1. Notes

Character Creation

Mechanics

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Character Creation

Before you begin, download and print the empty character sheet - you can either find it here or in the top of this page, under "Files", called CharacterSheet.pdf. It's highly recommended to fill in your sheet with a pencil, but honestly you're an adult and can deal with the consequences of your actions.

On this page you will find a detailed walkthrough of the process of creating a character, all from a basic concept to a ready-to-play character sheet. This includes two example characters, and the process that their fictional players go through to build them. You can find their finished character sheets in the Files dropdown above.

Table of Contents:

  1. Concept
  2. Character Type
  3. Primary Attributes
  4. Skills
  5. Qualities & Drawbacks
  6. Metaphysics
  7. Finishing Touches

Part 1: Concept (top)

The first step in creating a character is to decide what you want your character to be and do on the narrative level. Write down your character name and concept, as it will help guide you throughout the rest of this process. Additionally, decide which world your character hails from: are they from Earth, Terra, or are they a fusion of two individuals from different worlds?

Examples:

Gil decides that he wants to play Ariel, a tough, ex-golani guy who always had trouble processing emotions, and suddenly realizes he can feel the emotions of everybody around him. So he writes down"Ariel" as his character name, "Apathetic empath" as his concept and "Earth" as his origin.

Or wants to play a fortune teller from Terra called Lucina who uses her magic to con people, who fused with Maya, an idealistic social studies student. She writes down "Morally confused con artist" and "Fused" as her origin. Additionally, Or writes "Lucina (Maya)" as the character's name, since she wants the fused women to have Lucina's body, and to primarily take on her personality.


Part 2: Character Type (top)

With your Concept in hand, this step should be fairly easy. There are three character types in this game:

  • Mundane, who have a large amount of Attribute, Skill, and Quality points
  • Gifted, who have significantly fewer Attribute, Skill, and Quality points, but make up for them with a large number of Metaphysics points
  • Lesser Gifted, who lie somewhere between the two - slightly fewer general points than Mundanes, but with some Metaphysics points thrown into the midst.

If you chose for your character to have magic, they must be either Gifted or Lesser Gifted, though note that any character can begin with Enchanted Artifacts, even Mundanes!

If your character is Gifted or Lesser Gifted, you must additionally choose what kind of magic they have. Normally, a character can use only one kind of magic, though sometimes truly powerful Gifted have access to two or more kinds (see the Multitalented Quality below). The available types are:

  • Sorcerer - a person who has a special connection to the natural world around them, and through studies learns to utilize that link to manipulate their environments. Sorcerers wield the most varied of magics, though are relatively limited in their scope.
  • Seer - a person who has a connection to other human's minds or the Outer Realms, and can control either with great proficiency. Seers can use their powers more freely than other Gifted, though their powers often take longer to develop.
  • Shaman - a person who has a natural bond with spirits, and can control them, communicate with them, or even partially become a spirit themselves. Shamanic abilities offer great power to those willing to interact with spirits, though many powers may come at personal risk.
  • Inspired - a person who was given great magical power by some unknown higher being, whose powerful magic is tightly bound by their morals. The Miracles performed by the Inspired are by far the most powerful magics available to mortals, though they may be held back by their own convictions.
  • Enchanter - a person who can utilize the magic within objects to create powerful Artifacts. Enchanters can stock up with many powerful tricks, though their craft requires a lot of time and effort.

Examples:

Ariel is a seer, so Gil knows that he needs to be either Gifted or Lesser Gifted. Gil decides that he doesn't want to delve too deeply into the metaphysical, so he writes down "Lesser Gifted (Seer)".

Or wants Lucina to be a powerful magic-user, so she opts for the Gifted character type. She then debates between a Sorcerer with the Divination Invocation or a Seer with Claircognizance. She decides that she prefers the Invocation that allows her character to play around with tarot cards as part of the spell, so she fills in "Gifted (Sorcerer)".


Part 3: Primary Attributes (top)

Now that you have your character type, it's time to allocate their Primary Attributes. There are six Attributes, each ranging from 1 to 5.

The human average in every attribute is around 2. An attribute at 1 or 3 signifies a person who stands slightly below or above the human average, respectively. An attribute level of 4 represents someone who's far above the human average, and a level of 5 is nearing peak human ability. No character may have a Primary Attribute above 5 or below 1 during character creation, unless noted otherwise.

The character type you chose in the previous step determines how many points you have to spend here. An attribute's cost is equal to its level.

  • Mundanes get 20 Attribute points
  • Lesser Gifted get 17 Attribute points
  • Gifted get 15 Attribute points

Examples:

Ariel is a Lesser Gifted, so Gil as 17 points to spend on his Attributes. Physically, he wants his character to be strong and sturdy, but a bit on the slower side. So he spends 4 of his points on giving him 4 levels of Strength, 3 points on giving him 3 levels of Constitution, and 2 points on a Dexterity of 2. He's now left with 8 points to spend on his mental Attributes, so he decides to put 4 points in Perception, and 2 in each of Intelligence and Willpower.

Lucina is Gifted, meaning Or has 15 points to spend on her Attributes. Or decides to have her character be slightly subpar physically, with a Strength score of 1, and puts a 2 in each of her Dexterity and Constitution. For her mental attributes, Or wants to mix Lucina's bluffing capabilites with Maya's intelligence, so she settles on 4 Intelligence, 2 Perception, and 4 Willpower.


Part 4: Skills (top)

Much like Attributes represent your character's natural abilities, Skills represent the things they learnt. Unlike a character's Attributes, Skills don't have a limit, though a character cannot have a skill above level 5 during character creation, unless stated otherwise.

A skill level of 0 represents a field in which the character is completely uninitiated. Level 1 means that the character more or less knows the ropes. A character with 2-3 levels in a skill has a solid grasp on the fundamentals of the skill and is able to perform most average tasks with relative ease. Skills at level 4-5 indicate extreme competence in the subject, generally taking years of study or practice.

Once again, the character type influences the number of points you have to spend among your character's skills, and a skill costs a number of points equal to its level (with a minimum of 0):

  • Mundane characters have 25 Skill points
  • Lesser Gifted characters have 20 Skill points
  • Gifted characters have 15 Skill points

Click here to see a breakdown of all the skills!

Examples:

Gil has 20 Skill points to give Ariel, so he starts out by giving him a strong basis of 4 points in Bow-Fu (which also happens to be used for guns) and Sports, and 3 points in Notice. Gil decides that Ariel's krav-maga training is enough to give him 3 levels in Combat, and his high-school studies in geography and cinema give him 2 levels in Humanities and 2 in Arts. Finally, his survival and first aid training give him 2 levels in each of Nature and Doctor. This is a total of 22 points, but Gil plans to make up for this overdraft in the Drawbacks section later on.

Or has 15 Skill points to give Lucina. She starts off with 3 points in each of Humanities (representing Maya's studies), Occultism (for Lucina's practice), and Influence (for Lucina's bluffing abilities). She gives her a point in Alchemy to let her make her make some thematic incense, as well as 2 levels of Crime for some cardistry and slight-of-hand. She rounds this off with 1 level in Computers and Science, as Maya at least tried to participate in high-school, and one point in Combat, because there's a small chance that Maya actually remembers something from her Judo lessons as a kid. This puts her at exactly 15 points, since Or knows that she'll want to spend her Drawback points elsewhere.


Part 5: Qualities & Drawbacks (top)

The flesh and blood of most characters, Qualities and Drawbacks are what makes a character truly unique. These can represent anything from the character's upbringing, to their mental and physical health, to some of their supernatural quirks. Additionally, a character can take on drawbacks to get more points that can be spent freely on Skills, Qualities, or Metaphysics. A character can have up to 10 Drawback points. You may have your character take on drawbacks worth more than 10 points, but they won't get any benefit after the first 10.

There are two kinds of special Qualities:

  • Origin Qualities signify which world the character came from, or if they're a fusion of one person from each world - every character must have exactly one Origin Quality.
  • Supernatural Qualities are special abilities that a character can possess. These can be bought with either Quality points or Metaphysics points, or a combination of the two.

Yet again, the number of Quality points depends on the character type:

  • Mundanes get 20 Quality points
  • Lesser Gifted get 15 Quality points
  • Gifted get 10 Quality points

Click here to see the list of Qualities and Drawbacks!

Examples:

Gil wants to try and represent Ariel's emotional confusion as much as possible, so he decides to start with the Drawbacks. He starts of with giving himthe Misfit Drawback (worth -2 points), the adds on to it with -2 levels of Charisma (-1 points each). Ariel's Drawbacks give him a total of 4 extra points to spend, 2 of which go to paying off his skills.
Now for the positive Qualities: Gil starts off with the Origin Quality of Earth (for 2 points), earning Ariel a few bonus skill points. He also gives him Soldier (IDF Infantry, worth 6 points), as his time in the army definitely shaped him as a person. He adds on the Empathy Quality (2 points) to supplement his newly found psychic powers, and 2 levels of Essence Channeling (costing 2 each) for the occasional power boost. To round out his 15 Quality points, he decides to go for two levels of Increased Essence (costing 1 point). Ariel notes that he still has 2 unspent Drawback points.

Or also decides to start from her Drawbacks. She starts off giving Lucina Delusions of Grandeur (-2 points), as she's sure that she's a social genius for tricking so many people, as well as Adversary 2, to represent the various victims she angered over the years.
For her positive Qualities, she gives her the Fused Origin Quality (5 points), giving her a bunch of extra skills. She then gives her 2 levels of Charisma, and moves on to Supernatural Qualities. Starting off with 3 levels of Essence Channeling (2 points each) and 4 levels of Increased Essence (1 each). Finally, she decides that she wants a magic tarot deck. She decides to get an Attunement Crystal that will give her a +2 bonus on all rolls regarding the deck (with a base cost of 2, but doubled to 4 as shes isn't an Enchanter - see Enchanting for an in depth explanation). In total, Lucina spent 7 Quality points on normal Qualities, and 3 Quality points, 4 Drawback points, and 4 Metaphysics points on her Supernatural Qualities. She notes that she has 4 fewer Metaphysics points for the next part.


Part 6: Metaphysics (top)

From conjuring fireballs to summoning spirits from other Realms, this covers all the weird things your character can do. This is too large a topic to cover here in brief, so please refer to the individual page of each metaphysical art to read more about it. Note that unless noted otherwise, no power may be raised above level 5 during character creation. Listed here is the cost of each metaphysical ability:

Once more, the number of metaphysics points depends on the character's type:

  • Mundanes get 0 points
  • Lesser Gifted get 10 points
  • Gifted get 25 points

Examples:

Ariel gets 10 metaphysics points for being a Lesser gifted and still has 2 unspent Drawback points, for a total of 12 points to spend. Gil decides that he wants Ariel to focus mostly on the Mind Sight and Telepathy powers, so he gives him 2 levels of Mind Sight Art and 2 levels of Mind Sight Strength (for a total of 8 points), along with 1 levels of each of Telepathy art and Strength (totaling 4 points).

Lucina initially gets 25 points, but she already pre-spent 4 of them on Supernatural Qualities, so she's left with 21. She opts for 3 levels in each of Affect the Psyche and Divination (6 points each), then puts 2 levels in Blessing and Illusion (4 points each). This leaves her with 1 point, so Or decides to go back and purchase another level of Increased Essence (for a total of 5 levels).


Part 7: Finishing Touches (top)

Once all the points have been allocated, it's time to finish up what's left:

  • Life Points: a character has 10 Life Points plus 4 Life Points per level of Strength and Constitution, plus 3 per level of Hard to Kill
  • Essence: a character has 10 Essence plus 5 Essence per level of Increased Essence (Seers get an extra point for each level of Art or Strength in a Seer Power, Inspired get 3 extra points for each Miracle)
  • Drama Points: each character begins the game with 1 drama point

Examples:

Ariel has 5 Strength (base of 4 and +1 from the Soldier Quality), 3 Constitution, and 2 levels of Hard to Kill (from the Soldier Quality), for a total of 10 (base) plus 32 (from his Attributes) plus 6 (from his Qualities), for a total of 48 Life Points.
For his Essence, Gil takes the base of 10, adds in his 1 level of Increased Essence, and 6 levels in Sight Powers (4 levels in Mind Sight and 2 in Telepathy), for a total Essence Pool of 21.

Lucina has 1 Strength, 2 Constitution and no levels of Hard to kill, giving her 22 Life Points.
For Essence, Lucina has 5 levels of Increased Essence, giving her a total of 35 maximum Essence.