Character Creation Guide

Creating a New Character

When creating a new character, the first step is to decide just what character you want to make. Take a look at our Approved Book List and consider what your character's High Concept will be. Other game systems might use High Concept as a mechanic term, but we're not going to use it on your sheet. A High Concept is just who your character is, boiled down to a few words. It's a phrase that sums up who your character is and what they do. It's a reference for you, the player, and us, the storytellers to help guide the character's development, and it's totally okay if that changes over time as your character grows.
  There are a few directions that you can use to try to come up with a High Concept.

• You can take the idea of "your job" literally: Police Detective, Investigator, Wizard
• Add some adjectives or other descriptors to further define the idea: Chipper Newbie Police Detective, Downtrodden Investigator, Absent-minded Wizard
• Mash two jobs or roles together that most people would find odd: Chipper Police Hacker, Cyborg Investigator, Wizard Reporter
• You could play off an important relationship to your family or an organization that you're deeply involved with (especially if the family or organization are well connected or well-known): Chipper Police Hacker from LOSTech Research, Downtrodden Former Cop Cyborg Investigator, Absent-minded Wizard Reporter of the Daily Tribune.

These aren't the only ways to make your high concept, but they'll get you started if you're unfamiliar.

Timeline and Background

Once you've figured out your High Concept, it's time to start looking into how that character will fit into the world around them. Consider what your character's personal timeline would be and compare it to the Official Prime Timeline. Choose an Ancestry and use our Setting Primer to get a feel for the world. Characters may be from Olympia or the Wilds, however they cannot be 'villians' or violently aggressive toward other characters (such as Raiders). This game is, at its core, cooperative and PvP conflict is not allowed.
  Once you've got a hang of the timeline and their connections to the world around them, write up a small, one paragraph background. If you're stuck, take a look at Writing a Character Background for more tips.

Jukebox Hero (Optional)

To really get into the mood of the game, consider making a Mix Tape of songs from the late 70s, 80s, and early 90s that showcases the themes and moods that you want to explore with your character. The songs you provide can help you get a feel for your character and set them apart from characters that share similar talents.

Concept Approval

Once you've come up with a High Concept and a brief background, open a ticket on the Discord server to make sure that your concept and background fit with the greater game.

Mechanics Approval

You can find step by step instructions for how to Build a Character Sheet here. Once your character sheet is finished, let the staff know that you're ready for approval and share your Google Drive character sheet in the ticket. You will need to set the sheet to allow comments. Our staff will look over your sheet and if they have any questions or feedback, they'll let you know. If everything looks good, you're ready to play!

Add Them to our Campaign

Once your character is approved, be sure to create them here on World Anvil and add them to our campaign. You can find the invite link on our Discord under the #important-links channel.

Experience Points and Progression

Characters earn experience from actively playing in games; once they have earned enough experience they may purchase an “Advance”, which is a 'level up' point for the character.
  Playing in a game earns you the following opportunities for experience, each of which awards one experience point

• Activity: Active Participation during the entire session (over 75%)
• Flaws: actively leaning into and playing your flaws and hindrances
• Discovery: characters discovered some element of ancient history, LOSTech, mysteries, setting information, etc.
• Success: characters completed the task without undue complications
• Danger: The characters survived against higher than unusual risks (usually antagonists at least one Rank above the characters)

Experience is capped at 5 Experience per month and while characters will always earn the automatic point for playing, they should not expect to earn all five points in one single game.

Advances

As you rise in Rank, Advances will cost more.

Advances	Rank	Experience Cost
0-3	Novice	5
4-7	Seasoned	10
8-11	Veteran	15
12-15	Heroic	20
16+	Legendary	25

New Players and Character Death

Any new player after chronicle start will bring in their first character at zero experience with no advances. If you've lost your character because they've died, any new character brought in to replace it will be created from scratch. Experience, Advances, and Beanie purchases from the old character are lost.

Can I Have Multiple Characters?

Yes! You are allowed to have up to two characters, and you can start a new character at any time. Alternate characters gain advances just like your first character, and if you've already reached the cap, it might be a good idea to play an alternate. There are a myriad of other reasons why you might want to play an alternate character. Alternate characters will make use the NPC bot so that players do not need to change their names, which can cause confusion across scenes.

Conflict of Interest

Alternate characters must be designed in such a way that they do not interact with your other characters. For example, you may not make two characters from the same district and they should not have character ties to the same PCs or NPCs as your first character. Alternate characters may not be in the same scene as your other character. This includes game night; you must choose to play one.

Retiring a Character

A player may choose to retire a character rather than create a new character. If you retire a character, you cannot transfer any experience, beanies, or advances to the new character. The character can no longer earn experience and is considered frozen, as is. If you ever decide to unretire the character, the character will be unfrozen. If you want to retire or unretire a character, open a ticket to discuss it with staff.