To start with, consider your Character's Core Concept. The Core Concept should summarise in a few words that summarise what your Character is about. Some examples Core Concepts are “A reluctant Knight of the Bloodied Star”, “A lost heir of the Frost Throne”, “Hand of the Dragonslayer”, or “Infected on the run”.
After coming up with your Core Concept, it is time to come up with your Character’s Flawed Concept. This is something to do with your personality, backstory, or situation that makes your life more complicated than it needs to be. Some examples Flawed Concepts are “Infected with Vampirism”, “Quick to anger”, “Pursued by the Thieves Guild”, or “Always wanting a new experience”.
Finally, there is the Relationship Concept. This represents your Character’s connections to people, places, or events in the world. They tie you to things from your Background. They might inspire you to heights of heroism or lead you to act against your own best interests if they are threatened. Some examples are “I will risk everything for my family”, “Father-like Mentor”, “I have nothing left”, or “I am bound to a relic of my faith”.
To generate Character Traits, roll the following dice sets: 1d6, 1d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, and 6d6. For each set subtract 2 from the highest d6 result, this is the value you can attach to one of your Character Traits.
You can reroll one d6 from a set for free. If you wish to reroll more choose a Character Trait for each d6 you reroll (you can choose a Character Trait more than once), after you have allocated your Character Traits decrease the value of the chosen Trait by 1. A Trait cannot have a value lower than -2, if your chosen rerolled Trait would go lower than -2 then the overflow reductions must be applied to other Character Traits.
You could instead choose to spend 10 points to place into your Character Traits. When buying your Character Traits, treat all Traits initially as being 0, you can decrease a Trait to -1 to gain a point and can spend points to get a Trait to a maximum of 4.
No matter what method you use to generate Traits a Character should never have fewer than two Traits with a score of 3 or more.
Ancestries cover who you are descended from. Some entities may come from a lineage of one group of people, others may have a more diverse ancestry. In terms of appearance largely that is up to you as the Player. Some Ancestries may have physical descriptors of common traits, but you can pay as little or as much heed to that as you wish, others may state in their Core Attributes Physical Characteristics that are required but these can still vary in how apparent they are.
Mechanics-wise, choose the Ancestry appropriate for your Character and then choose three Ancestry Features from that Ancestry to apply to yourself alongside the Core Attributes listed in each Ancestry Profile. Upon reaching your 5th Character Level you may choose two more Ancestry Features.
If you come from a mixed Ancestry, then you may choose a combination of Ancestry Features from those Ancestries you are tied to and choose a combination of the different Core Attributes that you feel best describe your Character.
There are also Templates; these are special Ancestries that modify a normal Ancestry. The rules for using these are covered in the Templates section but they do use up choices of your limited Ancestry Features.
If no Ancestry quite matches what you are looking for feel free to make a Custom Ancestry using some of the Ancestry Features that best describe what you were looking for.
A GG should also feel free to add and remove Ancestry Features for one of the Ancestries as required to better represent that lineage for their own World.
Every Ancestry will bestow an Entity Type, this also applies to every entity found in the Bestiary. Some mechanics may refer to only affecting specific Entity Types and some Entity Types have special rules that apply to every entity of that Type.
If an entity has two or more Entity Types, any ability that would affect at least one of the Entity Types will affect the entity even if it would explicitly have no effect on another of the entity’s Entity Types.
The Entity Types and their special rules are:
| Humanoid | |
| Animal | Are the general fauna of the world from farm animals to chimaera and manticores. Animals are general creatures that can be found in the natural world, even if their origins may be magical in nature. |
| Construct | Constructs are created. They can be simple automata following pre-programmed instructions, others are fully sentient beings. Their origins are diverse and varied. Some are purely made of metal and electronics, others made of clockwork and some containing organic pieces like wood in their construction. All Constructs gain the following Passive Traits:
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| Demi-Eternal | Demi-Eternals are entities native to the Realms of the Heavens. Many of them are the servants of deities or other kinds of Eternals, employed as agents in the material realm and beyond. All Demi-Eternals gain the following Passive Trait:
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| Dreamed | These are entities tied to the Realms of Dreams. They are as varied in forms as the imaginations of the dreamers who make them. This category also includes the creatures of Nightmare and the Spirits that fight them. All Dreamed gain the following Passive Trait:
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| Dragon | Dragons are large reptilian creatures of ancient origin and tremendous power. True dragons are highly intelligent and have innate magic. Also in this category are entities distantly related to true dragons, but less powerful, less intelligent, and less magical, such as wyverns and pseudodragons. |
| Fae | A Fae entity is tied to the Fae Courts, they tend to be beings with strong Cosmic magical potential and have innate abilities to warp the laws of nature. All Fae gain the following Passive Traits:
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| Flora | Flora are the sentient plant life that you may come across, this does include fungal entities. |
| Giants | Giants tower over most kinds of folk. They are usually humanoid in shape, though this is not always completely true. All giants gain the following Passive Trait:
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| Masked | The Masked Evils come in two primary forms, Abyssians and Maledar. These evil entities inhabit the Realms of the Masquerade. All Masked gain the following Passive Trait:
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| Ooze | Oozes are gelatinous creatures that rarely have a fixed shape. All Oozes gain the following Passive Traits:
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| Outsider | Outsiders are alien beings from beyond the bounds of creation known as the Outside. They defy the rules of reality and can use this to produce a wide range of physical and supernatural traits. |
| Primordial | Primordials are from the Realms Primordial. Their forms and abilities largely depend on which Elemental Realm they originate from. |
| Undead | Undead include both the denizens of the Realms of Death alongside corpses and spirits of the deceased returned to the Material Realm via the use of necromancy. All Undead gain the following Passive Trait:
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Every Ancestry will bestow an Entity Size Category, this also applies to every Entity found in the Bestiary. Some Entity Size Categories will have special rules applied to how they interact with the world, such as what is covered in the Active Time Chapter.
If an Ancestry gives a choice of Entity Size Categories, you must pick one of the listed Size Categories at Character Generation.
The Entity Size Categories and their special rules are:
Tiny. A Tiny entity has:
Small. A Small entity has:
Medium.
Large. A Large entity has:
Huge. A Huge entity has:
Gargantuan. A Gargantuan entity has:
Titanic. See the Titanic Combat section of the Other Rules Chapter.
If you know a Language, you know how to speak, read and write in the language and its associated Sign Language equivalent. This game does not have Languages based on Ancestries. Instead, we recommend having Languages based on the different nation states that make up your world. One kingdom may have only one folk living within it but we would still recommend having the Language be based on the kingdom rather than the people that make it up. There are some more esoteric Languages based on some of the supernatural forces of the world these are:
| Diabolic | The Language understood by most Masked Evils, primarily used by the oldest and most powerful.
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| Draconic | The Language of Dragons and those folk who interact with dragons. |
| Eternal | The Language of Eternals and their servants, sometimes used by religious groups in their religious texts and rites. |
| Fae | The Language of the Fae folk. |
| Outsider | The Language if it can be considered such of those entities from the Outside. |
| Primordial | The Language of the World Soul, often used by elementals and World Speakers.
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| Runic | This Language is shared by several groups who use them for magic and crafting but originated with the Giants who use them as their normal Language. |
| Thieves’ Cant | This isn’t a supernatural Language though it is one shared across multiple nations for those initiated into criminal groups. |
The denizens of the Realms of Death will often use the Languages each entity knew in life, and potentially learn the Languages of their Domain’s Master.
In the Realms of Dreams, entities will know the Languages of the dreamer who spawned them, though spirits will know all Languages as they are born of the collective feelings of all beings.
A thing to consider with your Languages is which Languages may be Root Languages (i.e., a Language that spawns other Derivative Languages like Latin is to the romantic languages of Europe) and which Languages share a Root Language. These Languages may have easier Trait Tests for Characters to understand an unknown Language if it and the Language they do understand and speak are tied together. So, it might be worth considering if any of the above Languages perhaps influenced the Languages of your mortal nations.
If the Table does not want to deal with Languages, you can just create one Language that is known by all the nations in an area.
Any Language can be learnt via the same manner as learning a Skill as presented in the General Play Chapter, and as presented in that Chapter in can be taught like a Skill as well. Learning a Language provides the full ability to speak, read, and write with the Language as well as its associated Sign Language.