Character Creation: Hellas: Worlds of Sun & Stone

So anyway:

The Game: Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone
The publisher: Khepera Publishing
Degree of familiarity: None. I picked it up at Origins (I think, maybe it was GenCon) last year, but didn't get a chance to play it.
Books required: Just the core and a great deal of time, which today I have.

I think this character is actually for the 1st edition, but my PDF is this one

 
OK, this game uses lifepaths, in a big way. You're not just creating a character, you've got a whole history going on, because these characters are meant to mythic in scope. Hell, you're actually meant to play the character's dynasty, which in a long chronicle, would be fully awesome.

Only one minor niggle, and it's something Stew pointed out when he did his character for this game: Some of the races that you can play don't have families in the same way that humans (Hellenes) do, which renders the whole "lifepath" thing a little unwieldy. Now, I'm not going to let that stop me, of course.

As an aside, I find that when I make characters for systems that include extended chargen sections - either in the "20 questions" form of Legend of the Five Rings or Edge of Midnight, or the lifepath form a la Shattered Dreams, I enjoy the extra thought it makes me put into characters. This is especially true if I don't know the game as well. I put lots of thought into World of Darkness characters, but the setting is quite familiar to me, too. Then when I get around to making a character for, say, Shadowrun, it doesn't have the same breadth, not because the information isn't out there, but because I'm not as familiar with it and the chargen section doesn't ask me to delve in the same ways (not that I wouldn't like to play T'kor, if anyone were running Shadowrun, you know, well).

OK, digression over, back to space opera. The Hellas book is really fucking pretty, and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. Fiction bits were short and sweet, and I feel, after reading it, that I "get it" enough to play it. As for the system, I have no idea, but I admit my eyes tend to glaze over when I read systems. I need to see them in play first.

Well, my first step here is determine a race. OK. There are some cool ideas here, but the one that kept jumping out at me was the Myrmidons. These guys are living colonies of tiny insects, formed into a human shape (ever see the old Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode where the villain was a dude made of bees called "Swarm?").

What I like about this race is that they worship Hellenic gods and try to emulate the Hellenes. That is, they try and act human...but they aren't. They mimic human family structure, even pretending to reproduce the same way humans do (go ahead, picture two human-shaped clouds of insects doing it, I dare you), all in this kind of twisted hero-worship thing they've got going. That's creepy, and I love it. I could play that to the bone.

Myrmidons usually latch onto a Hellene to mimic or worship, which I would totally do with another Hellene character. Since Stew didn't make one, I'll just leave it at that. I will, however, note the stuff I get from being a bug-man.

My racial attributes:

Intelligence +0
Will +0
Perception +0
Charisma +0
Strength +0
Dexterity +3
Constitution +2
Speed +0
Combat Rating +0
Dynamism -3

Hit Points: 20

And then I get some Skills, which I note on the character sheet.

These might change as the process continues. I also get some special powers. I heal quickly, because "healing" means "making more bugs." I can shapeshift, I can add extra limbs (sweet!). And - holy crap, this is fun - I can ooze through cracks in an opponent's armor and fucking sting them to death. Enough Myrmidons can cluster together to make, say, a bridge or a spaceship. I can split off a little chunk of myself to go make me a smammich. And, of course, I can see in 360 degrees.

Holy crap, these guys are cool. OK, what's next!?

I roll on Life Path to determine my "childhood" (larva-hood?) adventures. Remember that Myrmidons don't really have childhoods, but it would be interesting if they put restrictions on how big they go during their early years, just to emulate childhood. Better go grab some entropy.

Let's see. I was born in Spring, specifically in Thargelion. I don't see anything about what that means in the section and the index is no help, dangit. Hm. Also, "birth" is a misnomer. I assume that Myrmidon breeding happens when a new queen is hatched, which technically doesn't require two Myrmidon colonies at all. But, if they want to emulate Hellenes, it should - the "mother" provides the queen egg and the "father" provides the male fertilization, so there we go.

Moving on, where was I "born"? The planet Aegina, the Myrmidon homeworld. Makes sense. Lemme look that up. Ooh, neat. The planet Aegina was devastated by a plague, one that pretty much killed every living thing there except the Myrmidons, which it elevated to sentience instead. Young Myrmidons pretty much leave as soon as they can. But some of my reasons for leaving might be covered in future rolls, so let's move on.

The next roll tells me I'm an orphan and I raised myself. Sounds good. My "parents" died in an accident on Aegina - crushed in a cave-in (bugs are hard to kill unless you get the queens). The other Myrmidons didn't know quite what to do, here; yes, I should be "raised" by someone else, but it's not like bugs aren't born with everything they need to be adults. My guy pretty much just grew faster than he normally would have been allowed to and went on with his life.

Next, parents' social station (pre-death, obviously). Nobles. Neato! So their death might have been assassination, or just a horrible accident. Hmm. I also get +5 Glory and the Royal Favor Talent.

Now, family status. Wow. We're destitute and powerless - I'm their only hope. Heavy burden for my shoulder-like-clusters-of-bugs.

How many siblings? One "twin." Ooh, that's interesting. When my folks created a new queen, they got two. That's gotta be uncommon. How does my twin feel about me? Competitive rival, but loves me. Maybe. I have an idea, here. My twin and I read up on some great Hellenic legend about feuding twins, and decided to emulate them. Problem is, the legends vary from place to place, and sometimes they end with one twin killing the other. Also, we argue about which twin is which.

Right, special gift: My folks left me a small fortress on a Theban asteroid. That's interesting. I figure there are actually two, one for me and one for my twin, orbiting near each other, almost exactly alike.

Divine Heritage: My great-grandmother on my mother's side had a divine parent (and was also a twin, how about). I get 3 more Glory. My Divine Mark is that I'm Very Wise. I get +1 Perception. A thousand eyes will do that.

Childhood Encounter: If I can tie this in to my parents' deaths, I will. Let's see. OK, I encountered "someone special." I met a Hero in the market when I was young, who gave me a small trinket and told me to keep it safe. Neato. I figure he's still got the small trinket in him, surrounded by the bugs. Or, fuck, how about this: The trinket is a lock, made of gold and brass. My guy has no idea where the key is, and he's never told anyone, not even his brother, about the lock. But his brother was in the market that day, too...

Now I choose a god. And I actually choose, I don't roll. I like the idea of this guy being about secrets, symbolized by a lock. I choose Aphrosia, the Lover (plays into the month of my birth, too). My twin, of course, is chosen of Athenia, whose domains are about prophecy and investigation (symbolized by a key, GET IT?).

Destiny: I choose Destiny (but not Fate, which is next). This is the heroic end to my Hero's story. Hmm. I think that his Destiny would involve reuniting lock and key, and therefore revealing some great secret or uncovering some kind of special wisdom. This will involve learning that my twin has the key, and convincing him to share it with me (yes, there's some very, er, Greek things going on with my twin, here, made slightly more palatable by the fact that we're two colonies of bugs). Joining Lock and Key, and discovering the Song of the Myrmidons - sounds good to me. What's the Song do? Dunno. That's for the GM to figure out, but I personally think these guys need their own racial identity, rather than aping the Hellenes. Maybe the song will help them find it.

Now, Fate: Roll a 5, roll a 5, roll a 5....4. Shit. "Killed by a foreign warrior." Well, actually, that could still be my brother, depending on the circumstances.

Profession. The Myrmidon-specific ones don't do anything for me. I think Ambassador speaks to me. It allows my guy to work at keeping secrets while appearing to be open and forthright, and puts me into a diplomatic spotlight which makes the "killed by a foreign warrior" thing more likely. Let's see. That gives me +1 Charisma and a bunch of Skills, which I note. As an amusing note, one of my skills is Seduction. Ew. Oh, I also make a Skill roll to see how much money I start with. OK. Since no Degree of Difficulty is listed, I assume it's unmodified. I roll a 3, to which I add my CHA bonus (+1) and my Profession Skill (+4) and get 8, which is a partial success, so I start with my full 2000 drachma.

Now, Callings. This is fun! I can take up to 5 Calling Life Paths, but each one ages me. That's OK; it's not like Myrmidons are going to be wrinkly (and besides my Goddess ensures I always look hot, which weirds me out some). Oh, side note: The book acknowledges that this creates characters that are not "balanced." Good on you, guys. Game balance is for video games and D&D.

So, where do we start? The Callings open to me are Legionnaire of Delphoi, Noble, Priest, Sailor and Scholar. So let's think. I figure that after the parent-crushing incident, my guy decided to get the hell off of Aegina for a while, so "Sailor" is a good start. I shall roll on the Sailor Life Path and see what happens. OK, first, how much did this age me? 4 years. OK. So what happened to me as a Sailor? A special event! Yay! Oh, well. I've "seen many things and experienced different cultures." I get a +1 in languages. I'll use that to bump my Hellene language up to Fluent. That's totally in-character, though it's no "fight a giant space-squid," is it? Maybe next time.

So after spending four years as a Sailor (during which I assume I wasn't doing grunt work - I was probably on an exploratory or diplomatic vessel), let's assume he moved up in the world and spent some time as a Noble. Roll for age: 3 years (7 total). Roll for event: Enemy! My enemy is an Atlantean. Ugh. What's an Atlantean? Jesus. That's fun. OK, he's trying to kill me because I'm fated to kill him, and he's working with my other enemies to kill me.

OK, let's put this in context. My guy knows nothing about the Atlantean. All he knows is that during his travels as a Noble (I figure the shift from Sailor to Noble happened once he learned about his fortress and figured out that "Mom" and "Dad" had some clout, even among Hellenes) he met a dark man during a diplomatic conference. That mean, an oracle, reported back to his Atlantean master that he had foreseen this young Myrmidon unlock the Song of the Myrmidon, the Music of the Endless Swarm...and that Swarm would be coming for him (the Atlantean) one day. This Atlantean, not wishing to have that happen, started digging in my guy's life, and found...his twin. Now he's working to nudge my twin into killing me, hopefully destroying the lock in the process. But the Atlantean doesn't know that my twin has the key, which would shut down my Destiny just as quickly.

Next Path: How about another stint as a Noble? The roll: 3 years. Special event! I cowed an angry mob in the markets using presence and noble stature. Sweet. My twin, in an ongoing effort to fuck with me, drove people into a frenzy, telling them that there was an Atlantean spy around, a Myrmidon noble (ironically, he was right, but it was him). My character spread himself out, making himself look huge but somehow still beautiful (arrrrgh) and told the people to go back to their business - I'm no spy, I'm the Lord and Master of the Fortress on That There Asteroid. I get +1 Command for my trouble.

Fourth Path: I don't know, Noble is still looking good. The roll: 5 years. Event: Relationship. This could get very weird. Oh, damn, it didn't. I befriend a contact on a random world, maybe a player character. I roll for a random world and get Tegea. Tegea is a water planet, where the algae blooms across the whole world, turning it red. Neat. I think my contact there is an algae baron, someone who's responsible for farming it and shipping it off-world. Someone I could call on for a favor (using my Royal Favor Talent) if need be. How close are we? We're friendly, but not blood brothers or anything. I think he's not Hellene, or I'd be friendlier to him. I think he's a Gorgeon, because the notion of talking with a great big fat snake-dude on an algae farm is awesome. His name is Nicias.

Last Path: Not Noble. Um. Fuck it, how about Legionnaire of Delphoi? In meeting and befriending Nicias, my guy learned about the people out there who depend on the Legion to do things as mundane as protect food ships from pirates or just general mishaps. He'd already spent his time working as a diplomat; now maybe it was time to do more. Years: 4 years, and that's because I rolled a 20 (you add 3 for this Path). The event: Enemy again. Ergh. It comes up as "a Parent," which is inconvenient because supposedly my folks are dead. Well, let's continue. Supposedly I foiled this enemy's insidious plot and were hailed a Hero. Sure, OK.

My "mother," known as Candis, didn't die in the cave-in. In fact, she planned it. The idea was to kill my "father" (Dunixi) and take over the family. But the cave-in was a little too successful, and Candis was trapped for a little longer than she wanted to be. In the interim, my character (and his twin), rather than sticking to the "pretend to be children" plan that was common for Myrmidons, grew up and left the planet. Mom wasn't there to rein us in, and with us "adults" but leaving the world, the family line fell to ruin. Mom also couldn't claim her true identity without setting off some alarm bells, so she retreated to the shadows, catching up with my character, what, 15 years later when he joined the Legion. She has, however, fallen in with both his twin and his secretive Atlantean enemy, and is working to kill him and collect his secret trinket, the Lock (Candis, like the Atlantean, doesn't know about the key).

That's Callings done, then. I should do Disadvantages at some point. Interestingly, they aren't listed in the character creation steps. I get five levels of Disadvantages, and I have to have three. Well, I think all of mine are going to be Relationships. First, my twin, obviously. His name is Alcides. I'll put that at level 3 - he's going to be the most important Disadvantage I have. I'll put the Atlantean and Candis as my other two, both at level 1. They're both using Alcides to get at me, but they'll work on their own sometimes, too.

Freebie points! I get 30. Well, since most of my Skills rely on Charisma, I'll spend 10 points and bump it up to +0. I suppose I should buy some combat skill, since I was a Legionnaire. I'll take Brawling. Costs one for one, so I'll buy up to +5. Hell, I'll buy a +1 in Combat Rating, too. I'll drop 5 points on the Well-Traveled Talent. That leaves me with 5 points left, unless I want to drop any of my attributes and get more points. Hate to say it, but Cultural Studies makes some sense. I put 4 points into Hellene and one point in Gorgeon, to reflect my time with Nicias. Guess that'll do it. Without knowing how the system works in play, I have no idea if I suck or not, which makes me nervous. Obviously this is a social, not a combat, character. But I'm a Hero, so you figure the combat would come later.

I start with Hero Points equal to 5 + (Charisma x 2), which is 11 for me. I start with no Fate Points, which is good. I've got +8 Glory right now, and that doesn't change until I go do more stuff.

Heroic Ambitions: I can take up to three of these, and they have to be Heroic, dammit. I don't want them to relate to my Destiny, at least not yet. Let's see.

Well, first, I figure that fortress should figure in somehow. My character wants to host a grand gathering of diplomats at his asteroid fortress (which I think we'll call "the Fire Hive", since it needs a name). Yes, this kind of violates the checklist of ambitions, but I'll also add that I want the gathering to be worthy of a song or story that gets repeated throughout Hellenic space, and I think that counts.

Second, I want to establish fair and safe trading between Nicias and some of the poorer, outlying worlds. Nicias is a buddy, but he's a shrewd trader, he's greedy and he doesn't give a shit about anyone outside his own world. My character wants to see people on other worlds get fed, and some worlds don't support life like they should (especially mining colonies and the like). This'll give him a chance to flex his muscles as a diplomat.

Finally, I want to lead an assault on my brother's fortress (which we'll call the Ice Hive). The two Hives have their names because of the colors of rock they're made of; his is blue and white, mine is red and yellow and black. I don't want to take the Ice Hive, or even destroy it. I just want to invade it, steal some stuff, and show my brother that I can fight, too (I think he's a better warrior than me). Kind of counting coup, in a way.

Now I need an epithet. The book suggests summarizing my character's life and letting the other players suggest an epithet, but clearly that's not an option. So: My character is chosen of Aphrosia, which means he's pretty and all. He's known for being wise, and a shrewd diplomat. But what is he really known for, something that's truly Heroic in scope? We'll say his epithet is "gentle-voiced;" he can soothe people no matter how angry or zealous they are. His name, by the way, is Iphicles, which was Heracles' twin brother. Iphicles, in Greek myth, grew up mortal, but around here, that ain't the case - Iphicles is a Hero in his own right.

Now, age. I start at age 6 (adult for a Myrmidon), and I add 19 years for my Life Paths, meaning I'm 25 now. Still in the "adult" range. Myrmidons don't live all that long, as it happens; age 50 is considered "venerable."

And remarkably, that's it!