Creating a Character

This document is based on Clinton R. Nixon’s Solar System(approve sites), the system for his game The Shadow of Yesterday(approve sites). That system, and therefore this document, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/(approve sites) or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

I have given Clinton’s Pools different names and definitions for my purposes, and created some new Secrets and Keys in addition to his. I have renamed the “Greenhorn” level as “Apprentice” to fit in better with my setting, and generally rewritten, reworked and in places clarified his material.

Characters represent all sentient beings in your game. Encounter characters (characters met by by the players’ characters in the course of the game) are created by a slightly different, simplified system from that given below, but they can be fleshed out by using these rules if they become important.

In order to define who a character is and what that character can do, there are four mechanical pieces: Pools, Abilities, Secrets, and Keys.

Pools

Pools are resources the player can spend during the game in order for their character to push harder, do more, and perform amazing feats. There are three pools: Valour, Courtesie, and Artes.

Valour represents the character’s reserves of physical power and mental toughness. Characters with high Valour are often known for mighty strength, indomitable courage and superhuman endurance.

Courtesie represents the character’s reserves of social power, grace and dignity. Characters with high Courtesie are often known for their graceful motion, penetrating eyes, stunning appearance, or charm. Courtesie also includes an element of social knowledge and skill.

Artes represents the character’s reserves of spiritual and magical power and wisdom. It is also related to understanding of creation (in a practically applicable, rather than simply theoretical, manner), so working with animals or plants also involves Artes.

Pools are measured in points, and each pool ranges from one to infinite points, although a pool of more than 10 points is highly unusual. During the game, these points are spent to get bonus dice or activate secrets, but are not permanently gone. The scores on each player’s character sheet represents the maximum points in each pool, and players will get a chance to refresh their characters’ pools to their maximum.

Abilities

Abilities are representations of a character’s skill with tasks both learned and innate. Some examples of abilities are Riding, Woodscraft and Oratory.

Abilities are always associated with a pool. This is shown by writing the name of the pool - or an abbreviation - after the ability name, like this: “Stealth (Courtesie)” or just “Stealth (C).” This pool is the resource from which characters draw their strength with that ability. This pool can be used to increase one’s chances with an ability. Some game effects apply to all abilities that are associated with a specific pool.

Every character has three innate abilities. These cannot be used to initiate action, only to protect your character. They are:

Ability	Pool	Description
Endure	Valour	This is your character’s ability to push on and persevere though pain and fatigue. It is used to test the limits of a character’s physicality and fitness.
React	Courtesie	This measures the quickness of a character’s body and mind. It is as much “how quickly the character notices something” as “how quickly the character moves.”
Resist	Artes	“Resist” is the strength of a character’s will, and is used to prevent compulsion of a natural or supernatural type. This includes physical compulsion: “Resist” would be used for a character to keep from confessing under torture, for example, while “Endure” would be used to see how long he could stay conscious under the same torture.

Other abilities vary by character. Many abilities are open abilities, which means any character can take them. Some, however, are closed abilities, which are limited to a particular character type. Counsult the Character Type Charts for lists of these closed abilities.

Most of the character types have “characteristic abilities”. You get the characteristic ability (if any) of your primary character type for free - you don’t have to spend any advances in order to get it. If you take a secondary character type which has a characteristic ability, you must buy this ability in order to take the secondary character type (see Character Advancement, below).

For example, the Enchanter’s characteristic ability is Magic. All Enchanters automatically have the Magic ability. A Knight Enchanter, however, must buy the Magic ability in order to take Enchanter as a secondary character type.

Abilities are ranked with adjectives. An ability can have the following ranks: Nil (that is, you don’t have this ability), Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, and Grand Master. These adjectives each match up with a number, which is used in resolution.

Ability Rank	Associated Number
Nil	−1
Novice	0
Apprentice	1
Journeyman	2
Master	3
Grand Master	4

The open abilities are found on the List of Example Abilities.

Secrets

Secrets are special abilities a character can learn that augment abilities. These are often preternatural, sometimes magical, and always better than normal. Most of the really powerful Secrets require points to be spent from a pool, meaning that those Secrets can be used a limited number of times before that pool is refreshed. Other Secrets do not require spending points.

Secrets can be better explained with a couple of examples:

Secret	Narrative Effect	Mechanical Effect	Ability Check Required	Pool Cost
Command	Your character is a natural leader.	He or she has a permanent bonus die to convince others to follow his or her lead. When they do so, and he or she encourages them in combat using a successful Orate ability check, they receive bonus dice equal to his or her success level.	Orate
Throwing	Anything is a dangerous missile in your character’s hands. He or she can throw anything fist-sized to greatsword-sized as an attack.	The object counts as a +1 weapon.	Aim	1 Valour.

As with abilities, there are open Secrets and closed Secrets. Ecclesiastics and Enchanters in particular have a large number of Secrets which are not available to other character types.

The open secrets are found on the List of Secrets.

Keys

Keys are the primary method of increasing a character’s abilities. These are goals, emotional ties, or vows a character has. By bringing these into the story, the player gains experience points (XP) he or she can use to advance the character, increasing pools and abilities, or learning new Secrets and Keys.

Again, an example will illustrate this better:

Key	Type	Narrative Effect	Mechanical Effect	Buyoff	Incompatible With
Envy	Sinful	Your character powerfully desires something (a possession, a position or a characteristic) which is possessed by another, and delights in harm coming to that person.	Gain 1 XP for minor acts of unfriendliness towards the person that you envy, 2 XP for acts intended to bring them down, 5 XP if you can bring them down and take what it is that you envy.	Act generously towards the person you envy or refuse the gift of the envied possession.	Charity.

Keys in Errantry can be Sinful or Virtuous. This has the mechanical effect of adding penalty or bonus dice (respectively) to Pray ability checks. Some Keys are neither inherently sinful nor inherently virtuous, and don’t have this effect.

Whenever a player has a character perform the action shown in the Buyoff column, the player may erase the Key and gain 10 XP. This is not mandatory.

The Key must first have been “activated” before it gives penalties or bonuses to Pray, and before it can be bought off. A Key is activated when it has generated at least 5 XP for the character who has it. This is to prevent players from buying a Key for the equivalent of 5 XP, not using it, then buying it out and getting 10 XP. If your players are doing this, they are definitely not approaching the game (and Keys in particular) in the right spirit, but this rule closes the loophole in any case.

Some of the Keys are direct opposites of one another. If this is the case, the opposite Key appears in the Incompatible column of the table. You may not have both Keys at once (though you may certainly buy one off and switch to the other).

Unlike abilities and Secrets, the number of Keys a character can have is limited. A character can have no more than five Keys at one time.

Refer to the List of Keys.

Creating a Beginning Character

Making your character is the one of the most important parts of playing Errantry. In doing so, you not only define the person you want to play, but you determine what that play will be about. Through a combination of character concept and Keys, every player gets to contribute to the content of the story.

Concept

In order to start creating a character, you need to build a concept. The various characters played in the gaming group must fit together to produce a satisfying game, so building a concept is a collaborative activity. This isn’t to say that all characters need to be alike or have similar motivations - in fact, this would reduce the interest of the game.

Concept generation should be done as a group, in a relaxed atmosphere. Talk amongst each other, and don’t think of your idea as sacrosanct; take suggestions from other players and give them back. Remember that in creating these characters, you create the landscape in which you will play.

At the end of generating character concepts, you should have:

An idea of where your character is from.
A few sentences about who your character is and what he or she cares about.
A description of your character’s appearance, also short.
A name. This is totally not optional. Pick a name before you write a number.
A character type (Knight, Lady, Enchanter etc.).

It isn’t necessary to have a complete idea of who your character is before play. Further details will emerge as you play the game.

What you do need to know is this: what character type this character is, where he or she is from, what he or she is good at, and what might be important to him or her.

Place in Life

An important (and usually unchangeable) part of anyone’s identity in medieval Europe was their place in life, their position in the Great Chain of Being stretching from God down through the layers of the feudal system to animals, plants and the inanimate.

You have the following questions to ask yourself when choosing a character type (place in life) for your character:

What abilities and Secrets can I get because of this character type?
How does this character type fit into society?
How does someone with this character type interact with the other characters’ types?
What does this character type represent to me? Why would I want to play this sort of character?

As well as the “pure” character types, “mixed” character types are also available and are referred to as crosstypes. These have a primary character type which defines most things about the character, and a secondary character type which gives them access to additional abilities and Secrets.

Not all combinations of the types are permitted; for example, you cannot be a Church Troubadour. The permitted combinations are set out on the Character Type Charts page and under each individual character type description.

Home

The location you were from was also a key component of medieval identity - in fact, it functioned as a kind of surname. (Many modern Western surnames are based on locations; many others come from places in life, such as occupations.)

Part of choosing the quest is deciding whether you want to return home at the end of the quest, so knowing where that is has another significance.

Names and Designations

In medieval romance, people’s designations are almost more important than their personal names. In the course of your adventure, the people you meet will become known to you first of all by their designations (The Knight of the High Tower, the Maiden of the Dark Sorrow, the Hermit of the Forest of Evening…). Only later, if at all, will you learn their names.

As a questing character, however, you begin the game with a personal name (there is a list of names to help you choose one), and in the course of your adventure you may earn a designation based on your remarkable actions. At any point in the adventure, your companions - the other players - may Award the Accolade, giving your character a designation reflecting some outstanding quality he or she has displayed or some spectacular success he or she has achieved. You may, of course, accept or reject the accolade bestowed. If you accept it, write it on your character sheet.

Pools

The first part of character creation after you have the concept is your character’s pools.

Divide 12 points among your character’s pools, with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 6 in each. (Note: this maximum is just for character creation; your character may end up later with a pool much higher than 6.)

Abilities

All characters start with the three innate abilities. Set one at Journeyman level, one at Apprentice, and one at Novice.

If your primary character type has a characteristic ability, set it to Journeyman. If not, choose an ability which marks your character out from the crowd, and set that to Journeyman.

Then choose from the abilities on the character sheet for your character type, or from the list of example abilities, or make up along similar lines more abilities that are available to your character. You should choose three at Apprentice and six at Novice. This is just for a starting character, fresh out in the world. If you are playing more experienced characters, you’ll get the chance to increase these later.

Secrets and Keys

Before play, players can choose one Secret from the List of Secrets and one Key from the List of Keys for their characters. There are suggested Secrets for each character type on the related character sheet; you are not restricted to these, but they fit well with the character type.

Character Advancement

Lastly, players start with a number of advances for their characters. This is determined by the group before play, depending on how powerful characters are to be at the beginning of the game. The standard number is five. More advances are earned in the course of play.

Each advance that you get can be banked toward improving your character’s pools, abilities, Secrets, and Keys. The costs are below.

Advancement	Cost
Add an ability at Novice level	1 advance
Increase an ability to:
* Apprentice	1 advance
* Journeyman	2 advances
* Master	3 advances
* Grand Master	6 advances
Add a point to a pool (up to 10)	1 advance
Add a point to a pool (greater than 10)	2 advances
Add a Secret (you must be taught the Secret by someone who knows it)	1 advance
Add a Key	1 advance

You can never increase the same thing twice in a row. That is, you cannot increase the same ability or pool twice in a row. You need to increase something else in between. In addition, you cannot buy two Secrets or two Keys in a row.

You may hold onto your advances and spend them at any time, even in the middle of a fight.

The Standard Advance

Before a campaign begins, the players need to decide how long they want the game to be, and how fast they want characters to advance. Each group, and each story, can work differently in these respects, and so Errantry can be easily changed to accommodate this.

The standard advance, how many experience points it costs to buy an advance for a character, is normally set at 5 XP. This will accommodate a style of play where your character will gain one to three advances at every session, normally, which is fast compared to most games. If this is too fast for you, we suggest moving this standard advance up in increments of 5 XP to change play speed. Set at 10 XP, characters will earn an advance every session or two; set at 15 XP, characters will earn, on average, an advance over two to three sessions; and set at 20 XP, characters will earn an advance every three or four sessions. It is not recommended to set the standard advance higher than 20 XP.

Sample characters

TO DO

Weapons and Armour

In the Solar System, “harm” is an erosion of a character’s ability to get his or her way, instead of always being physical pain and suffering. Therefore, weapons aren’t just swords, knifes, clubs, and the like, and armour isn’t just padding a character wears on his or her body. Anything can be a weapon or armour - but only in certain situations.

Weapons add to the success level of a successful action. Armour subtracts from the success level of a successful action done to your character. In both cases, the items can have +1, +2, or +3 ratings. The level of the rating is determined by the specificity of the harm or protection.

An item can have more than one bonus - it can have up to three +1, two +2, and one +3 bonus.

Weapons and armour can occur in the game in three ways. They can be given as boons; any player can declare his or her character’s equipment to have a +1 bonus, subject to the agreement of the other players and specifically the current Marshal of the Lists; or an Enchanter or Ecclesiastic can use the Secret of Imbuement to give another character’s equipment a higher bonus (+2 or +3).

See the List of Weapons and Armour for further details and suggestions.

These are notes for a work in progress. Don’t expect everything to be consistent or make sense.