Character Creation

Who are You?

At the top-right of your character sheet are 4 fields: name, race, physique, and demeanor.

Name is your character's name. This is what other players will call you during the game. It can be anything, but make sure it sounds epic. Like Bob. Bob is always a great name for a character.

Species is your character's Species. In this game, there are six unique races for you to choose from: Locess, Mausca, Orcs, Matari, Slated, and Ungal. A list of these races with descriptions is further down.

Demeanor is how your character presents their self in most situations. Write in an adjective like cocky, excitable, confident, etc. This adjective is a tool to help you act as your character would.

Physique is how your character is built physically. Write in an adjective like fat, thin, lean, strong, etc. This adjective is a tool to help guide what other characters in the world would see at a glance.

By combining these four fields, you can create a brief description of your character. For example: A fat, jovial Mausca named Bob.

The Species

Selecting a species will determine your stats. Your stats are four terms located at the top-right of your character sheet: Nimble, Tough, Competence, and Constitution.

Nimble defines your character's agility. Nimble is used to move quickly, jump over objects, dodge, and for any other actions that require more finesse.

Tough defines your character's physical strength. Tough is used to lift and move heavy objects, wrestle other creatures, and for any other actions that require more strength.

Competence defines your character's ability to act under pressure, read situations, and see things that other people wouldn't. It will be used in moments of pressure and crisis.

Constitution defines your ability to endure stress. It us used to fend off poisons, resist disease and addiction, to exert yourself for extended periods of time, and for any other actions that require resistance or endurance.

Spirit defines how strong and willful your character's soul is. Spirit is used to activate magical runes and to deflect incoming spells.

Beside each term is a row of bubbles that mark how much of that stat your character has. The more bubbles you have filled in, the better you will be when you try to do something related to that task (see the Skills chapter for details).

When you pick a species, you are given a modifier next to each stat. Fill in the corresponding bubbles on your character sheet to match the modifiers given.

Locess

The Locess (lo-KESS) are bug-like creatures that stand about 6 feet tall. They come from the World Forest, a forest of trees that are as large as mountains. The most prominent features of the Locess are their exoskeleton and extra arms. Their exoskeleton comes in a variety of vibrant greens, light browns, and de-saturated reds. Their exoskeleton is also tough and covers every inch of their body, making it difficult to discern emotions in their face. Their heads are very lizard-like, with wide, square jaws that comes to a point at the chin. The overall shape of the head is wide, with their eyes set far apart. Their eyes are very large, usually a dark, neutral color, and are multifaceted. They feature 4 arms and pseudo-wings that hang from their backs. These wings are non-functional and mostly give the impression of a cape and are usually a dusty-gray color.

Stats
+2 Nimble
-1 Tough
+0 Competence
+1 Constitution
-1 Spirit

Mausca

The Mausca (mah-SKAH) are small people, usually no taller than 3 to 4 feet, with slight frames. They hail from the southern swamps and their physical features mirror that landscape. Their hair is incredibly thick and course with a deep, dark green color and usually grown long, giving their hair the appearance of swamp vines that hang from the trees. Their skin is generally a dark shade of cool brown and they have deep creases all along their body that makes them appear as though they are made from wood. Their most baffling feature is their eyes. Looking as though they were cut from pearls, their eyes are small and shimmer with a milky-white color and an opalescent sheen.

Stats
+2 Nimble
-1 Tough
+0 Competence
+1 Constitution
-1 Spirit

Isser

The Isser originated in the frozen tundras of the north and are large, burly people that generally stand about 6 to 7 feet tall with thick white fur and large, owl-lke eyes. They have small boney protrusions on their jaw and brow. Their ears are long, pointed, and seated higher on their heads than the other species. Most adult Isser wear a shawl embroidered with images that tell stories of the individuals victories hunting great beasts or telling histories of the family and tribe they come from.

Stats
+0 Nimble
+2 Tough
+0 Competence
+0 Constitution
-1 Spirit

Matari

The Matari (mah-TAR-ee) come from a massive cliff overlooking an ocean where they have a city carved into the cliff wall. Their culture is a Matriarchy that celebrates childhood, giving their young a dedicated period of time to leave home and explore the world to choose what social role they grow into. Matari communities are generally very close-knit. They are the tallest of the species, standing anywhere from 6 to 8 feet tall, and have very blunt and broad features. Their skin is a marbling of crimson and tan-brown with no hair at all.

Stats
-1 Nimble
+1 Tough
+1 Competence
+0 Constitution
-1 Spirit

Slated

The Slated (SLAY-ted) are creatures of the endless desert, and their bodies are adapted to that harsh environment. Standing no more than 6 feet tall, they have thick scales with a dull-gray color that cover their entire body. Along their back and on top of their head is a rounded shell. When crouching the down, the shell locks into a sphere shape that can keep sand out from impending sandstorms and is very durable against predators. Their eyes have two lids: a thin one for keeping out sand and a thick one for closing their eyes to light. Their culture is centered around invention and engineering. They celebrate failure and push the boundaries of what people think is possible.

Stats
-1 Nimble
+0 Tough
+2 Competence
+1 Constitution
-1 Spirit

Ungal

The Ungal (OON-gaul) are the most mysterious species. They come from deep within the World Forest, where light does not touch the forest floor. They stand no taller than 5 feet and are the least humanoid of the species. Their lower body is like the cap of an oyster mushroom flipped upside-down, the lip of which flows and ungulates to give them mobility. Their arms do not end in hands. Instead, they end in a tubular appendage that functions much like an elephants trunk to grab and manipulate objects. Their head has no face. Instead, they have a few optical stalks that grow around their entire head, giving a 360 degree field of view that registers mostly heat and also some light. On the top of their head grows a crown of small oyster-mushroom-like growths, which are used as both a symbol of age and wisdom as well as sensory organs to pick up sounds within both the normal and infrasonic rages. And along their entire body are small, plate-like growths that are constantly in motion, and the underside of these plates glows with a phosphorescence.

Stats
+0 Nimble
-1 Tough
+1 Competence
+2 Constitution
-1 Spirit

Who Where You?

All characters need a past that defines them. This will help you understand how your character would act in the game. On the back of the character sheet are four large boxes labeled Goals & Motives, Personal Morals, Flaws & Weaknesses, and Important Connections.

These four boxes help define how your character would behave. In each box, jot down one or two brief sentences that work for your character. If you can't think of anything right away, that's okay. You can slowly fill these out during play. As situations arise, try to decide why your character would do what you want them to do. Then see if that reason would fall under one of these four categories. If it does, then jot down a quick note so you remember in the future.

Try to keep these somewhat general. Trying to be too specific can make it much harder to find things to put here.

Goals & Motives are what drive your character. Perhaps they want to be the greatest thief that ever lived, or perhaps their family is motivating them to go out and make some money to send back to them. Perhaps they're seeking revenge on someone, or they want to open up a small business and settle down. The world is your oyster here and anything you think of can work.

Personal Morals are your character's personal code of ethics. Perhaps they are completely against all violence. Or maybe they think killing a person they don't know is completely okay. Maybe their okay with stealing, or maybe they're very rigid about following the law.

Flaws & Weaknesses are the things that your character struggles with. Perhaps they're a kleptomaniac (impulsively steals things), or maybe they're terrified of fire. Perhaps they will always do what an attractive person wants them to do, or they're easily distracted.

Important Connections are connections from your past. These can be tutors, trainers, parents, professors, criminal contacts, and other important connections your character could have made in their past. This is primarily useful for the Game Master so that they can tie connections from the past into the game.

Once you've got some things put in each box, consider writing out a full backstory if you're feeling ambitious. This is where you describe their life and what they've gone through up to the point when the game starts. This is where you can give specific reasons for what you put in those 4 boxes.

From here, you need to give your character some skills. Fill in 4 bubbles on the skills chart. Each bubble represents your level of skill for that particular skill. All skills start at -1, meaning your character has no experience with that skill. Starting from the -1 mark, you my increase your skills 4 times. You can increase 4 skills once (up to +0), you can condense them into just a couple skills (2 skills at +1), or any combination of that kind, as long as you only increase your skills 4 times. However, you cannot increase any skill past +2 at this time.

Do not start with the myth skill before reading through the Myth chapter

If you've made a backstory, try to consider what skills would make sense for your backstory. If you haven't made a backstory, feel free to pick whatever skills you think would work for your character.

Finally, you need to select a wealth adjective. This describes how wealthy your character is on average. If you wrote a backstory, go with whatever makes the most sense for your backstory. If not, you should probably go with Moderate.

Pick an adjective and fill in the corresponding bubble in the Wealth box.

While you're on your adventure, you may end up buying more items than your character generally carries around. When this happens, your Wealth may go down. More details on this in The Market chapter.

After that, you will need to determine how lucky your character is. Roll 1d6 (1, 6-sided die) and consult the table. Fill in the corresponding bubble in the Luck box on your character sheet.

Whenever you do something or want something to happen that would rely on luck, you will roll 2d6 (2, 6-sided dice) and add the number that is in your luck box. The higher the total number, the better the outcome.

This same principle is how skills work (see the Skills chapter for details).

Where are You Going?

This final part of character creation should be done with all players present, because this decision may affect everyone.

You now need to decide where your character is going. You and everyone else in your party are joining a guild, and from here the grand adventures the Game Master has in store for you will begin. There are five common guilds, each will train your players in a specific set of skills. The idea behind joining a guild during character creation is that it allows the players to understand the mechanics of their party from the get go. All the players being in a guild inherently means that they are all on the same job together. Being part of the same guild would generally mean that players are working together on a guild job. Being part of separate guilds means you're on a job that needs multiple disciplines. The guilds help establish some very basic character relationships right from the beginning.

Once you choose a guild, all players will increase the skills listed under their desired guild by 1. Congratulations! You're now employed.

Going Forward

Now that you have a character, give your character whatever items make sense for them to have due to your skills, background, and guild. These are items you should just write in. The Market chapter outlines a few items that are special to this world or require special rules to use. Feel free to use this list to add items to your character and also feel free to write in whatever items you can think of that would make narrative sense for your character. Next, go on to the next chapter to learn about skills, what they are, what they can do, and how to increase them.

We suggest you read the rest of the rule chapters in their entirety to get a good grasp of the game and its mechanics. It's not necessary but it might be good to see what can be accomplished.

There's so much you can do with the mechanics we've created for you, and we think you'll really enjoy using them. And if you don't care about the mechanics but want some good world lore to read, go through the Lore section and the Bestiary.

As you move forward through the game, we hope that you find a love for role play and enjoy the systems of the game as much as we do.

Good luck!