Character Creation: Fantasy AGE

Nice, simple, familiar system today.

The Game: Fantasy AGE
The Publisher: Green Ronin Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: Ran Blue Rose for quite a while, which uses this system
Books Required: Just the one

Fantasy AGE is just the Adventure Game Engine (AGE) in its base form, so it's the same system as Blue Rose but with standard fantasy tropes instead of the nifty romantic fantasy that makes Blue Rose so special. That's not a knock on Fantasy AGE - it's a perfectly good trad fantasy system and I like it a hell of a lot more than a lot of others. 

The book has a sample setting that I quite like - it's hardly epic in scope, but it's clean and accessible, which is just as good. Highfalls Swale is a community of several towns in a deep valley, it's got a gate at the northern end where visitors come through, and the book mentions that Swalefolk can be suspicious of outsiders, but still hospitable (like, suspicious but not in a creepy "we don't like yer kind round here" sort of way). 

This gives me a character concept, actually. Highfalls Swale, and specifically the town of Road's End, gets visitors and merchants, and strangers get interviewed by the captain of the watch and the town scribe. I think there's also another position call the Speaker, someone who is meant to be fluent in various dialects and languages that visitors might use in order to aid in translation and welcoming. So I'd like to play the current Speaker's apprentice, a young man named Marric (it's one of the sample names listed for humans and I like it). Marric is an orphan, grew up in an orphanage in Road's End, and as such he's simple known as "Marric Roadender." 

So that's Step One done. Step Two: Abilities! The book wants you to generate these randomly in order and then swap any two you'd like, so let's try it. 

Accuracy 1
Communication 1
Constitution 1
Dexterity 3
Fighting 3
Intelligence 1
Perception 0
Strength 1
Willpower 2

Hrm. I'm gonna swap two of these, because I want those 3s in Intelligence and Communication. Otherwise, looks fine.

Next step, choose a race, human, that's done, there's no place to write it on the sheet boooooo. As a human, I add one to Fighting (putting it up to 2). I get to pick either a Dexterity (Riding) focus or a Constitution (Swimming). Hmm. I think Riding, just because Road's End is a good hike from any large body of water. My Speed is 10 + Dexterity (which is 11). I speak Common (and will need some other languages, but we'll get there), and then I roll twice on the Human Benefits table. I get two Communication focuses, Deception and Persuasion, which is perfect.

So now I roll for social class and background. I'd rather choose it, but hey, wouldn't we all. Outsider class, Criminal Background. Ooh, why not. Kind of a rags to riches sort of story, relatively speaking. Criminal either gives me Communication (Deception) or Dexterity (Lockpicking), and since I've got one I gotta take the other. 

Class! I wanna be a mage. Yes, rogue would be a natural fit, too, but fnah. My primary Abilities are Accuracy, Intelligence, Perception, and Willpower. I start with 20 + Constitution + 1d6 (roll...3) Health, which is 24 in my case. I get Brawling & Staves as Weapon Groups, and then into class powers!

Arcane Blast lets me throw a magic missile kind of thing. Arcane Device is a focus for my magic, and I'm gonna make it a wand (Marric isn't a fan of having big clunky things like staves around). I start with 16 Magic Points, and I get to pick a starting Talent from a choice of Chirurgy, Lore, or Linguistics, a-doy.

Oh, and I get two Magic Talents and four spells. Let's pick those! I get two spells from each Talent, so what kinds of magic should Marric have learned? No real mental magics here. I think a city boy and former thief like Marric would have learned Shadow Arcana. That gives me shadow dagger and shadow's embrace spell. And then for my other magic Talent, I'll take Divination Arcana. The first two spells there are bloodhound and blood mark (I can mark a target with a drop of blood and then track them), and I feel like Marric really isn't a fan of this kind of magic, but traditionally it's the first thing the Speaker is taught. If you talk with a visitor and you think they might get into trouble (their fault or otherwise), you prick your finger with a special ring and then shake their hand or touch their shoulder, marking them. Marric finds the whole thing invasive and gross, but he had to learn it.

Gear! I love how simple this is. I get traveler's clothes, backpack, waterskin, my wand, and a weapon that I'm trained with. Normally that'd be a staff, but I'm also trained in Brawling so I'll make it a gauntlet. Just a leather glove with some reinforcement so it hits a little harder. If I really need to throw down I'm using magic anyway. 

Defense is 11, Speed is 11, ain't got no armor and therefore no penalty. And that's...pretty much it. Normally I'd come up with ties to other PCs, but y'know, just me. I feel like Marric's mentor, the current Speaker, would need to be an important NPC, and I think it should be someone who saw the magical potential in this little scamp and taught him, but forced him to learn Divination before the "cool stuff", like throwing shadows around. 

Marric is in his late teens. Scrawny from growing up in an orphanage, but cleans up very nice and can bluff his way through most situations. Doesn't care much about his day-to-day appearance but keeps his Speaker robes meticulously clean. 

And that'll do it!