Aztec/Nahua Representation in RPGs (a request followed by a rant)

What I wouldn't give for just one single RPG that portrayed the Nahua (a.k.a., Aztecs) without resorting to "human sacrifice is bad, mmkay?  So EVIL!"  Does anyone know of an RPG that depicts the Nahua or a Nahua expy that doesn't invoke that tired old racist trope?  Preferably one that displays Nahua religion, with nextlaoaliztli present, without moralizing about it?

<rant>

Seriously, every major RPG of my day that has featured any Mesoamerican content whatsoever (which is, itself, a distressingly small number ~ I can think of Deadlands, Shadowrun, D&D2e/Maztica, and D&D3.x third-party products, and I feel like I'm forgetting an obvious one or two) has at least included elements of that.  Deadlands at least had the "Oh, but these few teteo are good!" inclusion so that qweens could play "acceptable" Nahua characters, but their storyline in-setting was almost inevitably all about fighting the evil Aztecs who wanted, like, their land back or whatever.  And whatever else might be true about Precious/Feathered Serpent, I can never see him portrayed as the sole good teotl/one of the only good teteo without thinking about effing Fray Diego Duran and his theory that Precious/Feathered Serpent was actually Saint Thomas!  It might be reaching, but the colonialist BS gets baked in pretty deep.

Shadowrun had the ovaries to face up to their racist depiction of Aztechnology/Aztlan ("Blood magic is bringing back the Horrors and that's what those brown people south of the border are all trying to do!"  Fuck you, Mr. Darke) but 5th edition feels the need to go on and on about how blood magic is inherently evil and addictive unless you do it out of total, all-consuming, purest-of-the-pure love and nobility.  Nextlaoaliztli is neither the godsdamned Force nor is it effing Sunday School!

</rant>

This is a frustration that strikes me every 18 months or so, when I touch on my favorite RPGs, like Deadlands and Shadowrun, that do this bullshit.  Thanks for reading my venting.

Religion and Boanerges (Fantasy Friday #4)

When we get to determining the proficiencies Boanerges gets as a splintersoul zealot vigilante, the time comes to finally determine his patron. Alignment matters here, too ~ vigilantes can have two alignments next to each other, zealots have alignment restrictions like clerics, and splintersouls qualify for class features and things if only one (not both) alignments does. I’m fairly strongly attached to him as CG/CN in a predominantly CE society, which (I realize now) changes who I’ve been thinking his archangel is.

Presterjho’s pantheon, as it were, is modeled on that of one of my favorite not-quite-obscure RPGs, In Nomine, Steve Jackson Game’s complete redesign of a French angels-and-demons game. So far, as I’ve been digging into the details of Boanerges, I’ve been assuming that he would follow Telakh, the hola archangel of Faith (equivalent to Khalid in In Nomine). But Telakh is staunchly lawful! Back to the drawing board . . . Gebhuri, naifo archangel of Fire (Gabriel) is something of a chaotic counterpart to Telakh, the burning ecstasy of faith as opposed to the rigid discipline thereof. But I’m feeling like Boanerges’s patron should be more neutral good. For one, this gives the splintersoul splintered identity some oomph, but on another, it reinforces the “sneaky redeemer” aspect of Boanerges, which I fear is getting lost. Let’s see, the list of neutral good archangels is:

Dhanebsonhi, kruv archangel of Dreams
Khashamsorof, kruv archangel of Children
Nanahoy, hola archangel of Lightning
Yorethil, faras archangel of Revelation
Themnoth, yaim archangel of the Voice
Newosli, kruv archangel of Flowers
Sennao, wekyosthet archangel of the Ocean
Awi, yaim archangel of Destiny
Razal, rogigyos archangel of Death

That’s 9 out of the 22 most popular archangels in Presterjho, easily the most common alignment thereamong.

Let’s see . . . I want a focus on redemption and converting folk to the cause of good, yeah? So we can immediately rule out Nanahoy, Yorethil, Themnoth, Sennao, and Razal, as they’re all more concerned with other things. That leaves Dhanebsohni, Khashamsorof, Newosli, and Awi. As much as I really enjoy making unusual servitors of Children in In Nomine, I think I’ll have Boanerges serve the very mysterious Awi, whose focus is entirely on ensuring that the world turns out for the better. It also makes Boanerges quite cosmopolitan, as he comes from Not-CentralAfrica and follows a religion from neighboring Presterjho shaded by the atheistic Jedi-like worship of Time centered in Scarhas (Destiny and Fate replace the Light and Dark Sides in that religion).

Awi believes that the use of weapons leads to rash actions, and that rash actions tend to fulfill Fate far more often than Destiny. Accordingly, his favored weapon is the unarmed strike, and Boanerges gets Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat.

Social talents available to Boanerges at 1st level are somewhat disappointing, actually. I think you’re expected to take renown, but that would dilute the theme of his discomfort at having to stuff his normally huge and flamboyant personality into a small and subtle secret identity, of intimidating bluster struggling towards compassionate persuasion. I consider gossip collector for a hot second, but it feels kinda tacked-on, not hitting any particular element of his character or background. I decide to go with social grace finally. We’ll choose Intimidate, to further the contrast (and cuz it’s Boanerges’s highest mental skill).

Zealot replaces vigilante specialization with an inquisitor’s inquisition, the choice of which is ridiculously easy: Boanerges benefits from the Redemption inquisition. Awi chose him as their agent specifically to seed goodness within an evil horde. The vigilante talent at 2nd level isn’t so easy. I consider the channel energy zealot talent, but that still seems like an “overwhelming presence” thing. Harsh judgment? It does allow the judgment of purity, which is awfully tempting when surrounded by inherently magical beings like ifrits. Magical familiarity, on the other hand, is within Awi’s purview, as he is the most arcane of the archangels, and also the most associated with time. I wonder if there are any good time-related cantrips to give Boanerges? Shadow’s speed and shadow’s sight seem like good, solid, boring workhorse talents, while steely resolve makes some sense for a servant of Awi, I suppose. Team player, on the other hand, seems appropriate enough to join harsh judgment (purity) and magical familiarity as the front-runners. A quick glance at the list of cantrips reveals nothing I want for Boanerges. Let’s go with harsh judgment (purity). And splintersoul requires us to take an early quick change talent at 3rd level (the earliness costs us unshakable, too).

When in his vigilante identity ~ which I realize I really should name . . . . how about, like, the Unseen Heart of the Flame? ~ Boanerges possesses a moderate aura of good. He can also cast spells like an inquisitor as the Unseen Heart. Or would, if his wisdom was higher >.< 5 points is a lot to ask for, but I wonder if we can’t make up for it with a magical item? The answer, sadly, is hell no ~ even the smallest boost of a +2 costs 4000 gp, and at 3rd level, Boanerges only has 3000.

I know a lot of players out there would say that I’ve made catastrophically suboptimal choices when building Boanerges, but I like to think that Awi had this exact process in mind by choosing him. Boanerges is meant to seed goodness within his horde, and the process of doing so is meant to build within him the wisdom that Awi so prizes. The plans of an archangel, let alone a yaim archangel (the yaim are not like other angels ~ they are direct emanations of the divine), are fractal, complicated, and multifaceted. In terms of planning for the future, Boanerges should be all caught up in terms of spellcasting by 7th level (with his 4th-level ability increase going to Wisdom, and a headband of inspired wisdom +4 costing 16,000 gp).

Details, details, details (Traveller Tuesday #3)

OK, so who actually runs these four states and three factions? How do they work? Well, we start by determining the representative authority, the person or group who is considered to be the center of the government (“The Decider” as one former President I'm annoyed I miss once called it).

The Guild-State of the Rose Brothers (self-perpetuating oligarchy): Rolling a 1 on 1d6 tells us that an elite council serves as the Guild-State's representative authority. I'm assuming that's either the council of paradigm shifters or the judge who determine whether someone joins that group. Probably the former, but we'll find out after we figure out everyone's representative authority.

Oleinik March (feudal technocracy): Here, we roll a 6 on 2d6 and discover the quite expected: the representative authority of Oleinik March is a single ruler, in this case the Marquis of Oleinik who rules directly.

Jermaine March (feudal technocracy): Jermaine March, on the other hand, is much less typical, as an 8 reveals that it is ruled by several councils. Huh. Don't know what to do with that yet. Maybe the marquesal contract was awarded to an administrative company?

TCI: We roll a 7: this nation is ruled by a ruler. Military? Corporate? I don't know yet . . .

charismatic dictator: Oh, look! It's a junta of some sort! (We rolled 6 on 1d6)

(vis)comital agents (feudal technocracy): They're governed by an elite council (we rolled 4). It's probably some sort of cell structure, naw that would actually be more like . . .

foreign agitators (captive state): . . . several councils (thanks to a roll of 10)! So this group will be the one organized into cells.

But what do these representative authorities do? And how much power do they have, really? We're gonna answer those questions in reverse order as we first determine what the division of power is like in each, and then will determine what kind of power the representative authorities have:

The Guild-State of the Rose Brothers: no division (rolled a 6), meaning that the elite council is certainly the Council of Innovating Masters. Said Council holds all the highest power in the Guild-State: executive, legislative, and judicial.

Oleinik March: 2-way division (rolled a 4), with the consular marquis holding executive and legislative power (rolled a 5)

Jermaine March: 2-way division (rolled a 3), with those councils holding executive and legislative power (rolled a 3)

TCI: 2-way division (rolled a 3), with the ruler holding executive and judicial authority (rolled a 1)

charismatic dictator: 2-way division (rolled a 4), with the junta holding legislative and judicial authority (sounds closer to a bunch of messiahs or a council of wise elders than a bunch of military generals . . .)

(vis)comital agents: 3-way division (rolled a 2), with the elite council holding legislative powers (rolled a 3)

foreign agitators: 3-way division (rolled a 2), with the various cells holding executive power (rolled a 1)

We've almost got the governments on this world sorted out! We just gotta figure out who holds the other kinds of power in each, if not the representative authority.

Oleinik March: Several councils hold judicial power (roll of 10). Let's call them teams of lawyers hired by the consular marquis of Oleinik to comb through the marquesal contract and determine what actions are or are not allowable under its terms and fine print.

Jermaine March: Ah! Here's the consular marquis of Jermaine, holding judicial authority (roll of a 6). I've two ideas about how to explain the situation in Jermaine March is constructed, and they aren't mutually exclusive. The consular marquis of Jermaine is a lawyer by training, not an administrator, so they outsourced the day-to-day running of their march to a corporation, reserving the right to place boundaries and limitations. They have also been seduced away by the adventurous possibilities open to one of marquesal rank and become more of an absentee ruler.

TCI: Several councils (roll of an 8) hold legislative authority. So far, I'm thinking this is a miltary outpost or militarized colony, but until I determine what other polities exist in the Bishop Sheumack system or its (vis)county, I don't think I can say too much about it.

charismatic dictator: A single ruler (roll of a 7) holds executive authority. Maybe this is the charismatic dictator, and they are merely a pawn of the council? The vulgate, the masses, follow him because of his charisma, but any real powerbroker knows that the council holds the actual power?

(vis)comital agents: Here's a surprising bit: the demos holds the executive power for this faction (roll of a 2) ~ the (vis)count doesn't want to take direct action, probably fearing over-committal of resources, disruption of the balance of powers, or contractual consequences, so while they have agents working towards unifying this fractured planet, those agents are limited to recruiting and encouraging natives of the world to act. Must be frustrating for those agents, by which I mean: PLOT. Several councils, on the other hand (roll of a 9), hold judicial authority. Let's say those are social and political scientists hired by the (vis)count to evaluate the success of these efforts.

foreign agitators: several councils hold judicial power (roll of a 10) ~ maybe there are two kinds of cells, the kind that actually works to achieve their ends, and another kind (the Inquisition) that investigates, infiltrates, and manipulates the cells to ensure ideological unity? And several councils hold legislative power, too (roll of an 8). This is one decentralized non-democratic group!

O holy Virtue! (Design Domingo #3)

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OK, maybe not from Prester . . . (Fantasy Friday #3)

Thinking about the charau-ka as a possible race for Boanerges brings the jungliest region of this continent to mind. It occurs to me that an elemental theme could work well there, drawing on images of the rainforest as a place of nature at its most intense and individual (as opposed to the, like, unitary image of powerful nature that comes with places like mountains, the arctic, and oceans). That as-yet-unnamed region, analogous to Central Africa in geohistorical placement, shares a border with Prester in the middle of the continent. If I place Boanerges just on one side or the other of that border, they can be a member of a swashbuckly force of evil ifrit, perhaps based on something like Boko Haram or God’s Army. I like that idea! OK, Boanerges is now officially an ifrit.

Looking at the race description, I note already that there’s a base trait I wanna replace with an alternate trait ~ as a vigilante, even if Boanerges is a zealot and a divine spellcaster, the fire affinity trait helps him out all of not at all. Fire in the blood (which gives him a morsel of access to fast healing when he takes fire damage) would replace fire affinity not only ably, but in line with some of Boanerges’s themes, I daresay. Hypnotic (which boosts an ifrit’s ability to fascinate) is a little tempting, as a reference to the swashbuckling element. But Boanerges, again, would probably gain spellcasting through the zealot archetype, and I dunno how many inquisitor spells cause fascination. Nor do I actually know yet if Boanerges will take the zealot archetype. And the same arguments apply to the boons given by his Celestial Obedience to his yet-unchosen archangel. Fire in the blood it is!

As for their gender, making them female would seem to play into old Victorian ideas of the woman as the civilizing force (an idea that pops up unfortunately in too many Second Wave feminisms). Similarly, making them trans or nonbinary in any way would seem to underscore too much the dual nature of Boanerges ~ another trope that can lead to icky things. An agender Boanerges is more tempting, gives them more texture to their psyche, but in the end has, I think, the same problems. I guess cismale is the best option for Boanerges.

Choosing his race also lets us determine Boanerges’s age, height, and weight. I’m gonna call vigilante a self-taught class so we roll 60+6d6 for his age, getting 76 as his age. That makes him a little young for an ifrit vigilante (average age would be 81), which I think is appropriate for his character. He’s tall, though, living up to his personality, as a 2d8 roll of 14 tells us that he’s 6’4” and a 2d8x5 roll of 40 gives us a weight of 150 pounds. I think he’s actually come out pretty skinny, though his charisma makes him seem larger than he actually is.

I also note that there are several racial feats available to ifrits. Blistering Feint, which makes the ifrit better at feinting when using a fiery weapon and does damage with the feint as well, is especially noteworthy ~ although we’ve already chosen Boanerges’s 1st-level feat (Celestial Obedience, recall), I’d wanna pick up Combat Expertise at 3rd level, Improved Feint at 5th, and Blistering Feint itself at 7th (assuming the redeemer theme in Boanerges doesn’t cause me to grab any feats in between all these). Firesight (which improves visibility in smoky conditions) and the Scorching Weapons feat tree (which lets you make your weapon fiery) are tempting; maybe if there’s ever a chance for Boanerges to pick up a bonus feat.

Oh, wait. Celestial Obedience requires Knowledge (planes) 3; it can’t be taken until 3rd level. OK, I’ll create Boanerges at level 3, then, and have him take Combat Expertise at level 1. Except he’s obviously not smart enough >.<

Vigilantes have a Hit Die of d8, so rolling 2d8+8+9 gives Boanerges 28 hit points. 6 skill points per level gives us 21 skill points. Knowing that we want Boanerges to have Celestial Obedience, we immediately spend 3 of those on Knowledge (planes), which is a cross-class skill. Cross-referencing the vigilante skill list with the barbarian list (in order to reflect Bonerges’s evil horde origin), we find that Acrobatics, Climb, Craft, Intimidate, Perception, Ride, Survival, and Swim are on both lists. Let’s drop Craft and Swim out of that list out of hand as being inappropriate for Boanerges’s cultural origins, leaving a total of 6 skills. Intimidate definitely gets the full 3 skill ranks and Acrobatics, too, as both are central to the tactics of the ifrit horde that birthed Boanerges. That’s 12 points left. If we give Perception, Ride, and Survival 2 points each (all of them are basic, universal skills in the region and the horde), we’re left with 6 more skill points. I’m thinking that I want Boanerges to qualify for the mystery cultist prestige class at 8th level, so I need to make sure that Knowledge (religion) (another cross-class skill) gets the full 3 ranks. And we’ll use the last 3 skill points to give Boanerges the ability to protect his secret goodytwoshoes identity, with a rank each in Bluff, Disguise, and Stealth. Yeah, that’s pretty low ~ Boanerges was raised to be flashy and big and eye-catching, not subtle and quiet and unseen!

Gawds! I’m making so many mistakes with Boanerges >.< Zealot, which I think I am in fact taking along with splintersoul, swaps out a few class skills for Knowledge (religion) and Spellcraft. More importantly, it reduces the skill points per level to 4! My 21 points get reduced a full 6 points to 15 ~ I’ll take a point out of the various general-ed skills I gave Boanerges (Perception, Ride, Survival, Bluff, Disguise, and Stealth).

Politics are what happens whenever two or more people are interacting (Traveller Tuesday #2)

We might be about to get an answer as to how wed to capitalism Ishee is. It's time to roll for the planet's government! Let's see, that's a 2d6-7+Pop roll, and Pop is 7, so it's just a flat 2d6 roll. A 7 tells us that the world is balkanized, or split up into multiple nations (just like ours! Gov digit 7: bUWP α-3D-0704-? (α Greve-Eau Pleine-Bishop Scheumack-Ishee)/????77?-?/?/??/Em). We'll figure out just how many nations in a moment, but first we'll have to look at non-governmental agents. We roll 1d3+1 for how many of those there are, which turns out to be 3.

We roll on the Government table for each of the non-governmental agents in order to see, generally, how they're structured. We get 10, 5, and 6, so we're looking at a charismatic dictator (like a religious messiah or revolutionary leader), a feudal technocracy, and a captive government. In my Traveller setting, “feudal technocracy” (which is kind of a weird term, especially cuz technocracy is a misunderstood and misapplied term in so many cases) refers to a recreation of feudal hierarchy, land ownership rules, and entitled rights by means of hypercapitalist subcontracting. That is, a duke will award a comital contract for the administration of a group of systems within their subsector to someone (granting them all the rights of a count while burdening them with the responsibilities of actual governance), who might then subcontract with someone to monitor the banking industry in their county and awarding them in exchange the title and rights of a viscount or marquis. When the system is working properly, the contract goes to whomever it can be shown will most skillfully be able to fulfill the role (which is the technocratic bit).

ANYWAY: The 7, 8, and 8 I roll on three 2d6 rolls reveal that the charismatic dictator is only a minor power with some supporters, but the other two are notable powers who are well known and enjoy significant support. I'm thinking that the feudal technocracy faction might merely represent the contract noble whose fief is/includes this planet. They want to unify the world for some reason, to forge it into a world-state. Is it for power? It might be, but I'm kind of more enamored by the idea that the noble actually thinks it will be best for the population somehow to bring the various nations of the world together. And with the stateless captive government faction (something of a conundrum), I'm kind of thinking either agents of another world trying to manipulate this one into its control or (maybe more interestingly) a grassroots movement trying to convince the world to let another take over.

A roll of a 5 on 1d6 tells us that there are 4 major nations on the planet. Before we divide up the population among them, I'm gonna roll for their governmental structures, just in case I get another 7. This roll is 2d6-7+(Pop-1), or 2d6-1 in this case. Let's see . . . 3, 5, 5, 6. Well! That's an awful lot of feudal technocracies there! This time with a state, as is another captive government. The 3 means that one nation is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.

My current thoughts on the political situation (I'm gonna give the nations and cities random Wikipedia names at this point; I'll add the link, too):

The Guild-State of the Rose Brothers (6,174,679). The Guild of the Rose Brothers is a group dedicated to innovation and invention. Think a cross between the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, Maker Fair, and Noisebridge. They're a semi-mystical lightly anarchistic fraternal order to which you gain admission by demonstrating that you've improved some already existing piece of technology or methodology. You join its highest levels only by creating something new, introducing some major, paradigm-shifting innovation or invention. Major cities: Haldon (primary: 799,023 people), Scopula Vicina (primary: 650,169 people), Pursuit of Life (primary: 599,580), Balvaneh-ye Motamedi (primary: 532,214), Barnette City (secondary: 445,786), The Bridges (secondary: 173,828)

Oleinik March (4,105,907). The (vis)county which contains the Bishop Sheumack system recently had its contract awarded to a new (vis)count; I think the previous one died of natural causes (age?). That dead former viscount was far more interested in the activities and opportunities in the Duke's court than in actually administering their territory. I think maybe they aren't dead at all, but managed to win a higher contract that had an exclusivity clause. Regardless, they had a great fear that their underlings would overthrow them and take their contracted position. So administration of the Bishop Sheumack system was contracted to two consular marquises, one of Oleinik and one of Jermlaine. While the large print of their contracts set out how they were to administer the system together, the nature of the two marquises and the small print ensured that they would spend all of their energy struggling for an edge over the other and never being secure enough to move against their contract liege. Major Cities: Nueva Veracruz (primary: 796,209), Machrihanish (primary: 555,167), Neo-Edinburgh (primary: 466,559), Thorell (secondary: 373,164)

Jermaine March (4,453,070). See above. Major Cities: Landell de Moura City (primary: 761,773), Daedalus City (primary: 544,487), Amiman (secondary: 239,206), Luisa Maffi City (secondary: 100,368)

TCI (the captive state; 1,287,657) . . . I have no inspiration for this yet, other than that it leads to an offworld polity. Major Cities: Moa (primary: 758,380), Sun City (secondary: 204,087)

Similarly, the nature of the charismatic dictator eludes me as of yet, but stateless feudal technocracy faction will be agents of the new (Vis)Count, who is much more conscientious than the last one and has their agents on the world working for peace and integration among the various nations. It'll just make their job easier. Finally, there's the captive state stateless faction: I'm thinking that they'll be a cold war kind of thing. The captive state that has territory is at war with another polity and that polity has sent agents to this world to strike against that outpost.

Character Creation Outline (Design Domingo #2)

To make things easier on myself, I'm gonna try to rip elements of other systems from their original context and chassis and weld them to each other as much as possible. The core such things, I think, are Pendragon, Unknown Armies, Legend of the Five Rings, and Exalted (though that last, at least, might better be called an inspiration rather than a direct contributor). Oh, and D&D itself, of course, primarily of the 3.x editions (particularly Pathfinder), as I am of the age wherein I was graduating high school when 3.0 came out, causing me to totally imprint on it as the height of D&D design. Now that we’re two whole editions beyond that point, I think I can safely call myself a grognard now? I also have no idea what this GURPS 4th edition nonsense is, and am wary of Savage Worlds “fixing” the gloriously broken and baroque Deadlands system. But back to Middens & Morals . . .

Interestingly, the famous Monty Python scene actually serves as an almost spot-on inspiration for this Heartbreaker game. We know from our meta-knowledge that King Arthur is, in fact, the glorious sub-Messiah of Britain, paragon (and advocate) of chivalry, chock-full of virtue, second only to Galahad and the foolish Percival in these respects. But different meta-knowledges tell us that the man working in the shit is absolutely 100% right. The system of Heavenly virtue King Arthur represents, while striving for and achieving the best of what humanity can be, is based on “outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society!” and on “violence inherent in the system.” Other media inspirations can include A Song of Ice and Fire (though with less rape, thank you), particularly storylines like Sansa’s and the Hounds and Jaime’s, and Paul Verhoeven’s first English-language movie Flesh+Blood from 1985 (when I was three!). There’s only one rape in that last inspiration, but that can easily be too many for many people, so trigger warning. I’ven’t seen Robert Bresson’s 1974 Lancelot du Lac or Aleksei German’s 2013 Hard to Be a God, but they sound like they could help inspire the kind of mood I’m looking for. Bookwise, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are perhaps the paradigmatic encapsulation of Middens & Morals’s intended blend of things, perhaps especially when read alongside one of my all-time favorite books (and one of two books that I’ve ever intentionally stolen from a library) Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer’s Fecopoetics, by Susan Signe Morrison. I also rather enjoy, and will likely be baking into this Heartbreaker project, John Boswell’s Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe and Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch. Like Lancelot du Lac and Hard to Be a God, Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes seems like it will also be of use to me once I read it. Finally, I would also like to direct you to what is now a vast literature by pagan/polytheist/occultist anti-capitalists concerning the spell of disenchantment capitalism cast over the world and the resultant activist praxis of re-enchanting it.

I’m having some trouble identifying any sources beyond these, however. Do any of my (possibly imaginary) readers have any ideas?

In order to ensure that I got my ideas out, I copypasta’d the text from a number of my source RPGs and then blended them together and modified them to fit my vision or Middens & Morals. That’s (mostly) what will follow for several posts. Please don’t hate (or sue) me!

When generating a character, start with your character’s concept. Do you want a character who goes toe-to-toe with terrible monsters, matching sword, shield, and sanity against claws and fangs? Or do you want a mystical seer who draws his powers from the great beyond to further his own ends? Nearly anything is possible. Once you have a general concept worked out, use the following steps to bring your idea to life, recording the resulting information and statistics on your Middens and Morals character sheet (we often like to call it a “midden sheet”), which I will create . . . at some point >.<

Step 1—Determine Traits: We start by ditching the traditional six ability scores of D&D. We're not concerned here with where someone's talents lie or what muscles are best developed in their body. Power in this system comes from madness and virtue. Here I hit the first possible Heartbreaker moment (hey, it keeps me honest about what this is): I'm replacing the faux-simplicity of six attributes with a total of 36 >.< Lemme explain. I’m thinking I’ll rip the Virtue system out of Pendragon, giving us 13 pairs of traits (we'll call them Virtues, no matter what we may think of them). That covers the quest for holiness half of Middens & Morals, so I’ll turn to Unknown Armies for the other 10 traits. In that game, the madness meters are a way of describing how traumatized a character is by the events around them, and they come in two varieties: hardened and failed, measuring five types of trauma (5x2=10, obvi). These thirteen opposed pairs of Virtues and five pairs of Traumas determine your character’s most basic personality and are used to decide a wide variety of details and statistics. Some class selections benefit greatly if you have better than average scores for some of your traits.

Step 2—Pick Your Race: Next, pick your character’s race, noting any effects your choice has on rolling with your traits and any other racial qualities. There are seven basic races in Galatia to choose from, although your GM might have others to add to the list.

Step 3—Pick Your Class: A character’s class represents a profession, such as fighter or wizard. If this is a new character, they start at 1st level in his chosen class. As they gain experience points (XP) for defeating monsters, they go up in level, granting them new powers and abilities.

Step 4—Pick Skills and Select Feats: Determine the number of skill ranks possessed by your character, based on their class, each of which utilizes a different trait to determine that number (and any other bonuses, such as the bonus received by humans). Then spend these ranks on skills, but remember that you cannot have more ranks than your level in any one skill (for a starting character, this is usually one). After skills, determine how many feats your character receives, based on their class and level, and select them.

Step 5—Buy Equipment: Each new character begins the game with an amount of money, based on their class, that can be spent on a wide range of equipment and gear, from chainmail armor to leather backpacks. This gear helps your character survive while adventuring. Generally speaking, you cannot use this starting money to buy magic items without the consent of your GM.

Step 6—Finishing Details: Finally, you need to determine all of a character’s details, including their starting hit points (hp), Armor Class (AC), saving throws, initiative number, and attack values. All of these numbers are determined by the decisions made in previous steps. A level 1 character begins with maximum hit points for their Hit Die roll. Aside from these, you need to decide on your character’s name, physical appearance, chivalric domain (the battlefield, the home, or the heart), and religion. The former two don’t have any game-mechanical effects but can certainly affect the narrative of the game! The latter two, however, identify the goals your character strives for in terms of their traits, and what the benefits in game mechanics of achieving those goals are. It is best to jot down a few qualities of their personality beyond those which have a mechanical effect in the game as well, to help you play the character during the game. Determine where your character grew up and their resulting native tongue. A character knows a number of additional languages equal to five less than one-sixth the sum of their Lustful, Energetic, Deceitful, Worldly, Trusting, and Failed Isolation (if the result of the calculation is negative, that character only speaks their cribtongue). Some characters may want to take otherworldly or magical languages; they may only take one such per point of Hardened Unnatural they possess.