New Character Guide
This chapter walks you through building a character, from a one-line idea to a finished sheet. Everything it touches has a full chapter behind it: the Traits chapter for your stats, the Core Skills chapter for your abilities, and the weapons, armor, and gear catalogs for your kit. If something here doesn't match the fiction at your table, your GM has the final word.
Step 0: The Idea
Start with a person, not a build. Who are they? What did they do before the story started, and what do they want now? You'll write three short things on your sheet: a description (what others see), a personality (how they carry themselves), and a background (where they came from and what they know). Add notes for the details that don't fit anywhere else: contacts, secrets, debts, table rules. A voice can help you play them, but it's optional.
You don't need to be good at anything yet. That comes next.
Step 1: Choose Your State
Every character is one of three things, and this choice decides whether magic will ever be part of their life.
Mortal. A normal human. You cannot use magic at all, ever, unless something changes. Most characters start here.
Unbound. You Faced the Nature: the sudden, personal realization that reality is a tiny speck in a vast, malleable medium. You came back with a Shape: the form your power takes. Superpowers, a ritual knife, a set of beliefs, a memory you concentrate on. Your Shape decides what magic is easy for you and what is nearly or entirely impossible.
Demon. A Daemon tore you out of reality, and you snapped back as something that feeds on Unraveling bits of the world. Demons use magic and possess a Shape too, but their Presence runs inverted. Becoming one is a curse; if you play one, work out the details with your GM. Demons are required to feed upon Unraveling the world around them.
If you have magic, make two more choices at creation:
Your Foci. If your Shape is a physical object, decide whether it is Summonable (bound to you and always returns to your hand) or Physical (meaning it can be dropped, stolen, or hidden, but never destroyed). A Foci is not just a piece of gear; it is your power.
Your Keystone. An item or items that help your character realize their powers and makes their magic easier: special bullets for your magic gun, a childhood photo. Keystones add dice or lower difficulty on magic rolls, but are not required.
See full details in the Magic chapter.
Step 2: Your Traits/Core Skills and How to Set Them
Everything you ever spend a point on is one of two things: a Trait or a Core Skill. This step covers both: what they are, how you spend your points at creation, and how you spend the two points you earn every time you level up.
Your Traits
Your seven Traits measure who you are: Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Perception, Presence, and Strength. Each level adds one d6 to rolls, and every Trait also powers something else on your sheet. Most can only reach 3 on a Mortal character, with the exceptions noted:
Charisma is how likely anyone is to do anything for you. Persuading, Intimidating, or just keeping someone talking. It is possible for a character to have 0.
Constitution gives you your Health: 5 at level 1, then +50% rounded up per level (8 at 2, 12 at 3, 18 at 4). Used to resist Intimidation and fear. It can never be below 1, and only an Unbound or Demon can raise it past 4.
Dexterity gives you your Movement (25 feet per turn per level) and your Stamina (5 points per level). It powers Firearms, Driving, Crafting, and any physical feat requiring precision.
Intelligence is your ability to reason and understand. It adds to Technology and non-Magical Medicine rolls, and it sets your Actions and Minor actions each turn: 0 to 1 grants 1 action and 1 minor action, 2 grants 1 and 2, 3 grants 2 and 2, and so on. Intelligence 0 exists: such a character believes any lie and follows any instruction that doesn't threaten survival.
Perception is always being used to notice anything around you. It can never be below 1, and it rolls alone against Deception and Persuasion.
Presence is a base of 1 for every non-Unbound character. It sets your Maximum Warp alongside Magic: +2 per level of each.
Strength is how much you can lift: 100 lb at level 1, doubling each level. It adds to Melee, Martial Arts, and physical feats.
Your Core Skills
Your thirteen Core Skills are ladders of mastery, each rated 0 to 5: Firearms, Melee, Martial Arts, Magic, Technology, Medicine, Crafting, Stealth, Investigation, Intimidation, Persuasion, Deception, and Driving.
Two rules govern them all. Level gates access: each rung unlocks what the rung below could not: new weapons, techniques, knowledge, authority. Level adds to rolls: a skill at 3 adds 3d6 whenever it clearly covers what you're attempting.
The rungs are the same shape for every skill: Level 0 is a total novice, Level 1 an initiate, Level 2 a trained operator, Level 3 an expert, Level 4 a master, and Level 5 breaks human limits. Two major benefits appear near the end of every ladder:
Specializations. At level 4 you choose one, at level 5 a second. A General specialization means a named art, weapon, or technique, and adds 2d6 to any roll involving it. An Exact specialization means one specific weapon, gadget, or vehicle, adds 4d6, and lowers the SDM by 1 for you.
Effortless Actions. The same no-roll rule as the Core Rules, but in combat it means a surge of maximum effort that looks effortless. You declare it before you act, and it lands: the rung that grants it decides how many you get per fight or day.
Spending Your Points
Your pool at creation. A fresh character, new to the family business, just out of Magic School, a Slayer that just activated, has 12 points to put into either Core Skills or Traits. Every Trait and Skill starts with 1 point, and you can take any of those points away, so long as the Skill or Trait can be 0, and add them to something else. If you want a specialist, this is how you build one: strip the skills your character has no business knowing and pour the points into the ones they live by.
The one exception. Mortal characters have 0 in Magic. It's the only thing a Mortal can't start at 1: you cannot channel at all. If you're an Unbound or Demon, the reverse holds: Magic 1 is the minimum, because you can't have a Shape without it.
Where the points go. Spend Traits with restraint: you should only raise a Trait just above the Mortal cap, so anything past most Mortals' cap of 3 (or 4 for Constitution) is an Unbound or Demon's territory. Skills can go higher if your backstory justifies it: the grizzled veteran can walk in with Firearms 4, but the kid fresh out of Magic School needs a reason for it to be that high.
If the GM or the Fiction allows, or even expects, a more veteran character, then the rules on character creation can largely be ignored in favor of whatever the GM or Fiction has decided.
Step 3: Choose Your Gear
Your GM sets your starting money (your sheet's wallet and account), and the catalogs are in their own chapters. A few things to remember while you shop:
Armor is uncommon in the modern world. Not to say you shouldn't have it, but in most fiction set there, walking around in a set of plate armor is going to draw eyes, and a ballistic vest just might get the cops called on you. So before you decide to grab the strongest armor you can afford, make sure it makes sense for you to have it.
Weapons must match your skill gates. Every entry's shorthand (Damage, Range, Rate, Mag, Fire mode, Concealment, Modifications) is decoded in the Stats, Concealment and Modifications chapter; two full lists of examples can be found in the Weapons chapters.
Medical gear matters more than you might think: a First Aid Kit is SDM -1, a Trauma Kit is SDM -2. It's usually better to have it and not need it than the other way around.
Vehicles. A lot of characters will already have a vehicle, but not all, and you should consider what vehicle exactly your character would buy if they have one.
Step 4: Fill Out the Sheet
Add up everything the rules gave you and write it down: Health from Constitution, Stamina and Movement from Dexterity, Actions and Minor actions from Intelligence, Maximum Warp from Presence and Magic, lifting capacity from Strength. Note your armor's DR, HP, and Wound Negation, and your current HP and Stamina start at max. Then copy over your description, personality, and background from Step 0.
Step 5: Growing Your Character
Experience is stored on the character sheet as EXP. EXP can be given for almost anything but won't be given for just anything. Resolving trouble, causing some, getting into or out of a fight, a deep and meaningful conversation between two characters: just a few of the ways EXP is earned. But like everything else in the Grayleaf System, EXP should match the fiction. No multiple levels of EXP for killing a few defenseless animals, but you also won't have a knock-down-drag-out fight with a dozen dudes only to get one EXP for the whole fight.
Level is a metric of how much a character has grown since they entered the fiction. It is not a substitute for age, nor a metric for what they've done in life before the story. As such, two level 1 characters can have wildly different Traits and Core Skills: when one is a wide-eyed amateur, the other a grizzled veteran, but both just entered the story.
When a Level is Gained
Upon gaining enough EXP to raise your level, you gain two "Points" that can be added to either a Trait and a Skill, or two Skills. A character that is Mortal can only gain EXP until level 3, after which point, if the GM does not allow them to Face the Nature or subject them to Unraveling by a Daemon, they will not gain any more EXP.