Character Creation Guide

Characters for this game will be submitted using our online Character Creation System. You will need to create an account, and the website will walk you through all of the steps of character creation with the Character Wizard. They are also all reproduced below for ease of reference. Please make sure you attend an info session or arrange a meeting with the storytellers before you submit a character!

There are two options for character creation—the Mechanical Proposal and the Written Proposal. Both of these options exist within the online character system, which can be found at the link above, and have several steps in common.

Looking for some examples of what we’re looking for? Here’s an example extended written proposal and an example mechanical proposal.

Character Questionnaire

No matter which kind of application you are filling out, you first must answer the Character Questionnaire. Each question should be answered with at least 2 sentences, but it shouldn’t be much more than 4 sentences or a short paragraph for each question. If an answer is too long, we will ask you to shorten it if the character is applied before the deadline. After that, the character will likely be rejected and we will ask you to apply again for a later season.

Please note that in addition to looking for the factually accurate answers to the below questions, we’re also looking for you to tell us what the answer means about your character as a person and how it matters in their everyday life.

REQUIRED QUESTIONS

The following questions must be answered on all applications.

  1. What are your character’s most valued Norms? What shocks or offends your character?
  2. What is your character’s goal in life?
  3. What is your character’s day-to-day life like? Do they have any hobbies? What do they do to make money? How do they have fun?
  4. Describe your character’s personal life. What’s their relationship like with their parents? Do they have any close friends? Romantic relationships? Children or siblings?
  5. What are your character’s religious/spiritual views?
  6. How does your character deal with hardship and stress?
  7. What is one memory your character has of the unexplainable? Why has it stuck with them?
  8. What is your character most afraid of?
  9. What does your character consider to be the worst thing they have ever done?
  10. Has your character had any traumatic experiences? Describe the one that affected them the most.
  11. What does your character think makes someone or something a monster?
  12. If you are a supernatural creature, how did you become one? Was it your choice? How has it changed your life? How do you hide your unnatural state?

OPTIONAL QUESTIONS (ANSWER AT LEAST 5 OUT OF 9)

Each application must answer between 5 and 9 of these questions.

  1. Has your character ever left Nulpert County, or Winnemac? If so why? Why did they return to Osthigwanegon?
  2. How has life been unfair to your character? Why does your character believe they haven’t gotten further in life?
  3. What is your character hiding from the people around them? What is their most closely kept secret?
  4. What does loss mean to your character? What is a noteworthy loss they have experienced?
  5. What is one thing your character believes about themselves, that isn’t actually true?
  6. What does your character believe makes for a successful life?
  7. Under what circumstances would your character kill another human being?
  8. What does your character like about their life?
  9. What is your character’s proudest achievement?

AND FINALLY

This question is not required, but we recommend you use this opportunity to cover anything the other questions have missed, or that you would like make sure the Storytellers notice about your application.

  1. Is there anything else we need to know about your character or their history?

After this point, the two different styles of proposal diverge.

Written Proposal

If you are filling out a Written Proposal application, you have more questions to answer and never directly touch your character’s Mechanics. These are much more involved, and will help guide the Storytellers when they are writing the Mechanics for your character. These questions should also have a much longer answer written for them, and likely will be a minimum of 4 sentences and up to 2 paragraphs. Once again, we would like to remind you to be reasonable. Please do not submit a novel, as that will get your application sent back to you.

EXTENDED SURVEY

  1. Describe your character’s profession, career, level of education, or majority of their daily life in detail. What are they good at? What are they bad at? Mention specific Skills or Special Trainings if possible.
  2. What Norms does your character struggle with? What makes them an outsider? Mention specific True Selves and Challenges if possible.
  3. Is your character able to do things that others cannot? Are they supernatural in any way? Weirdly good at that one thing? Mention specific Advantages if possible.
  4. What are your character’s hobbies? Does your character have any specific membership within or to connections to a group, whether public or private?
  5. Is there anything else you have seen in the specific mechanics you would like your character to be able to do? Anything you want to avoid, whether for complexity reasons or otherwise?
  6. Is there any particular part of the setting not yet mentioned you want to engage with? Anything you want to avoid?

Once the Storytellers have processed your Written Proposal, they will send you a preliminary Mechanical build. At that point, you can discuss with the Storytellers your character’s specific Mechanics if you wish. Please not that the Written Proposal is not a way for someone to play in this game without knowing their character’s specific Mechanics.

Mechanical Proposal

After the questionnaire, the Character Wizard presents you with the different parts of your mechanical build, allowing you to tackle them one by one. Or, you may choose to instead go to the full sheet and enter everything in all at once. The different parts of your sheet have the following rules for how they are filled in.

TRUE SELF

Each Character has 1 True Self, chosen from a list of 26 different True Selves. A character’s True Self represents who they are their core when violating and interacting with the town’s Norms.

ATTRIBUTES

Prioritize the three categories (Mental, Physical, and Social) into the most important (Primary), second most important (Secondary), and least important (Tertiary) categories. Every attribute starts with 1 rank for free.

Your Primary category gains an additional 5 points to spend between the three Attributes, your Secondary gains an additional 4, and your Tertiary gains an additional 3 points. Each rank in an Attribute costs 1 point, and Attributes may not go above 5 ranks. The total among each category (including the free point in each attribute) will be 8/7/6. After you have done this, you have one more floating point to put into any Attribute you choose.

SKILLS AND SPECIAL TRAININGS

Each character has both Skills and Special Trainings, and they have 22 points to split between the two categories. Each rank in a Skill or Special Training costs 1 point, and both traits can only be raised to a maximum of 5 per individual Skill or Special Training. In addition, a character can only spend up to 8 of their 22 points on Special Trainings but they are not required to spend any on Special Trainings.

ADVANTAGES

Characters begin game with 17 ranks worth of total Advantages, split among any number of individual Advantages. Many Advantages have specific prerequisites which need to be fulfilled before they can be purchased by a character. Some Advantages are labeled as “Unnatural,” this is to show that the Advantage in question gives your character a weird or supernatural ability.

CHALLENGES

Characters can have zero, one, or two Challenges at character creation. Additionally, you do not select from a list of prewritten Challenges. Instead, you will submit a description of the Challenge in no more than 4 sentences and the Storytellers will build a personalized Challenge for the character in cooperation with you (mechanics and all). Note that Challenges should be tailored to fit your character’s personal situation, that is, they should represent some aspect of your character not covered by other mechanics. The one exception to this are the Creature Challenges, which have prewritten mechanics. Please see the Challenges page for more information.

STABILITY

Characters have Stability, a measure of how much their character has or has not been affected by the unnatural. By default, character will have a Stability of 4. You can request a different Stability, and the Storytellers might set your Stability to a different number anyways.

DERIVED STATS

Characters also have a few stats that are derived by adding together their Attributes, Skills, and some base amount. Please see the Derived Stats page for more details.