Character Creation Step-by-Step Guide

Before you even fill in one dot on your character sheet, you should decide what kind of character you want to play. It’s usually best to start with a broad concept. Remember that you don’t have to be straightjacketed into your first thought.   Generally, it is recommended that you start broad and gradually add details later. An initial concept, “I want to play a skilled investigator who also knows how to fight well” can eventually morph into “I want to play a member of an elite order sponsored by the priests of Khemra that exposes and eliminates dangerous nefarious mages in order to prevent one of them from unleashing a Third Unmaking.”   You also should probably run your concept with your Game Master and the campaign he is planning to run. You might have the best concept in the world for a fur clad tundra dwelling barbarian but if most of the game is going to be having Sinbad-esque sailing adventures in and around equatorial islands, that character will not fit in well. Likewise, if you have a great concept for a swashbuckling sailor, that character probably will not fit into a campaign set in the landlocked Border Baronies region of Scarterra.   Game Masters can allow or disallow any character concept for any reason but they should generally try to be reasonable and flexible. Sometimes a character that doesn’t seem to be a good fit can be made into a good fit with a modest amount tweaking.

The assumed default races for Scarterran player characters are humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, kalazotz, satyrs, and tengku, but the Game Master has the final say and can allow or disallow players from making a character of any race, even humans.   Scarterra has a huge number mortal races and most of them are eligible for player character choices. A Game Master can allow players to make characters of races not on the list above or even make up new races.   The rule of thumb is that the more innate special abilities and powers a mortal race has, the fewer freebie points a player character has access to. The more innate weaknesses and drawbacks a mortal race has, the more freebie points a player character has access to.

Figure out your character's basic background and identifiers including but not limited to sex, age, social class, religious views, moral outlook, goals.   For background you only need to go into broad strokes at this point, you can cover specifics later.   "My character is a young adult son of a fishing family who became a holy warrior of Mera" is plenty.

Your character has nine Attributes and 24 dots to allocate between them.   You need your Game Master’s permission to have an attribute rating of Zero. Otherwise, you can treat the 24 dots as one "free" dot in each attribute plus 15 "discretionary" dots.   Later, you can raise your attributes beyond this at the cost of five freebie points per dot.

Your character has 25 dots to split between all abilities. Remember, if you want a rare ability, the first dot costs double. At this stage of character creation, you cannot put more than three dots into a single ability.   At this stage in character creation, you cannot raise an ability above three dots.   Later, you can raise your abilities beyond this at the cost of two freebie points per dot.

Scarterrans have a Willpower score ranging between 1 and 10. As a player character, your starting Willpower is three.   Later, you can raise your Willpower at a cost two freebie points per dot. It is recommended but not required that a player character raise his/her Willpower to at least five dots.

Player characters normally start out bilingual with two languages.   Normally you want one of these languages to be Common. The default is your character's native tongue and Common. If Common is your native tongue, you can pick whatever language makes sense to your character background.   If you want more than two languages, you can convert freebie points into experience points and then use the experience points to buy languages.

Human player characters start out with forty freebie points. Other Playable races start out of with more freebie points or fewer freebie points, in some cases much fewer freebie points if they have lots of strong powers.   40 freebie points assumes your character is a person of great potential that also has some advanced training under his or her belt and perhaps learned a few lessons from the School of Hard Knocks. If a Game Master would prefer player characters start out as scrappy rookies with lots of potential, he can limit the starting freebie points to 20.   If the Game Master wants to play a high powered game with extra-powerful characters right off the bat, the Game Master can increase the starting freebie points to 60 or even 80.   Freebie points can buy many things. As mentioned previously, freebie points can be used can raise attributes, abilities and/or Willpower.

Merits and Flaws are traits that affect character in a more subtle or indirect way than character traits. Taking Flaws disadvantages your character but you gain bonus freebie points. Taking Merits gives your character new advantages but deducts from your freebie points. A 3-point Merit costs three freebie points. A 3-point Flaw bestows three freebie points. And so on and so-forth.   Merits and Flaws do more than impact your freebie point total. They can help a players flesh out their characters' backgrounds in greater detail and they can give Game Masters story hooks to link PCs to the greater narrative.

If you want to play a spell-caster, you have to spend freebie points to do this. First you need to buy the three-point Merit “Arcane Spell caster” or the three-point Merit “Divine Spellcaster.” Then you have to shell out more freebie points to buy dots in arcane casting attributes or divine magic spheres respectively.   Divine spell-casters must also pick a divine patron. The Divine spheres, quick reference guide is a good resourc efor picking patrons and accessing all the divine magic options in one place while quickly seeing what attributes and abilities are connected to what magic. There are also specific Merits and Flaws applicable only to divine spell casters.   There are certain Merits and Flaws that apply to specifically to Arcane Spell-casters and certain Merits and Flaws that apply specifically to divine spell-casters. It is strongly recommended that you look these lists over if you wish to play a spell-caster.

Attributes 5 freebie points per dot Abilities 2 freebie points per dot Willpower 2 freebie points per dot   3 Experience points 1 Freebie point New Language 2 experience points   Freebie points can also be used to buy magical abilities.   Arcane Spell Caster 3 freebie points   Arcane Magic Dot up to 3 3 freebie points per dot   Arcane Magic dot above 3 4 freebie points per dot   New spells 2 experience points per level of spell minus applicable discounts for optional prerequisites Some traits cost less than a freebie point and can only be purchased with experience points. This includes extra languages, arcane spells, and ability specializations. Characters can convert freebie points into experience points during character creation and buy these things. You can have a few experience point left over sitting in your bank at character creation but not more than six.

You need to figure out how many health levels your character has. Usually this is very straightforward. Most player characters have ten health levels: three “bruised” levels, two “hurt” levels, two “wounded” levels, one “mauled” level, one “crippled” level, and one “incapacitated level.”   Depending on your character’s race, you might have more or fewer health levels. Dwarves receive an extra “bruised” level. Elves and tengku start out with one fewer “bruised” level.   Characters with the “Tough” Merit have a bonus bruised level. Characters with the “Infirm” Flaw start out with one fewer bruised level.   These stack with racial modifiers so a “Tough” dwarf has twelve health levels and an “Infirm” dwarf has ten health levels.   If your character has fewer bruised levels than normal, cross one of them out on your character sheet. If your character has an extra bruised level, draw an extra box in the margin.   If your character is ever brought below incapacitated, your character is dead and it is time to make a new character.   For details on how this works, check out Character Health Levels.

Look back at your character concept and compare it against the dots you put on your character. Do the dots and concepts reflect each other? If not, you should revise your character concept or reassign dots until you are reasonably satisfied. Then hand your character sheet to your Game Master.   Your Game Master needs to make sure you just created a character that will fit well his planned campaign. He may suggest revisions. He may even slightly revise his campaign to accommodate your character. He can also point out logical inconsistencies in your backstory. "Your character's background has him traveling overland a lot by himself and he has zero dots of Ride and Survival? That doesn't make sense."   Chances are, your character isn’t quite as badass and you want him/her to be, but that is not a problem. You can advance your character post-creation with experience points and it is always good to have goals.