Most surviving historical documents about the Silver Ravens say they were five in number: Jackdaw the elf swashbuckler, Amyreid the half-elf cleric, Ba the halfling wizard, Kyda the human bard, and Brakisi the human scout.

These documents were wrong. There was one other: you.

You were a small orphan child then, adopted by the group as a kind of mascot somewhere along their career. You shared their love for Kintargo and its freedom, but you were too young to go on any actual adventures, so you mostly helped by running small errands, and heard from their big battles when they returned to tell the tale.

This lasted until the last battle, the one against the massed armies of House Thrune. Jackdaw sent you away with many of her other non-combatant friends the day before that one, promising she’d call you back when the danger was past. She never did, because the Ravens lost. Jackdaw surrendered so that the demonic army would spare the city, and the others were either killed by Thrune agents over in subsequent years or disappeared forever.

Over the following decades you would finally reach adulthood and set out on your own, becoming an adventurer of some skill and renown elsewhere in the Inner Sea region. Now, you’re ready to return home and finish the work of your old friends. Your name has been struck from the history books, but your passion burns as brightly as it ever did.

Prerequisites: You must belong to a species long-lived enough that you could have been a child 70 years ago and still be of adventuring age in the present. Being a dwarf or some kind of elf is enough, but the Half-Spirit ancestries from DF 3 might also fit. Another alternative is to play a Warforged who was an active member of the Ravens and spent some of the intervening decades disabled and unconscious, but was recently repaired. You can belong to any profession.

Benefits: You remember things. The GM might occasionally give you hints and clues about old Silver Raven safehouses and stashes. You also knew the Ravens personally and they knew you - should any of them still be around, you will be able to recognize each other.

You can add the Serendipity {15} trait to your template if it’s not already present. This represents your memories of old Kintargo and Raven hangouts, and might let you find useful shortcuts, items, and passages that are not pre-written into the campaign.

Drawbacks: Things remember you. Demons, vampires, and other similarly long-lived monsters who faced the original Ravens back in the day will recognize you just as readily, and will be extra-mean to you as a result. Once word spreads that you’re back, some of them might even travel to Kintargo for the sole purpose of killing you.

This can be represented by the Enemy (Monster of the Week, 9 or less) {-15} trait, which gets added as an optional disadvantage to your template.

If you only have the DFRPG, the disadvantage works like this: the GM rolls 3d6 in secret at the beginning of each adventure or each session of an extended adventure. If the result is a 9 or less, a significantly powerful monster will appear somewhere along the coming adventure or session, inserting itself into one of the upcoming situations and making things more complicated and dangerous for you and your group. It’s usually something complicated to fight, and not necessarily the same monster every time. This is in addition to any pre-existing monsters in the adventure who recognize you and want you dead.

The Last Archivist

You were a member of the Sacred Order of Archivists, a secret society made up of worshipers of various deities of knowledge and wisdom. The Order was dedicated to preserving the true history of Kintargo and other such “forbidden” knowledge from Thrune redactors.

The Order is no more: its hideout was raided and ransacked by Thrune forces during the Night of Ashes. You were away when it happened, on a mission to retrieve an important document in another city. That’s why you survived. When you returned, you reached out to a few contacts and learned that some of your colleagues have surviving family. They were nobles and their family estate was razed during the Night of Ashes, but one of their sons is still at large. You are now trying to find this son, help him stay safe, and then get revenge on House Thrune.

Prerequisites: None! While the Order is an excellent origin for Clerics, Wizards, and other big brains, it could easily have employed fightier or sneakier types as security or retrieval specialists.

Benefits: It’s impossible to be a member of the Archivists and not learn something. In addition to being familiar with the Order’s hideout and its procedures, you also know a bit of the region’s unredacted history and a few other tidbits of unrelated but potentially useful knowledge. You can recognize the Sixth Raven if run into them.

You can add the History and Research skills as an option to your template, and also all specialties of Hidden Lore if they aren’t there already. You also add Wild Talent {20} as an optional advantage, representing a large trove of random knowledge. If you’re using the Basic Set, add Intelligence Analysis to your template as well.

Drawbacks: You’re riven by grief and driven by revenge against Barzilai Thrune and his minions. This might manifest as Intolerance (Diabolists) {-5}, an Obsession (depose Thrune)(12) {-10}, or both! The Obsession might seem redundant since it’s also the overall campaign goal, but it also compels you to take potentially risky and unwise courses of action if they seem like they will yield quicker results. It could also prevent you from retreating from a fight against Thrune’s minions.

Knight of the Deep

You come from one of the subaquatic communities off the coast of Ravounel, where you enjoy an heroic reputation. You recently went to visit your friend Aava in the coastal village of Acisazi, only to find her missing and the village suffering under a strange malaise. The village’s elder told you Aava had led a small party of scouts into Kintargo to ask seek help breaking the curse, but she never reported back. She begged you to find Aava, and you accepted.

You arrive at this land-lubber town to find it embroiled in a lot more trouble than you thought possible. Aava is nowhere to be found and neither is her contact, the singer Shensen. You suspect both of them vanished into the prisons of the despotic Barzilai Thrune, and your queries have led you to the Aria Park protest. You suspect you might need to bloody this human despot’s nose to fulfill your mission, and that’s just fine with you.

Prerequisites: You must belong to a species capable of breathing underwater! Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level contains two possible choices here: the Sea Elf and the Water-Infused. From this blog, you might also pick the Argonian or perhaps a Warforged who has been modified to be hydrodynamic and Amphibious. And of course we also have a whole article about the Denizens of the Sea that also contains a few usable ancestries.

This theme is open to any profession, but martial types should probably keep in mind the rules for underwater combat for fish-people.

Benefits: The people of Acisazi know and trust you, and Aava is your good friend (or even a relative if you’re also a sea elf).

You can add Swimming, Aquabatics and Survival (Undersea) to your template as optional skills, and should probably put some points in them during character creation.

Drawbacks: Add Obsession (find Aava and her scouts) (12) {-5} to your template as an optional disadvantage. It’s what you already want to do anyway, but like the Last Archivist’s Obsession it might drive you to unwise actions.

Phantom Thief

You are one of Lady Docur’s School for Girls’ most distinguished graduates. You had parted ways with your alma mater and set up shop in nearby Vyre, but a recent letter from Lady Docur herself brought you back to Kintargo. The city’s political climate is getting rather inhospitable to the school, and she hopes you will be able to help them survive these turbulent times.

In other words: the school is currently the closest thing Kintargo has to a thieves’ guild. They specialize in training secret couriers and the nicer sort of thief. Thrune prefers the nasty sort of thief, so things might get difficult for the school and its students. That’s where you come in.

Of course, you’re not here just to help your old school. You’re also, er, taking a breather from some rather complex entanglements you left behind in the good city of Vyre. Hopefully it will be a long while before you have to set foot there again.

Prerequisites: It’s a school for girls, which means you either are a woman or only discovered you weren’t after graduation. You must also be some manner of Thief, either the base template or one of the variants from the corresponding Dungeon Fantasy Denizens book.

Benefits: You know Lady Docur and other characters associated with your alma mater, and have their trust. You also know Vyre’s customs, which might come in handy if you ever need to go back there.

Add Area Knowledge and Current Affairs for both Kintargo and Vyre to your template, as well as Connoisseur, Savoir-Faire and the Fashion Sense advantage. The School does give one a proper high society education.

Drawbacks: Those Vyre entanglements will come back to haunt you if you ever return there during the campaign.

No extra disadvantages here: everything which could make a thief’s life harder is already part of the relevant templates.

Mysterious Satirist

Even before Barzilai Thrune rolled in like he owned the place, you were already well-known among Kintargo’s rebels, malcontents, and antifascists. Whether you make poems, plays, essays, or songs, your work criticizing House Thrune was on everybody’s minds and the pseudonym you chose for yourself was spoken in the same tones as that of The Poison Pen and other such figures. Thrune’s opponents speak it with admiration; his supporters, with disgust. That’s how you like it.

While no one has figured who you are yet, Barzilai’s arrival and the Night of Ashes have made your life very difficult already. Most of your contacts among Kintargo’s several resistance organizations have vanished, left town, or gone to ground. While you still value your art, you also feel it’s time to engage in more direct action against this dictator.

Prerequisites: None! While Bards obviously have a head start in terms of the artistic skills implied by this theme, the Mysterious Satirist could be anyone.

Benefits: Choose one of the Bellflower Network, the Cult of Sarenrae, the Rose of Kintargo, or the Poison Pen. You’re indirectly acquainted with that group or individual. Though you have never met, you have corresponded and set up pre-arranged signs that will let you recognize each other when the meeting does happen.

Add the artistic or performance skills of your choice to your template, as well as an appropriate Talent covering them to your optional advantages. Writing, Poetry, and Musical Composition are appropriate if you share your work through in written form. Public Speaking, Singing, Acting and Musical Instrument are also good if you actually perform it. If you have the GURPS Basic Set, you can also add Artist to the list of possible artistic skills, and you also add Propaganda no matter what your medium is.

Drawbacks: Add a 10-point Secret (Mysterious Satirist), Selfless, and Trickster to your optional disadvantage list if they are not already there. The first represents the risk of bad things happening when the authorities discover who you are, above and beyond what being a Silver Raven would bring. The other two represent possible reasons for you to have chosen this path in the first place.