Player Characters

This is the locus by which players actively participate in the universe of Medaevum, and the sole reason that it's framed as a setting rather than a book or something more passive. The chaos and unpredictability of adding more than one person into the mix is what makes the experience fun. These rules don't concern themselves overmuch with whether or not a character is overpowered - no one is as overpowered as the humbling power of the game master, after all - but in making the characters interesting, internally consistent, as well as fun to play and be played with.

Character Creation

In the world of Medaevum, your character can become anything. A god, a king, a small business owner who owns their own home without a mortage. You start from nothing, though. The game of Medaevum, beyond collaborative storytelling, is having your new character rise from nothing to become or achieve something.

If your character is a noble, they are a disgraced one with no ties to their former family. If they were once wealthy, they aren't anymore. If they were once powerful, they lost that power. Characters start with nothing but a little money, and the clothes on their backs.

The exception to this is if you are collaborating with someone else. If you're making the offspring of an already established noble house, then whatever resources they have to impart upon you, you may start with. Ditto, if you're making a new character because your old one died, if it makes sense in context then you may give your new character some of what your old one accrued.

Attributes

There are three. Prowess, Willpower, and Cleverness. These three attributes measure a character's narrative weight in their three respective areas. The higher the attribute, the better they are at doing the thing. You can flavor these things however you want: perhaps your character's Prowess is very high because they're so strong, even if they aren't very skilled. Perhaps it's the other way around. These stats are prescriptive, not descriptive: if someone else's prowess is higher than yours, and you don't have something that gives you an advantage, you're going to lose a one on one fight against them.

At character creation, the player has five points to divvy up among the three attributes however they would like. Attributes start at zero, and can remain at zero if so desired.

Prowess

This is, broadly, your character's skill at fighting things. This same attribute is used for any kind of physical altercation, whether that's against another person, a beast, or a monster.

If your character's prowess is higher than the thing they are attacking, after being modified by traits and equipment, then you will hit the thing. The thing, whether that be a monster or another player, always loses assuming the modifiers to Prowess don't change.

If someone is attacked by two things at once, simultaneously, then the character being attacked adds their combined Prowess together. If their combined Prowess exceeds their own, then the character is hit even if individually neither of their attacks would have beaten them otherwise. Context, what makes sense in the moment, dictates which attack actually hits.

Willpower

Willpower is the magical corrolary to Prowess. This is the attribute used both to gauge the power of, and one's resistance to, many magical altercations.

If one chooses to keep their Willpower at zero at character creation, they may optionally take the "Soulless" trait.

Soulless. This character has no true name, not in the magical sense anyway. Their true name thus cannot be invoked, and if they invoke the true name of another character their effective Willpower is equal to theirs. They do not pass onto the Halls of the Dead when they die, and any magic related to the soul seems not to work on them.

Willpower also effects the number of spells a character can cast in a day. Every time they cast a spell, their Willpower will reduce by one until they are no longer maintaining the spell and have had time to rest.

Cleverness

Don't take Cleverness to mean the character's general intelligence. This is the catchall for a character's accumulation of miscellaneous skills and broad competencies. Unlike Prowess which is exclusively for combat or Willpower which is exclusively for magic, Cleverness is for every other thing not directly related to those two.

Traits

Beside for attributes, traits are the other way characters are defined in the world. A trait represents something they know, something they are, or something they do. A character is limited to ten traits, with some exceptions. The way traits are acquired can vary, but it typically comes in one of three ways: they are taught it, their player simply chooses to give them it, or the trait is imposed on them by some condition having been met.

For traits with no prerequisites to taking them, it still must make sense in context why the trait was adopted or abandoned. For example, a character deciding to take the time to get buff and strong ahead of some athletic competition, it would make to pick up a trait related to strength. A character who knows they're about to duel someone deciding a day in advance to drop all non-fighting related traits to max out on fighting-related traits would be powergaming.

A list of many traits can be found here: Traits. Bear in mind, it's a long list, and not a comprehensive one either. Most traits, particularly those that require training, don't exist in a vaccuum and they as well as how to acquire them are listed on their relevent pages.

Lineage

In Medaevum, everything is or was at one point human. Whether a literal biological descendant, or a former human warped by magic into being something different. For this reason, the different playable entities in the setting are distinguished as lineages and not by species or race.

Different lineages have different innate traits that do not count toward the limit of traits a character may have. To find a list of all lineages, click here: Lineages.

Homeland

And last but not least, the character's homeland. Not necessarily where they live now, but where they were raised. This affects what languages they begin play with, and otherwise just give some general setting detail.

A list of all potential homelands can be found here: Nations.

Example Character

This is an example of a starter character, with no more going on than could be garnered at character creation.

Given Name: Synatra

True Name: Tsai of Eastwatch

Attributes

Prowess: 2

Willpower: 1

Cleverness: 3

Lineage and Ancestral Traits

Elf

- Near Divine. Elves have +1 Willpower. When their true name is invoked against them, their effective Willpower is halved.

- Nonsenescent. Elves do not appear to age past adulthood.

- Infertile. Elves can only reproduce by magical means.

Other Traits

General traits:

- 'Strong'. This character is stronger than most, and in matters of raw strength will triumph over anyone without this trait.

Languages

Nostrum - learned from homeland.