Character Generation Example

The Gamesmaster has decided that the player should create a High Initiate character, as his campaign is now in full flow and a beginning character may not suit well. Therefore, the character uses the second number given in the slashes i.e. if told he has 210/500/1100/2500 points to spend, he has 500 points to spend. The campaign is set in the Lunar Empire and the player decides to play a Dara Happan who has joined the Lunar army as a Monitor. We are using Sandy Petersen's sorcery system. This means he will be Civilized, a young man from Ulifilas whose nature is influenced a lot by his Yelmite upbringing, making him prone to preaching and a judgmental nature. His name is Daxedarius Aniabath.

Statistics

The player decides to use a non-random method for stats. He assigns a 15 to INT, 13 to DEX and 12 to everything else. He then takes three points off STR, making it 9, and adds it to INT, making it 18. Then he takes one point of both CON and SIZ and adds one point to APP and one point to DEX. According to the rules he then gets another two points for being of the High Initiate level, which he adds to POW. This makes an overall:

STR 9; CON 11; SIZ 11; INT 18; POW 14; DEX 14; APP 13.

Skills

The player takes the Intellectual skill package, adding an immediate 30 points to Evaluate, Ride and Speak Own. Then he adds another 30 to a selection of other skills, choosing Craft/Poetry, Ceremony, Human Lore, World Lore, Read/Write Dara Happan and Intensity.

Next we add skill points to the character. We decide to a lot 40 points to miscellanous skills, 60 points to weapon skills (monitors on the battlefield pick up some battle training), 250 points to Arts and 150 points to spells.

To arts, we increase Intensity to 72, it is currently at 44 (the base 30 from above, plus the Magic modifier of 14), so it costs 6 points to get to 50 and another 44 to get to 72. A total of 56 points.

We increase Range to 45, after all long range spells learnt on the battlefield are very, very useful. This costs 31 points, as it has a base of 14% with the magic modifier (although remember we need to spend at least 1 point to gain a chance of using the skill). This makes a total of 87 points so far.

We increase Hold, Permanence and Multispell to 60, costing 46 points a piece. We've now spend a total of 213 points so far. We put 7 points into Speed and 10 into Ease, as the Monitor decides not to specialise in these areas. The remaining twenty are split equally into Enchant and Summon.

Daxedarius takes 2H Spear as his main weapon, being a cultural weapon it will be easier to gain a high percentage. Thirty points are put in attack and parry, giving an attack of 58% and a parry of 53%, with one point left over which couldn't be spent. This makes Daxedarius a formidable warrior, but not a primary fighter. Probably the result of a few close encounters the unit couldn't protect him against. This remaining point is alloted to miscellanous skills. Remember, we don't have to adhere to the categories we appointed the points to.

With the miscellanous points we stick 21 points into Speak New Pelorian, giving him a rating of 33%. Another 20 go into Play Harp and the last 20 into Scan.

He can choose upto 10 sorcery spells free of charge, as long as he spends the appropiate points. He chooses not to select the maximum amount, wishing to save his free INT. Fortunately, spells cost half the amount. He puts 20 points into Mind Probe, giving him an effective 40 points. His bonus is 14, so 36 points takes it up to 50, and the last 4 take it up to 52. Then he takes Dominate Ghost, deciding that this will be his main form of attack. He puts a huge 30 points into it, raising it to 62%. Since this is a specialist spell the maximum amount of manipulation is 62/5= 13 levels. He then puts 20 points into Tap INT taking it up to 52, 10 points into Mystic Vision taking it upto 34 and 10 points each into Boost Armour and Resist Damage (both non-specialist spells).

He spends the remaining 50 points on two ghost binding enchantments, whose POW are randomly rolled up and equal 15 and 16. To Dominate either of them, the sorceror need only use a Dominate 8, the maximum he can do, but being in a binding enchantment means they cannot resist.

Magic

According to the rules, he has the High Vow and the Vessel Vow as well as four other vows. He selects Sacrifice POW, Shun Storm, Shun Immortality and Abjure Spirit Magic. His High Vow is worth 12 Presence, his Vessel Vow is worth another 13 and the other Vows are worth 8 giving him a total of 33 Presence. We now caculate what spells he has already cast. We assume that they were all cast at Full Moon giving him his best chance of success.

He precasts Dominate Ghost at Intensity 8 multispelled with 2 points of Multispell to allow him to dominate both the ghosts. This costs 10 Presence. He uses Ceremony to increase both Resist Damage and Boost Damage to 68, allowing him upto 7 levels of manipulation and so casts each at Intensity 7, costing another 14 Presence. This leaves him with 9 Presence.

For his held spell he does a ceremony on Tap INT raising it to 101%, which if cast at Full Moon allows him upto 33 levels of manipulation!!!!!! However, his Hold is only 60, and his Intensity is only 72. This means he can use upto 6 levels of Hold and 8 levels of Intensity, but using Summon he can add upto another 3, which he adds to Hold. This means he has a Held Tap INT 8, ready to cast at any point.

As for the 8 points of extra POW, he spends some on joining cults. 1 POW for the Seven Mothers and 1 POW to join Buserian, the Dara Happan god of Knowledge. He then spends a point of POW on a Permanence enchantment, casting Mystic Vision. His Mystic Vision is a specialist spell and if cast at full moon then, with ceremony, has a chance of 68% making a maximum of 23 levels of manipulation. Again, his Arts are not that powerful. Using Intensity 1, Range 5 raised to 7 via Summon and Permanence 6 raised to 7 via Summon he has a Mystic Vision 1 with 1.3km range at the expense of 1 POW. With the remaining 5 points of POW he buys some Rune Magic, getting Mindblast, Mindlink and two uses of Heal Wound.

Equipment

He takes a suit of Bezainted Armour, a knife and a Long Spear as his basic equipment. He decides to take the POWx6 pennies and keep it for now, giving him 84 Lunars. Personal equipment consists of a medallion inset with a picture of his childhood love (died in an attack by raiders), a small bronze harp, a small amount of paper to write poetry on.He also takes a small gold whistle for emergencies.

Advantages and Disadvantages

We decide that Daxedarius should have some military ranking, and decide he should take Military Ranking of 60 points, generally the position of power the Monitor would hold. This leaves us 60 points below what we need, so we have to select some disadvantages. We take Chaos Tainted, far too much time spent using Tap, I'm afraid. Next is Bloodlust, for our unfortunate young man never was a fair fighter, too much bullying as a youngster gave him a foul nature. Whenever he suceeds in killing his victim he can't help but continue on and on, proving his superiority. Lastly is the 10 pt. flaw Nightmares, probabley dreaming of what he does when he goes into Bloodlust....

Daxedarius is now finished and looks like this:

Daxedarius Aniabath
Male Human, Initiate of Seven Mothers and Buserian, Age 22

STR 9
CON 11
SIZ 11
INT 18
POW 14
DEX 14
APP 13

R Leg 11/4
L Leg 11/4
Abdomen 11/4
Chest 11/5
R Arm 11/3
L Arm 11/3
Head 11/4

Move: 3
Hit Points: 11
Fatigue: 20-11=9
Magic Points: 11
Presence: 33 (-24 for spells cast leaves 9 free presence)
DEX SR: 3

Spells Cast: Dominate Ghost 8 multispelled to effect both ghosts, Resist Damage 7, Boost Damage 7 and a 1.3km Mystic Vision 1 cast with Permanence. Has a Held Tap INT 8.

Arms and Armour: Wears bezainted armour, carries a Ling Spear, knife, two ghost binding enchantments (POW 15; POW 16) and wears a small golden whistle around his neck. Carries 84 Lunars on his person.

Weapon	SR	att/par	damage	ENC/AP
Long Spear	6	58/53	1d10+1	2.0/10

Sorcery (Free INT=13): Mind Probe 52, Dominate Ghost 62, Tap INT 52, Mystic Vision 34, Boost Armour 34, Resist Damage 34.
Rune Magic (all one-use): Mindblast(2), Heal Wound x2, Mindlink.
Vows: High Vow, Vessel Vow, Sacrifice POW, Shun Storm, Shun Immortality, Abjure Spirit Magic.

Skills and Bonuses:
Agility (+2): Ride 37.
Communication (+12): Speak Dara Happan 72, Speak New Pelorian 33.
Knowledge (+8): Craft/poetry 48, Evaluate 43, Human Lore 43, World Lore 43, Read/Write Dara Happan 38.
Magic (+14): Ceremony 49, Ease 24, Enchant 24, Hold 60, Intensity 72, Multispell 60, Permanence 60, Range 45, Speed 22, Summon 24.
Manipulation (+11): Play Harp 31.
Perception (+11): Scan 53.
Stealth (-1)

Advantages: Military Ranking (60).
Disadvantages: Chaos Tainted, Bloodlust, Nightmares.