Blades For Blackbird/Rules/Character Creation Rules

Overview

To create a character, fill in a background, pick two aspects that define the character, and then pick eight skills. Note the comments on archetypes on the main page when creating a character.

Aspects

The character's two aspects are the general summary of their shtick, whatever it is. The intent is that most of the time when the character is taking an action, they're doing something relevant to one of their aspects. Usually you'll want to pick two aspects with minimal overlap, both because it makes for a more interesting character and because it increases the number of times you can apply an aspect — "Musketeer / Ex-mercenary" isn't as useful or interesting a pair as "Musketeer / Ex-priest". Useful aspects are professions, organizations, countries of origin, abilities or training (swordsman schools and sorceries, notably), and possessions ("My horse Bucephalus"). Along with picking the aspect, pick a physical signifier that someone looking at the character could use to see they have the aspect: "ink-stained fingers" for "Invisible College Scholar", or "constantly sizing up people" for "Eager Duelist". In play, aspects are used to modify skills.

Skills

Skills come in five ranks: Great +3, Good +2, Fair +1, Average +0, and Basic -1. Assign two skills from the list of skills to each of the first four ranks (and the remainder are Basic). Some skills (Community and Weapons) require a specialization; they are effectively two ranks lower outside their specialization. Typical Community specializations are professions, organizations, or countries (Community (Pirates) or Community (Eisen)). Typical Weapons specializations are professions or types (Weapons (Soldiers) or Weapons (Pistols)).

Consequences

Characters have a minor, a moderate, and a severe consequence by default. Add another minor consequence if Brawn or Will is at least Fair; add another moderate consequence if Brawn or Will is at least Great.