Character Creation Piti, piti, wazo fe nich li. (Little by little the bird builds its nest.) - Haitian Proverb Just letting you know how the dice work, first :) Dice Rolls All rolls are made against set difficulties of 10, 20, 30 or 40 (easy, medium, hard, not a hope in the world). To succeed in rolls, a character rolls two six-sided dice, and adds a relevant stat and skill (if one is applicable) to the roll. Compassion, Honour and Killer Instinct can be added (or subtracted) according to the GM. Example: Your PC wants to find out who stole a certain necklace and is questioning the guards. The player decides to rough them up while looking for signs of weakness and uses Perception, Killer Instinct (to threaten) and Detective (skill), each as 4, 3, 7 plus their 3 on a 2d6 for a total of 17. The GM assigned a difficulty of 15 so the NPC, after some suitable role play, gives in and agrees. Keep in mind that role play is necessary for rolls to have an effect. If you roll better that someone, you know you will succeed - eventually. Role play is necessary to explain the results of roll play (rolling the dice). GMs are encouraged to modify a roll by the results of role-playing a situation. Note that all rolls are guidelines, possibilities into what may happen in a situation. Players should role play each situation out with appropriate bonuses and penalties the GM decides. Making Your PC - Filling in the sheet. How many coconuts can you put into an empty sack? Only one. After that the sack's not empty. - Haitian Riddle Archetype: This is what your character is, at the most basic level. Mage, poet, healer ... this isn't necessarily what your PC does for a living (or even what they see themselves as) but it is what they really are. This page about archetypes lists quite a few possibilities. If a PC is a vampire or were this can be their archetype as well. Profession: This is what your PC does for a living and should be his first or second skill (depending on if his or her archetype is a profession or not.) Summary: What is your PC, in simple terms. A mage trying to save the world, a jaded traveller, a photographer for the Fortean Times? Just write something quick as a tag line to explain your PC quickly to others. Character Seeds: These are some quick important events that happened or are happening to your PC and serve as jomp-points for adventures. (YOu can find out how about them, and getting over 75 points to make a PC below. Description: What your PC looks like. All the game stats (Strength, Perception, Willpower; Compassion, Honour, Killer Instinct; Skill Groups; Defence, Speed & Toughness) are picked using a point system. Each PC has 75 points to spend on making a PC. Stat Range Perception, Strength, Willpower 1-5* Compassion, Honour Killer Instinct 1-5 5 Skill Groups 1-10 Defence, Speed, Toughness 1-15 Luck 0 - Infinity * Vampires can have Willpower as high as 10, and Weres Strength as high as 10, but neither gets bonus points to make a PC with. The three "physical" stats of Perception, Strength, and Willpower go from 1 to 5 each.. A stat of 2-3 is considered the human norm, 5 the general maximum. Above all else, the stats mean what they mean to the PC. A strong strength doesn't meant your PC has to be Hulk Hogan, for one thing. Perception: This is how well the PC notices things around them and/or how intuitive the PC is. Each player should describe the stat from the PCs perspective with a few quick words. "Sherlock Holmes" would be a more analytical PC, while "Absent Minded Professor" or "Street Savvy" or "Caring Mother" would give very different ideas at to what the PC is most perceptive about. Strength: In general, this is how physically strong you are. Someone with a high strength could be a body builder, or someone who is just good at ignoring pain or perhaps someone with incredible mental strength or who just looks like someone you don't want to mess around with. Someone with low strength could be wreak, or not work out much. "Fists of steel" is a far cry from "Long Distance Runner" for an endurance take on strength. Likewise, "98 pound weakling" is different from "office worker" for a low strength. Willpower: Your mental strength, in lots of ways. What can you push yourself to do? Are you a leader or a follower? Do you fight orders or have a strong ego? High willpower doesn't have to mean a tough-as-nails personality, it can also be someone stubborn as hell or the sort of person who is very committed to cause or ideal. Essentially, the stat name is just a placeholder - it's the PCs description of the broad name of the stat that determines what the stat is and does for that PC in a game situation. Keep in mind that low stats are low. A PC with Strength 1 is not going to be a body builder, except maybe in his dreams. The next 3 stats also go from 1 to 5. Thinking up a background and talking to other players and the GM about the PC idea at this state is a very good idea. Each of these stats can added to rolls when they come into direct play and subtracted if they come into conflict with a PCs beliefs. For example, someone with Compassion 5 who has to torture someone will find their compassion being subtracted from their roll because what they're doing goes against who they are. If they do succeed, compassion may be lowered as a result. Compassion: This is basically how much fellow-feeling a PC has for others and, to an extent, how well you can relate to and understand others. Someone with a low compassion might be self centred or just not give a damn what others think. Someone with a high compassion might do charity work, be really friendly, or be a very manipulative bastard. When choosing what a PCs compassion is at, the player should also describe how it affects or is a result of the PCs worldview. This applies to the other two as well. Honour: This is the hardest of the three stats to pin down. In effect, honour is to some extent self worth and to others what the PC thinks of themself and how the relate to others. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, honour is: (1) Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. (2) That which rightfully attracts esteem, respect, or consideration; self-respect; dignity; courage; fidelity; especially, excellence of character; high moral worth; virtue; nobleness; specifically, in men, integrity; uprightness; trustworthiness; in women, purity; chastity. (3) A nice sense of what is right, just, and true, with course of life correspondent thereto; strict conformity to the duty imposed by conscience, position, or privilege. Killer instinct: The ability to cause bodily harm to others, perhaps even to kill them. Someone with a killer instinct of one may have moral objections to killing, not like the sight of blood, have never developed one because they never needed to or the like. Someone with a killer instinct of 3 or so can kill, if they have to. A police officer would be a good example of this. Higher ones get into serial killers, psychopaths, sociopaths, mercenaries, hit men and the like. Someone with a high killer instinct but low compassion and honour may have trouble concealing their nature from others. Skill Groups: Skills are very, very broad traits that encompass a section of the PCs life. Each PC can begin with up to 5 skills ranked between 1 and 10 each. Examples include: Lawyer, student, accountant, athlete, street savvy, seer, priest, pick pocket and the like. Each idea covers a wide range of skills within its penumbra, which must be agreed upon with the GM prior to beginning the game. Each can very well be a profession/career path/hobby the PC has held over the course of their life. Little Skills: These are skills that don't fall under the PCs penumbra of skills above they learn during the course of the game. Unlike skill groups they tend to be much more focused. Quirks: This is basically a list of little things that make a PC fun but don't necessarily have a statistic listing. For supernaturals it could be a list of their power for reference, among other things. The next three stats are used in combat. Each stat can be as low as 1 and as high as 15. Generally most people have a stat of 6-9, with 15 being the normal human upper limit. Armour can increase defence past 15 but can't reduce speed below 1. Defence: This is the stat that represents what people must roll against to hit your PC. It consists of the points placed in it above, plus any kind of protective clothing and other defences. It can be modified by a 2d6 roll, skills, or stats if someone is good at defence, fighting defensively and the like.           Armour: Armour is clothing, kevlar etc. that provides protection against attacks. All armour reduces damage from an attack by an amount equal to the armour (except at least 1 damage) but also reduces the PCs speed by an amount equal to the Armour. Speed: This is how fast your PC reacts in combat. Basically, it determines what order you act in during a combat round. This can be because of physical speed, a love of the adrenaline rush, mental quickness in picking up what is happening in a fight or what not. It can sometimes be modified by a 2d6 roll from each player and GM alterations for randomness. Toughness: This is how much damage a PC takes before they take actual damage from an attack. Lost toughness is healed the after other damage and is basically a buffer zone. Sure, you get hit, but it doesn't hurt that much ... once it's all used up, attacks deal damage as noted below.           Current: How much toughness your PC currently has. Damage: Each damage section has 4 blocks. Once they're used up, damage is taken off the next section. A weapon doing 3 damage would take 3 off the PC's easy listing, for example. Some weapons do damage that begins at a specific level, for example guns do medium damage. However, damage can be lowered to a previous level if there is room on it. 1 Medium can become 2 easy instead, and 1 hard either 2 medium or all easy damage. If there aren't enough available, it's up to the GM how much (if any) damage can be lowered in that manner. Easy: 4 blocks. Medium: 4 blocks. Hard: 4 blocks. Mortal: 4 blocks. Easy damage is basically cuts and scrapes and slashes from knives. It hurts, but it's not that bad. Medium damage is stuff that starts to hurt, a lot. Generally, if you take medium damage you will NEED first aid and/or hospital treatment rather quickly. At the very least, you have to stop bleeding. Hard damage is the sort of stuff most people don't get up and walk away from. Mortal damage puts you in the hospital, end of story. If all blocks are filled for it, you're dead. If some of your lower blocks remain you could linger on in a coma for a few days or weeks but you're still most likely dead. Luck: Luck is how lucky your PC is. You can put as many or as few or as many points into this ability as you like. Luck can be added to other rolls after they're rolled to alter events in a game. Effectively, if you're hit really bad, or just miss an attack, you can use luck to alter the outcome of an event. As the GM shouldn't show rolls, the player must guess how much luck they spend to even the odds. Each use of luck can act a a +2 bonus to a roll or Allow the PC to re-roll their 2d6 roll or Allow the player to decide on some event that somehow changes the odds so their attack hits/misses/something intervenes in the game. In game terms, it's the ability to alter probability anyone can do but few ever do consciously. The player must come up with a convincing coincidence that accounts for the altered roll during the game - they did miss, or get hit, but they can have the world manipulated around them to lessen or increase the result of a roll. Once spent, luck is lost for good but is regained as experience. Mages do not have luck, they have probability manipulation instead. Probability Manipulation: This is the mage ability to alter the probability of events around them. While others do it with luck unconsciously, the mage does it as a skill consciously. Only someone with a mage archetype can usually learn this, but there are exceptions. This stat, like Luck, can have as many points as you want in it. It can be used and paid for by toughness (1 toughness for each alteration during a round) or by being spent the way luck is for non mages. Possibility Manipulation: This is the ability to use magic and is a mages magic score (under skills). It's placed here as well as a quick reference that yes, the PC is a mage (It's for really stressed out GMs). Background: A history for your PC. Notes: Notes of things that are important. Keeping notes during a game is always a very, very good idea. Combat And Stuff Konstitisyon se papie, bayonet se fe. (The constitution is paper, bayonets are steel.) - Haitian Proverb Five minutes ago you thought you were taking a shortcut home from the movie theatre. Maybe in daytime, but the twitchy punk with the knife in his hand and raw need in his eyes tells a different story about the city after dusk. And he wants your money, even after you explained that it was spent on popcorn. In retrospect, laughing at him had been a bad idea. Obviously, he didn't know the price of popcorn these days. Kind of funny, in a not-ha ha way. They gouge you for money and he just gouged you with a knife and left you lying here to die. You imagine your father, after the funeral, ranting about ten years of Karate lessons, and the police saying you did have a pipe in your hand, had grabbed it when he came close. He'd never get it. Maybe mom would. Times like that, you find out if you really have what it takes to hurt someone, to keep hurting them, to hurt them so bad you don't need to be afraid anymore. It's not much of a step from hurting to killing and a pipe isn't subtle and.... You've decided you want to find out how to hurt, maim and maybe even kill other people. No, this isn't about self defence: if you want to defend yourself, don't get into situations where you have to defend yourself. This is about taking up a weapon and using it on another person, or at least an entity. It's about finding your limits and how far you'll go, about those lines we draw in our minds for good and evil, and mostly about the kind of person we really are deep inside. Make no mistake, the point of combat is to defeat someone. It often results in death, maybe yours if you don't have what it takes to win. So what does it take? Guts, courage, psychopathic tendencies, a desire to fight for a greater goal. Any of those can apply. In game terms, it's your PCs Killer Instinct stat that determines this. The higher it is, the more willing you are to do grievous bodily harm to others. The reasons are your own, the result is combat. When Do you Hit People? Once combat begins, it proceeds in order of Speed scores to determine who goes first or last. As Speed scores are static, the GM can have a 2d6 roll added to them for the whole combat (or each round) and/or impose penalties on certain characters (theirs or players) for various things. Just remember that combat should be fast and quick. Speed stats can even be largely ignored in the interests of a more cinematic combat. Keep in mind that armour reduces a PCs speed stat by it's amount even as it protects from damage. How long each separate round of combat lasts is up to the GM, but a general agreement of 3-5 seconds makes sense for most combat. Hitting People - The Big Crunch When attacking someone you simply roll a two six-sided dice (2d6) and add (Perception, Strength, or Willpower) + or - (Compassion and/or Honour and/or Killer Instinct if any are applicable) + any skill or skill group score (1-10). So in effect you can have a score of 12 + 5 + 5 + 10 for a total of 32. You compare this total to the defence scre of your target. If you got over that score, you hit. if you tied or got under, you miss. Nice and simple.           Damage Damage is based on the 2d6 die roll. You take it and subtract the result from the toughness of the foe (for hand to hand damage). If all their toughness has been taken, the damage is taken from the Easy, Medium, Hard and Mortal in general. If a weapon does damage beginning as a specific level (knife does easy, for example), it's taken from their instead unless the player wishes to reduce it to a lower level as detailed in the damage section. More on damage and healing can be found below. For every 5 points over the foes defence, you do +2 damage for an attack. Cause And Effect - Having Them Hit You Back Someone hitting you does the same roll (2d6+ (Perception, Strength, or Willpower) + or - (Compassion and/or Honour and/or Killer Instinct if any are applicable) + any skill or skill group score (1-10) and tries to get over your defence score. if they do, they hit you. If so, you take damage. Nice and simple. Note that someone can also opt to fight defensively and adds their 2d6 roll to their defence score rather than attacking. Lastly, armour reduces the amount of damage you take from an attack, but it also reduces your speed by the same amount. Damage And Healing - The Big Owie Bondye Bon. (God is good.) - Haitian Proverb Damage is taken off each section as it is dealt. Toughness is the first layer of protection against attacks and accounts for fatigue, bruises, scrapes and the like. Once it is all used, damage is taken off the easy listing and so on and so forth. Once all mortal have been subtracted, your PC is dead. Almost all non hand-to-hand damage (knives, bats etc.) begin at the Easy level or higher. Keep in mind that armour does reduce damage from attacks but one damage always gets past it. Damage dealt by weapons begins at a set level. For example, guns do medium damage. However, if you don't want to take damage at that level (and who would?) you can take it off the next level down at a 2 for 1 ratio and the one below at a 4 for one ratio. So 1 hard damage could be changed to 2 medium or 4 easy. Damage Type Rating Toughness _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Easy Damage _ _ _ _ Medium Damage _ _ _ _ Hard Damage _ _ _ _ Mortal Damage _ _ _ _ Damage dealt to a PC is healed at a different rate for each level of damage. Toughness heals after one scene. Mages heal toughness loss due to spell casting every 2 rounds as opposed to a game scene, if it is a shorter length of time. Easy damage heals at the rate of one per night's sleep. Medium damage heals at the rate of once a week. You almost definitely require hospital care Hard damage heals at the rate of once every two weeks with hospital care. Mortal damage heals once every month or two months during intensive hospital care. Expect the PC to be scarred as a result of taking this kind of damage and surviving. While this can be annoying for a game, fun scenes can be devised in hospitals for recuperating PCs or they can play a temporary character while their regular one recovers (or fails to) from wounds. Weapons and Armour Neg di san fe. (People talk and don't act.) - Haitian Proverb Keep in mind that most PCs won't have armour beyond normal clothing. As well, carrying weapons concealed is often illegal. There are no rules for fancy bullets, automatic fire and the like yet. As a basic assumption, fancy bullets give +1 damage (and cost more to buy or make). Emptying a clip and other fancy shots are fancy, but your chance of missing is much greater than it would be otherwise. Exactly how much is up to the GM and if the PC has actually used automatic weapons in a combat situation before.           Weapons All weapons do the 2d6 attack roll as damage, but they do differing levels of damage. Weapon Examples Beginning Damge Type Fists, General cuts and scrapes, Pepper spray Toughness (T) Knife, Bat, Hammer, Pipe Easy (E) Sword, Pistol, Bow, Flame thrower Medium (M) Shotgun etc., Chainsaw, Acid bath Hard (H) Bombs, Stakes in the heart Mortal (Mo) Other weapons can be placed in this list wherever the GM feels the fit.           Armour Armour Examples Protection Basic clothing 1 Kevlar 2 (normal) 3 (against bullets)   [Counts as two for speed restrictions] Layers of clothing, Heavy winter clothing 2 - 3 SWAT gear 3 (4 with helmet) Note that while not wearing clothing means you have no speed reduction, the PC will likely have a penalty to defence simply because of the psychological effects of trying to fight nude. The penalty for clothing refers to normal clothing generally. A PC who knows Karate fighting in their gi against a person wouldn't have a penalty since their clothing wouldn't interfere with their movements. (If the other person has a big flame thrower they may have a problem anyway...) Skill Groups Sak vid pa kanp (A empty sack can't stand up. (You can't get much work done on an empty stomach.)) - Hailtan Proverb Skills are at once the easiest and hardest part of making a PC. Easy because there are no set formal rules limiting player choices, and hard for the exact same reason. Each PC begins with 1-5 skill groups, with stats ranging from 1 to 10. If a player is a mage, vampire, were and the like this must be a skill (likely their first or second). The first group a PC has should be their archetype and/or profession. A police officer would have Police Officer, Detective or the like as their first skill group. This would allow them to access any skill covered by the penumbra of police officer. A more specific name (beat cop, undercover investigator) allows for more specific ideas of skills than generic names. A werewolf would just need to have Werewolf as their skill group. The next groups can be things the PC has learned, character ideas and the like. For example, High School Student could be one. Painter (artist, fellow who wants to cut his ear off, visionary etc.) another. Rich (nobility, new money, lottery winner) another. Psychotic killer with laughs a lot could be one. Be sure to make skill groups broad yet descriptive enough that they aren't too broad. For example, Police Officer gives a PC a wide range of skills, but they aren't necessarily going to be good investigators by default if all their experience has been giving out traffic tickets. Skill groups can be modified lower than the group level for such things if the GM feels it is warranted. This modification would go away once the PC has gained the experience in, say, tax fraud. Lastly, the order the skills are in is the order that they're important to the PC. Just because a skill is important doesn't mean it has to have more points in it than other skills - it just means the PC has learned it recently or just learned a lot about Scouts in the past.           Little Skills These are specific skills a PC might learn that don't fit into one of the PCs groups.           Quirks Quirks are just little character traits your PC has you want put on the sheet. For PCs with powers (such as weres) you can write their powers in here to help remember them, as well as any phobias etc. the PC develops. Luck And Probability Manipulation Bondye fe san di. (God acts and doesn't talk.) - Hailtian Proverb Luck is basically the wild card stat for PCs. It allows them to either alter a roll, such as: "I almost got it ... OK, I spend 1 luck for a +2 (or, 1 luck to re-roll my 2d6) and...." And something happens. This should be something coincidental that can be explained by the PC as a coincidence. This is unconscious manipulation of the world, something anyone can do and often does under stress. If the player can't think up anything, luck can be spent to reduce the damage of an attack (but, as with armour, one damage always will get through). The PC is not aware of what they're doing.           Probability Manipulation Mages understand the world at a level other people don't. What people call luck and coincidence and synchronicity mages call altering probability. This ability acts like luck in all respects except mages can use it at will. It is only spent (in the luck sense) to reduce damage or if the PC doesn't want to spend toughness to alter probability. Mages (or others with this skill) can alter a probability by spending one toughness instead of one point from this skill. The probability is still altered, and the mage regains the toughness spent every two rounds or every scene (whichever is shorter). A mage can spent easy, medium, and hard damage as well, which heals at it's normal rates. Keep in mind that even though mages understand what they're doing, this power is still limited to things within the boundaries of the probable. Someone dropping dead isn't too probable, but tripping might be. It's up to the player and GM as to what is "probable". One gun shooting blanks can happen, 12 won't. Generally, the event might have people marvelling at your luck but they shouldn't be looking for some wood and a good witch roasting. That's what possibility manipulation is for. Possibility Manipulation Science gives man what he needs, but magic gives him what he wants. - Tom Robbins This is real magic. In game terms, it's the ability to make anything possible occur. Some mages like to put the emphasis on anything. Scared yet? Before getting into the power of magic, there are some limitations to it that users know of. Other people may know of them, but it's not too likely - that they'd know or that they'd think the limits are more than myth). First off, there is no three-fold rule. However, there is a one-fold rule, often summed up as "as you sow, so shall you reap". Do good things with magic and good things happen to you. Do bad things and, well, bad stuff happens. Secondly, iron weakens magic. This is generally just enough to give mages headaches and make them irritable but prolonged exposure can severely weaken most mages. In game terms, sitting in a cab is a -1 to use their magic skill; being very close to iron would be a -2, as would being in an sky scraper; wearing handcuffs would be a 3 and so on. Thirdly, people inhibit magic. They don't believe in it, and people alter the universe just by existing. In game terms, the possibilities in large groups and around or before them are low end as opposed to high end stuff like fireballs down main street. It's hard to alter the environment when the environment doesn't want to be. Fourthly, magic is a product of need more than other things, especially for starting mages. Just as people can inhibit magic they can also shape it into something the mage might not want. More experienced mages know to craft the possibility very rigidly, but this often takes time the mage doesn't have. Fifthly, magic can be detected by super natural beings. This can be because of the result of a spell (a sudden storm) or them being sensitive to the opening of possibilities. Mages can channel spells through staffs, rituals and the like to dampen this but it is very hard to hide entirely. Lastly, mages cannot kill other mages. Well, they can, but they lose their magic. Entirely. There is no known way to regain it, but of course many stories on how to. As well, each use of magic lowers a mages life force if the mage forces the possibilities to open wider than they normally are. Eventually, they'll likely just drop dead. It's one of the big reasons there are few truly powerful old mages. There are ways to regain it, but they involve service to others for the most part. Now you're probably wondering why anyone would want to play a mage. The first reason is that mages are the first - some say only - defence against the return of the Loa. It's their magics that keep the world together and in one piece. And you can use magic. Granted, use of high-end possibilities (like levelling mountains or clearing up ocean pollution) isn't common but even low-end possibilities can yield powerful magic. All mages have mage sight. This ability allows them to see creatures somewhat in this world, the supernatural hidden among the natural, the past and future and the "dreaming moment between" and other wonders and terrors most people go through their whole lives without ever glimpsing. As with most things in life, sight is both a burden and a blessing. It can be used to extend a mages senses, allowing conversations to be over-heard or letting the mage sense if anyone is in another room. But it also can't be denied: mages see what they see. Granted, they get better at controlling sight but it still means that mages simply can't drive vehicles, for example. It's too dangerous. The other effect of sight is that if you lock gazes with a mortal you can see right into their soul. It only works once on any mortal and they get to see into yours as well but it's still a powerful tool.           Casting Spells, or, A Possibilizing We Will Go There are no spell lists or ideas of what is possible for magic in this game. Nor are their guidelines for using luck ("It must have at least a 30% chance to actually happen") or possibility ("Ok, 10%") or probability ("One in a million, and that's final!"). The world doesn't work like that. I once dealt a hand containing two copies of 31 in a game of 31. The odds for just one were something like 7 million I was told. In game terms, luck could never account for this, or for winning the lottery. But things like that do happen. Possibility is basically the ability to do anything, within the limits of magic as noted at the beginning of this section. Everything has rules. Of course, magic can (and sometimes does) break them, even it's own rules. At it's heart, magic is about change. And change is seldom nice. There are reasons the magics of old faded, reasons why the return of the gods and the increase in magic they represent are not welcomed. Now, for the specifics, possibilities get tossed into three broad ranges, low-, medium- and high-end possibilities. The low ones include things like confusing a persons mind, using names to bind people, minor curses, creating some light, opening doors and anything that is possible but unlikely. Medium grade stuff is harder to work around lots of people since it gets into the real magics like healing and wards and altering the weather. High grade stuff are things of legend like altering the seasons or making the rain go away. There's even more powerful stuff, but it only happens when something has shifted in the world to make the possibilities open very wide. Gods do that, which is one reason mages fear them. Note that there are certain things forbidden among mages. Time travel, raising the dead, opening doors to other worlds and very blatant "MAGIC EXISTS" effects (and seldom possible since they're often high-end possibilities). Anyone breaking these can expect to die very quickly and often rather painfully. As well, supernaturals often find new mages and teach them this, along with the laws of magic, since mages create magic and make things more possible just by existing. No vampire wants to wake up and find himself trapped in a world that has altered enough that his powers have become that of Anne Rice vampires. Of course, having a vampire or big furry wolf or a well-meaning ghost come up to you and begin explaining magic is hardly helpful but it's better than nothing and there just aren't enough mages around to find and train new ones.           Mage Parlance Mage is the basic term for a magic user who is involved in the war to protect this planet from Things. Neutral - A (often new) mage who has not allied with any side. Necromancers are mages who have decided to serve the Loa Egomancers are mages who serve no one but themselves and refuse to take sides. Predictably, both mages and necromancers don't like them. This term refers only to those with enough power to be mages or necromancers. Hedge mages/Witches/Wizards are all low level magic users who can only use magic via rituals, materials, charms and the like. While they are very limited their magic does tend to be quiet thanks to the rituals. Magician - Someone who might have had magic but doesn't believe in it or themselves; also someone who lost their magic. They use stage tricks instead of real magic. They're kind of sad but their magic always works and they don't have limits.... Ally - Anyone aiding a mage. Lackey - Anyone aiding a necromancer. Familiar - Supernatural helping any magic user. Their presence offsets some of the limits imposed by crowds on usage of possibilities. Character Seeds & Player Contributions There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go. - Richard Bach This section of the site consists of a deeper look at character seeds as well as asking for player contributions to a game. Characer Seeds Character seeds aren't your PCs background in minature, but starting ideas for adventures and camaigns, important things from your past that have made you who you are, been left unresolved or the like. A seed is basically an idea of yours about the character that, if circumstances become what they do, will germinate into some event of importance. Each player should put at least one seed down, like "When I was six a voice in my head offered to make right the glass I'd broken and it was remade but I don't know how or why or what it cost me" Or "Daniel is currently trying to explain why signs and posters seem to be changing their message just for him" or "Emily is worried that her brother will come looking for her in the big city". They're all ideas (and likely would be flushed out in the background somewhere, such as who Emily's family is and why they want her for example. Player Contributions Players can contribute species, locales, organisations, ideas and the like for the game. The more that contribute, the more points they gain to make their starting PC. (Generally 10 should be the maxiumum given.) This takes some work off the GM and motivates players to help make the world. Some Optional Rules Victims of curcumstance owe it to fate. Victims of choice owe it to themselves. - Deborah Christian, "Mainline" A is for Adrenaline. - PCs who have been hit in combat don't need to worry about little things like bleeding to death or shock until combat is over. Help, I've been shot! - A PC who gets shot at (or hit) during combat must make a willpower difficulty check (generally 2d6 + Willpower) against a difficulty of 10 not to freak out. It's a monster! - A PC who sees the unnatural must make a willpower check to not run away in fear if their willpower is less than 4. The difficulty is up to the GM.