Cyborg | A Background, and on science fiction in Dungeons & Dragons

Here is another new development in my homebrew: a background! Backgrounds are interesting as a field of content creation compared to subclasses, species, and spells. Somewhat uniquely, the Player's Handbook advises Dungeon Masters and players to work together to create original backgrounds of their own as a standard rule, not a variant. Homebrewing a background is thus arguably not even really "homebrew," because that's just how the game already works! On the other hand, the formalized presentation of a background fully kitted out with trait tables is a little different from the Handbook's advice, as it goes beyond a personal background into being a complete piece of content able to inspire readers to contemplate new background possibilities.

As for the background itself this in fact isn't he first robotics/cyborg adjacent homebrew I've done. I have two sacred oaths that I've yet to post to the blog that both deal with this topic, and I think they do great jobs. At the same time, while cyborg and robot as thematic archetypes can be handled in a subclass, it seemed to me also distinctly possible for different cyborgs to pursue different callings in life and therefore have different classes. With that in mind, a background felt like another appropriate chassis for a cyborg character.

Being a cyborg certainly seems unusual in the context of Dungeons & Dragons; such characters usually suggest a science fiction or cyberpunk setting, rather than D&D's Fantasyland milieu. So, where am I coming from with introducing a cyborg background to D&D?

For starters, I think it's fun. Personal satisfaction is pretty much the baseline reason for doing any hobby homebrew!

But there's another reason I think it can fit: technology and sci-fi have been part of Dungeons & Dragons for a long time already.

Many are familiar with Eberron. That's not "sci-fi," of course, but it is an example of high technology in D&D in the form of magitek. That, I think, can be a type of setting in which cyborgs are possible. Although my homebrew does use such sci-fi terms as "cybernetics," I tried to otherwise keep the language open to the possibility of a magitek cyborg. That's one way a cyborg can fit into D&D.

But high technology has been a part of D&D since even before Eberron, and in a more sci-fi strain than magitek. Many are familiar with the famous early module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. In that adventure, players discover a crashed alien spaceship with laser guns they can use as "magic items!" And the sci-fi doesn't stop there. Spelljammer brought D&D into space with a science-fantasy vibe. The illithids still imply that they come from a techno-future. And the old setting of Mystara had a curious lore involving an alien invasion in the distant, distant past.

So what am I saying here? Nothing particularly groundbreaking: just that science fiction has always been part of D&D. That doesn't mean you have to make it part of your campaign, of course. But it is a very amusing legacy to be left with, and one that I think is worth engaging with at our interest.