Table of Contents
Character Creation
Step 1: Choose Bloodline
- Potential: +2 Purpose
- Aptitude Bonus: +1 Will
- Skill Bonuses: +1 to any 2 different skills of your choosing
- Blessing - Protected: Supernatural powers are less likely to affect you; to all ritual magic checks or any check from an angel or Fallen targeting you.
- Blessing - Purposed: refresh 1 Purpose at the beginning of each session (in addition to the regular 2 Potential points of their choice)
- Blessing - Talent: Receive one single Mastery ability for one skill of your choosing.
- Potential: +1 Purpose +1 Ether
- Aptitude Bonus: +1 Vigor
- Skill Bonuses: +1 Command and Survival
- Blessing - Animal Augmentations:
- Lightly-augmented beastfolk receive 2 augmentations
- Heavily-augmented beastfolk receive 3, incl. advanced augments
- Curse - Immunosuppressed: + vs disease/infection checks, and tests for disease onset happen in half the normal time.
- Curse - Monstrous: the inhuman appearance of beastfolk causes many to view you with scorn or pity.
- Lightly-augmented beastfolk: may attempt to hide your augmentation, but will suffer prejudice from those who know your true situation. -1 to Esteem for visible/discovered augmentation.
- Heavily-augmented beastfolk: cannot hide your alterations, and considered less than human. -2 to Esteem.
- Potential:
- Weak-blooded: +1 Purpose +1 Ether
- Strong-blooded: +2 Ether
- Aptitude Bonus: +1 Presence
- Skill Bonuses: Choose Lineage
- Trickster: +1 Guile and Stealth
- Brute: +1 Command and Streetwise
- Fairfolk: +1 Refinement and Temptation
- Blessing: Glamours
- Weak-blooded: choose 2 Glamours
- Strong-blooded: choose 3 Glamours
- Curse: Unnatural
- Weak-blooded changelings are socially accepted in cosmopolitan centres, but are viewed with awe/fear in rural communities.
- Strong-blooded changelings are too inhuman to be accepted anywhere, and their unnatural features and manners cannot be hidden. Suffer -1 to Esteem. They are also often persecuted by a variety of religious orders outside the Empire.
- Potential: +2 Ether
- Aptitude Bonus: +1 Focus
- Skill Bonus: +1 Mysteries
- Blessing: Angelic Immortality - if you die in any way apart from your Bane will reanimate after 3 sunsets, retaining Wounds. If you awake in a hostile environment (caged underwater, consumed in flame) it may result in an almost immediate return to death. Repeated deaths in this fashion may drive you insane…
- Blessing: Knowledge in the Flesh - Once per day, you may consume a few mouthfuls (~8 oz) of flesh or blood to either gain a temporary 1 Rank bonus to any skill that the victim possessed at a higher rank than you, or learn a single memory from the victim. Benefits fade at the following sunrise. Some even keep a journal of these stolen memories.
- Curse: Abomination - Ritual magic tests affecting only nephilim receive . Angels and Fallen receive to any test vs nephilim.
- Curse: Bane - You have a unique substance, event, or circumstance that can cause your permanent death. (see p. 121)
- Curse: Fluid Mein - You are constantly pulled between ascendance or damnation. A balanced Potential (Purpose vs Ether) = retains human appearance; the greater the difference between Potential types = more extreme manifestations of angel (Purpose greater) or demonic (Ether) characteristics. (See p. 122)
Step 2: Choose Pursuit
| Pursuit | Potential | Aptitude Bonuses | Professions |
| Ambition | Ether | Presence, Vigor | Mercenary, Pirate, Socialite, Thief |
| Discovery | Ether | Focus, Reason | Academic, Alchemist, Explorer, Magus |
| Dominion | Purpose | Presence, Vigor | Constable, Diplomat, Politician, Soldier, Spy, Witchfinder Star |
| Faith | Purpose | Focus, Will | Priest, Tradesman, Witchfinder Canon |
| Industry | Purpose | Grace, Reason | Industrialist, Inventory, Politician |
| Freedom | Ether | Grace, Will | Activist, Artist, Radical, Unionist |
Step 3: Choose Background
| Background | Potential | Class | Means | Skill Bonuses | Assets |
| Agent | Ether | 2 | 2 | Bureaucracy, Composure x2, Guile, Intuition, Parley, Refinement | 3 |
| Clergy | Purpose | 2 | 2 | Academics x2, Composure, Intuition, Mysteries, Parley, Refinement | 3 |
| Criminal | Ether | 0 | 0 | Athletics x2, Burglary x2, Guile, Melee x2, Streetwise x2 | 4 |
| Gentry | Purpose | 3 | 3 | Academics, Bureaucracy x2, Composure, Refinement x2, Riding | 2 |
| Laborer | Purpose | 1 | 1 | Artisan x2, Athletics x2, Guile, Vocation x2 | 4 |
| Peer | Purpose | 4 | 3 | Academics, Bureaucracy, Command x2, Composure, Refinement x2, Riding | 1 |
| Police | Purpose | 1 | 1 | Athletics x2, Command, Composure, Investigation x2, Melee, Streetwise x2 | 3 |
| Professional | Purpose | 2 | 2 | Academics x2, Bureaucracy, Parley x2, Refinement, Vocation/Medicine | 3 |
| Rogue | Ether | 1 | 0 | Composure, Guile x2, Intuition x2, Parley, Streetwise x2, Temptation x2 | 3 |
| Scientist | Ether | 2 | 2 | Academics x2, Bureaucracy, Composure, Engineering, Science x2 | 3 |
| Soldier | Ether | 1 | 1 | Athletics x2, Command, Composure, Firearms x2, Melee, Tactics x2 | 3 |
| Vagabond | Ether | 0 | 0 | Guile, Streetwise x2, Survival x2 | 6 |
Step 4: Choose Aptitudes
Distribute 5 more points into Aptitudes.
Each character begins with 1 point in each aptitude, has gained 1 from their Bloodline and 2 for their Pursuit. After Step 4, your character should have 14 total Aptitude points
Step 5: Choose Skills
In addition to skill points gained in Step 1 and 3, gain another 10 ranks in skills of your choice (up to rank 3 only, unless you take the Expertise asset in Step 6).
Step 6: Choose Assets and Liabilities
Choose the number of Assets equal to the number gained in Step 3 - Backgrounds. A character may also take up to 2 Liabilities; for each Liability taken, you may gain another Asset. Each Asset and Liability may only be taken once unless stated otherwise in its description.
Step 7: Choose Affinities
Create one Rank 2 Affinity, and one Rank 1 Affinity. Affinities represent a character's motivating goals, loyalties, and affections that drive your decisions.
Step 8: Choose Reputations
Create on Rank 2 Reputation, and one Rank 1 Reputation. Reputations are traits that define the things for which a character is known in society.
Step 9: Wealth and Accoutrements
A character's Means (from Step 3: Background) determines what types of expenditures you can support without impacting your standard of living. Choose any accoutrements from Chapter 6 listed with a Cost rank equal or lower than your Means. Review selection with the Narrator, both to ensure you are covering any basic items that would be helpful at the beginning of play, as well as to help establish the resources and standard of living for the character. Narrators may place certain limits on the number and type of accoutrements chosen. Describing your home and other property can be a wonderful way to illustrate who your character is.
Step 10: Finishing Touches
Determine derived traits:
- Physical Defense: Vigor + Athletics or other relevant skill
- Guard: 1/2 Focus (rounded down) +1 for a weapon
- Social Defense: Will + Composure or other relevant skill
- Potential: In addition to the 4 ranks received in Steps 1-3, choose 1 more fixed rank of Potential.
Description & Personality:
Conceptualize your character as a three dimensional being. Imagine physical appearance and voice. Create at least one distinguishing feature.
Affinities & Reputations tell you what you care about and how other people feel about you; Aptitudes and skills tell you what you excel at and what your weaknesses are. Assets and Liabilities can offer personality quirks and unique situations. Cobble these elements together into a cohesive backstory for your character. Create a name, family, and friends/close acquaintances.