Character Creation
Characters are logged on the Curious Pastimes portal, which also allows you to track progression. You can have only one active character in the system at a time; once a character is retired or dies, it is out of play (i.e. you may not switch back and forth between characters from event to event).
What follows is the mechanics of character creation: archetypes, skills and so on. If you’re feeling a little lost, head over to Making Your Character for some tips on coming up with a concept, background and look for your character.
Archetypes
Most characters in the Renewal campaign belong to one of four archetypes, broad character classes that unlock development paths for specialisation and more powerful skills. They’re described in more detail in the relevant sections:
- Creator: Whether weavers or alchemists, blacksmiths or surgeons, tattooists or jewellers, creators are artists who make, repair and alter lasting things.
- Magician: Spellcasters, enchanters, summoners and necromancers, ritualists and oracles – magicians are scholars who channel magic and work miracles.
- Scout: From burglars, assassins and pickpockets, to sappers and siege engineers, to trackers and hunters, scouts rely on wits, skills and guile to survive.
- Warrior: Thugs and berserkers, duellists and tacticians, monster hunters and warleaders alike, warriors master all the arts and modes of warfare.
Archetypes are similar to “character classes” in tabletop or computer RPGs, but less rigidly defined, providing access to a range of archetype skills rather than a set progression.
Each archetype also includes some suggested study paths for further research or training. Characters may pursue up to three study paths, in any archetypes, and may develop one to the highest levels.
Finally, each archetype offers some ready-made example characters for inspiration.
You don’t need to choose your character’s archetype until they learn their first archetype skill; but once chosen, their archetype is fixed (although see Changing Your Mind).
| Race
Race no longer plays any part in character creation in the Renewal campaign, or indeed in the setting at all. Your character may belong to a specific local “culture” that may or may not have a distinctive appearance associated with it, but it won’t affect which skills you can learn. See Can I Play An Elf? for more on this topic. |
Skills
Your character starts with 20 experience points to spend on general and archetype skills. You don’t have to spend all your points up front; unspent points may be held back for later use.
The following restrictions apply:
- Archetype: You must choose an archetype (see above) before taking your first archetype skill, but once you have done so, you can choose whatever skills you like from your archetype’s list (provided you meet the prerequisites).
- Cross-Archetype Skills: You can learn some skills from other archetypes, but may learn no more than one point worth of cross-archetype skills for every two points worth of skills you know in general skill and in skills from your own archetype.
- Prerequisites: Most archetype skills require you to know other skills before you can learn them, or require you to belong to that archetype (i.e. they cannot be learned as cross-archetype skills). Skills are listed with their prerequisites.
- Pinnacle Skills: The most advanced skills (marked with a * on the archetype skill tables) require absolute focus and dedication. You must belong to the relevant archetype and cannot learn more than one such skill.
- Points Cap: There is a limit to mortals’ potential to learn. No normal mortal character can learn more than 100 experience points worth of skills, including abilities gained via magic.
- No Repeat Picks: All skills may be learned at most once each, unless they stipulate otherwise (i.e. Extra Magic Points, Extra Work Units, Income and Resources).
Some skills use magic points or work units, or have a set number of uses per day.
A full list of all general and archetype skills can be found at Skills List. They are also laid out in a visual diagram at Skills Map.
| Things That Aren’t Skills
You don’t need skills for everything! All characters in the Renewal campaign can perform the following actions without having to buy skills with experience points:
Note that fighting with two weapons (whether two small weapons, or two one-handed weapons, or one small and one one-handed) requires the Two Weapons skill. |
General Skills
General skills are available to everyone, both at character creation and via experience or through training, with no restrictions aside from their total point cap.
These skills provide the foundation of every progression path in the game, from core weapon training to the simplest crafting designs, for basic skulking and tracking techniques or the least powerful spells.
Combat Skills
| Skill | Points Cost | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Light Armour | 2 | Permanent |
| Long Weapons | 4 | Permanent |
| Projectile Weapons | 6 | Permanent |
| Shield | 4 | Permanent |
| Thrown Weapons | 2 | Permanent |
| Two Weapons | 3 | Permanent |
Creation Skills
| Skill | Points Cost | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Alchemist | 6 | Work units |
| Artisan | 6 | Work units |
| Blacksmith | 6 | Work units |
| Jeweller | 6 | Work units |
| Surgeon | 6 | Work units |
Lore Skills
| Skill | Points Cost | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Evaluate | 5 | At will |
| Foraging | 4 | Once per day |
| Gathering | 4 | Once per day |
| Ranger | 5 | At will |
| Scholar | 5 | Twice per day |
| Scoundrel | 5 | At will |
| Scrounging | 4 | Once per day |
Magical Skills
| Skill | Points Cost | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Corporeal Spellcasting | 6 | Magic points |
| Elemental Spellcasting | 6 | Magic points |
| Ritual Magic | 6 | At will |
| Sense Magic | 5 | At will |
| Spiritual Spellcasting | 6 | Magic points |
Personal Skills
| Skill | Points Cost | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Body Development | 6 | Permanent |
| Fearlessness | 4 | Twice per day |
| Intuition | 5 | Twice per day |
| Income | 4+ | Permanent |
| Iron Body | 5 | Twice per day |
| Iron Will | 6 | Twice per day |
| Resist Disease | 4 | Twice per day |
| Resist Magic | 6 | Twice per day |
| Resist Poison | 5 | Twice per day |
| Resources | 4+ | Permanent |
Archetype Skills
Archetype skills are the more advanced techniques known to accomplished experts in their fields.
- Examples
- a warrior’s trick moves and mighty blows,
- a creator’s complex processes and unique inventions,
- a scout’s treacherous knifework and knowledge of beasts, or
- a magician’s mighty sorceries and esoteric workings.
Almost all archetype skills require prerequisites; most are organised into “skill trees” with multiple levels of branching prerequisites.
See each archetype page – Creator, Magician, Scout and Warrior – for a list of their archetype skills.
Cross-Archetype Skills
Not everyone fits neatly into one of the four archetypes, of course – you may wish to play a spellcasting warrior or a crafter trained in siege weaponry. This is fine, with two restrictions:
- Any character can have a total of one point worth of skills in other archetypes for every two points worth of skills they have in their main archetype and general skills combined.
- No character may have more points worth of skills in other archetypes than they have skills in their own archetype.
This limitation doesn’t apply to general skills at all; you can always learn as many of them as you wish.
- Example
- Hunter of undead Torian Gravearrow, with the magician archetype, has the general skills Body Development (6 points), Corporeal Spellcasting (6 points), Iron Will (6 points), Light Armour (2 points), Spiritual Spellcasting (6 points) and Two Weapons (3 points) and the magician skills Greater Corporeal Spellcasting (8 points), Immune to Enthral (6 points) and Necromancy (8 points). This comes to a total of 51 points worth of skills, including 22 magician skills.
- This allows them to learn the warrior skills Armoured Caster (8 points), Greater Body Development (6 points) and Medium Armour (2 points) and the scout skill Tracking Proficiency (5 points), for a total of 21 points worth of cross-archetype skills.
Magic Points and Work Units
Characters with relevant magical or crafting skills may have either of the following resources:
- Magic points fuel spells, rites, invocations and other sorcerous acts.
- Work units drive crafting, surgery, alchemy and other actions that create or alter things.
These pools are shared between all relevant skills; anyone with creator skills has a single pool of work units, which they may spend on any of their creator skills, while anyone with magic skills has a single pool of magic points, which they may spend on any known spells.
Both pools refresh to full every morning at Time In.
The base value of these pools depends on how many relevant skills your characters knows:
- Your first four qualifying skills grant you 5 magic points or work units each, for 20 points total in each pool.
- The creator and magician archetypes grant access to the skills Extra Work Units and Extra Magic Points respectively, increasing these pools to a maximum of 30 Magic Points or 25 Work Units. Unlike other archetype skills, these skills cannot be learned by other archetypes.
- Example
- Lellian of the Forge has the skills Artisan, Blacksmith, Elemental Spellcasting, Weaponsmith and 5 levels of Extra Work Units, granting them 20 work units and 5 magic points per day.
Character Cards
All of your skills will be assigned to you on your character card. This card is given to you at the Games Organisation Desk at the beginning of every event and includes the following information:
- Your name
- Your character name
- Your faction
- The event details
- Your character skills
You must have your character card with you at all times during the event and it must be easily accessible in case of emergency. If your character dies or you choose to retire them during an event, the Game Organisation Desk will produce a new character card for you.
If you gain any skills during the game in addition to the permanent skills listed on your character card, you will be issued a Special Character Card. This will need to be carried with your character card during game time if you wish to use those skills.
Changing Your Mind
It’s entirely possible to find, after an event or two with a new character, that the archetype and skills you’ve chosen don’t seem to fit – or you want to go in a different direction, or you just don’t find the skills fun – even though you still want to keep playing the character.
Despair not! Any new character’s archetype or skills can be tweaked, or completely discarded and re-chosen, until the character’s third event. As of the start of the third event, the character is fixed.
Changing your character’s skills after that point generally requires effort of some sort, including ritual transformation; a number of routes are available in the game.
Of course, if you wish to change for out of character reasons (such as no longer being able to take the battlefield), please contact the Game Organisation Desk to discuss.