Character Creation: SCUP

First character of the new year! Whee!

I had actually planned on making more characters before the yesterday, but I just couldn't muster the energy. I managed 71 characters in 2019, though (found myself with a lot of free time, I guess). Anyway, this year I'm gonna try to do 2 a week, for a goal of 100 characters. With that in mind:

The Game: The Sword, the Crown & the Unspeakable Power
The Publisher: Wheel Tree Press 
Degree of Familiarity: Never played this particular game, but it's PbtA and I know my way around that
Books Required: Just the one

 
SCUP, as it shall henceforth be known, is a fantasy game of politics and backstabbing and power grabbing and suchlike. The first thing that a group intending to play it would do is to create an underlying mythology, but since it's just me I'm not going to bother. For my purposes, that would really only matter if I were playing a character that deals with the titular Unspeakable Power, since that gets defined by the mythology. I am not going to play such a character, however, since I wish to make a character using the Black Hood class.

The Black Hood is a hired assassin, and I greatly enjoy video games that let me play as such (Assassin's Creed, Hitman, and so on), so I figure I'll lean into that today. I start off by giving my Hood a name. I shall call him Caress.

Next up, stats. I choose a set, and I should peek ahead a little at what secondary move I want high (Steady is always high for this class). Do I wish to be a poisoner? I think maybe I do. I shall take the second line, that give me a higher Sly but puts my Wily low. I'm not going to be great with persuasion, but I think that's OK for a stealth/murder focused character (plus, it's not that I can't use it, I'm just likely to fail).

Now for look. Caress is a man. He dressed in a flowing, black cloak (but I think they're disposable; he's prepared to drop the cloak if need be). He's got a peaceful face and bright, blue eyes, and he's very thin (he knows too much about poison to be comfortable eating much).

Gear-wise, I start a black, hooded cloak (duh), leathers, a small short-range weapon (dagger sounds good), a long-range weapon (darts, I think, maybe a blowgun), tools of my trade (lockpicks, garrote) and some various stuff worth 1 Barter (which is how currency works here).

Relationships would be next, but I'll skip that because it's just me. Entanglements? That'd be a GM call, so skip it. Moves, then! I get two off the Black Hood list, and I want Like a Shadow in the Darkness (which lets me disappear while being pursued) and Just a Spot of Indigestion (which lets me poison folks).

Next I think about my Patron, which is probably who pulls my strings and gives me targets. I'm going to call them the Coal Singers. These are a scattered group of underclass people who are secretly either assassins or lookouts for assassins, passing information and jobs and so on around. The leadership works mining and delivering coal, hence the name, but the group has grown since its inception and their members could be anywhere.

And finally, I create a Faction. I first pick a Kind. I don't want to double up with the Coal Singers, so I'll say it's a Herbalist Guild, folks who gather, buy, sell, and mix herbs for doctors, cooks, and poisoners. Caress is a member. Their social status is Common, and the benefits are Skill and Gossip.

Again, normally I'd have some stuff to do with PCs and their Factions, but it's just me, so I think I'm about done! I think Caress favors poisons that are absorbed through the skin, which he smears on special calfskin gloves and delivers with, as his name suggests, a gentle caress.