Character Creation: Promethean: The Created 1st Edition

 Well, here we are again, my fluffy little bunnies. Tonight's installment involves dead flesh! MMMM!

The Game: Promethean: The Created
The publisher: White Wolf Game Studio
Degree of familiarity: Very yes. I developed the four sourcebooks for the game line, wrote a small chunk of the core book, and ran a chronicle as well as a couple of one-shots here and there.
Books required: The World of Darkness Rulebook and Promethean: The Created. 

Gotta tell you: I love this game, but I would really be nervous about playing it. I have high ST expectations anyway, and for Promethean, which only works with a high degree of interaction between player and ST...well. I can think of a couple of STs that would be really, really good at running this, but like I said, my standards would be high.

With that in mind, let's do this. Unlike other World of Darkness games, a Promethean isn't someone that was once human and then changed into something supernatural. It's a created being, made from dead flesh and animated (not reanimated, as that implies undead, which they aren't) by the Divine Fire.

Now, I've had a concept in my head for a Promethean character for a while that I never did anything with, so I think I'll use it here. The concept came to me when listening to "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers. If you don't know it, give a listen:

Now then. It's an eight-step process, so let's go.

Step One: Concept

My character is jealous, but it's his own fault. He misinterpreted compassion as love, and is prone to getting obsessed anyway. He feels that because a woman was kind to him, he's entitled to something else, and so he's bitter. (Listen to the song, I'm telling you.)

He's a Galateid, and I think that his creator is no longer in the picture. His creator, another Galateid, died fending off a mob with torches and pitchforks, and while he later returned to life, my character doesn't know that (that gives my hypothetical ST the option to bring him back later). He doesn't know why his creator got attacked; he's had comparatively little experience with Disquiet thus far.

I already know I want my Refinement to be Stannum, so I can just g'head and mark that down. Under concept, I write "Jealous Stalker."

Step Two: Select Attributes

Now, because I'm Galateid, it might seem I should go Social first. Nah. My character is peevish, bitter and immature. Social is dead last. Physical is first - I want this guy to be dangerous when he's mad. That leaves Mental secondary.

Physical's primary, so I chop it up thusly: Two dots into Strength, two into Dexterity, one into Stamina. Strong and fast, not so tough.

Mental: One into Intelligence and Resolve, two into Wits. He can think on his feet, but that just lets him say what he shouldn't.

Social: Two into Presence, one into Manipulation, nothing into Composure, which is going to mean Willpower sucks, but that's OK. My character just can't keep his mouth shut.

Step Three: Select Skills

Skills are always an issue for Prometheans. How do they learn, after all? I think that, for this guy (who needs a name, dammit), he does have some Social acumen, but it's been learned by mimicking rather than really learning the lessons. So it's going to be secondary, not primary. Physical, again, can be primary. That leaves Mental tertiary.

Physical: Three into Athletics. He was created to be buff, lithe and strong. Two into Brawl, just by dint of muscle mass and not feeling pain, he can fight. Two into Stealth (natural instinct) and two into Weaponry (instruction from his creator) leaves me with two dots left. We'll put one into Survival and put the last one into Athletics, for a total of four.

Social: Spread out, like I said. One dot in everything except Streetwise. Those will go up in play, maybe, if he gets over himself a little.

Mental: Two each in Academics (his creator's influence again) and Crafts (his creator wanted an artist, so this guy studied art; he knows the technical stuff, but not the creative spark).

Step Four: Skill Specialties

One of the things I like about "Mr. Brightside" is that it's fast, constant...makes me think of running, pushing things out of the way, getting through crowds. I specialize Athletics in Running, and Brawl in Groups (might help when I get to the torch-n-pitchfork stage). For the last one, I take an Expression Specialty in Singing. I (Matt) like to sing, and doing it in character is fun. There's a song for every occasion.

Step Five: Add Promethean Features

I've already chosen Lineage and Refinement. I note his Bestowment (Mesmerizing Appearance; I could take the one from Strange Alchemies, but I don't see him as the type to become a statue, not with that focus on movement).

Transmutations. Only 3 dots, dammit. I'm Stannum, so I have to take one dot of either Disquietism or Electrification. Definitely Disquietism. I take Scapegoat, first of all. My character's enough of a dick to transfer his Disquiet to someone else and not think about what that means, at least until it horribly backfires.

For the other two dots, I take the Vitality Transmutation Vault. I just read it closely, and it makes you faster as well as jumpy-er. I'd like to get Swift Feet, too, but I don't have enough dots.

As an aside, what is it with me and making speedster characters lately? I've always liked Spider-Man-like characters that can leap from building to building (my long-running Exalted character had a lot of that going on, too), but I can do other stuff, I swear. OK, next character I make: Totally not jumpy and flippy. In my defense, I've had this guy in my head for a long time.

Azoth is one dot, unless I decide to raise it.

Step Six: Select Merits

OK, I'm going to bust out Strange Alchemies and take Parkour. I'll just take one dot for now, but that allows me to do some cool stuff with my Athletics, including making me hard to catch.

I want to be pretty, so I dump four dots into Striking Looks. That leaves me with three points. I'll spend that on one point of Residual Memory, which I put into Expression. My boy can sing.

For the other dot, I take a point in Lair. I like the idea of him having someplace to brood.

Step Seven: Determine Advantages

Math, first. Speed is 11. Size is 5. Willpower is 3 (ouch). Defense is 3. Initiative is 4. Humanity is 7, but I think I'd like to drop it to buy the Swift Feet Transmutation. Only issue is, I'd have to drop it to five, since that's a non-affinity Transmutation. Hmm.

I think, instead, that I'll drop it to six and take 5 XP. I'll use two points of that to buy Fleet of Foot 1 (which raises my Speed to 12). It's not much, but it's a start. With the other three XP, I buy another Specialty. I'll buy a Stealth Specialty in Hiding; that'll help with lurking in my "girlfriend's" closet, wishing to be the friction in her jeans (right genre, wrong band). That means my Humanity starts at 6, which means my starting Pyros is also 6.

Virtue and Vice: Well, Vice is easy (Envy). As for Virtue, I think he has this perverse belief that everything's going to work out for him. He's highly egocentric, but that translates into a kind of Faith. So there ya have it.

Step Eight: Coming to Life

OK, let's do some more background. My character's creator has these grandiose plans of this guy being a Pygmalion, being classy and sophisticated and all. It's not too late, maybe, but he didn't get the chance to get very far before his creator died. (I leave the question of why my creator never came to find me to the ST.) My creator named me Adonis, but he just goes by Donnie Whiteside (yes, it's a play on the song title, eat me).

Shortly after my creator was killed, Donnie, alone and afraid, found himself sitting at a bus stop waiting for a ride somewhere. The bus was late (flat tire) and he wound up talking to a young woman named Jenny (never caught her last name). Donnie told her that he was used to everyone hating him (true), that his father was dead (true, as far as he knew) and that he didn't have anywhere to go (true). She took pity on him and gave him a key to an apartment - the one she'd just moved out of to be with her boyfriend. Donnie's about as good with subtlety as I am with patiently waiting for lunch (read: not), so when he got there, expecting her to be waiting for him with open arms and found an empty apartment, he snapped a little.

It took him a while to find her, but he did, and he was all set to call her on what she did...and then he saw her boyfriend. They're quite happy together, but he's constructed this elaborate fantasy in which he's mentally holding her hostage, she really wants Donnie, and all he has to do is find a way to let her know how much he loves her. And then they'll go to that apartment, and they'll be happy together. (That apartment is his Lair, by the way. It's not his, it's just not rented yet, and given the Wasteland he's causing, it won't be anytime soon.)

Donnie is tall, strong and handsome. He has short, blond hair, clear, frosty-blue eyes, and is muscular and toned. When his disfigurements show, he looks painted and false, like he's a Photoshopped glamor-boy come to life.

I think Donnie's character arc involving Jenny would be rather short; it's too immediate to be dragged out. Ultimately, the fate of his creator is going to be the more important thing, but he can't think beyond his own concerns enough to figure that out (which is really the character's theme, innit?).