Character Creation: Eclipse Phase 2nd Ed

FOR THE FOURTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-THREE, FOUR UPLIFTED BIRDS,
THREE GODS A-SENDIN'
TWO DUST BOWLS,
AND CHUUBO'S MARVELOUS ETC ETC BURBLE.

Been a shit 24 hours, really, but I'm feeling better. I'll probably wind up doing a post about it when I'm feeling a little less tired and little more composed, but for now:

The Game: Eclipse Phase 2nd Ed
The Publisher: Posthuman Games
Degree of Familiarity: None. I think I played first ed once at a con, but I might just be thinking of chargen
Books Required: Just the one

RIGHT SO ANYWAY Eclipse Phase is a sci-fi/post-acocalyptic-horror-sci-fi-again sort of thing. And looking back at my character for the first edition, apparently I did play it at Arisia once, but I have no specific memory of that game or even what year it happened (must have been prior to 2010, so like really the Before Times). 

I have to say, this edition is a lot cleaner and more accessible to me, which is impressive for a 400-page hardcover. The basic (very basic) idea is: there was this Fall, y'see, and 95% of humanity was wiped out. There are still a lot of "infugees," refugees whose minds were uploaded into digital form that are stuck in VR until some arrangement can be made to give them bodies ("morphs"), although the VR around here is pretty groovy. PCs are assumed to be working with Firewall, a protective sort of group that assessing and handles x-risks (short for "existential risks", that is, shit that could end the species). 

There's very much a prevailing vibe that humanity is on its way out; that's actually what the title of the game is referring to. I don't mind a little bleakness in my sci-fi.

Now, I'm doing this game as the fourth in my 12 Games of Xmas this year for much the same reason that I did Pirates of Pugmire at this point last year: I can make a character who is a bird, calling or otherwise. Character creation mostly consists of picking packages (lol), and I can get behind that. So!

So, Step One: Background. I know I want to be an uplifted corvid, so my background is Uplift. I get:

That's easy. Step Two is Career, and I'm thinking I want my corvid to be a hacker.

Step Three is Interest, basically "what else ya like." I was all set to roll this randomly, but 

I just really like the image of this big ol' birb flying a spaceship. For Step Four, I must pick one of the Factions. Mercurial makes sense, since they're the ones working to liberate uplifts and AGIs, but I'm gonna go with Argonauts. I like the idea that my bird-pilot is for liberation of his people, sure, but he's generally more moderate on scientific risk. Sure, uplifts worked out and they should probably be treated more like people, but that was a calculated risk, right? 

Anyway, that gives me Argonauts+ as a motivation and Know (Argonauts) 30 as a Skill. And on we go!

Step Five is Aptitude Template; basically I get to pick a stat array. Inquirer, I think, is what I want: 

Step Six is the most labor-intensive step so far: total up my Skills. 

Athletics 50, Fray 40, Kinesics 45, Perceive 80, Provoke 35, Survival 40, Know (Uplift Culture) 80, Know (Sociology) 50, Infosec 80, Interface 60, Program 50, Know (Mathematics) 80, Know (Network Engineering) 50, Hardware (Aerospace) 50, Pilot (Ground) 40, Pilot (Space) 50, Know (Flight Crew Ops) 60

I can't go over 80 for any of these, but I haven't, so that's fine. Probably I'm going to want to raise my Pilot and/or hacker Skills, but I'll wait to do that until the end.

Step Seven is Languages; mostly irrelevant because everyone's got a magical translator in their neck or whatever, but in case we're beyond the reach of the Mesh, my bird speaks three languages. I'll take English, Skandinaviska, and Japanese. 

Step Eight: Flex. HRRRGGHH. I start with 1 Flex. That was easy.

Step Nine: Reputation. Well, not only am I persona non grata but evidently my name is a killing word. No, wait, they mean the character (wakka wakka). I get 100 points to split up, and the book recommends 50/50 or 50/25/25. So, sure. We'll take 50 in r-rep (research network affiliates), 25 in i-rep (the Firewall network) and 25 in x-rep (explorers). 

Step Ten is customization. I get 20 points to divvy up amongst Aptitudes and Skills and whatnot. Well, I know I want to be better at hacking and piloting. 1 CP is 5 Skill points, so I shall raise Program to 60 (2 points), Hardware and both Pilot skills to 60 (8 points, so 10 spent), and I'll spend 1 to get a Specialization in Flying in Athletics. I'll spent 6 more to buy Guns up to 30 (so 40 with Reflexes). Three more. I'll spend two and buy another point of Flex, and put the last one into Kinesics to bump it to 50. 

Step Eleven: Derived Stats! Initiative is (REF + INT)/5, or 6. Aptitude Checks are equal to their controlling Aptitude x3. Lucidity is WILx2, or 30, and Trauma Threshold is Lucidity/5, so 6. Insanity is double Lucidity (60). 

Step 12 is starting morph and gear, and here's where things probably get a little more complicated. Or maybe not. I get two gear packs, one based on career and one based the kind of campaign we'd be playing. Let's assume we're doing gatecrashing (exploration), so I get that one, and the hacker pack.

And then morph, which is the type of body I'm in. I get 6 morph points, but I can buy multiple morphs if I feel like forkin' (lol). I can also buy extra perks for my morph. So let's say I have the neo-avian morph and I've got two identical morphs I can use to fork. Oh, wait, no, I can't; the starting morph has to cost more than 0. Fine, fuck it. Neo-avian morph, and I'll put 2 points each into Acumen, Fitness, and Quickness. I get a +10 to Cognition, Reflexes, and Somatics. 

Step Thirteen is Motivations. I have one already (Argonauts+), so I need two more. They can be expressed either as favorable (+) or not (-). 

Well, I think my guy is in favor of Uplift Rights, so that can get a +, and also in favor of Exploration. That's easy enough.

And everything else is finishing touches. So: Callix is an uplifted raven, hatched or fashioned as a messenger for info in the Mesh. He's had other ideas, though - he feels like he's got a lot more to offer. Like, he's looking for a way to get a couple of forked copies of himself, so he can pilot and crew a ship without help (read: interference) from bipeds! So far there hasn't been a lot of interest; after all, forked copies take up more resources, but Callix thinks its worth looking into further.

Callix is a neo-raven, so he's a raven the size of a human child. He's got prehensile feet and those weird hand-like things on the joints of his wings. He prefers to perch rather than sit when he's flying or driving a vehicle. He doesn't have a consistent alias yet, but he's trying out "Murder" (yes, technically he's a raven, not a crow, but "Unkindness" just sounds meaner than "Murder" somehow). 

That'll do it! Caw-caw.