Character Creation: Arcanes Majeures

Time to bust out the ol' Tarot cards!

The Game: Arcanes Majeures
The Publisher: Mindermast Game Lab
Degree of Familiarity: Ain't played it, but it's Fate Accelerated, which I know pretty well
Books Required: Arcanes Majeures (for certain values of "book"), Fate Accelerated, and a Tarot deck

In contrast to the previous entry in this project, which I know why I waited so long to do, I'm not sure why I haven't done a character for this before now. It's FAE, which I know, it uses Tarot, which I love, and it's only 9 pages long. Oh, well, we're here now! 

So! The setting is basically early 16th Century Western Europe, some gunpowder, some mechanics, and magic, but magic is very ritual-y. As written, you always use Careful as the approach for magic, but Arcanes (the PCs) also have some limited Tarot-based magic. This includes divination; if a character has a Tarot deck, they can pull a couple of cards to "see the future" and then use those cards to create a scene Aspect later, which I really like (divination in RPGs, in my opinion, works best when it's used as an excuse for a bonus later rather than literally trying to predict the future). 

High Concept and Trouble Aspect are also done a little differently; we draw a Tarot card from the Major Arcana and use the normal interpretation as the High Concept and the inverted interpretation as the Trouble. I have my trusty Rider-Waite deck right here, so let's see what I get!

The Hermit! The usual interpretation is prudence or caution, patience, potentially isolation. The reversed meaning can be either impulsivity or an overabundance of caution (overthinking things). 

Well, since gunpowder is a relatively new thing in this setting, I think I'll lean into the meticulous, cautious side of the Hermit and say my guy is an explosives expert (side note: I'm not going through full setting creation for this project and there's not an example of setting creation, boo, so we're keeping things pretty generic on that front). For no particular reason, I'm gonna name him Gibil after the Mesopotamian god of fire, and say his High Concept is Cautious and Steady Gunpowder Expert. For his Trouble Aspect...I dunno. Overthinking things is great and all (and frankly a lot of gamers do it anyway), but it doesn't always make for good at-the-table play because it tends to slow things down. I think instead I'll say Gibil has a tendency to under-do things, make his bombs or explosives weaker than they should be, because You Can't Make An Explosion Smaller, after all.

Three more Aspects, two of which are supposed to represent his journey to become an Arcane and one of which involves another Arcane (by default, a PC) that I've crossed paths with. Well, I have this Tarot deck right here, so let's draw and see what shakes loose.

Seven of Pentacles is about dreaming, but dreaming with ambition, and working and investing to realizing that. I'll say that Gibil is an Early Adopter, not just of gunpowder but of whatever tech or innovation starts to take hold. That means he gets taken for a ride sometimes when something doesn't pan out, but it also means he's on the cutting edge.

Ten of Wands tends to me over-committing or carrying too much on one's own. Gibil is the kind of person who never seems to realize how much he has on his plate or how much time everything is going to take, but the flipside of that is that he's known as a guy who will help out, because he Never Says No to a Project. 

And the next Major Arcana I draw is the Magician. Let's say Gibil's fly-by-night business partner, Hamish (yes, we went from Mesopotamian to Scottish, what of it) is just as talented with magic as Gibil is with explosives, but he's much less disciplined and prone to casting rituals before he's really worked out the kinds. Gibil often says Hamish's Magic Will Be the Death of Me. 

That's Aspects, then! On to Approaches. Obviously Gibil's highest one should be Careful. I'll put his two Fair Approaches in Flashy (I mean, he does make explosives) and Clever. I'll put the Averages in Forceful and Sneaky, and that leaves Mediocre in Quick.

Stunts! Since Gibil's not going to be going first in most exchanges, I feel like I want him to have a way to pack a punch. Let's give him a stunt called Flash-Bang: Because I carry small explosives I can attack every opponent in a zone, but I have to act last in the exchange.

Gibil has money, too, so we'll give him a stunt called Well-Off: Because I'm wealthy I get a +2 to Cleverly Create an Advantage by buying goods and services.

And, finally, let's lean into my Hermit nature and take a stunt called Think It Through: I get a +2 to Carefully Overcome an obstacle if time is not a factor.

Gibil is in his 40s. He's got black, curly hair and a full beard that's graying a bit in places. He wears well-made clothes, but isn't one for flashy colors or accoutrements. The exception is his gold pocketwatch; it was a gift from a horologist who has just started using a new method of making parts, and Gibil loves it, but such watches haven't really caught on in the city yet.

And that'll do it! I might run this at some point; we'd have to fill in some gaps, but when don't we?