Chapter 2: Creating a Character
When you create a character, you choose their lineage, heritage, talents, abilities, bonds, starting equipment, and bonds.
Character Origins
In Monsters & Magic, you’re a character in a story, and all great characters start with a compelling backstory. To start building your character, you first need to determine their origin. To do so, choose your lineage—your bloodline and the bloodline of your parents. You have 3 lineage points you can spend on choosing traits from your lineage. Your parents may have had different lineages, if so choose a second lineage and purchase traits from both lineages—you must have at least one trait from each lineage, and you cannot spend more tha 3 lineage points total. Your size and appearance is based on your lineage(s), and your
Next, choose your heritage. Each heritage describes your background or how you’ve lived your life, and will give you some bonus or additional thing you can do because of it.
Finally, describe your background before you started adventuring and write two talents representing the skills and experiences you gained before you ventured forth. Talents should not be combat related or imply a specific gameplay bonus, like “one-hit kill assassin”, or “never-miss marksman”, instead they should build on your heritage and the story you’re trying to tell with your character—a Noble may have a talent “Princess of the House of Dragons” whereas a Criminal may have a talent “Magic Item Fence for the Big City Thieves’ Guild”. As you
Classes & Proficiencies
Once you’ve created your character’s origins, it’s time to decide how they’re adventuring out into the world! Choose a class for your character—your class determines your character’s HP (plus any bonuses you get from your lineage, and
As you
You’ll start the game by choosing one technique, and you’ll gain the ability to learn new techniques or charms (if you’re a spellcaster), ain weapon proficiency and mastery, and increase your HP as you
Finally, mark your
Abilities
Once you have your character’s origin, class, and proficiencies squared away, it’s time to pick your abilities.
Abilities can range from -2 to 5, and you start with two abilities at 0 and two abilities at 1. You can then decrease any ability by 1 to increase any other ability by 1. At character creation, no ability can be higher than 2. Once you reach Heroic Tier, abilities can have a maximum of 3, at Epic Tier a maximum of 4, and at Legendary Tier a maximum of 5.
Equipment
Finally, choose your starting equipment. You have two loadouts—from the weapons and foci that you are proficient with, choose either a single primary or secondary weapon or focus optionally with a shield (if you’re proficient), a primary and secondary weapon, two secondary weapons, a focus and a secondary weapon, or two foci for each loadout, keeping in mind your loadout can’t require you using more than two hands. Next, if you’re proficient with armor and want to wear some, choose the type of armor you want to wear (light, medium, or heavy) and select the armor of that type with the lowest AC. This initial set of weapons and armor does not cost you anything.
Finally, you start the game with 50 gold and 10 supplies. You can use this gold to buy adventuring gear as you see fit.
Session 0
Before you start playing, you should have an introductory session, often called a Session 0, to get an introduction to the world, have game expectations set, and to build your characters’ collective backstory with each other. While the GM may include additional activities to do during your Session 0, you should make sure that you include an activity to weave your characters’ pre-adventuring lives to explain how you all have come together.
Once your characters are built, pass your character sheet to the player to your left and have them write a time where their character had the spotlight in your character’s story—this should respect your character concept. Then, pass to the left again, and again, until everyone’s character sheet returns to their owners. Everyone’s characters should now have a personal backstory where they’ve interacted with each other character in the group.
Once you have your character sheet back, write bonds for each of the characters in your group based on the backstory that has been built with this activity.
Tiers of Play & Leveling Up
When you reach the end of a session, choose one bond you feel is completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise resolved. If both you and the character’s player agree, mark it as complete, and write a new bond with whomever you wish. Then, answer the following questions, plus your class question:
- Did I resolve a bond?
- Did I learn something new and important about the world?
- Did I overcome a notable monster or enemy?
- Did I loot a memorable treasure?
For each “yes” answer, mark 1 XP.
There are four tiers of gameplay, Journeyman, Heroic, Epic, and Legendary, each representing a different step in your journey towards writing your character’s legend. When you have enough XP to reach your next level, you can take the Level Up extended rest downtime activity to reflect on your experiences and hone your skills to
| Level | Total XP | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Journeyman | ||
| 1 | 0 | - |
| Heroic | ||
| 2 | 10 | +1 talent, +1 |
| 3 | 21 | 2 level-up options |
| 4 | 33 | 2 level-up options |
| Epic | ||
| 5 | 46 | +1 talent, +1 |
| 6 | 60 | 2 level-up options |
| 7 | 75 | 2 level-up options |
| Legendary | ||
| 8 | 91 | +1 talent, +1 |
| 9 | 108 | 2 level-up options |
| 10 | 126 | 2 level-up options |