Character Creation: High Noon at Midnight

Yee-haw, pardners! I'm a demon!

The Game: High Noon at Midnight
The Publisher: Monte Cook Games
Degree of Familiarity: Never used this book, but I've run Cypher System games 
Books Required: High Noon at Midnight and the Cypher System book

High Noon at Midnight is one o' them there sourcebooks, detailin' a whole new genre for the Cypher System (see also It's Only Magic and The Stars are Fire). This one zeroes in on the "Weird West," which was probably most famously RPG'd by Deadlands. But High Noon doesn't just combine westerns with horror, you could just as easily do Cowboys vs. Aliens. It's really just about the genre mashup. As with most of these books, reading it makes me want to run it, which is always a good sign. 

There are a lot of things you could do with this book, but for my purposes I'm going to use the Ghost Range setting. It's not a million miles from Deadlands, inasmuch as it's a wild west setting with some supernatural and horror-based elements, but it's set on not-our-Earth, so it avoids the messier aspects of the Wild West (to wit, no Civil War, no indigenous genocide, that kind of thing). 

PCs are assumed to be the sort of folks that would take on jobs for pay, so I think what I'll do is look at the setting-specific descriptors and foci and see what appeals.

Ooh, I kinda like Trailblazing as a descriptor. I can see playing a character who prefers to be out alone in the wilderness, happens upon the other PCs, and is too decent of a guy to not get involved. The obvious choice for type is explorer, though I do think that's a little redundant. Eh, let's just double down today. I'm a Trailblazing Explorer that...hmm. Are there new foci here? 

There are, and there are a couple that I really like. One of them is "Blazes Paths," and while I do like it, I think tripling down might be a touch much. I think I want Strikes Like a Rattler. 

So. My guy is Arnan Church. Arnan took a job running mail from Midnight (the main city in the setting) to some of the outlying homesteads and towns, but took a wrong turn and wound up wandering in the wilderness, dehydrated, and nearly dead. He fell off his horse and managed to hit a nest of rattlers, and got bit a bunch of times, but he never killed or harmed any of them. Wasn't their fault, way he saw it.

Some snake-spirit or serpent god or what have you thought that was right kind of him, and let him get up and get back on the horse, on the understanding that he never harms a snake. Arnan feels that was perfectly fair.

OK, neat, so Arnan is a Trailblazing Explorer who Strikes Like a Rattler. So, starting with type, I get 10 Might, 9 Speed, 9 Intellect, and 6 more points. Well, I feel like Speed should be the highest one, so I'll put 4 points there and two points into Intellect. I get Edge 1 in Might, I can carry two cyphers, cool cool.

I get four abilities from Explorer. I want Block, which lets me avoid the next melee attack against me (it's called "block" but it's based on Speed). Danger Sense, likewise, eases initiative, that makes sense.

Definitely want Improved Edge so I can have Edge in Speed. And then I'll take Physical Skills and be trained in Climbing and Balancing.

Cool, over to descriptor. I get +2 to Might, and I'm trained in perception, wilderness navigation, and identifying creatures and plants. Downside, I've got inability in anything that requires sustained attention.

And then finally, I get a couple of cool snakey powers. I can make my punches venomous, and I can grow scales that give me armor. I could swap out one of those with a power that lets me move quickly (slither!). You know, I think I like that better than the venom-punch for Arnan. 

That's basically it, everything else is gear. I know I have a hand compass, and I'm sure I can have a six-gun (I'd also like a rifle, but whatever). 

Arnan is a tall drink of water, lanky and slim, and his ankles and wrists just look too thin for his body. He used to have really nice blue eyes, but they've gone amber since the incident with the snakes. He has a rattlesnake embroidered on the sleeve of his duster, and he's got a habit of shaking his revolver and letting the bullets rattle if he wants to scare someone.