Character Creation: Liminal

 Always room for a little urban fantasy.

The Game: Liminal
The Publisher: Modiphius Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None, and yet, it feels so familiar
Books Required: Just the one

Liminal is an urban fantasy game with vampires, werewolves, mages, faeries, and ghosts, and hey, if you're thinking "like the World of Darkness or Dresden Files?" then yes, exactly like that. 

There's not a lot more to say about it. It's a game in that vein, except the focus is very much on the UK, which grants it some cultural context that sometimes gets lost in WoD (since that's a world of darkness). Urban Shadows is another game in the same family, though of course because that game is PbtA it's got a more bespoke quality to it. At the end of the day, though, the usual ingredients are here - secret world underneath or in the shadows of the mundane one, check, entrenched power structures, check, secret organizations within mundane human ones, checkaroony. 

This all sounds dismissive, but I think Liminal would probably be fun to play and it ain't like I'm ever going to run WoD again, so if I were going to run a game like this, who knows, might crack this one open. I'll say this, it's got a ton of support from the creator, so that's always nice. 

Anyway, let's make a character. I just rewatched Dog Soldiers the other night, and I've always liked the character of Witherspoon (or "Spoon", as his mates call him). Sure, he's a little too cavalier in the face of certain death, but he has hands down the most badass line in the movie ("I hope I give you the shits, you fucking wimp"). It'd be fun to make a character who survived a werewolf attack and is now hunting them down in this setting, both because it would open the way for a character arc where he becomes one (werewolves aren't infective in this setting but you can still become one if you go through a ritual) and because there's actually a lot of political shit going on with different gangs of wolves. 

Cool. So the first thing I do is come up with a Drive. I'll phrase it thusly: "To track down and kill the werewolves that nearly killed me." 

And then we choose a focus, either determined, magician, or tough. Obviously not magician, but I'm a little torn on the others. "Determined" is "great strength of will," and "tough" is "physically resilient," and they both fit what I want. Well, because determined boosts your Will and you spend Will to succeed on shit, I'll go with that. There's no place on the sheet for focus, must not be that important. 

OK, Attributes we kinda skip for now, because they depend on Skills, but I get a +2 to Will for being determined. Skills, then? I get 17 points, and there's a cap of 4. If I'm at 3 or better, I can spend a point for a specialty (see, even mechanically this feels pretty WoD). 

Pretty standard fare

Guess I should think about background. I think my guy has or had a job that was physically demanding but didn't come with a huge amount of training (it's all very well to play a former soldier, but a lot of times starting characters don't have the points to represent the capabilities of such a character). So let's say Pac, for 'tis his nickname, works for a moving company. Lots of lifting and carrying, and he keeps himself fit. Probably does crossfit, the weirdo (if that particular cult made it to the UK, I don't know). 

So with that in mind, let's just go ahead and dump 3 into Athletics. I'll put 1 into Awareness (which isn't much but it's more than he used to have), 1 into Melee (same reason), and 1 into Stealth. I'll put 2 into Survival; let's say Pac was always a bit of an outdoorsman and he's gotten more serious about it since the incident. That's 8 spent. 

Let's put 1 into Vehicles so I can drive, hur-dur. 1 into Medicine since he's learned to bind wounds. Social skills, here we go. Two into Charm, three into Conviction. Only 2 left. I'll drop one from Charm so I can have two in Taunt and one in Streetwise. 

Traits! I get 5 points for traits, but I can take Limitations to give me a couple more. I always find it useful to start with those, so let's see. Oh, no, those are just magical things, never mind. Back to traits! 

Well, I definitely want Brawny (bonus to feats of strength and damage). I'll take Breaking and Entering; Pac is in and out of other people's houses a lot and has learned about security systems and locks kind of secondhand. I'll take Rage (I can flip out and beat shit). I definitely want Fight On, which lets me spend Will and reduce damage taken. 

Last point...hmm. I'll take Artifact (using the Freedom Spelling!). Pac has a pair of trainers (or sneakers, to use the Freedom...Word! ok, I'll stop) that make him light on his feet. I get a +2 to Athletics when wearing them, and I can spend a point of Will to get a critical success on a defensive roll (there's a list). Call them the Trainers of Fast & Loud ("What? You what?"). 

So back around to Attributes. Endurance is 8 + Athletics (11). Will is 8 + Conviction + 2...oh, wait, "focus" isn't on the sheet but "emphasis" is. They must have changed the term at some point. Anyway, Pac's Will is 13. 

All done but the details, then! His full name is James Pascoe Jr., but his friends call him "Pac" (his family tends to call him "Junior" or "Jimmy"). Pac is on the shorter side, but wiry and muscular. He's got scars on his neck, shoulders, arms, and legs from where the wolves chewed him up, and he'll tell anyone who'll listen that they were fucking werewolves because it was a full moon, there was five of them, and they all turned into men and fucked off when they were done chewing him up. 

That was a couple of years ago, and Pac has been learning to track, fight, and stitch wounds in his spare time. He keeps himself fit and he'll still tell the story to anyone who'll listen, but he's starting to think maybe it was just some feral dogs. Pac just needs an inciting incident to jump into the hunt with both feet, though.