Before you can brave the wild zones and back-alley cults, you need to know who you are. Character creation is a conversation between you and your GM — not a math exercise. Start with a person, then let the numbers follow.

Step 1: Who Are You?

Before you touch a single number, think about your character as a person. What did they do before the magic came? What drew them into adventuring? Are they a former soldier who picked up a sword when their revolver started misfiring in the field? A university professor who discovered they could shape fire with their bare hands? A street kid from the industrial district who's never seen real magic but heard the stories?

Write a name. Write a one-sentence concept. The "Class" field on your character sheet is just a label — it's not a mechanical gate. A "Smoke Surgeon" and a "Gutter Knight" use the same rules; they've just invested in different things. Think of setting-flavored titles: Relic Hunter, Wardbreaker, Channeler, Artificer.

Step 2: Your Attributes

Your character has six attributes, each rated from -3 to +3. Zero is ordinary. Positive means you're better than most people; negative means it's not your strength. These aren't hit points or big numbers — they're small modifiers that ripple through everything else your character does.

Attribute	Abbr	What It Means
Brawn	BR	Raw strength, endurance, how hard you hit and how much you can take
Physical Coordination	PC	Grace, reflexes, fine motor control — sword fighting, dodging, picking locks
Intellect	IN	Education, reasoning, technical knowledge — medicine, engineering, science
Social Prowess	SP	Charm, presence, social instinct — talking your way in (or out) of trouble
Awareness	AW	Perception, alertness, instinct — noticing the hidden, reading a room
Power	PW	Mental fortitude — resilience against stress, exhaustion, and the forces of magic

Your GM sets the net bonus for the campaign — the default is +1. That means when you add up all six of your attributes, the total must equal +1. Want to be exceptionally strong (BR +3)? Something else has to give. Every choice is a trade-off.

For each attribute, write a brief description on your character sheet explaining why that number makes sense. This isn't just bookkeeping — it's your character. "BR +2: Former dockworker, built like a brick wall." "IN -1: Street-smart, but never had formal schooling." These descriptions anchor your roleplaying and help the GM set appropriate challenges.

How Attributes Shape Your Character

Those small numbers cascade through the entire system. Here's what they determine:

• BR sets your Hit Points per wound tier (7 + BR). A tough character (BR +2) has 9 HP per tier. A frail one (BR -1) has only 6. That difference is life and death.
• PW sets your Exhaustion Points per tier (7 + PW) — your mental and spiritual fortitude against stress, fatigue, disorientation, and magical drain. Everyone has this track, caster or not. For those who do pursue magic, PW also determines how many spells and schools you can access — a high-PW caster commands vast power, while a low-PW caster burns out fast with a thin selection.
• PC determines who declares last in combat. The character with the highest PC sees what everyone else commits to before choosing their own action. In a firefight, that's enormous.
• Every attribute feeds into your skill target numbers, making the difference between "decent chance" and "nearly certain."

A Character Takes Shape

Let's build someone. Meet Kael Ashford — a former army officer who resigned his commission when magic erupted and the world stopped making sense. He's a swordsman first, a pragmatist always, and deeply suspicious of magic he doesn't understand.

Notice how Kael's numbers tell a story before we've touched a single skill. He's physically exceptional (BR and PC both +2), has solid instincts (AW +1), doesn't care much for social niceties (SP -1), and is about as far from magical as a person can be without being completely inert (PW -2). His low PW means only 5 Exhaustion Points per tier — he can push through stress and fatigue, but he'll hit his limits faster than someone with deeper reserves. Could he learn magic? Technically, yes — anyone can. But with a pool that shallow and only a handful of spells to choose from, it would be a bad investment. Kael knows this. He trusts his sword.

Step 3: Your Skills

Skills are the specific things your character knows how to do. Every skill is connected to an attribute, and your target number for a skill check flows directly from both.

You can have up to 15 skills. Skills are bought with skill points, which come in pools based on your attribute groups:

Skill points per group = 10 + (sum of stats in that group)

Group	Attributes	Skills
Physical	BR, PC	Athletics (BR), Brawl (BR), Melee (BR), Intimidation ★ (BR), Firearms (PC), Piloting (PC), Ranged (PC), Sleight of Hand (PC), Stealth (PC)
Mental	IN, AW, PW	Craft (IN), Engineering (IN), Medicine (IN), Occult Lore (IN), Science (IN), Tactics (IN), Empathy (AW), Investigation (AW), Observation (AW), Survival (AW), Resolve (PW), Scholarly Casting (PW), Wild Casting (PW)
Social	SP	Deception, Etiquette, Intimidation ★, Leadership, Persuasion, Streetwise

For full descriptions of what each skill covers, see the Skills chapter.

The cost is simple: one skill point per skill level. Want Melee at level 3? That's 3 points from your Physical pool. At character creation, the maximum is 3 per skill — mastery beyond that comes from experience during play. The level you invest determines your target number — the percentage you need to roll under.

Skill target = ((10 + attribute) × skill level) + 30

That formula looks like math, but it means something intuitive: a higher attribute makes every level of skill more effective. Let's see how it works for Kael:

See how that works? The same skill level of 3 gives different results depending on your attribute. A natural athlete (PC +3) with Melee 3 hits on 69%. A clumsy bookworm (PC -2) with the same training only manages 54%. The attributes matter.

What If You Don't Have a Skill?

Sometimes you need to try something you're not trained in — picking a lock without Sleight of Hand, patching a wound without Medicine. You can attempt it, but your odds aren't great:

Unskilled attempt = (5 + attribute) × 5

What Your Character Sheet Looks Like

Here's how Kael's skill section looks filled out. The character sheet has the formula printed right on it — 10 + stat × level + 30 — so you only do the math once during character creation.

Kael spent his Physical points heavily (BR +2 and PC +2 give him 14 Physical points — he used 12). He spread some Mental points around (IN +0, AW +1, PW -2 give him 9 — he used 6 on Tactics, Observation, and Survival). Social got the scraps (SP -1 gives him 9 points, he used 3). Notice he put Intimidation under BR, not SP — Kael doesn't threaten with words, he threatens by standing up and letting you do the math. And Leadership at 39% is a long shot, but a former officer can still bark an order when it counts.

Step 4: Hit Points & Exhaustion Points

Your character can take punishment across four wound tiers, each with 7 + BR hit points. As you fill tiers, the penalties stack — this is the death spiral, and it makes getting hurt terrifying.

Kael has 36 total HP (9 × 4 tiers). That sounds like a lot, but a revolver does 2d6 damage — one good hit can push him from OK to Harmed, and suddenly every roll he makes is 10% harder. Two hits? He's at -25%. This is the game telling you to think before you fight.

Exhaustion Points work the same way (7 + PW per tier), but track mental and spiritual strain — stress, fatigue, disorientation, magical drain. Kael has PW -2, giving him only 5 EP per tier. A stun grenade, a sleepless forced march, or sheer psychological pressure all tick this track. It recovers faster than physical wounds, but the penalties stack with them.

Step 5: Growing Over Time

Your character grows through experience, not body count. After every session, you earn XP that you spend to improve skills or — rarely — raise an attribute.

Earning XP

1 XP per session — automatic. You showed up, you played, you're growing.

+Bonus XP from table vote — At session's end, the table recounts the session together. Memorable scenes, clever solutions, heroic moments, great roleplay, advancing the story — the group recognizes standout moments and awards a bonus XP to players who earned one. Multiple players can earn a bonus in the same session, everyone can, or no one might. Not every session will have standout moments, and that's fine. The automatic XP means everyone is always growing.

Improving Skills

The cost to raise a skill to level N is N XP. Going from level 1 to 2 costs 2. Going from 4 to 5 costs 5. The maximum skill level in play is 5 — even a master (target 95) can still fail on a bad roll.

Advance	Cost	Sessions (at 1–2 XP)
New skill (0 → 1)	1 XP	1
1 → 2	2 XP	1–2
2 → 3	3 XP	2–3
3 → 4	4 XP	2–4
4 → 5	5 XP	3–5

Picking up something brand new costs almost nothing — your grizzled soldier starts learning Occult Lore after a terrifying encounter? That's 1 XP and a great character moment. But taking it all the way to mastery is a 15-session commitment. Breadth is cheap; depth is earned.

After character creation, XP is universal — not limited by the original group pools. You can invest in any skill regardless of which group it belongs to.

Improving Attributes

10 XP per +1 to an attribute. The cap is still +3. This is expensive — 5 to 10 sessions of saving everything for a single point. But the payoff cascades: every skill under that attribute improves when it does. Getting stronger makes you better at Athletics, Brawl, and Melee. Growing more resilient deepens your EP, your casting, and your Resolve. Attribute growth is the rare, landmark moment of a campaign.

Step 6: Station

Your Station is your economic position in the world — a single number from 0 to 5 that determines what you can access, where you can go, and how people treat you. It’s not a bank balance. It’s the life you lead.

Your starting Station defaults to the Station Floor set by your Society’s patron Backing (see Patron Backing). With the standard Backing of 3, that’s Station 2 (Getting By) — a modest flat, reliable meals, gear that works.

You may trade Station for skill levels during character creation:

• Trade up (+1 Station): Spend 3 skill levels from one group pool. You had a comfortable background — but you relied on it.
• Trade down (−1 Station): Gain 3 bonus skill levels to one group pool. You came from nothing and learned the hard way.

The trade is ±1 only. Station 3 is the maximum at creation — Station 4–5 is earned through play. Station 0 is available but means something is draining your patron’s support (debts, a vice, an obligation). The full Station table and access rules are in Coin & Commerce.

Step 7: Equipment

Pick gear that fits within your Station. Every item in the game has a Cost Tier from 0 to 5 — if the tier is at or below your Station, you own it. No tracking, no shopping list. A Station 2 character can carry a longsword (Tier 2), a revolver (Tier 2), and a leather coat (Tier 1) without thinking twice about it.

Kael starts at Station 2. He carries a longsword (Medium: speed 5, damage 1d8+1, Tier 2), a Webley revolver (speed 3, damage 2d6, 6 rounds, Tier 2), and wears a reinforced leather coat (Martial 2, Tier 1). He’s got a field kit, a hip flask, and a deep distrust of anything that glows. Everything is Tier 2 or below — within his Station.

Weapons and armor are covered in detail in Arms & Equipment. Every weapon has a speed (counts on the timing track) and damage (what you roll when you hit). Armor has two soak ratings — Ballistic (against firearms) and Martial (against blades and clubs) — plus optionally Hinder (a penalty for heavy armor). The Cost Tier column on each table tells you whether it’s within your means.

Step 8: Magic (If That’s Your Path)

Anyone can learn magic — it's a skill choice, not a birthright. If you invest skill points in casting (either Scholarly or Wild), you're a caster. PW doesn't gate access; it determines how deep your reserves run and how much you can learn. A PW -2 character who takes casting skills will burn out fast and know almost nothing. A PW +3 caster is a force of nature. Magic is covered fully in its own section, but here's what you need for character creation:

• Choose your path: Scholarly (controlled, requires a spellbook) or Wild (instinctive, unpredictable, no book needed).
• Scholarly: You can learn spells from any of the six schools — breadth is your advantage. You know 7 + PW base spells (minimum 1), and can buy more at 3 skill points each. You can only cast what's in your book.
• Wild: You access a number of schools equal to your PW modifier (minimum 1) — but you can cast every spell in those schools. No spellbook, no memorization. Depth is your advantage.