Proposed Character Creation Changes
I'm hoping to create the sense that your PCs are newly Awakened (few days, few weeks, at most few months ago), or just about to Awaken. The first scene will be exactly that, something that nudges your characters to consider the changes happening in their lives.
So generate as usual, except:
1. Tradition and Spheres
- You don't have to commit to a Tradition yet. If you do, that's fine, it means you've had a chance to interact with some aspect of that Tradition, either because you know a mage, or they are your parent, or you achieved some insight into that Tradition. If you don't choose yet, your first character arc will give you that opportunity.
- Same with Spheres. Go ahead and calculate the dots you're likely to have in Spheres, but you may leave out specifying which ones they are. Like a blank cheque, we can agree for example that perhaps you'll have 2 dots in one Sphere, 1 dot in another Sphere, or some combination. If you choose this, in the first in-game instance where you declare you want to use a Sphere power, and you use it successfully, that's when we commit to the dot.
- I'm proposing an Arete of no higher than 2.
2. Talents, Skills, Knowledges
- Take a free dot in Academics.
- Consider carefully that some of these are less important, or are less likely to be available to young adults, or will be interpreted differently. Eg Drive may not have to mean you have a license, but can represent your ability to skateboard, ride a bicycle. Survival is less useful, but perhaps your character is part of the hiking or mountaineering club. I don't expect you to have Firearms or Melee much, but I'm not against it, if you're a javelin athlete, Melee makes some sense. Etiquette makes you a great role model in school, you know the right behaviours at the right times.
Streetwise will be about cliques in school than about gangs on the streets (although it could be both). Brawl might mean you are in the boxing team.
Politics is more about being student council president rather than a country's government (could be both). Same with Law and Medicine. I'm not ruling out the fact that you might be smarter than your teacher in some areas (4 dots make you professorial level!)
3. Backgrounds
- I'm treating backgrounds in a similar fashion, as a deep part of your characterisation.
Eg Resources are family resources, not your own, and you're a child of your family who benefits from that. Allies and Backup are fellow students, Retainers are your clique, Contacts could be from other schools, Mentor is likely a teacher, Patron might be a school investor or on the board of directors. Fame, Influence, Legend will generally have to be in the school context, although it is possible you're famous outside and the school knows it. Location-related backgrounds are best suited to a place within the school compound, eg Library could simply mean you access the school library in ways that others don't, a Node could be somewhere on the grounds where you feel more recharged, your happy place, we might even be able to justify a Sanctum.
No to Familiars, sorry, we're not playing Hogwarts. (If you really want one, let's talk first).
I encourage everyone to take a bit of Arcane/Cloaking. I can't justify giving it to you as a freebie, but it does seem integral to our metaplot, ie these mage children have gone unnoticed so far.
4. Virtues and Flaws
- Please take a +1 Flaw in Child. (You get another point to play with!)
This is not exhaustive, but I hope everyone understands where I'm coming from in order to set up as appropriate a character profile as possible for your PCs. Ask me if you are unsure whether something fits or not. And help me co-create if you have further suggestions.
Myra Lockwood is a high-achieving, sharp-tongued math kid who lives two lives without meaning to:
