Character Generation

We'll spitball/pitch characters and setting elements here.

Are their a set of races, or just humans? Do we all come from the same planet?

That's up to you.

"Players will design many aspects on their own. Alien Races, planetary cultures, etc, can be submitted as part of the setting and I will work them in."

If you want to wait for me to post the "highlights reel" of the setting, I will be working on that over the next couple days as I decide what I want to file the serial number off from fiction. ;)

Thanks, I'll open the dances with a character pitch:

Mick 'Spanner' Wright

Give Spanner some parts and tools, and he is very likely to put together a device that will probably look rather ugly, but do exactly what you need. Born on a high gravity mining planet (hence his squat appearance), he practically grew up in a workshop, showing great talent in fixing and adapting engines and machinery from an early age. This led to several engagements on spacecraft of various sizes, cutting his teeth on various types of propulsion engines.

He made himself two helping bots (the size of a present-day computer mouse) that he calls Left and Right. They can each produce mechanical limbs and can send an audiovisual feed back to Spanner, perfect for those hard to reach places. They can shine a powerful light and have a set of useful tools (laser cutter, welder, screwdrivers etc). They plug and recharge on docking stations in Spanner's respective forearms.

Spanner has a very mechanic, deterministic view of the world. For him everything works as a string of cause-and-effect situations. This puts him at a disadvantage with living, thinking beings that work in more complex emotional ways.

Seems perfect for the setting!

Jilick Tam'plenick is a member of the insectoid hive race, Ick. There interaction with humanoid races has started to influence the culture, so that young have begun to leave the hive.

Jilick is one of those. From an early age he found the hive constricting and was always, accidently, breaking the rules. He found this frustrating and confusing, to the point that when he came of age he left the hive. Outside, among the humanoid races, he found himself alone and isolated. He no longer had the support of the hive around him, and he found the other races strange and unfamiliar. But he persevered and finally found a way to form his own "Hive" by joining the Lancers. Among them he found the hive that he wished to be a part of, but they also allowed him to act independently of the group think. He has slowly built up his confidence, and in doing so has become thoughtful in how he acts, but still willing to push against the rules when he knows it is the only way to get something done.

He has a gift for data. He will spend his off-days happily scouring the net, examining trends, predicting what will come out in the culture wars next. He is never without his deck, and has learned the ways of the humanoids well. So when a Lancer team needs a nethead he is one of those taken along.

Organised and methodical in his approach, both to his work and life in general. Understanding anything is always done by having all the data. But this means that he is not quick to act, and dislikes too much, or too sudden, change.

Drakis2: Excellent. We now have the tech covered from both ends. :)

I'm going to borrow a species from a book that I like. Allow me to introduce the Gentians.

Gentians are superficially very similar looking to humans, having the same essential body shape, but they differ from humans in a few key ways. The main one is that Gentians attain a biological age of 25 at the age of 3, then live precisely one hundred more years in the exact same health, dying rapidly at age 103. The second major difference is that there are only ever at most one million adult Gentians in existence at any given time. Gentians long ago lost the ability to reproduce naturally.

Every 100 years, all one million Gentians gather in a secret location, consolidate their memories in one massive pool, and then clone the next million Gentians. The ancestor Gentians have a huge end of life party as the new generation grows, working together to sort and prune the memories, and then the memories are copied to the next generation of Gentians to restart the cycle.

Several generations Gentian Cycles have given each Gentian a broad knowledge base in many topics. Gentians trade mostly in knowledge - it is their greatest asset, and what they value most. The breadth and quality of memories a Gentian brings back is what ensures their inclusion in the next generation. Boring Gentians effectively die, as none of their memories live on. Gentians who make the most interesting contributions are effectively immortal.

Physically Gentians are like 25 year old humans, in peak condition, as though they were Olympians of any given sport. Their mastery over biological processes gives them liberty to look like almost any humans, though most favor larger eyes, larger ears, and smaller frames, making them look sprite-like. Gentians have very morphic physiology, however. In the span of about a month they could change themselves to look like any human. They also have engineered themselves for survivability in a hostile universe. They don't need to breath, and can sustain themselves on nearly any source of energy, carbon and oxygen. Their bones have the strength of titanium while not being heavier than an ordinary human's, and their joints are made of a material which allows deformation under great stress, but always (eventually) return to their previous configuration. They die (as do most things) to high energy weapons and explosives, though conventional ways of killing a person can only, at best, disable them for a time.

Gentians, among races that know of them, have a reputation of being something like genies. Help is always rewarded many times over, while harm is disproportionately punished. Gentians try to foster their reputation by promoting the idea that finding a Gentian in trouble is a lucky event, like winning the lottery - help them, and afterwards, your life will be dramatically changed for the better. Harm a Gentian and The Worst Thing You Can Imagine will happen. Part of the duties of a Gentian is to subtly spread this rumor wherever they go, for the protection and well-being of future travelling Gentians. This meme-packet obviously contains how to recognize a Gentian (and spot imposters) and how to make it known that you are a potential ally once you've found one. The material is adapted to each particular culture.

Afinlo is a Gentian of about 50, who joined the Lancers mainly to gain access to many different species and worlds. His main interest is interpersonal relationships, how they are expressed differently among different cultures, how those relationships can change as situations change. He's 4ft high, kind of a blueish grey skintone and blue spikey hair. He wears a perpetual, disarming grin. He can be a bit of a prankster - he loves understanding people by pushing their buttons and seeing how they react. He'll defend himself and others if necessary, but abhors most violence. Killing any sapient creature removes a potential source of knowledge from the universe. Though, on balance, a mass murderer destroys much more knowledge than they produce themselves, so he'd kill one to save many. Afinlo also shuns most of the high technology of his kind, preferring to integrate more closely with the species he interacts with. Gentians have found that simple awe of their technology can be a barrier to learning about a species as it is. Not all Gentians feel the same (variances in opinion and temperament are deliberately introduced so that each Gentian goes off to do something different), but Afinlo feels that introducing high technology to the people he's studying destroys the traits that he's trying to study. So he uses only native technology he can find on whatever host world he ends up on.

Naelick: Works. :) I like the addition to the setting a lot, and the implications therein.

Silverlion was running through a concept with me on Facebook Messenger last night, so that just leaves MagnificentFly. We're making good progress. :)

Have something for the setting. I slept 16 hours last night, and my 4 day migraine has finally let up. So. Some creativity:

The 63 worlds in the Assembly do their common business on Hawking. An icosahedral artificial structure of impenetrable exotic matter surrounding a small planetary body (about the size of Pluto or Eris) that was left orbiting Cibiyar, the small black hole at the rough center of the Cluster by the ancient, vanished race of the Txheej. The spaces between the structure and the planetoid house the central orbital structures used by the Accordance Fleet and their Patrol personnel. (Only used for missive interplanetary matters or emergencies. Lancers handle local business via Contract.)

Exciting character concepts and worldbuilding! Looking forward to interact with my fellow Lancers

I added in my character. The toughest bit was trying to figure out how to word the Stunts so that they made sense. I did read the rules on it a few times, but I still struggled. Would appreciate some input ZivenOfNine on how to get it working correctly?

Looks OK to me. It took me a bit as well when I was in my first FAE game.

For reference, this was mine, so you can see you did well.

---

Aislinn "Ace" Cartwright



Refresh: 3.

High Concept: 3rd Generation Galactic Hero, Junior Grade

Trouble: I'm A Cartwright. It may as well be spelled "Trouble".

Aspects:

I Have A Buddy There.

I Could Tell You, But I'd Have To Space You.

In Her Shadow.

Approaches:
+3 Clever
+2 Quick, Sneaky
+1 Flashy, Forceful
+0 Careful

Stunts:

I know a guy.
Because I have a buddy there, once per game session I can find a helpful ally in just the right place.

Read In
Because I could tell you but I'd have to space you, once per session I can create an Advantage related to classified Parallax Intel about a person or situation in which I am involved.

Watch out for the little ones.
Because I am In Her Shadow, I get a +2 in combat when negatively or dismissively compared to more famous senior members of my family.

Ok, here is my character with additional lore bits, let me know if I need to make adjustments and/or add anything.

Ok, I will go back and make some changes to get the Stunts corrected. Thank you for the examples, they are really helpful!

Looking good all. I love the addition of the Nihlusians. Very Nietzschean/Klingon flavour. :)

Some more lore: Ships of the Accordance Fleet tend to be named after high art concepts. The largest capital ships are the Orchestral class, the flagship is the AFV Symphony, AA-68.

Excellent.