Atypical Characters: Rogue Sage

A tall figure in grey cloth and darkened leather sneaks through the hallway of the manor. The waning gibbon etches light past velvet curtains. A twinkle of tarnished copper streaks off the figure's scales that still show. She reaches the study and pulls out a lone molted book. With graphite and parchment she furiously etches down key phrases and notes from the bookmarked places. It wasn't the first night Sora came to gather this vital information, and it won't be the last. She places everything back in order and leaves, within a week her newest research material will be completed.

Rogues are often thought of to be sleek and nimble beings in fantasy,so a decent start to break the mold is to pick a dragonborn, which ranged from six to seven feet tall. For this character I started off with personality because ability scores and personality don't have to align at all. They can just be used to help get ideas flowing.

The charlatan and criminal backgrounds are better fit for a rogue, but I wanted to try something new. I picked sage because it can leave upon a background where the character is educated. The character likes research, has probably taught at a place of learning, and might not have much experience doing rogue activities.

I also gave a neutral good alignment for added complexity. Its easy to imagine an evil or chaotic character stealing something. Evil doesn't care about people's feelings, and chaos does whatever it wants even if it does care. Neutral just tries to get by, and good does the morally best it can. Having a neutral good rogue means the character will pick the moral option most of the time, whether it works within the bonds of the law or not is only relevant if breaking the law will get them in trouble.

It is meant to imply the character will only take on safe jobs, jobs that have little chance of failure. But, also jobs that in the end are doing good, at least what they find good. That's why in the opening to this post the character is just copying information from the book. If they took the book, the owner would go looking for it. If caught, the character is charged with breaking and entering not burglary. Its a rogue that plays it safe, and they aren't necessarily motivated by gold but by a thirst for knowledge.

Thanks for reading, as always.