Character Creation: For Coin & Blood

Let's be bad guys.

The Game: For Coin & Blood
The Publisher: Gallant Knight Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This is one of many games I've gotten in bundles, and to its credit it's one of the more playable-looking ones. That doesn't mean I necessarily want to play it, though. The idea is that you're playing scoundrels - the character classes are things like assassins, diabolists, and fallen nobles. It bills itself as "old school fantasy," and it's big on "the GM should just go ahead and make rulings" rather than having a bunch of complicated rules, and that's cool and all. The system didn't make a big impression on me. 

The setting...well, there's not much of one. There's a sample adventure, but there's not a world. We're bad guys, and we're told to go ahead and be evil, but there's no context for it. My thought while reading the game was "wow, this game wants to be Blades in the Dark when it grows up." The other issue is that, in my experience, if you're running for a group of "evil" characters, there needs to be a damn good reason for them to stick together and not stab each other in the back, or else, well, they'll stab each other in the back. 

But never mind all that, let's make a character so I can go to the store and get the stuff I need to make fish soup!

Now, I will say this for For Coin & Blood - it passes the Chupp test. Even the brief descriptions of the character classes sell them, at least in theory. I've been kind of into nihilism as a villain motivation lately (blame Rami Malek in No Time to Die, I think), so I think either a diabolist or a witch-hunter. Sure, let's do witch-hunter. My character is all about snuffing out magic users from the world ("too many sorcerers"). 

OK, now attributes. There's a whole weird process here. First I pick my most important Attribute and put a 12 in it. Ummm...I guess that'd be either Might or Agility, and since witch-hunters get pistols, I'm gonna go with Agility. Cool, so Agility 12. Next two most important get 11. Might and Learning, I think? And then Insight, Fortitude, and Charisma get 10. 

And now we roll 5d6 and lay them left to right in any order. OK, that gives me 4, 6, 6, 2, 1.

And now we do this: 

So that gives me Agility 16, Might 13, Learning 11, Charisma 8, Insight 9, Fortitude 10.

And then Infamy starts at 2d3, which, sure. Snake eyes gives me 2. I get Fortitude + 1 hit points Lifeblood, so that's 11. The book asks me to pick a Profession, but there's no place for that on the sheet so it can't be that important. 

Currency! I get 60gp multiplied by my "Prime Attribute" modifier. What's my Prime Attribute? Oy. The book says that each character class has a Prime Attribute listed in the description, but there are several that explicitly don't, including the witch-hunter. So let's assume I just get 60, since that's the minimum. I'll fill in my other abilities and then go shopping. 

So, I do a base of 1d8 damage (all weapons do the same damage, and it's class-dependent). I'm proficient in light armor and all weapons. I start with a pistol and a melee weapon of my choice (I'm thinking a flail, but I'm not sure yet). I get Advantage against any target I've seen cast a spell in the last 24 hours, I can use a torch as a weapon (why on earth can't anyone do that? "The burny end goes into the other man"), and if I kill a spellcaster with my pistol, I get an immediate free reload action. 

OK, then. Any gear I want to buy? Yeah, leather armor, since it's the only kind I can wear. 10 torches. Ball bearings, rope (for hangin'!), hammer, manacles, lock, tinderbox. Still need to pick a melee weapon. I think I'd want something with some versatility, maybe some reach, since if you're going after spellcasters the first thing you need to do is keep them from casting. Maybe a trident? Yeah, sounds good.

And that's pretty much all of chargen! Let's do the fun stuff.

Karum grew up in a village that lived under the rule of a wizard. As he remembers it, the wizard lived in his stone tower and did exactly nothing to earn his keep, but people brought him food and gold under pain of death, curses, and fire from the sky. Karum grew up hating magic and spell-casters, and he left the village as a young man to join a military company (little more than brigands, but they were always looking for new blood). Karum wound up talking with an older fellow who, while not a witch-hunter per se, had a lot of experience dealing with "those hand-waving bastards" and taught Karum the best ways to fight them. Karum has since left the company, and struck out on his own. He'll kill witches and wizards for money, but he'll do it regardless. Let's see them wave their hands around and chant with a trident point through their hand and a pistol at their temple. 

Karum is lean and sallow. He's got pockmarked skin and black hair, brown eyes, and a steady, almost monotone voice that only really livens up when he starts talking about spellcasters and how to kill them. He's thought about taking a trophy from his kills - teeth, maybe? - but honestly that kind of sounds like something a spell-caster would do. 

That's that, then!