The Heroic Chronicle is a system that allows players and Dungeon Master to work together to build a compelling character story. It even allows characters to gain additional proficiencies, magic items, spells, or feats before the campaign begins.

Backstory

A character's story begins with determining the region where they were born, the job they had before becoming an adventurer, their social status, the settlement where they grew up, and their family relationships. As this backstory develops, the character will gain allies and rivals, as well as learn some of the fateful moments that set them on the path of adventure.

Homelands

The Sword Coast and the North can be divided into five major political regions, each of which are described in chapter 2 of the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. These regions are the Lords’ Alliance, the Dwarfholds of the North, the Island Kingdoms, Independent Realms, and the Underdark.

To determine your homeland, roll 1d100 on the Homelands table below. You may decide your character was born in one region but grew up in another. In that case, roll twice to determine the land of your birth and the land you were ultimately raised in.

Background

In addition to granting you items, gold, and proficiencies, your background gives you a sense of belonging in the world.

Social Status

Even in lands as free as the Sword Coast and the North, most folk are trapped in their social station by forces they can’t control like wealth, family, and political power. Your story begins with you as a member of one social class, determined by your homeland and your background.

Home Settlement

Once you've determined your nation and considered your social status within that realm, roll on the appropriate table to determine which settlement you grew up in. If your character is a traveler - a child of soldiers, a nomad, a traveling performer, and so forth - you can roll for up to three settlements that you've visited often and have some connections in.

Family

Roll twice on the appropriate Family Size table - once to determine how many living parents you have, and once to determine your living siblings.

Powerful Family Relationships

Your first allies and rivals are your family. Sometimes your family members are your closest friends. Sometimes you hate their guts. Roll a d3. This is the number of powerful relationships you have within your family.

Roll once on the Family Relationships table for each powerful relationship you have within your family, to determine the setup of your friendship or rivalry.

Acquired Allies and Rivals

If you gained allies or rivals based on your background and your homeland, this section allows you to establish your relationship with those allies and rivals, as well as the broad strokes of their identities.

Ally and Rival Identities

When you've determined the relationships between you and your acquired allies and rivals, roll for each one on the Ally and Rival Identities table to determine their game statistics. This table includes monsters and NPCs in this book and in the Monster Manual.

If you roll a particularly powerful ally or rival on this table, their involvement in your life causes a fateful moment to occur in your backstory, as determined on the Fateful Moments table.

Fateful Moments

No one decides to go adventuring without a reason. Some might set out from home in the name of vengeance, seeking retribution for themselves or their kin. Some might be looking for wealth or glory. Others might seek only a change from their dreary lives, never realizing that they'll soon be caught up in events beyond their understanding along the open road.

Roll once on the Fateful Moments table for each such moment you accrued in the previous section, courtesy of the allies and rivals that are part of your backstory.

Mysterious Secret

You saw something you weren't supposed to. A note came into your possession by mysterious means. You can roll on the Mysterious Secrets table or work with your DM to create a secret.

Prophecy

Write down three aspirations or goals you have for your character, and which you want to achieve over the course of the campaign. A prophecy goal should have two parts. First is the goal that your character wants to attain. Second is a sense of what complication might ensue once the goal is met - for good or ill.

One of your prophecy goals should be an immediate goal, one should be long term, and one should be a goal that concludes your character arc at the end of the campaign. You don't have to choose all three goals at the start.

If you're looking for prophecy goals for your character, you can roll on the Prophecy Inspirations table for a random goal and a consequence of that goal. If this goal isn't a perfect fit for your character, you can fine-tune it or roll again to find one that works better.