Character Creation Guidelines

Character Creation
There are some steps and questions you should deal with in the process of character creation. You don't need lengthy answers to each question, and not all of them need spelling out (sometimes they're obvious from other traits or write-ups), but you should know the answers for yourself, and write down in a brief form the ones that are applicable to character sheet fields. You don't need to do it all in one go. In fact, discuss the character with others.

On an entirely OOC/meta level: what is your general concept and narrative description?
- General background, in broad strokes.
- Some key bits of characterisations or themes.
- Important meta considerations.
- Non-obvious but important facts, e.g. age if outside the default 18-25 range or if the timeline is important.

Where are you from? Choose and describe:
- You could be from one of the 10 major pre-written polities (the 'Greater Nations').
- You could be from one of the Intercon polities (which are not fleshed out in the canon, allowing more leeway).
- You could be from one of the Open Road Alliance polities (also not fleshed out).
- You could be from even more obscure places, perhaps even from the Fringe (also not fleshed out).
- Also, what kind of settlement, in general terms?

What species are you? Choose:
- Karposarks grow on trees like fleshy fruits before becoming ambulatory, and have the ability to influence what shape to grow into over the years - some looking mostly humanoid, others less so.
- Monomorphs come into the world by way of live birth. As their name indicates, they have one predestined form that they take on - humanoids with relatively few anatomical variations.

What is your family and background?
- Is your family a humble one, a noble one, a new money one, or something else?
- If a Karposark, were you spawned in a settlement's Grave-Gardens and raised by relatives, or did you spawn in the wilderness and come to civilisation in your adolescence?
- Were you still going through education before joining the Seminary, or did you work some job, or both?

What are your names?
- Consider whether your name comes from the Semantic or the Phonetic naming tradition (which likely depends on culture or species - Karposark/Hatambetl lands tend towards the phonetic, Monomorph/Firefriend towards the semantic), and ensure the name plausibly fits the conventions and phonotactics.
- In the rare rare case of being from the Fringe and far away from the users of Hatambetl and Firefriend languages, perhaps your true name does not fit the above conventions.
- It's likely (but not guaranteed) that you have a short secondary name - a phonetic one if your true name is semantic, or vice versa. If your true name fits neither tradition, perhaps you might even have two such nicknames.

Which Creed (if any) do you follow, and how seriously?
- Abstractionists believe respect the abstract Five Higher Powers.
- Refractionists worship some subset of the 25 canonical Refractions (personified deities). Choose if you're a Poikilomorphist (respect all Refractions), Orthomorphist (humanoid Refractions only), or something in-between.
- Haunt-Worshippers venerate holy sites and relics.
- Misotheists think that divine powers are more bad than good, and tend be closer to one of the three above Paradigms of Creed in terms of what they believe the divine powers are like.
- Or maybe you're one of the very few people undecided when it comes to the opinions about the divine.

How did you get into the Seminary?
- The privilege of nobility and expectation of appropriate education led you to this fine institution.
- A patron who has your career planned out for you ensured you'd get one of the limited-issue special invitations.
- Being of modest origin but remarkably talented, you entered the seminary through the meritocratic gates.
- As a scion of a wealthy but lowborn dynasty, you are one of the students whose presence here fills the Seminary's coffers.
- As a young Thespian, you are met with open arms by the faculty, with ambivalence by the clergy, and with overconfident hopes of obtaining a useful pawn by shadowy figures.

What career do you plan after graduation?
- The Amalgamated Synod. You plan to join the Concordat's clerical branch, likely representing your creed.
- While you do seek out an esoteric education, your true goal is the Ambassadorium, and a career in international politics.
- Forget the cosy halls of academia and legislatures. You want to join the Unsleeping Hunt and rid this world of supernatural menaces, and it's hard to do that without understanding them.
- As a Thespian, you are probably going to join the Backstage, though of course that does not necessarily restrict your career choice much.
- A traveller at heart, and not a hunter, you want to venture beyond the mundane in this world. And so you hope to join the Bourns-Rovers.
- Your interest in esoterica is primarily academic. Perhaps you want knowledge for knowledge's sake. Or perhaps you want to spread it to others. Or develop practical applications for less than mundane lore. In any case, after the Seminary you aim for the Polyscholastic Symposium itself.
- Perhaps you see the branches of the Ataraxia Concordat are a red herring, and want to choose your own, more personal path after graduation, like a temple at home, or independent occult research.

What secondary subjects will you study aside from General Esoterica?
- The Seminary offers a wide range of other study and training aside from the main curriculum.
- If you are of humble beginnings, it is very likely that your secondary subjects will be classical ones, bringing you up to the level of scholars and nobles in humanities, natural philosophy, and the like.
- If you already have a decent mundane education and hope to get into the Concordat, your secondary subjects - both mental and physical - will probably align with the sorts of activities that are relevant in the chosen branch.
- Perhaps aside from serious and purposeful studies, you even snuck in an hour or two of something more whimsical into the timetable.

What languages are you good at?
- By default, a character in this campaign has three 'fluency slots'. A fluency slot can be spent to learn to master either a spoken or a written form of a language.
- A typical entrant of the Seminary (and most members of respectable society) has full mastery of one of the two primary Concordat languages - Hatambetl and Firefriend - whether in standard form or a mutually intelligible tongue, and at least a spoken-only mastery of the other one (or a mutually intelligible tongue).
- You will have a harder time in the Seminary if you can't speak or at least understand these two languages, and a very hard time if you cannot understand either in spoken form. Not having a way of taking notes in at least some form is also likely to complicate things, as does inability to read signs and books. So think carefully if you want to forego the typical suggestion/expectation.
- If your concept warrants more fluency slots (such as to master Shwarish, or cover a more obscure language that few others speak), in the trait assignment phase you'll need to take levels in the Humanities and/or Languages Static Fortes (the former costs 4/level, the latter 1/level). You get to use the Quantity(Levels+5) progression to calculate the number of fluency slots. Total Level +1 is 4 slots, +2 is 5, +3 is 6, +4 is 8, +5 is 10, +6 is 13, +7 is 16, +8 is 20. But it's unlikely you'll need more than the three major languages plus your own native (if you're from an obscure place), for a total of 8 slots.

Decide on two Entanglements - pre-existing connections to other characters in the class.
- A typical Entanglement should describe a straightforward relationship with a character (positive or negative), and then describe how the involvement of or relationship with a second character complicates that relationship.
- Try to ensure that one of the characters is a PC and the other is an NPC (preferably another entrant into the Seminary) or vice versa.
- For negative relationships, keep the level of animosity compatible with a long-term narrative. Avoid lethal vendettas.
- If the Entanglement makes the relationship with a PC negative, keep the negativity on a level that would not be disruptive for the game (negotiate the rivalry level with another player).
- An Entanglement involving a PC may either be treated as reciprocal (i.e. both PCs write down the same Entanglement with slightly altered perspectives, and both treat it as equally important), or as non-reciprocal (the Entanglement is of negligible importance to the other PC, so the other player needs to come up with a different Entanglement to fill the quota).
- Try to choose Entanglements that intertwine with your character's Traits in both positive and negative ways, at least some of the time. But if you can't, that's not a dealbreaker either.
- Entanglements are inspired by the same-name mechanic from Hearts of Wulin, but are meant to be less prone to causing lethal showdowns.

What's your excuse for an 'emergency exit' if necessitated by OOC events?
- Prepare at least one explanation for why you might suddenly depart the Seminary for an indefinite period of time. This might come in handy if you end up needing to bow out, or in cases of a player going unresponsive for a long time.

Find a portrait to represent your character.
- Semi-realistic styles that look like old-timey paintings or drawings are the best.
- Avoid overly cartoonish styles.

Assign Traits.
- Follow the Dramalogs guidelines for trait assignment with a budget of 40 character creation points in each category (Static Fortes, Dynamic Fortes, Flaws).
- That's approximately 10 levels distributed among the list of default-list Static Fortes (Skills), or an equivalent of customised Fortes (e.g. more specialised or conversely broader competences). No Trait (nor combination of traits that usually stack) should be more than level 4.
- For most skills, a level of 3 is approximately the level of an established professional who is no longer an apprentice and can work independently. So you can start as a reasonably competent young adult proficient in 2-3 professions (but have fewer points to spread around).
- Consider what level of Esoterica you want your PC to start with. It will significantly influence your relationship with the primary curriculum of the course you're taking in the Seminary.

• A level of 0 is entirely untrained. Totally normal student, only discovering the study of the supernatural.
• A 1 will give you a head start. You know a thing or two already, and will have an easier time with the main curriculum.
• A 2 is very good for a student. You had significant prior training in occult and/or theological matters, will have an easy time with the main curriculum, and odds are high your reason for joining the Seminary might have something to do with study in secondary subjects. You probably benefit more from self-study than from lectures at this point.
• A 3 is about as good as an average graduate of the main esoteric curriculum. You can safely skip lectures of the main curriculum. You need to focus on secondary subjects or intense self-study in the library if you want to extract some benefit out of your stay in the Seminary.
• With a 4+, think very carefully about what you're even doing here.

Keep the process and results open to other players.
- Character sheets should be made public.
- Discuss your ideas and options with others.
- Have a thread in the Dramatis Personae subforum with the first post (and possibly subsequent ones) containing the most important stuff you won't be keeping in the sheet, if any (e.g. some vignettes, introductory texts that you'd rather not clutter the sheet with, &c.). Thread name should reflect player and (eventually) character names for ease of identifying. First post should be done using posting-as-character mode for convenience of clicks and association.

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Character sheet template 2026-07-26 14:01.