Character Creation: Inevitable

A game about Thanos? Nah.

The Game: Inevitable
The Publisher: Soul Muppet Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Inevitable is "an Arthurian Western." The tone is very Arthurian, the setting is fantasy/western (in the same way that, say, Firefly is sci-fi/western), but the game itself is about the last years of the kingdom as the prophesied Doom(s) creep forth. There's a whole pretty intricate system for beating (or not) said Dooms, and honestly it looks pretty dope. 

To expand on that a little, in reading it I figured out something that a lot of fantasy properties do that loses me that Inevitable does not do, which is that it doesn't introduce a bunch of weird names that don't correspond to any extant language. For example, one of the Big Bads in Inevitable is "the Cannibal Saint." Who he is in the setting makes perfect sense in context (brother of the deceased king and therefore rightful heir to the throne, is indeed a cannibal, etc.) but he's not "Prince Hrderrrer" so I don't have to remember what is, to me, a random jumble of letters. A lot of the important NPCs and places and events in Inevitable are like this; they have evocative, simple names that mean something in the fiction, and the result is that the setting can come alive in my brain because my brain isn't holding space for alphabet soup. 

In fact, the only complaint I have about Inevitable is that the book is a weird size, so it doesn't fit on most of my bookshelves and I had to put it in the "this book is weird" section.

Moving on, let's make a character!

Simple enough

So first we choose a class, and this game blows the Chupp Test right out of the water, because there is not one of the six classes that I don't want to play. Given that, I think I shall find myself a theme song and see what that suggests to me. Whatcha got for me, random shuffle on iTunes?!

That's "Strange" by Tori Amos. Pretty clearly a song about someone coming to realize that the relationship they're in isn't what they thought it was and they need to get out of it. Inevitable isn't necessarily a game about romantic relationships (though nothing says it couldn't include them), and I'm choosing to focus a little more on the "when will I learn" refrain of the song. I think, therefore, I'm gonna choose "roamer" as my class.

Roamers are bandits, rangers, criminals, gunfighters - the "cowboys" of the Western bit of the setting, if you will. I can get behind that. The class write-up asks me to consider what brings me to court (out of Duty, Coin, or Fortune, though nothing says I couldn't make one up, and it's not on the sheet anyway). I'm also meant to consider my Title. Names are a big deal in this setting, and roamers typically structure it as [Title] [Name]. 

I see this character as a "Man with No Name" sort of person, which would imply he's motivated by Coin, and I think he's happy to let people think he's just in it for the money. But the truth of the matter is that he was cursed by a mystic (who exactly I'll figure out in a minute here), and forgets his past almost as soon as it happens. It's not a Memento kind of thing, he doesn't literally reset, but his experiences fade away like footprints in the sand, meaning he's always living now, making the same mistakes. He knows about the curse, though - the erasure left everything before the Battle of the Violet Fields intact (a big event in-setting, where the king died). He's called Iceblood Derrit, because people see him as utterly unaffected by the events around him, but that's not at all true. He just knows he won't remember them.

Iceblood Derrit used to run with a gang in the wastelands; I get to pick from a list (or, again, make one up). I like the sound of The Coffinpickers, though. That might be why he was at the Battle of Violet Fields, actually, to rob the dead. The Coffinpickers were famous for holding a wizard at gunpoint and stealing his spellbook to sell on the black market.

Right, so now I get to pick an NPC from a list as a friend or ally and one as a rival or enemy. Where's the mystic!? Ooh, The Outcast, perfect. He's the wizard we robbed, and the old bird (it's funny if you've read the game) followed the Coffinpickers and cursed them all. I think the curses could all be different, so it's just Derrit that got the Fading Mind curse. 

That's my enemy, obviously, now how about an ally? Let's be weird and say it's The Revenant, an undead woman killed by The Marshal and looking for revenge before rigor mortis sets in. Derrit respects her quest and might help her if he could, and she feels pity for him because all she is is memory, basically. 

And now, a deed. Let's say Derrit actually started the Coffinpickers. Their motto was "the dead need for nothing." They robbed tombs and battlefields for years, but rarely robbed the living. Robbing The Outcast was Derrit's idea, and look how that turned out. He caught up with them at Violet Fields (which answers the next question, which is whether I was present at that battle) and cursed the lot of them. The Coffinpickers fell apart afterwards as the members succumbed to their curses. 

Equipment! I get a unique gun and there's a whole system for that, which I'm excited about. But I also get either a long spear or an unusual weapon. I want the latter. Derrit has a length of chain with a hook on the end. I get either a map or a bulging pouch of silver. Ooh, I like the map. Figure he makes his notes quickly, but then looks back and has only those notes because he doesn't remember writing them. And then I get either fancy clothes or a sandblasted poncho and traveling clothes. Oh, I'll take the latter, I think.

OK, gun time! Guns are magical, and there are some that are produced by a mage called The Powederer in batches of 12, but eh, I want something cooler that lets me roll on tables. My gun is called Challenge. It fires whittled drake scales. Challenge is forged from steel, carved with runes, and has a very thin chamber (because drake scales are pretty flat). It fires when Derrit speaks its name ("Challenge."), and it makes a noise that isn't terribly loud in the immediate area, but echoes for miles. 

Reputations! I get three, one each from my deed, rival, and ally. Respectively, we'll say Derrit is Shrewd, Cursed, and Solid. 

And, abilities! I get Paths the Barren Wide automatically, which basically means I can navigate the Barrens and I get bonuses in a non-urban environment. And then I get two more, either from roamer abilities or general. Oh, I'll take a Relic. We'll say Derrit stole a glove woven from bronze and amber from the grave of some royal personage. The Amber Glove does not (cannot) leave his hand. It has two effects - it saps the heat from what it touches, leaving it cold as death, and it wards away magic. This also has the effect of making Derrit's curse untouchable by other wizards, even those that might wish to cure it.

Finally, I'll be a basic bitch and take Deadshot. I'm deadly accurate with Challenge.

And that's about it! Oh, wait, I have to think about what stage of acceptance I'm at with regards to the Doom of Myth. Let's say Derrit is in Denial, mostly because he doesn't retain enough information to process the Doom and the prophecy. 

Derrit is a middle-aged man with brown hair. He wears sand-colored traveling clothes, and has nigh-lifeless blue eyes. You can usually see his breath due to the Amber Glove. 

That'll do it!