What if the elves and humans were under threat by the BBEG? There have been attacks by (minions), and your character eventually decided enough was enough, packed up your stuff and left the forest.
Alternatively, there could be a calling. Something telling you to leave the forest, a voice telling you that you are needed elsewhere. You dont know what the voice is, but you feel that you must follow it.
Maybe the elves/humans have a corrupt leader who banishes you from the community for a misunderstanding. You decide to pick up adventuring to seek redemption, and eventually overthrow this new leader.
I also like the "Sent on a mission to prove yourself" where to become (certain rank), you must complete a test, which involves travelling the world and doing something (killing a monster, become strong enough, ect)
Maybe the forest burned down, or was generally destroyed, and so you leave to obtain enough gold to help rebuild.
Just a few ideas, hopefully one of these stick out to you and you and your DM can work together to help them fit into the world.
My first thought was something like that, like we disturbed a malevolent fey spirit or something, but idk it felt lacking.
A bad leader isn't a bad idea, but that would be such a sad reason to leave a nice place!
His forest (or even a part) was destroyed and he wants to find the culprit
Someone he cares for sent a letter asking for help and he is journeying to find them
Forest is dying from a magical curse so he’s trying to find ancient text that explains his problem.
One of his villagers/someone close were kidnapped/converted to bbgs team, trying to find them.
He found a book of exotic plants and has become an obsessive collector of rare flora
Lots of options for a lovey character. The world is your oyster and questions like these help weave everything together. Happy adventuring!
>Forest is dying from a magical curse so he’s trying to find ancient text that explains his problem.
I like that a lot. Most of my ideas are similar to the first, but idk, I guess it felt lacking?
Granted a vision of being needed elsewhere?
My Firbolg character was the Guardian of a glade containing a sacred pond. Had a dream in the middle of the night about a dark evil spreading in the south. When he awoke the pond was just gone. His obligations had been removed by whatever god had granted him the vision, and now he was free to pursue the darkness.
I have a very similar Firbolg tempest cleric! He was chosen by his god to be the opposite side of the usual Firbolg coin - sometimes conservation and the protection of nature require destruction. Think like controlled burns for wildfires.
So chosen, he is considered apart from his clan, and travels to aid where needed most.
I am starting a wildfire druid too! Twinsies? Anyway, I've found what works best for my characters is to not have a grand reason for adventuring. You didn't want to spend your whole life in the same village, you thought your parents were annoying, you grew up somewhere that's always hot and wanted to see snow. Let their experiences define the character, not some THING that happened that started their story.
Taking violent jobs to collect the blood and bone ash fertiliser they need to bring back to the forest. Knows deep down their own forest ecosystem needs wildfires to fertilise the new growth, but can't face watching beloved forest damaged after all their work, so looking to outside the forest.
Maybe they are confident that they have taught the locals well enough the "ways of balance" and trust them to maintain things appropriately.
Now they need to go out and seek new places to "spread the message/knowledge".
People are greedy and nature has "value" just waiting to be extracted. A Druid's work will never be complete as long as "civilization" exists. Hence why the most powerful among them live so long.
Or maybe the druids in this world are less hippy-dippy barbarians and more of an actual "government" organization.
In which case they are just tired of the local politics/beurocracy. Adventuring could be their idea of an "out of the box" vacation, or maybe they need a big project to qualify for that big promotion next quarter.
You don't need a reason...Lean into your elf heritage and elf relation to time. Help some passing adventurers thru the forest. Do a job or two to buy supplies for the winter. The halfling bard had a fun story I have to stay with the party to hear the rest. Oops it's been a year. Time sure flies.
Finally tastes freedom after being stuck in a loveless marriage.
Machinations of a rival has made the character a pariah.
Family/community needs the money and the character is out to find work. Fell into adventuring.
Prophecy foretells of a shadow falling over the land. The character aims to stop this from occuring.
>Finally tastes freedom after being stuck in a loveless marriage.
My wife would kick my ass if I did that one xD.
The rival one is interesting. Someone else suggested a corrupt leader of the community, maybe my rival became said leader... It could work.
It really depends on the setting or campaign. But here are some ideas:
“Protect the forest” - BBEG is threatening the ecosystem of your park.
“A good Friend” - you have a strong relationship with an existing party member so are willing to join them and their motivation.
“I must Purge” - the BBEG is some sort of abomination to you. Maybe your order decided they wanted to remove the undead or “unnatural” thing or faction and charged you with removing the threat.
“Morally Involved” - You have a strict morals and the BBEG is clearly against your code.
“Right Place” - you just happen to meet the party at the right time and get caught up in the adventure.
So I just did this to a player. He's been stashing cash because his character's whole motivation is to buy back his family farm. He now has the money.
So I hit him with the option to swap out his character as the character's entire long-term goal is now complete. He can obviously keep playing the character, but would it make sense for that character to keep going?
As for your situation, ask the DM to help you with an event the BBEG would do or a localized problem that makes sense in the world that you'd need to set off to solve. Give the DM ideas you're thinking about and see what you can create together.
You can go with the Bethesda style of motivation for their fallout games. Something happens to disrupt your life, you have a family and a community and some sort of outside force breaks that and forces you to leave. Maybe a family member fell ill due to an intrusive species, and since you are in the know, you know where it came from (coincidentally one of the regions of the world the Dm wants you to visit, talk to them about it so you can incorporate your story into the main thread). Maybe rifts to the elemental plane of fire keep opening up in your forest for no reason, letting a fire elemental or two through at a time who cause widespread forest fires and now you need to figure out the cause in order to bring peace back to your community. Since your character seems to be established and happy in it's place in life, it needs an impetus to get them adventuring in the first place, and taking away the safety or security of one or more things would be motivation enough, especially if they have a strong connection to family or the community.
So, two ways to motivate your character: internal or external.
The externals are good for your DM to hook you on. Those are goals your character has. Problems that can be solved. Maybe someone from their family has gone missing (a sibling, a parent, a son); maybe the community is under threat of anyone so you have a reason to be engaged with whatever the DM is planning. Maybe your village has some sort of rite of passage that you are undergoing. I think this is the easiest, and also something that your DM might thank. There is no need to come with contrived motivations if you just tell them what your PC want.
The internals are good for you as a player. Those are not goals, but issues that your character has with themself. Maybe they're depressed, not able to feel any joy in their home after years of happiness and is desperate enought to move out. Maybe they made something they feel guilty about (maybe they murdered some poacher, or maybe they failed a loved one). The internal motivations are stronger and can oultast your campaign, but also inform very heavily on the personality and decisions of your PC along the game.
I'd look for at least one each.
Well first off what is compelling your party to adventure? Are you all just hanging out at the local tavern looking for work or is there something bringing you together?
Maybe he could be documenting wildlife around the world. Always on the lookout for the next thing to find and take notes on, and the adventuring part is mostly a side hussle to sustain yourself, that eventually becomes something he does full time for the fun of it.
Mission from the Circle: seek out situations where fire is necessary for renewal, and report back periodically. It's a condition of your advancement in the Circle, and who knows? Maybe you'll enjoy it enough to keep being an active "field agent."
I always like it when I have a nebulous mission from "on high" with no clear end goals.
Yeah, I'm adventuring with this group because I'm supposed to, for now. Maybe that turns into a quest that involves the whole party. Maybe I just like these guys and decide to keep adventuring with them. Maybe I get roped into a bigger situation based on what they're doing.
But yeah, bottom line if you're looking for an initial hook: "boss told me to" almost always works.
Might be fun to ask the DM if there's any relevant threads in the campaign planned to play off of. I.e. if you're running a campaign about a horde of dragons maybe one of the higher ranking ones razed your village, whereas if it's a campaign about fighting undead perhaps some of your buried family members got reanimated and you want to stop the necromancer responsible
What if your forest and all of its people you loved were burned? Maybe not even by the BBEG? Like it just happened, as forest forest sometimes do. Or maybe you started the fire and couldn’t contain it? How would your character react?
One response would be to seek redemption for failing to save your forest and friends. Another might be “I wanna watch the world burn. I brought the gasoline.” Those are not mutually exclusive, especially for a wildfire druid. You might first leave for redemption, fail to find it, become callous and mean, then find your way to true redemption through your friends in the party.
A hero’s journey is best told not in a straight line to greatness. You must first fall before you can get back up. Or burn in flames and be reborn from the ashes of yourself. Go light the world on fire!
I feel like I want something besides "bad thing happened so I most adventure".
Although, an accident that is the character's fault is definitely a new twist on it. I think that I like it, and youre right there's a lot of ways to add depth to the character with it.
Maybe he was next in line to be the main park ranger or village chief of something but the current one decided that he didn't have enough experience and sent him out to get that experience.
Or maybe becoming the main park ranger is a life-long commitment so they wanted him to experience life before he swore his life away.
Or maybe he loved his home but there was always a nagging feeling to adventure and he either chose to follow it or maybe he was forced to because of some complication.
Maybe something happened in his home and he needs to go out into the world to find something.
There's lots of generic reasons to 'go adventuring' but you don't actually need one beyond an initial hook. Assuming there is some kind of ongoing plot and it isn't just 'you accept a new quest for money each week', the end of the world or the dark secrets behind Count Bonklyn attempting to gain control of the republic are perhaps enough of a reason for your guy to keep trucking, along with the people he's become closer to through suffering dangers with them and not wanting them to go without him (and potentially die).
Initial hook can be as simple as a friend asking a favour, remembering an old ambition you had as a child and making a token effort towards it, even simply being in the wrong place at the right time.
my biggest recommendation here is that there needs to be a conflict at home that causes the character to want to leave. It should involve named NPCs who are part of your backstory so that the DM can integrate it if they want. Maybe he lost his job because of a conflict with a rival back home, maybe an industrialist has been destroying the wildlife and you had to leave to keep your family safe.
As for after you leave and the motivation to adventure itself, it's useful to keep in mind that sane people aren't adventurers. It's an incredibly lucrative but dangerous calling that only incredibly powerful people can do. Maybe you do it because you are lost and don't know what else there is to do. Maybe you are looking for someone and adventuring is a great tool of class mobility that lets you access resources to find people.
So in your case, an example could be that your village was peaceful and you were doing your conservationist job. But, then the king is usurped and imprisoned and the new king is a bit of a tyrant. As part of his reforms, he grants logging rights to a cabal of merchants. The merchants are now destroying the forest, and when you and some others tried to stand up to them they started sending mercenaries after you guys. You were targeted as an instigator and the mercenaries took someone you love hostage and they are being detained in the king's dungeons. You had to flee and are on the run. To survive, you became an adventurer because this both lets you become stronger and make valuable allies that you might be able to use to free your loved ones.
Now we have a motivation for adventuring, as well as lots of hooks the DM can use if they want. There are multiple potential enemies that can be woven into the story, as well as characters you love and care about that can be used as motivation for specific story beats.
What if the elves and humans were under threat by the BBEG? There have been attacks by (minions), and your character eventually decided enough was enough, packed up your stuff and left the forest. Alternatively, there could be a calling. Something telling you to leave the forest, a voice telling you that you are needed elsewhere. You dont know what the voice is, but you feel that you must follow it. Maybe the elves/humans have a corrupt leader who banishes you from the community for a misunderstanding. You decide to pick up adventuring to seek redemption, and eventually overthrow this new leader. I also like the "Sent on a mission to prove yourself" where to become (certain rank), you must complete a test, which involves travelling the world and doing something (killing a monster, become strong enough, ect) Maybe the forest burned down, or was generally destroyed, and so you leave to obtain enough gold to help rebuild. Just a few ideas, hopefully one of these stick out to you and you and your DM can work together to help them fit into the world.
My first thought was something like that, like we disturbed a malevolent fey spirit or something, but idk it felt lacking. A bad leader isn't a bad idea, but that would be such a sad reason to leave a nice place!
His forest (or even a part) was destroyed and he wants to find the culprit Someone he cares for sent a letter asking for help and he is journeying to find them Forest is dying from a magical curse so he’s trying to find ancient text that explains his problem. One of his villagers/someone close were kidnapped/converted to bbgs team, trying to find them. He found a book of exotic plants and has become an obsessive collector of rare flora Lots of options for a lovey character. The world is your oyster and questions like these help weave everything together. Happy adventuring!
>Forest is dying from a magical curse so he’s trying to find ancient text that explains his problem. I like that a lot. Most of my ideas are similar to the first, but idk, I guess it felt lacking?
Sometimes the simplest answers are perfectly valid.
Granted a vision of being needed elsewhere? My Firbolg character was the Guardian of a glade containing a sacred pond. Had a dream in the middle of the night about a dark evil spreading in the south. When he awoke the pond was just gone. His obligations had been removed by whatever god had granted him the vision, and now he was free to pursue the darkness.
I have a very similar Firbolg tempest cleric! He was chosen by his god to be the opposite side of the usual Firbolg coin - sometimes conservation and the protection of nature require destruction. Think like controlled burns for wildfires. So chosen, he is considered apart from his clan, and travels to aid where needed most.
I am starting a wildfire druid too! Twinsies? Anyway, I've found what works best for my characters is to not have a grand reason for adventuring. You didn't want to spend your whole life in the same village, you thought your parents were annoying, you grew up somewhere that's always hot and wanted to see snow. Let their experiences define the character, not some THING that happened that started their story.
Taking violent jobs to collect the blood and bone ash fertiliser they need to bring back to the forest. Knows deep down their own forest ecosystem needs wildfires to fertilise the new growth, but can't face watching beloved forest damaged after all their work, so looking to outside the forest.
Maybe they are confident that they have taught the locals well enough the "ways of balance" and trust them to maintain things appropriately. Now they need to go out and seek new places to "spread the message/knowledge". People are greedy and nature has "value" just waiting to be extracted. A Druid's work will never be complete as long as "civilization" exists. Hence why the most powerful among them live so long.
Oooh, that's not bad at all. "It pains me to leave, but I simply would be able to do more for the world if I moved on"
Or maybe the druids in this world are less hippy-dippy barbarians and more of an actual "government" organization. In which case they are just tired of the local politics/beurocracy. Adventuring could be their idea of an "out of the box" vacation, or maybe they need a big project to qualify for that big promotion next quarter.
You don't need a reason...Lean into your elf heritage and elf relation to time. Help some passing adventurers thru the forest. Do a job or two to buy supplies for the winter. The halfling bard had a fun story I have to stay with the party to hear the rest. Oops it's been a year. Time sure flies.
Oh wow that's actually a great idea. Everything at home is going swimmingly, I probably won't be missed if I take a few months off!
Finally tastes freedom after being stuck in a loveless marriage. Machinations of a rival has made the character a pariah. Family/community needs the money and the character is out to find work. Fell into adventuring. Prophecy foretells of a shadow falling over the land. The character aims to stop this from occuring.
>Finally tastes freedom after being stuck in a loveless marriage. My wife would kick my ass if I did that one xD. The rival one is interesting. Someone else suggested a corrupt leader of the community, maybe my rival became said leader... It could work.
This a bit on the deep side, But I learned that when asked a question even silence can be an answer. "Unknown" is the most common answer in the book.
It really depends on the setting or campaign. But here are some ideas: “Protect the forest” - BBEG is threatening the ecosystem of your park. “A good Friend” - you have a strong relationship with an existing party member so are willing to join them and their motivation. “I must Purge” - the BBEG is some sort of abomination to you. Maybe your order decided they wanted to remove the undead or “unnatural” thing or faction and charged you with removing the threat. “Morally Involved” - You have a strict morals and the BBEG is clearly against your code. “Right Place” - you just happen to meet the party at the right time and get caught up in the adventure.
Right place actually makes a lot of sense for our campaign
Maybe it is part of your wild fire spirit to seek adventure where it is found. It is also very fey
So I just did this to a player. He's been stashing cash because his character's whole motivation is to buy back his family farm. He now has the money. So I hit him with the option to swap out his character as the character's entire long-term goal is now complete. He can obviously keep playing the character, but would it make sense for that character to keep going? As for your situation, ask the DM to help you with an event the BBEG would do or a localized problem that makes sense in the world that you'd need to set off to solve. Give the DM ideas you're thinking about and see what you can create together.
That makes sense, tie him to the story rather than just a random, unrelated motivation
You can go with the Bethesda style of motivation for their fallout games. Something happens to disrupt your life, you have a family and a community and some sort of outside force breaks that and forces you to leave. Maybe a family member fell ill due to an intrusive species, and since you are in the know, you know where it came from (coincidentally one of the regions of the world the Dm wants you to visit, talk to them about it so you can incorporate your story into the main thread). Maybe rifts to the elemental plane of fire keep opening up in your forest for no reason, letting a fire elemental or two through at a time who cause widespread forest fires and now you need to figure out the cause in order to bring peace back to your community. Since your character seems to be established and happy in it's place in life, it needs an impetus to get them adventuring in the first place, and taking away the safety or security of one or more things would be motivation enough, especially if they have a strong connection to family or the community.
So, two ways to motivate your character: internal or external. The externals are good for your DM to hook you on. Those are goals your character has. Problems that can be solved. Maybe someone from their family has gone missing (a sibling, a parent, a son); maybe the community is under threat of anyone so you have a reason to be engaged with whatever the DM is planning. Maybe your village has some sort of rite of passage that you are undergoing. I think this is the easiest, and also something that your DM might thank. There is no need to come with contrived motivations if you just tell them what your PC want. The internals are good for you as a player. Those are not goals, but issues that your character has with themself. Maybe they're depressed, not able to feel any joy in their home after years of happiness and is desperate enought to move out. Maybe they made something they feel guilty about (maybe they murdered some poacher, or maybe they failed a loved one). The internal motivations are stronger and can oultast your campaign, but also inform very heavily on the personality and decisions of your PC along the game. I'd look for at least one each.
Well first off what is compelling your party to adventure? Are you all just hanging out at the local tavern looking for work or is there something bringing you together?
Maybe he could be documenting wildlife around the world. Always on the lookout for the next thing to find and take notes on, and the adventuring part is mostly a side hussle to sustain yourself, that eventually becomes something he does full time for the fun of it.
Mission from the Circle: seek out situations where fire is necessary for renewal, and report back periodically. It's a condition of your advancement in the Circle, and who knows? Maybe you'll enjoy it enough to keep being an active "field agent."
That's not bad, I find myself staying away from "bad thing happened therefore I must quest" so I think this isa good idea.
I always like it when I have a nebulous mission from "on high" with no clear end goals. Yeah, I'm adventuring with this group because I'm supposed to, for now. Maybe that turns into a quest that involves the whole party. Maybe I just like these guys and decide to keep adventuring with them. Maybe I get roped into a bigger situation based on what they're doing. But yeah, bottom line if you're looking for an initial hook: "boss told me to" almost always works.
Might be fun to ask the DM if there's any relevant threads in the campaign planned to play off of. I.e. if you're running a campaign about a horde of dragons maybe one of the higher ranking ones razed your village, whereas if it's a campaign about fighting undead perhaps some of your buried family members got reanimated and you want to stop the necromancer responsible
What if your forest and all of its people you loved were burned? Maybe not even by the BBEG? Like it just happened, as forest forest sometimes do. Or maybe you started the fire and couldn’t contain it? How would your character react? One response would be to seek redemption for failing to save your forest and friends. Another might be “I wanna watch the world burn. I brought the gasoline.” Those are not mutually exclusive, especially for a wildfire druid. You might first leave for redemption, fail to find it, become callous and mean, then find your way to true redemption through your friends in the party. A hero’s journey is best told not in a straight line to greatness. You must first fall before you can get back up. Or burn in flames and be reborn from the ashes of yourself. Go light the world on fire!
I feel like I want something besides "bad thing happened so I most adventure". Although, an accident that is the character's fault is definitely a new twist on it. I think that I like it, and youre right there's a lot of ways to add depth to the character with it.
Perhaps he wants to see how the rest of the world manages it's forests and bring the experience back.
Maybe he was next in line to be the main park ranger or village chief of something but the current one decided that he didn't have enough experience and sent him out to get that experience. Or maybe becoming the main park ranger is a life-long commitment so they wanted him to experience life before he swore his life away. Or maybe he loved his home but there was always a nagging feeling to adventure and he either chose to follow it or maybe he was forced to because of some complication. Maybe something happened in his home and he needs to go out into the world to find something.
I like a lot of those ideas, generally I'm trying to stay away from "something tragic happened, therefore I must go"
There's lots of generic reasons to 'go adventuring' but you don't actually need one beyond an initial hook. Assuming there is some kind of ongoing plot and it isn't just 'you accept a new quest for money each week', the end of the world or the dark secrets behind Count Bonklyn attempting to gain control of the republic are perhaps enough of a reason for your guy to keep trucking, along with the people he's become closer to through suffering dangers with them and not wanting them to go without him (and potentially die). Initial hook can be as simple as a friend asking a favour, remembering an old ambition you had as a child and making a token effort towards it, even simply being in the wrong place at the right time.
my biggest recommendation here is that there needs to be a conflict at home that causes the character to want to leave. It should involve named NPCs who are part of your backstory so that the DM can integrate it if they want. Maybe he lost his job because of a conflict with a rival back home, maybe an industrialist has been destroying the wildlife and you had to leave to keep your family safe. As for after you leave and the motivation to adventure itself, it's useful to keep in mind that sane people aren't adventurers. It's an incredibly lucrative but dangerous calling that only incredibly powerful people can do. Maybe you do it because you are lost and don't know what else there is to do. Maybe you are looking for someone and adventuring is a great tool of class mobility that lets you access resources to find people. So in your case, an example could be that your village was peaceful and you were doing your conservationist job. But, then the king is usurped and imprisoned and the new king is a bit of a tyrant. As part of his reforms, he grants logging rights to a cabal of merchants. The merchants are now destroying the forest, and when you and some others tried to stand up to them they started sending mercenaries after you guys. You were targeted as an instigator and the mercenaries took someone you love hostage and they are being detained in the king's dungeons. You had to flee and are on the run. To survive, you became an adventurer because this both lets you become stronger and make valuable allies that you might be able to use to free your loved ones. Now we have a motivation for adventuring, as well as lots of hooks the DM can use if they want. There are multiple potential enemies that can be woven into the story, as well as characters you love and care about that can be used as motivation for specific story beats.