Before starting any of the steps below, you must join the Kanka campaign, and you must be signed in. Please follow this link to do so.
Character Creation Prompt
Option 1. You are a student at the The University of St. Brendan, who lives in the O'Brien Hall of Residence. You don't have to fit into these options, but several existing characters are:
- First-year students... perhaps already aware of the supernatural, perhaps already discovering strange things about themselves, or perhaps blissfully unaware of what could be around any corner. If you want your character to have had substantial training in magic already, you could be a member of the Slingers.
- Second-year students in a study abroad program, coming from SUNY Scajaquada, an American school in Western New York. SUNY Scajaquada and St. Brendan can almost be considered sister schools. Many of such are already aware of the supernatural and may be studying magic under Federal Bureau of the Paranormal.
Option 2. Anything that doesn't fit into the above. This can include anything from professors at the University, to high-school dropouts who work at a clothing store. We also ask that you have reason to spend a lot of your time in Tullach Port for now; a hermit who spends most of their time outside of Leaning Rock, for example, is not recommended at this time.
Backstory connections
Everyone is required to start play with at least three Backstory connections. These can be satisfied either by other characters (including NPCs) or joining qualifying organizations. See Step 8 for more information.
Summary
If you have any questions at any point, feel free to hit up the #character-creation channel where you'll have your very own thread. All of the actual RPing and gameplay with us should be easily doable from mobile devices, but we recommend creating your character from a computer. It's possible on a phone, but might be a pain. You will need to be able to do some light editing of a Google Sheet (typing text or numbers into existing cells, choosing from a dropdown) in order to create your character.
- Step 1. Use the link provided below to start working on your page, definitely make sure you use that link.
- Step 2. Let us know that you're working on it so that we can make a blank character sheet for you.
- Steps 3-7. Build your character on 20xp.
- Step 8. Describe your character.
- Step 9. Go over the checklist and wait for the go-ahead to start RPing.
Step 1: Create a page. CAREFUL. Do exactly what it says right here.
Use this link to create your character page. (If you got here from the #character-creation channel, or from the "Click to start a new character" button, that's okay too.
If you don't use the correct link, these instructions won't get copied over, and you'll get lost. If you still see these instructions after clicking a provided link to get started, then you've done it right.
Don't do it this way! Use the provided link!
The only information you need to fill in right away is Character Name and Tag.
- Character Name is first name only (as it will appear in the tracker), or just some placeholder if you haven't decided yet.
- Add your Player Name as a Tag.
- Just put your Character Name and Player Name and hit SAVE. I know you're tempted to fill in more things, but just do those two things and hit SAVE. You can come back to this spot and edit these later.
Step 2: Ping us to let us know you're working on it.
Please ping @Character Helper to let us know that you've started working on a character. Don't worry, we won't bite, we love pings! We want to know that you've started working on it. We'll need to paste in a blank character sheet for you. Unfortunately, you can't do steps 3-7 until you get your character sheet, but you can start step 8! Steps 3-8 don't really need to be done in order.
Once you have your character sheet, please click through the tabs and read/skim the text at the top. If you can't figure out how to move between the tabs on all your devices, that's a problem, so please ask us for help.
Step 3: Choose a Race.
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You can view our playable races here. To select one for your character, find the "Templates - choose" tab in your character sheet and select the racial template. Simply find the template you need and check the box. Its cost will then appear next to it. You don't have to apply any racial modifiers yourself. The character sheet handles this automatically, which you can see in the "Templates - view" tab (exception: a few racial things might tell you to do something with your "modifiers" tab, but most of them don't).
Step 4: Consider Templates.
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Speaking of Templates, there are other templates to choose from than just the racial ones. Aside from special cases (racial, status, shapeshift), you can select as many templates as you wish, provided you have the points for them. Consider these carefully, because bonuses and features within templates cost fewer xp than buying them on their own. You can view templates here, along with rules for creating new ones.Step 5: Consider Features.
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Features are traits that give your character either an edge or a drawback when compared to someone without. Good features cost xp, and bad features give you more xp to spend, thus they are worth negative xp. You can take as many good features as you care to spend points on, and you can take up to -20 in bad features (which does not include any that come with your templates). You can read about features here. To add a feature to your character, go to the Features tab and select them from the dropdown. Some features have "flavor requirements," which means you are required to provide some information about how this feature affects your character or why it makes sense for you to take it. There is space for these on your Kanka character page - more on that later (see step 8).
Step 6: Consider Skills and Attributes.
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A set of eight numbers, called Attributes, define the basis of your character’s abilities. Click here to learn more about attributes. Skills are the most detailed and numerical part of the game, but the large number of choices allows the player to fine tune their character’s strengths and weaknesses. Click here to learn more about skills. Attributes can be increased for 10xp each, or decreased for -10xp (you get the points back), but you may not drop an attribute by more than two steps (excluding modifiers from your templates). Skills increase the more xp you spend on them, or from various features and templates. To edit your character's attributes and skills, go to the Attributes and Skills tab, select an item from the dropdown, and then enter the number of xp you want to spend on it.
Step 7: Spend all your points.
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Steps 4-6 were a tour of all the different things you can spend your points on. Go back over each of them, in any amount you like, until you've spent all your points. Your total should come to 25, and you can have up to -20 in bad features (excluding any that come with your templates). Character Helpers are there to help at any step along the way! You can see how many points you've spend so far at the top of your "Numbers" tab and at the top of your "Attributes and Skills" tab This number should come to 25. The top of the "Features" tab also shows you how many bad features you have selected, this number should come to at most -20. Step 8: Describe your Character.
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Entry: Your character TLDR is for other players to read when they want to get a snapshot of your character, so please keep it concise. If you feel the need to write down more than one paragraph about who your character is, we love that! There is room for it elsewhere! For appearance, you need either a picture or a paragraph on what your character looks like.
Basic Info: These are self-explanatory. Please keep this section short and sweet.
Flavor Requirements Some of the choices you make regarding your character will give you some "Flavor Requirements" to fill in. If you scroll down on your Kanka character page, you'll find a section specifically for your Flavor Requirements. Please put all of them there, and not your character sheet.
Backstory & Origin: A paragraph on where you're from and what you're doing on the island suffices. Any other information you want to provide in the Backstory section is welcome but not required.
Backstory Connections: Everyone is also required to do at least 3 backstory connections. You get 1xp for each connection that you do, and there is no limit. Starting play in an Organization also counts as a backstory connection, unless otherwise noted in its description.
Step 9: Checklist
- Character name is in the "Name" field
- Player name is in the "Tag" field
- You picked a race.
- You picked some Features.
- You picked some Skills.
- You considered adjusting your Attributes.
- You considered some Templates.
- You have a Character TLDR at the top of your character page, a short summary of your character for the benefit of other players.
- You have either a picture or a description of your appearance.
- Basic Info is filled out.
- Backstory & Origin is filled out.
- Flavor Requirements is filled out.
- Give your character sheet and character page a once-over to make sure you didn't miss anything.
- If you have done all the items above, please ping @Character Helper in your thread and tell us a cool fact about an animal or fictional creature.
- You have three Backstory Connections.
