Fate Core: Magi pt 8

http://hideyoshi.deviantart.com/art/The-Morrigan-145615010

Today I am going to try something a little bit different from my normal design. i am going to go through character creation and make a couple of characters. I would like to see how easy(hopefully) or hard(hopefully not) it is to conceptualize a new character. Through out the examples I will also be introducing some new(ish) mechanics for the game; don't let that throw you.

Throughout this post I will be following two of my friends, Chuck and Adrienne, as they create characters for my game. Chuck is a hard hitting, in your face action maniac. Adrienne is very into swashbuckling adventure, along the lines of Captain Blood. Before we even sit down to play I know that this game will have lots of high flying action and a distinct lack of patience. It is good to know your game group.

Step 1
Name: Names have power. They are you, in as much as anything is. If one were to know your true name, they would have power over you. Your name is not an aspect in itself, but it provides good conflict, or an aspect you can build to get one up on another Magus.
Belief: What do you believe about the world around you? How do you think it should behave? How do you see yourself? What is the thing that drives you to act? This is the trickiest aspect to get down, but if you nail this one then all the dominoes will fall neatly in place.

Style: How do you change the world? what is your system of magic? do you do rituals? Speak the names of dead gods? Take loads of drugs and become part of a larger universe? Do you know an ancient martial art? Are you a super hero? A god? a dragon? A Jedi? This aspect will be central to how you interact with the world. It dictates when you are in tune with the universe and when you are disassociated with it. It will inform how you do your magic

Adrienne decides she wishes to play a forgotten goddess from many cycles before. She thinks that a good belief would be that technology poisons the world. She think that this fits as without technology men will once again worship the old gods. she chooses the aspect Fire Must Be Returned To The Gods. She then moves on to her style. Adrienne sees the goddess as very driven, perhaps a battle goddess. She sees the style as involving meditation and seeing the future. She chooses the aspect Actualized Temporal Wrath. She then chooses a name, she goes with Morrigan after a Celtic goddess.

Chuck thinks it over and he decides that he wants to play a more traditional wizard. He looks through Wikipedia and finds that there were a lot of different kinds of magic users in history as well as fiction. He centers in on true names and thinks that sounds really cool, as does mystical equations. He thinks about the kind of person who uses those powers. He just watched The Mummy and like the character of Imhotep, so he decides that is his character's name. For his belief he goes with I Will Break The Bonds Of Life And Death. For his style Chuck chooses the aspect Numerals And Nomenclature. 
Step 2
Love: What do you care about? Who do you love? What could you not bear to lose? What did you lose that you NEED to get back? This aspect is on your mind. This is your Lois Lane, your Holy Grail, your object of worship.
Failing: How have you failed in your life? What is your worst tendency? Your weakness? This works like your trouble in standard Fate Core. Magi have great power that stem from their passions and beliefs, this leads to greater failings.
Cohort: Look to the players around the table. Their characters are all part of your cohort. You all seek to change the world together. What drew you together? What can the other members do for you? What do they need you to do? Do you all get along? Who do you dislike? Why do you have to work with them? This aspect can be about the group as a whole, or about the time you came together, or even about a specific member of  the group talk it over together and see what you can come up with.

Adrienne thinks about what Morrigan loves. What could she not stand to lose? Adrienne decides that Morrigan has a child that she is going to raise to be her vengeance on the world. She chooses the aspect My Son My Vengeance. Her failing comes easily enough from that, it is her pride, her hubris. She is a goddess after all. Adrienne goes with the aspect Fallen Pride to represent her status as a forgotten goddess and her pride in her station still. After talking it over with Chuck they come to the conclusion that both of their characters are remnants of bygone cycles using ancient magics. Adrienne tells a story of How Morrigan was being hunted by a nasty Jinn and its Fire Hounds and Imhotep helped her. She writes the aspect Debt Owed Through Blood And Fire.

Chuck knows exactly what he wants for his Love. Imhotep's wife died. that was bad, but then in the new cycle she was erased from reality. That was worse. He chooses the aspect I Will Get Her Back. He then must come up with Imhotep's failing. Chuck's firs instinct is to make that about his wife as well, but then he thinks of the kind of situations he wants to get into, and he goes with a tendency to rush to judgement and alack of patience. He takes the aspect Rush To Judgement. After talking it over with Adrienne and hearing her story of how they met, he decides to go off of that. He sees Imhotep as using Morrigan to help him getting what he wants. He writes down Morrigan Can Help Me as his aspect.

Step 3
Skill ladder: There are seven(7) skills in Magi: Elan Vital, Matter, Forces, Spirit, Affinity, Psyche, and Tempus. Elan Vital is the skill that deals with living things, creating them, harming them, healing them, and in all ways affecting living things. Matter is the same but with inorganic material. Forces controls things like fire, electricity, light, and other 'forces.' Spirit deals with things that are not of this world. It is the main skill for dealing with The Other, as well as summoning and binding the representation of an idea(a spirit or genius). Affinity deals with the connections between things, people, locations, or ideas. Psyche deals with the mind, and time deals with, well time.

When creating a character pick three skills, one at +3(Good), one at +2(Fair), and one at +1(Average). the remainder of the skills are rated at +0(Mediocre). These can be increased during a milestone like normal(just ignore the rules on having skills in a pyramid or column. Any skill can have any rating.

Adrienne looks over the skills and sees a couple that stand out. She will definitely need Life as a war goddess she will need to be able to hurt living things. She also needs time as Morrigan can see the future and Psyche seems to fit. She her final skill selection is Time +3, Life +2, and Psyche +1.

Chuck is nearly as quick. Going over it he focuses on Forces, he wants to shoot lighting and such. Life is also a good one for him as he wants to affect others. He hems and haws over the last one for a while then remembers that he wants to deal with death and life, so he takes Spirit, to control the boundary of life and death. His final skill ladder is Spirit +3, Forces +2, and Life +1.

Step 4
Skill aspects: You get three skill aspects. these are different than other aspects in a couple of ways. Firstly they are transitory, you can change them with a roll versus a difficulty of +2.  Secondly they represent the mundane skills you might have. When you invoke these aspects you gain the normal bonus, however the action you are taking counts as a mundane action. If the skill aspect does not mach up with the aspects of the node you are in you can get compelled to no longer be able to use the skill until you change it.Generally these aspects will be one word only, usually some sort of action word.

Adrienne now must pick her skill aspects for Morrigan. She goes with Fighting, War, and Speed as her three aspects as they represent how she sees her character's default state.

Chuck then thinks it over and takes Knowledge, Fighting, and Literacy as his three. He sees Imhotep as a warrior scholar and this fits that idea.

Step 5
Stunts: Pick a stunt that works for your character, you can pick more stunts than one at the cost of one refresh per stunt. you cannot start with less than one refresh. I will add a stunt list in a future post, right now, there are no stunts for this.

Adrienne and Chuck pick one stunt each, it was very exciting.

Step 6
Finishing touches: Record your starting Pattern and Discord stress(two each, unless you take a stunt that increases it). Record your refresh(three, unless you took extra stunts, then less).



Name: Morrigan
Played By: Adrienne
Belief: Fire Must Be Returned To The Gods
Style: Actualized Temporal Wrath
Love: My Son, My Vengeance
Failing: Fallen Pride
Cadre: Debt Owed, Through Blood And Fire

Skills
+3 Time +2 Life +1 Psyche

Skill Aspects
Fighting
War
Speed

Stunts
She has taken one stunt(these will be detailed in a later post(probably tomorrow, we'll see how I feel)

Refresh: 3
Pattern Stress: [1] [2]
Discord Stress: [1] [2]


Name: Imhotep
Played By: Chuck
Belief: I Will Break The Bonds Of Life And Death
Style: Numerals And Nomenclature
Love: I Will Get Her Back
Failing: Rush To Judgement
Cadre: Morrigan Can Help Me

Skills
+3 Spirit +2 Forces +1 Life

Skill Aspects
Knowledge
Fighting
Literacy

Stunts
He has taken one stunt, this will be fleshed out later, once I have built the stunts for the game

Refresh: 3
Pattern Stress: [1] [2]
Discord Stress: [1] [2]