In Polemos, players take control of a character of their choosing that will grow through the course of their adventures.
The Game Master (GM) will play the role of the rest of the world the player characters (PCs) inhabit, including non-playable characters (NPCs).
Player characters and major NPCs will likely track the full range of information needed to describe a character's strengths, weaknesses, and anything else important to role-playing.
Most NPCs do not need such level of detail, however, so the Game Master may instead use character stubs.
To begin making a character you should acquire a character sheet which will contain all the various information about who your character is and what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Creating a Character
While full information about the various aspect of a character can be found below, the basic "quick start" steps to create a character are:
Create a character concept - a general idea of what the character will be.
Flesh out general character information, background, etc. as desired.
General Character Information
Name - Your character's full name. In general the character's name should fit the culture they came from and be easy to remember. Consult with your Game Master if you are having trouble coming up with a name.
Level - A general gauge of how experienced the character is. Characters start at level one and become more powerful as they grow and learn.
Title - A profession, social class, or official title that best describes the character's role in the world and a general play style to expect. While there are no built-in-stone "classes" this should be specific enough that future advancement choices can be judged against what would make the most sense for the title.
Alignment - One or more ideas or things that could be considered the character's core motivation. Examples might include "The Greater Good," "Redemption," "Personal Wealth," "The Great Cause of Liberty," "Making Friends," "Sadism," etc.
Aspects/Background - Backgrounds describe the character's life in the past, and can grant aspects and other effects. You can choose as many backgrounds as you wish, and don't have to take any, but can only take each background at most once. You can also freely note any details about the character's background for story-telling purposes, like nationality, where they went to school, or who their parents are.
Physical Information
Gender - The character's gender - male or female.
Race - The character's species or race. The choice of species will have very long term and far-reaching consequences. For example a human warrior may play quite differently from a shapeshifter warrior. Consult the race list and consider discussing your thoughts with your game master before deciding.
Age - How many years your character has lived. Age has no direct consequence on the character's statistics, but take into account that each race's lifespan is different and it may have an impact on how others interact with you.
Handedness - Whether your character is either right handed or left handed. Take the Ambidextrous talent to be able to choose both.
Description - A physical description of how your character looks and acts towards those around them.
Experience Points
As a character's story plays out the Game Master will award characters with experience points - or XP for short.
Experience points can be given for any reason, but generally it represents the character has become more practiced, improved in some aspect, or otherwise learned something valuable.
Examples might include experience from killing a monster, completing a quest, reaching a remote destination through a long journey, or simply learning an important insight to the unfolding story.
Spending Experience
Experience can be spent, like a currency, to improve characters.
You should keep track of the total amount of experience points you have left unspent, as well as the total experience earned, so you know how much you have already spent.
Starting Experience
All characters start with some experience, usually determined by their race.
However, the Game Master may change this if it will be of benefit to the story.
It is recommended that you spend as much starting experience before the story begins as possible.
Level
A character's level is equal to the amount of experience points that have spent divided by 12, rounded down.
For example, a character that has spent 12 XP is level one, a character with 23 XP spent is also level one, but a character with 24 XP spent is level two.
Remember that a character's level is just a general informational gauge- it won't be used for any calculations.
Aspects
Aspects represent things the character was born into or that have been deeply ingrained during their lifetime.
They are things that do not easily change over time, if at all.
Your choice of race and background will determine most, if not all, of the aspects you start with.
It may also grant you the choice of one or more talents, which are aspects you may choose for yourself.
Aspects are permanent and generally do not change after a character is created.
Aspects grant a variety of effects.
Special kinds of aspects, such as backgrounds and talents, can be chosen. More general aspects are usually added automatically based on race.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds are aspects gained from your character's past experiences.
You may take as many backgrounds during character creation as you like.
Backgrounds are optional - you don't have to choose to take any of them.
Backgrounds often grant additional talents or have other effects.
Talents are a category of aspects that you can choose to add. They are usually granted by your race during character creation.
Talents can often grant you the ability to mark skills with a certain tag as "talented"- talented skills are easier to improve. See the Skills section below for more details.
Talents can give you other effects, such as granting you unique abilities or passive bonuses.
The languages the character knows each have a fluency rating that represents how skilled the character is at communicating in them.
Not having a common language or high enough fluency with another character may affect the communicable requirement of abilities.
Fluency (and literacy) is granted by a race's starting package, and often includes a "native" language you can choose based on where the character spends most of their time.
New languages (and literacy) can be learned after character creation, but unless the character is a scholar or travels this will likely not be necessary.
Fluency
Fluency ratings for a particular language range from 1 to 10.
Fluency affects all uses of the language - including listening, speaking, and if literate reading and writing.
A fluency of 1 is considered a beginner in the language, able to communicate basic social cues like greetings, self-introductions, apologies, or asking others to speak more slowly.
Between fluency 2-3 the character is able to express more practical vocabulary and simple ideas, starting generally at a childhood level to near-functional fluency.
At fluency 4 the character is able to carry everyday practical conversations fluently. Rich descriptions, complex grammar, figures of speech, and scholarly language still elude them, however.
Between fluency 5-7 the character is able to express more complex ideas and communicate with nuance or slang.
At fluency 8 the character has mastered the language and appears fluent to most native speakers of the language, but lacks advanced vocabulary for things such as poetry, academic papers, and technical jargon.
Between fluency 9-10 the character rounds out the gaps of their vocabulary, is able to use more technical words, and does not typically encounter linguistic challenges when discussing scholarly topics.
Literacy
For the languages a character is fluent in, the character may also be literate in (one or more) writing systems, called scripts.
Most characters are granted literacy at least in their native language; and are able to write their names, read road signs, and do basic accounting.
A fluency rating is not tracked for literacy - a character is either literate or not for a given script, and can use that script (with some level of warping) for any language, at their fluency rating for that language.
Some cultures may have different standards for full literacy. For example a culture might consider someone "illiterate" if they can't write in an elite script even if they regularly write shopping lists in a commoner script.
Measures
Measures are numbers that represent how good a character is at a particular activity, or how much of a particular quality they have.
Examples include a character's skill at charming others, or their physical stamina.
They represent the sum total of any innate talent and any improvements acquired through practice.
Higher values are better.
A measures's value is the total of a score and modifiers.
Score
All measures have a base value that represents how much the character has improved at it.
All measures start with a score of zero, but can be improved.
You can raise a measure's score by spending XP on it (see the Improving Measures section below), however raising the score may be subject to diminishing returns.
This means that it could take more XP to raise the score as the measure improves.
Modifiers
Sometimes a character's race, abilities, or other factors will grant them a bonus or penalty to a measure.
Some are permanent, while others are temporary.
These modifiers are always included in the measures's total value, but are not considered when spending XP.
It is recommended that you track modifiers separately so that it is easier to recalculate when any temporary modifiers' effects are removed.
Improving Measures
A measure's score can be improved by spending XP.
Improving a measures is often subject to diminishing returns.
This represents the fact that it is harder to improve something as you get better at it.
The base cost to raise a measure's score by one is the current score.
This base cost is then modified by any racial costs or other factors like discounts, but has an absolute minimum of one.
See a race's progression section for a complete formula.
Examples
A human's score for a particular skill is three. It costs four XP to raise to four (three current score, plus one from the racial cost).
To raise a score from six to seven the base cost is six.
Discounts
Sometimes a character may receive a discount to improving a particular measure's score (or category of measure).
Any discounts are applied at the end of calculations, but a minimum of one XP to raise the score remains.
For example, with a discount of one it could still take one XP to raise a score from zero to one, but might also takes only one point to go from one to two.
Character Measures
A character has many measures that are categorized in several ways.
Fitness
Fitness measures represent how much a character has honed a broad physical or mental ability.
They are often used as resource pools that you can spend and gain back, so you should keep track of both their maximum value and their current value.
Vitality (HP) - Each body area has a separate measure for how much lethal damage it can take. If any body area marked "vital" reaches zero vitality then the character suffers a Vital Wound and is possibly dead.
Focus (FP) - A measure representing how much your character can exert themselves mentally before quickly becoming fatigued.
Stamina (SP) - A measure representing how much your character can exert themselves physically before quickly becoming fatigued.
Skills
Skills are measures that represent your character's strengths and weaknesses at performing certain kinds of actions.
To use or "roll" a skill, roll 2D6 and add the result to the skill's total value.
A skill has several "tags", which help categorize skills and help determine when a skill may be used. For example, if your Game Master asks you to make a "melee" roll instead something more specific, then any skill with the "melee" tag may be used.
All characters can use all skills, though using a skill with a low value will likely only succeed at very easy tasks.
Skills marked as "talented" (see the Talents section above) receive a discount of one XP to raise their score. This discount does not stack if multiple talents mark a skill as talented.
Skill Tag & Roll Modifiers
Some modifiers affect skill tags and skill rolls.
Skill tag modifiers act as skill modifiers for all skills with that tag. For example, "+1 [melee] skill modifier" means all skills with the "melee" tag have a +1 modifier.
Skill roll modifiers only affect rolls made with a skill (or tag), and do not apply modifiers to the skill values themselves. For example, "+1 [melee] rolls" means all rolls of any skill with the "melee" tag has a +1 modifier, but the skill values do not have this modifier.
Reserving
Measures (particularly fitness measures) can be "reserved," or lowered until some situation changes.
For example, lifting a particularly heavy object might reserve some stamina, which cannot be regained until the object is no longer being lifted.
Reserving a measure temporarily lowers the value.
If the measure is a resource pool (ex: SP/FP/etc.) reserving lowers both the current and maximum value by the same amount. For example, if a character is at 4 of 6 SP, and reserves one SP, then the new values will be 3 of 5.
When the reservation ends, the value is restored.
If the measure is used as a resource pool the reservation ending restores the maximum value, but not the current value. For example, if a character has 3 of 5 SP with one SP reserved, the new values will be 3 of 6 after the reservation ends.
Temporary modifiers to a measure can't be used for reserving, but permanent modifiers can.
Tracks
Tracks, unlike measures, are changed solely on circumstances and not through character growth.
Track values will be raised and lowered based on actions taken or by being targeted by certain effects.
Track values often confer conditions with special effects of their own.
Some examples of tracks include:
See the Character Status section below for more information about tracks.
Character Status
A character's current status is primarily made up of several measures and tracks:
Vitality (HP) - A measure representing how much lethal damage a character can take. Each body area has its own vitality. If any body area marked "vital" reaches zero vitality then the character suffers a Vital Wound and is possibly dead.
Focus (FP) - A measure representing how much a character can exert themselves mentally before becoming fatigued. If a character's current focus reaches zero then the character adds the Mental Fatigue condition, and will likely become unconsciousness soon.
Stamina (SP) - A measure representing how much a character can exert themselves physically before becoming fatigued. If a character's current stamina reaches zero then the character adds the Physical Fatigue condition, and will likely become unconsciousness soon.
Fatigue - A track representing how much physical or mental strain a character is under. As the value climbs a character will suffer increasingly severe cumulative conditions, ending in unconsciousness.
Stress - A track representing how much emotional strain or distress a character is under. Sometimes stress is necessary to do the right thing, but left unchecked it can lead to character spiraling into vice or villainy.
Additionally, lists of effects currently being applied to the character are also used:
Conditions - All physical or magical effects your character is currently under. Conditions are often short-term, and may have rules under which they automatically end.
Wounds - Physical wounds that may improve over time, linger, or may worsen into an affliction. Wounds can also apply additional conditions and/or fatigue.
Afflictions - Long term physical wounds or ailments your character currently suffers from. These can apply additional conditions, or possibly aspects.
Body Areas
A character's race determines what kind of body areas they have.
Body areas determine what kind of gear can be equipped (ex: armor, apparel, weapons, etc). See Equipment below for more details.
Body areas can be targeted by attacks, wounds, conditions, etc.
Body areas each have their own Vitality measure.
Body areas marked as "vital" will cause a Vital Wound when they reach zero vitality.
Abilities
Abilities describe the actions that a character can make, whether they be mundane actions like walking around, attacks or fighting techniques, magical spells, or any number of other special abilities.
Many abilities are available to all characters inherently, while others must be learned through XP.
Abilities may also replace or enhance each other through ability types.
Ability Types
Base Abilities - Abilities that can be used by themselves, as well as be replaced or enhanced by other abilities.
Replacements - Abilities that change or override how a specified base ability functions.
Enhancements - Abilities that add effects to a specified base ability, or their replacements.
Combo Abilities
Using a replacement or enhancements while performing a base ability is called a combo ability.
To perform a combo ability, first choose the base ability to perform.
Then, if a replacement is being used, override the sections of the ability or effects that the replacement defines as necessary.
Only a single replacement may be used.
Next, for all enhancements that are being used, add their effects as necessary.
Multiple enhancements may be used.
Finally, the combo ability is performed with the final resolved set of effects.
Feel free to resolve a combo ability's effects before you use it and record it, particularly if it is something a character will use often.
For example, if a character often uses a Melee Attack base ability with a Slicing Blade enhancement, then recording a Slicing Blade-Strike combo ability with the combined effects will save time later.
Using Combo Abilities
Anytime an ability is used, a combo ability that still meets any listed requirements may be used.
This includes when abilities prompt you to perform another ability, though only with replacements of the same or lower time requirement as the prompting ability.
For example, the Called Melee Attack calls reads, in part, "Perform melee attack" - in this case a combo ability that replaces Melee Attack can be used instead.
A "full" action replacement of Melee Attack, however, could not be used as part of the Called Melee Attack ability since it would take longer to perform, and must be used separately.
Learning Abilities
Many abilities must be learned before they can be used.
Each ability has a tier that determines how difficult it is to learn, and relatively how powerful it is.
Not every ability has a tier. Some abilities do not need to be learned and can be performed by any character that otherwise meets the requirements. See Inherent Abilities below.
Abilities that are tier one or above can be learned by spending XP.
Your race determines how much XP it costs to learn an ability, per tier. For example, a race that requires 6 XP per ability tier can learn a tier two ability for 12 XP.
A replacement ability cannot be learned unless the ability it replaces is already learned.
An enhancement ability cannot be learned unless the ability it enhances is already learned.
Inherent Abilities
Many abilities can be used without first being learned, but may have other requirements before they can be used.
An inherent ability is considered tier zero, meaning it does not cost any XP and does not need to be learned to use.
Standard abilities are inherent abilities that have no specific requirements to use.
Equipment
A character's equipment includes items or gear that they are wearing, holding, carrying in a container like a backpack, or generally have on their person.
Wearable Items
Armor, apparel, portable containers (ex: backpacks), jewelry, and coverings (ex: capes) can be equipped directly to body areas. In other words, they can be worn.
Some wearable items cover more than one body area.
A body area can equip only one item of each layer simultaneously.
Items of the same layer that cover multiple areas cannot be worn simultaneously if the overlap by even one body area. For example, armor that covers the arms and hands cannot be worn at the same time as armor that covers the chest and arms.
Items can be worn if it covers a body area that a character does not have, for whatever reason. For example, a character missing an arm can still wear a shirt that covers the arms.
Wearable items of different layers can be worn on top of each other, meaning they are equipped simultaneously. For example, a character's abdomen could equip a shirt, a belt, a jeweled buckle, a breastplate, and a cloak.
Wearable items may have an encumbrance value, which when added together penalizes a character's ability to move freely. See the Encumbrance section for more details.
Wearable Item Layers
Several layers exist for wearable items.
The following possible layers are generally given from inward to outward, but can be re-arranged when reasonable.
For example, a necklace in the jewelry layer by default lays on top of any armor, but could be worn under clothing.
Underwear: A basic layer to cover unmentionables.
Base Apparel: An inner layer of general clothing such as tunics or t-shirts.
Outer Apparel: An outer layer of general clothing such as robes or hoodies.
Padding: A layer for armor padding such as gambesons.
Mail: A layer for mail armor or stab vests.
Armor: A layer for body armor, usually rigid armor like plate armor or plate carriers.
Jewelry: A layer for jewelry such as necklaces, rings, and belts.
Covering: A layer for outer coverings, usually for for outdoor use, like cloaks and boots.
Container: A layer for containers souch as quivers, backpacks, and belt bags.
4th Age: Armor Layering
Armor in the 4th age is a highly technical and tactical field of craftsmanship.
Soldiers and their armorers spend considerable time, thought, sweat, and blood to find the best ways to protect themselves from enemy attacks.
A delicate balance is needed between weight, flexibility, durability, body coverage, cost, and many other factors.
Due to the variety of weapons in common use during the time period, as single type of armor is unlikely to be able to protect against all of them.
For this reason warriors often layer different kinds of armor on top of one another, allowing specialized pieces work together to provide complete protection.
Wearable armor typically belong to one of three layers: padding, mail, and armor. As specified above wearable items of different layers can be worn together.
Each armor piece has an armor rating and deflection value for one or more damage type.
When armor is layered, the armor rating for a given damage type and body area is the highest rating of the layered items for the body area. For example, if a piece of mail has 2 armor rating against bashing damage and a gambeson has 3 armor rating, the armor rating for the body area against bashing damage is 3 even though the mail sits atop the padding.
When armor is layered the deflection value for a given damage type and body area is the combined value of all layered items for the body area. For example, if a piece of mail has 1 deflection against bashing damage and a gambeson has 2 deflection, the deflection value for the body area gainst bashing damage is 3.
Players are encouraged to make use of armor sets until they feel comfortable with the armor rules. Armor sets are pre-made collections of armor that simplify the process.
Held Items
Weapons and other portable items can be equipped to a character's hands. In other words, they can be held.
Only one item may equipped to a hand at a time.
Some items require two hands to hold.
One handed items only require one hand to hold but can be held in two hands as well, though this does not always provide extra benefits.
Carried Weight
While being loaded up to the hilt with gear makes a character prepared, it also weighs them down. Most characters will have to, at some point, strike a balance between taking everything and taking nothing.
Items that are worn, held, carried, or otherwise kept on a character's person contribute to their total carried weight.
Carried weight does not represent any particular real-world measurement (lbs, kg, etc.) but rather how much the character must continually exert themselves to carry that weight.
The weight of a particular item may be less than a whole number. For example a lightweight item might only weigh 0.1.
The carried weight is reserved from the character's SP. Remember to round down. For example, if a character's carried weight is 3.99, then three SP is reserved.
If an item does not list a weight the value is considered zero. This does not mean that a character may carry an infinite amount of the item; it means the item by itself has a negligible effect on a character's physical exertion. For example, while a shirt might have zero weight, the GM may assign some extra amount of carried weight if a character attempts to carry a backpack filled with 100 of them.
Encumbrance
Some items like armor can be bulky and can further penalize range of movement beyond what their carried weight would normally entail.
Items with encumbrance values contribute to a character's total encumbrance value.
Items with encumbrance include their encumbrance value when they are worn, equipped, or otherwise being utilized.
Encumbrance value is not included in the total when an item is simply being carried, though the item's weight still does. For example, a breastplate adds to encumbrance when it is worn, but not when it is stowed in a backpack. It adds to the carried weight in both situations.
The encumbrance of a particular item may be less than one. For example a leather armor plate might only add 0.1 encumbrance.
A character's total encumbrance value is used as a negative modifier for skill rolls with the [encumbered] tag. Remember to round down. For example, if a character's total encumbrance is 3.9 and has five athletics skill (which has the encumbered tag), then the character rolls two instead of five because of the encumbrance penalty.
Character Stubs
Character stubs are simplified characters that are faster to create.
They do not track the full amount of information about a character, but with few exceptions behave exactly like full characters for the purposes of interpreting rules.
Minions
Minions are character stubs that represent mostly anonymous cannon-fodder for players to easily overcome.
Instead of tracking body area vitality, wounds, bleeding, etc. minions are taken out of the fight whenever any of the following happens:
Receive any non-fatigue wound (including an unknown wound) to any body area.
Have a body area reduced to zero HP.
Are reduced to zero SP or FP.
The GM can determine whether these wounds actually kill the minion, cause them to stop resisting, or simply run away from the chaos of battle.
Because minions don't require a vital wound to defeat, it's recommended that the GM reveal a character's minion status up-front.
Group Morale
Most groups do not fight to the last man, and would rather retreat from a losing battle than sacrifice life and limb for a lost cause.
Players normally choose whether their characters wish to continue fighting, but for groups of non-player characters the GM may use a morale value to track when that group will generally break and attempt to flee.
The starting morale value is chosen by the GM, and can remain hidden.
For each non-fatigue wound applied to a member, and for each member killed the morale value is lowered by one.