Sherwood Character Creation

Sherwood - Making a Character

I've already done a walk-through of character creation, so now I'm going to give you a sample.

A Name & A Home

Sherwood is set in Medieval England, and like the early Robin Hood legends, doesn't take place at a fixed point in Medieval history. Much like both Robin Hood stories of the past 200 years and actual Medieval England, it invites characters from across the known world.

I'm going to go with a Breton character. We'll find out more about them later. First I'll take a look at Fantasy Name Generator's list of Breton names and nab Ewann (he/him).

Attributes

When you start character creation, you roll 4 stats with 2d6 straight down, getting Endurance 3, Luck 9, Willpower 6, and Wits 6.

The dice aren't kind! I'm going to reroll that Endurance score (I get one free reroll and can ignore the unlikely event that it rolls below that 3). So now it's:

  • Endurance 9
  • Luck 9
  • Willpower 6
  • Wits 6

Background Abilities

There's a few options I can go for, including a d6 boost to one of those Attributes or deciding that Ewann is a Breton aristocrat, but I want to keep him a commoner, I think, and want to dabble with Arcane Talents, so I'm going to choose two:

  • Jack of All Trades: Ewann doesn't roll at disadvantage when he doesn't have a relevant Skill.
  • Arcane Talent: Ewann has a gift for either True Sight, Illusions, Pyromancy, or Necromancy. I'll go with Necromancy for now, but may shift it (in a much later post when we dig into the Arcane Talents).

First Career

Ewann was a commoner's kid and grew up wanting to become an entertainer. But since he didn't get the Perform skill during character creation, he had to roll to see if he could make it. It required a roll of 8 on a 2d6, and he got a 7. This close, but disappointments are what interesting lives are made of. Frustrated in his first choice and unwilling to go home, Ewann tries to become a member of the Trader's Guild instead. It also requires a roll of 8 on 2d6. This time, he gets a 9.

He immediately learns either the sailing or cart driving skills. I'm not sure he's a sailor, so Cart Driving it is. He rolls for his skills and comes out with Intimidate and Etiquette and then ages 2 years. He then ages 4 years and picks up both Etiquette and Cart Driving again. Then 3 more years and gets Cart Driving and Melee. So at the end of his 9-year career (he could keep going, but at 27, I think he's ready for adventure), he's got Intimidation 1, Cart Driving 3, Etiquette 2, and Melee 1.

Trouble

Now we need to find out what happened to drive him into Sherwood. I go to the Trouble table and get a 7: Property Forfeit. I'm not sure what happened yet, but it looks like his business and goods were seized. I'm not sure yet what kind of goods he specialized in or why he got into debt, but that's what finally drove him to go in search of England's Midlands outlaws. We'll say he owes the money to Philip de Pavely (He/Him), a Midlands trader on the book's list of sample troubles. Philip doesn't do his own dirty work, though: the table also suggests that Philip has an "agent" who does the dirty work. We'll call the agent Margaret. In addition, Ewann's troubles also meant he had to learn to survive on his own, cut off from the wider world, so he's now got Athletics 1 in addition to the skills he got above.

The Outlaw Band

Once I've got this, I'd wait for the other players to get at least this far and we'd create a band, jointly roll our Resources and Legend, and figure out what equipment we carried.

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