To start my
character off I’m going to think about a bookish sort of fellow, possibly a
Warden Researcher because this is a Cthulhu universe after all, and guns
probably never did anything except make monsters angry anyway, right? We’ll
call him Arnold Hawthorne because why not, and it sounds like a good mythos
investigator’s name.
Step one is
to figure out the birthplace of Arnold Hawthorne. There are 16 key planets and
moons that contain meaningful habitats represented here. For fun I’ll pick the
Saturnian moon of Tethys, where Odysseys colony is located. Colonists of Tehys
are water miners, working along the famous Ithaca Chasm in a very “frontier
town” sort of environment. Aside from givingArnold his native language at rank
5 (presumably English) he also gets E-Suit 1, Freefall 1, and Trade: Product 1
as skills.
Since Tethys
is so “out there” on the fringe of the frontier, this tells me Hawthorne’s
interest in science and academia was something that he nurtured against the
grain of the local prospectors. He probably grew up around lots of frontiersmen
who had good mechanical skills and the requisite familiarity with physics and
space necessary to stay alive in a crunch, but his real interests lay in higher
order physics, perhaps, or a more compelling intellectual calling that went
well beyond ice mining.
Stage two is
to choose a primary specialty. We’ve already established that we’re going to go
with researcher over the combat-focused enforcer and info-gathering investigators,
so Hawthorne will be focused on the R&D side of the operation. With that
decided, stage three is to determine two secondary specialties based on the
primary. For a researcher, these secondary specialties include artist,
engineer, physician, and social butterfly. Okay…..I’m going to have to conclude
that engineer and physician may be the best choices for Hawthorne, whom I do
not see as being very artistic or social, so maladjusted and introverted, as a
proper mythos investigator should be.
Stats for
the game are assigned with an additional 5 points to customize. The freeform
version gives you the full point pool to work with, but we’re going by template
so I take the base stats and add 5. For a researcher it indicates that
awareness and cleverness are most useful. I take those 5 points and boost both
of the core stats, as well as perseverance.
Hawthorne’s
stats will look like this based on the preceding choices:
Awareness 5,
Cleverness 5, Demeanor 2, Grace 2, Perseverence 4, Physique 2.
I’m going to
be focusing heavily on Hawthorne’s mental acumen here, as I am sure you can
tell. For skills, he gets 30 points to distribute among his primary skill set.
Skills are a 1:1 cost ratio until you reach rank 3, after which it costs 2
skill points to get rank 4 and 3 points to then get rank 5. Here’s what I
purchase for Hawthorne, including points gained from his home turf:
Warden
Researcher: Computers 2, Cryptozoology 4, Defense 3, E-Suit 1, Freefall 2,
Guns: handguns 2, Investigate 3, Law 1, Notice 4, Research 4, Science: Space 3
Not bad, but
I am left wanting. Good news is, I can take 20 more points and divide 10 each
among my two secondary templates. I pick the following:
Engineer:
Electrical 3, Engineer: Life Support 2, Engineer: Basic Drive 2, Mechanic 3
Physician:
Bureaucracy 1, Medicine: Physical 1, Medicine: Psychological 5
In doing
this I now see that Hawthorne’s interest was in human psychology….something
perhaps which has eluded him due to his own lack of social grace and skill.
That said, it was impossible for him not to pick up a hefty volume of lore on
space sciences and ship functions, a side effect of necessary basic survival
skills on the frontier worlds and moons.
With skills
out of the way, next is Qualities. You get five points to spend on qualities,
which are like advantages. You can also take a disadvantage, which gives you at
least 1 point to spend on further qualities. Unlike skills these all have set
costs. For Hawthorne, I look at the following as good choices:
Advantages: Common
Sense (2), Eidetic Memory (3), Sixth Sense (3)
Disadvantages:
Nightmares (3)
Common sense
seems like a no-brainer; it means the GM makes a secret cleverness check when
you’re about to do something foolhardy. Growing up in the frontier of Tethys
could make for a compelling argument that you learn to double-check everything
you do, second guess all your actions, since you’re always one bad idea away
from explosive decompression.
Aside from
common sense, eidetic memory is a great trait…photographic recall is useful for
a researcher and also an annoying ability for those who would sometimes prefer
not to remember everything they’ve ever seen or experienced. Lastly, I pick
Nightmares as a disadvantage to afford sixth sense, which means more
GM-controlled secret tests to see if Hawthorne also picks up a sense of
imminent danger. Hawthorne is not a beautiful biological early warning
detector. All he had to give up in exchange for these perks was terrible sleep
from persistent nightmares that are (possibly unknown to him) a byproduct of
the incursion of entities from beyond the solar system….mechanically it means
each morning he needs to make a perseverance test, and on a failure he drags
around at -1die to all tests for the day. I can see a Hawthorne that may be
reliant on stimulants and medications which knock him out entirely to survive
through a night with uninterrupted sleep.
You also get
to pick a talent. Talents are “feats” in a way, giving an edge to your warden
in his daily adventures. From the appropriate researcher talents I pick:
Talent: One
Foot in the Grave
With this
talent, Hawthorne, probably due to the nightmares, knows that something is out
there and it will inevitably get him. Mechanically, when he suffers a Horror
Effect he can shift it up or down one result on the table. This can actually be
useful….if, for example the default effect he suffers is “Freeze” Hawthorne can
actually choose to “shriek like a little kid” or “faint dead away.” Screaming
could get help to arrive…and fainting is never a bad idea when you are facing
the mythos, as they are notoriously disinterestd in unconscious creatures. So
it’s a weird talent….it adds a little agency into just how grizzly Hawthorne’s
end might be.
Finally we
get to stage four of character generation. We get two quirks, which much like
GURPS quirks are things that are interesting but not necessarily special. From
the example quirks provided I pick the following for Hawthorne:
Quirks:
Clean Spotlessly, Obscure 20th century psychiatric quotes
Hawthorne is
an immaculately clean fellow and his environment shows it; he doesn’t like
clutter or dirt. Likewise, his obsession with psychology has led him to delve
deep into obscure factoids about the early rise of psychiatry in the 20th
century….friends and acquaintances are used to him making one-off comments
about Freud and Jung in otherwise polite conversation.
Characters under
the default character generation are presumed to be experienced professionals,
and fall around age 28 to 35. I’ll put Mr. Hawthorne at Age 34, the tail end of
the age range.
On gear, The
Void uses a wealth code system. Default characters (without special advantages)
have a personal wealth of 2 and sponsored wealth of 1. The wealth 2 raiting is “middle
class.” If you want to purchase something and it’s under your wealth rating….then
no problem, it’s yours. If you want to purchase something at or over your
wealth rating, then a skill check determines if you can, in the form of a
purchase test. The difficulty you beat determines whether you deplete your
funds, by how much, and whether you can keep spending. It’s an abstract
mechanic that can keep the focus away from the game’s economics, though if your players are like
mine they like counting every credit they earn, so YMMV on this one.
For
Hawthorne, however, his wealth level is enough to buy a ACC-44 holdout pistol if
he needs it along with a flak jacket. His goal is not to get into that kind of trouble,
however, so our main interest is in useful research tools. It is at this point
that I realize that while a lot of discussion is provided on tech, only weapons
and armor get specific stats with wealth codes, so I will just assume Hawthorne
has the stuff he needs to get the job done and make it all up.
And so we
now have a complete adventurer in The Void using the core rules:
Arnold Hawthorne
Human male of Tethys, Warden Researcher Age
34
Attributes: Awareness 5, Cleverness 5,
Demeanor 2, Grace 2, Perseverence 4, Physique 2.
Background Skills: English 5, E-Suite 1, Freefall 2, Trade: Product 1
Warden Researcher: Computers 2, Cryptozoology 4, Defense 3, Guns: handguns
2, Investigate 3, Law 1, Notice 4, Research 4, Science: Space 3
Engineer: Electrical 3, Engineer: Life Support
2, Engineer: Basic Drive 2, Mechanic 3
Physician: Bureaucracy 1, Medicine:
Physical 1, Medicine: Psychological 5
Advantages: Common Sense (2), Eidetic
Memory (3), Sixth Sense (3)
Disadvantages: Nightmares (3)
Talent: One Foot in the Grave
Quirks: Clean Spotlessly, Obscure 19th-20th
century psychiatric quotes
Equipment: portable computer, ACC-44
Holdout pistol, flak jacket, suitable dress and garb, security locked
briefcase, portable psycho-analysis kit (Freud Systems limited field AI unit)
Next: Hawthorne vs. a mi go!!!! Or
maybe a look at the lifepath generation system in the Expanded Characters Book.
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