I had meant to make more characters last week, since I didn't have a lot of demands on my time, and then I wound up playing Stranded Deep a lot instead. Ah, well.
The Game: Reign
The Publisher: Schroedinger's Cat Press
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game, though I've played a little ORE
Books Required: Just the one
There's a second edition of this game, I discovered when I was googling around to find a website to link to, and I was initially bummed I didn't back it, but then I saw how late the Kickstarter is and I think maybe I dodged a bullet there. But whatever, on we go.
Reign is a fantasy game, but focuses on political movements and larger-scale stories as well as (or instead of) smaller-scale ones. It has a detailed setting and I haven't read all of it (because I was eager to get to the chargen bit), but the bits I did read kinda hooked me. I don't know that I'm in a particular hurry to run this game, but that's only because it's the kind of game that would benefit from having the players read the book, and we all know how likely that is.
So anyway, there are two methods of chargen: Point-buy, or roll a bunch of dice and see what you get! I'm gonna do that because it's basically an abbreviated lifepath system and I love those. So I need 11 d10s, hang on.
I rolled: 2x5, 2x8, 2x9, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7. Three sets, not bad, though they're all pretty narrow. The height of the set shows the profession(s) my guy undertook, while the width shows how far he got. Put another way, 5s make me a sailor, 8s make me a soldier, and 9s make me (oh, snap!) a wizard, so I get:
Noice! And then I have five "Waste Dice," which I can use on charts to pick more stuff. Let's have a look!
Oh, cool. Some ideas starting to take shape. I'll use my five loose dice to choose these things:
OK, now I've gotta tie all this together. I'll put this on the character sheet first, though.
Cool, so I think my character, let's call him Afarri, started off as a soldier, and became a squad leader. He led his squad in battle and became a fairly successful leader, but never wanted to advance beyond his station - he had nothing but contempt for "leaders" who didn't go into battle with their troops. Until, that is, he met her.
The "her" in this case was an officer Telu. Telu was a strategist and leader, but also a cavalry rider and warrior in her own right. My guy fell hard and made his affections known, and Telu...shot him down. Badly drunk, Afarri ranted about his spurned affections to the wrong people, and wound up giving away intelligence that cost him his position and his men their lives.
Afarri was sentenced to death, but as a warrior with some battefield cred he was allowed to become a gladiator (the expectation being that he would die there). He alternated between fights in the arena and living as a prisoner for years, and then finally entered into a battle royale that he had no real chance of winning. He managed to secure a solid position during the fight, however, and ended the battle by hurling his spear through the chests of the last two enemies as they circled each other looking for an opening.
Under the rules of the arena, he was to be free, but under his sentence, he needed to die. The High Court decided to exile him instead, and he took work on a ship on the understanding that he was never to return to his home country. He got off the ship in a faraway land and operated as a sellsword or bodyguard briefly. And then, one winter, he found a wounded pup - a strange animal with night-black fur and odd blue eyes. Afarri nursed it back to health, often giving up meals so that the pup could eat. That spring, a sorcerer found Afarri, and informed him that the pup was the offspring of his familiar, the only survivor of the litter. The sorcerer took Afarri on as an apprentice, and he's slowly discovering his power as a magic-worker himself.
Phew! Let's see, couple other choices to make. I get the first step in a Martial Path dedicated to Spear, Dodge, or Parry, but I don't actually see any based on Spear (nice going, guys). I'll take Iron Tortoise Technique, which is based on Parry. The first level makes parrying more effectively (gobble dice, etc).
And then I need Passions. I get three, a mission, a duty, and a craving. Mission should be concrete and achievable, duties are more like ethical positions/principles, cravings are selfish desires. I think Afarri craves comfort more than anything - he's been in prison or fighting for his life for much of his time. I'll say his craving is "never pass up an opportunity to rest in comfort." Duty and mission are a little tougher. I kind of want him to have learned from his downfall, even if he learned the wrong lesson. I think his duty is "always guard secret knowledge with my life." "Secret knowledge" doesn't have to be the mysteries of sorcery (although, that too). Anything that someone tells him in confidence is secret knowledge. He's never getting drunk and spilling the beans again.
As for mission...hmm. The obvious thing would be to clear his name, but I don't think that's even possible. Ooh...what if his men didn't all die? Let's say three of them were sentenced to life in prison for standing up for him, and they're still there. "Free my comrades from prison" is a good mission, I think.
And, finally, problems. I can take up to three, and this game uses the "you get XP when the problems are problems" method, which I like. I'll take Gruesome (Afarri's face is a mess of scars and old wounds) and Drunken Blackouts (he doesn't drink anymore...often).
And that's really it! I could go into more detail about his sorcery, since there are paths and stuff, but I don't feel like parsing the rules and I like that his understanding of magic is, at this point, kind of basic.
Afarri is tall, but he's lost a lot of his bulk to age and malnutrition. As mentioned, his face is scarred, burned, and sliced, and he's missing half his nose. He wears a hood most of the time so as not to upset people, but he's not above pulling it down and going "blearrgh!" to frighten rowdy children. His magic-dog companion sticks with him always, and is capable of looking pretty fierce when it needs to, but it's generally very friendly and likes to chase butterflies. He calls it "Nighter."
