Character Creation in the Nine Rivers Cosmos

Build a person, not a stat block: in this world, what you are to other people is half your power. Work through the six steps below.

1. Choose your place in the world

Start from a region and a station — they determine your problems, your teachers, and your enemies.

• The Lu-Wen Basin (Zhao heartland): river towns, sect schools, the grain economy, the Tide Gate conscription crisis. Good starts: pole-school disciple, bank clerk, beast-hunter, gate-porter's kin.
• The Maritime Coast (Qian & Nanxu): ports, pearl-divers, navigators, salvagers, pirates with arithmetic. Good starts: diver, navigator, wreck-diver, debtor-mutineer.
• The Beiluo Frontier: mining uplands, watch-posts, nomad corridors, the unpaid March. Good starts: bone-quench miner, frontier doctor, rider-herder, hunter.
• Deep canon (read as desired): Volumes 00–22 of the encyclopedia, the Expansion Registers (13, 14, 19), and the Sect Compendium. Link anything: every sect, beast, resource, and city in the project is fair game for your background.

2. Choose your power path

Power in this world runs on two ladders, and everyone negotiates between them:

• The Nine Realms (Qi cultivation) — the interior's way. You open a Spring (Realm 1), build a Foundation Palace (2), form a Golden Lake (3). Fast to start, expensive to fund, audited by Heaven: every advance past Realm 4 draws the Grand Ledger's lightning weighed against your karma. Most sect cultivators walk this path; most never pass Realm 2.
• The Nine Depths of the Body (Beiluo's way) — Hide-Tempering, Flesh-Forging, Tendon-Weaving, Bone-Quenching, Marrow-Washing and beyond. Slower, hungrier (a Flesh-Forged cultivator eats what a farm family eats), impossible to hide, but Heaven's Audit weighs the body lightly. Powerful in close combat, terrible at subtlety.
• Hybrid — the common compromise: a body frame that reinforces qi-meridians, or qi senses that steer a tempered body. The Long Walk Academy and the great sects each teach their own balance.

Origin-veins (your spiritual talent) are graded Husk, Flesh, Bone, Marrow, Moon. Roll or choose honestly: a Husk-grade farm boy with a war-band behind him beats a Moon-grade orphan nobody claims. Talent sets your ceiling; loyalty, debts, and preparation set your life expectancy.

3. Assign your stats

Use the classic six (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, 8–16). Guidelines:

• Qi cultivators lean Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence. Body cultivators lean Strength, Constitution. Mortals are the most flexible and often the most interesting — clerks, hunters, doctors, and navigators change the world with 13s.
• Constitution matters more here than in most worlds: fevers, gate-qi, the Stiffening, quench-baths, and famine years are all Constitution's business.
• Charisma is debts and promises. Nearly every faction in the canon runs on favors; note who owes you and whom you owe.

4. Tie yourself to the living world

Pick two connections from the canon — this is where your story hooks come from:

• a sect, clan, or faction (Reedbank Pole-School, the Compass Courts, the Bone-Quench Hall, the Marrow-Doctor Conclave, the Nine Ger Council, the Drowned-Registry Divers…),
• a debt or obligation (a conscripted relative, a raft-debt held by the Qian Ou house, an unpaid watch-post, a ledger page that doesn't add up),
• a mystery you personally touched (the Whispering Scree's ring, the False Coast's shared heading, the granary that opens in famine years),
• a beast, place, or resource your family depends on (the Antler-Walk herds, the Sovereign-pearl beds, the Marrowstone veins).

Write these into your notes field — they are GM-facing fuel.

5. Equip yourself

Take starting gear from the world's armory and resource catalogs — common goods by default; one Rare item at most, with a story of how you got it. Suggested packages by region:

• Basin: Ford-Pole of the Oar Canon, Reed Net of Binding Knots, Gut-Mender Field Kit, Ledger-Ink Travel Set, Gate-Dust Filter Mask (gate work).
• Maritime: Tide-Pearl Lantern, Silentreed Wading Cloak, Drowned-Registry Grapple, Gut-Mender Field Kit.
• Beiluo: Boar-Spear or Kang Anvil-Saber (body cultivators only), Fir-Bark Shield, Hide-Cutter Skinning Knife, Gut-Mender Field Kit, Weighted Training Armor.

6. Keep one secret

Every pregen in this project carries one GM-facing secret in its notes. Give your own character one too: a thing you know, saw, or owe that will complicate your life by the third session. The world's history (Volume 10) and its sealed truths are full of material — borrow freely.

See also: the Master Canon (Volume 00) for cosmology, Volume 02–04 and 21 for cultivation detail, Volume 13/14/19 for each region's living factions. Existing pregens — Lu Wenqiu, Bao Yunshan, Old Gan, Sui Jin, Yan Peizhi, Duan Wei, Kang Buren, Shen Ruyi, Altan of the Antler-Walkers — are all valid starting templates.