Creating a character
Choose an ancestry
There are many kinds of ancestries in the setting, ranging from the humans to the anthropomorphic santhrae, enabling fulfilling most character concepts. It’s one of the most important aspects of a characters identify and it affects how others in the world perceive the character and how they behave around them, both in positive or negative fashion.
Ancestry determine things like general looks but perhaps even more importantly grant various biological traits such as keen senses for the elves or powerful leap of the Harefolk originating from Santhrosia.
Choose a class
Selecting a class is a pivotal decision in shaping your character’s path and capabilities within the world. Classes represent the training, skills, and abilities your character has developed, influencing their role in adventures and interactions with others. Whether they become a stealthy Rogue, a wise Cleric, or a valiant Fighter, each class brings a unique set of skills and a distinct approach to facing challenges.
A character’s class determines their combat abilities, magical prowess, and other specialized skills. It defines their approach to solving problems, whether through brute force, magical manipulation, or cunning diplomacy. For example, Wizards harness arcane spells for versatility and power, while Paladins blend martial prowess with divine magic to protect and heal.
Choose ability scores
Six different attributes define your characters physical and mental abilities.
Strength: Measures physical power, affecting how well a character can hit in melee combat and how much they can carry. For big bonk characters.
Dexterity: Indicates agility and reflexes, influencing ranged attacks, armor class, and certain saving throws. Useful for agile and stealthy classes such as rogues, rangers and monks.
Constitution: Represents health and stamina, determining hit points and resilience against sickness or poison and is important for all characters.
Intelligence: Reflects mental acuity, affecting the number of languages known, knowledge-related skills, and magical research capabilities. The most important attribute for wizards aiming for success.
Wisdom: Gauges perception and insight, affecting the ability to notice hidden objects or creatures, read situations, and resist mental attacks. Vital for clerics and druids.
Charisma: Denotes force of personality, influencing social interactions, leadership, and magical abilities tied to persuasion or deception.
Assign Scores
Assign the following numbers to your character’s ability scores as you wish: 16, 14, 14, 12, 12, 8. Having done that, increase one of your character’s ability scores by +2, and another by +1.
Customize your character
Culture. Anyone can potentially come from anywhere, but no matter where that is it’s still a cornerstone that has shaped the character in a broad sense. This can help a character to lean into stereotypes like the hardy dwarf that has never stepped outside of the mountains where it was born or lean away from it by having the dwarf grow up in the elven capital of Izalar, the flying city.
Culture paints the broad strokes of a character, defining general skills, languages and other non-biological traits that comes from nurture rather than nature.
Background. If culture provides the broad strokes, backgrounds bring out the small details that emphasize who the character is, what have they left behind to go on adventure for good or bad. Just as with culture this can further lean into a stereotype or away from them even more. This choice grants more skills, equipment but also inspiration characteristics, important events, things they hold dear and individuals that have affected them in some way.