With our backdrop laid out, our Resources measured, our Rivals off camera, and our Route pre-ordained by the very item we carry, we come—with some measure of Familiarity for anyone who has played Sanction before or read the last three weeks of posts—to our final post for Dead Letter Office, the Lifepath.

Lifepath

The three elements of the Dead Letter Office Lifepath answer three very straightforward questions:

• Purpose: What did you do before the DLO?
• Struggle: Why aren’t you doing it any more?
• Influence: What once came through the post and changed you?

That gives every character an ordinary former existence, a rupturous struggle that set them on a new path, and a personal connection with the very principle underlying the setting.

More importantly, you should mention at the start of every adventure, as you outline the mundane office-like feel of the world, that nobody applies to work at the Dead Letter Office. They receive an appointment letter. Obviously.

Purpose

Everyone did something before they got here. You might wish to dabble a little with timelines. It doesn’t have to be anything quite as extreme as the Characters in By Appointment, but you can sprinkle in timeframes. The General Post Office (GPO) was established in England in the 17th century, 29 December 1660, by King Charles II; but, you might want to recruit from the 20th and 21st Century, but have Routes that span the last five centuries, perhaps.

D10	Purpose	Ability
1	Postal Worker	Orienteering, Organisation, Street Smart
2	Teacher	Research, Reassurance, Leadership
3	Journalist	Interview, Observation, Writing (Headlines)
4	Tradesperson	Craft (type), Mechanics, Materials (type)
5	Office Worker	Bureaucracy, Computer Use (or Variant)1, Gossip
6	Driver	Driving, Map-reading (or Cartography), Sports (Reaction)
7	Carer	First Aid, Persuade, Cooking (type)
8	Shopkeeper	Commerce, Bargaining, Detect Lies
9	Librarian	Quote and Verse2, Marginalia, Ciphers
10	Entertainer	Perform (type), Clowning, Influence

1. If you opt for allowing Characters from generations prior to the invention of the office computer, then you may switch out for something suited to the period and essential to the nature of the role—Mathematics, Calligraphy, Appraise, or similar.
2. Represents a broad familiarity with and exposure to popular texts, classics, reference, poetry, plays, and other works, support a rote form of general knowledge of the written word. As well as having value in answer questions, it can provide common ground or establish a rapport.

Struggle

This is the event that knocked the Character off their expected trajectory. Importantly, it needn’t make them a failure. It made them available. Players and their Characters might have questions about the struggle and the route it set them on, as it might remain unclear whether it was fate, folly or a frame-up that set their path.

D10	Struggle	Ability
1	Made Redundant	Blather, Fortitude, Scavenging
2	Walked Away	Signs, Preparedness, Survival (Urban)
3	Public Disgrace	Bluff, Concealment, Disguise
4	Burned Out	Meditation, Recreation, Psychotherapy
5	Bereaved	Hand Crafting, The Dead, Ministration
6	Wrongly Accused?	Law, Sport (Endurance), Petty Theft
7	Business Failed	Accounting, Evaluation, Gambling
8	Relationship Ended	Motivation, Carousing, Surveillance
9	Saw Something Impossible	Folklore, Occult, Second Sight
10	Received the Letter1	Frustrate, Probability, Passage and Path

1. Received the Letter is an oddity. The Character’s DLO appointment arrived while their previous life was still intact, and they chose to walk away from everything they knew. Why?They don’t quite know. Effectively, it was the DLO that caused their Struggle rather than taking the appointment providing rescue.

Influence

Your Character’s Influence refers to a postal delivery emotionally significance that struck before the supernatural element of the Dead Letter Office ever entered their life. As a part of the Character’s background it has meaning because of the implications of the DLO and the possibility that a momentous missive might have arrived only through intervention.

D10	Influence	Ability
1	Letters from a Relative	Nostalgia, Writing (Correspondence)
2	Childhood Comic	Art (Sketching), Puzzling
3	Foreign Postcards	Culture, Navigation
4	Mail-order Catalogue	Appraise, Style
5	Pen-pal Letters	Linguistics, Culture
6	Magazine Subscription	Research, Criticism
7	Recorded Music	Connoisseur, Perform (Instrument)
8	Correspondence Course	Research, Science (type)
9	Love Letters	Eloquence, Motivation
10	Mysterious Annual Card1	Traffic Analysis, Sleight-of-Hand2

1. The last entry provides a plot hook that the Player, the GM or the whole table might pursue and develop. Every birthday—or Christmas, anniversary, or some arbitrary and seemingly meaningless day—a card arrived without a return address. Who from and why? Did it stop when the Character joined the DLO? Or not.
2. As of result of the Mysterious Annual Card being such a opportunity for questions, the Abilities suggested are intentionally odd and, if the GM and Player agree, these can be ignored if they din’t match the inclinations around the hook. Maybe the Player can experiment with leaving the Ability slot open and choosing something when the time is right. Or if the whole table have come up with ideas, maybe they can choose something.

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How has familiarity changed the outlook or experiences of your character? Or is it familiarity as a player that led you to take a specific path in character choices? I look forward to reading about it in your RPGaDay post.

#RPGaDAY2026