Guild Artisan Background 5e: This Is What You Get!

There are a crazy amount of backgrounds to choose from in D&D 5e. You can be a knight or a hermit, a soldier or a sailor. There are all sorts of ways to build up the most dramatic character you can think of.

Then again, there’s also the guild artisan. Be they a master alchemist or a skilled swordsmith, making your character a skilled artisan of the guild allows them to be a real person.

Forget all that drama and hubbub the other backgrounds are rife with. Choose your profession, get ready to work with your hands, and make a character that is just as at home in the busy streets of Waterdeep as they are in the deep bowels of the Underdark.

Guild Artisan Background

Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Persuasion

Tool Proficiencies: One type of artisan’s tools

Languages: One of your choice

Equipment: A set of artisan’s tools (one of your choice), a letter of introduction from your guild, a set of traveler’s clothes, and a belt pouch containing 15 gp

Feature: Guild Business: There are many different types of artisans out there. Which trade is yours?

Characteristics: The PHB presents us with a variety of options for personality traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds that we can use to roleplay our character. Choose some of the options presented or roll on the tables below.

Feature: Guild Membership: Being a part of a guild means lodging, food, connections, and even some legal support, should that be necessary. Just pay your dues to stay in the guild’s graces and you’re in for a good time.

Magical Mishaps Table

d6	Spell
1	Hideous Laughter
2	Bless
3	Magic Missile
4	Ray of Sickness
5	Grease
6	Bane

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expanded uses when you finish a long rest.

This feature offers slightly more juice than a bonus d8 damage, but you don’t get to control which effect you get. It is a rough draft, and may need some workshopping in play, but is fairly close to other examples out there.

Step 5: Background Traits

Exploring the Guild Artisan Background

The guild artisan background is one of the oddball backgrounds to me. Nothing about it really speaks to the character’s future life of adventure, but maybe that’s what makes it so interesting. It gives you a full career before choosing to go off and slay dragons and uncover fantastic loot.

Let’s take a dive into potential backgrounds for each of the different classes in Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

Ranger Guild Artisan

A ranger with the guild artisan background could have turned to rangering as a way to protect their investments, or as a way to acquire goods, like a trapper, miner, or hunter. They may have joined a guild of fellow trappers to share news of healthy stocks of quarry and to help control the price of skins.

Rangers are on the outsides of civilization, protecting it from monsters. An interesting combination could be to be a part of a guild of monster hunters or bounty hunters. Your trade tools could be a bounty hunter’s compass or even a kind of magic tracker than can be attuned to a bounty.

Questions to consider include who are the people in the guild that you have a connection with? How did you acquire your trade and why did you choose to live a life of adventure? Do you still maintain your guild status, or have you left that life behind?

Here are some personality traits for your ranger:

d6	Personality Trait
1	I keep a careful record of every transaction I do in case I get cheated.
2	I like spending lavishly on all kinds of delights.
3	I charge for my services – even my friends. After all, good help doesn’t come cheap.
4	I read books on my trade every chance I get.
5	I enjoy haggling and will do so at any opportunity.
6	I have a secret fear that I’ll never be accepted in society.