Character creation and advancement

This is a collection of information to help new players to the Forbidden Marches with creating their characters and understanding how they will grow and develop over time. It is not intended to replace the information contained in the Forbidden Lands Player's Handbook.

## Important Resources

Free League Publishing has a Forbidden Lands Quickstart guide available for download, free of charge. This guide contains quite a bit of information on how to get started playing the game, but does not contain all of the rules necessary to play long term.

The full core game set can be purchased through DriveThruRPG. The core game set contains the Player's Handbook and Gamemaster's Guide.

Pinned in the Discord server's character creation channel are several things worth referencing, some of which are also referenced on this page. This page will mention the Forbidden Marches Player's Guide, which can be found there.

Eddie Dunn's character generator is also a useful tool. It defaults to Swedish; click the menu icon in the top right and then options to change this. Currently supported are Brazilian Portuguese, English, German, and Swedish.

## Forbidden Marches

This game is a West Marches-style campaign using the Forbidden Lands system. The Forbidden Marches Player's Guide pinned in the Discord server's character creation channel explains how the West Marches system is adapted for the Forbidden Marches.

## Get Started

So, you've decided to adventure in the Forbidden Marches. Welcome!

To gain access to the Forbidden Marches section of the Discord, check out the server roles channel, and click the appropriate reaction. The bot will add you to the group, allowing you to see the channels related to this game. While in the server roles channel, you can react to the next post to have a role added specifying which pronoun(s) you, as a player, prefer.

In addition to the regular Forbidden Marches channels, planning for sessions takes place in "Breakout" rooms, reducing chatter in general channels and allowing player groups to quickly see what their party wants to do in their next session. You can add roles for individual rooms, or the "eavesdropper" role if you're curious what players are discussing in other breakout rooms.

The schedule sign ups channel is where upcoming sessions will be posted. See Signup etiquette for the rules we have agreed upon as a community. Currently, one slot in each session is reserved for a rookie, which will hopefully help you schedule your first session easily!

You'll also need to join the Roll20 campaign in order to play. Once you've joined the campaign, you can type !charsheet to generate a sheet for your new character.

Now, onto the meat of this guide - how to create your first character! Using Eddie Dunn's character generator to follow along with each step is highly recommended.

One important house rule to note: you are welcome to change your character after your first session if you are unhappy with your choices. Nobody wants to punish a new player for being unfamiliar with the system!

### Kin

Your character will be one of the eight kin in the game. Each kin has a different unique talent which cannot be learned by other kin, and also has a favoured attribute, which can be raised 1 point higher in character creation.

Information on kin can be found on page 12 of the Quickstart and page 14 of the Player's Handbook. The Forbidden Marches Player's Guide, pinned to the character creation channel, contains useful summaries of this information, and details some of the lore changes used in this setting. See also kin.

### Profession

Your next choice is which profession your character will be. Each profession has access to three (or four, for sorcerers) unique talents which cannot be learned by other professions. These special talents, or "Paths," can be very powerful and help determine which type of character you'd like to play. In addition, your profession determines your character's starting gear.

Information on professions can be found on page 18 of the Quickstart and page 22 of the Player's Handbook. The Forbidden Marches Player's Guide, pinned to the character creation channel, contains useful summaries of this information.

See House rules, which affect some profession talents. Notably, the Rogue profession can use three Paths from another source. See the pinned message in the news and updates Discord channel for more details.

### Age

The next thing to choose is your character's age. Characters will fall into one of three categories: Young, Adult, or Old. As elves do not age, all are considered Adult.

Young characters receive the most attribute points and fewest skills and talents, older characters receive the fewest attribute points but most skills and talents, while adults are in between.

Age is detailed on page 31 of the Player's Handbook, while the Quickstart does not detail it. The Forbidden Marches Player's Guide, pinned to the character creation channel, contains all information necessary for rolling up a Forbidden Marches character.

### Attributes

Your character receives a number of attribute points based on their age. One important thing to note when creating a character is that attributes do not increase through gameplay, while skills and talents can be increased with experience. Choose your attributes wisely!

Keep in mind that your character is considered Broken and unable to act if any of their attributes is reduced to 0 through damage. Dumping Strength, in particular, is very dangerous.

Attributes are detailed on page 19 of the Quickstart and page 31 of the Player's Handbook. The Forbidden Marches Player's Guide, pinned to the character creation channel, contains a useful summary of information related to character generation.

### Skills

Your character will start with a number of skill points based on their age, while their profession determines which skills can start at a higher rank (up to 3.)

Information on how skills work can be found on page 24 of the Quickstart and page 42 of the Player's Handbook. A list of skills can be found on page 33 of the Quickstart and page 51 of the Player's Handbook. The Forbidden Marches Player's Guide, pinned to the character creation channel, contains a useful summary of information related to character generation.

Your character can learn new skills or train their existing ones using experience, as detailed on page 39 of the Player's Handbook. The Quickstart does not cover character advancements.

Something to keep in mind when creating a character is whether you would prefer a depth of knowledge in a few skills, a breadth of knowledge over many subjects, or somewhere in between. The experience cost of increasing a skill goes up multiplicatively based on its rank; therefore, character creation skill points are more "efficient" experience wise when learning higher ranked skills. On the other hand, one must either succeed at rolling a skill untrained in the same "block" of time (see House rules) or receive training during a session or downtime (see Downtime rules) to learn a new skill at rank 1.

### Talents

Your character will start with their kin talent and at least one talent in one of their profession paths, as well as having additional general talent point(s) based on their age.

A list of talents can be found starting on page 62 of the Player's Handbook. The Quickstart does not detail talents. The Forbidden Marches Player's Guide, pinned to the character creation channel, contains information on house rules and a useful summary of other information related to character generation.

Much like skills, there is a tradeoff to be made based on depth vs. breadth of knowledge. Experience costs for talents also increase multiplicatively. On the other hand, learning a new talent either requires training from someone with knowledge of that talent (either in session or according to Downtime rules) or spending a quarter day in session to make a Wits roll to learn without training. (The downtime action "Train" can confer a benefit to this roll.)

Magical talents also require a teacher of a higher rank to train each level. Otherwise, one must spend triple the normal amount of experience points to advance their magical talent.

### Gear

Some professions offer a choice of gear. Page 49 of the Player's Handbook details how gear affects skill rolls, while a list of gear can be found on Page 179. Keep your encumbrance in mind!

Also note the following house rule:

* When creating a new character, you can purchase **one** Common item using starting silver **if** it is connected to a talent your character has. For example, a starting character with Axe Fighter could start with a hand axe, a Defender could start with a shield, and a Smith could start with a Hammer.

### Pride & Dark Secret

Example Prides & Dark Secrets are listed on Pages 34 and 36 of the Player's Handbook, respectively. You can also choose your own. For mechanical info on how using your Pride works during play, see Page 32 of the Quickstart or Page 50 of the Player's Handbook.

### Downtime Rules

Aside from the uses laid out in the PHB, note that some skills and talents have benefits connected to our homebrewed downtime rules.

Your character will get at least one downtime action for the block they are created in. If you do not adventure during that block, your character gains a second downtime action. These are spent at the beginning of your character's first adventure in the next block.

The skills which affect downtime activities are Lore (research,) Scouting (using a guard tower,) and Survival (hunting, fishing, or foraging.) Two downtime activities reduce the cost of improving one's skills: the shooting range and training grounds decrease the experience cost of a character's next rank in Marksmanship or Melee, respectively, by 1.

The talents which affect downtime activities are Chef (bakery,) Fisher (fish,) Herbalist (forage,) Smith (forge,) Tailor (tailor's shop,) and Tanner (tannery.) The Train action can be taken, which adds two skill dice to a character's next attempt to learn a new talent. You can also engage in Mentoring - a teacher must spend a downtime action to teach a skill or talent, and up to three students can use their downtime action(s) to learn from this teacher. This fulfills the teaching requirement for learning new talents and skills, and developing magical talent, as written in the Player's Handbook.

## I made my character, what now?

Have you added your character sheet to the Discord? Type `!charsheet` into the chat to generate a blank one. You'll need to fill this in to roll the dice in Roll20. One important thing to note is your encumbrance is not calculated automatically - you must add your gear, including resource dice, to that section manually.

Check out Player Characters. Using the input field on that page, enter your character's name and it will generate a template page for you to fill out. You should also add your character to the table on the Player Characters page.

Think about flavour. What is your character's appearance like? What is their personality like? The Flaming Spike Inn is a channel on the Discord server dedicated to in character roleplay. Feel free to hop in!

Any other questions? Feel free to ask on Discord!

## References

1. ↑ https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/267633/Forbidden-Lands-Quickstart?cPath=31447
2. ↑ https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/258593/Forbidden-Lands-Core-Game?cPath=31447
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://eddie-dunn.gitlab.io/forbidden-lands/new
4. ↑ http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/
5. ↑ https://app.roll20.net/campaigns/details/9635084/the-forbidden-marches-2021