Avowed’s newly-revealed character creation backgrounds tripped my RPG sicko radar, offering funky fantasies like ‘Noble Scion,’ ‘Court Augur,’ and ‘Vanguard Scout’

First spotted by TheGamer, in a recent thread on X, “The Everything App,” Obsidian showed off the character creator for its upcoming first person RPG, Avowed. In addition to demonstrating the gamut of appearance options like rainbow hair or mushroom frills, Obsidian also revealed all five potential character backgrounds coming to the game:

• Arcane Scholar
• Court Augur
• Noble Scion
• Vanguard Scout
• War Hero

In the shared screenshots, we can also see the full description for one of these backgrounds, the Noble Scion: “You were born to a noble house of great influence, middling wealth, and questionable morals,” the description reads. “When scandals and succession disputes saw your family cast down, you threw yourself on the emperor’s mercy, and he shielded you. Canny yet refined, you have become a formidable force at court and an invaluable ally to the emperor.”

Avowed has a classless RPG system, meaning any character can invest into any combination of its Ranger, Fighter, and Wizard skill trees. But I dig the way these character backgrounds are sort of playing double duty to suggest a starting point for your character’s mechanical fantasy, in addition to shaping them from a story and roleplaying perspective⁠—sort of like how the Divinities: Original Sin gave you starting points like “Shadowblade” or “Wayfarer” for their similarly skill-agnostic systems. Going from top to bottom on Avowed’s list, the backgrounds are giving Mage, Cleric, Bard, Ranger, and Fighter respectively.

The more flowery titles also help make it all feel more weird and fantasy⁠—sorry to the meatheads though, War Hero still strikes me as the most vanilla. Noble Scion or Vanguard Scout feel the most up my alley, but Court Augur seems like it could be deliciously devious: Some kind of Rasputin-like snake charmer or genuine oracle with the ear of an important head of state, now that’s what I call roleplaying.

It’s a small detail, and there’s only so many ways to build a character creator, but I was also happy to see how the UI for Avowed’s closely resembles that of Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire. It’s a small, fun nod toward the underrated pirate RPG Avowed’s serving as a sort of sequel as well as spinoff too. We’ll be able to see it all in action and read the rest of those background descriptions when Avowed launches on February 18.