Liberi Gothica: Character Creation

These are all the basics you need to know to make a character for Liberi Gothica, along with the rules for advancing your character throughout the game.

Step 1: Character concept

Current character options are Liberi and skilled adult.

Liberi is short for Liberi Gothica - the Tainted Children. Liberi Gothica are children who have come into contact with a demonic doll, known as a Foci, and formed a spiritual contract with it. Liberi gain a number of benefits from this contract, and a number of vices as well. You choose one Liberi ability tree as a Primary tree, which grants you a free ability, and two more as Secondary trees, which do not grant you a free ability.

As a skilled adult, you start with more experience and skill, but no magical protection. You gain one Mundane Ability Tree for free.

Once you've decided between the two, decide what you want your character (and your Foci, if you have one) to act/look like, your name, your gender, and any interesting ideas you want to incorporate into the character, such as your character's motivation, what they were before the game starts, how they feel about the world, etc. The rest of character creation will be in effectively getting this concept to work.

Step 2: Assign TACKS scores.

Next, you allocate your TACKS attributes. TACKS is an abbreviation for Toughness, Athleticism, Charm, Knowledge, Spirit - the 5 core attributes of a Liberi Gothica character. All characters start with 8 stat points to divide among their 5 TACKS. All TACKS scores start at 2. You have 8 points to spend to improve these 5 stats. Your TACKS have a maximum starting value of 6.

Toughness: Represents your overall fitness, and the amount of punishment your body can take.

Athleticism: Represents everything physical about you that toughness doesn't cover. How fast you can run, how high you can jump, hand-eye coordination, and more.

Charm: Represent how attractive and likable you are in terms of both physical appearance and personality.

Knowledge: Represents your characters's skill in her magical craft, as well as general intelligence.

Spirit: The strength of your will, and ability to resist non-physical damage of all types

Step 3: Calculate secondary attributes.

Once you have allocated your TACKS attributes, you need to use them to calculate a few other stats, referred to as Secondary Attributes.

Life: Your body's physical status. This stat is mutable, and changes over time depending on how much damage you have and how wounded you are. This is the maximum your life can be - damage reduces it below this maximum. If your Life score drops below 0, you fall unconscious. If it reaches a negative number higher than your maximum Life, you die.

Life is 10 + Toughness + Athleticism.

Vitality: The inherent life energy, found in everything. This stat is mutable, but rarely changes in a normal person, and has no maximum limit. In a Liberi, however, Vitality is everything - it is used to power magical abilities and feed their foci. If your Vitality falls below 0, you die.

Vitality is 5 + Toughness + Spirit

Attack: How accurate you are in combat. The same number is used for both ranged and melee attacks. Attack is Athleticism + Spirit.

Defense: How hard it is to hit you in combat. Defense is 7 + Knowledge + Athleticism.

Might: How much damage is added to attacks with Mighty weapons. Might is [Toughness/2], rounded down.

Precision: How much damage is added to attacks with Precise weapons. Precision is [Athleticism/2], rounded down.

Step 4: Choose skills and ability trees.

Liberi start with 15 XP to spend on Skills and Mundane Ability Trees. Non-Liberi gain 30 XP to spend on Skills and Mundane Ability Trees.

A Mundane Ability Tree costs 10 XP to purchase, and grants you an ability for free when you take it. In addition, it grants you access to a wide variety of abilities to spend XP on in step 5. Liberi Ability Trees can not be purchased after character creation except in specific circumstances.

Skills have a variable XP cost, depending on how skilled you already are. It costs 1 XP to purchase a skill at rank 1, and 2 XP for rank 2, 3 XP for rank 3, and so on. Skills are added on to your TACKS attributes in certain, narrow situations. For example, when making an Athleticism check to swim, each rank in Swim you have gives you a +1 bonus to the roll.

Step 5: Purchase Abilities.

Liberi get an ability for free from their primary ability tree, then get 15 XP to spend on additional abilities. Any ability she meets the prerequisites of may be purchased. Non-Liberi may spend any XP left over from step 4 on abilities from trees they have access to.

Step 6: The Foci

Determine what ability your Foci will have. Your Foci begins the game with 2d6 Vitality, and up to two articles of clothing.

Step 7: Equipment

What equipment you have to begin the game is determined by the LM. It is largely contingent on any backstory you may have for your character.

Character Advancement

Experience: Abbreviated to XP. XP can be used to purchase skills, perks, and class abilities, and to buy progressions for class abilities you already have. XP is awarded at the end of each session by the GM, and how much each player receives is entirely up to how well they played and the GM. It is recommended that 3-7 XP be given out per session.

Milestones: Every 20 XP, your character hits a milestone. Their maximum Life increases by [Toughness], and their maximum Vitality increases by [Spirit]. Every 3 Milestones, one of their TACKS attributes increases by 1.

A Perk can only be taken once, unless specified otherwise. An ability progression can be taken as many times as you like, unless specified otherwise.