DH2 - Character Creation

Characteristic Modifiers: Modifiers that alter how the player generates the Acolyte’s starting characteristics (see page 31).

Fate Threshold: A value representing the starting Fate threshold of a character from this home world (see page 293). A character starts with a threshold equal to the listed value, but has a chance at gaining the “Emperor’s Blessing” and increasing the value by 1. The player rolls 1d10, and compares the result to the Emperor’s Blessing value for his home world. If the result is equal to or higher than the listed value, the player increases his character’s Fate threshold by 1.

Home World Bonus: A special ability that a character from this home world gains during character creation. Note that the character does not need to meet the prerequisites for talents (see page 119) granted in this stage.

Home World Aptitude: An aptitude (see page 79) that the character gains based on his home world.

Wounds: The number of wounds (see page 232) a character possesses at the beginning of the game. This is commonly a static value plus a die roll.

Recommended Backgrounds: Several samples representing backgrounds (see page 44) that a character from this type of home world would be likely to follow.

Generate Characteristics

After choosing his home world, the player should generate his Acolyte’s characteristics. These are the basic building blocks that determine the character’s strengths and weaknesses, as described on page 21. Characteristics are generated one at a time. To generate a characteristic, the player rolls 2d10, adds the results together, and then adds 20. The result is the Acolyte’s characteristic, and the player does this for each of the 10 characteristics, filling in each result on the Acolyte’s character sheet. The roll to generate a characteristic can be altered by the characteristic modifiers of the Acolyte’s home world. Each modifier lists a characteristics with either a “+” or a “–” in front of it. These affect the roll in the following ways:

+ Characteristic: When rolling to determine the specified characteristic, the character rolls 3d10, takes the two dice with highest results, and adds their results to 20 to determine the characteristic.

– Characteristic: When rolling to determine the specified characteristic, the character rolls 3d10, takes the two dice with lowest results, and adds their results to 20 to determine the characteristic.

Inquisitors do not choose their Acolytes at whim. The Player Characters in DARK HERESY are a cut above the rest of humanity, and fated for a greater destiny. Because of this, the player can re-roll any one characteristic value when generating his Acolyte’s characteristics, but must keep the second result.

If the GM and all players agree, players can alternatively perform character generation with adding 25 instead of 20 to reflect more experienced Acolytes ready to face even greater threats. If so, adjust the values in the Allocating Points sidebar to start with 30 points, and raise the + and – Characteristics by 5. When using this higher starting score, no characteristic can be raised to a value higher than 45.

Starting Experience

Each Player Character starts with 1,000 experience points to spend at character creation. This experience represents everything the Acolyte has learned in his life before service to his Inquisitor, on top of what is granted from his other character creation options. If all players concur, this value can be adjusted upwards for more advanced play with higher-powered Acolytes, or lowered to represent less skilled Acolytes perhaps newly recruited by a novice Inquisitor.