Characters
Anatomy of a Character
Wolden characters assume a humanoid appearance. Minor aesthetic details like pointedness of ears, or quantity, location, and quality of hair are left up to the player. Larger deviations from that template are the purview of power gifts.
Characters are defined by ability scores, each generally ranging from 1 (poor) to 4 (human best), and gifts. The latter is a mixture of traits, powers, equipment, but also possibly wounds.
Ability Scores
- Brawn. Your physical strength, resilience, and toughness.
- Agility. Your speed, finesse, and fitness.
- Graces. Your social graces, charm, and deduction.
- Mind. Your mental faculty, memory, and force of will.
You add the value of a given ability score to your rolls. Additionally, damage accrues against your scores, and when it exceeds a given score's value, you take wounds in your gift slots. By default physical damage goes to your Brawn.
Gifts
- Traits. Appearance, convictions, desires, and flaws.
- Powers. Extraordinary or supernatural abilities.
- Equipment. Exceptional items with impactful applications.
- Wounds. Consequences of physical or mental harm.
You start with 16 gift slots. Some more powerful gifts take up 2 or even 4 slots. In time, your character gains further slots.
Character Creation
- Choose your cult.
- Roll or choose a name and title from the cult, or make up your own.
- Roll or choose your traits, powers, and equipment from your chosen cult's lists. These are your gifts, and you can have up to 16 slots’ worth at creation. Wounds will temporarily render them unavailable.
- Assign 10 points between your ability scores. At this point, no score may be lower than 1 or higher than 4. Powers, equipment, spells, and advancement can make the score go beyond 4.
Money and the Mundane
Wolden characters need not concern themselves with tracking money. Everyone is assumed to have enough money on them for food and lodging, and sundry expenses.
Similarly, common, small mundane items, like a comb or a snack, are expected to be on one's person or easily discoverable. Only items of note, because of their power or use, take up gift slots. These are either assigned at character creation, found during adventure, bartered against other items or services, or acquired during the Go Shopping downtime activity.