Character Creation Thread!

Thank you very much!

I picked the names of two famous naval commanders, one who was also an explorer and the other politician, Sir Francis Drake and M. Vipsanius Agrippa. We can go with Kastillios if you like that more though! Let me know what your preference is.

So, I will go for Arch Militant since I do not want to have a team of soldiers under my command.

name: Johan Rainsford
rulebook: Arch-Militant
Ranged Weapon: shotgun [melta - deadly - archaeotech]
Melee Weapon: axe (chainaxe) [chain - brutal - vicious]
Moves (3): 1) Stone Cold Killer 2) Death World Veteran 3) Commando Infiltration
Key: Defeat a mighty adversary
Panoply (Common): 1) flak jacket 2) frag grenade 3) las rifle
Panoply (Uncommon): 1) Sniper rifle 2) chameoline cloak

And what's your ship component?

Exotic Armoury

A fine choice! I can already see The Sommelier from John Wick...



"And for the sidearm, might I suggest the fusion pistol? Ryza pattern, of course Sir. Elegant, but delightfully lethal. The holster will not break the lines of your armoured voidsuit as the plasma pistol would, too ostentatious for the ensemble."

Today has been a day. As soon as the people in my house leave I will fill out my sheet.

The ship is going to be thornier, though, because there are six types listed but only 3 ship books. Do you know where the other three are, @PiebaldWookie ?

If they were never written, I guess I could just slap something together.

When a move says "mark experience," so say, for example, the Salvaged Hulk, where you mark experience when you plumb the forgotten depths. Does that XP mark go to everyone or just to the Rogue Trader? Or can anyone use the component, and then that specific character gets the XP? As far as I can tell, any group member can use the components unless prevented or forbidden somehow.

Also, how is XP marked generally? Is it only from components or keys?

Yeah, they haven't been written up. Was there one in particular everyone wanted to use? I am sure I could batter something together!

If it's a Ship or Component, I'm happy with everyone marking Experience.

For general experience outside of Keys and Components, I'll use a version of the rules from AW: Burned Over;

EXPERIENCE & IMPROVEMENT

ROLLING YOUR STATS
Whenever you roll a stat, mark it. When you make its 4th mark, get 1Xp and erase its marks to start again.

Your playbook, the moves you choose, and your play style all influence how often you roll. If you find yourself pulling ahead or falling behind the other players, it’s normal. If it gets to the point where anyone feels that it’s unfair, talk together as a group, with the MC, to make sure that every player is getting the opportunities to roll their stats that they need.

BONDS + CHARACTERS

Whenever your Bond with someone is proven correct, both players mark XP.

Whenever your Bond with someone is tested or proven wrong, you mark XP and remove that Bond. You can form a new Bond with another player or the same one, but it cannot be the same Bond.

At the end of every session, judge for yourself: Have you achieved something worthy of your station? If you have, get 1Xp.

If you haven't, start working on it.

IMPROVEMENT
When you get your 6th Xp, choose an improvement, and erase your Xp to start again.

Mark your improvement off, you can’t choose it again.

If necessary, get with the MC to decide how and when your improvement comes into play.

This *might* give more XP than normal, but we're PbP, so I'll happily give out XP!

Thank you for the summary. I do like more XP!

Regarding ships, I wanted the Heretek Ship special ability, because it fits the psy-dynasty theme, but it would be very selfish, since I'm the only player who would benefit from it. So I went with Salvaged Hulk instead, for the group XP farm.

Personally, my goal is to acquire a fleet! And add components! More ships! Cool space battles! Also we'll need other ships to haul around our loot. Also do space heroism, like rescue pilgrims under attack by pirates, then take the pirate ship as a prize. Glory! Honor! Fortune! EXPLOSIONS! (That make no sound because it's space.) Then we offer fabulous pirate treasures as stakes in gambling games to entice rich people from Imperial planets to wager huge amounts of money in our casino so Arabella can rob them blind.

Incidentally, I would like to argue that acquiring new components shouldn't have anything to do with XP. That should be stuff that is found and installed. It's really weird that it would be based on XP; if it is, if you can't buy components, then what's the point of starfaring? I would propose, instead, that other advances be available to any character that has a "new ship component" advance. The Rogue Trader might be the only one, but just in case, I'm pointing at the others. Maybe replace one new component advance with a playbook move and a second new component advance with a move from another playbook.

Anyway.

Uh.

Where was I?

Right.

I made a character! She is named Elizabeth I Drake. The I is not a numeral designation, it is part of her name, pronounced "Ee." Elizabeth I (with the numeral) was Queen of England when Francis Drake did his privateering, the family name is from his of course, and the I is a punny homage both to the aforementioned queen and to the most successful pirate ever, Cheng I Sao.

I named the ship the Audacious Faith and called it an Ambition-class Cruiser, because that's the umbrella term for Rogue Trader ships that don't meet standard patterns. It is extremely old and full of hallowed history, ancient relics, and possibly terrible secrets. It was declared holy because of its great age, and any suspiciously heresy-adjacent features have been scrubbed and refitted out. I picked the Aggressive persona because I didn't like any of the ones in the Salvaged Hulk book.

I chose the Telepathy and Telekinesis Disciplines. I originally thought that Divination would be the most useful and thematic, since being able to predict the future as a starship captain would explain a lot of shenanigans. However, @htech has made a warp-seer type guy, so I went with Telekinesis instead to avoid stepping on his niche.

I picked the Paying Debts and Grease the Wheels of Commerce obligation endeavors because I figure that they are the ones that are the most sensical to actually fulfill. A prize ship or three donated in full to the Admiralty Board would wipe away debts, and with @spinningdice's help, we should be able to make sure that recalcitrant governors and merchant houses know that keeping the space lanes safe and trading in space sugar, space tobacco, and space spices keeps the cash flowing for everyone.

Do the playbooks in this game have set groups of Looks and Origin templates like some PbtA games?

Also is there a way to look at the character sheets of other players in the game so I can list all of the components under the ship on my sheet?

I will be traveling, with limited access to internet until Friday (September 6th)

So - we have characters from everyone aside from AceRancheros - one we get their sheet in, we can get started!

We will start the game coming into Footfall, the start of the Expanse itself. You have received an interesting proposition from an old friend...

What were you doing beforehand?

Did you come from within the Expanse, or from outside?

Do the playbooks in this game have set groups of Looks and Origin templates like some PbtA games? I haven't seen any, but I might be missing them.

How do I make my character sheet public?

Are we answering those two questions individually or as a group?

They don't have Looks, so I would just go with what feels right!

Your sheet was approved, so it should be public now?

And that's up to you guys! I would say as a group, though as RT, you might have some say in them.

Hey folks, Gregor Curel, the resident Archivist is submitted. Apologies for the delay. Let me know if you all have any feedback. I'll need convert it to a PBTA sheet to make it more user friendly later.

Excellent! I'll get the IC and OOC threads up today

What were you doing beforehand?
Captain Johan is a decorated Imperial Guard officer, hailing from the jungles of Catachan. He is the sole survivor of his platoon, against a Tyranid swarm.

Did you come from within the Expanse, or from outside?
Captain Johan comes from Catachan and has battled the Tyranid menace across the Ultima Segmentum.