Character creation has five steps. It takes about 15 minutes.
Step 1: Pick a Background
Backgrounds are character archetypes — they tell you who your character is in the world. The Backgrounds catalogue has all eleven of them, with their flavor, mechanical effects, gear options, and hooks.
If none of them feel right, pick The Anomaly (#11) and build your character freeform.
Step 2: Set Your Domain Tiers
Every starting character has the same base tier distribution:
- 0 Expert
- 1 Proficient
- 4 Trained
- 1 Untrained
Distribute these across your six domains however fits your concept. (You're not Trained in Spirit by default; you can put Untrained in Spirit if your character doesn't engage with the supernatural.)
Step 3: Apply Your Background's Tier Modifier
Most Backgrounds give you +1 in one domain and −1 in another. The +1 sharpens your specialty; the −1 defines a real weakness.
Reaching Expert at character creation is restricted. Most Backgrounds' +1 caps at Proficient. Only three Backgrounds — the Mystic, the Steward, and the Specialist — may apply their +1 to a Proficient domain to reach Expert. These three are the intensive-formation archetypes whose training was deep and narrow enough to justify mastery from session one.
If you choose one of those three Backgrounds and take Expert tier, the Cost of Expertise applies — see below.
The −1 cannot push a domain below Untrained. (You can be untrained, you can't be cursed by your training.)
The Anomaly does not get the +1/−1 modifier at all — they stay at the flat distribution.
The Cost of Expertise
If you take Expert tier at character creation, you don't get your mastery for free. You and the GM work out, at character creation, what your character paid for it. This is a piece of backstory that becomes part of the character.
This isn't a mechanical penalty. It's a fictional commitment — a debt, a loss, a sacrifice that explains why you're so good at the thing you're good at. Possible costs include:
- A teacher who exiled you (or who you exiled from)
- A sibling or close friend you failed during your training
- A debt to someone who taught you, still unpaid
- A part of yourself you sacrificed to focus — a relationship that died, a family you couldn't return to, a name you had to give up
- A memory you had to bury to keep going
- A loved one you lost to the path of mastery
- A rival who shaped your craft and now hates you
- A community that kept you at arm's length because of what you became
The cost should be specific — a particular person, place, or memory — and unresolved. It's a thread your GM can pull as the campaign unfolds.
If you'd rather your backstory stay in the background and not be developed during play, talk to your GM at session zero. The cost remains a fact about your character either way.
Step 4: Choose a Signature Item
Each Background offers three signature item options. Pick one. It's something you carry and care about.
(The Anomaly invents their own.)
Step 5: Pick a Hook
Each Background offers three or four hook prompts — a question, a desire, a thing your character is reaching for. Pick one, or write your own.
This is what your character wants. It will pull you into the story. It does not have to be solved by the end of the campaign — it just has to give you a reason to engage.
What Else Is On Your Sheet
- Three Stress Pools (Body, Mind, Spirit) sized by your Base Tier in each
- Your Background's perk — a small mechanical edge specific to your archetype
- Anomalous Comfort Object — see Recovery; every character should consider having one
- Name, look, anything else you want to add
- Your origin world — see Where Are You From?