[Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition] 16-Step Character Creation

 Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Public Service Announcement: The following rules supersede all current character creation guidelines.  In the near future, Hannah and I will be working to convert all existing characters to the new rule-sets with your assistance and input.   There will be a certain amount of grandfathering for older characters but we will do our best to try to limit changes that warp the character outside of their core concept.  We will also try to make this as painless as possible.  For now just know that Characters participating in current Stories will keep using the character sheets and mechanics they have now until we set a hard implementation date and everything is ready.  Be not afraid!  - Jerad

My comments to the MtA 2e are in blue and provide some guidelines on how we will implement and treat the conversion or re-creation of played Characters.  Effective implementation dates to be determined.

Step 1: Character Concept, Aspirations, Virtue & Vice

If the character sheet is the map to your character, character concept is the legend. Character concept is a couple of words that describe your character in a dramatic, literary sense. Is your character a Puckish Rogue? Is she an Itinerant Researcher? Is she a Celebrant Technoshaman?  As you’ve read, perhaps the Path, Order, or other setting snippets sparked a basic character idea. That idea is a concept.

Next, you’ll need three Aspirations. Aspirations are your goals for your character. Note that they may not be goals your character personally holds, but they’re goals you have for your

character. 

For example, you might want to see your character lose a friend in the scope of the story. No reasonable person would want to lose a friend, but it’s a valid Aspiration because it’s something you want to see happen in your character’s story. When choosing Aspirations, look to two short-term Aspirations, and one long-term Aspiration. Short-term in this case means something that could happen to your character in a single game session, and long-term Aspirations are things that take a greater, extended effort to accomplish. 

Phrase Aspirations in a few words, but no more than a sentence. Keep them on the general and vague side, since more specificity means they’re less likely to be fulfilled. As a Storyteller, you should write down all these Aspirations. Aspirations are a way for players to tell you the kinds of things they want to see happen in your game. Be sure to engage these Aspirations, and give players plenty of chances to bring them into play.

As a task for the Storytellers, we need to consolidate all active character Aspirations and Obsessions into a single collaborative document that we and the players have open during gameplay.  That way we can update them, fulfill them, and remember what they are.  This is a big aspect of character progression and earning Arcane Beats.  I think we will use an Excel document in the main IC Docs folder to handle this.  Players will need to refer to it rather than their character sheets proper.  We will also want to track what Aspirations a character has resolved for long-term story planning, perhaps copying them into a second tab.

Errata: Obsessions are like long-term Aspirations: you earn Arcane Beats for making progress toward them, not just fully resolving them.

Errata: Mages do, indeed, have a Virtue and a Vice. This should have been pointed out in character creation.

Step 2: Select Attributes (5/4/3 Attribute Points)

Every Chronicles of Darkness character possesses nine basic Attributes. These Attributes cover a character’s inherent capabilities. They come in three categories, Mental, Social, and Physical. Each category possesses three Attributes. At this stage in character creation, each Attribute receives one free dot (as noted on the character sheet). Then, prioritize categories. Choose which grouping is most important to your character, then second most important, and last. The top category receives five

dots to distribute, the second receives four, and the last receives three. You may divide these however you see fit, but no Attribute can go above five dots in total.

No changes here, other than the emphasis that when we moved to Chronicles of Darkness rules we gained the ability to use regular and singular starting points to raise Attributes to 5.

Step 3: Select Skills (11/7/4 Skill Points) 

Next, select Skills. There are 24 Skills, divided into Mental, Physical, and Social categories just like Attributes. Unlike Attributes, Skills receive no free dots. Prioritize categories the same way you did with Attributes, dividing eleven among the top category, seven to the secondary, and four to the final category. 

Step 4: Determine Skill Specialties (3 Spec Skills)

Now that you have Skills for your character, you get to refine  three of them with Specialties. Specialties are single word or short-phrase descriptors that help to narrow down your character’s

particular area of expertise. For example, your character might have Occult (Witchcraft), Occult (Herbalism), or Occult (Ghosts). Choose three Specialties. 

When choosing Skill Specialties, you can look at them in three major ways:

1.  You can supplement inferior Skills that you still want your character to use. For example, your character might only have a single dot of Investigation, but if you take the Specialty “Crime Scenes,” your character becomes much more effective in that specific field. 

2. You can maximize efficiency with a mastered Skill. For example, if you took four dots of Firearms, selecting a “Rifles” Specialty makes your character remarkable with a rifle, and beyond other characters with just four dots. 

3. Lastly, you can use Specialties to give your character a little personal flare and flavor. For example, your character might have a Crafts Specialty in “Model Kits.” This might not benefit your character directly in the game, but it says something about your character and her priorities.

As before, in our Chronicle we allow up to three Spec Skills to stack without too much fuss, offer up to a +3 to a roll.  That should be considered the maximum spec skill bonus for all intents and purposes.  Usually this needs to make this particular roll to have stacking skills based on rare items and situations employed. or specialty skills that start general and get more and more specific.  For example: a person may suck at normal Weaponry (1), but with swords (Swords) that he's practiced with all his life, and his particular weapon (Father's Katana) of which he knows the exact feel, weight and balance, and against a lone duelist (Duels) he is formidable (effectively Weaponry 4 in that situation).  From now on I think we should only allow two spec skills that revolve around equipment to stack instead of all three.  It's a little too much of a bonus to offer the same character anytime he uses his Weaponry (Blades) (Katana) (Father's Katana) all together.

Step 5: Choose Path (Mage Template)

Choose your character’s Path: Acanthus, Mastigos, Moros, 

Obrimos, or Thyrsus. Note your character’s two Ruling and 

one Inferior Arcanum from this choice.   For reference, they are:

1. Acanthus: Ruling Arcana of Time and Fate, Inferior Arcanum of Forces (considering Matter)

2. Mastigos: Ruling Arcana of Space and Mind, Inferior Arcanum of Matter Fate in Beta test

3. Moros: Ruling Arcana of Matter and Death, Inferior Arcanum of Spirit 

4. Obrimos: Ruling Arcana of Forces and Prime, Inferior Arcanum of Death (considering Mind)

5. Thyrsus: Ruling Arcana of Life and Spirit, Inferior Arcanum of Mind (comsidering Death)

Step 6: Choose Order & 3 Rote Skills (Mage Template)

Choose your character’s Order. Most characters will be in a Pentacle Order, but your Storyteller might allow Nameless or Seer of the Throne characters.  Order membership grants the following starting advantages:

1. Three Rote Skills, they are based off the following list:

Rote Skills of the Diamond Orders:

Adamantine Arrow - Athletics, Intimidation, Medicine

Guardians of the Veil - Investigation, Stealth, Subterfuge

Mysterium - Investigation, Occult, Survival

Silver Ladder - Expression, Persuasion, Subterfuge

Rote Skills of the Council of Free Assemblies:

Free Council - Crafts, Persuasion, Science

Rote Skills of the Seers of the Throne:

Seers of the Throne (no Ministry) -  Investigation, Occult, Persuasion,

Hegemony - Politics, Persuasion, Empathy

Panopticon - Investigation, Stealth, Subterfuge

Paternoster - Academics, Occult, Expression

Praetorian - Athletics, Larceny, Intimidation

Nameless/Banisher - Use Rote Specialty Merit

Apostate - whatever Rote Skills from their rejected Order or use the Rote Specialty Merit

In a Nameless Order - Use Mystery Cult Initiation Merit to develop Rote Skills

A Note on Nameless: Some mages are Nameless; lacking membership in an Order, or having membership in a minor Order-like organization (a Nameless Order) that lacks the global scope and symbolic heft of a true Order. Nameless characters do not receive the benefits of Order membership (including Rote Skills), although larger Nameless Orders grant some of the same training; to represent these in the game, use the Mystery Cult Initiation Merit. If that Merit is used to build a Nameless Order, it may grant a set of three Rote specialties as its third-dot benefit.

2. A free dot in the Order Status Merit (1 dot)

3. A free a dot of Occult (1 dot)

4. The High Speech Merit (1 dot)

Sorry folks, we are getting rid of the Combat Casting Merit and ALL-OUT-CAST maneuver for now, really this extra effort is already captured in the use of Willpower Points to boost casting.  Since we gave it to everyone for free no experience will be refunded for losing it.

Step 7: Design Nimbus (Mage Template)

Describe your character’s Nimbus. Use the descriptions of your character’s Path to help flavor it. Remember that a Nimbus is subtle for characters with a starting level of Gnosis.

A Shadow Name, symbol, theme, or personal magical style can all help craft a nimbus.  There is some great fluff in both corebooks as well as the now outdated Tome of the Watchtowers chalk full of Nimbus ideas.  Later, as a mage tends their Gnosis, joins a Legacy, or suffers acts of Hubris their Nimbus will reflect that.  It is the emanations of the Awakened Soul after all.

Step 8: Design a Dedicated Magical Tool (Mage Template)

 Determine your character’s Dedicated Magical Tool. Her Path and Order determine possible magical tools.

A starting character gets their first Dedicated Magic Tool aka a Focus for their magic for free.  Others take effort to make and maintain.  Again, the corebooks, Tome of the Watchtowers and Tome of the Mysteries have great sections on ideas for what your tools might be.  I still allow applicable "fluff" from the MtA 1e books when they make sense.  Later tools can be tuned to a specific Arcana.  What tools do for a mage when casting magic will be captured in a later blog.

Step 9: Choose Starting Arcana (6 dots) (Mage Template)

 Next, determine your character’s starting Arcana. Your character starts with six total dots in Arcana. She may only have one Arcanum at three dots at this time. Three to five of her starting dots must be

in her Ruling Arcana, and both Ruling Arcana must have at least one dot. None of her starting dots can go to her Inferior Arcana. 

The possible combinations are as follows:

Specialist: 3, 2, 1 or 3, 1, 1, 1

Balanced: 2, 2, 2 or 2, 2, 1, 1

Generalist: 2, 1, 1, 1, 1

Step 10: Choose Rote Spells (Pick 3) (Mage Template)

Your character starts play with six dots’ worth of rotes. Next you pick three Rote Spells for your character.  You can only have rotes which are equal to or lower level than her starting Arcana. If a rote requires multiple Arcana, count only the highest used for this purpose.

Errata: Instead of being dot-rated as they were in first edition in character creation, given that their Experiences cost after charging is flat, we have changed "six dots of rotes" in character creation to "three rotes".  Since we already converted the active PCs I don't have any intention of converting the current characters, just new ones.

Step 11: Determine Starting Gnosis & Mana (Mage Template)

By default, your character starts with a single dot of Gnosis. For five of her starting Merit dots, your character can start with  Gnosis 2. For all ten of her starting Merit dots, she may start with Gnosis 3. 

I believe we were still going with 10 Merit points (up from 7) and 3 or 6 points could be traded for higher starting Gnosis.  That ends with this implementation.  Based on this Gnosis, your new character will enter play with full mana.  We will look at the new Gnosis table soon.

Step 12: Design Starting Obsessions (1-2) (Mage Template)

Obsessions are like long-term Aspirations, but grant Arcane Beats and Mana when you resolve them. Characters with Gnosis 1 and 2 may have one Obsession. Those with Gnosis 3 may have two.

Again, when we look at the Gnosis table and talk about Character Advancement Obsessions will make more sense.  They should be treated as long-term magical or Mystery-focused Aspirations that a character can earn Arcane Beats and Mana while making progress towards. 

Step 13: Choose Praxes (1-3) (Mage Template)

Your character has one Praxis per dot of Gnosis. Look to the Arcana descriptions again and choose spells to be your initial Praxes. Unlike Rotes, Praxes are not graded by dots; a spell of any rating is a single Praxis.

Think of Praxis Spells as "signature spells" for your character.  You use them so much and so well that they have become a part of your very identity.  They are more personal than Rotes but don't create channels in the soul as deep as Legacy Attainments.  Their effects and benefits will be covered later.  I am not opposed to altering listed spells slightly to design unique Praxes so long as they aren't manipulations of Reach or Spell Factors.  I'd be looking for changing what a spell does fundamentally, just ever so slightly.  When a Praxis is selected in this process and in the future it must be from Arcana capabilities they currently have when Gnosis increases.

Step 14: Choose Resistance Attribute (Mage Template)

The Awakening is tough on the mind, body, and soul. Every Awakened character begins play with one additional dot of Composure, Resolve, or Stamina, which may not raise the Attribute chosen above five dots. Add this to your character sheet at this time.

This is done as a finishing touch to a new character before play.  As opposed to increasing Composure or Resolve based on a Path now you can choose how you are hardened by your Awakening.  For conversion we will probably give the player the option to pick what point they want to move.

Step 15: Select Starting Merits (10 Points)

Every character begins play with ten Merit dots, unless some of those points were spent on Gnosis (see above). You may choose any combination of Merits from the Awakened list starting on p. 99 of the new Corebook. or the general list starting on p. 104. Your character must meet all given prerequisites to purchase a Merit. These Merits may affect other traits on the character sheet; be aware of these when calculating Advantages in the next step.

As usual, we use a much larger list of Merits.  If there is a newer version of the Merit that one gets used instead.  I recommend focusing on the 2e Canon Merits first before looking at the Merit doc.

Step 16: Finishing Touches (Advantages)

All characters have certain derived traits, which depend on their Attributes, Skills, and Merits. Determine the following Advantages and note them on your character sheet. We include basic calculations here. If a Merit modifies your character’s Advantages, it’ll be noted in the specific Merit.

• Size: Characters start at Size 5.

• Health: Characters start with Size + Stamina in Health boxes.

• Speed: 5 + Strength + Dexterity

• Willpower: Resolve + Composure

• Wisdom: 7 (I may still allow a couple points of Wisdom to be sold for their Experience point value)

• Initiative: Dexterity + Composure

• Defense: (Lower of Wits or Dexterity) + Athletics

Okay folks, there it is, just skimming the surface.  What do you think?