Character Creation: The Dawnline

And in an almost complete reversal of yesterday, we have...

The Game: The Dawnline
The Publisher: Voidspiral Entertainment
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one 

Buddy of mine gave me this game, along with a few others including Zafir, that he'd backed on Kickstater but didn't have any particular desire to play (this happens when you have disposable income, I'm told). I skimmed through it and wasn't particularly interested, so it sat on my shelf until today, when I discovered our Misspent Youth game got postponed a week (sob) so I had time to read a game and make a character. And I was pleasantly surprised.

I wasn't just pleasantly surprised because Miguel Santos, who did some art for Growling Door back in the day, including for Jack's Trick, the very last thing we put out, did some of the illustrations and I dig his stuff. No, I like it because it's got a cool premise and it fucking supports that premise. In brief: On this world, called Janus, you need to keep moving west into the dark, ever staying in the narrow twilight, because you go too far into the dark and the monsters eat you, and you go east into the Light and you burn to a crisp or just vanish (no one knows). It's not unlike The Well, actually, in that the protagonists' society is impermanent and there's constantly danger about. 

Anyway, the PCs are vampires who are protecting a nomadic community in exchange for blood - they don't need to kill and they can't accidentally infect, just a nibble here and there for their services. I think there are perhaps more character options than their need to be (vampire families and powers and role) and the terminology is perhaps a little precious (you'll see), but you know what? Reading this game, I thought about running it. Reading E.V.I.L., I thought about running better games. So.

I'm meant to start with a concept, and I have something that I kind of think is fun. The sort of trade language that shows up here in Janus is called "jeskure", and it's a form of sign language. As such, if you do something really awful involving trade (sell people tainted medicine, I dunno), one punishment they might levy is chopping off a hand. As such, there's a stigma about being down a hand; a lot of people think it means you can't be trusted. 

So I think my guy lost a hand in a completely not-punishment kind of way (maybe the Sirens attacked his village and he lost his hand in fight). His village got scattered to the winds, and he wound up nomadic until he found another village, but he was immediately branded a criminal and a scoundrel and nothing he could say made up for it (didn't help that his village's dialect and that of the one he found weren't very similar). After a few months of living on the margins of society, barely getting enough to eat, and doing the work of three people, he went to one of the village's vampire protectors and asked to be turned. At least that way he'd be too valuable to kick out. The vampire agreed, turned him, and then left (for a couple of in-setting reasons, it gets uncomfortable for vampires to be around their progeny). I shall name my vampire Mistue (names in this game are just kind of weird twists on existing names, I dunno, that sounds OK to me). 

Right, next step? Actually we can do steps in whatever order, and I think Lineage (basically clan, if you're more familiar with a different vampire game) makes the most sense. There are a bunch of these, so let's see what feels in-concept.

There are a couple that I feel would be fun to mix with this character's background, but Driadh, vampires that are usually mindless and feral and so tend to get attacked on sight and rarely guard villages, feels like an intensification of the "fuck you" that has been Mistue's life so far, so let's go with that. That means I get 3 points to split between Rampant and Bloodwright powers, and then 2 more wherever I want. Guess I should look at the powers.

Man, these are weird. The system works heavily on Conditions, but there's a handy page at the back that explains them. Well, I want one level of Bloodwright because it allows me to heal others, and the Rampance powers look fun, so I'll put my other two there. I'll then put one of my freebies into Dreadlight (saps opponents' Will) and one into Masquerade (makes me Shrouded). 

Cool, what next? Role, I think, which is how I look after the village. There's one called Halfmask that appeals, because their role is basically to nobly sacrifice oneself for the village, but actually I like Hand of Dust better. They hand things like butchery and garbage disposal - and probably lopping someone's hand off if that needed to happen.

Attributes? Sure, why not? I get 6 Hit Points, 1d6 + 3 Initiative, and 3 Willpower, and then 8 points to spend (1 for 1 for first two, 1 for 3 for HP). Let's spend 3 on Hit Points, 1 on Initiative, and 4 on Willpower. I think I want Willpower high for some of my Powers.

Skills! I get 14 to spend on Combat Skills and 15 to spend on Exploration. Let's start with Combat!

Well, this is pretty simple. We've got three Attack Skills (Cut, Shoot, Supernatural) and three corresponding Defense Skills (Parry, Dodge, Resist). Can I have a slingshot affixed to my stump? Bet I can. Let's put 4 into Shoot, 3 into Dodge, 2 into Cut, 3 into Parry, 2 into Resist, 1 into Supernatural. I get to pick an Attack Skill that gets a bonus when I'm outnumbered; I'll say that's Shoot.

Exploration Skills! I get 15 points...oh, hell, I had these reverse, so I spent an extra point on Combat. Um. Let's say 1 Resist instead of 2. Anyway, Know the Dark needs to be high because I spent time on my own, so let's go ahead and put 4 there. I haven't been immortal that long, so how about 3 points into Mortal Thoughts. 8 left, let's just split them evenly into Senses and Skulk.

Just Gear left, but I'll actually do it this time. I get a shooting weapon, a cutting weapon, a supernatural weapon, and a piece of armor. I know for the shooting weapon I want a slingshot that's affixed to my right wrist, with elastic made of some monster's sinew. For the cutting weapon, I'll say he has a curved dagger, given to him to mete out punishment as part of his Hand of Dust duties. For the supernatural weapon...boy, I wish there were some examples here. Um. I think Mistue has a tangle of thorns around his left arm, it grew there after he was turned. He can concentrate and force it to grow up around his hand like a gauntlet. 

Armor...I think a scavenged set of thick leathers that he assembled during his nomads "days".

And I think that's actually it (there's another "Gear" step, but it involves parsing the stuff system more than I feel I want to). Mistue (/mɪstwe/) is tall, dark, and kind of a mess - his armor doesn't fit, he has a slingshot taut on his stumped wrist, and he flinches if you raise your voice. I think his endgame might be going feral and running out into the Dark to be a Lurk, or finally standing up for himself and reminding villagers - sternly if necessary - that he didn't lose his hand as punishment for anything.