Character Creation: Dawning Star: Fate of Eos

Off into space! 

The Game: Dawning Star: Fate of Eos
The Publisher: Blue Devil Games
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this game, but it's Fate Core
Books Required: Dawning Star and Fate Core

This game has some interesting parallels with a previous entry in the chargen project, Altais: Age of Ruin. Both are about a new planet playing host to descendants of Earth survivors, and both feature a lot of information about the world and its current status. Unfortunately, Dawning Star did not hook me the same way, and I've been trying to figure out why.

The book isn't badly written by any means. In fact, the early chapters had my attention just fine. Earth is destroyed by an asteroid, and in the lead-up to the Big Day, the governments of the world build evacuation ships (this is set in an idyllic future where we've stopped pretending we're a Bronze Age society chanting "OOGA BOOGA GOD IS REAL" and started, like, doing science). A few million people escape, the intent being to cryo-sleep until they get to their target, a planet about 12 light years away. But that turns out not to matter, because just past Jupiter the evac fleet finds a mysterious alien device that activates, opens a wormhole, and sends the fleet scattering in all different directions. Much of it, including the titular Dawning Star, arrives at a planet that's just as habitable as Earth, and the people land and call it "Eos." 

And then there's a lot of other shit that happens, involving new races, the arrival of another ship, an evil empire of monster aliens, factional disputes, a civil war, and murcows (like cows, but alien!). And I think I just figured out why this game didn't hook me.

Altais presents a lot of information, but it's all information I can use and build a character or a game from. All of the information (I mean, not all, but the vast majority) is information that is relevant, right now, today in-game. Dawning Star has that, but it's front loaded with decades of history, and the events it's describing are interesting, but they already happened, so reading it feels less like "hey, look at this cool shit that might be relevant to your character" and more like "your history test is on Thursday." 

I take a very utilitarian view of trad RPGs, whether I want to or not. The thing that hovers around my head like a magical mosquito while I'm reading them is "could I ever run this? Would I want to? And if I did, how much work would I have to do to get my players on the same page?" Sometimes it would be worth it - both Altais and Dawning Star have very well-realized, rich, interesting settings, but of the two of them, I can't see selling the latter to my group of professional, busy adults who don't have time to read RPG books. 

ANYWAY. Let's make a character. This being a Fate game, I need a High Concept. 

You know, something that keeps coming back to me is a sci-fi comic (like, one of the old EC comics) in which humans colonized Mars because Earth was dying. Mars had wildlife of its own, including, like, rabbits, but after living there for a while people discovered that Martian life all reproduces by mitosis, and something about the atmosphere prevented humans from reproducing, um, their way. So all the humans trashed the place and went home, preferring to die on Earth, except our narrator, who loves Mars and remains there...and then splits and reproduces! 

Anyway, what I'm taking from this is a character with a strange, contemplative connection to the planet that other humans don't seem to share. Now, this obviously is a very different kind of setting than the comic, but I think that someone with an intuitive connection to something in Eos' past, perhaps the ancient alien ruins, might be a fun character. It would, of course, require that my character is human, which is kind of boring as species go, but eh.

Oh, wait, there's a whole thing called Red Truth that fits nicely into this concept. Groovy. Well, let's fuckin' do that. Red Truth is a kind of psychic network magical...thing that works with information as a meta-concept, which is very appealing to me. Let's say that my character is a native Eotian (that is, a human born on Eos, not a velin) who grew up in Fort Bracken, which is where much of the Eotian military is. So for High Concept, we'll say he's a Eotian Military Brat. 

Trouble Aspect...I'm trying to decide if I want this connected to the Red Truth. The Red Truth is written as a kind of quasi-intelligence that eats your brain if you don't respect it, and I don't think that's this guy's trouble. I think it's more than Hears the Voices No One Else Does. That's good, it opens the possibility that the voices aren't really there. 

Next is species, and I'm human, so that means I get a Species Aspect, a Species Stunt, and Skill Affinity. Humans are (as always) adaptable and persistent, so I get an extra mild consequence as the stunt. I...guess my Species Aspect is one of my three remaining? I'll assume it is. The example ones are mostly variations on how tough and cool and kewl and tuff humans are, but that's not how my guy sees it. His species Aspect is Humans Aren't As Special As We Think. I'll pick Will and Physique as my Affinity Skills (the other two are Rapport and Resources). Actually, no, I'll make it Will and Resources, just to reflect his family ties.

Two more Aspects. I want something related to Red Truth, so I'll take Respect the Red Truth, and then for his last Aspect, I'll take How Do You Know? Even without the Red Truth, he's always questioning how anybody knows anything. Good for lateral thinking and avoiding bias, bad for overthinking. 

Skills! I get the standard ladder. I don't know that I want Red Truth to be his Great Skill; I like the idea of that getting stronger as he goes. I'll put that as one of his Fairs, actually. So what should his Great be? You know, I think I'll say it's Investigate. Generally an intuitive guy, plus the Red Truth. For his Goods, I'll put Will and Knowledge. Fair, we have Red Truth, Empathy, and Notice. And under Average, we'll have Physique, Resources, Athletics, and Fight (his dad insisted he at least learn the basics of self-defense). 

Stunts! I have to take Red Truth, so I get permission to take other Red Truth things. I'll take Psychometry, too. And then for my last stunt, I don't think I want to take another Red Truth-y thing (again, kind of at the beginning of his journey, there). Instead, I'll give him a stunt called Inscrutable and say he can Defend against Investigate with Will. 

That's all the chargen stuff, just need a name and a description. In a nod to his inspiration, I'll say his name is Stefan Mars. Stefan is in his 20s, soft brown eyes, brown hair, nondescript and quiet. He has a habit of staring at things, getting mesmerized by textures, but still remaining fully aware of what's going on around him. He also talks to himself a lot. 

That'll do it! I think Stefan would probably get deeper into the Red Truth until he either learned something and embraced it or learned something and ran screaming.