Character Creation Part 2

Welcome to Character Creation part 2. If you haven't already completed Character Creation part 1, click here to complete it. Be sure to have a copy of the Character Sheet handy and be prepared to take notes.

Part 2 of character creation is choosing your Traits. You have 3 traits: Size, Benefit, and Unique.

## Part 2

The Griffin Inc company has several buildings surrounding a beautiful garden area. Men and women in white coats make their way between buildings, some carrying clipboards, others with empty hands, and one with an armful of jars filled with some sort of strange, organic material. You make you way up the marble stairs to the building labeled "Research Division" and enter. The lobby is wide, and mostly void of fixtures, though a few of the Griffin Inc employees make their way about. A counter sits to the right side, and as you approach the woman behind it tucks her paperwork aside and greets you.

 **Patience:**

"Hello there." She pushes a clipboard to the center of the desk and snatches up a fountain pen. "How can I help you today?"

 **Patience:**
 A look of understanding washes across her face, and she brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. "I see. You have your paperwork?"  You hand the crumpled letter of recommendation given to you by Gracie to the receptionist who looks it over, pausing briefly to eye a grease stain in the upper corner. She sets the paper down, pulls out a few forms, and begins to copy information between them, pausing briefly to push a silver button on her side of the counter. "I've paged Dr. Swanson for you. You are approved for free registration to have an auxiliary neural backup, a reserved standard growth chamber, accelerated formula, and The League discount on regrowths."  She looks up to scan your face for confusion. "Is this all completely new to you? Would you like an explanation about the services provided by Griffin Inc?"

 **Patience:**
 Patience smiles. "Absolutely! This is the Research Division of Griffin Inc. Our company is dedicated to providing life-sustaining, life-restitution, and life-uplifting services to our customers."  She obviously has the whole speech memorized, but pauses here and seemingly decides to do away with it. "In short, we grow you a new body and link your mind to a crystal so if you die while out exploring worlds you'll be back in action in a jiffy."  She stares at you a little longer, unsure how much more to say. "Today we're going to take a sample of your blood to incubate in a growth chamber, sync your mind with a reserved Deelium crystal, and take note of any unique characteristics to make your physical reconstruction nearly seamless. Are there any questions I can answer for you?"

 **Patience:**
"That's mostly accurate. We do grow bodies for people, based foremost off their blood. On very rare occasions we can make modifications to the person's makeup to resolve undesired genetic traits, but that's very rare, very expensive, and requires a lot of paperwork from everyone involved. Once we take your blood we'll begin to grow you an auxiliary body in a growth chamber. It takes anywhere from a week to a month for the first time, then it's held in stasis until it's needed. If you should ever be killed, your mind will be collected by the Deelium crystal and printed into your auxiliary body. That process takes a few days. Since you'll be tethered to the crystal, your mind will be collected even if you die on another age."  Patience seems perfectly comfortable talking about death and artificial resurrection. It seems she fully expects this to be given knowledge, or at least non-controversial.

 **Patience:**
"No, no, we're tethering it. Your mind will remain perfectly well attached to your body as normal. Only should your mind be severed from your body, and its essence become free-flowing, would the Deelium crystal come into play. The essence of your mind would coalesce back into the crystal, and from there be printed back into your body. Your new body." She Looks at you as if searching for your next question, but suddenly says "Oh, don't worry. There's no pain involved. Except.. when you die. I mean, if your death is painful. But that would be painful with our without resurrection."

 **Patience:**
So the moment you die your mind, or consciousness, will dissipate, but not disappear. Generally it slowly disperses, and can't be collected or channeled before its signature wanes and it becomes a basic life essence. But after attuning to a Deelium crystal it will coalesce to it instead. You can still easily be resuscitated before this happens, since your mind won't disperse immediately. Her excitement seems to drop a bit as she continues. "We've been told to use the analogy of metal shavings in a lake. At first they float on the water's surface where they're sprinkled, but slowly they sink and get spread about, never to be collected again. But if they're dropped in a stream they flow exactly to one place, and can be collected with a magnet. The same is true with your mind. Without a tether it will disperse after death, but with a tether we can collect it to transfer to a new body"  She glances sidelong. "I don't find that to be a very good explanation, but maybe it helps."

 **Patience:**
 Patience purses her lips, a little puzzled how to answer. "I understand your concern. However, what is commonly referred to as a soul, we prefer to call the mind, or consciousness. I suppose as a disclaimer I should state that we have no way of either proving or disproving the claim of an afterlife (though whenever the claim of an afterlife is testable it's been falsified). Reincarnation seems a more accurate claim, though it's also not quite an accurate label." She gives short sigh before continuing. "Still, if you are concerned, any example of a spirit, from necromancy to poltergeists, is fully congruent with our understanding of the conscious essence that we collect and imprint with the Deelium crystal. So whatever perception you have of a soul will certainly be there in the new body.

 **Patience:**
The receptionist's eyes light up at the question. "Oh! Certainly! You've asked the right person. I know the founding of Griffin Inc better than anyone.  She stares blankly for a moment, like she's searching through memories for the right place to start. "I'll try to keep this brief."

"Though the company was not founded in his lifetime, we attribute our scientific success to the work of Dr. Robert Griffin, whom the company was named after. A prominent man of science in Salagaravine, he invented a drink called black tonic, a sleep aid that prevented dreams. At that time, specters were causing people bodily harm through nightmares, so his tonic literally was a life-saving medication."

"Unfortunately he passed before the full benefit of his work could be realized, but his son, J. Wendell Griffin, continued his father's work and founded Griffin Inc. He learned how to create artificial bodies, originally only a single organic prototype, but the science eventually expanded to creating clones of original bodies using a small amount of blood as a blueprint."
Patience frowns as she continues. "Sadly, Dr. Griffin passed away nearly a century before the Amalgamation, before the science had progressed to the point where his body could be regrown. Still, his work lives on, no pun intended, in the company he founded."

 **Patience:**
She shakes her head. "Trust me, we have never ceased factoring the presence of ghosts and specters into our research. But the evidence is conclusive. They dissipate, can only fully interact with organic compounds, and lack mental characteristics of the living. A ghost seems to be just a part of the mental that has willed itself to stay together, usually due to trauma, and suffused an ectoplasm guise to carry out a last desire. If there's a kernel of a person's essence called a soul that moves on to an afterlife, it leaves the specter behind.

 **Patience:**
"Female form, 65 inches high, 28 teeth, variable melanin capillary and dermal levels, and improved muscular integrity." Patience fails to stifle a grin. "Of course, there were also the shortened intestines that cause complications to traditional digestion, an abnormal circadian rhythm, and vestigial reproductive organs. But black tonic, a growth chamber for sustenance and zero desire for offspring takes care of all that." She gives you a short wink. "Like I said, I know Dr. griffin's history better than just about anybody."

 **Patience:**
"A few reasons. I could tell you how the prototype was female, and he would have wanted a male prototype first, but.. truth be told, I don't think he cared. Actually, he did have an artificial body at one point, but it... ended badly for everyone. The technology has changed a lot since then, so I won't go into details. Suffice to say, that can't happen again. There's also the controversy that surrounded his research. Even keeping his work mostly secret, there were those who found it too controversial, those who wanted to use it for war, and some who felt wronged that they had been given a second chance at life." There's a whirl of emotion beneath the words, but she maintains a pleasant smile. "Thankfully for all of us, James- pardon, *Dr. Griffin's* work succeeds him, and gives us all the chance he didn't keep for himself."

 **Patience:**
"Wonderful! Dr. Swanson still hasn't arrived, but I can get things started. We're just going to determine your attributes. First, what size should we make your growth chamber? You can be light, medium, or heavy. This isn't a matter of dimensions per se, or a matter of mass. It's just how you generally compare to others."

Those who are light gain an edge to acrobatics, but a hindrance to resist being moved. If unconscious, your body can fit into a bag or pack with 4 PPPP slots.

Those who are medium gain no edges or hindrances due to size. If unconscious, your body can fit into a pack with 8 PPPP slots.

Those who are heavy gain an edge to avoid being moved and an edge to moving others, but have a hindrance to stealth and acrobatics. If you're unconscious, it takes 2 allies to lift you or 1 ally with an edge to strength tasks, and they have to take an action to put you down before participating in combat.

As Patience notes your size in her paperwork, and continues to fill out what forms she can, a man comes around the corner. He's tall, with blond hair, pale skin, and a pair of spectacles. He walks with measured steps toward you, and pauses a few yards away.

 **Patience:**
"Adventurer, this is Dr. Swanson. And Dr. Swanson, here's our latest adventurer. The paperwork is nearly complete."

 **Dr. Swanson**
Dr Swanson watches you with a thin lip. When he finally speaks, his voice is mellow and deeper than you expected. "Welcome. This, the research division at Griffin Incorporated is dedicated to providing the finest in cutting edge life renewal applications. Each and every time your life ends it will be renewed. Such a service is not free. We pour vast resources into providing this service, but for adventurers such as yourself you need only pay a small fraction of the price, 20 gold." Dr Swanson eyes the back of a gloved hand nonchalantly.  "It's not cheap for you, but the government pays the greater part using taxes, so frequent squandering of your life could result in revocation of your membership to The League and with it, your privileged discount for our services."

 **Patience:**
"And the forms are complete." Patience hands a stack of papers to Dr. Swanson, who slowly starts to leaf through them.

 **Dr. Swanson**
"Tell me then. What makes you special? Common people don't look to earn a living delving into the unknown. What makes you think you can..." He pauses when he gets to the letter of recommendation, grimacing as he pulls it from the stack by a single corner. He hands it back to Patience, muttering something about lamination, then then continues speaking in your general direction. "What makes you special? You must have some benefit that spurred you into such a lifestyle. We seem to find adventurers either possess an innate power, an aptitude for specific tasks, a skill in combat, somehow deter enemies, have an elemental affinity, are somehow just different, or feel particularly lucky. What about you?

You have some form of inherent power that you can use which mimics magical spells. You gain the ability to cast a single spell that can be cast at power 1 from any of the spell lists (not a spell from a job perk). It doesn't benefit from edges, but the mana cost threshold is reduced by 1 (this can reduce the mana threshold to 0). If the spell targets allies, you can only target yourself.

You are uncommonly skilled at performing some kind of task, either as a natural prodigy or through hard dedicated practice. Gain an edge to 2 tasks. You cannot gain edges to attacks or magic through this trait.

You gain a natural rank in 1 skill of your choice.

Normally an enemy has to roll a 3 or higher to hit you before a defense roll is made. With this benefit, the difficulty to hit you becomes 4.

There's something different about you that prevents you from being harmed the way most people are harmed. You gain immunity to 1 condition.

You're somehow naturally attuned to certain forces that are harmful to others. You gain resistance to 1 element.

You have unnatural luck when it counts. You get an extra universal pip. This luck pip is regained on a breather, but still cannot be used on dice that roll a 1.

 **Dr. Swanson**
Dr. Swanson arches a brow, and hands the stack of papers back to Patience.  "Interesting. Very well, follow me." He leads you down a hallway into a small, sterile lab with a single chair in the center of the room. He pulls several instruments from one of the drawers and sets them on the counter for later. Then he makes his way to a large, tall machine that looks like a copper refrigerator or jukebox and pulls from its side a tangle of wires tipped with suction cups.  "Hold still now. I just need to apply these. Attunement to the Deelium crystal takes an uninterrupted hour to complete, but we can take your blood sample while the attunement processes."

"I need to personalize your growth formula as well. Tell me, are there any unique features or traits I should be aware of?"

Unique Traits:
Can be anything interesting and useful, but not with a direct roll advantage. Primarily up to GM what is appropriate for a Unique Trait using the below examples as guidelines.
Examples:

* Impressive Vision: Can see perfectly in the dark or over long distances (discern a face at 1 mile)
* Eidetic Memory: Will never forget a fact and can memorize any read text
* Hungerless: You don't need to eat frequently, or you fuel yourself on something untraditional
* Ageless: Your life is long, but you do not age. Many acquaintances have known you unchanged their whole life.
* Privileged birth: Your reputation precedes you and you're met with accommodations when appropriate.
* Master crafter: You're very skilled in a craft and know much about its intricacies
* Aquatic: You can travel swiftly though water and can choose to breathe through gills
* Forest born: You can talk to some animals and understand what they say
* Zealot: You know much about a religion or god and are welcomed by its adherents wherever you go
* Avian: When not in combat you can fly through open terrain with good speed but limited mobility

When creating a unique trait, keep a few things in mind;

* Make it useful. If a trait has no advantage whatsoever, it's not a worthwhile trait. It's largely up to the GM to make sure that the player
* No major mechanical advantage. If your unique trait provides significant advantage too frequently, it may be either too powerful or too prone to abuse.

 **Dr. Swanson**
Dr. Swanson finishes attaching the nodes to your head and switches on the machine. It softly hums, and through a cloudy circular window in its door you can see the very faint glow of a dark crystal. Meanwhile, he picks up a syringe from the counter.  "Wonderful. I think I know just how to facilitate that. Now hold still and relax. It's just a small prick, it won't hurt."

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> Note your size, benefit, and unique trait on your character sheet before moving on. For your benefit, you can give it a unique name to differentiate it from others who have a similar benefit, but be sure to note what mechanical effect it has on your character.
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Next up is a trip to the Lodge known as Outpost Central for Character Creation Part 3.