Artesia: Adventures in the Known World by Doc Hawkins

Character Creation

posted by Doc Hawkins Original SA post

Alright, we're doing this.



Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, is a game that was written by Mark Smylie, the same guy who writes the Artesia comics, starring Artesia, pictured above. The comics are pretty good, if you're cool with a warrior-lady liberated enough to fuck three dudes at once in order to sate the appetites of ghosts she has bound to her body, and fight with a sword in each hand, magic in her throat and eyes and face, and armor that leaves her thighs bare (but only in the first volume).

And much the same can be said of the game, because it is clearly an attempt to codify the physics of the (engrossing and brilliantly designed) world of Artesia into a (terrifying and baroque) version of the Fuzion System. Yes, it turns out that Smylie was a huge fan of Mekton Zeta, and so we have it to thank for this incredibad game. He practically wrote a love-letter to it in his dedication.

It is said that, in order to create an Artesia character, you must first create the Artesia universe. So rather than go through the book starting at page 1, I'm going to walk through making characters in it, and stopping to explain everything that comes up as I go.

Stated briefly, the reason that I want to do this is that I find making Artesia:AKW characters to be a much more playable game than Artesia:AKW. Because I have boners for charts.

=== Our Adventure Begins to Begin ===

We start by rolling (or choosing*) which culture our character was raised in .



* (Unless I otherwise specify, assume that the book explicitly lets you choose from these many tables rather than roll on them, and that I roll whenever I can, because that's metal.)

The core rules only cover the part of the world known in the comics as the Middle Kingdoms*. You can see that this table is appropriately sized according to demographics: smaller kingdoms are rarer results for PCs, because fewer people come from them!

* (At one time there were plans for supplements for Illia and the lands of the Sun Throne, and Thessid-Gola with its Emperor locked in a dream that has lasted centuries, and the heretical bronze-workers, mercenaries and college students (!) of Palatia, but many years have passed without word, and it all seems highly unlikely now. )

We get the not-uncommon result of "Middle Kingdoms: Danian" Danians are the inhabitants of the fields and forests of Erid Dania and Dain Dania in the west, and the hills and badlands of Umis and Umat in the east. They're seen as pretty chill dudes, not as wild & crazy as the Daradjans, or as formal as the Aurians. They're also more open to women and outsiders than the Aurians, which is lucky for us, as you'll see.

=== Things Get Unusual ===

Now, we roll a single d10. A result of 10 means that we get to roll on the "Unusual Family Situation" table. This roll is apparently not optional, and in this case I find that the character does come from an odd family.


All kinds of strange crap here. Our character got a relatively lucky 9: their parents (I actually have to roll to see which parent it applies to, but it's both in this case) fled to a Danian kingdom from another region or culture, and live wherever they do "either secretly or under the protection of the local ruler."

As for figuring out where they were from before that, there's no specific advice given on what to do for this result, but based on similar advice for being raised by people other than your parents, I'm going to rule that we should make another culture roll to see where the parents escaped from, and use that culture for their ancestry tables, but the culture in which our character was raised for their current social class and occupations.

I do this, and find that the character is Daradjan by birth. The Highlands of Daradja are to the north of the Middle Kingdoms proper, behind and within the mountains of the Harath Éduins. It was "once a great Queendom in the distant past of the Golden Age and now a collection of waring Citadels, petty Kings and tyrants, brigand chieftains, ancient Highland clans, and even pirate holds along its rough northern coastline."

This is interesting, because Daradja is usually the kind of place that people escape to , rather than from. On the other hand, it is rife with feuds and petty wars; maybe their parents backed the wrong horse?

You know what? I'm tired of calling the character "they" or "the character." This is a convenient time to make use of the name-lists each culture comes with. Because I am nutty, I decide to flip a coin to decide the character's gender, and I get female. I decide she's named Erce . Then, after briefly making sure that they didn't have an unusual family situation themselves, and thus really truly did come from Daradja (probably), I decide that her parents are named Vaslav and Leda .

=== Universal PUA Theory ===

For now, I'm going to leave that Enemy and Ally unnamed, but I do want to explain that they aren't just flavor-text, but words with mechanical weight. Everyone Erce will ever meet or know will of necessity fall into one of the 13 Relationship Categories.



A breakdown of what the columns mean:

• The category modifier increases the difficulty of Social rolls to make someone you're interacting with take on that relation to you. (PS: Follower and Worshipper are special, and can't show up in character creation, but more on them later)
  
• The resistance modifier is the bonus or penalty someone in that category gets on their roll to resist your attempt to influence them, get information or aid out of them (requests to actually do something, rather than just tell you something, also get a flat -2 penalty). Getting someone to change category counts as trying to influence them.
  
• The loyalty modifier is the bonus or penalty they get when resisting a third party's attempts to get them to betray your character somehow. They also add your character's Leadership skill to such rolls.
  
• The faux-pas result is what happens if you roll a critical failure while trying to influence that person. There are actually a bunch of specific
  
• The tragedy DR is the difficulty of the WILL test you have to do when something terrible happens to a person in that category to avoid gaining a Grief binding of level indicated by the last column. (EMP is a stat, we'll get to it eventually.
  

A brief word on Bindings: they're just a negative conditions, whether magical, physical, emotional, or whatever. They usually reduce the effective level of a few stats in specific circumstances. I'll detail what individual ones do as they actually apply to the character.

=== Home Sweet Brigandry ===

Enough talk! Now we roll to see where in the Danian kingdoms Erce was born , and by extension, where Vaslav and Leda escaped to.



A roll of 3 indicates "a fortified village or town with a port on the Umati coastline, and the frequent target of pirate raids." Not the most prestigious of locations, but it seems like a good place to lay low, (and it's even just to the east of Daradja, conveniently enough) but as a small town in the rough-and-tumble coast of Umat, it gives us a penalty on the following roll to determine the character's social level , and so it's no huge surprise when we get the lowest possible result: a 1.

Social level is actually a pretty big deal. Whenever you roll against a someone of a higher SL, you get a penalty equal to the difference, and when you roll against someone lower, you get a bonus equal to the difference. This means that in effect, the higher SL person gets a bonus equal to double the difference . SL goes as high as 14. In short, Erce should beware of messing with nobles (SL 9+) unless she has a very clever plan.

(I'll note here that while one table of general skill penalties and bonuses indicates exactly what I say above, a later section talks about this as if it were only a rule for social rolls. But either way, Princes are Serious Business.)

It's significant that this bonus is based on perception, rather than on innate relative merit: you can raise or lower your effective SL by disguising yourself with appropriate clothing and manner, and your SL goes down if you're outside of your home culture. You can also permanently raise your SL by being given a job above your class, and sticking with it over time (people have to accept that you aren't just a trumped-up pretender). Of course, it can drop the same way. Unless, of course, you're in Erce's family, and you've got nowhere to go but up!

To get back to Erce, a social level of 1 means her family's social class is Outlaw! There are five different social classes in each culture, mostly corresponding to each other. Each class has an interlinked table of occupations that we roll to see what Erce's parents do, and what society will readily permit Erce to do. More on that later, but for now, you can see what I mean:



We roll to see what Occupations her parents have , and it happens that It happens that Leda is a Hermit, and Vaslav is a Bandit. It's seeming more and more likely that they are refugees and criminals living on the fringes of society, rather than guests of a local ruler. Maybe they couldn't assimilate, or maybe they refused to.

By the way, you may note that some of the occupations are listed in bold. That indicates that they are traditionally open to ladies. It's not like these filthy outlaws are really in a position to stand on ceremony, but if you felt that a roll was inappropriate for your character based on their gender, you are allowed to re-roll.

Alright, I'm too curious, I need to know who they were before they came to Umat. I roll a random location in Daradja, and get "Independent Citadel." This a castle or tower-fort that doesn't pay tribute to any of the four "Great Citadels." There's actually only two of them; I'll say that the family's from Kir Doss. Being from a prosperous fort-town gives them a bonus to their former social level roll, and leading to them having been Freemen. Leda was once a Priestess of the Mystery Cult of Hathalla, and Vaslav was a farmer.

Who's Hathalla, you ask? The Devouring Fire of the Sun, worshipped as a lion-headed goddess of grief, battle and vengeance, the Sun’s righteous strength. At Yhera’s behest she imprisoned her half-brother Irré in the Underworld after he cast down her other half-brother Illiki Helios. She ruled the Heavens as the Sun’s Veil during the Winter Century. She's also the architect and ruler of all six hells (although Geniché, who is also Yhera, is ruler of the Underworld as a whole). Which is interesting, but since rules for the cult are not detailed in this or any book, all that we really know is that Leda has seen some serious shit.

=== There's a Stat for That ===

The next step is to find out what bloodlines Erce has inherited from her parents . These are the first things to affect her stats, so lets talk about those.

All Artesia characters have 15 (!) basic characteristics, that begin at 5 before being affected by other rolls. These measure and add up to the character's Body, Mind and Spirit score. Those act like three different kinds of hitpoints. You fall unconscious if any of them reach zero, and you die if any of them get much lower than that (in the case of Spirit, it can also leave your body open to possession). In addition, your Body plus your Athletics skill also gives you your movement rate (yes, being hot makes you faster), and all three pools, especially Spirit, are spent to use different spells, gifts, and other fancy magics we'll get to in a second.

Body is the sum of your Appearance (APP), Strength (STR), Stamina (STAM), Dexterity (DEX) and Technique (TECH) (before you ask, it's for fine manipulation and tool-use, whereas DEX is more gracefulness and agility).

Mind is the sum of Perception (PER), Willpower (WILL), Memory (MEM), Imagination (IMAG) and Reason (REAS).

Spirit is the sum of Presence (PRE), Conviction (CONV), Courage (COUR), Empathy (EMP), Wisdom (WIS).

You "test" these attributes by adding them to a d10 roll, and comparing that to a DR, or an opposing roll from someone trying to stop you, or out-do you, or whatever.

After rolling a bunch on a bunch of tables I won't share here, I find that from Leda, Erce received the Daradjan Common Lineage, for +1 STR and PER, and -1 WILL. Vaslav gave her the Aurian Common lineage, which gives +1 STR and STAM, -1 EMP, and a Cursed at Sea Binding 2.

That binding is as it sounds: everyone of Aurian descent gets a penalty of -2 to all rolls when at sea, unless they can become purified at some point in their lives.

Why is that? Well, way back when, Aurians were viking-like dudes that claimed to be descended from Heth, God of the Sea (do not interpret my use of "claimed" to mean that they are not), but when they migrated to the Middle Kingdoms and started reaving their way across the land, the charred corpses of the Athairi Spring Queens that floated down the rivers angered Heth, and now Aurians are all known to be unlucky on open water. Guess we know why Vaslav's a bandit and not a pirate, despite living near the water!

=== Birthday Presents ===

So, no great kings, queens, gods or heroes in Erce's ancestry in the recent past, but she seems hearty enough. Lets move on to rolling what star-sign she was born under, and to what degree it influences her.



We get the sign of the Sun Bull! This is as as it sounds. The Sun Bull is generally associated with Illiki Helios, in ways complicated enough to be worthy of an actual religion, though Aurians also associate it with an ancester-god named Hekor "who is no longer worshipped today" (but he is mentioned in RPG books today, for some reason). The sign of the Sun Bull is dominant between 4/21 and 5/21 in the Imperial calendar, or 5/2-6/4 in the Düréan Lunar calendar (yes it specifies all this (in tables)).

Perhaps unfortunately, a follow-up roll indicates that this only influenced Erce mildly, given her +1 STR and -1 REAS. Still, she's turning into quite the brute!

Next we find what omens were observed on the day of her birth . There are actually two ways we can roll this.



Haha, "more ~*realistic odds*~".

Despite using the Heroic odds, just like I always do, we still get the most common result: No Omens.

=== Family Matters ===

Now, not unlike in good-ol' Mekton Zeta, we roll to see how many siblings Erce has, what place of birth she has (you absolutely have to roll that, since being first-born is advantageous), and what gender her siblings are (again, you have to roll this, no choosing allowed).

When the dice settle, Erce has three siblings: one older sister, Dahlia, one younger sister, Iolande, and one younger brother, Jon.

Now, for some real madness: for every family member, we roll to see what relationship category they fall into .



Above this table, it says that "Sympathetic Guides may wish to give parents a bonus or +2 or so on their roll for Family Attitude, if they are uncomfortable with the notion of a parental Enemy or Rival." lol irl if you think we're doing that.

First, we roll for Leda and - serves me right - get Family Enemy! What?! Why the fuck would…"If you want to know why, you can roll on the Why Oh Why Table."

Yes, that's really its name.



In the case of Leda and Erce, this enmity seems to come from one of them having made a false accusation against the other. Wow. That's something. I'm not sure who accused who of what. Leda, as the crazy old cult lady living on the edge of society, seems like the person more likely to be productively accused of a crime (like witchcraft, for example, which is totally different from worshipping strange gods, in ways I'll eventually get to). But maybe she falsely accused Erce of something in front of her family? I'll just let that stew for a bit. If Erce ends up the wronged party, I'll talk about what the Fury binding does, because it's awesome, but complicated.

Just for fun, I decide to also roll here to see what motivates the enemy that drove us from Daradja, and I get a 10, discovering that…we don't know. This seeming capriciousness gives us the option of taking a Hate 1 Binding towards our mysterious persecutors, or just be bemused and confused. I haven't decided how much Erce hates the people that drove her from the home she barely knew (or didn't know at all) to live in such desperate circumstances, so I'll also leave that aside for now.

Getting back to the family, Vaslav, at least, is an Ally of Erce's, like you'd expect from a parent, as is Iolande, but Dahlia and Jon are just "Compatriots." A riven family!

A small note: the "Family" prefacing the results in the relations table actually makes one tiny mechanical difference: the Tragedy DR is +2 for your family members.

=== The Hatred and Fury of Youth ===

Now, we roll a single d10 to see what the central and pivotal event of Erce's childhood was . A 1-4 means roll on the Ill Fortune Table, a 5-8 means a roll on the Good Fortune Table, and a 9-10 ins roll once on each. You can't choose which table to roll on, although you can explicitly choose to have an uneventful childhood, and not take anything from these tables, but that would be terrible and boring.

The die comes up 3, so Erce's young life is defined by misfortune.



And from this table, we get Maltreatment!

Well, it's beginning to get slightly less murky. For some reason, Leda was not kind to Erce as a child, and in return, Erce probably accused her of witchcraft, or maybe sacrificing an innocent lost child to the famed bloodthirst of the lionesses of Hathhalla. Or else I'm wrong, and whatever caused the maltreatment also caused Leda to accuse Erce of something?

Either way, the Fury at Leda binding means that whenever Leda is present, or mentioned, or even if mistreatment of a child by their parent in general is brought up, Erce must make a WILL test against 9 (8 + Binding level), or receive a -1 to REAS, WIS and EMP. As a silver lining, though, she can also choose to fall into a "Berserkir Ekstasis", getting +1 (the binding level) to STR- or COUR-based Tests and to any Hand-to-Hand or Melee Skill Tests during combat.

Important note: other effects can give you bindings through the course of play, and by my reading, any Fury bindings getting triggered means they all trigger together, stacking into an immense rage. So sufficiently angry characters seem pretty dangerous!

The Hate Leda binding is slightly simpler: only if Leda is present or mentioned will another WILL test against 9 be needed, lest Erce take another -1 to REAS, WIS, EMP, and also PER.

And that together is Erce's childhood described in detail! The next step would be to begin working through her "Previous Experience," where we find out what kind of life she's led after becoming an adult at 16, but before reaching the default starting character age of 21. But rather than go forward with that, I'm going to give us a few more options.

=== Shit Gets Downright Fractal ===

Consider Erce's siblings: we already know what their lineage and family situation is. To figure out their base stats, all we need to find out is their birth sign, their omens, and their defining childhood moments.

Oh, and we should know their age, so we can do their Previous Experience phase as well. Luckily, the game comes with a few options for randomly generating ages, so after a few tries, I get a good range for all of them.

Oh, one more tiny thing, I almost forgot: we know what everyone in the family thinks of Erce, but what relationship categories do they fall into with each other ??!

=== Responsible Elder ===

Dahlia was born under the sign of the Maiden, with a mild influence, with no significant omens. The Maiden

Oblivious or not, she got a childhood good fortune roll.



According to the dice, she caught the eye of a patron of the next higher social class, and is allowed to start with any Occupation in that class. It's a small but real step up: as long as she stays in that occupation for one year of Previous Experience, her SL will increase to 2. But what should she be? Perhaps a House Servant, or maybe a Farmer, as her father once was? Or perhaps she should put her above-average physique to work as a Mercenary or Vassal Warrior?

Dahlia is beloved of both her mother and father. Perhaps she's seen as the dependable one, or the favorite? She's not Iolande's favorite, as it turns out, possibly because of the coolness she shows Erce, but really, she's more polite than she should be, since Erce sees them as rivals! Perhaps she thinks banditry and force of arms is enough to feed a family of six? Jon, on the other hand, is completely devoted to his eldest sister. No doubt she helped raise him into the upstanding young man that…oh, right, hold on, I'll get to that right now.

=== Brilliant Scion ===

Jon was born under the sign of the Star Child with a mild influence.

At long last, we get a birth omen…and it's a bad one!



The dice say that Jon's birth was witnessed by a vulture. Awesome and terrifying!

But as if to counter that, he gets the good - nay, the glorious - childhood event of being somehow chosen to assist the priests of a local temple. This means he gets 3 bonus TP in Cult Lore of the Divine King, an extra point of CONV, and most incredibly of all, can take Priest as his starting Occupation! Look back to that Occupations table: Priests are of the fourth social class, "Lettered." If he can remain a priest and prove his worth to everyone, his SL could go as high as 7, without him even doing anything! This family's going up, up, up in the world!

Vaslav is doubtless quite happy and proud of his son's success, but it seems Leda's response has been a bit more muted. Perhaps she saw (finally!) producing a son as a chore, a favor for her husband. Perhaps it is Jon's integration into the cult of the Divine King Islik that gives her pause, as a follower of the old religion. He and Dahlia are practically inseparable, and it's no wonder, considering how they've worked together to achieve this incredible family success. Erce, the brute of the family (you'll recall he's only "compatriot" to her), is still fond of him, but perhaps still sees him as a child, but Iolande is always quick to defend him in such matters.

I totally saved the best for last.

=== Troubled Beauty ===

Iolande was born under the Maiden, like her eldest sister. But unlike her sister, or any of her siblings, she actually had a good omen at her birth.



Specifically, a Morning Star! Looks like she's getting set to be quite the heartbreaker!

Then, for formative childhood events, I rolled both a good thing and a bad thing. First, I rolled Dreamer, which means she was "a precocious, creative, and inquisitive child." Dawwww

Second, Prying Eyes: "You saw something you shouldn’t have, lose a point of COUR, and gain a Shame 1 Binding." Uhhh...

I don't really know what to say to that.

If she fails her Will roll to resist, the Shame Binding reduces Iolande's WILL, COUR and Social Level whenever she's in the presence of someone who knows the source of her shame. So she's safe with us!

As far as relationships, Vaslav has proven himself to refuse to take sides in the arguments within his house, and love all his children equally, and Erce is equally protective of her younger sister, but Dahlia and Iolande don't see eye to eye on many practical matters, and for some reason , her mother and younger brother are constantly jousting and sniping at her, despite her being nothing but kind to them. What are they so bothered by?! No wait, don't answer that!

=== The End...? (No) ===

Okay, now we have not one character, but a whole freaking stable of them (and trust me, we haven't even gotten started yet). Here they are, from oldest to youngest.





Alright, like I said, all this is really just the set-up. Next comes Previous Experience, where the kids choose an occupation, and earn money, and spend at least three different kinds of experience points, and encounter of all kinds of crazy events that ~could change everything~!

Normally, they could either choose to make a DR 12 PRE test to take an Occupation in their social class (or a lower one, but that is sadly impossible in their case), or they could go into either of their parents' occupations (Hermit and Bandit, remember) without a roll. Or, if they're Dahlia, they get to choose from a higher level without rolling, or, if they're Jon, the decision is pretty much made for them.

Also normally, we would choose one character, work through all of their previous experience, then move onto another one, maybe, if we felt like it.

But I don't prefer that. Instead, I prefer to map them out in parallel . So we shall start with Dahlia, who turned 16 in year 1463 of the imperial calendar (the book kindly specifies that the game always begins in i1471, just like the Artesia comic does), and then she'll be joined by Erce in 1466, and they'll be joined by Iolande in 1469, and then finally Jon will become a priest in 1470 and only get a single year of previous experience, the lucky bastard!

But before I can start this ridiculous over-complication of an already over-complicated system, I need your help. I need your input. I need to know what Serf occupation should Dahlia take?

I'll give more weight to posts that also offer an answer to at least one of the bonus questions I'd like input on:

• As far as the family knows, who is the enemy that drove them out of Daradja?
  
• Related question: which - if any - of the children hate that enemy?
  
• Who welcomed the family into Umat?
  
• Erce and Leda: Who accused who of what?
  
• Possibly related question: what the hell did Iolande see?!