Making a Character
Every story needs someone to tell it through, and that someone is you. Building a character takes nine steps — concept, Attributes, Skills, Specialties, driving goals, Convictions, Advantages, health, and the supernatural layer if you're not mortal. Work through them in order; each step feeds the next, and by the end you'll have a sheet that tells a whole life story in a few numbers.
Step 1 — Concept
Before any dot lands on any sheet, decide who you are. A concept is two or three sentences, not a paragraph: "A night-shift paramedic whose partner vanished, and who keeps finding the same morgue tag in her jacket." Choose a name, an age, a face, and the detail that makes you you — the thing that gets you out of bed and into trouble.
Your concept also settles the biggest question: are you mortal, or something more? A mortal plays by the rules in this chapter and stops there. A supernatural character walks the same nine steps and then layers on a splat (Step 9). Decide now so the steps below fit; a vampire and a mortal medic never have quite the same priorities.
Step 2 — Attributes
Attributes are your raw capacities, rated 1 to 5 (1 is barely there, 5 is the peak of human potential). There are nine, in three categories:
| Category | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Physical | Strength, Dexterity, Stamina |
| Social | Charisma, Manipulation, Composure |
| Mental | Intelligence, Wits, Resolve |
Assign a 4 to one category, a 3 to each of the other two — and here's the trick: every Attribute in a category shares that rating. Set Physical to 4 and you have Strength 4, Dexterity 4, and Stamina 4 all at once. A strength 3 night isn't possible; your body is one package.
Whatever you choose shapes how you do everything. Every roll pairs an Attribute with a Skill (or a power rating), so your 4 is the backbone of a whole family of dice pools. A 4 in Physical gives you terrifying punch in a fight; a 4 in Social makes conversation your native language; a 4 in Mental makes you the one who reads the room and the dossier both.
Step 3 — Skills
Skills are what you've learned to do, rated 0 to 5 — and 0 means untrained, rolling on raw Attribute alone. There are twenty-six, and they fill out the same three categories:
| Category | Skills |
|---|---|
| Physical | Athletics, Brawl, Craft, Drive, Firearms, Larceny, Melee, Stealth |
| Social | Animal Ken, Etiquette, Insight, Intimidation, Leadership, Performance, Persuasion, Streetwise, Subterfuge |
| Mental | Academics, Awareness, Finance, Investigation, Medicine, Occult, Politics, Science, Technology |
Pick one category and set three of its Skills to 3. Pick a second category and set three of its Skills to 2. In the last category, set three Skills to 1. Everything else stays 0. That's a deliberately uneven shape: your character is genuinely good at three things, competent at three more, and has a passing familiarity with a final three — which is exactly how real people are.
For the paramedic: Mental 4, so Investigation 3, Medicine 3, Awareness 3; Social 3, so Insight 2, Persuasion 2, Streetwise 2; Physical 3, so Athletics 1, Drive 1, Stealth 1. She can stabilize a gunshot wound and read a liar, but she benches nothing.
Step 4 — Specialties
Now sharpen three of those Skills. A Specialty is a narrow context, and when it applies it adds +1 die to your pool. Choose three, each tied to a Skill you already have: Firearms (revolvers), Medicine (trauma), Insight (lies). "Medicine 3 + trauma" isn't a flavor line — when the gurney rolls in, that's 3 Skill plus the extra die, and an extra die is a real edge in this game. The rest of the time, plain Medicine 3.
Step 5 — Ambition & Desire
Every character wants two things. Your Ambition is the long game — the goal that might take a whole chronicle: find out what happened to my partner. Your Desire is the short-term itch, the thing that gets you moving this very session: bring the kid from the ER back alive. Write both as plain sentences. They aren't decoration: taking a real step toward your Ambition restores all your Willpower, and Desire is your compass when the plot splits into a dozen tempting doors. When in doubt, your character does the thing that serves the Desire.
Step 6 — Convictions & Touchstones
Up to three Convictions — lines you refuse to cross or causes you can't abandon: no one dies alone, the truth, even when it hurts. Each Conviction is anchored by a Touchstone: a mortal person who keeps you human. Not an ally, not a tool — someone you genuinely care about, and whose safety is a lever the Storyteller can pull.
Mechanically they feed your Willpower: acting on a Conviction at real cost restores 1 Willpower, and a meaningful moment with your Touchstone restores another. Play the code, protect the person, and you stay in the fight longer.
Step 7 — Advantages, Backgrounds & Flaws
You have 7 points to spend on Advantages and Backgrounds — the resources, connections, and edges money and training can't buy. Each dot you buy deepens the trait:
| Advantage | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Allies | Trusted people who'll help when you call |
| Contacts | Informants and voices in useful places |
| Resources | Money and the doors it opens |
| Haven | A safe place to sleep, heal, hide |
| Herd | People you draw strength from |
| Retainer | A loyal servant or assistant |
| Languages | Tongues you speak fluently |
| Looks | Beauty that opens conversations and hearts |
| Status | Standing in a community or organization |
| Mask | A cover identity that protects the real you |
| Safehouse | A bolthole for exactly one bad night |
Spend what you like; a single dot in Allies might be a friend who owes you, three dots a network across the city. The Storyteller helps you fit your picks to your concept.
Flaws are the mirror: permanent weaknesses — an enemy, an addiction, a dark secret, a bad leg — that cost you in play. Each Flaw refunds 1 point back into your Advantage pool, up to 2 extra points: take two serious Flaws and you have 9 points to spend. It's a straight trade of present pain for present power; make it count.
Step 8 — Health & Willpower
Two numbers, both computed:
- Health = Stamina + 3. Stamina 3 gives you 6 Health. When damage comes in, each success on a damage pool costs you 1 point.
- Willpower = Composure + Resolve, and it starts full. Resolve 2 plus Composure 3 means 5 points. You can spend 1 point to add +3 dice to any single pool — the clutch move when the roll has to land.
Step 9 — The Supernatural
If your character is mortal, you're done — mortals have no power meter and no powers; their Advantages, Skills, and nerve are all they carry. If you chose something more, now you apply your splat: the module for your character type. A splat brings a power meter (Hunger, Rage, Mana, Faith, or the like) and how it rises, your starting powers, the way flawed power rolls escalate into signature consequences, and a bane that defines what can hurt you. The framework for splats — and the powers they unlock — is laid out in the Supernatural Powers chapter; head there next to finish your sheet.