Character Creation

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:

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.

The four archetypes are described in more detail in the Archetypes section, along with the more advanced archetype skills associated with them, some example characters, and some common paths for progression via research or training.

You can choose your archetype at character creation, but you don’t have to – you can get a feel for your character before choosing a path. You must, however, choose one before learning any archetype skills.

Skills

Your character starts with twenty (20) character 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:

Primary Archetype: You must choose a primary 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 skills worth a total of no more than half as many points in cross-archetype skills than you have learned in skills in your own primary archetype.

Prerequisites: Most archetype skills have prerequisites, other skills that you have to know before you can learn them. Skills are listed in the Archetypes chapter (p. 00) below their prerequisites.

Specialisation: The most advanced skills – those costing 11 or more character points – require absolute focus and dedication. No character may 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 90 character points worth of skills. Note that this limit doesn’t apply to abilities gained via magic or supernatural means.

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.

Things That Aren’t Skills Note that you don’t need skills for everything! All characters in the Renewal campaign can read, write, count and perform arithmetic, make and read maps and fight with a single small or one-handed weapon, without needing any skills.

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

• Light Armour (2 points)
• Long Weapons (4 points)
• Projectile Weapons (6 points)
• Shield (4 points)
• Thrown Weapons (2 points)
• Two Weapons (3 points)

Creation Skills

• Alchemist (6 points)
• Artisan (6 points)
• Blacksmith (6 points)
• Jeweller (6 points)
• Surgeon (6 points)

Lore Skills

• Evaluate (5 points)
• Foraging (4 points)
• Gathering (4 points)
• Ranger (5 points)
• Scholar (5 points)
• Scoundrel (5 points)
• Scrounge (4 points)

Magical Skills

• Charm Invocation (5 points)
• Corporeal Spellcasting (6 points)
• Elemental Spellcasting (6 points)
• Ritual Magic (6 points)
• Sense Magic (5 points)
• Spiritual Spellcasting (6 points)

Personal Skills

• Body Development (6 points)
• Fearlessness (4 points)
• Intuition (5 points)
• Income (4+ points)
• Iron Body (5 points)
• Iron Will (6 points)
• Resist Disease (4 points)
• Resist Magic (6 points)
• Resist Poison (5 points)
• Resources (4+ points)

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

Example: A creator has one pool of work units, which they may spend on any of their crafting skills, while a magician has one pool of magic points, which they may spend on any known spells.

The base value of these pools depends on how many relevant skills your characters knows:

• Your first qualifying skill grants you ten (10) magic points or work units,
• The second and third grant you five (5) points 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 points.

Example: Lellian of the Forge has the skills Artisan, Blacksmith, Master Blacksmith Elemental Spellcasting and 5 levels of Extra Work Units, granting them 25 work units and 10 magic points per day.

Both pools refresh to full every morning at time in.

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 you spend character points gained through experience after the character’s second event.

Once you’ve spent those points, the character is fixed.

Changing your character’s skills after that point generally requires in character effort of some sort, including ritual transformation. 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 (GOD) to discuss.