Character Creation Thread

Hi peeps, thread to discus your character concepts, build ideas and to run any queries you might have by me.

For whatever reason your characters have found themselves in the colonies of the New World (the real world analogy for this area would be the Caribbean), specifically the port of Kap-Kalfu on the isle of Jaragua which sits on the Atabean Sea.....otherwise known as the Sea of Monsters!

Your characters have all taken position aboard the 'whaling' ship the Diamant. The crew positions you will fill are entirely up to you all but will largely be based on the skills and other abilities you select during character creation, even those individuals of more academic leanings are in high demand on such vessels.

If you don't have access to any of the books the basic rules can be found here - the Characters pdf gives all of the info you need to create a surprisingly detailed character (surprising for a free version of the rules that is)

Hi, thanks for the invite.

I'm thinking about an ex-revolutionary naturalist doctor from Montaigne.

I've got the pdf's from the kickstarter, and I'm starting to read up on the system.

Did I understand it right that we're skipping the story part of character generation?

Yeah for now at least.

Avast and woot. I picked up the Bundle of Holding the other day so I'll build a character tonight or tomorrow, and hopefully learn the system at the same time.

No idea on a concept yet.

I'll wait and see what others pick from and I'll make something or pull from games that failed to launch, I still have Christian Satterson the large privateer soldier from the Isles and James Semptill from the Highland Marchs who's a cocky warrior poet.

I don't normally play magical characters in 7th Sea, so I think I'd like to mix things up this time around. I'm thinking some kind of Sarmatian Farmkid/Soothsayer; a young Turk with a lot to prove, and though capable of great heroic action, is striving to do great good while still finding themselves - a feat made slightly trickier now that there's a devil hovering over their shoulder tempting them to do terrible, horrible things in exchange for power ;)

Loving the character ideas so far guys! Should make for a very interesting crew :) Not sure if you've all seen the blurb from the game synopsis so I'll repost it here:

Among the legendary sea monsters of Terras Pirate Nations, the Kraken is the most feared and most respected. Seafarers with families use tall tales of the Kraken to frighten and entertain their children, and legends of encounters with the Kraken regale the patrons at dockside taverns on every shore.
Today, the nightmare becomes real. The Kraken has been sighted off the Jaraguan coast, closer to land than it has ever wandered before, tearing through ships with reckless abandon. The call has gone out across the seas for the bravest of sailors to end this scourge forever.
You are crew members aboard the whaling ship Diamant captained by a Rahuri huntress, Ariyi Aipajawa, a tough-but-fair sort of captain with a solid reputation for making good profit as well as making sure her crew is well compensated.

Glory and fortune awaits as the hunt for the Kraken begins!

That's how things will be starting so if you're character hails from one of the Thean (i.e. european/eurasian) countries it might be worth thinking why your character has ended up on the other side of the world.

I think my Doctor has something to prove as well, he's looking for the naturalist discovery to make his name (like Darwin's voyage on the Beagle).

As a side note, I've not played this game before, so I'd like to know if I'd be totally useless if I didn't spend much on aim/weaponry, or if you can make a viable character without offensive skills. Will there still be interesting things to do in "combat"?

Well a combat is normally defined as an ‘Action Sequence’, everyone declares an approach and rolls dice based on that approach. The approach can be anything you feel would be useful in the situation - you would select the Trait and Skill you want to use and then describe how you are going to use them.

For example you could say you were going to use the Convince skill with the Panache trait and say your Approach is that you are going to try and talk the enemies down.

Basically you can pick any skill and trait combo, you just need to justify how you are using them in that way

I'm thinking a Quartermaster from La Bucca, some sort of suave, Castille descended, opinionated control freak.

While a bit cliche', I think the easiest way for a neophyte losejai to be present in the New World hunting down a massive, murderous kraken would be "the Devil made me do it."

Sure, it sounds fine making a Deal about "going across the ocean to see a new land a year and a day from now," but here we are, facing a murder-monster which miiiiiight force the losejai to invoke another deal for survival. Dun dun duuuun!

I submitted Llorenco de las Quintanillas, a charming, roguish provisioner/sailor type from La Bucca.

He has the Married to the Sea advantage if we're putting a ship together.

Llorenco is approved. With regards to Married to the Sea it won’t come into play at the start but after this first adventure if we’re all happy to carry on then it’ll come in handy :)

Submitted Dr. Bastien Rousseau, Doctor of the Revolution. He has recently taken an extended leave from his home country of Montaine because of ... Imperial entanglemets.. He hopes this far away expedition might redeem his name by making a discovery of such renown that the entanglements won't matter anymore. Failing that, keeping well away from Madame Gilliotine is advised for health reasons.

Dr Rousseau is approved, all looking great so far :)

Satterson worked on a privateer and as a soldier. The large man knows his way around a battle at sea.

Pow! Andrezi, the Starry-Eyed Losejas, has been submitted for approval.

Enslaved to a dievas in a misguided attempt to embody the truest aspects of Rzeczpospolitan Chivalry, he now works to free himself from his binding contract with the insidious demon. Capable of extremely powerful feats - albeit at an equally extreme price - he journeys to the New World to fulfill his end of his most recent bargain.

Excellent! That’s everyone approved now. I’ll have a post up later (am at work at the moment) as I need an idea of the crew position your respective characters are filling on the Diamant but we should be ready to start very soon!

One thing I wanted to note is that this will be my first time running this system. I’m pretty comfortable that I’ve the rules down but if I do anything/make a rules call you feel is a bit unusual or untoward please don’t hesitate to call me out on it in the OOC thread or via a PM.

Ok, so a few suggestions for general roles on the ship are below but I will say in the event that the ship is attacked/attacking you wouldn’t be expected to stick to your ‘job’ slavishly.

First Mate (or Ship's Master): The second in command, in charge when the captain is unavailable or elsewhere.
Boatswain (or "Bosun"): The sergeant of the crew, makes sure the work gets done. Being a boatswain usually involves a lot of shouting.
Gunner: Crew one of the ship's main guns. Load, aim and fire a cannon. The ship needs many gunners.
Whaleboat Crew: Pull one of the whaleboat's oars. Be unafraid to stab a harpoon into a sea creature many, many times larger than you are while standing in a rowboat.
Able Sailor: General purpose sailor, doing all the things necessary to operate the ship. Also participate in the mechanics of whaling, including standing ready to crank a winch (to pull a harpooned creature up out of the water), shoot a leviathan with the swivel gun, throw a harpoon, or anything else you are ordered to do during a hunt.
Rigger: Climb into the sails, make sure they stay trimmed, and keep the ship moving. Sometimes serve as a sharpshooter to use your high vantage point to snipe at enemy crew. If you do not like heights, this is not the job for you.
Lookout: Whether watching from the raised bridge deck on Diamant's stern, or from the crow's nest high in the rigging, the ship's lookouts keep careful watch on the horizon. Must have sharp eyes and the ability to stay awake.
Carpenter: In combat (or a hunt of something really, really big), stand ready to fix holes in the ship, shore up a damaged mast or spar, or anything else aimed at keeping the Diamant afloat when something is doing its best to sink the ship.
Surgeon: If you have medical skill, the crew always feels better knowing someone is there to stitch wounds and splint broken bones.

So general roles I’ve pegged for you guys so far would be as follows:

Christian - Lookout
Andrezi - Able Seaman (Carpenter wouldn’t be too much of a stretch based on his background though either)
Dr Bastien - Ships Surgeon
Llorenco - First Mate / Boatswain (based on their past naval experience)

Boatswain sounds perfect for Llorenco. While he is a small man, he is definitely a shouter.

Excellent, well we’re all ready to get started then! I’ll get things rolling properly by the weekend, works been a bit crazier than I was expecting this week so I’ve not had much time on the evenings to put some proper effort into getting this going.

Game threads up here peeps, thanks for bearing with me these last few days

I've put a post up for the Diamant here with a pic and a description of the notable areas on the ship

Great, thanks

I'll likely won't be posting until next Monday. Operation Gen Con starts in 20 hours.