Character Creation: CthulhuTech

All right, enough of this emo bullshit.

Actually, Heather asked me today if I always get depressed on holidays. She said that I did; I really didn't remember, but Mom says I do, too. How odd. I wonder what the source of that is?

Anyway, I'm feeling better now (like, right now, this moment, though I make no assumptions about later) and today we're going to Miss Molly's Tea Room for brunch (the scones alone are worth the trip). So I'd like to make a character and go have some breakfast.

The Game: CthulhuTech
The Publisher: Wildfire LLC.
Degree of Familiarity: None. I read it a couple weeks back whilst getting my tires fixed.
Books Required: Just the core.

 
It's an interesting premise, to be sure. The Stars Are Right, the Old Ones have woken up, but it's also the Future and we've got crazy arcane technology that lets us defy gravity and use mecha as weapons. Some of these mecha have monsters in them. Some folks bond with monsters, a la Guyver. And meanwhile, cults are trying to wipe out/corrupt humanity. It's all pretty bleak.

I have no idea how the game would play. System looks straightforward enough, at a glance, but I dunno. Let's try it out.

Step One: Concept. First off, I choose an allegiance. If I want to play a Tager, for instance (which are the Guyver things) I pretty much have to work for the Eldritch Society. And actually, I've got an idea.

My character was the son of one of the original, would-be Tagers. The Eldritch Society found these fragments that allowed the Rite of Symbiosis, but of the six people that underwent the rite, only two lived. One of the ones that didn't was my character's father. When he died, it wasn't like he was immediately swallowed by the void. The symbiont surrounded him, but just didn't bond. My character's father lived a few days, but never really talked about his experience. His wife (my character's mother) found him dead three days later, sitting in his favorite chair, staring out the window into the snow. She was three weeks pregnant at that point.

Now, 20 years later, my character (Desmond Marsh) felt an irresistible pull toward the Society. He wanted to do his part to fight the alien menaces, but he had no desire to jump into a big suit and duke it out on the battlefield. He wanted to find the soft heart of these things and rip it out, and if that means he has to become one, he'll do that. His father was willing. So is Desmond.

Well, that covers allegiance, profession (Tager), race (human) and name. I need a Virtue and a Flaw. Virtue is my character's primary "good" quality, from a personality standpoint. I think Desmond is Patient. He's waited 20 years to take the fight to the Dhohanoids, he can wait a little longer. His Flaw is Vengeful. Yes, he can wait, but if he waits, his enemies suffer for it because he has more time to plan what he wants to do to them.

Step Two: Attributes. I get 35 points to divvy up among 7 Attributes. Five is human average, so I could split my points evenly and do average 'cross the board. I appreciate systems that let me do that, but I'm not gonna.

OK, I haven't made a jumpy/flippy character in a while, so let's put 3 points into Strength, 8 into Agility, four into Presence and Perception and six into Tenacity and Intellect. Desmond is thin and not especially strong, but he's fast and clever.

Step Three: Skills, Specializations and Qualities. Your skill level determines the number of dice you roll. I get 20 points for Skills, and buying one at, say, Adept would cost me 3 points ('cause I get 3 dice!). I get Expert in my Native Language for free, and Literacy and Regional Knowledge at Novice for free.

The book recommends I take Athletics, Dodge, Fighting, Marksman and Occult. I probably would have done that, yeah. I can't go higher than Adept, though I can Specialize a bit, which I will.

Athletics 2
Dodge 2
Fighting 2
Marksman 2 (specialization: Tager)
Occult 2 (specialization: Eldritch Society)
Education 2
Observation 2
Stealth 3
Surveillance 2

I get Qualities and Drawbacks, but I can only take up to 10 points in Drawbacks and I have to take a couple of required Qualities. I have to take Tager (4 points), Duty (3 points) and Fanatical (2-3 points). And, looking at the Tager Quality, I see that my Tenacity has to be 7 or better. Balls. Actually, that's not horrible, it just means I'll have to use freebies to bump it up one, which I was considering doing anyway. OK, mental note for later.

So I take Tager (4 points), Duty (3 points back) and Fanatical (3 points back; Desmond seethes with quiet obsession). I can take another 4 points in Drawbacks, so I shall. I'll take Mean; Desmond, as mentioned, has a cruel streak. He's not proud of it, but there it is. Also, I'll take Hunter. The Esoteric Order of Dagon feels that the Marsh family is special in some way, and they've got it in their heads that Desmond was conceived after his father's failed Symbiosis. They're wrong, of course. His mother told him so.

That gives me six points to play with. I'll spend three and bump Marksman, Observation and Fighting to 3. I'll spend one on Double-Jointed, because the notion of a squirmy, double-jointed Tager is fun. And I'll burn my last two points on the Innovative Quality, which gives me extra Drama Points to spend if I use Skills in a new and interesting way.

Step Four: Secondary Attributes. This is the derived traits section, and again it's before freebies. WTF, guys? I'll come back to this.

Step Five: Outfitting the Character. Put another way, go choose your Tager. Oh, I get a sidearm, too, but eh. I choose the Shadow. It's a stealth combat monster, but check out what I get.

All Tagers get Attribute boosts. In my case, my Agility, Perception and Tenacity go up by one, and then they go up again when I shift into Tager-form. I can climb up walls like a bug (rule!). All jumping distances are tripled for me, and I can survive without air for short periods of time.

My particular symbiont is all stealthy and stuff. It has thorns that I use for stabbing, or fire needle-pods at enemies. Also, once per day I can "multiport", teleporting around a single target and beating on it with my thorns.

Oh, and the thorns are poisonous. Rule.

Step Six: Cheats. Well, I get six, and I have to burn three to bump Tenacity up to seven. I think I'll put two more into Skills, and buy Intimidate and Communications at Novice. Something about this guy just suggests he'd be good at mucking about with radios and the like. That leaves me one point. I'll take the Peripheral Vision Quality, just to make me more observant.

And now I do derived traits. I get 2 actions (3 in Tager-form). I can full-out run at 11 mph, or run cautious-like at 27 yards/turn. My Orgone, which is magic energy, is 12, but I only have access to six because my Tager eats half. My Reflex is six (8 in Tager-form). My Vitality is 10 (12 in Tager-form).

Step Seven: Answer a bunch of questions. Actually, the step is called "making it real," but hey. It's presented in question form.

• How old is he? Desmond is 19. He was born in 2066, some months after the incident with the first Tagers.
  
• What does he look like? Desmond is a young-faced man, tall like his dad, skinny like his mother. Dark complexion, green eyes, brown hair. No tats or other distinguishing marks. Desmond likes to stay nondescript.
  
• What does he act like? Desmond has a mean streak, and he takes pains to aim it at monsters, not his comrades. Folks don't like to play the dozens with him, though; it's not that he's good at it, he just goes for blood and he's not above pointing out who people have lost in battle as a way to "win." In battle, he's all business, and he doesn't talk unless he absolutely has to.
  
• What does he want out of life? He wants the monsters dead. He thinks. Honestly he's got very little concept of what the world would be like without the war. He loves his mother and would like to spend more time with her, but he's never really developed his people skills enough to consider life outside the front lines.
  
• Why does he do what he does? If you asked him, he'd say something about preservation of the human race. Really, he latched onto the idea that he was avenging his father early on, and he runs with that. Which would make a plotline about his family lineage and whether or not Dad really did impregnate Mom post-symbiosis fun.
  
• What's his family like? Dad's dead, obviously. Mom never really got over that, and she's terrified that Desmond is going to lose it in battle and join the other side (not that she's ever said that to him). She was involved enough in the Eldritch Society that Desmond becoming a Tager didn't break her, but it sure bent her. Desmond has no other family but Mom.
  
• What are his friends like? His closest companions would probably be other Tagers (other PCs). Desmond doesn't make friends easily.
  
• What was growing up like? Desmond and his mother were taken care of by the Society, so he didn't know the "scrounging for food" thing that others did. By the same token, he didn't get the same formative experiences that other kids did; the notion of "secrecy" and "preservation of mankind" was beaten into him from an early age. Other kids get a lecture if they go snooping in adults' "special" books. Desmond ran the risk of unleashing Dagon. Makes for a screwed-up kid.
  
• What's his adult life been like so far? Once the symbiont bonded with him, he finally felt like he had a friend. The symbiont was quiet, smooth and patient, like him. He began wondering what this creature's life might have been like, and whether it missed its home dimension. He gets no anger from it, though, just...patience.
  
• If the world were a different place...Desmond has no idea. The Mythos are too deep in him to imagine it otherwise. Honestly, if he were growing up in a different, less crazy, world, he might someday be the sort of person that neighbors describe as "always such a quiet young man."