Making a Character
You build a character in nine steps. The order matters: Characteristics feed Attributes, Attributes and Characteristics feed Skills, and Culture and Career decide which skills you can buy first. Keep a simple concept in mind as you go—a cunning warrior, a wily smuggler, a studious academic, a sagacious magician—but do not glue yourself to it until the numbers are on the page. The dice (or the points budget) may surprise you.
The nine steps
- Concept — a few words of intent to guide Culture and Career.
- Characteristics — STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, INT, POW, CHA.
- Attributes — Action Points, Damage Modifier, Hit Points, and the rest derived from Characteristics.
- Skills base values — Standard skills start as characteristic combinations; Combat Style is STR+DEX.
- Culture — 100 points into the listed Standard skills and up to three Professional skills from the culture list.
- Career — another 100 points into the career’s listed skills (again, pick up to three Professional skills from its menu).
- Bonus skill points — 150 points (for a standard Adult) to round out any Standard skill or any Professional skill already gained.
- Passions — up to three driving loyalties, loves, hates, or oaths.
- Equipment — clothes, pocket money, a keepsake, trade tools, and a personal weapon for your Combat Style.
Default skill budgets
| Pool | Points | Spent on |
|---|---|---|
| Culture | 100 | Culture Standard skills + up to 3 chosen Professional skills |
| Career | 100 | Career Standard skills + up to 3 chosen Professional skills |
| Bonus | 150 (Adult) | Any Standard skill, or Professional skills you already possess |
One point raises a skill by 1%. The Games Master may cap how many points go into a single skill; ask before you pile a hundred points onto one rating.
Customs and Native Tongue both carry a static +40% on top of their characteristic bases. Everyone from a culture shares those foundations.
Culture
Choose one human culture (or another culture your campaign provides):
| Culture | Mood | Sample Standard skills |
|---|---|---|
| Barbarian | Clans, territory, wilderness | Athletics, Brawn, Endurance, First Aid, Locale, Perception; Boating or Ride; a cultural Combat Style |
| Civilised | Law, cities, infrastructure | Conceal, Deceit, Drive, Influence, Insight, Locale, Willpower; a cultural Combat Style |
| Nomadic | Movement, herds, migration | Endurance, First Aid, Locale, Perception, Stealth; two travel skills (Athletics, Boating, Swim, Drive, or Ride); a cultural Combat Style |
| Primitive | Closest to the land | Brawn, Endurance, Evade, Locale, Perception, Stealth; Athletics, Boating, or Swim; a cultural Combat Style |
Each culture also offers a short Professional skill menu (Craft, Survival, Streetwise, and so on). Pick up to three from that menu when spending Culture points.
Career
Career is training taken as you entered adulthood. It does not lock your future—this is what you were trained as, not necessarily what you still do. The reference tables list many careers (Agent, Hunter, Magician, Merchant, Sailor, Scholar, Thief, Warrior, and more), each with Standard skills and a Professional menu. Spend 100 points across those Standard skills and up to three Professional skills from the career list. A Warrior, for example, leans into Athletics, Brawn, Endurance, Evade, Unarmed, and two Combat Styles; a Magician leans into Customs, Influence, Perception, Willpower, and Professional picks such as Magic, Literacy, and Lore.
The Skill Pyramid (optional)
If time is short, or freestyle picks fit better than Culture/Career templates, drop the three pools and instead assign a pyramid of 350 points:
50
40 40
30 30 30
20 20 20 20
10 10 10 10 10
Rules of the pyramid:
- Spend every block; no skill gets more than one block.
- Customs and Native Tongue still get their +40.
- Passions use their normal starting values on top of the pyramid.
- No skill may exceed 80% after a pyramid allocation.
- Six of the fifteen values must go to Professional skills.
- At least one Combat Style is recommended, not required.
- The Games Master has final say.
Age and experience
Standard starting characters are Adults (15+2d6 years, +150 bonus points, max +15 from the bonus pool into any one skill). Other brackets change the bonus pool and the per-skill bonus cap:
| Category | Age | Bonus points | Max bonus to one skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Young | 10+1d6 | 100 | +10 |
| Adult | 15+2d6 | 150 | +15 |
| Middle Aged | 25+3d6 | 200 | +20 |
| Senior | 40+4d6 | 250 | +25 |
| Old | 60+5d6 | 300 | +30 |
Pulp Heroes and Paragons
If the campaign wants larger-than-life lead roles rather than ordinary humans, the Games Master may call for Pulp Hero or Paragon builds. Both use stronger Characteristic generation (or larger point pools), grant extra Advantages such as extra Action Points, Luck Points, Hit Points, or easier Endurance/Stealth/Willpower rolls, double Healing Rate for Minor and Serious Wounds, and add more bonus skill points. Everyone at the table should start at the same tier—mixing a Paragon with ordinary mortals leaves the ordinary side in the shade.
Starting kit
You finish with:
- Clothing suited to profession and setting
- Pocket money enough to last a short while without hardship
- A personal heirloom, keepsake, or modest trinket
- Trade tools or portable gear appropriate to the career
- A personal weapon matching your Combat Style
- Other setting-appropriate items the Games Master approves
Next: roll or assign Characteristics, then derive Attributes.