Example: the Ex-Axe-Executioner

Here's an example to come up with a fun character concept and turn it into a well rounded character.

The anti-hero is quite popular in fiction these days so trying to come up with something in that vein you think about the following; executioner is not a full-time job and it's not always done by soldiers or guards in the employ of the ruler. What if such a person was haunted by what they did and no longer able to continue living where they did their job, being confronted with their actions daily. And yet they carry their axe wherever they go. And maybe the axe is filled with the spirits or souls of all the beheaded and they speak to your character, or maybe it's all in their head.

So, who could take up this job? For some extra contrast we make him or her someone who is staunchly against the death penalty, maybe even a pacifist, but very much a believer that everyone deserves their final moments to be as dignified as possible. Let's throw in the idea that many of the condemned are actually innocent, giving even more impetus to the character to volunteer for a job no one else wants to do.

Let's not look at character classes yet, first some more background. Where could this take place? It's probably easiest to set this in a country that hasn't been detailed yet as this concept could easily clash with the details for established countries. This gives us the opportunity to think up a whole new country! Of course, it doesn't have to be detailed at all, that's quite a lot of work, so you could stick to just thinking up a name for it, a name for the capital, and a general location on the map. Let's add to that a 'mad' king or queen who has introduced capital punishment, we'll need a name there as well.

Things are coming together now; so our character is someone with a regular job who volunteered to be executioner to look after those unfortunate souls in their last moments. Now, maybe your first idea is that this character is a blacksmith with bulging muscles; the type of person who would likely own an axe suited to the job, or could make one. But the first idea is also a bit cliche.

You don't necessarily need to be big and strong to wield the executioner's axe; it's only one swing after all, what's important is that it's clean, separating the head in one fell stroke. Someone studying the physics of it could come up with just the right angle and and speed. So your character could be a greengrocer, a scribe, a messenger, etc.

You settle on scribe; a learned character who might work freelance for merchants and anyone running a business, they might know better than most how unjust the new capital punishment law is, maybe they are even opposing the law, secretly or not, depending on the risks. So that's a good time to have a closer look at the country, city, and ruler. Again, you don't need to write paragraphs on all that if you don't want to, but it helps to have just a sentence or two on each of those topics.

You could even use an LLM like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to help you here; they certainly stole from loads of great writers and are pretty good at coming up with material that is more than good enough. Usually you'll have to pick and choose a bit or make sure your prompts are very clear so you don't get too general and cliche fantasy fiction.

However you do it, you now have a little more insight in the country and the ruler, helping you with your concept. You decide the country is not too far from the main area the campaign will take place in, making it more likely your character can run into people from his past. You also decide the ruler was deposed and he was the last person you beheaded before the law was repealed.

Resist the urge to make the executioner's axe an important weapon and powerful in some regard. It's not a fighting weapon, it was specifically designed to do one job well, it'll be too slow in a fight. It's much more compelling to make the axe an albatross, something they don't want, that brings them nothing but misery and it's a big, heavy object as well, quite a nuisance. But they just can't get rid of it, the compulsion (not a magical one, though it could be if you had some idea for it) is too strong. One time they made it out onto the street without the axe but then had to run back inside the inn and recover it.

With all that, now might be the time to look at what character class to play. In this instance we left it wide open; every single class could work, with maybe those that usually spend time in the wilderness a bit less so but not impossible. Scribe does kind of lean towards wizard and classes like that and you don't have to play everything completely against type.

So you decide that the scribe started researching things after taking up the executioner's job, looking into laws but rolling into magic. This would be a great place to start thinking about a parent, friend, etc. who nudged them in this direction or was their primary teacher in the arcane arts, to be used for the character background later. Their distaste for death might also mean they only learn battlefield control and utility spells, no direct damage ones.

Now you can also decide if there really is anything in the axe; are the voices just imagined then it's a still a nice roleplaying thing to have your wizard 'listen' to the voices when he needs to remember something or when attempting certain skills. You might instead want to make it more concrete and have the axe be your custom magic item (but not a weapon) and can work with the DM; the spirits or souls inside it might give a bonus on skill checks, etc.

Having all this you can now think of an arc your character might go through. This is definitely optional, you can just wait and see what the adventures will bring and organically grow your character from what they experience. But it can be fun to come up with a not to detailed arc of how you see the character grow and change over their career.

In this case you think of the following. Your wizard character, with Strength 10, stands out quite a bit with this huge axe strapped to their back, towering over them. They've left their homeland with everything that happened and decided upon an adventuring career. Soon after joining up with the other player characters, after an adventure or two they come across someone in town. It's the brother of one of the people the ex-executioner beheaded. And this brother flies of the handle when he sees the person 'responsible'. This leads to an interesting roleplay encounter where your character might have to come clean about their past to the other party members, so far having been evasive when asked about the axe.

There could easily be more fun encounters with people from your character's past, maybe the person who made the axe, a former courtier of the ruler who actually wrote the law, was maybe even behind it. Or the daughter of one of the beheaded who actually forgives your character for what they did, or who actually understands that what you did was out of compassion and thanks you.

During play you might hit upon a perfect ending for the arc, to be used in one of the last adventures, something to work out with the DM. Maybe all the souls or spirits can be freed or even brought back to life. It can be something small but completely cathartic for your character or it might be something big and bold, a grand farewell to a beloved character.

With your character concept pretty much complete you can now (continue) work on the character's personality, flaws, background, etc., which will be much easier to construct, informed by all you know of them already.