D&D 5E My Character's Background for SKT. What's yours?

[not-so-newguy]

Feel free to share your character's backgrounds for any campaign. Below is the one I'm using.


Boone Logan is the name of my Deep Gnome Abjurer. I got the name from a relief pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. He's a detective (kind of) and carries a badge (Bryn Shander). He's Boone Logan P.I. Although his name is impressive, he has a humble presence (think Columbo, rather than Sherlock or Magnum). Height 3 feet. Weight 95 pounds.

After our first session for SKT, I decided to flesh out my character's background a bit. I'm trying to provide just enough info to give him a good reason to be involved with the campaign. Based on my flaw, the DM has given me a nemesis named Mushroom. I created some general circumstances surrounding Boone's involvement with Mushroom, but the DM may have other ideas and nix this completely.

• Boone is from a cosmopolitan city in the UnderDark based in the Forgotten Realms.

I'm not sure what to pick here. The important thing is that Boone is comfortable being in an environment where he's the only Deep Gnome around. Meeting another Deep Gnome is a significant event for Boone, especially in the upper world. Suggestions for a city of origin?

• He was originally part of a merchant's guild in the UnderDark
• Age 30, First visited the upper world when the Guild's caravan visited Waterdeep. There he met the Harpers for the first time. He returned to the UnderDark with the Guild.
• The Harpers sent emissaries to Boone's Guild after this. They wanted to recruit Logan as a member. Due to the extremely long distances, negotiations took decades.
• Age 60, Boone returned to the Upper world after the Harpers bought his contract from the Merchants Guild. He became an active member of the Harpers, originally based in Waterdeep.
• Age 70-80 (present), The Harpers send him to Bryn Shander. While there he helps the local militia solved crimes. A dwarf named Mushroom becomes his arch-nemesis. Boone learns the Giant language since the dwarf has connections to the giants. With help from the local guards, he's able to capture him. Unfortunately, he escapes.

Below is my character's background which I picked up from here https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Inquirer_(5e_Background)
In role-playing situations, his high Insight makes him a good support character to the party's face. I also gave him the Observant feat (we're 5th level).


Inquirer

For a significant portion of your life you've been searching for answers. Perhaps it was your job to solve mysteries as a private detective, or perhaps there was a specific mystery you were chasing but regardless you've become better at searching for clues and reading people. What answers were you searching for? Did you always find satisfying answers to your questions, or was there one answer that you wish you could forget? Has your inquiries made enemies or friends?

Skill Proficiencies: Investigation, Insight
Tool Proficiencies: Thieves Tools
Languages:One of your choice.

Equipment: Thieves tools, a magnifying glass, a red notebook cataloging the mysteries you've faced or secrets you've uncovered, a bottle of ink, a feather pen, a set of common clothes and a small dagger.

Elementary Knowledge You know where to find people who know things, or people who know people who know things. When you enter a city, you know where to search for information about the happening in the city. You also never forget the face of people you meet, as you may need them in other cases.

Inquirers are very knowledgable about many different subjects, and are good at weaseling information from people. However, this does make them somewhat manipulative, and sometimes pushes people away from them. To inquirers no mystery is too difficult, no challenge too dangerous to stop them from finding the truth, though what they do with the truth is up to them.

Personality Trait:I always write down bits of information I think is useful, even if I have to write on my hands and arms when I'm out of parchment.

Ideal: The guards do their job of protecting the law, if my information and answers can help, all the better.

Bond: I work closely with the guards, criminals, or urchins in a certain area. They help me in my investigation as long as I help them as well.

Flaw: I have an enemy that I put away in prison by exposing evidence of his villainy. I shudder to think what would happen if he escaped.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Flakka, my VHuman Barbarian, uses the Inheritor background with the Far Traveler PT/F/B/I. I play him in an AL game, so I used the AL rulings on Inheritance and background customization to have him know Deep Speech and have a shield that acts like a candle when the command word (in Deep Speech) is spoken. He comes from a long line of drug abusers who discovered the shield a long time ago. His parents, Krystoll and Meffe, thought it to simply be a fancy cooking pan with straps until one day their incoherent, drug-addled babbling accidentally spoke the command word and activated the shield. After his parents' lifestyle led to their inevitable demise, Flakka began his quest to find the drugs that killed his parents so that he may be reunited with them on the plane of existence that their souls went. Being the "smartest" (with a whopping 8 Int) member of his lineage, he realized that the cooking pan was actually a shield and began using it as such. The more time he continued to wield the shield, the more he began to understand the language used to activate it.

While he does have a set of clothes that came with the background, he only wears them when absolutely necessary by societal standards. In combat, he prefers to be the living embodiment of Unarmored Defense, utilizing the full range of motion of nudity to deftly avoid being struck. For the musical instrument, I went with bagpipes.

I forget what I chose for Ideal and Bond, as I don't have my sheet in front of me. However, I do clearly remember his Personality Traits and Flaw.

PT: I don't know what is or isn't food in this new land. I express adoration and contempt in strange ways. (These have led to many an instance of teabagging and face-eating of fallen enemies.)

F: I am enamored with all of the new intoxicants of this strange land.