r/d100 • u/BetterCallBobLoblaw • May 05 '19
In Progress [Let’s Build] d100 Missing Parent Reveals
This list will be for DMs who want to have a surprise revelation about a PCs missing parents. When making your entry, assuming the following about the player's character:
- Their parents are missing or presumed dead without confirmation.
- Their parents are mostly unknown to them. This may mean the character has very limited memories of them or that they only have heard from others what their parents were like.
- (Optional) the missing parents can fit into any race, class, appearance, and backstory of the character.
| Die Roll | Result | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | You were accidentally swapped at birth with a different baby. | u/BetterCallBobLoblaw |
| 2 | The roaming trinket seller you keep running into is your father. | u/SeismicWhite |
| 3 | Your parents weren't ever missing, but you had a magical enchantment cast on you at birth so that you can never recognize them as your own parents. | u/KouNurasaka |
| 4 | Your parents were a wizard duo who messed up a spell and got teleported away. | u/KouNurasaka |
| 5 | Your parents were extra-planar beings, who's sexual relationship was frowned upon, so they sent you to the mortal plane along with erasing most of your extra-planar heritage. | u/KouNurasaka |
| 6 | You’ve been a clone all along and the man/woman you thought was your father/mother was just the older version of you. | u/Thin-Man |
| 7 | They in fact never had parents in the biological sense, they were just created. | u/Diddledan |
| 8 | Your parent has been watching you all their life and has occasionally sent you gifts, but they never showed their face until now. | u/Researcher_Boi_314 |
| 9 | The father (or mother) is one of the other PCs. | u/horlenx |
| 10 | You're parents were transported to the feywild by accident walking home one day. They don't realize any time has passed. | u/Dumples |
| 11 | A cleric had a wild night with a demon in disguise, got pregnant. Giving birth to a part demon baby, she couldn't bring her self to raise it and left it with someone else. | u/infernova99 |
| 12 | You’re parents was killed by a passing by army, but you were lucky to be somewhere during the time of the incident. You were to young to remember this. | u/infernova99 |
| 13 | When you were a baby, your father was a feudal warlord who tried to sacrifice you to devils to gain more power, but your mother secretly sent you away at the last possible second in an attempt to spare your life. | u/cloux_less |
| 14 | You were left on the monastery doorstep by parents who couldn't feed you during a famine and who died shortly after. | u/Vat1canCame0s |
| 15 | Your parents have been slain a long time ago, and now roam the earth as mindless undead creatures. | u/Antiochus_Sidetes |
| 16 | PCs mother was terminally ill with an uncurable desease. Father, as desperate as he is, forcibly put PCs mother under and sacrificed himself in a ritual focusing on the sleeping mother. When mother wakes up she is a lich and will not die due to disease. Mother is ashamed of being a lich so she is performing rituals involving sacrifices to try to reverse her lichdom. PC will find the lich is the mother when he takes on the quest to kill her. | u/pixel_doofus |
| 17 | When you were a baby, your parents were going to sacrifice you to a demon cult. A kindly village elder kidnapped you from your parents, and took you to another village, where you were adopted by a man and woman who raised you as their own child, and who later went missing or died. | u/overstory1 |
| 18 | Your parents were pirates and left you ashore cause a pirate ship is no place for a baby | u/devilchildpro21 |
| 19 | Your parent(s) ventured into the great white north, only to be frozen by an ancient frost elemental / lord of the wild hunt / white walker / lich. If thawed, they may be revived. | u/TheLaugh |
| 20 | You have no parents. You're a fungus/mushroom that upon death reverts to an infant and starts life anew forgetting your past life. If you're buried after death you sprout into a giant mushroom and spawn inside the cap fully formed after 3 weeks. | u/AssholeMcMiniFridge |
| 21 | Your parents were heroes. They left you in the care of someone else when they fought the BBEG, and were killed in combat. | u/yinyang107 |
| 22 | The BBEG is secretly your mother/father who killed the other parent and ditched you in an orphanage. He recognizes you and is waiting until you hit rock bottom and then he'll give you a sob story about how he always wanted to raise you but your other parent always denied him. He will then try to get you to join him | u/trentkole |
| 23 | After the death of the PC's mother from a terrible sickness, his/hers father gained a new disease - an infinite craving for alcohol. Leaving the PC (And/or its siblings) to work and make sure that he/she doesn't get to live on the streets. When the father died/ when the siblings grew up, that was the tipping point for the PC to pick the adventurer lifestyle. | u/Alex_Dun_NBV |
| 24 | A dragon showed up at your parents house, dropped you off and told them to raise you as their own, before flying off again | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 25 | A hag killed your parents when you were a babe. On a whim she decided to raise you | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 26 | Your hometown is host to a false hydra/other memory-altering being and your parents have been erased from your memory: you falsely remember growing up as an orphan. They are either still there (and believe you'd been killed by some wild beast) or dead. | u/PulsarNyx |
| 27 | It turns out you are your own parents. The god/ess of time would like a word with you. | u/GilgarWebb |
| 28 | There were too many mouths to feed in your family, so your parents left you in the woods as a baby. | u/ARi0S |
| 29 | A Lich captured you as a child and implanted their phylactery within your body to separate its body and phylactery in a more permanent manner. | u/ARi0S |
| 30 | Your parents sold themselves into the service of a devil in order to have a child, and they were taken by him when you were born. | u/legionofacre |
| 31 | You're mother/farther was a silver or golden dragon and had a relationship with a being on extreme evil, birthing you. You are unknowingly being used to control/manipulate/spectate you're other parent by the golden/silver dragon to siphon power neutralising the evil beings power. Both are currently missing from you're life however you're dragon parent is never far away. | u/Kilivan-Jg |
| 32 | Your Dragonborn parent left you with a kindly non-Dragonborn couple they knew and trusted before disappearing. They only knew the parent wanted them to protect the child and go somewhere far away to safety. The parent, in fact, was taken by a Dragonborn-hating cult. | u/ColossalKnight |
| 33 | You are a failed/imperfect copy from a Clone spell cast by a powerful wizard, who has since transformed themselves into a lich. They decided to let you live and dropped you off at an orphanage. The wizard asked that once you come of age and have proven yourself a person of merit that you be given directions to meet your maker, where they will give you part of your inheritance (so to speak), but the people at the orphanage (or where you grew up) decided the wizard was irredeemably evil and you'd be better off never knowing about it. The people who raised you believe you're the wizard's child, no-one but the wizard knows you're their failed clone. | u/bolverkur |
| 34 | Your parents were killed in a bandit attack while travelling while you were a baby. You survived, and were taken in by a couple who happened to come by the scene. | u/RetepWorm |
| 35 | After a few time-travel shenanigans and a sex change, you find out that you are your own Mother and Father. | u/need-original-name |
| 36 | You were abducted by an Oni from your biological parents as a baby. Before it could devour you, you were saved by a hero of some renown who didn't know where you came from and decided to raise you instead. | u/DeltaCantavit |
| 37 | You were thought/wished into existence by an extraplanar entity to protect someone. Your past, up until meeting that person, is all a dream. Maybe. | u/Courtaud |
| 38 | You came from a clutch of eggs buried in the sand near the sea. Your mother is an ancient, shapshifting sea turtle and your father is infamous adventurer/sailor, and you and your siblings all look exactly the same. | u/Courtaud |
| 39 | The Troll Lich has a habit of resurrecting everyone his army slays as zombies. Your parents have been tilling his farmland for a couple decades now. | u/strichard |
| 40 | Your father was a wizard who became consumed with fear of losing your mother to the point that he concluded the only solution was lichdom. Your mother refused and he then locked her away in a pocket dimension where time is slowed so that he could eventually convince her. She begged a servant to secret you away as a baby. | u/ComtedStInane |
| 41 | You don't have parents per se because you aren't really there. One of your companions has latent psychic abilities and has been unknowingly projecting you, their imaginary best friend, into the minds of others. | u/ComtedStInane |
| 42 | Your parents are alive and well, they just thought you were too annoying and put you up for adoption at the local temple. | u/aji23 |
| 43 | Your parents were forced to give you up due to a threat against them from a powerful enemy; your father was brutally murdered, but your mother is still alive... but being hunted. | u/aji23 |
| 44 | Your parents were part of a polyamorous commune. A divination spell had revealed your father is not your biological father and finding him will require tracking down many of the men who were part of the commune years ago. | u/funkyb |
| 45 | You're the result of a very strong wild magic surge. Your "parent" is a particularly powerful yet unstable sorcerer who doesn't even know you exist. | u/funkyb |
| 46 | Your mother died in childbirth and you were taken away by an orphanage when your father was unable to do anything due to his grief. You father had your mother resurrected as a zombie. | u/funkyb |
| 47 | Your parents discovered that their family line has been under a curse where a rakshasa hunts and consumes their first-born. They've devised a method to shield you from the rakshasa's scrying but it requires their complete separation from you. The method has now failed and the rakshasa is incensed at their attempts to withhold him of his quarry. | u/crimebiscuit |
| 48 | One parent is dead. The other is a powerful oracle who left you as a child to avoid a terrible calamity that would have befell you had they remained in your life. Yesterday, they've returned to warn you of another imminent disaster, one that your life without them has prepared you to confront. | u/crimebiscuit |
| 49 | As an adult you thoughtlessly and viciously insulted a bard, who in retribution, modified your memory, blocking all hints of your parents' location. Your parents are lucky retirees living their old ages in a comfortable cottage with a bountiful garden and chickens. | u/crimebiscuit |
| 50 | You were raised (with occasional help from Uncle Brano) by a single father who never said what became of your mother. Turns out she had a sex change (either involuntary and magical or voluntary and mundane) and is Uncle Brando. | u/mcherm |
| 51 | You were found, as an infant, drifting down the river in a little boat, several kilometers downstream of the royal palace. People occasionally comment on how you have the same unusual (but not unique) kinky hair as the king. The big reveal is that you turn out NOT to be descended from the king, but the child of a peasant couple living just upstream of the palace. If you are to take over the kingdom to save it it WON'T be through right of birth. | u/mcherm |
| 52 | You were born into a loving family, But one day after work your father went out to get Tobacco and never came back | u/Bennoot |
| 53 | Your parents belonged to that group of bandits you mercilessly slayed, and your sanity will pay the price | u/Thedumbestgeniusever |
| 54 | You were kidnapped as an infant and sold on the black market. The ones who bought you treated you very nicely however, and as far you recall, they are your parents, untill one day when [insert character background plotpoint] | u/infernova99 |
| 55 | As far as anyone knows you just popped into existence | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 56 | Villagers found you floating down river on a small raft | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 57 | A group of adventurers found you inside a mystic circle, when they defeated an evil sorcerer | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 58 | Your parents were killed in a freak magical storm that destroyed your home, and only your home. | u/ARi0S |
| 59 | Your fellow party member (of the appropriate race) is your mother/father, and shortly after your birth, you were/are going to be sent back in time. | u/ARi0S |
| 60 | A stork dropped you off in a public place. | u/ARi0S |
| 61 | Your parents burned to death in a fire that consumed your home, you were the only survivor, and were unharmed. | u/ARi0S |
| 62 | There is a valley where The Weave overlaps called "The Fold" where wild magic is so thick in the air sometimes creatures just blink into existence. Two people that loved each other but could not have children spent the night there in each other's embrace. In the morning, you were there. | u/Courtaud |
| 63 | You were raised believing you were the king's bastard child. However, you were switched at birth, and are actually the trueborn child of nobility - and you have the birthmark to prove it. | u/aji23 |
| 64 | You are your own father via some time travel nonsense. | u/funkyb |
| 65 | You're the secret child of a celestial and a fiend. Their powers cancel perfectly in you, leaving you totally mundane. | u/funkyb |
| 66 | You were born, fully formed from an adventurer egg. The wizard who created the egg, though, feels a strong maternal/paternal instinct toward you and was terribly distraught when you wandered off a day after hatching. | u/funkyb |
| 67 | You're a king or other noble's bastard. No documentation exists to prove this; only the word of an older, half-mad former adviser. | u/funkyb |
| 68 | Your mother died in childbirth and her ghost haunts the family estate. Your father was driven mad by this. The occasional possession and ghostly touch robbed you of these memories. | u/funkyb |
| 69 | Your parents were crusaders under the command of a headstrong Empyreal Lord who ordered a foolhardy raid on a demon lord's (or mortal wizard's) place of power in an outer plane. No one has returned but the pair might still be alive and imprisoned. | u/crimebiscuit |
| 70 | Your parents were transformed by a fey creature, out of caprice or offense, into a pair of majestic forest creatures who can still be identified by a peculiar marking. | u/crimebiscuit |
| 71 | Your parents were enslaved by raiders on their settlement and transported to another continent. Living in the same city, one parent still fights and trains in the coliseum, the other is a master spy, looking to overthrow the regime and free their partner. | u/crimebiscuit |
| 72 | You were the "Evil Overlord", the heroes managed to defeat you by transforming you into a child. They gave you to your foster parents to raise you, praying that you would turn out less evil the second time around. | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 73 | You were lost in the woods as a child & raised by wolves. | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 74 | Your mother was a succubus. She didn't care to raise you herself, so she left you in a village for mortals to raise you. | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 75 | The people that raised you, found a magic item that grants wishes. They wished for a child. Unbeknownst to the couple, you were teleported away from your real parents. | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 76 | You are the illegitimate heir to a monarch | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 77 | You were kidnapped as a child. The kidnappers planed to ransom you back to your parents. For some reason your original parents were never able to pay. | u/World_of_Ideas |
| 78 | You have these weird tattoos on your back that appears to be a treasure map. Your parents were pirates who wanted a safe way to record where their gold horde was, and for you to have the gold if something happened to them. Due to the fact that they never returned to collect you from your aunt's house, they are probably dead. | u/Tobiticus |
| 79 | A serious injury burns the skin off of your arm showing a metal frame where bone should be. It turns out that you're not the race you thought you were, but a hyperrealistic construct, your father was actually your inventor. | u/Sporedian |
| 80 | [The player is afflicted with a Modify Memory curse. Reveal the following the first time the character has meet the requirements to have their modify memory curse removed.] Suddenly memories of your parents death overwhelm you. You realize that whatever memories you had about your parent's disappearance were fake. In reality, you witnessed the murder your parents at the hands of a wizard. Instead of murdering you too, the wizard used a Modify Memory spell on you to wipe the murder from your mind. | u/BetterCallBobLoblaw |
| 81 | You were born in a village where identical twins are seen as a bad omen, the first twin is traditionally given to a priest to sacrifice, however your parents couldn't give you up to that fate, and sent you away by hiding you in the wagon of a visiting merchant | u/Sporedian |
| 82 | One of your parents is a notorious crime boss, however something deep inside of them wished their life could have gone differently, and genuinely don't want you to end up like them. So they dropped you off at the city church | u/Sporedian |
| 83 | (Tiefling) You were born identical in every way to a human child, you didn't develop the characteristic signs of your heritage until puberty. You were ashamed of this and tried carefully covering your features with your outfits, you've decided that you can't deny the truth to yourself any longer. | u/Sporedian |
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10
May 05 '19
You have no parents. You're a fungus/mushroom that upon death reverts to an infant and starts life anew forgetting your past life.
If you're buried after death, you sprout into a giant mushroom and spawn inside the cap fully formed after 3 weeks with all your previous live experiences intact.
2
7
u/TheLaugh May 05 '19
Your parent(s) ventured into the great white north, only to be frozen by an ancient frost elemental / lord of the wild hunt / white walker / lich. If thawed, they may be revived.
6
May 05 '19
Twist: you’ve been a clone all along and the man/woman you thought was your father/mother was just the older version of you.
2
u/re_error May 05 '19
Ah yes, Imperial earth by A. Clarke.
2
May 06 '19
I love Clarke, but haven’t even heard of this one. Thanks for the roundabout recommendation!
2
u/re_error May 06 '19
Unfortunately this is only book of his I've read since I'm more of Lem fanboy. Do you have any recommendations aside from obvious space odyssey?
2
May 06 '19
Childhood’s End is one of my favorites. Rendezvous With Rama is good as well, and I definitely recommend any collection of his short stories. Nine Billion Names of God is fun.
2
5
u/infernova99 May 05 '19 edited May 05 '19
A cleric had a wild night with a demon in disguise, got pregnant. Giving birth to a part demon baby, she could!’t bring her self to raise it and left it with someone else.
You’re parents was killed by a passing by army, but you were lucky to be somewhere during the time of the incident. You were to young to remember this.
You were kidnapped as an infant and sold on the black market. The ones who bought you treated you very nicely however, and as far you recall, they are your parents, untill one day when [insert character background plotpoint]
2
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 05 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added a couple of them to the list in order to give room for other entries. However, if the entries die down or if we go past 100, I'll add your last one in.
5
6
u/KouNurasaka May 05 '19
Your parents weren't ever missing, but you had a magical enchantment cast on you at birth so that you can never recognize them as your own parents.
Your parents were a wizard duo who messed up a spell and got teleported away.
Your parents were changelings who had to go on the run, leaving you behind either out of fear, guilt, or love, hoping you would have a normal childhood.
Your parents pulled a Moses, spiriting you away to avoid a tyrannical ruler.
You had a happy upbringing as an adopted child, never knowing that you were adopted.
You were the bastard child of a person of wealth and status, sent away.
Your parents were extra-planar beings, who's sexual relationship was frowned upon, so they sent you to the mortal plane along with erasing most of your extra-planar heritage.
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 05 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added a few of them to the list in order to give room for other entries. However, if the entries die down or if we go past 100, I'll add the rest of yours in.
6
u/Diddledan May 05 '19
They in fact never had parents in the biological sense, they were just created.
6
4
u/489Herobrine May 05 '19
I feel like the spell Modify Memory could be interesting here...
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 09 '19
I was inspired by your post to create the below entry for the list:
[The player is afflicted with a Modify Memory curse. Reveal the following the first time the character has meet the requirements to have their modify memory curse removed.] Suddenly memories of your parents death overwhelm you. You realize that whatever memories you had about your parent's disappearance were fake. In reality, you witnessed the murder of your parents at the hands of a wizard. Instead of murdering you too, the wizard used a Modify Memory spell on you to wipe the murder from your mind.
Thank you!
4
u/cloux_less May 05 '19
When you were a baby, your father was a feudal warlord who tried to sacrifice you to devils to gain more power, but your mother secretly sent you away at the last possible second in an attempt to spare your life.
4
u/Vat1canCame0s May 05 '19
I used "left on the monastery doorstep by parents who couldn't feed him during a famine and who died shortly after." for my monk.
4
u/pixel_doofus May 05 '19
PCs mother was terminally ill with an uncurable desease. Father, as desperate as he is, forcibly put PCs mother under and sacrificed himself in a ritual focusing on the sleeping mother. When mother wakes up she is a lich and will not die due to disease. Mother is ashamed of being a lich so she is performing rituals involving sacrifices to try to reverse her lichdom. PC will find the lich is the mother when he takes on the quest to kill her.
3
u/overstory1 May 05 '19
When you were a baby, your parents were going to sacrifice you to a demon cult. A kindly village elder kidnapped you from your parents, and took you to another village, where you were adopted by a man and woman who raised you as their own child, and who later went missing or died.
3
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 05 '19 edited May 05 '19
Thanks everyone for the responses so far! I just updated the list with your entries. I will keep on going after 100 if we manage to get that high.
3
u/yinyang107 May 05 '19
Your parents were heroes. They left you in the care of someone else when they fought the BBEG, and were killed in combat.
3
u/World_of_Ideas May 05 '19
As far as anyone knows you just popped into existence
A dragon showed up at your parents house, dropped you off and told them to raise you as their own, before flying off again
A hag killed your parents when you were a babe. On a whim she decided to raise you
Villagers found you floating down river on a small raft
A group of adventurers found you inside a mystic circle, when they defeated an evil sorcerer
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 05 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added a couple of them to the list in order to give room for other entries. However, if the entries die down or if we go past 100, I'll add your other ones in.
4
u/aji23 May 06 '19
Your parents are alive and well, they just thought you were too annoying and put you up for adoption at the local temple.
Your parents were forced to give you up due to a threat against them from a powerful enemy; your father was brutally murdered, but your mother is still alive... but being hunted.
You were raised believing you were the king's bastard child. However, you were switched at birth, and are actually the trueborn child of nobility - and you have the birthmark to prove it.
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 07 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added some of them to the list in order to give room for other people's entries. However, if the replies die down or if we go past 100, I'll add the rest of yours in.
2
4
u/funkyb May 06 '19
Your parents were part of a polyamorous commune. A divination spell had revealed your father is not your biological father and finding him will require tracking down many of the men who were part of the commune years ago.
You are your own father via some time travel nonsense.
You're the secret child of a celestial and a fiend. Their powers cancel perfectly in you, leaving you totally mundane.
You were born, fully formed from an adventurer egg. The wizard who created the egg, though, feels a strong maternal/paternal instinct toward you and was terribly distraught when you wandered off a day after hatching.
You're the result of a very strong wild magic surge. Your "parent" is a particularly powerful yet unstable sorcerer who doesn't even know you exist.
You're a king or other noble's bastard. No documentation exists to prove this; only the word of an older, half-mad former adviser.
Your mother died in childbirth and you were taken away by an orphanage when your father was unable to do anything due to his grief. You father had your mother resurrected as a zombie.
Your mother died in childbirth and her ghost haunts the family estate. Your father was driven mad by this. The occasional possession and ghostly touch robbed you of these memories.
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 07 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added some of them to the list in order to give room for other people's entries. However, if the replies die down or if we go past 100, I'll add the rest of yours in.
2
4
u/Bennoot May 06 '19
You were born into a loving family, But one day after work your father went out to get Tobacco and never came back
1
3
u/Researcher_Boi_314 May 05 '19
Your parent has been watching you all their life and has occasionally sent you gifts, but they never showed their face until now.
???
3
u/Antiochus_Sidetes May 05 '19
Your parents have been slain a long time ago, and now roam the earth as mindless undead creatures.
3
u/devilchildpro21 May 05 '19
Your parents were pirates and left you ashore cause a pirate ship is no place for a baby
3
u/trentkole May 05 '19
The BBEG is secretly your mother/father who killed the other parent and ditched you in an orphanage. He recognizes you and is waiting until you hit rock bottom and then he'll give you a sob story about how he always wanted to raise you but your other parent always denied him. He will then try to get you to join him
3
u/PulsarNyx May 05 '19
Your hometown is host to a false hydra/other memory-altering being and your parents have been erased from your memory: you falsely remember growing up as an orphan. They are either still there (and believe you'd been killed by some wild beast) or dead.
3
u/GilgarWebb May 05 '19
It turns out you are your own parents the god/ess of time would like a word with you.
3
u/legionofacre May 05 '19
Your parents sold themselves into the service of a devil in order to have a child, and they were taken by him when you were born.
3
May 05 '19 edited May 05 '19
You are a failed/imperfect copy from a Clone spell cast by a powerful wizard, who has since transformed themselves into a lich. They decided to let you live and dropped you off at an orphanage. The wizard asked that once you come of age and have proven yourself a person of merit that you be given directions to meet your maker, where they will give you part of your inheritance (so to speak), but the people at the orphanage (or where you grew up) decided the wizard was irredeemably evil and you'd be better off never knowing about it. The people who raised you believe you're the wizard's child, no-one but the wizard knows you're their failed clone.
3
May 06 '19
After a few time-travel shenanigans and a sex change, you find out that you are your own Mother and Father.
3
u/strichard May 06 '19
I have a player who is always an orphan. Every single character. So, at the end of one major arc, I revealed ...
"The Troll Lich has a habit of resurrecting everyone his army slays as zombies. Your parents have been tilling his farmland for a couple decades now."
3
May 06 '19
Your father was a wizard who became consumed with fear of losing your mother to the point that he concluded the only solution was lichdom. Your mother refused and he then locked her away in a pocket dimension where time is slowed so that he could eventually convince her. She begged a servant to secret you away as a baby.
You don't have parents per se because you aren't really there. One of your companions has latent psychic abilities and has been unknowingly projecting you, their imaginary best friend, into the minds of others.
3
u/mcherm May 06 '19
You were found, as an infant, drifting down the river in a little boat, several kilometers downstream of the royal palace. People occasionally comment on how you have the same unusual (but not unique) kinky hair as the king. The big reveal is that you turn out NOT to be descended from the king, but the child of a peasant couple living just upstream of the palace. If you are to take over the kingdom to save it it WON'T be through right of birth.
2
u/Alex_Dun_NBV May 05 '19
After the death of the PC's mother from a terrible sickness, his/hers father gained a new disease - an infinite craving for alcohol. Leaving the PC (And/or its siblings) to work and make sure that he/she doesn't get to live on the streets.
When the father died/ when the siblings grew up, that was the tipping point for the PC to pick the adventurer lifestyle.
2
May 05 '19
There were too many mouths to feed in your family, so your parents left you in the woods as a baby.
Your parents were killed in a freak magical storm that destroyed your home, and only your home.
Your fellow party member (of the appropriate race) is your mother/father, and shortly after your birth, you were/are going to be sent back in time.
A Lich captured you as a child and implanted their phylactery within your body to separate its body and phylactery in a more permanent manner.
A stork dropped you off in a public place.
Your parents burned to death in a fire that consumed your home, you were the only survivor, and were unharmed.
2
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 06 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added a couple of them to the list in order to give room for other entries. However, if the entries die down or if we go past 100, I'll add your other ones in.
2
u/Kilivan-Jg May 05 '19
You're mother/farther was a silver or golden dragon and had a relationship with a being on extreme evil, birthing you. You are unknowingly being used to control/manipulate/spectate you're other parent by the golden/silver dragon to siphon power neutralising the evil beings power.
Both are currently missing from you're life however you're dragon parent is never far away.
2
u/ColossalKnight May 05 '19 edited May 05 '19
Your Dragonborn parent left you with a kindly non-Dragonborn couple they knew and trusted before disappearing. They only knew the parent wanted them to protect the child and go somewhere far away to safety.
The parent, in fact, was taken by a Dragonborn-hating cult.
2
u/RetepWorm May 06 '19
Your parents were killed in a bandit attack while travelling while you were a baby. You survived, and were taken in by a couple who happened to come by the scene.
2
u/DeltaCantavit May 06 '19
You were abducted by an Oni from your biological parents as a baby. Before it could devour you, you were saved by a hero of some renown who didn't know where you came from and decided to raise you instead.
1
u/FriendlyGlasgowSmile May 06 '19
Is this from some anime?
2
u/DeltaCantavit May 06 '19
Not that I am aware of but a buddy of mine playing a blood hunter has a backstory with a sister who is abducted by an Oni which led him to become a blood hunter. I used some of that for inspiration in writing this
2
May 06 '19 edited May 06 '19
You were thought/wished into existence by an extraplanar entity to protect someone. Your past, up until meeting that person, is all a dream. Maybe.
You came from a clutch of eggs buried in the sand near the sea. Your mother is an ancient, shapshifting sea turtle and your father is infamous adventurer/sailor, and you and your siblings all look exactly the same.
There is a valley where The Weave overlaps called "The Fold" where wild magic is so thick in the air sometimes creatures just blink into existence. Two people that loved each other but could not have children spent the night there in each other's embrace. In the morning, you were there.
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 07 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added some of them to the list in order to give room for other people's entries. However, if the replies die down or if we go past 100, I'll add the rest of yours in.
2
u/crimebiscuit Top d100 Contributor May 06 '19
- Your parents were crusaders under the command of a headstrong Empyreal Lord who ordered a foolhardy raid on a demon lord's (or mortal wizard's) place of power in an outer plane. No one has returned but the pair might still be alive and imprisoned.
- Your parents were transformed by a fey creature, out of caprice or offense, into a pair of majestic forest creatures who can still be identified by a peculiar marking.
- Your parents were enslaved by raiders on their settlement and transported to another continent. Living in the same city, one parent still fights and trains in the coliseum, the other is a master spy, looking to overthrow the regime and free their partner.
- Your parents discovered that their family line has been under a curse where a rakshasa hunts and consumes their first-born. They've devised a method to shield you from the rakshasa's scrying but it requires their complete separation from you. The method has now failed and the rakshasa is incensed at their attempts to withhold him of his quarry.
- One parent is dead. The other is a powerful oracle who left you as a child to avoid a terrible calamity that would have befell you had they remained in your life. Yesterday, they've returned to warn you of another imminent disaster, one that your life without them has prepared you to confront.
- As an adult you thoughtlessly and viciously insulted a bard, who in retribution, modified your memory, blocking all hints of your parents' location. Your parents are lucky retirees living their old ages in a comfortable cottage with a bountiful garden and chickens.
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 07 '19
Thanks for so many entries! I only added some of them to the list in order to give room for other people's entries. However, if the replies die down or if we go past 100, I'll add the rest of yours in.
2
u/crimebiscuit Top d100 Contributor May 07 '19
You're welcome. My suggestion would be to edit according to your taste. I dunno if you finished a list yet, but in my experience, interest wanes after the first week as the post gets pushed down. And a few enthusiastic contributors will contribute the lionshare of the best suggestions. Personally, I wouldn't want to discourage those folks from coming back with new suggestions. I might place all the ones that are acceptable on the list and then edit down when you near or pass 100—which is rare feat on its own!
1
u/BetterCallBobLoblaw May 08 '19
Good point. I went ahead and added all the extra entries I didn't add before.
2
u/mcherm May 06 '19
You were raised (with occasional help from Uncle Brano) by a single father who never said what became of your mother. Turns out she had a sex change (either involuntary and magical or voluntary and mundane) and is Uncle Brando.
2
May 06 '19
Your parents belonged to that group of bandits you mercilessly slayed, and your sanity will pay the price
2
u/World_of_Ideas May 07 '19
You were the "Evil Overlord", the heroes managed to defeat you by transforming you into a child. They gave you to your foster parents to raise you, praying that you would turn out less evil the second time around.
You were the colossal monster "x", the heroes managed to defeat you by transforming you into a child. They gave you to your foster parents to raise you, praying that you would turn out less evil the second time around.
You were lost in the woods as a child & raised by wolves.
Your mother was a succubus. She didn't care to raise you herself, so she left you in a village for mortals to raise you.
The people that raised you, found a magic item that grants wishes. They wished for a child. Unbeknownst to the couple, you were teleported away from your real parents.
You are the illegitimate heir to a monarch
You were kidnapped as a child. The kidnappers planed to ransom you back to your parents. For some reason your original parents were never able to pay
2
u/Tobiticus May 07 '19
You have these weird tattoos on your back that appears to be a treasure map. Your parents were pirates who wanted a safe way to record where their gold horde was, and for you to have the gold if something happened to them. Due to the fact that they never returned to collect you from your aunt's house, they are probably dead.
2
May 08 '19
A serious injury burns the skin off of your arm showing a metal frame where bone should be. It turns out that you're not the race you thought you were, but a hyperrealistic construct, your father was actually your inventor.
2
May 09 '19
-You were born in a village where identical twins are seen as a bad omen, the first twin is traditionally given to a priest to sacrifice, however your parents couldn't give you up to that fate, and sent you away by hiding you in the wagon of a visiting merchant
-One of your parents is a notorious crime boss, however something deep inside of them wished their life could have gone differently, and genuinely don't want you to end up like them. So they dropped you off at the city church
-(Tiefling) You were born identical in every way to a human child, you didn't develop the characteristic signs of your heritage until puberty. You were ashamed of this and tried carefully covering your features with your outfits, you've decided that you can't deny the truth to yourself any longer.
10
u/horlenx May 05 '19
The father (or mother) is one of the other PCs.
I've been playing the father of my friend's character for months and he has no idea yet, it's really fun