Characters

Character creation. Turn a one-sentence concept into characteristics, attributes, skills, starting Improvement Points, equipment, and Hero Points by working the steps in order. Also known as character concept, create a character, STR CON DEX SIZ INT POW CHA, characteristic points, HP MWL PP, damage modifier, Combat Order, skill points, base skills, starting skill allocation, starting equipment, starting money, character age, Hero Points, Major Wound, Wounded Bleeding Dying, avoid death.

Concept

Write one sentence that states who the character is, what they are good at, and what drives them. Use it to guide later choices, but change it if a better character emerges during creation.

Compare concepts with the other players and confirm that each belongs in the planned campaign. A varied group usually has more ways to solve problems.

Examples. A foolhardy veteran seeking glory; an observant caravan scout paying an old debt; a disgraced courtier surviving by wit.

Characteristics

Every character has seven characteristics.

Point allocation

Start every characteristic at 8, then distribute 30 points among them. The maximum during creation is 18.

You may lower characteristics to reclaim points. INT and SIZ cannot start below 7; every other characteristic cannot start below 3.

Random characters

As an alternative, roll 4D6 and discard the lowest die for STR, CON, DEX, POW, and CHA. For INT and SIZ, roll 3D6, discard the lowest die, and add 6. After all seven rolls, swap one pair if desired.

Attributes

Calculate attributes after assigning characteristics.

Round to the nearest whole number; round exact halves up, as in D100 Percentile.

Hit Points and Major Wounds

Hit Points measure how much injury a character can sustain. Use maximum HP when calculating MWL, even after losing HP. A single post-armour hit that equals or exceeds MWL causes a Major Wound.

Power Points

Power Points fuel Shaping and other abilities that state a PP cost. They cannot exceed maximum PP.

Recover a quarter of maximum PP after each complete two hours of rest, up to the maximum. Round the amount recovered in each two-hour period normally: a character with POW 3 recovers 1 PP per period, while POW 9 recovers 2 PP per period. Eight hours of rest restores all PP. At 0 PP, living characters fall unconscious until regaining PP; nonliving characters stay active unless stated otherwise.

Damage Modifier

Add the Damage Modifier to close-combat, unarmed, and thrown-weapon damage.

Starting skills

Every character has all general skills. Skills with a parenthetical subject, such as Craft (type), are separate skills for each chosen subject.

Expertise

Base skills

Allocate points

Add the relevant pool to skills in that category. You may add no more than 30 points to a single skill during creation, and no skill can exceed 100%.

You may also remove up to 20 points from each of the Resistance, Combat, and Practical pools to gain starting Improvement Points. For every 5 points removed, gain 1 IP, to a maximum of 4 IP per category and 12 IP in total. These bonus IP may raise characteristics or buy Talents, but may not raise skills.

A character beginning as a Shaper declares the choice and reserves 20 IP before allocating skill points. They may then add up to 30 Knowledge points to Shaping, whose base is INT + POW. This changes only the order of creation: the character must still assemble and spend the full 20 IP.

Starting Improvement Points

Begin with 10 Improvement Points. Spend them on improvements or available Talents, including Shaping for a character who begins play as a Shaper. Characteristics remain capped at 18 during creation.

Equipment and details

Begin with 4D6 × 10 Silver Pieces and choose one package:

• leather armour, a ranged weapon, a two-handed close-combat weapon, and a dagger; or
• leather armour, a shield, a ranged weapon, a one-handed close-combat weapon, and a dagger.

Every character also has a backpack, 10 metres of rope, two weeks of travelling provisions, flint and tinder, and a waterskin. The Gamemaster may allow purchases from starting money before play.

Finishing details

Name the character and note their appearance, background, personality, loyalties, and immediate goal. A few concrete details are enough to begin play.

Human characters normally begin between 18 and 28 years old. Roll 2D6 + 16 for a random starting age.

Hero Points and wounds

Player Characters begin with 2 Hero Points. Spend a Hero Point when its effect is declared; spent points are gone. The Gamemaster awards Hero Points for major achievements and genuinely heroic play.

Each test allows at most one reroll, regardless of its source. Declare a reroll after seeing the result but before applying consequences, costs, or Backlash; the new result stands. A Fumble also counts as a failed test, so effects such as rerolls that apply to failed tests apply to it.

Major Wounds

When one post-armour hit deals damage equal to or greater than MWL, apply the damage and both conditions below:

• Wounded: suffer -1P on every test.
• Bleeding: lose 1 HP at the end of every Combat Round.

These conditions do not stack. Further Major Wounds still deal damage and can restart Bleeding after it has been stopped, but do not create wounds that must be tracked separately.

At 0 HP, the character falls unconscious and gains Dying. A Dying character dies after 3 Combat Rounds unless stabilised. Do not make a Resilience test or roll on an injury table.

Treatment

A helper can spend a full Combat Round and pass a Healing test to remove Bleeding and Dying; this restores no HP, so a patient at 0 HP remains unconscious. A Major Wound cannot recover until successful Surgery, which restores 1 HP and unlocks normal recovery; Wounded then ends once current HP is greater than MWL. Healing and Recovery gives the full procedure.

Spending Hero Points

Spend 1 Hero Point for one of these effects:

• Reroll: reroll a failed test and use the new result.
• Downgrade a Major Wound: keep the full HP loss but do not gain Wounded or Bleeding from that hit.
• Avoid Death: when reduced to 0 HP, fall stably unconscious instead of Dying. The character is not Bleeding, awakens after the scene with 1 HP, and remains Wounded if that condition already applied.
• Story benefit: with the Gamemaster’s approval, establish a plausible favourable detail or coincidence. Larger changes may require several Hero Points, including points contributed by other characters.

Downgrading a Major Wound does not cancel the 0 HP rule. If the retained damage reduces the character to 0 HP, Avoid Death requires another Hero Point.

Improvement. Spend IP between adventures to improve each skill at most once, raise eligible characteristics, or buy Talents; skills and human characteristics cap at 100% and 21 respectively. Also known as Improvement Points, IP, advance skills.

The Gamemaster awards Improvement Points for achievements and completed adventures. Unspent IP carry forward. A practical award is 3–5 IP per adventure: 3 for modest progress, 4 for a completed adventure, or 5 for a major achievement.

Improve a skill

Spend 1 IP to improve one skill. A particular skill can be improved only once between adventures. Use its score before the increase to determine the gain.

A skill at 100% cannot be improved, and no skill can exceed 100%. A gain cannot pass 100%: a skill at 98% improves to 100%, losing the excess.

Improve a characteristic

Spend 5 IP to raise one characteristic by 1. SIZ cannot be improved this way. A human characteristic cannot exceed 21 after play begins, or 18 during character creation.

After the increase, recalculate derived attributes such as HP, MWL, maximum PP, Damage Modifier, and Combat Order. Skills keep their current scores: bases seed skills only at creation.

Buy Talents

Talents provide trained exceptions and advanced manoeuvres. Pay the listed IP cost and meet any prerequisite. This includes Shaping; new Technique–Form cells have their own IP costs, while the Shaping skill itself improves normally.

Practice and research

Three months of suitable practice or research earns 1 IP, subject to the Gamemaster’s approval.