Hello thou stern Defenders of the Free People and welcome to this demonstration on how to create a character in Against the Darkmaster.

In this tutorial we will use all the rules that you can find in the Quickstart 1.0 available for free on our website.

Ok let’s dig right in.

First and most important thing when creating a character in any role playing game is having a strong concept in mind of who the character is going to be – This also applies to VsD. For this demonstration we will try to create a wizard elf.

To help you through this process I will keep the Character Creation Checklist handy so that I make sure to cover everything I need to do. You can find this list at page 8 of the Quickstart 1.0.

Stats

First thing first are the Stats. I chose to be a Dusk Elf, so if I take a look in the Kin’s special traits I’ll see that the trait Lithe and Graceful, forces me to assign one of my three highest Stat Values to Bearing; also since I want to create a Wizard I have to keep in mind that Wits is a crucial stat for me, and finally I want my character not to suck at defense so I will try to keep an eye on Swiftness.

According to the Generating Stats paragraph, at this point no stats can be given a value lower than 0 and higher than 25.

Now, remember, points are assigned in chunks of 5 and that the total amount of points that you can spend is 50. So, this is how I decided to invest my points:

• Wits 25
• Bearing 10
• Swiftness 10
• Wisdom 5
• Fortitude 0
• Brawn 0

Kin & Culture

Now it’s time to work on the Kin. I already decided to be a Dusk Elf, so I go ahead and add all the stats bonuses of this Kin and my stats now look like this:

Not bad, eh? Before moving on, I want to take note of the my Kin’s special traits and I’ll write them down in the Special Abilities section.

Let’s move on to the Culture. Against the Darkmaster has many different Cultures. As you can see in the Kin’s description, each one has its suggested Culture, however if you want to pick something different than the suggested one, it’s ok as long you discuss it with the GM and the other players at the table.

I’m picturing my wizard as a classic elf that lives in the forest but with a wild, unpredictable, and unconventional personality. I think that the Fey culture will definitely allow me to expand on my vision and it will make a good fit. Now that I picked my Culture, I can go ahead and assign the extra skill rank that my culture gives me and, while I do that I also assign the stat bonus for each skill.

Vocation

Is now time to put on the third coat on our character, the Vocation. Since Against the Darkmaster is a skill-based game this is the most crucial part of the character creation. I have already picked the Wizard vocation, so before investing my Development Points – or DPs – I want to assign all the vocation bonuses so I have a better picture of all my bonuses.

Let’s take a look at my DPs. I have 1 DP in both Adventuring and Roguery, and 5 DPs in both Lore and Spell Lores, finally, I have 0 DP in Armor, Combat, and Body.

Since I am a little worried about having to spend 0 DPs in my Body category, I will try to trade some points from other categories and move them into Body. To do so I have to remove 2 DPs from other categories and trade them for 1 DP in Body. I think I will remove 1 from Adventuring and 1 from Lore, this make 2 points that I can convert to 1 point for Body. Just for your reference, keep in mind that a maximum of 2 new Ranks can be purchased for each skill at each level, including those raised using DPs traded from other Categories. Also the DPs trade affects only the level in which the trade is done, every new level you will gain the default number of DPs in each Category again.

Once we assigned all the DPs, it’s time to do some math. We first convert the Rank Number in the Skill Rank bonus, to this I will add all stat bonus, the Vocational bonus, and the item bonus if there is one.

So that’s it for the Skills, now let’s focus on the spells. Let’s take a look to the total amount of DPs I have for this skill and which Spell Lores I have access to:

• My Wizard Vocation gives me 5 DPs that I can spend as I wish among the Wizard Grimoire and all the other Spell Lores I have access to.
• My Fey culture grants me 2 DPs that I can invest among a short list of spell lores stated in the Fey Culture description and/or the Dusk Elf Spell Lores
• Also I have access to the Common Spell Lores

So I will invest my DP in the following fashion:

• 2 in Mind Control
• 2 in Eldritch Storm
• 1 in Sounds and Light
• 1 in Eldritch Movement
• 1 in Eldritch Frost

Keep in mind that you can only cast spells with a Weave equal to your level or lower, thus as a 1st level Wizard I will be able to cast only 1st Weave spells for all my spell lores, even those to which I assigned 2 DPs. The reason why I assigned 2 ranks to Mind Control and Eldritch Storm is that this way I’ll have a higher bonus in these two Spell Lores, which will let me to cast spells from them more quickly and make them harder to resist for my enemies.

Background & Equipment

Now that we are done with all the skills and spell lores, let’s customize this Wizard even more. The next step is to distribuite Background points and to pick our gear and possessions. As a Dusk Elf I’m granted 4 background points, and I am going to invest them in the following:

• Elven Training, Major (3BPs)
• Keeper of the Hidden Lore, Minor (1BP)

Elven Training allows me to use my SWI bonus instead of my BRN bonus when I am using my sword, plus since is a major tier I also gain the Silver Elf’s trait Lore of the Ages, which gives access to extra Spell Lores (Elven Lore and Spell Songs) plus two extra ranks to distribute among those spell lores, and I will invest one point for each spell lore.

Keeper of the Hidden Lore Minor gives me two extra ranks to invest in one of the spell lores that are available to me. I will then invest 1 point in Illusion and 1 point in detection.

Next, I really quick pick my gears and possession. I check my Fey Culture description to see which are the outfittings available to me. I think I’ll go with a short tunic, a lute, and a leaf shaped dagger.

Passions & Finishing Touches

Ok we are almost finished, but there ‘s still something very important I must think about: my character’s Passions.

Passions allows me to develop my character’s personality and to create a bond between her and the characters of the other players at the table. The passions are divided in 3 traits: Nature, Allegiance, and Motivation. At this specific moment I will pick only the Nature trait, and I will pick the other two once I meet with the GM and with the other players so that I can mold them to fit better the adventure and the party.

So my Nature will be: “Wild as a Storm”.

Beautiful!

Now it is time to calculate all Derived Attributes.

• my Moving Rate is a standard 15 meters per round;
• my Defense is equal to my SWI which is 20;
• my TSR (Toughness Save Roll) at the first level is 10 (FOR plus 5 times my level plus Kin bonus and special modifiers),
• and my WSR (Willpower Save Roll) is also 10 (WIS plus 5 times my level plus Kin bonus and special modifiers);
• my MPs (Magic Points) are equal to: my WIT divided by 10, plus 3 from my Kin, plus 3 from my Vocation, for a total of 9.

I will name my character Syndel, the Fey Warlock.

THAT’S IT! This is how you create a character in VsD!
I hope that this tutorial will help you in case you get stuck or you have any doubt. If something is still not clear, please don’t hesitate to shoot us a message thru our website, our social media, or via email. Please share this article and don’t forget to send us your feedback!