Your Hero

༄ 𐤊𐤟𐤁𐤋 𐤟 𐤔𐤕𐤅 𐤟 𐤔𐤌𐤌 𐤟 𐤅𐤉𐤌 𐤟 𐤔𐤌𐤕 ༄ 𐤀𐤁𐤉𐤊 ༄

In the dark depths beneath the Sea of Clouds, a brave Kananite hero faces the spawn of Yom the Cnidarian.

Illustration by Sansiia

Who are you, hero?

Your hero can be any kind of character you like—brave, clever, goofy, foreboding, a mighty warrior, a fragile scholar, a simulacrum of your favorite fictional character. But they must be capable of rising to the occasion. Remember: the world is ending, just as your hero’s adventure begins!

Make a Hero

Your Hero Sheet is a record of your hero's various aspects and current condition. To get started, download or copy the hero sheet template. Then decide who your hero is, step-by-step.

Take a Hero

Don't want to create your own hero from scratch? Use one of the premade heroes included on the Hero Sheet. You can play them as they are, or use them as a starting point to customize. Basic gameplay rules and descriptions of each hero's starting abilities are included on the Slides.

༄ Copy the Hero Sheet into your Google account to get started!

A print-friendly PDF version is also available to download on itchio or RPG Trader.

Hero Creation Steps

Choose an origin, which determines your hero’s traits, their background knowledge, and how the people of Tel-Kanan might treat them.
Choose a calling, an archetype your hero aspires to, encompassing a broad style of play.
Choose 2 types of lore, the set of cultural knowledge and skills your hero has accumulated over their lifetime. Your origin and calling both determine what your lore options are.
Choose items, including armor, weapons, and magical implements granted by previous steps.
Finalize your stats: choose attribute scores and calculate your action dice, weight, and life.
Choose 1 or 2 ideals, which help you roleplay your hero and provide opportunities for powerful invocations.

Steps 5 and 6 are fully explained in this section. For Steps 1–4, go to the top-level pages on Origins, Callings, Lore, and Items & Conveyances to explore your choices in more detail. Along the way, note any ✪abilities granted by your choices. They define what your hero can do beyond the basic actions available to all characters. You'll know something is an ability when you see a ✪star next to its name. Also note languages, literacy, and items granted by certain choices.

Let fate decide. If you’re having trouble making choices, or if you want some randomness in your hero’s life, you can roll dice for steps 1–3.

Jump to:

Step 1: Choose Origin

Step 2: Choose Calling

Step 3: Choose Lore

Step 4: Choose Items

Step 5: Finalize Your Stats

Step 6: Choose Your Ideals

Step 1: Choose Origin

Kananite. You look like an ordinary human and grew up in the game’s main setting.
Mazrian. You have the head of an animal and hail from a rich and powerful foreign empire.
Shinarian. Your body is made of clay. You recently awoke from a long period of dormancy, with scant memories.
Zordin. You’ve been mutated, or dreamtouched, by the Chaos realm beyond Tel-Kanan.

Origin is where you're from. Choose or roll a d4.

Step 2: Choose Calling

Champion. You’re a mighty warrior and master of battle.
Wanderer. You have many stories to tell from your travels.
Mastermind. You spring clever stratagems on foes when the time is right.
Messenger. You magically call the wind to your command.
Sorcerer. You gather the magic of dark and light in your hands.
Arbiter. You can magically gaze into other people’s souls.

Callings are most like “classes” in other games. They’re listed here from simplest (Champion) to most complex (Arbiter) to play. Choose or roll a d6.

Step 3: Choose Lore

Choose 2 types of lore. Your choices (or random rolls) are limited as follows:

Both types must be from your origin.
At least 1 type must be aligned to your calling.

(If you’re a Wanderer, ignore these limits. Only one lore must be from your origin, and both your choices can be aligned to any calling.)

Lore is what you know from your background and culture. Choose two, or roll a d4 & d10 together to yield a random result from the table (for example, 3 & 1 = Politics). Do this at least twice to get two lore types, but reroll if your random results don't meet the requirements.

Step 4: Choose Items

You start the game with one free weapon—your choice of a club, a dagger, or a staff. You also start with a packed keepsake from your origin. Depending on your choices in previous steps, you may also start with:

Other items. Many types of lore grant items directly. For example, if you start the game with The Spear lore, you start with a spear.
Imperial credit (𐤑). Many kinds of lore grant credit, as do the Kananite and Mazrian origins. Spend credit to buy any items with a credit cost.
Crafting resources (𐤇). The Crafting lore grants 4 resources, which you can spend to create items with a resource cost. Some items require additional lore to craft or use, however.
Investments are worth 1 imperial credit at the start of the game—or 4 credits if you transport them to a civilized place. Choose whether to convert them to 1 credit apiece or keep them for later.

Items & Conveyances lists all the available items and their costs in credits and resources.

Step 5: Finalize Your Stats

Fill in the numbers on your Hero Sheet: your attributes, action dice, and Life. Note that some items, like the mace, have minimum attribute requirements.

The Attributes & Characteristics section has more details on your choices here.

Attributes

You have 14 points to allocate between your four attributes.
Each attribute must be between 2 and 5—unless you have an ✪ability that says otherwise.

Your attributes might be a mix of average and remarkable (3, 3, 3, 5); poor and remarkable (2, 2, 5, 5), average and good (3, 3, 4, 4), or a spectrum (2, 4, 3, 5).

Action Dice

The size of each action die is the sum of its two “neighboring” core attributes, rounded down to the size of a polyhedral die.

For example, Chom the Champion’s Compel die is the sum of his core Spirit (4) and Awareness (2) = a d6. His Brace die equals the sum of his core Strength (5) + Spirit (4) = 9, rounded down to a d8—and so on, around the circle.

Weight

If you’re a Kananite, Mazrian, or Zordin, your Weight can equal:

Your core Strength –1, if you’re skinny
Your core Strength +1, if you’re stout
Your core Strength, if you’re somewhere in-between.

Choose one of these possible Weights at the start of the game. If you’re Shinarian, your Weight must equal your core Strength × 2.

Life

Your max Life is determined by this formula: Life = Spirit + Strength + Weight

Beware of odd attribute pairs. Heroes with odd sums of attributes start the game with less effective action dice overall. The weakest arrays are [2, 3, 4, 5] and [3, 4, 3, 4], because they result in all four rounded-down action dice. Starting with [3, 3, 3, 5] yields the most optimized set of action dice, though it will take longer to increase those die sizes through advancement.

Step 6: Choose Your Ideals

There are eight ideals. Know your ideals well, for you’ll expend your spirit to invoke them many times, pushing yourself when your actions fail you.Most characters have a pair of ideals, with each providing context for the other. For example, you might be driven to explore the world and find lost artifacts far from the confines of civilization. This drive can be expressed by a combination of the ideals Freedom and Truth. A few characters only have a single ideal, and may come off as single-minded or even obsessed.These descriptions are guidelines. Ultimately, you decide what your ideals mean—and the Guide decides how well you invoke them.

The Ideals & Regard section explains how invoking ideals works in the context of actions and rolling dice.

Fellowship

You value community, generosity, respect for others, and self-sacrifice. You may feel an especially strong responsibility to protect your family, friends, hometown, culture—or even all sentient life. Or you may be devoted to your closest allies, or even just one person.

Freedom

You wish to be unfettered—from oppression and tyranny, or perhaps from something less high-minded, like duty, law, or social obligation. Maybe you’re an explorer, a freethinker, or a creative soul. Or maybe you just want to go where you want to go and do what you want to do.

Glory

You seek renown, without fear—of battle, of loss, of the unknown that awaits beyond the horizon. Perhaps you’re driven to bring glory to your family or culture. Or maybe you just want history to remember your name.

Honor

You follow and seek to uphold a strict code of conduct. This code may reflect the laws of society, the ways of a particular culture or tribe, your family’s traditions, or your own set of ethics.

Justice

You cannot abide those who do wrong and get away with it. Perhaps you want to restore balance to the teetering world, or perhaps you’re an agent of the Empire or other authority seeking to enforce its now-tenuous laws. Vigilantes and vengeance-seekers are also driven by the ideal of justice.

Order

You value stability, rules, and structure. Perhaps you serve an authority which you believe gives order to the world—or which you believe should be reordered to reflect the proper state of things. Or maybe you believe that your life, or all life, is part of a grand plan.

Power

You understand that, to some extent at least, might makes right. Perhaps you seek to gather power for yourself, so you can sit atop the hierarchy—or simply so you can become the master of your own destiny.

Truth

You seek knowledge above all else. Perhaps you’re a scholar, seeking out the true history of the Skysea. Or maybe you’ve dedicated your life to uncovering the lies of the powerful.

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