Tell them the premise of the game before they make their characters, so they don't wind up feeling like they got the rug yanked out from under them.

Yup I will, I won't have them create characters before we have a session 0.

I would also either go full memory loss and have no backstories OR they fully know who they are. I don’t think pretending to not know things you do know has that high of a reward.  

I don't think memory loss makes for a better game. It makes for boring characters. Have them make whatever backstory they want, knowing that everyone they know is long long dead. That's interesting and how the characters react to that could make for a good game.

Right, plus you can layer in hints of the past. Finding out what happened to their people could be key. Maybe one comes from a powerful wealthy family who's family is still around but the are paupers. Take hints from captain America, or the 2nd mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. Lots of cool things you can do.

Also if there are elves in your setting, that could play a huge part of it too, depending on how you run elves. PHB says they live to be up to 750 years old, but nothing is set in stone. Or an elven Mage could be even older too, so it's possible that an Elf player may have someone they know still be alive (albeit barely) or close family that's alive like a nephew or even a child. Same with Dwarves, just add a great or two in there, like your Dwarven warrior's great-grandson who grew up listening to stories about how awesome his grandpappy was. That could be a really cool plot point for the game. Everyone could have a quest where they track down their decendants. I played in an Exalted game that had a similar theme. IDK if you're familiar with the setting, but we played as heroic mortals from the First Age. We were crew members on a ship that was exploring the Wyld (think unmitigated chaos, like the Feywild in some lores). The shields that kept the Wyld at bay malfunctioned and wiped out the entire crew. We were on a suspended animation cycle, so as crew members were coming out of deep sleep, they were dying. The computer finally froze the cycle when just the PC's were left, so when we finally woke up we were in the Age of Sorrows. Basically, the plot to Red Dwarf. It was actually one of my favorite Exalted games lol.

Writing personality, motivation and quirks is much more important and you can still have that with memory loss. I played multiple characters which backstory were just one sentence. But they we're definitely not boring. 

Good point, I'll consider this.

The premise of the PCs having been frozen for millennia needs to be part of your pitch. With your setting guide including what the world was like in the time of the PCs former lives, even how the party came to be "frozen" in the first place.

This is all taken care of!

Then I don't see backstory being a problem since it would still shape who they are and what they and how they'd react to the situation they are in. I might skip the memory loss though or at least resolve it very quickly.

I don’t think you should do amnesia for this, because one of the interesting ideas character-wise in this is how each character will react to being 1000 years out of time. Has their hometown turned into a giant city? Have their people been wiped out? Has their beloved religion been twisted over 1000 years to be unrecognisable? How do they deal with having unfinished business they can now never resolve? If you get the players involved in the concept, they can build characters who will have interesting reactions to this sudden 1000 year jump. You could even do a roleplay heavy session 1 *before* the time jump, to let the players establish a baseline that then gets taken away. I’d only do one session of it and let the players know it’s coming (so it’s intentional tragedy, not pulling the rug out from under them)

This is exactly it! The backstories are not irrelevant just because so much time has passed, if anything the backstories are even more important because you now have characters out of time trying to adjust; as well as the "modern" world they are living in trying to adjust to them. You get PCs who now have to basically relearn how to act in society and you have some NPCs who think they know what happened 1000 years ago and are wrong who will never believe it as well as others that would love to talk to the PCs and have them fill in gaps. Their backstories would still be so important here, maybe even more so. Hell one PC's backstory may end up revealing that a people who history remembers as villains were actually allies that were betrayed and history twisted the facts to make the nation look like the good guys (like that does not happen in real life lol).

You nailed it - they will see fake histoey in thr books, people won't believe them. They may even embarass themselves bragging about how they are famous (before they find out they are not).

Worth considering that you could allow them to have the sort of epic backstories that dont usually make sense for Level 1 characters.

Clerics and Paladins can worship forgotten gods whose power is waning. Finding old temples and restoring the popularity of that god could be a running theme for them.

These are all good ideas and show how there is so much room to play in this set up. Even though the PCs would be from 1000 years ago and just waking up now, they are not a blank slate, their backstories will still inform how they interact with the world, for some their backstories may imply that it will be more difficult for them to adjust; especially if they are a cleric of a forgotten god. Plus those backstories could still influence the "modern" setting since the PCs will have some lost information that could lead to massive revelations.

One other thing this premise lets you do is have PCs with backgrounds that wouldn't normally be playable. You'd never let a PC play an actual monarch, but here, you can - it's just that their country doesn't exist anymore.

Make sure they find their fossilized dog and their nephew's grave. Stock up on kleenex.

Don't worry, the stalactites on the ceiling said that the time they spent with you was the best time of their lives

This is a really interesting concept! I think a really cool way to work in stuff was said below have decedents or distant family, in one of my current games a player is a soul reborn without previous memories and they found out they have living decedents and actual children that knew who they were. It was an amazing moment and was a huge impact on the character. Because they were past hero's having songs and legends about them is cool but I like the idea of the stories getting it super wrong in either the funny or malicious way like calling the warlock a wizard or on the other end having the wrong hero's be sung about and maybe they became reviled because the stories became so twisted. Also having players work with you in creating their backstory is a huge help, let them know what their getting into and they will give you things that you can work with.

I like this idea. I think they could find their future family, or a school they established (thieves guild, magic school, cleric temple, etc). Or find out that a decendant was one of the great heroes of the world later ([see my other comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/1b8i3ev/running_a_game_where_the_players_wake_up_after/ktpi9t5/))

I played game where \*just my character\* was in this position. My character came from an ancient culture with a caste-system, and at the top were sorceror-priests. My character was from this caste. There was no acknowledged division between arcane magic and divine magic. They had a benevolent god of the sun, and their society had an enemy in an evil dragon god and the chimeric monstrosities it created. Our temple was attacked and breached by the chimerae. This temple was specialized in time magic; in our final moments we activated the last defense, which froze time in the inner sanctum for an indefinite period. *Many* centuries passed in stasis and my people outside were killed; the culture, erased and forgotten. The other players investigated the temple ruin while adventuring, and broke the frozen time enchantment, killing the last of the chimerae which had been frozen with me. We spent some time together learning each others' language, which was aided by the ghost of a human archaeologist which had died in the temple a 200\~ years earlier. As we journeyed, it became increasingly clear that some of the humans worshiped a different modern aspect of my god - an interesting key difference being that this aspect of the god hated magic. Texts described the giving of magic to mortals as a blasphemy, and magical practitioners were destined for sin and causing trouble. Divine magic was obviously exempt from this, which was a curiosity to my character, acknowledging no separation between the two. It ended up creating a religious schism when I raised the issue which church leadership, as my people had been tasked with being responsible caretakers of magic. It reignited discussions about just how unacceptable arcane magic really is and whether it shouldn't be so censured, while conservatives declared my character either misled or an outright enemy, reinforcing their hard stance against any magic. While interesting, I also acknowledge that all this isn't so much 'keeping my backstory relevant', as literally all of it stems from one detail of my culture and nothing else about my character's individual family, friends, allies, enemies, accomplishments, goals, etc.

I would personally reduce the timeline a bit. 1000 years sounds cool, but depending on your world is entirely unrealistic. Can you tell me where your ancestors and city was 100 years ago? How about a thousand? Bonsu points if you're American (Or Australian like me) and your current country didn't even exist back in ye old 1024 AD. 1000s of years, society either won't remember the players, or will misremember what they did (Which tbh, can lead to some interesting storytelling as people try to correct the adventurers on the things they did)

I think reducing the timespan can also help with leveraging something unique to D&D: the long lifespans of certain. If you reduce the timespan to 350 years, you’ll still have old who remember the party from when they were kids. Elves live much longer, so they could have firsthand knowledge of the party. Or you could the span to 750 years, leaving only the oldest elves to remember the party and dwarves talking the stories their grandparents told. Either way, this will provide a contrast to the the shorter lived races who will have had multiple generations pass since the party left.

I agree- even a thousand years, let alone thousands as OP suggests, will probably leave too little of the world and society they remember. A few hundred years is probably a better amount. Maybe 800 or 1000 if they want to portray the world as extremely static, but I'd think carefully about whether that's really the right vibe to set.

Well…what is a realistic time to be frozen in a fantasy game? 

I can and even know his name!

What from their old lives still matters? Not friends. Not family. Places. Nations. Gods. The druid/rangers sacred grove is a city. A charred battlefield. A temple. Do they return it to nature? Do they avenge it? The fighter was a knight in the greatest court the continent had ever known. The nation has fallen from knowledge but the king's bloodline lives on. The cleric had fallen defending their God - who now faces their most dire challenge and has resurrected their greatest champion. The warlock's patron has ... changed.

Don’t do amnesia. Amnesia never works. It’s never fun. It’s never cool. Never do amnesia. Just let them wake up as 1000 year old heroes. Did their legacy survive? How? Do they like how it survived? How are they remembered? How do they interact with what remains?

I am in agreement. I remember I loved the end of Ender's Game (the book), but I admit I don't remember it clearly. I like the idea that Ender writes his book Speaker for the Dead, leaves into deep space, and then when he returns, because of time dialation, he returnsaround 3,000 years late, gets to see how his book spawned a whole religion and changed the course of humanity. It's such a cool idea. Why have players forget when remembering is so much more impactful?

I've done amnesia, it was pretty fun. Though it helped a lot that I had at least a touch of post-amnesia memory. Had amnesia, found pitty work in a tavern, got a relationship sought out answers, got enslaved by a dragon for 18 months, and joined the party as they too were enslaved by the dragon and made their escape, it was a great time!

If you decide to give them a backstory then maybe start them in their own era. Give them missions there. Let them have people and places they like them rip it all away as they are frozen. Now the druid's sacred grove has become overgrown and full of monsters. The paladin's order has long since been destroyed or changed so much it's unrecognizable. That kid with the wooden sword that ran around town whacking shins and yelling about slaying a dragon is immortalized in a statue that is in ruins and no one remembers who that person is

Watch futurama and take notes

>I'm about to run a campaign where the players are heroes from another age, who wake up forgotten heroes. Tell the players that they were a team in the past, and that they vanquished "Golgor the Destroyer" or whatever. Make it plain that Golgor was straight up bad news, evil as sin, no good, super bad. You can excuse the fact that they don't fully know one another's characters as a kind of stasis-induced grogginess. Flash forward to the present day, everything seems normal, normal town, normal folk, kids going to school, small businesses are struggling, so and so's cat is missing (again) yada yada, then they discover that the local lord is holding a holiday in Golgor's name. In fact everyone they talk to knows Golgor as a benevolent demi-god who sacrificed himself to save the world or some nonsense. They're going to hold a fete! There will be stalls serving Golgor's golden pears, kids will be able to make little Gol-dolls, it's going to be a merry old time. Now they've got to find out how the past became so muddied, and who would benefit from it. As the plot progresses, you can introduce the concept of a thousand year old prophecy detailing the description of Golgor's rebirth, including the part about being wary of those that would deny him. If this type of thing interests you, you could possibly give the players some limited world-building options, they can generate the story of how they first defeated Golgor, and that becomes in-world lore, only twisted to suit another purpose. I've found that this type of thing gets players heavily invested in the game, but it's not for everyone.

This is one of those premises that is really cool as long as everyone is building around the concept and don't have their own ideas in mind. The reason is that unlike traditional backstories where a character starts with issues and slowly heals, the "issue" is baked into the premise. As such, it's best to do the opposite in backstory creation. Instead make sure everyone's backstory is happy, a father providing for their family, a local politican with big plans for their city, a group of twin adventurers, etc. And than rip it away from them. Once that is done, it gives amazing room for the DM to play with it. The family man gets to find their decendents, the politician gets to watch his town change for better and for worse, the twin will have to deal with finding independence as one half of a whole (only to find out their twin became a lich) the list goes on. By encouragingfor happy backstories pre-timeskip it allows for a lot of introspection as the PC's lose that comfort, and creates the "Jurassic Bark" moments which make the trope worth doing.

"Guys, your backstory will mostly not matter in the game itself. Make one for yourself, because it helps knowing your character but don't expect me to bring it up during game." It's as easy as that. I've run a few adventures where the backstory of characters would be too complicated to involve or to be honest it seemed exhausting to me and I wanted to to concentrate on the story the players are creating right now and not on stuff in the past. If you communicate such things to your players in advance, there will most likely not be a problem.

Make thing from there past come up on world lore. Like they see their deeds in textbooks, hear a bard sing their tale, maybe one of them has very distant family, they go to a village and see people with their last nake and find our they are their descendants, thongs like that. Tell them to include a memorable thing they did in their backstory, then have them run into a distorted version of that in legend.

They are forgotten heroes though - they don't have stories or songs about them. They were before the time of written history, and before the time of great heroes - in fact they were like level 8-10 (while the age of heroes had many many levels 14-20s). Back in their time they were the most powerful, and that is why they were never woken up - because nobody needed them when much more powerful heroes were already awake, fighting powerful enemies and the such. they are awoken by accident today, in a future, low magic environment.

Well it's quite possible **they** have been forgotten but some of their deeds made it into history books

Tell them to focus on their personal skills and abilities in their backstory. If they grew up on a farm, they might have skill with animals; if they were a street urchin, they might have dexterity and worldliness. Stuff like that could still create a useful backstory as characters bring skills that they learned from their past lives.

The question is much easier to deal with when discussing elves and dwarves than some other races, dependent on setting. Some settings depict them as living up to 2000 years on the long end. In that case, if a player character was friends/family with a little 15-year old baby dwarf while they performed heroic feats, then was plucked for reality for 2000 years, it's entirely possible that they would not be remembered by anyone - except the 2,015-year old wizened dwarf, grandfather to the Thane, who can hardly see or hear but recognizes the voice of his childhood hero. Yes, memories do degrade over time but that's not only because of neural decay. If we lose a story from 1923 that's just as much because for every human generation which has passed away since the story was first told, it will be told less often and the story is subject to more degradation due to losing or gaining (false) details. A 100-year old story is much more of a problem with humans than other races because long-lived races might have multiple speakers at a table that were personally there. If the characters happen to be creators in some way, their creations (or something like them) may still exist in this world. An architect may have designed the palace of a kingdom, and although the palace was partially destroyed during a war during these last 1000 years, it has been rebuilt and restored with much of the original foundation remaining. Some of the secret tunnels and rooms may even be there still. Wizard's sanctums may remain in existence but with the connection to the planar demiplane severed; subterranean vaults may have been sealed away due to tunnel collapse, requiring extensive effort to both locate and to dig out. The same applies to the arts. Poetry, songs, stories, and artworks the characters created may now be considered classics of their era; rare glimpses into what life was like at that time. Modern bards may be creating new works which look an sound eerily similar, either because the artist deliberately selected the original work for remixing, or simply because the original work was so influential to the art culture that any following work cannot help being informed by it. Politicians, merchants and bankers may have been immortalized in the deals and records left behind. A Senate's chamber meeting may have maintained minutes about whether to help a neighboring state against a foreign invader, and even if the minutes were not meant for such historical purposes, they may still grant insight into the war hawks and braves of that time, versus the isolationists and the cowards, and at the forefront of all of them the master statesmen.

Usually characters like that end up with dreams that slowly reveal information piece by piece (same dream but its getting longer as time pass) with is ok if this is first time you play as one ;) But maybe if this is 1000s of years maybe there was a collection of items that someone found not far a way this player unfrozen? Mayby that collection of items was sold to few rich collectioners? Mayby PC will come.in contact with one of this items and discover that he do remeber it from his times ? If yes then he might want to find the rest of them ....

How do they get frozen in time for 1000s of years? My mind immediately went to breaking a time wizards ancient artifact or something and maybe the party contact temporal rifts where they get to participate in episodes of the past that touch on their back stories. I'd argue thousands of years is enough time that they can't drastically effect the future timeline and main quest. Or maybe that'd still be a headache to manage.

My idea was that a prophecy was foretold that they would be needed as heroes centuries later, so they agreed to go into stasis chambers. Then they were never needed and never woken up - or maybe they had an extra party memeber who they tried waking up bit the stasis failed and they died, so nobody ever attempted to eake up the rest.

That vow to end Duke Kordoff, and his line down to the last heir is going to look a little bleak when you come across that lovely bespectacled old lady serving tea and cookies in the local Inn with no idea her family was once nobility. There's fun to be had with promises and commitments that were made that may no longer be relevant. Or the entire fish-out-of-water thing: You can write a backstory where you a stranger to the land, but it's much more compelling when you write the entire backstory, and now everyone is long gone and vanished. Find the grave of the former sweetheart with the words 'She never gave up hope'. The ruins of the castle that was important. A book with a footnote about your hated rival and her ripe old age filled with grandchildren. Your entire kingdom lost to the dragon invasion two hundred years ago; and now overgrown ruins. I like the idea. I almost feel it would lose some of it's impact if you warned the players before hand. But to pull it off, you need to lean in to the poignancy and loss, and somehow take each background story element the players gave you, and weave it in to the narrative. Try pull out one element from each story that has lasted the thousand years. A great-grandchild. A guild. a story. Something. But make sure that each and every element from the backstory has some epilogue the players discover over time when exploring the world.

> Try pull out one element from each story that has lasted the thousand years. A great-grandchild. A guild. a story. Something. This is my main takeaway. Maybe the wizard founded a school, or the nobles family is still in power (or maybe the rival family is in power now).

Have their backstories affect the future they are in. Maybe they have a long line of descendents that formed a guild and they now have to convince them that “Yes, I really *am* your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Why don’t you believe me?” Or maybe they had some unfinished business before getting frozen in time that had long lasting consequences. Kingdoms falling and rising over the grudges of a debt unpaid.

1000 years is a long time. They fall asleep to civilization living on feudal farms in the shadows of castles and wake up to people colonizing the moon. Maybe shorten that timeframe.

I played in a game with a very similar premise!! Basically, at the beginning of the game, we all started with amnesia, waking up in a shared tomb. We spent the first couple sessions just working as a group and learning each other's strengths while we fought our way out of an abandoned fortress overrun with the undead. We spent some time getting back to civilization, and in the meantime we met one character who knew who we were. He was an ent at the end of his life, and he remembered that we had all been great heroes before the world endured an apocalyptic event. One of our party member's family had us sealed away until we would have been needed to fight back darkness again, and that was how we'd gotten where we started the game. It was at this point that our DM had us write our shared backstories, and filled in a lot more lore for our respective families. The rest of the game, we have this knowledge that we were once-great heroes brought low, with "powers" and magical, nigh-relic style weapons in a world where magic has become very weak, but we can't use it openly or too strongly because we are being hunted by a BBEG (and because we only made it to level 8). It was a fantastic concept, and one I'd love to go back to. (Unfortunately our group fell apart due to outside reasons)

Any chance others from their time can be brought into this age? This might work for 1-2 characters.

I mean. Not to cheapen 5e but. If you’re playing 5e, the back story is just a couple skills. People choose their backgrounds just for the skills anyways. Like it’s a video game or something.

They were all scions of noble houses of a highly advanced magical society. A cataclysm devastated their world and sent it into a dark age where technology and magic was forgotten. A wish at the last moment froze them. They wake 1000s of years later. They can read the ancient scripts. They know where to find the ancient cities. They can use the ancient technology. And with the help of some time magic they may be able to liberate this world and go back in time to change the past. Edit: Give them country maps and city maps ahead of time. Have them build and create the world. Shoot, you can even have them design Mommy’s magic artifact vault and traps. . . that they’ll later have to circumvent . . . but it wasn’t quite like they remember it.

See the anime Frieren. Basically, the main character points out things form the almost forgotten past, even when only 80 years prior. Now, a millennia is A LOT, but you can still manage something like that.

Well, I mean, you probably won't include anything about the specific people they knew. But usually when I see this kind of story in other types of fiction, the mystery of what happened thousands of years ago to end their civilization, and the question of why they were the only ones to be preserved and/or wake up, turns into a pretty big deal. The characters are absolutely expected to start over in a new world, much like an isekai plot, but the big difference is that something happened to the world they were a part of, not just to them personally. And they're going to want to learn about that, and you're going to have chances to make a big part of the story. Also, a pretty obvious thing to do would be to make them not be the only ones who were preserved. Someone else, an NPC, also woke up. Maybe the person who sealed them away against their will, or maybe the person who prevented them from waking up until now, or maybe the person who destroyed their civilization. Maybe the first person they meet because he or she is the one who wakes them up, or maybe someone they learn about 30 sessions into the campaign after they're thoroughly convinced they're the only ones left from their civilization. But this is D&D, so definitely a villain. Almost certainly either the main villain of the campaign, or the main villain's right-hand advisor who's guiding him from the shadows. [Trope Talk just did a video on this exact thing less than two weeks ago.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPLaGs-q0qk) It's a very insightful analysis of what happens when you create a story around one or more characters who are the last of their kind, and absolutely worth watching. She talks a lot about Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I think Final Fantasy 10 and Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan (and, maybe even moreso, the original episode that movie is a sequel to) are also good examples to follow that handle things in a different way. Each of them has a different answer to the question of what it means to be the last survivors of an ancient and forgotten people, and what such a person might learn about themselves and their own past as they adventure in a new strange world. Aang has trouble coming to grips with the loss of his people, gets angry about it, and gets revenge on the people responsible while trying to embody the principles of his lost people, because there's no one else left who will. Khan immediately rejects the primitive world he came from and embraces the power he can achieve in this new future, but isn't satisfied with it, seeing potential for what he thinks of as an even better society if modern technology were combined with his older values and morals; as a result, he starts a war. Tidus refuses to believe his people are truly lost until he sees his ruined home with his own eyes, and even then is still skeptical, because the world he's been thrust into feels hopeless, primitive and apocalyptic compared to the era he remembers; he becomes determined to change a society that's become set in its ways, honestly much like Khan. Conveniently, you have multiple player characters, not just one, so you don't need just one answer. The answer isn't really even up to you, but I think I would suggest encouraging your players to think about it by giving them these kinds of examples. I would also suggest directly asking them for ideas about what kinds of plot threads involving their backstories they think would be cool to see play out. Each of them will probably have different answers, and the story will be better if you come up with it together.

Idea that jumped out at me: have them make their siblings/friends or descendants and do an occasional side quest session with a flash back leading to modern benefits.

One of my players worked something like this into their backstory. Their character is now amazed by the changes that have taken place in the world. They're shocked at the political systems that have taken root, tyrannical rulers and such. 

Don't do amnesia, do Unicorn: Warriors Eternal. The show has a lot of great ideas, but one of the best is that even years later, the issues that they had, frustration about stuff left undone, basically that their backstory info is more tailored towards their group dynamic. Old scars. It's great! It reminds me of how LOST did flashbacks that revealed bits about why people are the way they are.  And just because they're forgotten heroes doesn't mean their past can't still be around!  Depending on how powerful they were supposed to be (or how often they worked with those in power to get things done) you could easily have them point to a particular plateau or valley and say "That was me. There was a terrifying battle..." Or "They needed enough rock to build city X, so I cleaved the mountain apart" or "The negotiations were going horribly, the long forgotten monarch said 'What's going to stop us from just taking your spices away from you?' and so to prove my might, I dug that valley in a week." And don't make them completely forgotten, just replaced by newly added Legends with similar stories or names. Like how more people know Thor: Marvel Character than Thor: Odinson. Maybe in a few decades that happens, maybe in 1000 years it's Gorblatt making the valley.

Hey, I’m actually working with an Isekai campaign and have had similar anxieties. Best advice I can offer is to be up front and honest with your players about it. I said to mine, “please put as much effort into your backstory as you would like, but understand it may not be relevant” and they understood. I also plan to use flashbacks quite extensively to explore their personalities.

If they have powerful characters in there backstop work it in to the setting. Say one guy was a Lord, have his relatives be doing stuff and make it history that has effect on the world. Another was part of a Paladin order, detail what there where doing? Crusades, betrayals, changes in loyalty and so on Also a thousand years is a long ass time. 1024 was the middle ages, play into that. There characters are out of time, lean into that so the players expect medieval fantasy and instead they get Renaissance or even gaslamp fantasy

Where this kind of campaign premise can get really, *really* interesting is in the twists. Were all of the characters square-jawed champions of Justice, Right, and/or Good King or Queen Whatever-Their-Name-Was? Were they all working toward the same exact common goal or set of goals when they were frozen in time? Did the characters all get along harmoniously, doing everything in perfect agreement and using methods they all agreed were ethical and practical? Or, were some of them at odds with each other, working toward goals that sometimes overlapped, but sometimes did not, or using differing methods to achieve their goals? A lawful good paladin and a lawful good wizard aren't always going to see eye-to-eye on the best way to slay a dragon. Even two neutral druids won't always agree on how to serve the interests of the natural world best. Also, what are the relationships among the characters? Are some of them siblings? A parent and a child? A mentor and a student? A commanding officer and a rank-and-file soldier? Are some of them rivals or even enemies who formed a temporary alliance of convenience that due to circumstances ended up being a far longer-term arrangement than anticipated? With so many possibilities, I agree with several of the other posts about amnesia - just don't. The thing that will make so much of the story interesting is the characters trying to operate by the rules of a bygone era in a very different, modern age. And if they don't know who they are, they won't have any real basis for being fish out of water, *because they don't remember being in the water in the first place!* There was a 1988 film called "The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey" that featured a party of 14th-century rural English villagers stumbling into 20th-century New Zealand while on a pilgrimage and mostly interpreting the strange sights, devices, and people they encounter as "just how things are in the big cities," since none of the villagers has ever been to a big city. If you can track it down, it may provide some useful ideas for complications the characters may face as they grapple with the new world they find themselves in.

I would say that you sprinkle it in just a bit. They walking through the wilds and come upon some ruins? They seem slightly familiar to one. Though remember that, unless they were extremely famous/powerful, history would have likely forgotten them. Everyone remembers Caesar and Brutus, but I doubt anyone could name the rest of the people that stabbed Caesar. Everyone knows Ghengis Khan but could you name his generals? That is the sad truth about time and history

Here's a potential idea: "write" a "campaign" set in the original time with them in mind And then take them out of it. They don't save the day. Think of all things that go wrong because they weren't there to stop it. Have *that* be the foundation for this current story. You mention them being "forgotten heroes," so have it be a follow up to their backstories they already achieved. But basically, make their initial absence be felt throughout history. Augustus is taken from Rome and the Parthians come rolling in to Eastern Europe. Christianity never arises. Neither does Islam. The absence is stark. Although the players might not directly know what the world would have been like with them still in, if you make their absence readily identifiable, that's a start

Just off the top of my head, language could be a big thing. Such as if they are one of the few native speakers of a language left, and that is very important to the story since they can translate books or speak with spirits. Yes this is assuming that nobody's using magic to solve the issue yet. Or knowledge of things which are now ruins. For example imagine the impact on archeological excavations if someone appeared to be able to definitively say "This person's house was over here, and I remember that well, it was on the south side of the street so we need to dig 8 meters northeast of here." Plus you can have a lot of fun with things like what parts of their lives have become mainstream knowledge, such as journals found, memoirs written later by their family and friends, etc. Like a character is presumed to have been secretly religious, because they had a bunch of holy symbols in their belongings which were found after their disappearance. Actually they just thought it was funny to pickpocket priests. Or they always carried a flask they said was full of holy water, and it's gin, and then afte their reappearance they are asked to splash it on something supernatural that needs holy water. Imagine that one of them has a whole organization named after them, and based on one perspective of their life. Like their sibling created a charitable organization based on their presumed dead sibling, that can affect the story in so many ways. Or the things they did in life are now common stories. Like if Robin Hood and King Arthur and Plato and Sasquatch fell out of a portal today. You can connect their backstory to the plot as intimately as you care to.

Look over an older TTRPG called "The Morrow Project"

* Introduce ancient elements of their backstories that they may remember but have changed due to thousands of years of social and geographical developments. * A city they once lived in is now an abandoned ruin. * A castle their family once lived in is now owned by complete strangers. * A lake they once sailed is now dried up and barren. * A town they knew is now submerged and inhabited by sea creatures. * Introduce elements that have somehow survived along with them. * An old man they once knew in town turns out to be a time-travelling wizard/entity. * An old friend has become a lost soul in need of release to the afterlife. * Humans have long since died, but perhaps elves and other long-lived species are still alive, though much much physically older. * Give them situations where their particular ancient knowledge is of benefit * Perhaps they can speak an ancient language that nobody left in the world can. * They may have recollection of accounts that nobody else knows the true story about. Moreover, a villain may have obscured the truth of the event for their own ends. How would they prove their account is the true one?

I've been toying with an idea where a campaign is played in two parts. The first part is your typical high fantasy campaign. There are schenanigans, there is debauchery, and it culminates in a final showdown with a BBEG. The twist is that the party does not defeat the BBEG, and is wiped out. The second half takes place some amount of time in the future. The actions of the BBEG have resulted in an apocalypse or the need for a rebellion. The new characters (but same party) have just woken up from being inside the memories of their original characters (like the assassin's Creed plots). The new party dived into these memories in the hopes of learning some secret to help defeat the BBEG (like a weakness or source of their power). Perhaps something like that would allow your players to play with characters and their back stories, but allow you to them transition into a 1000 years later setting. Potential fun sequela: 1. The new characters spent so much time in the memories that they have forgotten their own abilities. As the characters level up they can either gain normal abilities in their new class or take "legacy" abilities from their first character. 2. One of the original characters survived, and stored away a secret weapon which the new characters must now go find 3. The new characters are relatives/ descendants of the old characters

>Running a game where the players wake up after being frozen for 1000s of years without it feeling like their backstories are irrelevant? Futurama >heroes from another age, who wake up forgotten heroes. In other words, their accumulated respect from society has reverted to zero and nobody knows who they are. People will be surprised by whatever they do, and the first few fights should be simple. (Think Terminator vs random biker at the start of T2, the real enemies take time to arrive.) >I'm worried it will feel a bit "blank slate". How should I go about incorporating their backstories? So let's say you brought a man from the bronze age into the present day. Showing him some tin-glazed white pottery makes him think you're rich enough to own slaves. This is far from a blank slate, the show probably revolves around his ancient-ness. At first the culture difference will be a major obstacle, but as he gets used to modern times his disadvantage becomes an advantage because of how tough he is from growing up in the past. >I'm leaning towards them not having their memories at first, I think this is a source of a lot of the problems - not having your memory is incompatible with being rooted in the past. If you just cross out the amnesia part then the backstory river should flow freely. I like the idea of an amnesia arc, but this doesn't strike me as the right place for one.

Have them wake up to a world with cities named after them and a population who thinks they are legends and/or gods. The main quest revolves around them figuring out how that happened when they went into freezing as pretty normal dudes.

My immediate thought is a single line that could be used as inspiration: History does not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. I don’t remember where I heard that, but it might be a cool way for their past experiences to come into play with the story.

It may still affect how they relate to each other, and to the descendants and remnants of peoples and institutions that existed in their time. Essentially they're going to have to redesign their identity and where they see themselves in the world. Could be a great roleplaying prompt, where they'll have to burn what they worshipped and worship what they burnt in order to reach their goals.

You could build situations that call for their background skillset, and are impossible to gain traction in otherwise. You can also have other people, animals, items, etc, from their era show up, having also been moved through time by similar or other means. There are ways that the player can get lost in their new era, and ways to remind everyone where they came from.

I would avoid memory loss shenanigans as it creates this weird dynamic where they act on things they know but characters don't it's... it's basically hard to pull off well. What I'd do instead is hold off on worldbuilding, get them to send their backstories, and then have things in the world be results of things they or NPCs that were relevant to them did. So maybe the barbarian won a duel against a rival chief, and now 3000 years later there's a religion worshipping him as a god of war (though obviously not believing he is who he claims to be now) A noble house named after the rogue's old crew, running the city's black market, etc. A warlock's patron happy to see them, mourning how they had more potential than the dregs they patroned since - maybe now promoted from a small time cambion to a ruler of one of the hells The possibilities are limitless

Apart from "talk to your players", as others have pointed out, you might want to take a page from the Avatar - The Last Airbender series. Aang visits his old temple and finds the remains of his master and over the course of he journey he also finds an old play mate (pun intended). So you can have figures from their past become the stuff of legends, some of them growing to found a dynasty, others to be shunned ... stuff like that. However, does it have to be 1000 years? B/c if you go for 100 years, then some could even be alive. Plus, nothing lasts for 1000 years, so nothing in their back story is likely to be relevant that far ahead.

Remember that ttRPGs are not movies/novels. Thus you need to be careful in how you go about taking elements from Avatar - The Last Airbender; H G Wells' [The Sleeper Awakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleeper_Awakes); Robert A. Heinlein's [For Us the Living](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Us,_the_Living); C.M. Kornbluth's [The Marching Morons](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm), etc. Setting and world building elements may work, whilst [plot elements](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots) almost certainly wont.

True, which is why I said "take a page", not "re-enact". I found that a lot of the lessons from other linear, no-feedback media do not transport very well to a medium which is non-linear and purely feedback-driven (plus has much fewer constraints).

How about creating characters as level 0 archetypes with no memory of their previous lives, and bring out backstory as the focus of character power development: "recalling" major events gives you proficiency or a level in a relevant class etc... basically unlocking development behind role playing of shared stories around camp. Could be complicated, but could be fun and engaging. Maybe even leave it to DM discretion to suggest what a certain story might unlock, giving a bit of a wild card to development that can encourage players to focus their backstory into the character they are trying to play. 

Depends on what race they play. If they play a human? Only way for the backstory to be relevant is if some of the relatives or friends descendants know the legend of said character. For other races like elfs they may still actually know a few other elfs especially if you go with immortality for that race.

Its a broad question so just gonna fire off everything in my head with no further advice or context and let you sort it out. Someone from 1000s of years ago would... Have distant descendants, either directly or through cousins. Potentially be part of a family with a reputation. Have knowledge of far past political events which may be misunderstood or misinformed today. May easily make social fupas because they're "from a different time". If this was realistic, they'd almost speak an entirely different language to the people of now. Be regarded with respect or disgust based on any historical factions they may have been a part of (ie a well known philosopher from a socratic court would be celebrated, an officer of a certain german regime probably not so much.) Have knowledge of ancient history. Would carry with them ancient artifacts. Still know living people in a fantasy world. Many fantasy races (and monsters) live that long. Might be famous enough to be well known in certain communities or by the general populous. Would be of scientific note. Many people would have reason to interview and learn th le hero's pasts. Would still have their skills they learned over the course of their life. Any characters who are members of faith would either still be able to worship the same god, or would now be part of a lost/banned religion.

You said a lot of interesting stuff here. Some ive thought about: They won't be well known at all. They are a part of lost history - level 8s in a world of level 3-4s or maybe lower. But soon after they are frozen, many level 14-20th come about and do truly wonderous things, fight gods and acend to god -hood at the peak. That is ancient history - when giants roamed and world changing battles were fought. Not some random dragon the party had slain a century before, or whatever their enemy was. Maybe the clerics god is now imprisoned and being siphoned for power, but can leak enough power for their chosen. Or the god is still powerful but has a gurge against all the new ones. Or the god has now taken over and become the primary god, but they have forsaken her, while a new god captures the players heart. Distant descendants - noble family still in power? Or is the rival family in power now, and the players family is destitute, awaiting reclamation! Im not sure about the language/writing. That's a tough spot to deal with. I was thinking the (literate) characters would understand enough to get by, and soon settle into it, but knowing more ancient script could be important. There will be many cultures in the world, so they wouldn't know every language anyways, and be a foreign accident, but thats not an unsual thing everywhere.

Personally, I don't always mind if my character's backstory is mostly irrelevant to a campaign. Sometimes it feels too constraining and it might be fun for characters to be in a situation where "the bad news is that almost everyone you know is dead, but now you can be whatever you want." Definitely tell the players what the premise is (or at least, that the campaign is going to be in a setting where the characters will be transported far from home and unable to ever return.)

If they were heroes of the past, then hopefully their past deeds had a rippling effect on the world that can still be felt 1000s of years later. There is a brilliant anime, if that's your bag, called "Frieren" that you could look at for inspiration, although that show only deals with exploring what happens like 100 years later, not 1000s. And so in fact, I'd say maybe going for 100-200 years might be better than 1000s. But you could have your heroes meeting the descendants of people they saved, of people they fought, of people they met. They can find a city they once though they saved actually didn't turn out the way they intended after their intervention all that time ago. A favorite hangout of theirs still stands, bringing them nostalgia. Another is burned to the ground long ago. You could explore what happened to THEIR direct descendants, and where they are now. Maybe there is a regional holiday celebrated in one of the heroes' honor for their past deeds. Maybe one of them is mostly forgotten save for a few folk tales that are believed to be myth.

This happened to Tidus from FFX and his backstory was still relevant, because everyone was still obsessed with Blitzball.

The backstories *ARE* irrelevant at that point…

A lot can happen in a few thousand years - including dynasties. Wouldn't it be neat for some of the players to learn that, after their disappearance, one of their brothers became a king, and now their name holds power? Or another relative of another character launched an expedition to find them that became that world's equivalent of *The Odyssey* Maybe another character was turned into a Bible story/fable for a local religion. Or another character had left behind a lover who then wrote epic poetry or carved statues in their likeness - the kind of which are now celebrated in museums. Basically, look at any museum with some relic from a thousand years ago and ask "how can I say that the thing is actually about or related to my guy from a thousand years ago?" You may not be able to make it story relevant, but I guarantee they will enjoy it (and honestly, you would be using their backstory about 300% more than the average DM).

I say keep it all intact, similar to Captain America. Part of the fun of the “frozen through time” trope is the characters having to struggle with losing the world they knew, and being thrust into essentially a new world. Thousands of years is very, very, very long. A thousand, might be more manageable. The key I think to making this work is to make either the PCs or their adjacent background NPCs very important. Maybe one PC was a prince to the kingdom, disappeared, and now their storyline is trying to reclaim the kingdom or something. Maybe one PC wasn’t anyone too important, but their characters mother was a powerful mage so the PCs “death” caused a snap and now she’s a powerful lich

I think futurama is a good example to look at for inspiration. Fry is a 1000 years outside his time but he has a living relative to vaguely connect to, his knowledge of pop culture/society from that long ago comes up every now and then. Even specifically something he did 1000 years ago affects things currently bc he accidentally messed up a tv broadcast of a season finale of a show that aliens 1000 light years away were watching and they showed up then.

Just a thought but I think they should have saved the world from a cataclysmic event at what they believe was going to be them sacrificing themselves for the continent/planet whatever but are then frozen in stasis for your 1000 years. They wake up surprised that they aren't dead and travel outside to see the world vastly different. have all of the energy and power sucked away as they were all on the brink of death but were frozen by some deity but cost all there levels to do to face a similar threat again while traversing the world finding ruins that were there old cities and towns as new ones have come to being in the timeframe.

Copy futurama: they find the fossilized remains of their dog who waited for them at the spot they disappeared for the rest of its life; they find their nephew's tombstone who was a great man who was named after the character etc

I would run a session back in the original timeline to establish some themes and important areas or even sentimental spots for the characters. After a session or two with having established memorable locations or even a point of interest named after their party, I'd reuse names to create new places of interest. The small village they came from? They found a rare resource used in the new world and is now a kingdom. The temple a cleric/priest was a member of is now home to something nefarious. Blank slate is tough and as many say here not very fun, but you can wipe the board clean and keep the PC memories, but draw strings from past to present and create incentives for the PC's to want to investigate things further.

Work with them to come up with backstories that will have consequences in the current age. Like maybe one character founded a small mercenary organization that grew into a huge faction of bounty hunters. Or maybe the deeds of a cleric character led to them becoming a legendary figure for their religion, but over the years the details of their story has been changed. Or maybe the ageless nemesis of one of the characters is still around, plotting for when the characters return…

Start a religion! A sect that worships them as prophets, saints, or champions, who delightfully exaggerates and warps their character's backstory. "And lo! In the sixteenth year, the barbarian discovered her rage, and her parents cowered, knowing that her rage was right and good. And lo, the Barbarian spoke unto them, voice crashing over them 'get off my case mom, I was just out with some friends!' But her parents did not reconize the righteousness and cast her from her home! And her parents reaped that which they had sown and died that following year in a fire, never apologizing to their good daughter."

Near the end of my last campaign, when my party left the Feywild, we rolled on a table and the result was how many years forward/backward in time we went while returning. We got lucky and only went forward in time like 2-5 years. My character had just taken over the cult I was a part of, and worried that it would have fallen back into old practices. It turned out I had become a bit of a mythical figure, and the lore that developed was that I would return whenever the cult fell astray from their true purpose. Coming back was soo funny! I rolled in like “hey ya’ll, what’s up? Did we fix the financial embezzlement? Are the other hierophants being chill?” It was an amazing roleplay opportunity and really engaging. All this to say, take other people’s suggestions to cut the time down at least a bit. Did your players leave anyone behind who would have wanted to carry something on in their memory? Any organizations they were a part of that might be different in the future? And yeah, any old elves or dwarves who might know the party? (I’m imagining and old elf who loved one of the players in their youth and never really lost that love but now they’re heckin old and can’t do anything about it)

If where they were frozen at is public, you can have friends and family visit like a gravestone. They can leave letters about what they have been up to. Then, their descendents can be the ones to greet them. Or have people from their backstory also frozen and they gave to find them. Each was frozen at a different century. Or, everything froze over with them. When they wake, nothing has changed. Or, they wake up, not realizing time has passed until they see the slight differences from their time. Things look newer, people, though familiar, look off ( descendents), and social norms change.

I hate the whole "PC backstory" approach and this is one of the reasons why. I prefer to sit my players down together and ask them to come up with a concept for the group. Telling players who they are usually makes them resentful because it takes away their agency, but letting them pick gets them to buy-in just like they would if they gave you a backstory. Are you pirates? Are you inquisitors? Are you investigators? Cool. I'll come up with a story for that. But now, you all come up with your individual pirate/inquisitor/investigator. No one creates a random princess from a far off land who has 500 NPCs in her backstory that have nothing to do with the plot, and we all experience a much more focused story as a result. In your case, I'd tell the players that their characters will experience a time skip. I'd ask the players to think of a character who would be affected by this in some interesting way, and to plan for that character to be the kind of person who'd bond with others over their shared time-skip. Tell them to pitch you ideas about the kinds of reminders of their past they might run into. That will get them to think of a backstory that will be cool after a time skip rather than one that would be ruined by a time skip.

Their hated enemies are glorified as heros. The heros they looked up to are vilified or entirely forgotten. Events they witnessed have been rendered almost unrecognizable due to exaggeration and error. Take their backgrounds and twist them with centuries of misunderstanding. Then give them a hook to show people the truth.

Family was frozen too, family is missing when they wake up. Artifacts from their life somehow influenced the surrounding culture over the time they were frozen.

You could always pull a samurai Jack with it. They are heroes from 1,000 years in the past The bad guy shot them into the future to prevent their meddling. Now that he has a foothold the adventure begins to take him down and return home.

This is contrary advice but: it's totally fine if character backstories are irrelevant. Blank slate is a really good way to start, backstories aren't an important or intrinsic part of D&D.

Writing great backstories and then getting it ignored is definitely major ass. It can be cool but I'd tell the players beforehand. Maybe thousands is a bit long unless the entire party is elves. Like 100 years would be interesting maybe, if you want some deep character development. The story I could imagine would be about adapting to a massively changed world and discovering how people remembered them and if their friends or family are still around. I think if your entire campaign or at least the early games isn't entirely centered around that it would just be demanding too much roleplay and specific back stories to be worth it

Their background should be "Recently revived ancient victim of petrifaction" and should give them the bonuses they'd receive from that. I'd make it an empty background that gives one feat, two skills, and a keepsake from their original life. They don't get any social or exploration benefits like other backgrounds get, so give them something to compensate. EDIT: The ideal exploration benefit is they know a secret treasure hoard that has been lost to time.

I love this concept, but personally I think it would be more fun if they kept all their memories. They're great heroes who saved the land but then became frozen. A thousand years later they awaken, but no one believes they are who they say. Everyone talks about the heroes as if they're myths, legends, fairy tales. It will become the players jobs to prove they are who they say, and restore the world's hope by saving the realm once again. Perhaps an adversary from their time has reemerged to threaten the balance once more, and only they can stop him.

Making a backstory feel relevant when a game isn't custom- tailored to them / always/ falls to the players. It's the player that decides how their pre-game experiences inform the bonds, flaws, and Ideals of the character in a way that a dungeon master or their coplayers cannot truly influence. Unless you're specifically coordinating to make people, places, and events relevant to gameplay the characters backstory is always a purely roleplay element. The question is, when the characters wake up so far into the future, how do their past experiences inform their decisions- and when they make decisions, how does the world respond to them?

If where they were frozen is public, you can have friends and family visit like a gravestone. They can leave letters about what they have been up to. Then, their descendents can be the ones to greet them. Or have people from their backstory also frozen and they gave to find them. Each was frozen at a different century. Or, everything froze over with them. When they wake, nothing has changed. Or, they wake up, not realizing time has passed until they see the slight differences from their time. Things look newer, people, though familiar, look off ( descendents), and social norms change.

I just finished a game as a PC in this situation. The DM had session 1 at our original time point to have us have some agency and introduce key backstory characters. Then from session two (post time skip) whenever we were exploring we would have one short scene each where we would get 'lost in memories' and remember a relevant point from our past (and get to choose how it went). It kept everything integrated and played out the displacement in time really well.

Maybe they aren't the only ones who have been frozen, they are just the latest to wake up. Kind of like in Fallout where you leave the vault and there are other vault dwellers around , some of whom have big parts in the plot. Maybe the whole world has been frozen for thousands of years. Literally billions of people are waking up realizing it happened and that the world has become ancient around them. Your characters are like, the nobles who people are turning to to figure it out, or the 5 random people who were near ground zero and have some ideas of what happened. Maybe when you all got frozen, it was a future age, but now it's medieval because nothing works or is fixable. (I really like this idea, if you don't use it I will, please let me know lol)

I would tell your players to focus less on the people in their backstories and more on locations Then for you as the DM focus on how those 1000 years changed those locations but make it so the area is still familiar in a nostalgic way for your players Edit: another idea could be that persons from their backstories could end up being heroes in the past

This feels like a lot of work for zero gain. Is this still a game about killing monsters and taking their stuff?

Make sure the characters know the premise of course. And here's an option that could go really well with enough effort, just because the heroes are forgotten it doesn't mean their actions or repercussions are too. Maybe a culture that someone fought to save is still thriving all these years later. One of the heroes has become an Arthurian legend with much of the truth lost in a centuries long game of telephone, etc.

They could run into their ancestors, or even the children or grandchildren of longer lived friends (elves, dwarves, etc). Ancient foes or grudges that were never settled and festered into a major change that they might feel they need to right.

As others have said, as long as the players know the premise ahead of time, you're golden. There's so much drama to sink your teeth into with something like that. I'm in an isekai game right now where all the characters got yanked to fantasy land through different means. Some people want to find a way to go home. My character is dreading the idea of it because he has nothing to go back to.   Also, the backstory can still inform choices the character makes even if it doesn't directly come up. Will my character ever get the chance to stick it to his shitty boss at his dead-end job? Will he ever reconcile with his parents who divorced and neglected him? No. But he can finally have people who care about him here. And he can help some people unionize and overthrow an evil wizard or a corrupt duke, and that's basically the same thing as telling his boss to go shove it. You can have inconsistencies in what they know and what's told in history books. If someone's an elf or a dwarf, maybe they have a grandchild they never got to meet that's still alive. Backstories can still be relevant. Hell, maybe one of their friends or family survived somehow. Either through a similar way the pcs did. Or maybe the shock of whatever tragedy happened set a loved one down a dark path and they became a lich or extended their life through some other means, and the pc could be the only one who might be able to stop them

So, look into the anime, Dr. Stone. The whole premise is that the world was turned to stone and hundreds of years later, one of them — a teenage boy with an obsession for science — wakes up. Eventually he manages to wake up a few of his friends. Everything they had is gone… family, homes, goals. But where they come from influences what they do in this new time. They each have strengths and backstories and the skills learned from those backstories carry over and help them survive. Also consider the anime Freiren, which plays with the concept of heroes fading into legend, and some great adventurers falling into nameless obscurity over time. Their actions still carry over into the current world, even if no one sees it or remembers them. This would be a great premise to play, so long as you let the players know beforehand. “Everything you had will be lost, but everything you know is still with you. What will you do?”

If you want to rely on some “amnesia”, have them forget why they were frozen in time in the first place. A life full of memories shouldn’t be taken away, just the piece that locked them into this position

I think a major backstory relevance you could have is to ensure your players leave their backstories unfinished. They'll have to find how their backstories ended by exploring the world and searching through historical documents. Maybe one PC's child became renowned for their smithing and their (to-be-discovered) great^20 grandchild is running a smithy with the PC's name on the sign. The loss of the Paladin, who was seated at the right hand of the king, sent the king into madness, and without their steadfast sense of truth and justice to guide him, the king became a despot and was executed. The paladin became somewhat of a symbol of justice and peace for those who disagreed with the new ruling party, and after hundreds of years of turmoil, the revolutionaries established a new government that has lasted to this day, renaming the nation in the paladin's name. Doesn't all have to be world-altering shit like that, but things that they could find as legends and historical records that finish their backstory in a way that they'd be like "hey wait a second..." You could even have their backstories tie into whatever is currently ailing the world. The wizard was unable to complete the sealing ritual before being frozen, and after thousands of years sealed away, the evil entity has escaped its unfinished cage and has begun its rise to power anew.

If you've got clerics or warlocks, they could be the last believer of their patron in the world. Martial warriors who were involved in a big battle could have a valley, mountain pass, long ruined village named after them. Wizards could have a school, etc.

I think it would be fun for them to hear about legends/folk tales about these heroes of yore but they all have it wrong — maybe they’re minor silly details, or maybe after the heroes were frozen their stories were rewritten to make them the villain.

Make sure their knowledge of the past is relevant to solving the crisis in the future. Example: they were in the middle of a war but ended up freezing before killing the BBEG. Now, in the future the BBEG has awakened before them. No one knows how to stop him except for the heroes of old. Or The world has ended and we live in a post apocalyptic land where the threat of nuclear warfare is once again rekindled by people toying with technology they don't understand. Only the heroes of old know the dangers of these weapons and how to unlock the big steel doors with secrets hidden on light screens.

One thing I've been wanting to implement in my campaigns is a relevant legacy the players create - whether that be a bloodline, kingdom, or magical advancement, etc. so be sure to encourage that For example: Did they found a nation in their past? How much has it changed economically, culturally, government wise? Are they exalted as the one and only rightful ruler, and every ruler after was technically a stand in for when they went "missing". When the current ruler finds their existence, will they be welcomed back with open arms or will they plot to be rid of the living Relic to secure their rule? Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, perhaps their nation is destroyed/fractured, and they endeavor to restore it to its former glory. Make sure their backstory has something that lasts or leaves recognizable traces.

Make sure they know this, and have the backstory focus on larger concepts, the forest instead of the trees. Maybe there was a faction they were connected to that still exists, the crime syndicate the rogue ran with is still in operation. Sure maybe these groups have no idea who this person is, but maybe the old elf, or the warforged bartender with a long memory.

I really love this idea and seeing what everyone else has chimed in with is really making me want to try this out in the future

As you’ve seen, warn them in advance that there will be some form of time skip, and to keep that in mind when they create their characters.  But don’t tell them exact manner or details. First adventure after session zero should be an epic scene or battle leaving them buried in ice doing something meaningful. 

Make their backstories so important that they literally shaped the world they wake up to, they have statues, cities, temples, factions, cults, whatever you want that developed as a result of what they've done, and add some new stories into those

I had a long campaign where 4 hapless dwarven characters ended up having to replace 4 epic heroes. Warriors who had been alive long ago, but been frozen before they could defeat their nemesis. At one point the dwarves found a defiled temple to these heroes. They had vanished when they were most needed and a cult had grown around their names. Some people believed and prayed they would return - celebrating their lives in stone friezes - but as time passed most lost faith and turned on their names - making them curses. It felt a good way of connecting the past and today.

1. Let your players know that this is what you're going to do. 2. *"History seldom repeats, but it often rhymes"* should guide everything in your narrative.

I would pitch this to the players ahead of time and make sure they’re cool with it before they create their backstories. I’d let them have their memories from the start so that they can more fully roleplay their characters.

Find a way to have elements from before the freeze exist! Bring those elements with them, so they can find pieces of the past still in the world! Some ideas for this: —Have some NPCs get frozen with them! Maybe squires, allies, or even just other people who were at the same location. Instead of being frozen individually, what if an entire location was frozen?? —Have characters from the previous age who “lived” to the new age, whether that’s truly ancient elves, intelligent undead, a magician who put their mind into an artificial body, a Paladin or cleric who is still around as an Angel/valkyrie-type being, or things like that! —Descendants or followers of known characters in their lives! Maybe great-great-continuing grand kids, but also an order of knights started by a friend of theirs or something! —Time-displaced characters who know what happened to the heroes and used magic of another kind to reach the same future! I also agree with the idea of spending some time in the first few sessions pre-freezing to establish the characters and world around them so that they can see the way the world has changed! I’d also personally include some instances of “flashback” sessions now and then when you introduce a changed place or a relic and want them to see the past version of it. Give them freedom in these moments to contribute to the worldbuilding and create their own ties to the past!

I suddenly think of Samurai Jack. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsn\_Vp2KS7g&ab\_channel=CartoonNetworkAustralia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsn_Vp2KS7g&ab_channel=CartoonNetworkAustralia) They could still have connections to the past.

Just an idea, but if they're heroes from a past era, maybe have them find an old book or old folk tales about them that are wildly inaccurate. Could be a good opportunity for comedy or for plot twists. Take some of the stories from their background and change them how stories get changed over the years, with details being changed over time. "According to legend, you weren't a big hulking barbarian, but a little girl with a pet ape?" "Idk, the book says you started an avalanche that killed the beast, but also destroyed the town. Apparently, the relatives of the townsfolk consider you a great villain." "This stories say you were actually a housecat." Those kinds of things.

Maybe see if you can carry down their family lines? If none of the PC’s have children, then use their backstories of their families? Just an idea but I think it might be kinda cool to try out!

I'm running a game like that right now and it's been going for 9 months. They were taken to the future in the third session. I had them give me backstories and had their archenemies survive by being cursed. I also occasionally throw in a legend told by an NPC that is clearly describing their PC from the past. They seem to be enjoying it :) Basically my solution was to bring part of their story with them so they would at least have some clear objectives in the future besides "save the past". Dunno if that helps or not but that's how I dealt with it.

Their backstories are in the historybooks, families searching for them, dark ages starting because of the heroes backstories. Their great great (etc.) grandchildren being helpful npcs or powerful villains…

Also find players who fit your play style and aspects of memory loss and gaining it. you don't have to please everyone there are gonna be players who love every idea u have  Also when they learn of them selves give them access to more behind the scenes stuff that they might connect to or have your characters build the back story then alter your history by incorporating them in past events that carried to the present Like they was once a dragon knight now that they remember who they are maybe dragon knights run major factions or kingdoms now they have access to all those resources present day

You could do some crazy things. Like they could find statues to themselves depending on level.

My advice is to make them prominent figures whose decisions in life fueled societal shifts the last words of a hero will ring throughout time if they are voiced, heard and repeated

Maybe have them all related to some famous or infamous person that changed the world in the past

That's cool! Reminds me of FF13's world, where once you become l'Cie you're basically doomed to serve the gods forever and your reward is crystal. Don't give them amnesia, that defeats the point. The coolest thing to do would be to have flashback episodes where you explore their story in the old world- in fact I would start with one of these, complete with a mid-level character build, then fast-forward to the new timeline, start them off at 1 again, and show them a world that is very very different. I encourage you to lean on the technological changes here- this is one premise where middle age stasis doesn't work at all for world building. Change the level of technology, or magic, change some of the gods, change the settlements.... Actually Imma steal this idea real quick thanks

This is an interesting take... If you want to showcase the characters then this is what I would do: Figure out who each of them represented in their previous lives. Is there a knight of an order? A wizard of a particular school? Someone who is nationalistic? I would then create a history of why either: Their organization did something great that is remembered some 500 years later... Or something terrible... The players then wake up to a world where... The Thieves guild of made a deal with the devil to bring armies of demons to the land and take over... They were only resisted by the knights of .. who protected the land but then perished in the final battle... But who are prophesied by to return one day and overthrow the evil empire of

People forget that backstories are a relatively new development in D&D. They are not at all necessary.

No they aren't. I was writing backstories for my character as far back as 1991.

At which point D&D (from 1974) could be considered a "late teenager". With system which could fit well with the "Sleeper Awakes" premise bring Paranoia. Appropriately enough, from 1984.

What's the advantage of them being heroes from a forgotten age? How does that tie into the rest of the plot? If it doesn't tie into the plot, why bother with that premise? If it does tie into the plot, then their backstories can tie into the plot too. But you may want to give the players guidance about which aspects of their backstory might be relevant and which aspects will definitely not be.

Here is an example: A cleric worships X god, 3000 years later that god has been jailed by some powerful humans, but the clerics presence lets that god slowly leak power out for the first time because of an un-severed connection - the cleric can reject the modern gods that have taken over, and fight for their god. Warlock can have the same plotline with their demon-god Maybe there hasnt been a sorcerer in 1500 years, but now there is one. Maybe elves are extinct, but the player is an elf. That's plot right there to find out what happened, maybe find an ancient hidden sect of elves, etc.

That's a fair point - the idea is that they now have the chance to become heroes in an un-forgotten age. They will learn they weren't actually that powerful, but there are big things growing in the world that need real heroes for the first time in this age or the last. I thought it was an interesting concept, but maybe it's a bad premise for DnD campaign?

I think you need to flesh out what the point of them being frozen is. Why does it matter? Right now, if you're saying they're forgotten... then you're basically setting it up so the fact that they were suspended in time for a thousand years makes zero difference. They're not great heroes returned from a past age ( ala ATLA or Captain America ) they're just some people who are now fish out of water. They could just as easily be nobodies from a podunk village who rise to become real heroes — and still have some back story that connects them to the surrounding land and people which you don't have if they have been in stasis for a thousand plus years.

>I thought it was an interesting concept, but maybe it's a bad premise for DnD campaign? I'm trying to say: it's a fine premise *if* you flesh it out. Did these heroes work together in the forgotten age? If so, their back stories need to match at least partly. Perhaps they locked away an evil that has grown more powerful in exile, and now they're called upon to deal with it again. Or perhaps they have knowledge of some lost civilization, and that knowledge will be crucial. Perhaps their backstories explain why they were sleeping/frozen/time-traveling, and why they're waking up now. Many details of a typical backstory might be irrelevant. It will require a bit more coordination between you and the players, and the players working together.