I thought, I'll just do a quick character this morning so I have something between movie posts. Oh, hey, I've still got a few of those Era games, those are quick? No, they're short.
I initially was going to do a character for something called Era: Bloodlines, but after poking at the PDF for a while, realized that it's a "prototype" and doesn't actually include full chargen rules, making it ineligible for this project. Good, I thought, I don't actually love these games much, that means I just have two (Kaiju and Friction) left. In looking around about the game and trying to figure out what "prototype" meant (it was included from a Kickstarter, but it's been a while and I back a lot of Kickstarters), though, I saw on the company's page that there are a whoooole bunch of these games. Oy, I thought, glad I didn't back all these, I'd be doing these games forever.
And then I opened my "Era: Kaiju" folder in ye olde documents folder and discovered that, no, I actually have like four more of these games than I thought, so while I'm going to take two games off the list today (Kaiju because I'm doing this character and Bloodlines because I don't actually have the rules for it), I'm adding four more. At least one of them has a fillable character sheet.
The Game: Era: Kaiju
The Publisher: Shades of Vengeance
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
As I've mentioned before, there are a bunch of these Era games, they all seem to work on a system very similar to early Storyteller. Some of them kinda leave me cold, but I have to admit, this one looks kinda cool.
The idea is that there are Alpha Kaiju (the big boys) and Beta Kaiju (only about half the size of an Alpha, but like, half a Godzilla is still pretty big). Betas will band together into groups and will repel an Alpha if it encroaches on their territory, so humans have figured out that if they leave Betas alone, they can get rid of Alpha for them, which is good because humans don't otherwise have a way to do that.
Right, nifty. Let's make a monster!
Step 1: Background. This isn't elaborate, just basically how I came to the notice of the world. Hmm. You know, there don't seem to be too many mammalian Kaiju, so I'm gonna make one that's kind of bear-like. Let's say he was hibernating in the Sleeping Bear Sands Dunes (going back to that well, Matt? YES) until some other Beta came up out of Lake Michigan and woke him ("Dammit, Frank, I was having such a good dream"). Anyway, the press named his Ursus because they have no fucking imagination, but the people on the Internet have nicknamed him "Snuffles" because he has a habit of sniffing at everything before he eats it.
And, um, he will eat it. That's what you do when you wake up from hibernation, you replace the fat you've lost.
Step 2: Quirk. Well, I think we've established Snuffles' Quirk; he's hungry. All the time. He's learned that if he eats people, he gets weapons aimed at him, so he's limiting himself to not-humans. Most of the time. Basically if it's organic, he can eat it.
Step 3: Form & Environment. My form is obviously Mammalian, but the listed bonus is to Speed, and I don't see Snuffles as especially quick. The Mollusc form raises your Kill Threshold because of its armor, so I think I'll just yoink that bonus because Snuffles is lorge and has thick hide. His Environment is Forest, obviously (sure, he was sleeping in sand dunes, but there's lots of forest around).
Step 4: Attributes. There's six of these (Might, Reaction, Willpower, Luck, Health, Power). I get one at 5, one at 4, one at 3, and the others at 2.
Well, Reaction can be 2, and I guess I'll put Luck at the other one. Power can get the 3, Willpower gets the 4, and Might obviously gets the 5. Oh, wait, forgot Health. I'll give Power 2 so Health can have 3, I guess.
Step 5: Derived Traits: Are you sure? It's not the last step...OK, I'll trust you. Size is 5, Speed is Size + Might + Reaction (11 for me), Initiative is Reaction + Willpower (6), Defense is half Reaction (3), Health is...hang on. Oh, I see. We have an Attribute called "Health" and then our hit points are also called "Health." That's not confusing or anything.
Anyway, Health is Health + Size (8), Pain is figured the same way. Hang about, "Kill Threshold" isn't anywhere on this sheet! Dammit! NB: That's because it's dependent on what's attacking you, my bad.
That actually is the last step in chargen, but I'm supposed to pick a power so let's go to the next chapter. Obviously an example of chargen is too much to hope for.
Well, one of the powers is Enormous, which makes me bigger, which if I'd known was a thing before I did Derived Traits I might have taken which is WHY DERIVED TRAITS SHOULD BE THE LAST THING YOU DO but whatever I'm not bothered moving on. I think I'll take Burrowing, that seems pretty appropriate for ol' Snuffles. I can hide underground and then burst out and attack! Rar!
Snuffles looks a lot like a brown bear - quadruped, snout, small tail, big gnarly claws and fangs, but also the long tongue and lips for sucking up small prey like moose. He's got brown fur, but it's starting to get light as he's awake longer, who knows what that's about. SNORT SNUFFLE.
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