Character Creation Thread

@Remnant: The revisions look good. Like I will with everyone, I've got a few questions:

1.) Does Pha know what happened to his parents and/or how he became an orphan? They don't have to be dead of course, but in a small area like Uncegilla Cove it is much more difficult to abandon a baby, but there could be reasons. If you haven't decided I can use it I think.

2.) How has Pha's relationship with Chaig developed over the years? The two still have to run into each other on occasion. Does Chaig try to kill Pha every time he sees him or has Pha scarred him, leaving him a spineless mess? Do they talk? Would they consider each other rivals or true enemies?

3.) How does Pha feel about Amburn? Does he know she might have an interest in him? Does he have feelings for her? Good or bad?

I'm interested in playing a Mutant Jack who Fuses Flesh with Steel. The loose concept involves this character being born with mutations, some which caused severe physical handicaps (harmful mutations; in my mind this character is also missing limbs and/or has a cleft jaw, etc. in addition to the actual table-rolled mutation) and some which gave her powers to survive (beneficial mutations). She was either a child of mutants living in the small enclave they have in this community, or was given over to the care of same by her "normal" parents. Somehow, while exploring the coasts or the hills around the area, she stumbled across an artifact that infected her body with nanites. She eventually learned to control these nanites, even to a point where she has shaped body parts to remove her "handicaps" out of them.

A couple questions for you foolsmask:

1. Mutation table rolls: When the time comes, should I post rolls myself, or would you prefer to roll?

2. NPC relationships: Is this a required part of character creation? Do I need to come up with a few?

Once I get the character more mechanically fleshed out, I will build out their background and post here for PC relationships.

@ Foolsmask
1) Pha never really thought about who his parents were or how he came to be at the orphanage so if it's a good plot train device use it (Red Goes Faster)

2) With the rewrite Chaig ended up leaving with the Orphanage Caretaker and orphans. If he's come back and starts something Pha will try and handle things with his 'words' if that doesn't work he warns people if it comes to force he's going to fight dirty and win quickly... So I'll leave it up in the air if he makes a comeback or not, if he learned from the incident or not, or if he even knows who started the fire or not (Accident from his father knocking things over).

3) She pays him to do work, he does the work. She's okay. He's clueless about such things and doesn't pick up on clues so in true anime fashion when Mohsen teases him about it he gets all huffy (No point in starting a fight he can't win... bouts are currently at 500+ loses, no wins, no ties). He's indifferent to her but I guess he wouldn't want something bad to happen to her... he likes working for her.

@ Friar_Tuk
It's not part of the normal character creation but I figure the two NPCs were a tie in for us (PCs) into the setting and why we in town still (this area the village is in isn't a place for the faint of heart).

@Friar_Tuk I like it. I was going to object to the harmful mutation but using Fused with Machines to "fix them" is fine.
1.) I'm fine with you rolling your mutations, just follow the guidelines in the book. If they don't work for you or I see a problem we will discuss it, but there are only one or two things I saw as potential problems, so it likely won't come up.

2.) Yes I need 2 NPCs from you. Without giving away the plot, I'm looking for story books to drive your character to participate in the adventure. I want more motivation than "going because that's the story" this can literally be Anybody that you think could live in the village as I've described it so far and that makes sense based on what you've read about the general Numenera setting. No Kings or dragons secretly living in the tiny village, but just about anything else you might think of.

I am going to do my mutation rolls first to get things going. These will help me flavor up my character and guide my other choices.

Note: The wording on how to roll for mutations is a bit vague and confusing. If I have interpreted it wrong, just let me know and we can rework these rolls.

Harmful mutation: Debilitating Telepathy. You are sometimes (usually once a day) afflicted with random bouts of cacophonous telepathy when thinking beings are within immediate range. You never gain valuable information, but for ten minutes, the overwhelming din in your head increases the difficulty of all tasks by one step.

Beneficial Mutation 1: Suggestive Voice: Your voice is so perfectly modulated that it is an asset in all interaction tasks.

Beneficial Mutation 2: Polyglot: When you hear a language spoken for at least one minute, you can communicate in that language as a native speaker for 28 hours.

Beneficial Mutation 3: *See Distinctive Mutation 2* Thick Hide: You gain +1 to Armor.

Distinctive Mutation 1: Snake Tail: You have a prehensile tail that is 6 feet long. It is an asset for all tasks involving grappling or wrestling. The tail can grasp large objects. Also roll on the beneficial mutations table. Enabler.

Distinctive Mutation 2: Spurs: You have large bony spurs on your elbows and knees that you can use as light weapons that inflict 1 additional point of damage. enabler.

Widow Fesessa - elder lonely woman which lives lonely life at edge of the cove. She never had children and her husband died many years ago. She is very reclusive type and not too social. She walks around at evenings. She have some telekinetic powers but normally do not show them.

Druvin Meleks - middle-aged numenera technician. He is famous person in the cove because have wide and deep knowledge and understanding of all things numenera - technical, esoteric and else. He is very respected person. He is calm focused person, which is normally busy, and is quite beneficial too. It's known that he helped alot and was good friend of Triun - chief of the guard.

Working on my character still, mostly backstory at this point, but I do need 2 cyphers and an oddity :)

Newbie question, Foolsmask. How important is it to get diverse skill sets (e.g. some glaives, some nano, some jack) -- is there a hole in our current party that needs filling based on what we know?

NPCs:
1: Irving Winters is Galen's master and adopted father. He knew Ilyana, Galen's mother, quite well - though he refuses to reveal the history there. He is a rough man who lived a hard life and has little patience for nonsense. He does have obvious affection for Galen, though he doesn't often show it beyond a stiff nod or pat on the shoulder. He is a skilled blademaster and retired adventurer.

2: Aileen Verigar is a seamstress in town who has a soft spot for the children in the town. She lost her three children to sickness when they were very young and her husband died in a farming accident. She is pretty universally well-liked and always willing to help others even above herself. Galen is fiercely protective of her as she was the only motherly figure he had in his life growing up.

I submitted my character for mechanical approval and Cyphers/Oddities. I'll write up a detailed background likely tomorrow.

A few "newbie questions" of my own:

Do armor bonuses stack? I have a +1 from a mutation, +1 from my Focus, and +1 from armor. Does that all add up to 3 or 1?

I'm assuming we all start at teir 1.

Attack modifiers; how do we determine them?

@ Falryx: Party Mechanics are very different in Numenera I think two Glaives aren't going to play the same way due to Descriptor and Foci. A Tough Glaive who Rages might be more like a Barbarian while a Stealthy Glaive who Murders might seem more like a Fighter/rougish Assassin. Plus the core type Glaive abilities the two would pick would probably be very different.

Also being a Nano (like what I'm playing) doesn't mean I'm a slouch in combat because I already cast a spell like a wizard and I need to run away from combat now due to the descriptor and foci picked. Healing is interesting since we have recoveries also. Also there's the misconception of skills. Anyone can make a roll, have training in it means it's easier, being specially trained in it more so, having an asset does the same plus other factors. Not having a Rogue to pick the lock on a chest or no skill at climbing to get over a wall doesn't mean you'll fail, there could be a Glaive with Carpentry so he looks at the structure and figures out how to jimmy it. Or no one knows how to climb but we have a grappling hook and rope, it's better than nothing right?

Jack play differently I think since they have a Flex skill that they can change daily/same with Driven (although it has to be towards your goals). Plus there's the mechanic of putting effort into a task which reduces the difficulty (this is more crunchy mechanics though) so may not be what you wanted to talk about.

I think we have at least one of each already so play what you want to try and play man.

@ Friar_Tuk (It 'may' stacks just remember if anything costs to activate that it's paid, and if activation is an action you don't have it until you do it versus an Enabler.)

Tier 1 is kind of the first rank.

If you're proficient with the weapon it's the normal target number, also if your know how to use Light Weapons they are one step down (easier to do). If you know how to use just Light Weapons and you pick up a medium it'll be a step up harder to use, Heavy would be two steps harder to use. Plus there's the use of Effort but this gets kind of crunchy to explain a little so probably not the thread for that kind of talk.

One of the things about Numenera that I like is that there really isn't a need to diversify the Types. You can have a party of all Glaives or Nanos and be fine. As the GM I should tailor things to march the party. However, skill diversity can't hurt. And while combat isn't the focus of the game, we do tend to be leaning heavy on melee. But don't feel obligated to "fill a niche" I think I can work around a group with a heavy focus in one direction.

What Remnant said is correct. I'll try to post a sample of play from the book later that will help.

And sorry for not responding faster. I'm working and can ply take short breaks to post. But that will improve soon.

GP isn't letting me submit a character to the game at the moment, so I'll paste the background parts here for now.

Carrick Muhnae is a Resilient Jack who Possesses a Shard of the Sun

Carrick grew up as the normal son of Kuj, a respected fisherman, until one day as he was cleaning the fishing machinery, he found something caught in the nets. As soon as he touched the odd-looking object, he was consumed by a massive burst of light. he was found a few minutes later, rocking on knees holding his head in his hands. He recovered quickly, seemingly no worse for wear - but a lesson was learned that day to be wary of the numenera.

Fast forward several years and he has grown into a strong young man. He still works the harvest with his father and the rest of the crew and has earned the respect of those he's with. Over the years, he's discovered that whatever it was that he had grabbed when he was a boy had left an indelible mark on him. Carrick glows slightly after being in the sun for a while, and he can make an object glow just by touching it. This has proven quite useful when working on a ship, as they have been able to work longer into the night and earlier in the morning, toiling by the light provided to them by Carrick. Some of those on the other ships speak of him carrying a curse, though never to his face.

He returned to Aldiea eager to participate in the Festival and the race. Of course, part of Carrick's eagerness to return to land is due to his budding relationship with Kylia, the eldest daughter of a greenhouse farmer. While she returns his interest, her father isn't keen on his daughter getting involved with a fisher. Says she'll be alone too much of the time, and there's too great a risk of becoming a young widow. But if Carrick would leave the sea....well, that'd be different conversation entirely! I'm thinking of this family unit as my NPC1, but if you want to use it as two, that's fine

Carrick is also looking forward to how Jarlho will react to Carrick's performance in the race. Jarlho is the leader of the fisher guild and will make the final decision after the race on if Carrick will be able to join the guild and which ship he'd be on. Being Kuj's son would normally be enough to keep the family together, but with his special powers, Carrick is worried that Jarlho will split them up. NPC2


I'll need to get two cyphers and one oddity from the GM.

I also 'have strong emotional connection with another PC and can change the color of the light you create in their presence' - any takers?

Ok thanks -- continuing to read feverishly for another 30 minutes then off to sleep before another (3rd) day of all day meetings.

No, that is fine. I will list the family as one character but we will assume they are individuals and not some sort of mutant hive mind! And the leader of the fishers guild is a great addition to the town.

I have posted the list that I have on the NPC Guide thread. Let me know if I missed anything.

Ok, questions for/about the new character submitted tonight will have to wait for the morning, but I will go ahead and hand out oddities and cyphers. I'm going in order of the list on the Game Details, just so you know. Since falryx hasn't finished yet I'll move down to Kveit

Oddity -A choker that emits holographic images of fish swimming in the air around you.

So Cyphers for Kveit (Friar_Tuk)

Force Screen Projector lvl 8 - A bracer of syth and metal that creates an immobile plane of solid force up to 20 feet by 20 feet (6.1 m by 6.1 m) for one hour. Theplane conforms to the space available.

Remote Viewer lvl 5 - A device that looks like a pair of glass mirrors. For one hour, the glass screen on one part shows everything going on in the vicinity of the other part,
regardless of the distance between the two parts.

For Galen (Naatkinson)

Oddity - A Bottle of twenty-four pills that make you vividly dream about your favorite memory when you next sleep

Fireproof Spray lv10 - A nonliving object sprayed by this cypher has Armor against fire damage equal to the cypher’s level for 28 hours.

Force Nodule lv 4 - For the next 28 hours, the armor the nodule is attached to is bolstered by a powerful force field, adding
2 to the Armor it provides.

Sorry I didn't get to this last night, I was reading your backgrounds and weaving some plot and I guess I closed my eyes to long. So now for

Carrick(njohn858)

Oddity - A small coin purse that can hold twice as much as it appears that it should (its bigger on the inside!) (This pouch looks to be about fist size, but through interdimensional technology can hold up to a bowling ball in volume. Weight remains the same though)

Cyphers

Force Shield Projector lv 4
Form: A ring that has two spinning segments. Activated by aligning the two halves of the shield symbol and sliding the segments together.
Effect: Creates a shimmering energy shield around the user for one hour, during which time he gains +3
Armor.

Stim lv 1
Form: A blue nanite filled pill that must be swallowed
Effect: Decreases the difficulty of the next action by three steps.

@njohn858

Questions about Carrick

1.) When the Light Numenra fused with Carrick, he saw beings, possibly from a previous world, or another world altogether. What did they tell him that scared him so much he couldn't sleep until pure exhaustion finally overcame him? What is it that haunts his dreams still? Has Carrick ever told anyone else?

2.) Carrick once overheard his father and Jarlho talking in a tavern. The older men thought Carrick had gone home to bed. Jarlho has indicated that Carrick has the makings of a good captain and may prove to be the youngest man to reach the position in Fishers Guild history. It might have been idol chatter, a good natured exchange of compliment, or Jarlho might have meant it; Carrick doesn't know. How did it make Carrick's father feel that his son might out do his own accomplishments?

3.) Carrick has heard the objections of Kylia's parents to their potential match. He will be completing the Rite of Ascension, or so he hopes. Has he given any thought to what he will do? He can't be a Fisher and be with Kylia, positions on shore are for senior, decorated captains who are to old to pull nets.

4.) Is Kylia participating in the Rite of Ascension this year? If not why? Perhaps she completed it last year or just wasn't picked by The Seer? The Seer has his own way of choosing who can participate.