Passing Strange Pt. 2: The Background Table

The next stage of character creation is rolling up a background. 

Roll 1D20 to get your character background

I like the random backgrounds from Electric Bastionland and Honey Heist. This is me amusing myself, and hopefully making something interesting in the process. 

01: Ascension blacklist

You’ve done the ayahuasca, the psychic alchemy, the seven stages of orgone release. You’re READY. When you gotta rise up you’re helium man. Except that there are people out there who won’t let you. A shadowy group using electromagnetic radiation to influence your inner calm.

The Prison Warder Consciousness is what some people call it, a fearsome being huddling jealously in a higher plane. Some say it’s agents of the Vatican or Silicon Valley.

It doesn’t know who it’s dealing with.

Lower your Luck by 2 points, as something is clearly working against your spiritual progress. Pick two spells from the sŭrtse (heart) list. You don’t think of it as magick, of course. It’s a product of your enlightenment.

02: Basilisk bae

The world is a simulation, right? There is an AI, a computer god running everything. It loves you, the way you might love a sitcom character or a YouTuber. The Basilisk (that’s what’s they call the AI) finds you interesting, comical and hot in some way. Of course you can’t relax. After all there are BILLIONS of competitors out there, whether they know it or not.

The Basilisk loves you, for now. Have 2 extra points of Luck as the simulation accommodates you. Once per session you can spend 4 Luck points to make a wish. If the AI thinks it’d be interesting it’ll give you what you ask for, while maintaining the simulation’s integrity. If you’re being boring the 4 points will be gone for good.

He's got the whole world in his hand.

03: Brain Force Exemplar

You live on a steady diet of nootropics, ginseng and adderall. Your cognition is at peak capacity due to fearlessly enhancing your brain chemistry. Now people fear meeting your gaze. They sense that their lies are laid bare before you.

They sure saw you coming, huh? Lower your ATM by 1 point (to a minimum of 1). 1D3 times per session you may raise Prowess, Physique or Brains by one (to a maximum of 11). They reset at the session’s end.

04: Bullshit inherited

You’re carrying a burden too heavy to be yours. It was your great-grandmother who made that pact. It was your uncle who was the Jean-Luc Godard of snuff films. Yet here you are. The wrong people are attracted to your legacy, while there are people or things who want to exact payment from you for things you never did.

Describe the nature of your inherited bullshit in a few sentences. Who is attracted to this legacy, and who wants to destroy it (and maybe you as well)?

Roll a D6 at the start of every session. On a roll of 6 ‘fans’ of your ancestor’s work show up during the course of the session. On a roll of 1 those who thirst for revenge will make an appearance.

If you lean into your legacy, you can get help from your ‘fans’, including social clout, money (an extra 3 ATM per session or so), or even violence on your behalf.

The downside is that you need to carry on the legacy and live up to their expectations. Your enemies now show up on a roll of 1-3.

05: Deprogrammed

You can see clearly now the brainwash is gone. You were in a cult, a pyramid scheme, a fundraiser to build a town founded on YOUR values. How clouded can one’s mind get? You were used while kidding yourself you were chosen. Now you approach the world with healthy skepticism (dearly fucking bought!) and hope to help others like you.

You got out of the other side, strengthened by adversity. Increase your SP by 2 points (to a maximum of 11). Name a thing your former group approved of and one which it didn’t.

06: Gentrificator

You really are the enemy you know? You want to live in the city, but you want convenience. You want a safety rail, a neighbor who looks like you. Artisinal coffee too. Maybe if you helped us instead of looking at us like we’re bad cheese, then we could get somewhere. You know?

You’ve got more money than anyone else here. Raise your ATM to 9. Pick an affectation as a tell.

07: Hope-fool

It’s going to be all right. Sure things look bleak, but we can’t see the whole picture. The good always comes through. The darkest cloud et cetera and so forth. We need to struggle, endure and smile.

You may increase your Luck up to a maximum of 11 by lowering your Brains on a 1-for-2 basis. Your Brains can’t go below 2.

08: I’m all ready you see

Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me. That’s Dr. Seuss, American philosopher. It encapsulates nicely where you are right now. You’ve probably started carrying a weapon. Knife, gun, whatever. You’re just hoping someone will give you a reason to show them what trouble really looks like.

Increase your Prowess by 1 (to a maximum of 11). You start play with a weapon.

09: (the) Kingdom of Worms

When you woke up you were dead. The afterlife isn’t like they say at all. It is a vast plain where human souls float in the shape of worms. Writhing masses of worms. Cathedrals and palaces of the dead.

They resuscitated you. Told you you were clinically dead for 12 minutes. As if you didn’t know that. As if you don’t still see the worm-souls eager for you all to join them. You don’t see them all the time, but pretty near. A writhing world yearning for new inhabitants.

You can talk to the dead. Unfortunately the dead seem to shed their humanity and indivudality “beyond the veil”. Getting a single dead person requires a Brains roll.

Circumstances	Modifier to roll
A non-specific person with a specific skill set (ie. a carpenter, demolitions expert etc.)	+1
Any person will do	+3
A specific individual	-2
The Sun is up.	-2
You have something important to the person.	+1
You’re related to this person	+2
You KILLED this person	+2
You sacrifice someone while summoning the person.	+3

If you fail nothing happens, unless there is another entity within ‘earshot’.

"Yes... someone is coming through... a name beginning with 'm'?"

10: Mall ninja

Sun Tzu said: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt”. But enemies come in all shapes and sizes. Best to have a weapon ready for all of them. You have the broadsword, the weaponized fidget spinner, the mace, the tactical pen and the Taurus Judge.

To quote the Hagakure: “step out from under the eaves and you are a dead man”.

Let them come.

You always have another weapon. The only rules are that it must be man-portable and each one has to be significantly different from the last. If you just emptied your Heizer Defense Pocket AK, your next weapon had best be a pair of nunchucks or a blowgun.

11: Navel deficiency

You don’t have a navel. An omphalos. The part where an umbilical chord was supposed to plug in. You were home schooled, and your parents left that part out (along with a lot of other stuff). They did teach you that Adam was born with a navel despite having never been in a womb. God wants the world to look older than it is apparently.

They died in an accident involving a big rig and a country road, so there ain’t no asking them what it all means. Are you another of God’s gotchas? Where the hell do you come from?

Add 2 to your Physique and your SP (up to a max of 11). You cannot pass a simple physical, even if you manage to hide your absent belly button.

12: Old school occultist

Kids nowadays do elevator games and drum circles without knowning their Middle Pillar Rite or their Clavicula Salomonis. They’re trifling basically. You are part of the old guard.

Perhaps you belong to some society with an impressive name like The Hermetic Order of Ageless Truth, The Brotherhood of the Inner Sun or The Triumphant Children of Kundalini. Perhaps you do your esoteric research alone, where no fools and pretenders can hold you back. Either way you are an adept and a scholar, not riding an elevator because you found some half-baked ritual on the internet.

Pick two spells from the lists below. If you’re part of a society, give it a name, and come up with some duty it expects you to fulfill.

But on the other hand he's making progress with the Mysteries Unspeakable.

13: Out from Under the Hill

You were abducted and kept as a pet, a slave or curiosity in Their realm. It was a UFO or fairy castle. It was a strange world where the few familiar touches just served to underscore that home was far away. The rest was characterized by ruined elegance and seemed to run on muscle memory and blind habit. You were a curiosity, or a subject of experiments without any discernable purpuse. Now you’re back, changed.

You can see in most darkness. With a Brains roll you recognise something ‘not right’ about creatures who only pretend to be human. Pick a tell which indicates your changed nature.

14: Retcon victim

The world is wrong. You distinctly remember the salty caramel flavor of a cool Dr. Piper in its blue glass bottle. You remember having to read about President McGovern’s meeting with Czar Nicholas IV. You remember many things that never happened, and you have learned the hard way to shut up about them. That world was real though, and it must be possible to return to it or else forget it. This place is subtly wrong in a million ways, and not a day goes by where you are not reminded that you’re a stranger.

There is no record of your existence for better or worse. You gain an extra point of SP (up to a maximum of 11). You have a curious item from your timeline. If you can find a buyer it might net you 1D6 ATM.

15: Squatter

You are homeless, in theory. In practice you live in that rundown apartment at the end of the hall, that boarded-up row house. At least until the owners notice and have you kicked out. That could be next year or tomorrow. With no money and no fixed abode you’re kinda lawless.

Your beginning ATM is 1.

You have learned that not being seen often is the best policy. You get +2 to all Physique and Brains rolls to sneak, hide, discover the security cam’s blind spot. The modifier does not extend to Luck, ‘cos you’re not really lucky are you?

16: Subterranean

There is a place that exists beyond any sunlight or buzzing neon. There is a secret market under the waste management plant. Here homeless men with anglerfish eyes barter with trilobites over secrets older than Pompeii. There are nightmare cities and blind salamander migrations, There are great machines hidden from the eyes of jealous angels. You are a dual citizen of that place.

You can see most kinds of darkness. You get +1 to any roll dealing with climbing or otherwise navigating caverns and their peoples.

17: Supplicant

You worship something. Maybe it’s an idea, but let’s not kid ourselves. There is something behind that idea. An entity with preferences and an unbending will. It might be something that was once human or an entity that never belonged in humanity’s conception of natural order. The Exalted One has tasks for you to fulfill and entices you with power and with meaning. What more could a kid want?

Give the thing you worship a name. Name a thing it likes and a thing it loathes. Pick a single spell from the lists below. Roll a D6 at the start of each session. On a 6 the thing you worship will make its wishes known in some fashion of the GM’s devising.

Rompiendo la monotonia del tiempo

18: Undercover pig

If these reprobate fucks knew who you really are they just might kill your ass. You went undercover for something quite normal. Drugs, extremists etc. You were in no way ready for how deep the rabbit hole goes around here. The mole people. The ghost cult. The guy who collects puppets and wants to be the first libertarian president. The peace summit in the laundrette. The runaway shadows. How can you ever really go home?

You start play with a gun and a badge of uncertain authority. Increase your ATM by 2. Those are funds for paying informers and the like. Not yours.

19: Yeti lovechild

There’s something strange in your family tree. Something animalistic, yet wise. You’re hirsute and tall, handsome, provided one likes lowland gorillas. You can track by scent and sometimes even smell if couples are good for each other. There are none of your blood for miles around. You can smell that too.

You can track someone by scent, provided you have something of theirs. Staying on the scent in an urban environment may require a Physique roll or two.

Can you really smell if people are romantically compatible?

20: Roll twice and combine somehow