Quick, colourful backgrounds for old school RPGs

Download for free at DriveThruRPG (Donations gratefully received!)

By the cadaver of an extinct behemoth sprang up a town for corpse-miners. You worked as a tanner, gradually processing extracted hide into strange leather. Your strange leather armour shivers by itself when eerie things are near.

24 (and counting!) backgrounds for Old School fantasy RPGS. You can roll up a quick descriptor and piece of quirky starting equipment. Or you can roll further on two unique d4 tables for each background, each giving flavour, depth, provocative questions and - crucially - why you left that life behind.

You were a peddler travelling from town to town with your mule and cart. You took out a loan to buy your largest stock ever in the harbour town of Harvich. Then the prince declared the spice trade a government monopoly.

These backgrounds are inspired by Gundobad Games excellent "Brazen Backgrounds - Character Backgrounds for Bronze Age Settings". Fierce & Futile is intended for the high or late medieval setting so beloved of fantasy RPGs.

You were the personal astrologer to Lord Hargold. You scanned the stars each night to give the stars' blessing to his endeavours. You advised him to fight the creature in the woods - and he was never seen again. His widow nearly had you hanged before you escaped.

I hope you enjoy using these backgrounds. All my work in them in is Creative Commons licensed, so you can chop them up and reuse them for your own (non-commercial) works. Do tell me how you get on with them.