Folklore and characters classes

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias podcast discussed how folklore can be used to present varied and often contradictory interpretations of creatures. We often apply this to monsters and mythos entities but I thought that it could be interesting to apply this to the player characters' professions, like how The Witcher and The Mandalorian depict common folks as having all kinds of stories and rumors about their professions, some trues and some false, sometime these rumors profit the characters but sometime they also complicate their live.

You could ask each player to roll and answer up to three rumors about their character class. Their answer are not necessarily trues, but some parts could be. With a small group of players, going around the table and letting each player roll and answer a question to establish a rumor about the other players profession can also be fun. An other option is to roll and answer one question by level. 

If you don't want these rumors to apply to all fighters, cleric and magic-users, make them about a specific character guild.

When the characters explore a new location or region, modify one of their answers to create a local variant.

Folks tell stories about their... (d10)

1. Origins (How their profession was funded? When? Where? By whom?)
2. Purpose (What is the official or secret purpose of their profession?)
3. Recruitment (Who do they recruit and how? What is their initiation?)
4. Interdictions (What does their coda prevent them to do?)
5. Obligations (What does their coda force them to do?)
6. Abilities (What special abilities they are rumored to have)
7. Gear (What special gear they are rumored to use?)
8. Affiliation (What secret alliances or grudges they are rumored to have?)
9. Payments (What they accept as payment? For which task?)
10. Exploits (What kind of exploits they are rumored to have done? Or which historical events they participated in?) 

Exemples

People tell stories about the Fighters Guild's...

• Gear: they only use weapons of defeated foes.
• Recruitment: they must recruit kids who survive raids or wars if they are holding a weapon when they find them.
• Payment: you must include a copper piece that tasted blood with their payment

People tell stories about the Thieves Guild's...

• Origins: the guild was funded by serpent men 600 years ago
• Abilities: they drink so much poison that their blood is poisonous
• Obligations: hang a snake skin on your belt or window and they will never rob you.

People tell stories about the Clerics Cult's...

• Affiliation: the cult has a secret alliance with dwarfs and they will always help them if they give them a piece of hematite as it represents their alliance.
• Origins: their prophet was petrified, each member of the cult bear a tiny piece of her petrified body.
• Exploits: during the Iron War, the cult's prayers animated a statue that saved the city.

Now if a cleric of the cult visit a distant village, you can imagine the villagers asking the character to animate their village statue to save them from the ogre that harasses them. Or a soldier asking the character to show them the petrified fragment of their prophet to prove who they are. Or someone giving them an hematite and expecting a service in return.

Silver Hairs

Place these rumors around a village near a forest.

Most of them are true but some may be false.

1. If you watch carefully you can find silvery hairs entangled in tree branches.
2. The silver hairs fall on the ground and make things grow better.
3. Sometimes the silver hairs make you dream if you touch them. 
4. There is silver dust in the wind, on a windy day you can taste it in your mouth.
5. I have seen a grey feary in the woods, it was very shy. 
6. The silver hairs came after the night of the shooting stars. 
7. The hairs made little Briel sick, now she have silvery eyes and is blind. 
8. Old man Harry collect hairs to study them in his shack, he is a bit crazy. 
9. Sansa's wife say that the hairs are from a angel who live in woods.
10. Sansa say that the angel in the woods healed her dog.  
11. Farmer Pete say that he received a message from the sky, he barely make sense. 
12. People say that Noam the miller maried a grey faery, I saw his silver wedding ring. 
13. Hunter Mika have seen a huge silver rock floating in the woods, it must be worth a lot of coins.
14. There is a odd man at the inn, he is paying to hear stories about the hairs. 
15. Some farms have been raided by a band of marauders. 
16. The marauders want to capture the angel, they trapped a grey faery to use as bait. 
17. I saw something glow in the old barn of widow Vilma. 
18. Bradley say that the stars move at night, he is building a thing to look at the sky. 
19. Mirel's gave birth a few day ago, Luva say that her baby have silver eyes.
20. My niece told me that she dreamed about a silver kid, I saw one in my dreams too. 

Bird Legs House

I love witch house with chicken legs inspired from Baba Yaga's story. 

I quickly draw one, feel free to use it if you want to create a one page dungeon, a zine or a blog post.

William F keyed the house on his blog: Auspexias Birdhouse