Character creation
How to build a fantasy character, in four decisions
A character is a job, a place to be from, one thing you are carrying and one thing you did. That is the whole of it, and the four lists below are the ones this game actually deals. There are 8 Callings, 8 Bloods, 12 pieces of Kit and 20 Hooks, every one written out in full, and you are welcome to take any of them to a table that has nothing to do with us.
They are in this order because that is the order that works. The job decides what you reach for, so it goes first and it is the loudest. Where you are from decides what you have stopped noticing. The gear is one real object rather than a loadout. And the last one is the one people skip and then wish they had not, because a past is the only part of a character that other people at the table can pick up and use against you.
- Eight character class ideasThe Callings. Eight jobs written as verbs rather than stat spreads: hold the door, take the credit, price the unknown, take the wound for somebody else.Read the list ›
- Eight character origin ideasThe Bloods. Not species. Eight places to be from, and what each one taught you to put up with. A hill farmer and a gravedigger differ in what stopped bothering them.Read the list ›
- Twelve pieces of adventuring gearThe Kit. Twelve ordinary objects somebody on the road would be carrying, described by the detail that makes it that object and not the generic version.Read the list ›
- Twenty character backstory ideasThe Hooks. Twenty specific things done, or done to you, and what each one left behind. Never a mood, and never a mysterious past.Read the list ›
Why a character here is not a stat block
Nothing in these four lists adds a large number to a roll. A Calling gives you two abilities you are trained in and one situation that makes you irrelevant. A Blood does not touch the arithmetic at all: it changes what a failure costs, or who it costs, or what you knew before you committed. Kit is a flat two points or a couple of uses of something you fire when you choose. A Hook is a past you can spend, and it puts a matching problem into the night for everybody at the table.
That is deliberate, and it is the difference between choosing a character and choosing a build. The numbers on the sheet are the same six for everybody in the room. What separates you is what you are prepared to be no use at, and the rules page spells out exactly how each of those four things reaches the dice.
Questions people ask
- What makes a character backstory worth having?
- One specific thing you did, or that was done to you, and what it left behind. The test is whether four strangers form an opinion about the person from a single line. A mysterious past gives them nothing to decide with; cutting a second key for a client's strongroom and never asking who wanted it does. Everything on these pages is written to that rule, and the ones that failed it were thrown out.
- Can I use any of this at my own table?
- Yes. Take a Calling, a Blood, a piece of Kit or a Hook to whatever game you play, change the name and make it yours. Rules and ideas are nobody's property. The only thing we ask is that you write your own words rather than reprinting ours, which is the same deal we took from everybody else.
- How many different characters is that?
- 15,360 before anybody rolls a number. A run also hands every player the same 6 scores and asks where they go, so two players with the identical Calling and Blood are still not the same character.
- Do I have to read all this before I can play?
- No. The game deals you the lists and gives you 70 seconds, and it is more fun to read them under a clock. These pages are for the people who make characters for games they never get round to playing, which is most of us.