Character Creation

Where to Start

You might already have an idea for a Player Character, especially if you're familiar with the setting. If not, the Character Archetypes list might give you some ideas. It's important to have an idea of who your character is to start with.

Character Attributes

Characters in Greland have six Attributes:

• Brawn is an indicator of how strong a character is, in a variety of ways. Not just their raw physical strength but their stamina and how healthy their body is. It determines how many Wounds a character has, and how damage is inflicted by their Melee Attacks.

• Agility is an indicator of how fast a character is, their reflexes and hand eye coordination.

• Intellect is a measure of how academically talented a character is. It governs their capability to create things, to interpret information and to plan.

• Cunning is a measure of how smart a character is. It governs their capability to read situations and people, as well as deceive.

• Willpower represents how strong willed a character is. It determines how resistant they are to persuasion and intimidation. It also determines how much Strain a character can take before they become useless.

• Presence represents how good a character is at persuading or inspiring those around them.

Player characters begin with one of these Attributes at a 4, one at a 3, three at a 2 and one at a 1.

Skills

Skills in Greland are not tied to a single attribute. A character's Melee skill, for example, might be used with their Brawn when making an attack, but equally might be used with their Cunning when trying to get a read on their opponent's fighting style, or their Presence when trying to impress or intimidate. The more broadly a skill is being applied, the more difficult the check will be - the previously mentioned Melee and Presence check would have a higher difficulty than a character using the Intimidate skill, for example. Similarly, the Melee skill can be used to represent a broad general knowledge with any sort of melee weapon, but will not perform as well as a character with the same number of ranks in Longsword skill when wielding a longsword.
A Player Character begins with five Skills. Two of those Skills begin with a single rank, two more begin with two ranks each and one begins with three ranks.

Knowledge Skills

Knowledge Skills represent subjects that a character has an understanding of. They might be subjects like history, geography, heraldry, or customs of a culture, or medicine or other things. Knowledge Skills are not ranked.
A character starts with a number of Knowledge Skills equal to the sum of their Intellect and Cunning.

Connections

Connections represent the other characters a Player Character has ties to. They might be family members, friends, vassals, people who owe the character a favour, or anything else. These are characters who the Player Character can call upon for a favour, or expect to be warmly received by if they should meet.
Of all the parts of Character Creation, Connections are the easiest for a Player Character to gain during gameplay.
A character starts with a number of Connections equal to the sum of their Presence and Willpower.

Example

Hilmi Broadleaf is a Rothevalian Knight. She chooses to place her 4 into Brawn, making her physically strong and tough, her 3 into Presence to allow her to lead and inspire her allies on the battlefield, and her 1 into Intellect, to represent her lack of academic study - the rest of her stats begin at 2, the baseline for most people.
Then she chooses her skills - Knightly Skills to cover those general things she ought to be at least competent at, Leadership and Charm to help her deal with others socially, Melee to represent her general fighting capability and finally Swordcraft to represent her more specific skills with Swords. Among those she chooses to raise Knightly Studies and Leadership to level 2 and Swordcraft to level 3. This gives her an impressive starting pool of cccd when making attacks with her Sword!