5th Edition Backgrounds – The Stuff of Legends by Darron Woodson is a role playing game supplement published by Abandoned Arts via Fat Goblin Games. This is a collection of new backgrounds for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition and, as such, is covered by the Open Game License.
This is a nine page PDF that is available from DriveThruRPG for $1 but was purchased at a greatly reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the cover, one page is the front matter, an explanation of backgrounds and a Disclaimed that the published isn’t responsible for character loss as a result of using the supplement and one page is the Open Game License.
With the brief overview of backgrounds already covered, there is no further introductory text. There are four backgrounds, each laid out in a similar way. There is an overview of the type, including proficiencies and equipment, followed by a series of tables for characteristics and something specific to the class and a class feature.
The Knight-Errant is a wandering knight with a table of suggested coats of arms. The feature is the location of a rare and wonderful object.
Legacy’s Heir is the descendent, apprentice or otherwise of a heroic forbear and this can give you favourable reactions, as well as being difficult to live up to. A variant is that the forbear was actually a villain, with a variant feature of infamy, which leads to shunning and distrust.
Relic Seekers hunt relics and have an advantage when it comes to solving puzzles.
Treasure Hunters seek treasure, not merely gold, and come with relevant starting equipment.
5th Edition Backgrounds – The Stuff of Legends in Review
The PDF is very well bookmarked for its length with major and minor sections linked. Navigation is excellent. The text maintains a two column colour format and appeared to be free of errors. There are three stock colour illustrations from the published used to illustrate some of the backgrounds. Presentation is okay.
The four classes do provide new options for starting characters, although of the four Treasure Hunter is probably the poorest. That background’s benefit is equipment that may be useful for a starting character, but is probably useless for characters of higher levels. Some of the other backgrounds do have features that are of continued use.
5th Edition Backgrounds – The Stuff of Legends is a nice, inexpensive little supplement that can be used to expand a character’s starting options and it can be found by clicking here.
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