Your First Character


Building a character concept

The first practical thing to consider is how combat-oriented you want to be, as a player. If you can't wait to hurl yourself at massed formations of snotlings and other monsters, chances are that playing a scholar isn't right for you. Bare in mind that everyone can NPC (play a character temporarily for the plot team) a bit, and that often you may portray monsters and villains during this time. For some people, this is enough combat to keep them happy for an event, while others prefer to fight as their player character (PC). If you have a clear idea of how much combat you'd like to experience, then you can begin to narrow down the character choices.

Once you have decided how combat-oriented you want your character to be, think about a race. Make-up and garb is a consideration. Humans are always easy to pull off. However, races such as Endrani and Felinae require more extensive makeup, or even prosthetics.

Lastly, consider skills. What skills you take can greatly determine what type of character you are playing and how you play that character. Many rule systems pigeon hole characters into a predefined set of skill categories and classes that limit the type of characters they can play; for example fighter, mage, or thief. Legacies allows any character to purchase any skill so players have far more options in the style of character they can make. Some characters may be jacks-of-all trades, having chosen many different type of skills, while other characters are very specialized in a particular set of skills. An often-overlooked classification of skills in the system are artisan skills. For a simple 3 Skill Points, you can take a trade that helps define your character and makes him or her useful in game as well.

Once you have a basic idea of what type of activities you want to do at event and the skills needed to assist you, you should begin to flesh to the bare bones of your character. The Character Questionnaire is an excellent resource for defining who your character is as a person. The Character Questionnaire can be found in the Player Resources section of the website. If you answer all of the questions listed, you should have a fully fleshed out character. The Questionnaire will also be invaluable when working on your character history. Please read the Players Guide completely before writing up a character history. Once you do have your character history, which is not mandatory but is highly encouraged, you’ll need to summit it to plot@legacieslarp.org for approval prior to playing any aspect of the character history in game.

A very important thing to consider when creating a character is that Legacies is a social endeavor. We strongly advise against playing a character who is shy, reclusive, or anti-social, at least at first. Playing an outgoing or gregarious character is usually the best way to get involved with the other characters and to feel more welcome and at home at Legacies. Withdrawn characters are difficult to play if you are new to the game.



Making a character

A Step-by-Step Guide to building your character

1. Select the race of your character
You must decide if you wish to be a human, sidhe, dwarf, etc. If you are new to live-action role-playing then we suggest your first character be human or you spend some time NPC’ing the race you wish to play beforehand. You should take the time to read the Players Guide before creating a character. There are many racial and societal eccentricities that you will be expected to play out IG if you play a character of a certain race or nationality. This is a very important part of character creation.

Being a race other than human requires you to follow a set of racial rules. Races have specific costuming, make up, and behavioral requirements that must be followed by characters of that race. If these requirements are not being followed properly, you may be asked to play a human. Make sure you understand the racials that your race has available to them. Choose two of the three that your character will have, you will need to communicate your choice to Logistics along with the rest of your skill choices.

You will have to get approval before playing mongrels (one of the available races), due to the odd nature of the race. You should submit a full proposal of the mongrel you intend to create, including costuming and make-up requirements as well as your character’s origins, to plot@legacieslarp.org before submitting the character to logistics.

2. Name your character
Come up with a name for your character. Traditionally, most characters have first and last names, just as modern people do. If your character does not have a last name, or has several, think of a reason why. Make sure that the name is one that you like because you will use it for the duration of your character’s life. You must exercise at least a small amount of originality. Players are highly discouraged from naming their characters after well-known characters from published fantasy novels, movies, anime, etc.

3. Decide if your character follows a religion
Decide if your character strongly believes in a particular fictitious deity provided in the story world. This is an important role-play tool and should be noted in your character history or Character Questionnaire when submitted to Plot. You may certainly decide that your character does not believe in the deities or simply chooses not to follow any of them. Many characters are pantheists, meaning they believe in all of the deities but have not sworn allegiance to any one in particular. Details about the common beliefs in the game world can be found in the Players Guide.

4. Make a note of any Out-of-Game medical status
If you have a medical situation such as allergies or anything that requires you to take medication or be carefully watched, make sure you have it recorded onto your character card.

5. Determine your starting Skill Points
Determine how many Skill Points (SP) your character will start off with. As a starting player, your first character is given 50 SP. Do not forget that human characters begin with an additional grant of 15 SP, for a total of 65 SP. If you have acquired bribe, either through making donations or being given bribe by friends, you may spend these to gain additional SP. The bribe to SP conversion utility on the website can help you calculate how many additional SP you will gain with this bribe. You will want to inform Logistics (logistics@legacieslarp.org) when submitting your character that you will be spending bribe. You will need to have the person giving you this bribe inform Logistics before you create your character. If you cannot get these details worked out in advance, create the character with the default 50 SP and Logistics will help you spend the rest onsite.

6. Review the Skills List
Thoroughly read through the skill descriptions found in the rulebook for your prospective skills and the racials listed for your race if you are playing a non-human. Please review the prerequisites that many skills have. You must purchase any prerequisite skills before purchasing the subsequent skills.

7. Spend your starting Skill Points
After determining your starting amount of SP and reviewing your skills, decide how you would like to spend your starting SP on these skills. The skills you purchase are the skills that your character already knows how to perform coming into the game. Make sure you follow any pre-requisite rules.

8. Determine Starting body points
You will start with a number of Body Points equal to one tenth of your total SP, rounded down, plus 10. So, if you had 18 skill points, you would have 11 Body (18/10 rounded down = 1, + 10 = 11). Please note that dwarven characters have additional body points if they take the racial Constitution. You may spend SP to purchase the skill Body, every purchase increasing your total Body Points by 3, or leave it at its starting value.

9. Your character’s history
Write an interesting, but not ridiculous, history for your character. Your history doesn’t have to read like a Hemingway novel or be as detailed as the Iliad, but it should describe the basic details of your character’s background. In particular, your character’s history should explain where your character comes from, what his or her ambitions are, why he has traveled to the town of Scarborough, and why he would stay here. The more detailed you want to be, and the more thoughtful you’d like to make your prose, the better. Again, it is of paramount importance that you read the entire Players Guide prior to completing a character history and are willing to play any restrictions built into any of the races or nationalities. All character histories should be submitted to plot@legacieslarp.org prior to playing any part of the history in game. Plot has total authority to approve or deny character histories, in whole or in part. They may ask you to modify some aspects of your history. Please do not be offended. They simply have a better view of the big picture of the game. Their suggestions will help you in the long run.

Character histories should reflect the actual character you are playing. If you are playing a new character with few skill points it isn’t reasonable to write the character history as if your character is a slayer of many dragons or some epic knight. However, just because your character may not have done many wondrous deeds yet (and don’t worry about that, you will have plenty of opportunity to perform those deeds once you start playing your character) doesn’t mean the character history has to be boring. For example, perhaps your character is on the run because he or she was embroiled in a murder plot and was forced to flee precisely because they do not yet have much experience. On the other side of the coin mundane character histories can create very interesting characters to play as well. A naïve lad who has left the farm to see the greater world can be more interesting and intriguing than a character with novels worth of drama in their past.

10. Spend your starting money
Each new character receives a grant of 6 gold Crowns, plus 5 copper pence per skill point, to purchase initial equipment from Logistics. This means that a players first character, if started with the standard 50 SP, will start with a total of 850 copper pence. It is important to note that once a new character has left Logistics after initial character creation, he will never be able to purchase items from Logistics again. All other items must be bought in game from other characters, and will be more expensive. The production section of the Rulebook details the production cost of each item in the game. The new character cost for these items will be 2 copper Pence per production point. Any money your character has left over after purchasing initial items from Logistics will be given to the character in cash.

11. Bring this information to Legacies
Now that you have made all of these decisions, write them all down and bring them with you to a Legacies event. At check-in in Logistics, a Logistics ref will help you to transfer all of this information into the Logistics database and will print your character card. They will give you any tags for items you have purchased. You will also get one draw from our Random Gear Box. This box is filled with small pieces of paper that have many of the basic items that are used in game printed on them. You will take one randomly from the box and a Logistics ref will give you a tag for that item. This is a free item and does not cost your character anything. Items may not be traded to Logistics, but certainly may be sold or traded IG.

It is advised that you email your character (character name, skill point expenditure, etc.) to logistics@legacieslarp.org prior to coming to game, should you have all of this worked on prior to your first event. Doing so will expedite your first visit to Logistics. It is not necessary, however, so if you are not comfortable making your initial character on your own the Logistics team will be happy to help you at event. If you do email your character in you will still be allowed to modify it during your first visit to Logistics.

12. Oops, I don’t like my character...
Don’t worry; you always have the option of changing all of the above character aspects anytime in your first three events. For example, if after two events as a Felinae mage you decide that playing that character isn’t for you, but that a human warrior seems just right, you may submit your re-write to Logistics. Be a little surer of your choice the second time around, however, because after your character’s third event its attributes are locked in and you will be limited by the standard re-write rules (see the re-write section of the Logistics procedures for more details).



Examples

Example #1: Eric is going to his first Legacies event. He’s read over the website and decided to make a character, at least in concept, before his first game so that he can prepare to play it.

Eric is new to LARPing, so he is going to take a human for his character’s race; no makeup, no prosthetics, easy to role-play. Eric has played some tabletop role-playing games before, but he doesn’t feel very comfortable with acting in a live situation. From what his friends tell him the combat is fun, so he chooses to play a character with several fighter-type skills - not necessarily heavy on the role-playing, and lots of combat.

Now that Eric has his character’s race and profession settled, he goes to work on the finer details - a list of starting skills, a character name, and a brief background and personality. Looking at the skill lists, he chooses 50 SP worth of skills for his character: read/write (1), one-handed edged (3), shield (6), critical strike x7 (40), shatter strike x5 (25). He’s going to donate some supplies to the game to get 63 bribe, which he can immediately convert into 9 more SP. He decides that he will spend the extra SP on Body. For each of his three purchases of Body, he gets three Body Points, for a total of 9 extra, and a grand total of 24 for his character.

Eric decides that his character is the second son of a small landowner in the Barony of Evanhaust. With nothing to inherit, his character decided to strike out on his own and seek a life of adventure. To add a little twist, Eric decides that his character acquired his sword and shield by pilfering his father’s brooch - a family heirloom - and pawning it in exchange. His character is now poised to arrive in the town of Scarborough, a world of opportunity (and danger) ahead of him.

The last detail is a name. Since Eric’s character is a standard human from the Kingdom of Alba, he decides to give his character a first and last name, as is the custom. Eric’s character will be called Edward Hayworth.

With all this in mind, Eric puts together a simple costume for his first event, and sits down with his friends to make a boffer sword and a shield.
Example #2: After about a year of playing, Eric is having a blast at Legacies, but wants to try playing something new. He still likes combat, but he’s gotten to like role-playing, and from NPC’ing a few times he finds he likes being more elaborate with costuming. With this in mind, he sets out to make a new character. Eric does not retire Edward Hayworth since he still wants to play the sturdy young warrior from time to time.

Eric has some clear ideas about his new character concept: He still wants to fight, but in addition, he wants a profession that requires intensive role-playing and a race with heavy makeup and costuming. Looking at his options, he decides to make a Felinae priest; he can still use fighting skills and as a priest he will have much more role-play. His new characters race will certainly require a lot of makeup! He sits down and chooses starting skills for his character. Being a new character (but not a new player), he has 10 SP to start with, plus 63 more SP from bribe, for a total of 73 starting SP for this character. Before he can do anything else, he needs to choose a deity, which will determine what type of life he might live. After looking through the religion section, he chooses to have his character worship Valerian, goddess of luck.

Next, Eric chooses his starting skills: Claws and Resist Charm for his racials, shield (6), lore, theology (2), read/write (1), read magic (1), casting (2), first aid (2), resurrection (8), critical strike x3 (15), rush x3 (6), mortal dodge x1 (6), body x3 (6), mortal parry x1 (6), first level spell slots x5 (5), second level spell slots x4 (8), third level spell slots x3 (9).

With the skills laid out, Eric needs to come up with a background. Over a feverish session at his computer, an inspired Eric works on a narrative that describes his character’s journey from the Land of Malay over the sea to the Isle of Alba as a young boy, being sent to train as a priest at Carfax Abbey in northern Alba. He was taken mentored by a charitable Gael’Braugh. As he matured, the Felinae boy decided to dedicate his life to Valerian. Eric goes into detail about the relationship between this Gael’Braugh and his character, and finally explains a circumstance by which this character is now coming to Scarborough and why he intends to stay.

Somewhere in writing all that background, Eric came up with the name Gaston LaFeet for his character. When this is all done, he has to submit the background and character concept to Plot to have it approved.
Example #3: Jim, Eric’s father, is now curious about Legacies after hearing about the game from his son and his friends. He decides to go out and see what his son is doing on the weekends.

Jim asks his son for advice on making a character. They determine that he would not like combat, and is not looking for a very action-oriented or costume-heavy character. He decides to make a priest, so that he can role-play such things as services, benedictions, and so on, while buying spells that will allow him to be useful in supporting a battle. He looks at the deities, and settles on Khilaina.

Jim asks his son for advice on making a character. They determine that he would not like combat, and is not looking for a very action-oriented or costume-heavy character. He decides to make a priest, so that he can role-play such things as services, benedictions, and so on, while buying spells that will allow him to be useful in supporting a battle. He looks at the deities, and settles on Khilaina. For a race he settles on a Gael’Braugh, a race without much costuming requirements and well suited for a follower of Khilaina.

Jim doesn’t start with any bribe, so he has just the standard 50 SP with which to create his character. He takes lore, theology (2), read/write (1), read magic (1), casting (2), first level spell slots x8 (8), second level spell slots x5 (10), third level spell slots x4 (12), first aid (2), resurrection (8), and identify (3), and small weapon (1).

Jim decides to write his character as an older man, since he himself isn’t quite as spry as he once was. He decides that the man was a free farmer, who leased his crop fields from a minor lord and lived an otherwise ordinary life with a wife and two sons. One night, a terrible flood destroyed his home and carried off his family, leaving him alone and destitute. He joined the priesthood of Khilaina in search of solace, and to pledge his existence to the protection of life. Having recently completed his vows, Jim’s character has decided to travel to Scarborough, where he has heard that many people and animals are in need of Khilaina’s protection. Once there, he can put his farming skills to use on the property around the temple he intends to build, producing crops of vegetables and herbs. Finally, Jim decides to name his character Brother Michael Farevar.

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