In addition to normal character creation, all PCs are encouraged to do the following:

• Establish a Background.
• Write down several Aspirations.
• Determine a Bond.

Background

In this game, background is everything before you joined Axiom. For most people, that's an entire life--an upbringing, an education, job training, love gained and lost, hobbies developed, personality grown, etc. Nobody is "level 1" when they join Axiom, regardless of what the character sheet says.

What I want to avoid is having a set list of backgrounds with predetermined mechanical bonuses. This creates an incentive to choose a background based on the mechanics, rather than the flavor of the background itself.

Instead, if you complete your background, you can select any one bonus feat and two skill proficiencies of your choice.

What is a complete background? Well, it should answer the following questions:

• What was your upbringing like? Where and when did it occur? How did it shape you into an adult?
• What sort of professional training did you acquire? What sort of life was your character preparing to lead, given that they did not know Axiom existed?
• What inciting event or circumstance led them to discover Axiom's existence, and ultimately decide to join the organization?

Aspirations

Aspirations are a relatively simple way of describing your character's core motivations, morals, and goals. Each should take the form of a sentence or short phrase that is very meaningful and personal, but ideally applicable to a reasonably wide variety of circumstances.

Examples:

• Motivators:
  • "My father is a prisoner, and I have to pay an enormous debt to free him."
  • "I promised her, on her death bed, I would become the greatest hero in our land."
  • "I will one day sit upon the Golden Throne."
• Values:
  • "I cannot abide a bully."
  • "Never leave a good quip unspoken--no matter how bad an idea it may be to say it."
  • "I may hurt people, but I never, EVER kill."

The primary purpose of these statements are to characterize, but they have an important mechanical implication. In any situation, you may attempt to invoke one of your Aspirations. If, in the DM's judgment, it is indeed applicable to the current situation, you gain Inspiration. What does that mean?

Inspiration

Inspiration is a briefly-held status that enables you slip the constraints that players normally adhere to. At any time, while you are Inspired, you may "cash in" your Inspiration to accomplish something impactful, such as:

• Automatically upgrade the result of any single action you took (failure -> partial success, partial success -> complete success, etc)
• Take any standard, move, or bonus action as an immediate action (even if your reaction is already spent)
• Edit the Scene: propose a reasonable, but impactful modification to the current circumstances, outside of the control of your character, but believable in the scenario. Examples:
  • You are battling on a highway, and a semi truck comes speeding through the lane your enemy is standing in at just that moment.
  • Your enemy levels their weapon at you--and it so happens they forgot to reload after last rounds' barrage.
  • The reinforcements that were said to be on their way recently happen to show up just in time.

Bond

Bond is something specific to this game, something that otherwise might fall under the purview of Aspirations.

Bond is, quite simply, what is connecting you to Axiom.

• It may be a secret you know--or one they know about you.
• It could be a personal connection with someone else at the agency.
• It could be a debt you're working off.
• It could be that Axiom saved you from a terrible fate, and now want to do that for others in kind.

You do not have to share your Bond with other PCs (although you are not forbidden from doing so). However, the DM does get to know, and, in most cases, Axiom is aware as well.

Bond does not have an obvious mechanical implementation (yet), but it is quite important and should be established as early as possible.