Tosher

I Don't Want To Know Where You Got That

“The city archives claimed the tunnel never existed. The tunnel disagreed, and unlike the archives, it was still there.”

— Joren Blackpipe, undercity guide and scavenger

Most people pay attention to what a city becomes.
Toshers pay attention to what it leaves behind.
Every settlement accumulates layers. Streets are widened. Buildings are demolished. Tunnels collapse. Records disappear. Districts are abandoned. Entire communities fade from memory while new ones rise above them. To most people, these forgotten places are little more than debris.
To a tosher, they are archives.
A discarded ledger can reveal more about a city's history than a monument. A forgotten tunnel can outlast the government that built it. A broken sign, buried foundation, or hidden passage may preserve truths that official records no longer acknowledge.
The profession takes many forms. Some toshers are scavengers searching for anything of value among the discarded remnants of civilization. Others serve as guides through sewers, storm drains, tunnels, ruins, and forgotten infrastructure. Some become investigators, smugglers, historians, treasure hunters, laborers, or explorers. Many move between these roles throughout their lives.
What unites them is perspective.
Most people see refuse.
A tosher sees evidence.
Years spent navigating neglected places teach unusual habits. Toshers develop a keen awareness of how settlements function beneath the surface. They learn where things accumulate, where secrets are hidden, where contraband moves, where records disappear, and where people go when they do not wish to be found.
Nothing truly vanishes.
It merely ends up somewhere most people never think to look.
This understanding often places toshers at odds with official narratives. Governments prefer clean histories. Powerful people prefer forgotten mistakes. Institutions frequently present themselves as orderly and permanent.
The tunnels below tell a different story.
There, beneath thriving streets and respectable buildings, lie traces of previous failures. Abandoned projects. Collapsed districts. Erased communities. Forgotten crimes. Secret routes. Hidden caches. Evidence of lives and events that somebody preferred not to remember.
A tosher learns that every city possesses ghosts.
Most are not supernatural.
Many discoveries are mundane. Lost property. Hidden supplies. Contraband forgotten by its owners. Documents misplaced decades ago. Yet even small finds reveal patterns. People hide the same things in the same places. Fear leaves recognizable marks. Desperation follows predictable routes.
Experience teaches where to look.
More importantly, it teaches when something feels wrong.
A recently disturbed wall. Fresh debris in an abandoned tunnel. Signs of traffic through a supposedly forgotten passage. Missing records where records should exist. Evidence that somebody has been quietly altering the landscape of memory.
Such clues often lead to larger discoveries.
In lands scarred by the Shattering, the profession becomes even more valuable. Entire roads vanished. Settlements collapsed. Districts were abandoned and later built over. Archives disappeared. Communities became isolated from one another for generations. The result is a world layered with forgotten history.
Beneath one town may lie another.
Beneath that town may lie something older still.
Toshers frequently become accidental historians because forgotten places preserve information unavailable anywhere else. A ruined foundation might reveal a settlement omitted from surviving maps. A sealed chamber may contain records thought destroyed. A hidden route can explain mysteries that scholars debated for generations.
The past leaves traces.
The challenge is recognizing them.
This work cultivates a particular kind of curiosity. Toshers become fascinated by locked doors, sealed passages, buried structures, and unanswered questions. Every concealed space suggests a story. Every forgotten object invites investigation.
Sometimes this habit proves useful.
Sometimes it proves dangerous.
Many toshers discover things they were never meant to find. Evidence of old crimes. Hidden smuggling routes. Political secrets. Lost treasures. Forgotten shrines. Proof that local legends were true. Signs that abandoned places are not as abandoned as they appear.
Such discoveries rarely remain simple for long.
Yet most continue searching.
Because once you learn how much history lies hidden beneath the surface, it becomes difficult to stop looking.
Most people build civilizations.
A tosher learns what falls through the cracks.

“People bury treasures because they fear thieves. They bury secrets because they fear historians. I have made a living finding both.”

— Burton Strix, tosher of the Lower Warrens

Type

Sanitation

Tosher

Overview:

Most people avoid the places beneath their feet. You made a living there. Whether searching sewers, storm drains, abandoned tunnels, forgotten infrastructure, collapsed districts, refuse pits, hidden passages, or other neglected spaces, you learned that people leave far more behind than they realize.
Lost valuables. Discarded records. Forgotten routes. Buried secrets. Evidence nobody intended to preserve.
You learned that every settlement has layers. Beneath every thriving city lies an older city. Beneath every road lies an older path. Beneath every official story lie the things people forgot, ignored, concealed, or chose not to remember. Most people pay attention to what was built.
You learned to notice what was left behind.

Skill Proficiencies: Investigation, Survival

Tool Proficiencies: Choose one: Cartographer's Tools, Mason's Tools, or Thieves' Tools

Equipment:

A lantern, a length of rope, a collection of unusual objects recovered from forgotten places, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp.

Features:

What Was Left Behind

Years spent searching neglected spaces have taught you where people lose things and where others hide them.
In settlements, ruins, and other inhabited locations, you can usually identify places where discarded objects, hidden evidence, forgotten supplies, contraband, secret routes, lost records, or other overlooked remnants are most likely to be found.
You can often recognize signs that passages have been concealed, structures modified, debris disturbed, records removed, or something intentionally hidden, abandoned, or erased.
The DM determines what information is available and how it may be discovered.

Suggested Characteristics: Most people build civilizations.
Toshers learn what falls through the cracks.
Some work as scavengers, guides, investigators, laborers, smugglers, treasure hunters, maintenance workers, historians, or explorers. Others simply possess an unusual familiarity with the forgotten spaces that accumulate beneath thriving communities.
In lands scarred by the Shattering, entire districts, roads, tunnels, archives, and settlements have vanished from memory. Beneath thriving communities lie older communities. Beneath those lie older ones still. Toshers often uncover traces of lives, histories, and secrets that others overlooked or intentionally buried.

What Did You Discover?

d8	Discovery
1	Evidence of a long-forgotten crime.
2	A sealed passage nobody remembered.
3	A cache of valuables no one ever claimed.
4	A message hidden where only a few would find it.
5	Signs that someone still uses an abandoned space.
6	An object that clearly did not belong where it was found.
7	Proof that a local legend was true.
8	Evidence that something was deliberately erased from history.

Personality Trait:

d8	Trait
1	I notice details most people overlook.
2	Very little disgusts me anymore.
3	I am constantly curious about sealed doors, hidden passages, and forgotten places.
4	I collect unusual objects that others would throw away.
5	I trust evidence more than reputation.
6	I am comfortable in places others find unpleasant or unsettling.
7	I rarely assume something is truly lost.
8	I enjoy solving small mysteries simply because they exist.

Ideal:

d6	Ideal
1	Truth. Every hidden thing deserves to be understood. (Any)
2	Preservation. Forgotten history is still history. (Good)
3	Discovery. The most interesting things are rarely found in plain sight. (Neutral)
4	Resourcefulness. Nothing is useless if you know how to use it. (Any)
5	Independence. I trust my own eyes more than official accounts. (Chaotic)
6	Curiosity. Every mystery deserves investigation. (Any)

Bond:

d6	Bond
1	I once found something I should never have seen.
2	A hidden place I discovered remains unexplored.
3	Someone disappeared into the undercity and never returned.
4	I possess an object whose rightful owner remains unknown.
5	A forgotten community once helped me survive when nobody else would.
6	I know a secret route that powerful people would rather remain hidden.

Flaw:

d6	Flaw
1	I cannot resist investigating hidden spaces.
2	I keep things that should probably be discarded.
3	I am suspicious of official explanations.
4	I often assume there is a secret behind every coincidence.
5	I value information more than comfort.
6	I struggle to leave mysteries unsolved.