Character Creation: Spell Mendicant Vixens

FOR THE SEVENTH GAME OF X-MAS, TWENTY-TWENTY THREE,
SEVEN VIXENS VIXIN',
SIX MICE A-SQUEAKIN'
FIVE GOLDEN HAINTS,
FOUR UPLIFTED BIRDS,
THREE GODSENDS,
TWO DUST BOWLS,
AND CHUUBO'S MARVELING WISH-THINGIE NAMED CINAMMON!

The Game: Mendicant Spell Vixens
The Publisher: Richard Kelly
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Need to see the cover of this game:

The game is actually called Mendicant Spell Vixens, but based on the cover you'd be forgiven for reversing the order of the first two words. You'd also be forgiven for asking if the game is meant for kids or furries, but neither is really true.

It's an OSR game - described as a "barnyard crawl" - in which foxes steal chickens from farmers. So it's got heist elements, but mostly it's an OSR fantasy game, and it's very much one of those games that I read and go "...OK, sure." 

First of all, "mendicant" means "beggar," but the foxes in this game aren't beggars, they're thieves. Second, I think magic does figure in, but not heavily enough to be part of the title of game (I ran a search of the PDF for the word "mendicant," and apart from referring to the game itself, it only even comes up in mentions of the "Mendicant Handbook," but that's never contextualized that I can find.

Anyway, the idea of foxes pulling off a kind of thieves' guild/reverse Chicken Run against a hostile farmer is a fun idea, but I'm not sure if this gets us there. Let's make a fox!

I'll say this for OSR games, they don't linger in chargen. Well, taking inspiration from the traditional folk song "The Fox," I believe I shall make a thief. Burglar, rather. And I shall call him Squishy, and he shall be mine, and he shall...no, hang on. I shall call him Robichaud. 

I copy over my stuff and stats, and then I get to increase one of my skills one dice step, chosen from Kick Doors/Climb Walls, Avoid Traps and Ambushes, and Drive a Bargain. Well, I think either of the first two is in keeping with my origins, here, so let's do Avoid Traps and Ambushes. That bumps it to a d10. 

Equipment! See, this equipment system I like. It just gives a quick series of choices. I'll take a small backpack, a thieves' kit, a long blade, and 3 Plumes and 6 Hen's Teeth (currency, I think). 

Finally, I get Ploys from the burglar list. I get to pick one and then either improve that or pick another, and then pick another since this is my starting class. Just a moment. Oh, the PDF is bookmarked, praise Marty Moose.

Well, actually, Burglar's Guile (which lets me grab cover on the way out of a heist) seems appropriate, so I'll grab that. I'll take Distraction (which lets me...make a distraction) and I'll take Slippery (am wiggly and hard to grab). 

And that's pretty much it! Robichaud is your standard red fox, lean and lanky. His tail is naturally poofy, but he wraps it in leathers when on the job so it doesn't give him away. He's got a weird habit of appending "-o" to the ends of nouns. 

That'll do it!