All PHB DND 5e Backgrounds Official List & Chart

Name	Source	Languages	Page	Tools	Skills
Acolyte	PHB	Any two	119	None	Insight, Religion
Criminal	PHB	None	121	Gaming set, Thieves	Deception, Stealth
Charlatan	PHB	None	120	Disguise kit, Forgery kit	Deception, Sleight of Hand
Entertainer	PHB	None	122	Musical instrument, Disguise kit	Acrobatics, Performance
Folk Hero	PHB	None	123	Artisan's tool, vehicles (land)	Animal handling survival
Guild Artisan	PHB	Any One	124	Artisan's tool	Insight, persuasion
Hermit	PHB	Any One	126	Herbalism Kit	Religion, Medicine
Noble	PHB	Any One	127	Gaming set	History, Persuasion
Outlander	PHB	Any One	128	Musical Instrument	Athletics, Survival
Sage	PHB	Any Two	129	Navigator's tools, vehicles	Arcana, History
Sailor	PHB	None	131	Navigator's tools, vehicles (water)	Athletics, Perception
Soldier	PHB	None	132	Gaming set, vehicles (land)	Athletics, Intimidation
Urchin	PHB	None	133	Disguise kit, Thieves’ tools	Sleight of Hand, Stealth
City Watch	SCAG	Any Two	145	None	Athletics, Insight
Clan Crafter	SCAG	Any One	145	Artisan's Tools	History, Insight
Cloistered Scholar	SCAG	Any Two	146	None	History, Choose 1: Arcana, Nature, Religion
Faction Agent	SCAG	Any Two	147	None	Insight, Special (Choice)
Far Traveler	SCAG	Any One	148	Musical Instrument x10, Gaming Set x1	Insight, Perception
Inheritor	SCAG	None	150	Musical Instrument x1, Gaming Set x1	Survival, Choose 1: Arcana, History, Religion
Investigator	SCAG	Any Two	145	None	Insight, Investigation
Knight of the order	SCAG	Any One	151	Gaming set x1, Musical Instrument x1	Persuasion, Special (choice)
Mercenary Veteran	SCAG	Any One	152	Gaming Set x1, Ground Vehicle	Athletics, Persuasion
Urban Bounty Hunter	SCAG	None	153	Choose 1: Gaming Set x1, Musical Instrument x1, Thieves Tools	Choose 2: Deception, Insight, Persuasion, Stealth
Uthgardt Tribe Member	SCAG	Any One	153	Choose 1: Artisan's Tools, Musical Instrument x1	Athletics, Survival
Waterdhavian Noble	SCAG	Any One	154	Choose 1: Gaming Set x1, Musical Instrument x1	History, Persuasion
Black Fist Double Agent	COS (AL)	None	02	Disguise kit, and choose one from artisan's tools x1, gaming set x1	Deception, insight
Dragon Casualty	COS (AL)	Draconic	03	Special (See page)	Intimidation, survival
Iron Route Bandit	COS (AL)	None	05	Gaming set x1, land vehicles	Animal handling, Stealth
Phlan Insurgent	COS (AL)	None	06	Artisan's tools x1, Land vehicles	Stealth, survival
Stojanow Prisoner	COS (AL)	None	08	Gaming set x1, thieves' tools	Deception, perception
Ticklebelly Nomad	COS (AL)	Giant	09	Herbalism kit	Animal handling, nature
Caravan Specialist	EE (AL)	Any one	02	Land Vehicles	Animal handling, survival
Earthspur Miner	EE (AL)	Dwarvish, Undercommon	03	None	Athletics, Survival
Harborfolk	EE (AL)	None	04	Gaming set x1, Water vehicles	Athletics, sleight of hand
Mulmaster Aristocrat	EE (AL)	None	05	Artisan's tools x1, musical instrument x1	Deception, performance
Phlan Refugee	EE (AL)	Any one	06	Artisan's tools x1	Athletics, insight
Cormanthor Refugee	RoD (AL)	Elvish	05	Artisan's tools x1	Nature, Survival
Gate Urchin	RoD (AL)	None	06	Musical instrument x1, thieves' tools	Deception, sleight of hand
Hillsfar Merchant	RoD (AL)	None	07	Vehicles (land), vehicles (water)	Insight, Persuasion
Hillsfar Smuggler	RoD (AL)	Any one	08	Forgery kit	Perception, Stealth
Secret Identity	RoD (AL)	None	09	Disguise kit, forgery kit	Deception, Stealth
Shade Fanatic	RoD (AL)	Netherese	10	Forgery kit	Deception, Intimidation
Trade Sheriff	RoD (AL)	Elvish	11	Thieves' tools	Investigation, Persuasion

External Homebrew Backgrounds

We will list all the external 5e homebrew backgrounds in alphabetical order, making it easier to locate your background from the list below.

Backgrounds From A To E

A	B	C	D	E
Abyssdweller	Balloon Mage	Cattle Rustler	Dandy	Earthling
Adept	Banker	Changeling	Dark Lord	Elysium Knight
Adopted	Barmaid	Child of Ares	Demonologist	Employee of Royalty
Adventurer	Battlesmith	Chronicler	Denizen	Endless Soul
Adventuring Royalty	Beggar	City Guard	Detective	Engineer
Afflicted	Bereaved	City Worker	Diplomat	Envoy
Air Acrobat	Bodyguard	Clone	Disciple of the Obscure	Eternal One
Alchemic Construct	Bounty Hunter	Combat Medic	Disgrace	Evil Cultist
Alchemist	Butler	Confederacy of Feuding Houses	Disowned Noble	Ex-Blood Doll
Alcoholic		Conscript	Divine	Executioner
Alcoholic Scientist		Construct	Doctor	Exile
Amnesiac		Cook	Dog of the Military	Exiled Ruler
Ancient Cultist		Courtesan	Dragon Trained	Experiment
Ancient One		Crazed Hermit	Drow Breeding Slave	Explorer
Antiquarian		Crusader Nation	Drunken Bum
Apothecary		Cursed	Duelist
Arcana Spy
Arcane Augmented
Arcane Dominion
Archaeologist
Armed Escort
Arranged Marriage
Artist
Arvoreen Keeper
Aspirant
Astronaut

Backgrounds From F To L

F	G	H	I	L
Farmer	Gladiator	Hellborn	Idol Follower	Librarian
Feral Child	Gypsy		Inquirer	Lone Survivor
Firefighter
Fourth Wall Breaker

Backgrounds From M To W

M	P	R	S	U & W
Master Inquisitor	Prospector	Reaver	Salesman	Urban Vigilante
Mercenary	Psychic		Scavenger	Writer
Metal Worker			Seeker Of A Lost Life
Monster			Shadow Thieves Guild Member
Monster Hunter			Slave
Mystic			Slayer
			Spy
			Squire
			Student Of Magic

Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game that is known to many. DND has a very reputable position in the gaming community and this game has an exponential number of growing audiences that are mesmerized by the concept of Logic, fantasy, imagination, tactics, and improvisation which are the elements that give life to the game. The thing that makes DnD unique and interesting to play is that in this game a player is not bound to traditional military formations rather this game allows players to create their own character by using their imagination and this is what makes this game worth playing.

And the character that is created by a player is posed with scenarios and problems in which the created character will face challenges, monsters and not only this but created characters will also be able to interact with other characters that are created by other players and the one who will give you scenarios and challenges in it is better known as Dungeon Master (DM).

DND 5e Backgrounds List Below

In the below provided d&d 5e backgrounds list which is officially mentioned in the player’s handbook. There are thirteen backgrounds.

So now the question is that what is the new thing that it is offering in its 5th edition? Unlike its previous editions, the 5th edition of DnD offers the backgrounds for the characters. By saying this we mean that DnD is not just forming a character but it is about that whatever your character is right now it must be the result of previous happenings that make him what he is today. We will discuss this in a few points.

So what actually the DnD 5e backgrounds mean?

So, before we dive any deeper into the DnD 5^th Edition backgrounds, we first have to take a look at what a background actually is and what role does it play in our DnD game right? Well, backgrounds are actually one of the greatest inventions made to date and like any other DnD freak (like myself), you would definitely agree with me on this. But what is it actually you might ask? Well, It’s this handy feature that lets you define your character’s history to make it stand out and have a greater influence combined with the overall theme of your game.

For instance, Let’s just assume that you’ve gone through all the steps and have set up your character, say you have named it Doctor Strange junior, why junior you may ask? Well, because he is a dwarf but he posses some great skills such as that of a priest and you have gone ahead and sketched out all the skills and abilities for your priest character and called it a day but that doesn’t define who he used to be or what has he been through before actually becoming a priest now, does it?

So that’s where background comes into play, it gives your character an extra layer of personality like who they were before they actually decided to become a priest or whoever they are now and what exactly happened that made them into living this unique life of living into these mysterious dungeons. Was it their greed of finding the hidden treasures filled to the brim with rare and expensive gems and jewels? Or was it just an unfortunate incident that happened in the past that made them who they are? See, how easily it adds this sense of familiarity with the character after knowing that they have been through that makes it so much more interesting like we see in most of the movies, they use this method to make us more engaged and connect with the character.

Luckily, the fifth edition of DnD has this awesome background mechanic to help you turn your generic, imaginary doll of a character into a multi-dimensional, fully functioning, story-backed live entity that actually has some sort of place in the DnD society that you have setup.

But how do we use these backgrounds?

Now that we know what background is and what role does it play in our game, it’s time to figure out how exactly we can use this amazing mechanic to bring our dull and not-so-live character to life, shall we?

Well, there are many paths one might take to arrive at making a really cool character for your DM’s story charade but we are going to take a look at two of the most classic ways to go about making a background for your character.

• First: is probably the more off-the-book method, what you need to do is create your character first and once you have figured out your character, you go through the Player’s Handbook to find which background fits best with the original character sketch that you have made up in your mind.

• Second: is likely a by-the-book method, what you need to do here is you can start with the good old Player’s Handbook and use the options that are already provided to help you fill out your character’s backstory and it give it a more fitting background based on that.

Both methods are extremely useful but the question is which one should you go with? The Handbook originally lists 13 possible options, there are also more to choose from if we look into extended DnD content from other awesome creators around the world, but other than that you and your Dungeon Master can also discuss a custom background for your character based on whatever you have sketched up in your adventurous mind, so yeah, it’s entirely up to you and of course, your DM.

Bring your character life with backgrounds!

Backgrounds do much more than just giving your character a cool backstory among other characteristics that we will discuss later in this guide. Backgrounds in the DnD 5^th edition can also grant you these awesome little special perks that can prove to be extremely beneficial for your character in the game depending on the background of your character you can:

• Learn additional languages (other than the defined ones)
• Gain new equipment (based on your character’s history)
• New role-playing abilities.
• Gain proficiency in two specified skills.
• And much more.

This can really come in handy because it means that you can have a whole new proficiency if it was learned from another source, which is awesome right?

Now as I mentioned earlier, backstory really plays a huge role but that’s not all you need to create an awesome character like, let’s say that we have created our character and also defined its backstory, so it’s about time we refined our character’s personality and for that, each background has some Suggested characteristics that we can apply to our character such as Ideals, Flaws, Bonds and Personality traits to further make the game more enjoyable and also giving DM the chance to come up with some interesting situations for the players to deal with.

Making our First Character using Backgrounds

Now that we know everything that we need to know about 5e Backgrounds. It’s finally time to make our own character and for that, we will use the Handbook to quickly create our own Charlatan character and use the power of background to make him charming Robin hood of our game. So, we are going to take this process step-by-step, so that we can easily come back here and make as many characters as we want in the future following these simple steps, are you ready?

Create a Character using PHB

Firstly, let’s say we want to make a handsome charlatan character known as Willie Wonka, who from his early life loved making fools of other people and with time this little misdemeanor started to grew on him and he finally decided to use this for making a livelihood. So, using the handbook our character can have two skill proficiencies in deception and sleight of hand.

Define Items

Now for the items/tools, you have two tools proficiency in disguise and forgery kits. And as a Charlatan, you get the equipment such as nice apparel, a disguise kit to deceive others, speaking of which you also get to choose some of deceptive props or cons of your own choice such as magnetic weights, magical cards, fake ring or weighted dice, it just totally depends on what you want to use in your game. Pretty cool right? But there’s more to it!

Acquire Exclusive Features

However, we can take it a step forward and give our character some exclusive features that only he can use, like because our character has this nature of deceiving others, we can say that our character has made a second hidden identity for himself with forged documents, disguise and a fake accent that he can use to hide when facing a dangerous situation and as our character has a forgery kit he can forge more documents if he needs to which can come in handy for impersonating someone.

Give it a Unique Personality

We’ve still got just a little more work to do like setting up our character’s personality trait and for that we can roll a d8 dice and say we get a 3, which says, our character uses the skill of flattery to get what he needs and it works pretty much all the time and now for the ideal, you rolled a d6 and say got a result of 3, defining our character as a good guy who gives some amount of what he earns or says steal to other poor and needy people to help them out and for the flaw you roll a d6, getting a result of 1, which makes you a flirt as you just can not let a pretty face go away which you think “would be a waste of beauty”.

Define its Backstory

For the bond now, you roll a d6 for a result of 6 which adds a bit of backstory to your character which says you had a pretty tough childhood as your family was poor and hardly managed to get by with what they earned so you’d end up hungry for days without eating which forced you to deceive others into lending you money with your sweet talks and as time went by it became a source of livelihood for you but your hidden guilt never left your side so to find salvage of some sort you decided to give half of it to help other poor people. Awesome isn’t it? it just adds life to your character.

Have Fun!

And that’s all, within minutes, you made up a handsome Charlatan who loves deceiving rich people but is good at heart so he steals from the rich and gives to the poor at least half of it, like a Robinhood and that’s just using the Handbook. Imagine what else you’ll bring to this character when you start playing around with these amazing backgrounds.

It is good to have these DnD 5e backgrounds because there will be a lot of stories adhered to the characters and make the characters more realistic by defining their position telling more about it and these stories will enhance our ability to imagine and plot different scenarios also.

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