Character Generation

**2.** Pick your Origin: Core, Border, Frontier or
Ship-Born, this determines your starting attributes and free skills

**3.** Pick your Merit

**4.** Pick your Flaw (optional, provides additional
skill points as recompense)

**5.** Determine your Hit & Luck Points based on
your Origin and Merits/Flaws

**6.** Pick your skills; you have 8 points, plus up
to 2 points from having any Flaws chosen.

**7.** Pick your gear. These are described later in
this book.

This is also a good time to start thinking about a name for your
character. You don’t need to know it yet, but as we all know it is by far the
hardest part of character creation, so you want to start thinking early...

The
four origins are Core, Border, Ship-Born and Frontier, which are the three
types of planets your character can come from, along with being born on ship.
This is not set in stone - a Core origin may be more appropriate for a
sheltered minor noble growing up on a planet that's technically in the
frontier, or the Londinium slums might give your wise-ass brawler a Border
origin. A list of recognised 'Verse planets and what these terms mean can be found
in here: http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/Main\_Page

### **Attributes**

There
are three main stats in the game

A character’s starting levels in Build, Sophistication and Schoolin’ depends
on their origin.

 Border
 Frontier
 Ship-born

Merits and Flaws can potentially alter these
further.

Your skills
(picked later) may have a prerequisite stat level in order to purchase, and it
will cost you more to buy if you do not have the stat at the required level.

**Sophistication** also determines your starting credits – more
details in the equipment and ships section

### Merits

Everybody’s got a special talent, a little
quirk that picks them out from the crowd. This is their **Merit**. Each player starts play with a merit which is selected from
the list below. If you have an idea for a merit that you would like and that is
not listed, send the plot team an email to discuss it.

The advantages a Merit provides may be lost
or improved depending on a character’s actions within the game.

#### Merits Table

 Benefactor
 Book Smart
 Built like a Brick Outhouse
 Cortex Spectre
 Fame
 High Falutin’
 Jaynes Town
 Just Won't Die
 Mean Left Hook
 Mechanical Empathy
 Strong as an Ox
 Stun Resistance
 Tenacious
 Wealth
 Lucky

### Flaw

Be sensible over
your combos of Merits/Flaws/Skills and that they make logical sense (i.e. you
are unlikely to have Assets and be Dead Broke).

Flaws may be
'awarded' for in game actions taken, and some could eventually be lost.

If you have an
idea for a flaw not detailed here, run it past Game Team for approval.

The Point cost of a Flaw denotes its severity, so a Two point version of Debt will be worse than its One point counterpart.

#### 1 Point Flaws

 Agoraphobic
 Branded
 Infamy
 Lightweight
 Mistaken Identity
 One of Those Faces
 Permanent Injury
 Pernickety
 Skipped School
 Slow Healer
 Space Sickness
 The Shakes
 Thug
 Unlucky
 Weedy

#### One or Two point Flaws

 Wanted
 Deadly Enemy

#### 2 Point Flaws

 Combat Paralysis
 Dead Broke
 Glass Jaw
 Illiterate
 In the Wars
 Mute
 Slow Learner
 Stun Vulnerability
 Ugly as Sin

### **Hit Points**

All players start with 3 Luck Points unless
Merit/Flaw/Virtuoso says otherwise.

Your hit points
are, fairly obviously, how many times you can be hit, shot, or otherwise beaten
up before you fall over. When your hit points are above 0, you may be battered
and bruised but you're otherwise good to go. Below this, and you're in danger
of serious, or even fatal, injury.

Your starting hit
points are set by which Origin you pick, but can be changed by certain merits
and flaws, the ***tough*** skill, and the use of armour.

 Border
 Frontier
 Ship-born

### **Skills**

You have eight points to spend on skills with a max of two additional if you have taken the relevant level of flaws. You also get some skills free, or at reduced cost, depending on your Origin. Skills that are free still count towards the maximum number of times you can take them for skills restricted in such a manner.

 Border
 Frontier
 Ship-born

The cost of each
skill is listed along with the prerequisite stats you need to have it. If you
do not have the prerequisite stats then you can still buy the skill, but it
costs you one more point per level you are missing.

If the prerequisite is another skill, you MUST have this in order to buy it. This is
to designate certain skill sets as a 'tree' to work through.

For example, ***Armour***
[Heavy] ***has a prerequisite of 3 Build, Armour [Medium] and a cost of 3***
points. A character with 3 **Build** can
buy the skill for 3 points but a character with 1 **Build** must pay 5 points for it and both would need to know Armour
[Medium] first.

Once you have
attended an event, you may opt to train up more of these Skills or more
specialised Virtuoso Skills further, as documented in the Downtime section.

**A skill marked with an asterisk (\*)**
may be purchased multiple times for potential cumulative effects.

**A skill marked with a ~ indicates that this skill must be taught by another player at**
some point if learnt in Downtime.

**A**
skill marked with + is counted as a complicated action if used and must end
(and be restarted from scratch) if interrupted. Some situations may make these
skills take longer to carry out.

**Note**: Membership skills
are mutually exclusive; you cannot purchase more than one.

#### Three Point Skills

 Assault Weapons~
 Charm
 Forensic Analysis \*~+
 Forgery\*~+
 Further Research
 Guild Member~ [X]
Once per event you may call upon a relevant favour from your guild. This must be appropriate for the chosen Guild and could be anything from a Cargo, Knowledge of the location of a salvageable wreck, Legal Representation or access to medical facilities.
In-character actions will influence your standing within the guild and may lead to promotion or exclusion.
 Guild Member~ [Companions]
If the contract does involve any physical sex work, we would remind you that this should not be phys-repped.
As per normal Guild Membership, once per event you may call upon a relevant favour from your guild. Alternatively, you may call upon a favour appropriate to any client you have had this event, assuming that the appointment went favourably.
 Lucky Star+
‘Sustained interpersonal roleplay’ is quite open, and purposely so. Companions are at heart social characters, and good at talking things through with people, taking their minds off their troubles, building self-esteem, etc., as well as any kind of sex work. So whilst you are able to roleplay this (not phys-repping it!) if both players are comfortable with it, this is not the only option. More examples are found in the Recovery section.
 Medicine~+
With access to proper medical facilities, you may also treat characters that have contracted diseases or other illnesses. Appropriate medical phys-reps are required in order to use this skill.
Please see the Medicine section for more details.

#### Four Point Skills

 Surgery~+
You may also be able to operate in more novel ways such as cybernetic enhancements with the right equipment and secondary skills.
Please see the Medicine section for more details.

#### Five Point Skills

 Sniper~+
The possession of this skill does not guarantee ownership of a sniper rifle nor ammunition for it. You should inform the game team if you are intending to bring a sniper rifle to an event, and speak to a ref if you want to use it in a specific way e.g. set up from cover.