Character Creation

Characters for Rogue State are created with the following guidelines:

## Race

All characters are human and begin play with one free Edge or one Attribute die increase.

## Traits

### Attributes

As standard, you have 5 points to spend raising your Attributes.

### Background

Select a Background. Backgrounds represent your character's training and experience before they went underground.

### Skills

As standard, you have 12 points to spend on Skills. See New Skills for information on skills added to the standard list for Rogue State.

### Contacts

Characters in Rogue State cultivate a list of contacts all over the world. You begin play with a number of contacts equal to 2 + your Persuasion die type, plus bonuses from certain Edges. These people can be anyone that might prove useful over the course of a campaign, eg. arms dealers, police, military officers, bartenders, private investigators, etc. See the Contacts page for some examples.

## Sanity

Sanity is a measure of an agent's mental well-being and resistance to the often terrible events around them. It is worn down by scenes of carnage, actions of enemy agents, or learning unsettling truths about the conspiracy. It is bolstered by triumphing over the conspiracy, rest and relaxation, or even counseling from psychiatrists.

Sanity starts at 2 plus half the agent's Spirit. If their Spirit increases or decreases permanently their Sanity increases or decreases as well. Sanity is never affected by temporary changes to Spirit.

### Losing Sanity

Any time an agent fails a Fear check, they lose one point of Sanity in addition to the usual effects. An agent who fails and rolls a 1 on their Spirit die loses two points of Sanity.

Agents with a Sanity of 2 or less are noticeably odd. People don't feel comfortable around them and they have a hard time fitting in. The player should pick a Minor Habit to play until the agent's Sanity is 3 or higher.

If an agent's Sanity drops to 0, they become genuinely deranged and may develop a Psychosis.

Sanity can't go below 0. If it would normally be lost, the agent rolls again on the Psychosis tale. If a duplicate result is rolled, the problem becomes worse. For example, an agent's superstition goes from carrying a rabbit's foot to having to frequently kill a fresh rabbit and harvest its feet themselves.

### Recovering Sanity

The following situations allow a victim a chance to recover Sanity. In any of these situations, an agent who has lost Sanity may make a Spirit roll. If they're successful, they regain a point of Sanity, or two with a raise.

* **Triumphing Over the Conspiracy:** The agent participated in a successful mission against the Conspiracy.
* **R&R:** A month of rest and relaxation - away from detrimental stimuli - allows an agent's mind to heal and cope with what they've seen. If the agent has access to a qualified psychiatrist, the Spirit roll is made at +2.
* **Safety and Solace:** An agent's Safety and Solace can help them recover Sanity. See below for details.

## Safety and Solace

Being a spy is hard on the psyche, and even the most hardboiled and jaded of espionage agents occasionally need to look outside of themselves for support.

### Safety

Your Safety is a location you would flee to without thinking: your parents' house in Colorado, your best friend's apartment in London, your old handler's cabin in the Rockies, the condo in Monaco you've bought under an assumed name. Simply knowing that such a place exists gives you hope that someday you'll claw your way out of the shadows and into the sun.

It's very poor tradecraft to *actually* flee to your place of Safety. Even if your enemies don't already have the place bugged and under constant surveillance, fleeing there would put your would-be refuge in danger.

If your place of Safety has an owner or caretaker, you can activate them as a free Contact, but you can only utilize the contact *once.*

At every Advance, if your Safety remains inviolate, you can make a Spirit roll to recover Sanity.

If your place of Safety ever turns you out, or its owner betrays you, you lose two points of Sanity. If your enemies ever destroy your place of Safety or its owner, you lose two points of Sanity.

### Solace

This is the person you reach out to for human contact, to make the stress of life in the shadows recede for a time, to make you feel almost normal: your girlfriend, an old Army buddy, or the bartender at your favorite pub. This cannot be another agent, as they go through the same difficulties you do and only serve as a reminder of that stress.

If you spend a few hours with your Solace - talking, playing video games, quiet companionship, sex, etc. - you can make a Spirit roll to recover Sanity.

If your Solace ever betrays or rejects you, you lose one point of Sanity. If your solace is ever killed, you lose two points of Sanity.

You can, if you wish, replace a lost Solace by spending an Advance. If your enemies killed your girlfriend (your previous Solace), you can meet another girl and find Solace in her arms, or find Solace confessing to a priest instead.

## Gear

You have $20,000 to spend on weapons and equipment.

## Experience

Characters in Rogue State begin play at Seasoned rank (20 XP). Advances are spent as normal.