Character Creation: Beacon

Man, just not having a lot of luck keeping up with the ol' 10-a-month thing so far. That said, spring break will probably help. (What doesn't help is me picking a huge-ass book to read when I have Oscar prep to do.)

The Game: Beacon
The Publisher: Pirate Gonzalez Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one, but it is very lorge

Beacon is one of those games that I really like but I don't think it's terribly likely I'll ever play. It reminds me of games like Strike!, Zafir, and Savage Worlds - it's got a very involved tactical system, it draws a firm distinction between narrative mode and combat mode, and it doesn't have a setting per se (which is different than Zafir, as I think about it, but whatever). Unbound comes to mind, too, though that's not nearly as crunchy.

Anyway, Beacon assumes that there are multiple universe that are all facets of some magical crystal - the worlds are called Reflections, and if one were running this game, the first thing one would do is create a Reflection. All Reflections have a set of assumptions. To wit, there are PCs called "beacons" who are, as the name would imply, special and inspirational in some way. There's a Scourge which is actively fucking things up. And crystals are important to the setting in some way. I think coming up with a Reflection with my group would be a lot of fun, and honestly it's the only thing that shunts this game directly to the "well, maybe, if I had a group that was willing to learn it" rather than they "nah, probably not" pile.  

Right, so, that does mean I need a Reflection. Fortunately there are a few in the book, so I'll pick a cool one. A-like so:

Never gonna get Reach of Titan, after all

Nifty, so my beacon is a dream of a Colossus, which means I was kinda dreamed into life like a particular kind of Promethean or the subject of a Savage Garden song. The specific Colossus that dreamed me should influence the character choices a bit. I'm so tempted to say I was born of an aquatic Colossus' dreams, but I go to the ocean for inspiration a lot. Is there a "giant monster" table in The Weird? Not specifically, but "magical creatures" is fine. Let's see. A 44 gets me..."Spellcasting toad that speaks several languages fluently; hunts water elementals with desiccating magic". That's nicely bizarre, I like that. 

OK, so if the toad that dreamed me eats water elementals by drying them out, then mayhaps I'm a dry-omancer or something (you know, like a cryomancer, but more desert-y). I think I'll just get rolling here and see what choices make sense.

As tempting as it is to translate "wet dream" into Urdu or something, I think I'll just make up a name for my beacon. Let's call them Bawnan (vaguely like an onomatopoeia rendering of what a toad might say). Title is exactly that, an Aspect-like thing that you can invoke for a narrative bonus. I'll call Bawnan the "Sand-Walker".

Now I get three background skills at rank 1. Background skills are actually even more like Aspects; the example given in the book is "Acrobat Performer for the Demon Circus" (yay, examples!). 

For Bawnan, I want to expand a little on the idea that he draws in moisture to fuel his magic, I think. So let's say he is a Water-Dowser. We're meant, in this Reflection, to be fighting against a Colossus that figured out that it's easier to eat other Colossi than hunt for crystals, and to be finding the remains of other Colossi that humans could live in. I think Bawnan gets sent to purify places that are rotten or magically corrupt, so we'll say they're a Purifier of the Unclean Places. I also like the idea of Bawnan having the ability to go for long periods of time without food or water, so I'll say they're Able to Live on Little.

Now we get two ability points. What's that mean? Well, there are four Abilities: Bulk, Mind, Agility, and Magic. They're 0 by default, and I get 2 points to throw around. I think 1 each in Agility and Mind makes the most sense.

Three rank 1 Talents, okey-dokey. I want Archmage; if I use a spell with an AOE (area of effect), I can spend a point to make it not affect one character (which means I can walk out into the battlefield and just schlorp up the water out of people, maybe, if that's a thing I can do, we'll see). I'll take Spellbreaker (basically lets me make it harder for others to maintain their spells). And I'll take Warcaster (my concentration checks, however, get a bonus). (There's a separate sheet for Talents, but I'm not gonna print it.)

Ancestry! Basically fills the niche of race or species, though of course that would require contextualizing in any given Reflection. In the case of Colossus, I think what ancestry you present as isn't cultural so much as just reflecting how your creator dreamed you. Elemental is tempting, but I like Machina better. Bawnan is composed of living glass with sand running through they're "veins", but when they absorb water the veins run clear and sparkly. I dig that visual, actually, I may have to use that in some game.

Class! I get one rank in a class. Should probably pick something that lets me do AOE, huh?

Ooh, I kinda like Phoenix. It's meant to do fiery stuff, but I think that "drying everything out like whoa" is similar enough for government work. (This is also a little confusing because the book talks about classes and jobs, and implies that each class has multiple jobs, but I think actually how it works is that if you have multiple classes you pick which job you're doing during a Quest. If I was going to run this I would of course have to parse it more carefully.)

Last thing is equipment (which, as usual, I'm going to kind of gloss over) and appearance. So.

Bawnan is a humanoid, about six feet tall, made of living glass. It's not all transparent; parts are smoky or even black, but mostly you can see right through them. Sand trickles through them, but when they absorb water from living things (which is how I picture Bawnan doing "fire" damage), it pushes the sand along and sparkles. Bawnan doesn't have eyes per se, but orb-like chunks of blue glass where they would be. No one's sure how Bawnan speaks, but they manage. 

That'll do it!