Wednesday, August 27, 2014

5e Background: Cake

fuck you
Stone grinds the harvest, a year's work reduced to so much sand and waste. The knife slices cleanly through firm flesh, vital juices running everywhere. A strange alchemy takes place to create desire, need...addiction. The unborn are destroyed for love, for fun, for tradition. Flames lick the air and scalding steel forges something new, greater than the sum of its parts. Something whole yet incomplete. You are soft now but soon that will change. Raise yourself higher, make yourself desired by all, it's still not enough. A shroud now. Yes, father. I shall become delicious.
If you choose this background, I don't even know, man. The important thing is to remember that you seem normal flesh and blood. You're just confectionary. You need not interpret this too literally. Perhaps you're a tart. (Steady, Robin.) Perhaps you're trifle. Perhaps this background simply allows you to realize your dream of becoming a gnome stripper. Determine from whence you came, a culinary institution if not some secret master chef.

Tool Proficiencies: Cook's Utensils
Skill Proficiencies: Persuasion, Medicine
Languages: One of your choice
Equipment: A case of ingredients, two recipe books (one of recipes you found, one of recipes you invented), neat working clothes and apron, 30gp worth of silverware, a sack containing toxic but gorgeous berries.

Feature: Just Desserts

Everyone likes to treat themselves now and again. People from all cultures like having you around. Even evil people don't turn their nose up at Cake. You are never short of people who want to spend time with you. Not all of them are going to be taken in by you but maybe, just maybe, they will.

You are also rarely the first to fall under suspicion in a group. Many won't believe you are capable of trickery, murder...they don't WANT to believe it. Look at you. How could you hurt anybody? What could something so sweet do to hurt anyone? The exception of course is where poison is involved...

You may invest any Spell you know into a slice of cake, or a cupcake, as a ritual. The spell takes effect when the cake is eaten or destroyed and you take one Hit Die of damage. Sympathetic magic. You may wield a frosting bag or serving knife as an Arcane Focus.

Suggested Characteristics:

You can be pretty heavy in the metaphysical sense but you find a light touch works better. You're accustomed to giving of yourself, and to sharing, but you know in your heart you can't help everyone. Sitting around for too long leaves you feeling antsy, and you'd do anything to shake off that feeling. You may prefer to seem affable but mundane or you may prefer to look like Danzig traced a new version of Candyland, depending upon temperament. You believe a little touch of salty language and bitterness makes life all the sweeter.

d8 Personality Trait:
1. I have an energy about me that children love.
2. There are deeper layers only the few I let in can see.
3. I prefer a fresh approach to a staid yet stale strategy.
4. I seem a little nutty on the surface.
5. I'm not hung up on beauty, because it's what's inside that counts.
6. I'm so pretty. Look at me. So. Pretty. Instead of a dark lord you shall have a QUEEEEN!
7. Who doesn't love a good party?
8. I start fires.

d6 Ideal:
1. Good Taste. Decorum and refinement should be celebrated, ugliness in appearance and behavior shunned. (Alignment)
2. Personal Glory. I like to be the center of attention. (Stuff)
3. Richness. I want to leave my crummy childhood behind. (I)
4. Greed. There's so much that's ripe for the taking, and I want more. (Ignore)
5. Acceptance. There is no need to be restricted by binary notions of entrees and desserts. Some Cakes are white, some are pink, some are a mix, or are a color out of space. Each Cake is unique, and that uniqueness is special and should be celebrated. (Bon)
6. Hedonism. It's what I want now. It feels good now. (Appetit)

d6 Bond:
1. I like to enrich the lives of the poor, who don't often get what I have.
2. There is an appointment which I must keep, or everything will be spoiled.
3. The honeymoon is over. Now what do I do?
4. I'm going to spice up local politics and upset all the saccharine glad-handers.
5. I carry a secret with me about the king's baby.
6. There is a recipe for success, and I'm after it.

d6 Flaw:
1. I make a mess of things.
2. I am a bad influence on those around me.
3. I fall for every half-baked scheme.
4. Overly ostentatious, terrified of people seeing the real me.
5. Crumble under pressure.
6. I am so baked right now dude.