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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mtdesing" data-source="post: 5539654" data-attributes="member: 80043">Judah has been my signature character for a long time; he’s a primary character (although not the protagonist) of a novel I’ve been working on for years, and his story serves as a central thread for everything that holds my visions of Del Anon together. Here are a few things about him:     ¨     He was a knight in the service of the Cavarian Empire. He was a knight of competent if unremarkable service.  ¨     He served among the Gryphon Riders of the North Company. These riders were integral in several border skirmishes among challenging northern mountain ranges, and their company formed a central part of the force that ultimately invaded Valhalla.  ¨     In the months leading up to the Great Reckoning, he sided with Heldack the Mighty in the sage’s disavowal of Cavarian actions, and was among a small number of knights who forfeited their title rather than engage in this quest. While most knights disappeared into relative anonymity (and many hide among the common people of Del Anon, having severed all ties to Cavaria and their role in its rise to power), Judah makes no particular secret of his former membership in the order.  ¨     He made a tremendous sacrifice to protect the realm in the days after the Reckoning; Heldack took great pains to ensure the survival of mankind after the Reckoning, and made Judah a key player in this effort. (If I say any more than this, I’ll ruin the novel for you when it eventually comes out!)     I’ve wanted to play test using this character, but then I didn’t want to necessarily play test with him and develop ‘story’ for him that went against the story I already have in place.     However, I was thinking that he’s got a ‘lost years’ section of his life- after his time as a knight (and the service he performs for Heldack) and before he appears in the novel I’m writing. I allude to the earlier years in flashback, but I don’t spend any time developing what he was doing in the interim. That becomes a great hook for me – of course, the only drawback is that I know that he cannot die in my play testing, since that might screw up his future. Ah well. I have to accept the fact that my play test character can’t die, and I’ll need to find creative ways out of corners I back myself into should he meet his unfortunate demise by random die roll.     A few guidelines:  ¨     He’s going to start at 30 CPs. This makes him a very capable solo starting character; he can take on threats that would normally be aimed at a fellowship of four ‘level 1’ heroes and have a decent chance of success. Since he was a knight, this is pretty low for the stats he would have had. However, knowing his story, I can justify that the things he has experienced (in service to Heldack) have left him considerably weakened. He’s lost a number of the abilities he had previously. At his prime, Judah was probably in the neighborhood of 70 CPs, and by the time we meet him in the novel I’m working on, he’s almost back to that form, in the neighborhood of 60 CPs. Maybe at some point I’ll stat him up in all of his incarnations, but for right now, we’ll go with Judah at the very start of his ‘lost years’ stage.  ¨     As a ‘starting hero’, he gets only 1 weapon and protection set at his ability ratings; he has nothing special. He still starts with D6 gold. That seems a bit slight for a higher-level hero, and I’ll re-consider this for the core rules as I go. For right now, I like it; every new hero has impetus to go out and start adventuring. If you’re sitting on a big pile of gold, you really don’t have much incentive to put your life at risk if you haven’t already been doing it.  ¨     Judah’s purpose is to protect the downtrodden. He’s got some time to kill - the plot of the novel isn’t ready for him yet, and he knows it; he’s in a new world post Reckoning that’s in shambles; he feels great responsibility to do what he can to help the little people who were most affected by his failures as a knight. It’s all good.     Judah Marakev, Chosen Human Fighter (30 CPs); soak +4 phys/+1 magic; sword (att +4/dmg +8)  Arms +4 (armor +4/melee +5/missile +3); Aspect +1; Evade +2; Intuition +3 (Nature); Might +4; Resolve +3; Weapon Specialist (swords) +3  Reinforced studded armor +4; quality bastard sword +5; cloak of warding +1</blockquote>

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