Character Creation Discussion (Session Zero)

Hello,

Feel free to talk in here as you read through the rules, discussing what you find interesting and the kind of game you want to play. I will help with any rules/setting questions as you do so.

Note that although there is a lot of setting information in the book, I'm not going to stick to it super hard, since I think I'm the only one with access, so if you come up with something that's not in the book or that contradicts it, I'll go with your version

I'd like to know a bit more about the technology level. From what I read so far, it seems to be industrial revolution era-like, so when it says "shoot" in the description for the soldier, does that mean guns?

Yeah, the humans in the setting have developed technology up to industrial revolution level, plus there is a lot of weird and occult magic stuff that has been done both in place of tech and along side it, a lot of which runs the city. Think dieselpunk but run by weird magic rather than fuel.

And about guns specifically, yes. Generally there is descriptions of blunderbusses and revolvers, but again they're human made and most of the aelfir would probably use bows

I'm thinking of a Killer durance, and Bound class. The skills would be Fight and Sneak. How does that sound?

I was thinking about a Knight, but I guess two combat-centric characters would be too much, so I think I want to go for a Lajhan.

Also, I went ahead and bought the book, but it will take some time to read it all, so I will still need your help during character creation and play.

Discourage: sounds great!

The_Revident: I'm not about to discourage you from taking a class you're interested in. If it sounds interesting you're fine to take a knight and we'll have a super bloody game. Otherwise yeah Lajhan would be great.

We do have a third player so I suppose it comes down to the kind of story they want. So far with either the Knight or Lajhan we'll have a very down-spire group, which should make it a little easier to get into the world

Hey, i was thinkingo of an occultist for durance and masked for class. Not sure how to choose my skills. Could you help me with that?

The_Revident:

I just wanted to touch base with you about your character, since you have the book then I won't need to send you all of the mechanical information, but feel free to ask any questions about how it all works.
Looking at the other two, if you choose to take Knight, I see it as basically a 2-man kill team plus an informant, which is pretty cool. Otherwise, taking Lajhan may make it into more of a community based political game. Given you're the one who has thought about multiple characters, it actually puts the power in your hands. If any of this sounds bad or wrong to the other two you may have to consider other character choices. Or you could come up with a team dynamic that you think I missed

Also a quick note, while we're in character creation, feel free to ask mechanical questions here or in the OOC chat, but once we're in game, please post any mechanical questions either in a DM to me or in OOC chat.

Then I'll think about both characters and wait a little for the others' input. I'm happy with political and kill-team.

Are there any suggestions for character naming? Are D&D drow names appropriate?

In terms of characteristics / backstory I'm thinking that my character is borderline sociopathic, and was therefore quite capable and happy murdering people during his duance. But towards the end of his tenure he was ordered to kill his brother that had joined the Ministry. Whilst he went through with the killing, he had been wracked by grief and thoughts of revenge ever since. And the Ministry has found out about that and wants to harness that emotion and his skills.

As far as names go, there's not much explicitly in the book, except for a few example names for NPCs in particular factions, which vary wildly from classic drow-ish fantasy names to regular words.

I would warn you against playing fully sociopath, since this is a team and you will be expected to perform as a member of said team.

And also reading through that I think that you might be interested in playing a Firebrand. That way you can draw on your grief and sorrow of being a tool of the corrupt aelfir to rouse the populace into overthrowing them. Or a Carrion-Priest that wants to atone for the lives you took by ensuring the safe passage of dead comrades.

Since nobody chimed in, I decided on the knight. Laborer durance, working at the docks and meeting knights in the pubs after work. My character bought into the stories and manages to overlook the worst misdeeds of the current knights.
Or something like this, I'm not quite done on the backstory yet.

Ok I'll tone down the sociopath and I'll go with firebrand.

Sounds great! So our team will be a Masked, a Knight and a Firebrand.

Just a follow up note on names, my one pet peeve is fantasy names that are essentially unpronounceable, so be creative but if you can't say it out loud easily then you might need a new one. Discourage, that being said, Kyorlin is fine.

The_Revident, or should I say Jerell, everything looks good except for your second bond. One of the other PCs is your drinking partner, or was, back in the day

I know, I just wanted to wait with that until everyone is done. I was thinking that Kyorlin might visit all kinds of bars, and might share a few pints with a knight.

Yeah that works for me. For Kyorlin's bond he needs to have recruited one of the other PCs to the cause, so it could be that they were old drinking buddies who then bumped into each other again after a long time. After getting reacquainted and caught up with the goings-on of the past few years, Kyorlin trusts Jerell enough to try and recruit him to the Ministry.

I'm not sure what's going on with Nova, I've sent them a message to check in that they're still interested and haven't gotten a response. I'm going to leave them in the game, but are you two ready and willing to start as a duo?

And along that line, to help me set up the narrative, I'd like everyone to come up with the place that you meet up. Remember you're part of a secret society so it can't be a super public place, but it could be a seedy bar that you have a regular table at or a warehouse in a quiet part of town that is sympathetic to the cause so you rent a corner to plan your operations. Up to you