Fianyarr: Character Creation & Basic Rules

Fantasy Land: Where every place is a marvel
(Skyrim)

One of the best places to start when revealing your design for a new system is with character creation.  After all, most of the mechanics are simply those from the World of Darkness so to provide a different style of fantasy campaign its more about the rules for character creation.  This game has been lodged in my head all week now and I'm happy to share.  So have a look at my character creation notes below and feel free to ask any questions in the comments box below.  This is all obviously in its Beta stage so it may need a little tweaking.  You can check up on further articles on this subject here.

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Books You WIll Need

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I won't be retelling all of the mechanics here for both copywrite and time reasons.  In order to play this modified game you will need these books: World of Darkness core rulebook, Changeling: the Lost core rulebook, Armory, Armory Reloaded, Book of Spirits and Second Sight.  There are other merits and abilities mentioned here from other books but they aren't as necessary to use this game.  You might just need to convert some of the listed monster abilities to whatever you have at the moment.

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Power Stat = Wyrd

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The playable races are all descended from a race of incredibly powerful demi-gods known as the First. While the First explored this world something happened to the celestial bridge upon which they traveled and the path to the heavens was destroyed.  With the loss of that bridge came the loss of the First's immortality and as they became mortal they settled into this world as the various races - each one touched by the land in which they found themselves.  There are, naturally, a bunch of conflicting myths about what destroyed the bridge and why.

A character's Wyrd represents how closely they have grown to the First.  As this is Fantasy and the pledgecrafting side of Changeling is still intact I've decided to keep the name though feel free to suggest other options.  A character's Wyrd affects how much magical fruit (ie goblin fruit) can be carried at any one time (equal to Wyrd), how much glamour can be contained and spent, how many simple pledges (ie vows) can be held at any one time (Wyrd + 3), is applied to resistance rolls versus magical powers and affects many abilities and powers.  A character whose Wyrd is high enough has a higher maximum on attributes - Wyrd 6 has a maximum cap of 6 and Wyrd 10 has a maximum cap of 10.  You get the idea.

While high Wyrd does affect the Hedge (which is simply another co-existent and highly mystical reality in this world), it can't be used to drive humans crazy with Bedlam (as humans are also children of the First) nor do they automatically gain glamour addiction though they do gain frailties which is the world's price for allowing you to break reality in other ways through your increased Wyrd.  Frailties only enter into the game for those of Wyrd 6 or higher and is basically that there are certain things they are compelled to do or not to do.  For example, one incredibly powerful Dhampyr might feel compelled to avoid running water.

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Glamour

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Glamour can be regained in a number of ways.  Some places are so mystical or emotionally resonant that they well up with glamour that tastes of the location's resonance - similar to loci from Book of Spirits. Some fruits or vegetables in particularly pure locations contain Glamour which can be consumed.  A person can also draw Glamour from the strong emotions of groups of people around them which is a subtle method of doing it where those who have generated the loose glamour don't even notice that its been consumed as it is outside of themselves.  A person also regains a single point of Glamour each night.

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Blessings

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Each race and class have a number of blessings (adapted from Changeling: the Lost's kith blessings).  All members of that race or class have those blessings available to them.  Any differences between the class / race blessings and the canonical Changeling kith blessings are intentional so feel free to examine the difference and see if it works for you or not but don't assume it was a mistake and simply use the original unless you prefer it.

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Skills, Attributes & Health Levels

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All characters have the same creation dots as they normally would receive if they were standard World of Darkness characters.  When they select a race they will have a choice of one of two bonus attributes where they can apply an additional dot (the exception to this is the Gremlin who receives both).

All characters' health levels are double what they normally would be to improve survivability.  This gives them a health level range between 12 and 20.  The number of health levels containing wound penalties are also doubled.  Therefore when the character has only six health levels left, they will take a -1 penalty.  If they have only four health levels left, they take a -2 penalty.  If they have only two health levels left, they take a -3 penalty.

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Skill Changes

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This custom world nominally holds its technological era at the Elizabethan era though there may be some anachronisms contained within.  That's fine.  This isn't meant to be a realistic fantasy world with sensible tech trees.  Its meant to contain clockwork wonders and perhaps even trains without being overwhelmed by such technological developments.  In other words, the characters may come across a land containing steam driven trains without any other evidence of steampunk anywhere within the world similar to what you might find in a Zelda or Castlevania game.

However, this still means that a few skills are far too anachronistic.  Drive is replaced by Ride (which covers horses, bicycles, piloting a boat or driving a caravan).  Firearms is replaced by Ranged (need a better name) which covers throwing knives, bows, spears, crossbows, and even blunderbusses if you want to include that anachronism.  Athletics now simply contains the usual acrobatic bag of tricks and no longer can be used for throwing weapons.  The Computer skill is replaced by Tactics which can be used for advice on good places for ambushes, cover and concealment, how to flank the enemy, etc.  Science has been replaced with Alchemy which can be used to make dyes, painkillers, understand the stars and the hidden 'rules' of the world (ie natural laws that are sacrosanct full under alchemy while unnatural laws that are only occasionally in effect fall under occult).

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Merits

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Most merits are restricted to a particular class.  You can read which merits a given class has access to under the Restricted Class Merits entry within the class' post.  These merits can still be purchased by members of another class but it costs twice as many experience points.  This is to protect the flavor of each class and to prevent a fighter from being as good a caster as a witch - though they can always take a dip in the occasional psychic or ritual merit.  Restricted class merits can be purchased at character creation on the normal one for one basis to allow some diversity as some legendary characters are distinguished by an unusual ability they've had since an early age.

As these merits have been gathered from a huge selection of World of Darkness books, you can find the entries and page listings at http://wodindex.wikispaces.com/Merits and http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Merits if you want to track them down.  I won't be including the book and page number beside each listing for reasons of length but you can quickly track them down with that link using the Find command.

There are still some merits that are open to all.  These include: Allies, Athletics Dodge, Area of Expertise, Brawling Dodge, Contacts (all contacts are separate one dot merits), Destiny, Fame, Fast Reflexes, Fleet of Foot, Iron Stamina, Language, Mentor, Multi-Lingual, Noble Heritage, Quick Draw, Resources, Retainer, Status, Striking Looks, Tolerance for Biology, and Weaponry Dodge.

To build a retainer, pick a class and create a regular mortal from this world but don't give it any class advantages.  For every dot purchased in the retainer after the first give the individual two bonus skill dots and two bonus merit dots.  Give the retainer an extra attribute dot at the third and fifth level.

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Morality

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The races of the First have a Morality score rather than a Harmony or Clarity score.  Their Morality can lift or lower depending upon their actions though it shouldn't raise or lower by more than one in a single session or, ideally, adventure.  A character's Morality should be more about their deeds and intentions dedicating themselves to a certain path rather than a single or relatively unimportant action.  A character who steals a pen once because they thought it was pretty but otherwise did good deeds during an adventure shouldn't lose anything.  A character who steals from random passersby most assuredly should.

A character may begin with lower Morality.  If they do so, they do not need to roll for degeneration which is a perk for players to encourage them to set their bad guy at the appropriate Morality.  Characters also only need to roll to avoid derangements only once their Morality dips below 5.

Also its important in a game like this that characters aren't penalised by the style of game play inherent in a fantasy game.  Therefore actions that are done for all the right reasons won't be a Morality sin so long as the character did it only because of its necessity.  In other words stealing from the dead isn't a Morality Sin if the item stolen could save a village - stealing gold teeth out of the mouths of corpses to buy a better sword would count as a Morality Sin of 5 (grave digging and mishandling the dead is up there with Mass Property damage as it can actually unleash an undead enemy upon the community).  Killing monsters isn't a sin unless its done with particular savagery or for no good reason.  The same goes for executing a serial killer or besting an enemy soldier in battle.  Killing your wife because of a desire to marry another, naturally most assuredly is a Morality Sin at 3.

There is one more addition to the Morality tree.  One's word is one's bond and breaking your sworn word is a Morality sin at 4.

Other than potentially leading to derangements, a lower Morality score affects the ability to use some relics, deal with certain creatures, ride particular mounts and perform exorcisms or abjurations.

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Starting Experience Points

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A game of might and magic requires a bit more in the way of experience points than your average World of Darkness game.  A base level character without any experience works for someone who has been confirmed in their class but has otherwise lived out their life in a mundane occupation.  Anything less than 50 experience points works for someone who has yet to really start adventuring.  I would recommend 50 experience points for a campaign with adventurers who are reasonably skilled enough to go walking off into dark caves and mysterious domains and expect to survive.  Those who are meant to be experienced adventurers should have 100 experience points.  Those who are meant to already be legends about town should have 150 experience points.

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Non-Adventurer Classes

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While there's  nothing to stop a random stallkeeper from being a witch or a fighter, the grand majority of people haven't been blessed by an additional path (class) and therefore only have racial blessings and must pay double for any of the merits that are restricted by class.  While the classes can be found in almost any position, the grand majority of people don't have one.