Character Creation: Vale of the Failed and the Fallen

I didn't know I needed this game until it came up on Kickstarter some time ago, but I'm really keen to try it.

The Game: Vale of the Failed and the Fallen
The Publisher: Wicked Clever
Degree of Familiarity: None, other than the fact that it's PbtA
Books Required: Just the one

Beautifully simple and yet kind of niche concept, this. You're playing the grown-up versions of a group of kids who were transported to the magical land of Eidylorn in order to save it from the Vassal of Darkness...but failed. One of the kids died in the process, and now, twenty years later, the survivors have been transported back in order to redeem themselves and finish the quest. I haven't seen an expression of this idea before. When The Dark is Gone has some similar elements, but doesn't involve going back to the magical realm and is much less structured in general. 

Anyway, it's late to make a character, but if I do this one today I'm at 30 for the year so I'm caught up, and that's apparently worth being at my computer a little more. So here we go!

So, if we were actually playing this game, the first thing we'd do is define Eidylorn a bit more, including which of the peoples who live there are going to figure into our story. Since it's just me, though, I can just skip right to the Childhood Heroes bit. 

Seems like playbook should really be first, but sure, why not. Let's name my hero Jesse Daniel (he/him). And now I must choose a playbook. Hmm. I think I'll lean into the darkness today and be the Shadow.

So that means I get the Cloak of Shadows (all the playbooks get a gift when they arrive in Eidylorn). I can step into the Shadowlands and be invisible and incorporeal to others, and then I get one more ability to go with that. Let's see...I'll take Ebon Messenger, that lets me summon little shadow critters to act as messengers.  

My Inner Child is an aptitude that I was interested in or good at as a child (but recall that these characters are adults now). I have kind of an idea on where to go with this character, so I'm gonna pick Animal Lover. Jesse was super into animals as a kid - mostly he loved big cats, but really he found all animals fascinating. He dreamed of being a big animal vet when he grew up. So that makes my aptitude Empathetic, and gives me a tether and a bane (which are basically things I can use to boost rolls or the GM could use to screw with me, respectively). My tether is when you train or befriend a magical creature from the realm..., and my bane is when you must hurt an animal...

Companion bonds would require more players, so I'll skip that. Likewise, we'd all decide on the Fallen Companion together. The trick here is that the Companion Bonds and the Fallen Companion would give me two more tethers, and then I would pick a tether to be burned to start with (burned tethers act like banes, but you can recover them). But lo! I must now be an adult!

First, I choose my adult vocation. In Jesse's case, the trip into Eidylorn and the loss of his friends kind of soured him on animals (so I'll take that as my burned tether, I guess). He'd seen dragons and pegasi and whatever else, going back to the world of cats and dogs and snakes just didn't seem as interesting. Plus, like, he'd seen a friend die. Jesse never really recaptured that kind of passion, and he kind of fell in with a bad crowd. His Adult Vocation is Petty Criminal.

And that leads us directly into Emotional Baggage. Basically my experiences in Eidylorn give me another bane. I think Shady makes the most sense (when people need to trust you...).  

And that's basically it, because the rest of it would require a group! Jesse is in his 20s now. He's got red-blonde hair that he keeps buzzed, his skin has gotten worse over time (thank some drug use for that), and he's got prison tats on his arms and hands. I think in play Jesse would be the guy who you might think would betray everyone, but then comes through for them with a line like "snitches get stitches" or something.