new dnd character: the former omelas kid
the omelas kid background doesn’t give you any special bonuses apart from being able to shut down a lot of arguments by bringing up the fact that you used to be the omelas kid
nothing special happened to make you stop being the omelas kid. you just lived through it long enough that you reached like 14, 15, 16, whatever age it is that kids stop being cute, and once you were no longer the archetype of innocent victim the magic just kind of fizzled out. by the time people figured out what had happened it was too late to replace you with a new kid. maybe they tried to keep you in a hole a while longer and pretend that nothing was amiss, but then the cholera outbreak hit or somebody found pieces of a girl stuffed inside a suitcase and the pretending got too difficult.
omelas adapts. once you’re out of the hole, it’s still a damn fine place to live. it’s still got universal basic income and great schools and an unparalleled social support net and a life expectancy of 104. if you introduced yourself as the kid from the hole no doubt you could ask for anything and everything you wanted and people would give it to you. you still have to leave. maybe other cities have more cholera and more little girls chopped up in suitcases, but at least you can look at them without feeling somehow responsible.
now and then you wind up at an inn. someone asks where you’re from, and you tell them. they suck their teeth and shake their heads and give you a look and say “omelas, huh? I heard it was powered by a forsaken child” and they all agree that they should have known, of course it was, they’re not surprised by this in the least.
later someone sidles up to you and gives you a long look. they almost seem to recognize you. “I was born in omelas,” they tell you, “but I walked away from it many years ago.” they seem to want something from you. you don’t know what they expect you to say.
also whenever one of your party members asks you to create a distraction all you have to do is stroll up and say “hey there everyone, I’m the former omelas kid. AMA.”
sometimes people recognize your omelas accent and get all weird about it like “oh you’re from omelas? stayed there until the forsaken kid magic ran out, huh? real piece of work you must be. I woulda busted that kid out and ditched the place.” and you’ve gotta decide whether it’s worth the trouble of convincing them that you are in fact the omelas hole boy or listen to them discuss at length what your trauma says about them.
the problem is he’s really only funny to deploy after your party members have all disclosed their own tragic, traumatic backstories. “my village was destroyed and my family burned alive by raiders” “my father the king was overthrown and his people made slaves to gorefuck the grotesque” “I was driven out of my mother’s human village when they realized I was a half-orc” and then you’re like. yeah man. I was the omelas kid. it’s chill though. I’m used to dungeons.
really funny also if everyone crowds around him at the tavern to be like “so what was it like, being the Omelas kid?” and he tries to explain that being the Omelas kid was really about being a symbolic representation of the reader’s political cynicism and subconscious acceptance that exploitation and class stratification are inherent necessities for a thriving society, and until we can allow ourselves believe otherwise and can walk away from that cynicism we’re doomed to keep recreating Omelas.
everyone just gives him a blank look until he finally sighs and says “oh, it was really bad” and shows them his most interesting scars.
