Character Creation: The Warren

Wanted something quick and simple today, and I'd been meaning to read this game anyway.

The Game: The Warren
The Publisher: Bully Pulpit Games 
Degree of Familiarity: Never played this game, but it's PbtA and I've read Watership Down
Books Required: Just the one.

 

In The Warren, you play a rabbit (so this isn't the first rabbit character I've made, actually). The game is designed to incorporate the fairly quick life cycle of a bunny, to wit, when you take a scar, you lose access to a move, and you can choose to retire your rabbit at any time ("retire" here can mean death or not).

Normally we would choose a setting for our warren, but it's just me, so I'll go with the default and assume an English countryside. First thing, I choose a move for my character. There's a list of character moves, and while The Warren doesn't have playbooks, it does a bit of niche protection by stating that only one character can have a given move at a time. I will choose Squirmy - if I'm smaller than something holding me, I can roll Swift instead of Strong to Struggle (that is, struggle to get free).

Now I assign stats to my bunny. I get +2, +1, 0 and -1. Well, I think it's pretty clear I should put +2 into Swift. I'll put my +1 into Shrewd and my 0 into Strong, which leaves Steady at -1, so I panic easily.

And indeed, my next step is to determine Panic level. My max Panic is 4 (it's 5 + one's Steady rating). I start with 0 current Panic, of course.

Next I select my rabbit's look. I'll say he's got a runt body, a sleek coat, short ears, and he's a buck. More specifically, he's a normal brownish sort of color, with a pink nose an abnormally short ears. He grooms his coat obsessively, and he's much smaller than all his littermates were.

Finally, I need a name. I'm encouraged to choose a name from nature. I'll say he's called Mushroom, so named because he's kinda got the coloration of a mushroom, and because he just sort of pops up out of nowhere a lot of the time.

And that's it! Boing-boing!