Grab a pencil & character sheet or some paper, or fire up your notes, whip out your finest selection of standard d6 dice (three’s enough), and follow these steps to get cracking in minutes. You can flesh things out more during the game.
- Roll up your character's traits, thing, and max health.
- Roll for your failed career and what’s gone wrong.
- Roll up & collaborate your chains & discords.
- Roll 3d6, multiply by 5 to get your starting cash.
- Spend that cash on your gear, weapons & armour.
- You’re all set.
How might you approach this game?
Well, the answer's not on your character sheet. More than likely, it's not in the rules either. This game's pretty bare-boned. There are no paper buttons you can press to skip thinking your way through scenarios, to shift the narrative burden more onto the GM. The idea is to try and look up from your sheet & rules, and to connect with the others around the table or screen. To engage with whatever the GM presents, ask them questions until you can visualise more clearly what’s around you, or what options you might have available (the GM’ll be making it up on the fly anyway). Then plan it out together. Harness every bit of gear in your bag, whatever’s lying around, whatever you can steal from those you encounter. And lean into curiosity, creativity, generosity with others’ time & ideas, until you feel the moment give way to the force of your imagination.
You ain’t a superhero...but...
When it comes down to it, really your character will start out as one step up from your average rat catcher, farmhand, or leech baiter. In all likelihood, you won’t make it very far. So don’t get too attached. Find joy in brutal death and send them off with glory or hilarity. And yeah, make a bunch of characters. Some will fall, that’s for sure. But one? Oh yeah, that one who does end up making it, well, you won’t ever forget them. Because they survived. Because you dragged them from whatever trough in the dirt they sprouted, and despite it all, somehow, somehow they survived. And so, having felt every ounce of their pain every step of the way, ooft, you’ll love them forever!
...gear up, gang up
That said, the world you’ll face in this game isn’t built around you. Its threats and challenges could prove so daunting, so eye-widening, that bolting for the hills and living another day might well be worth considering. But look around you. In your party, individually you might each resemble crumbling autumn leaves in the wind, but together, together you have every chance of soaring to new heights. So gear up, gang up, squeeze your GM dry for intel & info, until you have what you need to brave the moment. Bolt off if you need to, but plan a more ingenious return. Gouge a hole through every gut of uncertainty into which you're swallowed, examine forensically its wiry veins and viscera, and brain trust the coolest, wackiest, most devilish and creative means to crush that doubt and escape back into the universe of possibility. You might not survive anyway, but at least you’ll have given it your all.
let's get you started
Good to go? Great, it won't take long at all, so click here to begin with rolling up your traits.
need a character fast?
No worries. Maybe your last one's just kicked the bucket and you're in the middle of a session so need a new character pronto. Whatever the reason, here's a one-button solution for you. Simply click Create My Character until you have a name you like for your character, and the tool will do the rest. If you don't like what you see, click Create My Character again to re-start. Remember to export to pdf, either on a basic sheet or a fillable pdf to print or use online. Oh, and remember that the Failed Career, What's Gone Wrong, Chains, and Discords you'll see in your sheet's Notes & Scribbes, are only there for inspiration, to kick you off quickly, so feel free to come up with something else.