Basic Rules

**Character Creation**

At the
heart of each roleplaying game is the story, at the heart of the story are the
main characters. Like actors in a play, it is up to the players to portray
their characters in-game. They have to be able to do this exactly and precise,
so through character creation we will go through the simple steps that will
lead you to having fully fleshed-out character.

At first,
it’s vital for the storyteller to impress upon you what kind of game you’ll be
playing. He might limit you all to being Novices, apprentices or allow you to
play the full-fledged journeyman mage character. He might limit you to a
faction of some kind, be it a light faction such as the Crusaders or the powerbase
of some Dark Master. Perhaps he even sees the group as independent mages, part
of some neutral organization. Whatever the case, be ready to fit his idea and
work with a character concept from there.

Now, first
you must think “who is my character?”. This question carries a myriad of implications
like; what does she do for a living? Who trained her? What did she do before
magic? Does she have family, if so who? The list is nigh endless, but you must limit
yourself to the most important bits. Those bits you feel define your character.

Now that,
that’s out of the way we look to the character sheet. At the top of your sheet
you’ll notice six boxes, each of these requesting some kind of information. Time
to write! At first you’ll fill in your characters name. Simple. Second comes
your recognized rank, this has nothing to do with your actual power just what rank
you’re viewed as in game, an apprentice could have the power of Journeyman
without actually be recognized as one. Next is faction, this is a little more
tricky as it could be as simple as “Light mage” or “independent” but, it could
also include “Isolationist Faction of the Light council”, “Auxiliary to the
order of the star” and so on.
Now comes her mage name, this is only relevant in-so-far your character is a
recognized mage and no longer an apprentice. These names can be anything from a
simple thing like “Jolt” or “Char” to something a little more elaborate like “Vihaela”.
Now comes your magic type, it is important to note that a characters magic type
is strongly tied to her personality. A Fire mage is almost always passionate,
they feel strongly and are often as dangerous as the element they command,
while a probability mage(Diviner) will be curious and eager to gather
information and knowledge.
Lastly is advancement, we won’t touch that yet.

Attributes!
We finally get to place some numbers, attributes all start at +1 at character
creation you then distribute +10 points between them to a maximum of +4 in
anyone given attribute.

Skills work
similar, though they all begin 0. At character creation you have three
individual pools of +’s to divide in your skill groups. One group gets +11
points, one +7 points and the last get +4 points. None can be rated higher than
+3 at this time.

Next thing
we look at is Disciplines. These display a characters raw P*ower*, his C*ontrol* of his
magic and his knowledge of *General*
magic and Mastery determines your overall ability to wield magic. How high your
mastery is and what level of you get to divide between your Disciplines is
determined by starting Rank.

Novice:
Mastery 1 – 2 dots.
Apprentice: Mastery 2 – 4 dots
Journeyman: Mastery 2 – 8 dots

Ordinarily you’d gain 10 points for features, but we’ve not made those yet so
we’ll do those on the fly.

Time to do
derived stats! These are statistics that are derived from your other stats, such
as HP and evasion.

Derived stats
HP = 10+(conx3)
Evasion = 8+dex
Initiative = Wis + dex

Movement
Base movement is 10 + strength
Running is 1½ times base
Sprinting is double base movement. Only in straight lines.

Manoeuvres
are divided by power and finesse Manoeuvres.

Power manoeuvres
are executed using Strength + Brawl
Finesse manoeuvres are executed using Dexterity + Brawl

Both are
defended by Strength + Brawl + 5. This is your manoeuvre defense.

**Action**
economy
Every character has
1 Instant action (Attack, cast spell, initiate grapple, something the like. – A
character can chose to move during his instant action, though not run or
sprint. Both of which is an action on it’s own.
1 Partial action, this is usually something that can be done during your
instant action. Like standing up from prone, moving your full move or the like.
1 Free action, talking, activating quickened spells, the like.
And then they have 1 reaction during the enemies turn. These could be for
ranged characters to attack at advancing characters, or throw up a defense or
the like.
Sometimes there’s a Complete action, a complete action costs 1 instant, 1 partial
and one free action or the reaction.

Reaction: A
reaction is a unique action undertaken during allies or enemies turns, these
actions can wary in nature from defensive, offensive or utilitarian.
Cover: A reaction can be spent in order for a person to duck for cover, if he’s
besieged by gun fire or magic. Thus allowing his full defense to function
against both. If actual cover is nearby, he can duck behind it to assume proper
cover on his following turn.
Opportunistic attack: If an enemy charges at a character armed with a gun or
spell, and that enemy knows he’s being charged at and there’s a distance of
more than 10 meter, the enemy can chose to attack the target once.
Likewise if a character is engaged in melee with an enemy and the enemy seeks
to disengage, the character can chose to react and attack once with a melee
weapon.
Bodyguard: A character can spend his reaction to jump in front of an ally or
civilian, this gives the recipient a grade 2 cover, however should the enemy
miss thanks to the cover, the damage is taken by the Bodyguard.
Several spells and abilities take up the reaction, prohibiting other use.
Armor piercing: AP 1 by passes 5 points of armor, AP 2 by passes 10 points and
AP three by passes 15 points.
A Shield provides 1 degree of cover, which doesn’t stack with anything, unless
specifically noted.

Cover is
done in degrees. There’s four degrees of cover, each representing how much this
cover protects your characters body. This is represented by a d4 dice, say
you’re cowering behind degree 3 cover and someone shoots at you. You roll the
d4, at 1, 2 or 3 the attack hits the cover. At 4 it would hit you. If a
character behind cover, leans out to shoot, his cover counts as one degree less
during the next turn as he’s had to expose himself. Say that the guy from the
first sample, leans out to shoot a stream of lightning at his enemy. His degree
3 cover would become degree 2 for the following turn.