Character Creation Guide -- Helen Brown

So, you have your characters aspects, and attributes!  Well done you!  You deserve a cookie.  Go get one and eat it, because you deserve it.

Back from your cookie?  Good, 'cause we're not done yet!  There's only one BIG thing that's left, though.  The rest of it is pretty simple.  That BIIIG thing?  Advantages.


Expert Advantages

Now, every character has a certain number of Advantage Points, called AP for convenience.  As Ring 12 characters, we get 6 AP.  In addition to those AP, we also get three free expert advantages.  Go us!

Note that if you want more detail than what I'm going to give you, go here, to find out more.  I'm just going to summarize enough for your to make character, and little more, so it might not be a bad idea to check it out!

To start with, there are three kinds of Advantages -- Expert Advantages (the ones that we get three for free, yay!), Hero Advantages, and Power Advantages.  Expert advantages are pretty simple -- they each cost 1 AP, and they have a fairly simple and strict set of things they can do.  They can give you a +1 to a certain action regardless of the ability you're using, give you a +2 advantage to a certain action when you're using a specific ability, or allow you to substitute one ability for another in a certain situation.  There's also a few other things they can be used for -- only minor things, though, and I'd have to go more into the mechanics to explain them, so I won't worry about them.  I don't ten to use them either.

Don't worry about Hero and Power advantages, I'll get to those next.

If this sounds confusing, don't worry!  I'll give Helen one of each type of Expert Advantage, so you can see them in action.  Here, I'm going to make up my own, 'cause I can and it'll help explain the point better, but there are sample advantages in the DB Role Playing book, as well as Strands of Fate and Strands of Power, if you want to use them.

Cool, something WEIRD! -- Gives Helen a +1 to social situations in which she is personally dealing with something weird, as well as mentally coping.  This does not apply to Conflicts, but it does to anything else, until that 'weird' thing becomes 'normal'.  E.G., talking with it, distracting it, maybe even flirting with it...
Hyper Focus Xenophile -- Gives Helen a +2 to Perception when Assessing something weird or unusual.
But it's so COOL!  -- Allows Helen to use Persuasion in place of Empathy when calming somebody down after seeing or experiencing something beyond their normal understanding.

Now, you see how these work?  As I was deciding what advantages to give Helen, I looked over her Aspects and Attributes, and discovered that she wasn't NEARLY as good with dealing with the weird and supernatural as I wanted her to be.  So, I gave her some Expert Advantages to shore them up.  'Cool, something WEIRD!' gives her a generic bonus when dealing with really weird things in general social situations as well as mentally coping.  This MIGHT be a bit too broad, though, so ask your GM before you do something similar!  Meanwhile, 'Hyper Focus Xenophile' is used to assess and understand the weird, but only when using Perception, and 'But it's so COOL!' helps her help her friends, deal with the weird, by letting her convince them of how awesome it is instead of understanding their problems first.

You might have noticed something -- these 'Advantages' sound a lot like 'Aspects'.  And if you noted that, then you are right!  All Advantages are, in fact, a form of Aspects.  ...In general, this doesn't mean anything, except that you get to name it in a way that helps describe your character!


Hero and Power Advantages

Now, that's just the Expert Advantages.  The Hero and Power advantages, are a bit more... interesting.  Hero Advantages are a lot like Expert Advantages, in that they have a relatively specific list of things they can do.  However, they cost two Advantage points each, and what they can do is a LOT broader than Expert Advantages.  If you want to make your own, the list of what they can do is here, but I'd advise you either use or base any advantages you make off of the list on the second post, instead.  Or other ones found in the Divine Blood, Strands of Fate or Strands of Power books.  These ones are more complicated and can affect the mechanics of the game a lot more than Expert Advantages are, so keep that in mind.

Now, since I only have 6 AP, and Hero Advantages cost 2 AP each, I'm only going to buy one Hero Advantage.  I look through the list, and... this one looks pretty good.

Resilient -- Each time you take this Advantage, you may take one additional Physical Minor Consequence. You may take this up to three times.

Now, consequences are basically things that you character can swallow up to remain in a conflict, which is like a fight.  I'm not really going to cover them here, but, basically, I look at Helen's physical attributes?  And she's weak.  But, I don't want her to get taken out too soon in a fight, so I pick up Resilient to give her more of a fighting chance.  ...It won't help her fight that much, but it will help her stick in the scene a bit longer.  If you want more information on consequences and stress tracks, they are in the DB book... or, you can ask for the information from a GM or ask here for more info.

Now... comes Power Advantages.  These... are much more complicated.  They allow you to do special shiny things!  Veeeery special shiny things!  Like shooting out fire balls, transforming into tigers, attack people with your MIND! ...But that also means that they are, generally, much more complicated, and much more expensive.  There's a list of sample Power Advantages here... but, I'd STRONGLY advise that you look through the Divine Blood RPG book, or the Strands of Power book, for more examples and more in-depth information.  If you don't have either of them, no worries!  Just PM a GM, or ask them on one of the question threads.  Let them know that you're making a character, but can't afford the book -- and yet, would like some powers.  Let them know the general type of things you're looking for, whether it be some kind of telekineses or general physical enhancement, and they'll give you some one-on-one help and advice.

As I AM a GM, and I do have a book?  I don't have to do that.  But, you might have to, and don't be worried about asking for help.  That's our job, and we're happy to do it!


Power Advantages

Now, remember, each character gets three free Expert Advantages, and 6 AP for everything else.  I already picked up one Hero Advantage, so I have only 4 AP remaining.  So, I take a look through the book, and I find one that I really, reaaaaally want.  It's called Animal Whisperer!  It would allow Helen to talk to and control animals!  Now, this is an in-depth process, so I'm going to go through it step by step.

Animal Whisperer, like all Advantages, needs an Aspect name unique to Helen.  But, we'll get to that later.  It has a base AP cost... the cost without any of the optional modifiers under it... of 3.  ...Oof, expensive.  Remember, I only have 4 AP left, but I reaaaaally want it, so, I'm fine with it.  Let's see... it has a difficulty of a persons Sensitive attribute of 6... and that's... really, really bad for Helen.  She only has a Sensitive of 1, remember, and given the rolling system, it's impossible to get a role of 6 without taking consequences or using Aspects and Fate Points.  But I'm going to soldier on!  In order to activate it, it's a Simple Action, which means she can do use it basically whenever, assuming she makes her roll.  And, finally, the Power Type -- how she gets her power.  ...I'm going to go the easy way out, and say that it's a 'Talent' -- something related to her being a Gorgon.  This basically means it's an innate skill for her.  Don't over use it, but there's no other way for her to have gotten this skill, so I don't have much of a choice.

Now that I understand this Advantage, I take a look at the modifiers I can add to it.  Let's see... there's a modifier underneath it that ups Helen's Sensitive attribute whenever using this power!  Excellent!  I really need that!  I'm going to take that, and... oooh, there's one that gives her a bonus to attack rolls using this power!  Lovely!  And finally... yeeees, yes, this is excellent.  One that lets her affect ALL animals in range, instead of one specifically.  ...Mine.

Currently, our Power Advantage, Animal Whisperer, looks something like this.

Animal Whisperer (Yet to be renamed) - Allows control of animals.
-Activation: Sensitive, 6
-Base Cost: 3
-Total Cost: 7
--Master Whisperer (+1) - +2 to Sensitive when activating this power.
--Forceful Whisperer (+1) - +2 to Attack when attacking with this power
--Herd Instincts (+2) - Power can affect all animals within a zone.

Pretty cool, right?  Each modifier added to the cost of the ability, but it increases the power of the advantage.  However, currently, my Animal Whisperer power costs... ah... too much.  I got a bit overzealous with the modifiers, huh?  But, no worries!  There are also modifiers that DECREASE the cost of the power!  I take a look, and... mmm... yes, this will do.  I mainly want this to show Helen's connection to snakes, as a gorgon, and there's one modifier that decreases the cost of Animal Whisperer by a full 3 AP.  It requires me to limit the power to working with only one type of animal, but that's fine.  ...All I want her to talk to is snakes, anyway.  It'll decrease the cost of the power by 3, reducing it to a barely affordable 4, the exact amount of AP I have left, and it gives me an idea for the name of this Power Advantage!  'One with the Snake'!  So, the final form of my advantage looks like this:

One with the Snake - Allows control of animals.
-Activation: Sensitive, 6
-Base Cost: 3
-Total Cost: 7
--Master Whisperer (+1) - +2 to Sensitive when activating this power.
--Forceful Whisperer (+1) - +2 to Attack when attacking with this power
--Herd Instincts (+2) - Power can affect all animals within a zone.
--One Species of Animals (-3) - Power can only affect snakes.

And with that, my power advantages are done!  All that's left is a few more minor things, and her racial package, and I'm good to --

...Oh.  Right.

...The racial package..

...Oops?


Racial Packages and Weaknesses

The thing that I have conveniently forgotten is that Racial Packages cost AP.  And I'm all out of AP.  The Gorgon racial package, specifically, costs 3 AP -- 3 AP that I just don't have.  I could remove my Heroic Advantage and my Power Advantage, but I like them!  I don't want to get rid of them!  So, I'm going to look at a special, forbidden advantage... those weak of heart, look away!  I'm going to give Helen... a WEAKNESS!

'Weakness' is a special advantage, that gives you AP, in exchange for having -- well.  In exchange for having a weakness.  There's a catch, though.  You can only gain AP equal to or less than to the amount of DEFAULT AP that you are given at character creation.  In this case, the amount of AP we were given at the beginning is 6 (those three Expert Advantages don't count) so the most AP I can gain from this forbidden technique is 3.  Perfect!  Exactly what I mean!

Weakness is a Power Advantage in the Divine Blood book, on page 177.  So if you don't have the book, ask your friendly local GM for help!  I take a look through the sample of weaknesses that they have shown.  I'm looking for three 1 point Weaknesses, one 2 point and one 1 point Weakness, or a single 3 point Weakness for Helen.  And, I think I've found exactly something that I can use.

As an example under the 3 point Weakness, it says "You suffer double physical stress when attacked with a silver weapon or bullet."  Now, this doesn't apply to Helen -- but, I can adjust it, so that it DOES.

Remember how earlier, I said that Gorgons can pop up in families that never had them before?  ...Well, for that to happen, they need to 'Wake Up' -- have an incident that jumpstarts their powers, in essence.  I might not have had something like that before, but I have an EXCELLENT idea now.  What if she woke up because of a bad incident in a church?  Say, the priest was shouting about how she'd go to hell for... liking the snake that convinced Eve to give Adam the apple, when she was a young girl.  I'm not going to debate about whether or not the priest was actually loyal to Christianity, or even if Christianity is accurate or not, so please don't get upset, but Helen?  When this happened to her as a little girl?  I'm going to say this is what woke her up as a Gorgon -- and since then, she's hated religion with a fiery passion.  ...So much so, that whenever somebody tries to talk with her regarding religion?  She comes off as a nutjob.

So, the "You suffer double physical stress when attacked with a silver weapon or bullet," becomes "You suffer double SOCIAL stress when attacked by, with, or on any religious grounds."  Same basic thing, but I adjust the type of stress and the cause.  I'm going to call this Weakness 'Rapid Atheist'.

Weakness - Rapid Atheist -- Suffers double social stress when attacked by, with, or on any religious grounds.
-Base/Total Cost: -3

And now we have enough points for our Racial Package!


Racial Packages and Meta Powers

--To be continued--

Reserved