Chapter 16 — Step 2: Characteristics

Your character has six characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intellect, Education, and Social Standing. This step decides where your Wanderer is gifted, where they're vulnerable, and where they're simply ordinary. The full rules for how characteristics work are in Chapter 6; here is what you do at creation.

Index§

• How characteristics work, in brief
• Assigning Advantage and Disadvantage
• Choosing wisely
• Rolling characteristics at random

How characteristics work, in brief§

Characteristics do not add numeric bonuses to rolls. Instead, each can be marked as Advantage or Disadvantage for relevant tests:

• Advantage — roll 3D6 and keep the highest two
• Disadvantage — roll 3D6 and keep the lowest two
• Neutral — roll 2D6 as normal

Rolling with Advantage is free during creation. In play, activating a characteristic's Advantage costs Momentum — but that economy applies only during play. On the career entry tests and term rolls in Step 3 (Chapter 17), characteristic Advantage and Disadvantage apply at no cost: you spend no Momentum to receive Advantage, and gain none from Disadvantage or from trauma. Momentum begins to matter only once play starts (Chapter 7).

Assigning Advantage and Disadvantage§

Choose any number of characteristics (including zero) to mark as Advantage. You must mark the same number as Disadvantage. The rest remain neutral and have no effect on rolls. The valid splits are:

There is no "right" split. A 0/0 character is steady and adaptable; a 3/3 character is dramatic and sharply drawn. Pick the profile that matches your concept.

Choosing wisely§

Two things are worth weighing before you commit, because both Advantages and Disadvantages chosen here are permanent — they cannot be gained or removed in play (Chapter 6).

Disadvantages bite hardest where you'll roll most. A Disadvantage on a characteristic tied to skills you'll lean on constantly is a heavier burden than one you'll rarely test. Think about the careers you intend to attempt (Chapter 17) and the Wanderer you want in play.

Characteristics shape your career path, too. Each career's entry test and term rolls use a specific characteristic for Advantage or Disadvantage. Marking Strength as Advantage, for example, smooths entry and survival in the Military and Enforcer careers; a Disadvantage there makes those paths a gamble. You don't have to optimize — a Disadvantage in your chosen field makes for a compelling underdog — but go in with eyes open.

Mark your choices on the sheet. A capstone career or Life Event result can later raise one neutral characteristic to Advantage (a sanctioned exception to the equal-pairs rule), but you cannot plan on it — build a character who works as drawn. On to Chapter 17 and the heart of creation: careers.

Rolling characteristics at random§

When you'd rather let the dice draw your Wanderer — building on the clock, or generating a character entirely from the tables — roll the spread instead of choosing it. Do it in two steps.

Step one — how spiky? Roll 1D6 for the split. The extremes are rarer than the middle, the way most lives are.

Step two — where? For a split of N, roll 1D6 N times on the table below to mark Advantages (reroll duplicates), then N more times to mark Disadvantages (reroll any characteristic already marked either way). A 0 / 0 result skips this step.

Take the result as your Wanderer's natural shape and let it steer the careers you attempt — a rolled Disadvantage in a field you fancy makes a fine underdog. As everywhere in creation, you may reroll a single result that flatly contradicts the character you have in mind; the table breaks ties, it doesn't overrule the fiction.