For my last post, I began the process of creating some characters for the new Classic Fantasy supplement for Mythras. My aim is to run some solo games and see how well the system emulates Old School fantasy roleplaying.
Say hello to Itomas Lightfoot and Sven Thorensson. These two have seen the bounty notice for the renegade wizard called Bargle and have set out to Castle Mistamere to apprehend him.
Creating Sven Thorensson
I decided to create Sven as a Human Cleric, as mentioned in my last post. The first thing to do was roll his characteristics:
- Strength (3d6) at 16
- Constitution (3d6) at 15
- Size (2d6+6) at 12
- Dexterity (3d6) at 14
- Intelligence (2d6+6) at 15
- Power (3d6) at 11
- Charisma (3d6) at 11
As a Cleric will need a boosted Power, I decided to swap his Constitution and Power (as per my house rule) – so now he has Power 15 and Constitution 11. From there I was able to calculate the derived attributes, such as Action Points, Hit Points, and Initiative. He turned out to be 5′ 8″ tall, 170lbs, and 17 years of age.
Having calculated the base values for the Standard Skills, I was ready to choose some Professional Skills from Sven’s “civilised” culture. Unlike the demi-humans, you can choose from any of four Human cultures – barbarian, civilised, nomadic, or primitive. I selected Courtesy, Lore (Theology), and Streetwise and boosted his skills as follows:
- Influence +15%
- Insight +15%
- Willpower +15%
- Courtesy +15%
- Locale +10%
- Streetwise +15%
- Lore (Theology) +15%
For Passions, Sven begins with a Good Moral Philosophy featuring the Reliable and Trustworthy traits. He is Loyal to the town of Wolfsbane Hollow and has a brotherly Love for Itomas.
Class = Cleric
Firstly, Sven takes the Clerical Oath as an additional Passion. To keep things simple, I chose to make him a Cleric of the Pantheon rather than choose to specialise him to one specific deity – this is referred to in the game as choosing Pantheism over Monotheism.
Sven has to take the Channel and Piety (Pantheon) skills and I added the Healing skill too. Spending his 100 skill points went as follows:
- +15% to Piety (Pantheon)
- +15% to Channel
- +15% to Healing
- +15% to Combat Style (Cleric)
- +15% to Influence
- +15% to Willpower
- +10% to Insight
As a hobby I gave Sven the language of Dwarven – as he’s a friend to Itomas – and then spread the final 100 skill points (max +10% per skill) across a range of skills.
One really cool bonus was discovering that because Sven has reached 50%+ in the five Clerical Order skills, he qualifies as Rank 1. This nets him a bonus Luck Point and access to Rank 1 spells.
Choosing Divine Spells
In short, Sven gets to choose a number of spells known equal to 1/10 of his Piety (51%), giving him 6 spells (as you always round up). He can memorize INT/4 of these spells, which is 4 for Sven.
I chose the following Rank 1 spells:
- Cure Fatigue
- Cure Minor Wounds
- Light
- Protection from Evil
- Find Traps
- Command
Gearing Up & Rounding Out
As with Itomas, the class gives me some useful basic kit and some spending money. This gives Sven a full suit of Scale armour, a 1-handed Warhammer, a Shield, and 25 silver coins. Keeping it simple, I just bought him a backpack, waterskin, and a bedroll.
With the pair of characters ready to go, next step will be to enter Castle Mistamere.
Game on!
I am really interested to see Classic Fantasy in action. I am so tempted by it, but I’m not sure I need yet another flavour of D&D.
It really is worth the cost and time. It runs so very well and with so many options. My players, we where part of the playtest, loved it. It gave them what they liked about D&D but with better mechanics. You will find the story of the playtest games on my site.