On Character

Alright so I have the Houses down, now I just need one more thing before I can start testing out the combat systems... a character. For this Character I have decided to make the Lord of House Stif since it is a small hous with few retainers the Lord is going to take a large role in the upcoming adventures.

I have decided to name him Lord Turin Stif. I envision him as an incredibly bold and courageous leader. Always on the forefront swinging an axe with fury in his eyes. And with that idea lets dive in.

Step one, House and Lands. Easy enough, House Stif

Step two, Character Concept.

1. Age.
   This is actually a very important aspect of the character and unlike in other games where you always pick the adult age because you don't want any negatives and the benefits are never worth it to be anything other than a strapping man in his prime, age confers some important benefits, for one bonus experience, at the price of natural drawback(for example bad knees). While I could roll to determine Lord Turin's age I already have a concept in mind of a man at the end of his prime who has lost everything in this life and is desperately trying to regain something before his time is up so I choose 39- right in the middle aged category.
2. Status.
   Again I could randomly roll but I have already decided that I will have this be the Lord of the house and so He is required to have the highest status (a 6), while this will be nice in some situations I will have to use a lot of my starting xp to pay for that.
3. Role.
   This is your 'class' in ASIF, there are 5 roles. The Expert, The Leader, The Fighter, The Rogue and The Schemer. Each of these has key abilities that you should improve to stay within the concept, but other than that they are not restrictive. Nor do they confer any special bonuses, they are just a role... an idea to direct your character. You are not required to stay within the key abilities, in fact you can pick two roles and be a fighter/leader. No big deal, just that the more roles you try to have the weaker you will be in any one specific area. Alright, enough rambling as a Lord I want Turin to have the Leader role. So his Key abilities are Cunning, Endurance, Fighting, Persuasion, Status, and Warfare.
4. Background.
   This included goals, motivation, vices, and virtues. Since I already have alot of the background done through the house I pick power to be his goal, he is trying to regain the strength of his forefathers and prove himself as an Ironman to be feared. He is motivated by his hatred of the wealthy milk-drinkers, specifically House Durand who shamed him when they bedded his wife. He is a courageous man who sometimes gives into his wrath.

Step Three, Abilities.
As a middle aged man I have 240 xp to spend. Every ability starts at 2 and at middle aged the highest any one can start at is 6 (except status). Since I have to have Status 6 that is my first xp buy, raising status from 20 to 6 costs me 100 xp. Next I wand Turin to be a strong man so I raise athletics to 3 (10 xp). He is also a robust fighter, so I raise Fighting and Endurance to 4 (40 xp each). He is a great warleader (warfare 4 for 40xp) and an intimidating man (persuasion 3 for 10xp). All of his other abilities will be at 2.

Step Four, Specialties.
For every ability there are a number of specialties that give bonus die for specific situations. It costs 10xp per bonus die and you can never have more dice than attribute score. At middle aged Turin gets 100 xp for specialties. I chose Endurance( resistance 2B and Stamina 2B), Fighting(axes 3B), Persuasion(intimidate 1B), and Warfare(command 1B and strategy 1B).

Step Five, Destiny Points and Benefits. Destiny points are alot like fate points and can be used alter the course of events. In addition you can use destiny points to buy benefits. The older your character the fewer destiny points you get, as a middle aged man Turing gets 3. I spend 1 to gain the Blood of the Ironmen benefit which give me a +1 die to Fighting once per combat and gives me bonuses on the water. Leaving 2 destiny points for his harrowing adventures to come.

Step Six, Flaws and Drawbacks.
As you age you gain flaws or drawbacks. as a middle aged man Turin has to choose a flaw for either agility, athletics, or endurance. A flaw takes away a die from your dice pool for that given ability. For Turin I choose Agility, his knees are getting old. A drawback is sometimes an option, which is like a 'negative feat'.

Step Seven, Starting Possessions.
You make a status check, which means roll a number of d6 equal to your status rank. Turin is rank 6 so I roll 6d6 and got a 29. Turin starts with 29 gold dragons. This seemed kinda disapointing until I realized that almost everything is in the range of silver stags, of which 210 makes 1 dragon. I had around 4,000 stags. And you are required to spend half of it. So I bought a superior longaxe, chain mail a set of fareyes (telescope), a palfrey and some barding. after all that I still had 12 dragons left. It'll have to do for now.

Step Eight, Derived Stats.

1. Intrique.
   Your Intrigue Defense = Awareness + Cunning + Status. So Turins is 2+2+6 = 10.
   Your composure is 3 * Will. Turin's is 3*2 = 6.
   We will worry more about what these do when we get into some intrigue encounters.
2. Combat.
   Combat Defense = Agility + Athletics + Awareness + Defense Bonus(sheilds) - Armor Penalty. Turin's 2 + 3 + 2 + 0 - 3 = 4.
   Health 3 * Endurance, so 3*4 = 12.
   Armor Rating(AR) = 5 for mail.
   Damage for a Longaxe is Athletics +3 so 6 for Turin.

... and Lord Turin is done. A strong leader and warrior who is more at home drinking ale with his men or on the field of battle swing his longaxe than in the realms of courts and nobles.