DCC/Character Generation

Characters are generated randomly. Your actions determine who lives to become great heroes!

Please follow these steps in order when generating a new level-0 character. Recommendations for generating a character starting at a level above 0 are also provided below.

Ability Scores
For character creation, roll 3d6 for each ability score in the order of Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, and Luck.

Strength
Physical power for lifting, hurling, cutting, and dragging. Your Strength modifier affects melee attack and damage rolls. Skill usage: climbing, intimidating, swimming, wrestling. Strength can be used to influence female characters.

Gender
Gender plays a large role in how your character is treated by others. This is not a gender-neutral fantasy game world. That said, you determine how much or how little you play up your character's sex.

Right after generating your Strength score, roll a 1d7 and add your Strength modifier. If the result is 5 or higher, the character is male. If not, the character's gender remains undetermined at this time. Keep generating your character.

Men are from Mars; women are from Venus. You may use this result to influence your character's physique and/or sexuality: The higher the result (7 or higher), the more stereotypical muscled male; the lower the result (1 or lower), the more stereotypical curved female. If you roll a 4 on the die (before adding any modifier) you are encouraged to consider a hero of a sexuality other than heterosexual. These are all completely optional suggestions, given in the spirit of truly random characters.

Agility
Balance, grace, reaction speed, and fine motion skills, whether in the hands or the feet. Your Agility modifier affects Armor Class, missile fire attack rolls, initiative rolls, and Reflex saving throws, as well as the ability to fight with a weapon in each hand. Skill usage: balancing, escaping, hiding, moving silently, performing, sleight of hand, tumbling.

Stamina
Endurance, resistance to pain, disease, and poison. Your Stamina modifier affects hit points, Fortitude saving throws, and, for Warriors, unarmored AC.

Personality
Some or all of the following, depending on your vision for the character: charm, determination, persuasive talent, strength of will, physical attractiveness. Personality affects Willpower saving throws and unarmored Armor Class. Skill usage: Bluffing, Commanding, Gossiping, Impersonating, Performing, Persuading.

Intelligence
Ability to discern information, retain knowledge, and assess complex situations, know languages, reading and writing. Skill usage: Appraising, Deciphering, Spotting.

Luck
"Right place, right time;" favor of the gods, good fortune, or hard-to-define talent. Your Luck modifier affects your Birth Augur (if you have one), critical hits, fumbles, corruption, select class abilities and other rolls. Characters can burn off Luck to survive life-or-death situations. Skill usage: Testing your Luck, Listening.

If your Luck modifier is negative or positive (i.e. not zero), your character was born with a Birth Augur, which is either a boon or a bane to a select type of roll. This modifier is permanent and never changes throughout the game.

Birth Augur

 * If your Luck modifier is positive, roll on the Birth Augur table.
 * If your Luck modifier is negative, roll on the Birth Augur table. Possibly rename augur to better match its harmful nature.
 * If your Luck modifier is zero, do not roll – you have no Birth Augur.

Your Birth Augur is determined during character generation. Neither the Augur nor its modifier ever changes (unless you drink a Luck Potion or some other truly extraordinary circumstance occurs).

Spellcasting
Personality and Intelligence is of some importance to spellcasters, as it affects their ability to draw upon power and determines the maximum spell level they can cast. At level 0 this does not apply, but you might want to prepare ahead.


 * Shaman class: uses Personality.
 * Magus and Witch class: uses Intelligence.
 * Txez0-8tlz6.png Cultist class: uses Intelligence (Neutral Cultists) or Personality (Chaotic cultists).

Race / Ethnicity
All characters are humans. You are, however, encouraged to choose an ethnicity for each of your characters.

You have been provided with a pamphlet illustrating the "Races of Xoth". The city of Haruun is located on the border between Khazistan and Susrah, so the default choice is either '''7. Khazistani or 14. Susrahnite''', but you are free to declare your character looks like any of the provided ethnicities, or roll a d20:

1. Azimban, 2. Bhangari, 3. Djaka. 4. Ghazorite, 5. Ikuna, 6. Jairanian, 7. Khazistani, 8. Khazrajite, 9. Khoran, 10. Lamuran, 11. Mazanian, 12. Nabastissean, 13. Shoma, 14. Susrahnite, 15. Taikangian, 16. Taraamite, 17. Tharag Thulan, 18. Yar-Ammonite, 19. Zadjite, 20. Zorabi.

Txez0-8tlz6.png Gender
You rolled 1d7 + Strength modifier right after generating your character's Strength. If the result was 5 or higher the character is male. Otherwise you have free choice to choose whatever gender you like (or flip a coin). Males are generally more likely to risk their lives by choosing violent professions, including the life of an adventurer, but this only applies to your characters if you want it to. If you flip a coin, two out of every seven characters will be female on average, but you may increase this ratio if you want, or decrease it still. Your choice.

Remember: YOU are in control of your characters' fates. If you want to make sure your main hero or pair of heroes are both male or both female, you can make that happen!

Monsters and men alike generally perceive males as bigger threats, and whenever the Judge determines there is no particular reason for a foe to choose one target over any other, male characters are often targeted before female characters. Heavily armored characters are assumed to be male. Of course, in many instances, the threat comes from an inanimate or alien source where gender is inapplicable. A secondary consideration, therefore, is Luck. Characters with negative Luck modifiers are often targeted before characters with positive Luck modifiers.

Any character may choose to add their Personality modifier to AC if wearing light/no clothing (i.e. going unarmored).

In addition to Personality, Strength can be used to influence female characters.

Occupation
Occupation is rolled randomly. Male and female characters roll on different lists.

This procedure presumes you want to generate your character the traditional way: choosing a gender first, randomizing an Occupation second. But you may do this any way you wish. You might want to generate your occupation first and only determine a gender second. (If so, choose either list and let the result influence your choice!) You might decide your character is female but with a male job, or vice versa. (If so, you would naturally roll for an occupation held by members of the sex you pretend to have)

Please remember, that in the context of this world, the traditional way represents the vast majority of people. Women posing as men or males with feminine occupations (or vice versa) are rare. But the exact procedure is up to you.

As a resource specific to the Death-Slaves of Eternity adventure, DCC/Character Generation/Death-Slaves details the "Death-Slave" Occupation and related changes to character generation.

Description
At this point, you may leave most background choices open. There's no need to write up a long back-story until you reach level 1. Right now, a one-line description of your character will suffice!

Try to write down a single sentence to summarize what's special about your character! If you have a particularly high or low ability score, describe it! Does your Personality 5 mean you are sullen, or disfigured, or scatterbrained, or what? Maybe your Birth Augur combined with your Occupation provides a "hook" to remember the character by!

Name
Here follows a smattering of example names true to the setting, to give you inspiration and ideas:

Male: Jahwar, Kamytzes, Varazes, Othbanes, Mwanza, Gasparus, Jabdar, Nofruset, Rashat, Turim, Azif, Akhtesh, Yog Sodhi, Methras, Rimgur, Hor-Tef, Behruz, Farad, Arius, Mu-Ram, Phocas, Kemthradates

Female: Zama, Taziz, Yetara, Ifuka, Yatim, Ranuga, Serathu, Narun, Yasima, Galan, Kadima, Laugra, Melphas, Fu Teng, Amkur, Yasna, Hasin, Yilak Mal

Random Sword & Sorcery Theme
If all your scores range from 9 to 12, and nothing else about the generated character really stands out, you may roll a d20 on the following table for a theme you can use as inspiration to spice up your character: 1. oath or honor, 2. blood, 3. mammoth or elephant tusks, 4. legend or lie, 5. dying or inherited curse, 6. betrayal or deception, 7. temple virgin, 8. plague, 9. servitude or captivity, 10. banishment or exile, 11. king of kings, 12. desert or wasteland, 13. corruption, 14. dragon or giant reptile from a lost age, 15. moon or moonlight, 16. tentacled monstrosity, 17. arcane or sacred ritual, 18. snake-people, 19. heir or chosen one, 20. childbirth.


 * For instance, if your otherwise non-descript courier rolls a 12, you might declare she once got lost and nearly died from exposure, and now she hates large open spaces!

Alignment
In DCC, there is only one alignment axis: Lawful - Neutral - Chaotic.

For most people, you simply choose the outlook on life and/or moral code you wish. Note how the game does not provide a random alignment table for you to roll on. This is because you are encouraged to make a deliberate choice (for once!).

Txez0-8tlz6.png Alignment in a Sword & Sorcery setting
A common theme throughout the genre is that heroes are out for themselves, and that the world around them is not worthy or worth saving. This does not mean there are no kind or good-hearted people or heroes! It just means the game is no fairy-tale where the ending is expected to be good, or that if the ending is happy, that this state is permanent. The differences between Sword & Sorcery and "regular" fantasy have many aspects, of course, but one way of looking at it is this: the game does not judge you for your actions. There's no implicit reward for being nice, there's no implicit punishment for being amoral. That does not mean there can't be rewards for saving the princess, slaughtering the Snake-Men, and rescuing the villagers. It just means that you shouldn't do it because you think the adventure expects you to, or because the universe rewards good deeds.

Choosing Lawful alignment is not a "weak" or suboptimal choice. It's just not the default "safe" choice it is in most traditional fantasy. And choosing Chaotic is not like how choosing "evil" in traditional fantasy is seen as a subvertive or even destructive choice.

Players of religious characters (like Shamans and Cultists) should know there are no Lawful entities in this campaign. The choice is between powerful yet distant and uncaring gods (Neutral) or demonic beings that are active, but also actively corrupting (Chaotic).

Equipment
Every character starts with 5d12 copper pieces (cp), a weapon from your 0-level occupation, and some form of trade good (some clearly more valuable than others). Some of the more martial occupations also provide you with armor. (Remember: armor gives a nice bonus to AC, but also imposes a check penalty to many useful skills)

While you can spend your money on basic items like rations and torches, the reality is that you're likely to keep most of your copper pieces for the time being. You may not sell your trade good, weapon or armor before the start of adventure - you had no idea your adventure would start today! (If you for any reason decide your character has no use for your weapon or armor, you may simply remove it from your character sheet. Yes you got money for it when you sold it, but any earnings will have been spent a long time ago)

Each player (not character) is given either a Strength Potion, a Vitality Potion or a Luck Potion at character generation. See DCC/Rules Summary.

Hit Points and XP
Every level-0 character starts with 1d4 hit points, modified by Stamina. As explained by the rules summary, you get to re-roll a 1 or a 2, once.

You begin play at level 0 with 0 XP.

Starting at higher level
If you start a campaign at a level higher than 0, or replace a character when existing characters are already well above level 1, use the following recommendations to equip a starting character.

A character that starts as a level 1 hero is generated using the above procedures, and then gains 10 XP as well as all of the following:
 * 5d12 gold
 * Reasonable selection of average-quality gear and equipment
 * A Starting Potion with randomized content (roll d4): 1) Vigor 2) Vitality 3) Fate 4) Player's Choice.

A character that starts at level 2 instead gains 50 XP, everything a level 1 character gains plus the following:
 * a treasure

A character that starts at level 3 instead gains 110 XP, everything a level 2 character gains plus the following:
 * a minor magic item

A character that starts at level 4 instead gains 190 XP, everything a level 3 character gains plus the following:
 * a magic item

A character that starts at level 5 instead gains 290 XP, everything a level 4 character gains plus the following:
 * a major magic item