Book:Character Creation
The Character Sheet is the central item to the Elysium game. It is where you keep track of your character’s condition, abilities, hurts and health, weaknesses, strengths, possessions, contacts, and anything relevant to staying inside that character and playing the game. As such, you should get to know it pretty well, as you’ll need to reference it fairly often. At the end of this book is a blank character sheet which you may photocopy or scan and make copies of. This is the ONLY part of the book you can photocopy or scan. Legal disclaimer, ended.
Now let’s take you through the steps of creating a new character.
Step One: The Big Idea
Concept
The first thing you should do when creating a character, is to come up with a Concept. This means you need a rough idea of what kind of character you want to play. Some example Concepts might be orphan, soldier, farmer, witch, magician, bounty hunter, or diplomat. A Concept is essentially what the character does, as opposed to the next step, Personality, which is what the person is like. Concept can also very easily simply be the character’s occupation, and many times is. Remember: most people in Elysium don’t go off slaying dragons and fighting evil. On Gaeis, evil is a matter of perspective, and most people are content with normal jobs, even other races. So pick a trade somewhere along the line as well; most people know one.
Personality
Personality is a listing of traits that describe what your character is like, and what people might say about him/her. Personality helps a player get a feel for how to roleplay the character’s actions and reactions, speak as the character, and represent the feel of the character. To choose a Personality for your character is very simple. Just choose at least one of the Personality Traits listed below. The less Traits you choose, the more one dimensional and predictable your character will be. The more you choose, the more dynamic and three dimensional. Choose as many as you like, but keep in mind that it will be more difficult to accurately roleplay your character if you choose conflicting traits or too many.
Motivation
Motivation is another integral part of defining what purpose your character has. Motivation details what your character wants. This serves a number of functions in the game. First off, it lets the GM in a little on what you, as a player, desire out of the game. If your character wants to become rich and make the world a better place, there are a number of ways the GM can go about challenging you with this. Or if your aims are narrower, such as wanting to recover your ancestral sword of your forefathers’ time, the GM can look for a way to slip something into the storyline. Secondly, it helps give you a reason for playing. There are no “winners” in roleplaying games. Winning is about having fun. But having a goal can’t hurt. There is no list of suggestions for motivations, but I can throw some ideas out there for you.
Is your character running from something or someone? Does the character want to acquire something? For whom will he/she acquire it? Is the character protecting someone/something? Is he/she hiding someone or something? What about revenge? This is an old classic. Hate and Love are very strong concepts. Who/what does the character Love/Hate? If that is too strong, what about Like/Dislike? Does the character have an occupation? Is he/she happy? What changes would the character like to bring about? What impact would he/she like to have?
Alignment
Alignment is the last of these theoretical questions you have to ask about the character. Alignment is about what the character believes. Not necessarily a concept of spirituality or religion (though these can be alignments), it’s more about the character’s limitations. Is the character lawful or opportunistic? Do they believe in Government or Anarchy? Does he/she subscribe to the idea of Good and Evil? Now which one does he/she believe she is? Which one is he/she really? Bwahaha. Spiritualist or Materialist? Industrialist, Entropist, or Naturalist? Animalist or Humanist? Religious or Atheist? Hedonist or Pragmatist? Egoist or Altruist? Socialist, Communist, or Free Democracy? What does the character believe? Use some of these if you like. Oh, and also rate, on a scale of 1-5, with five being the strongest, how strongly the character feels about each.
Step Two: It's Alive!
Race
For more information on races, flip to the Races section located later in this book, which details 11 playable races for the Gaeis campaign setting. For now, we will only concern ourselves with Men. Men are much the same creatures as you or I, at least in biology and such. So as such, they have no starting special abilities, no inherent weaknesses in their blood, and players who play humans are free to create their characters in the most varying ways.
Abilities
These are your character's core attributes. Every character, regardless of race, gender, or anything else, have at least these 12 abilities. They describe what your character can do, while Skills, on the other hand, which come later, describe what your character is good at. Both Attributes and Skills have ranges from 1-10, with 1 being the lowest possible score and 10 being the highest. Some supernatural creatures or highly advanced characters may have higher scores than 10, but this is extremely rare. Any Ability (not Skill) with a score of zero means the character is out of commission, one way or another. So, you need a rating of at least “1” in each Ability. Even then, that’s very low. A character with a “1” in Muscle would be near dead and a character with a “1” in Intellect would be near brain-dead. So it might be a good idea to have at least two in everything to start off with. Below, Abilities are categorized into Physical, Mental, Social, and Spirit stats.
Physical
Mental
Social
Spiritual
Derived
Action Points
Action Points (AP) represent the number of activities you can perform in combat. Everything costs AP, from swinging a sword, to launching a spell, to grabbing a monkey out of your pocket. Everyone starts off with 6 AP, but more can be bought with Trumps. See the Trumps, Faults, and Special Powers chapter for details.
Health Points
Expoints
Skills
Skill ranks represent a character's expertise and experience with a given activity. The more ranks in a skill, the better the character gets. Ranks can be bought for mundane tasks, such as climbing or hiding, weapon skills, which enables a character to better pose an offensive threat, and magic school skills which allow a character to cast spells. See the Skills chapter for more details.
Trumps and Faults
Trumps can be bought to customize your character with benefits and bonuses. Faults can be bought to further give your character a personality, and with it come hindrances. You can use the points from Faults to buy Abilities, Skills, Trumps, or Special Powers. Trumps and Faults are all further detailed in chapter four.
