Character Creation Walkthrough

Most overall character details add flavor for roleplay and story hooks, but do not directly affect gameplay dice pools:

Tension between metatypes may vary in intensity depending on the table flavor and setting specifics. Play up metatypes to explore discrimination and modern-day racial issues.

Some classic supernatural creatures have resurfaced with the 6th world, but are not metatypes. Several types of viral-borne illnesses surface classic monster types such as vampires, ghouls, werewolves. Playing a viral character has impact on many elements of character play and should be discussed with your DM.

There are other metatypes in Neon Sorcery, but they are rarely used for player characters as they have severe limitations functioning in a world designed around humans. Talk to your DM if you’d like to play one of these non-standard metatypes, they may suggest specific traits or character adjustments to fit.

NPC and rare metatypes include: dragons, mermaids, centaurs, AI, and more.

The names and general appearance of metatypes here are based off european fantasy tropes. If you’d like to have a metatype fit a different regional or cultural flavor, go for it. Please be respectful of cultures that are not your own personal heritage.

During gameplay you may have status effects that apply to your character. These fields are generally not used during character build unless special circumstances arise.

Attributes define the core generic capabilities of each character.

During character creation, each level costs 1 attribute point.

Social groups and communities use shared social rules and language called Etiquettes. Knowing the right social rules in a situation ensures that your characters’ attempts to connect and manipulate others work as planned.

Etiquettes act as Charisma-type bonuses in Errant Assets. When attempting social checks, a player states which etiquettes they are using during the check, and the DM will adjust thresholds to match.

If the etiquette is a mismatch, the DM adjusts the success threshold accordingly. This does not represent a failure to perform the etiquette. Instead, it simply represents that you are using the wrong social rules for the situation.

Select 1 upbringing etiquette. This defines the sort of situations your character spent most of their upbringing in.

Career Etiquettes belong to broad classes of working industries that share terminology and social expectations.

Select 1 career etiquette. Additional etiquettes can be bought as an optional trait.

Common skills may apply in many situations. Common skill tests often have a higher threshold than Niche skill tests

Some skills have more limited applications. Pick skills that make sense for your backstory or previous career

(3 x Logic) = Niche skill points

While you can spread your skills very wide, keep in mind that you are a professional selling a specific skill set. You should have at least one skill at Proficient or higher.

At character creation, players can choose free skill tricks = Logic

Additional skill tricks can be bought for 2 xp each

After character creation, skill tricks must be learned during downtime.

No matter how introverted you are, during your life you’ll have made friends and enemies along the way. Relationship contacts are the result of the life your character has already lived.

No matter where you go, old friends tend to crop up. Someone who knew you when you were young happens to be available as a friend during this campaign.

Choose a contact from the Contact Type Table and set their Affinity at Friendly, and their Power at 3.

By default, the family friend contact has the same upbringing etiquette as the character, but a different etiquette can be chosen.

No matter how hard you try to please everyone, someone with your skills is going to anger someone.

Choose a contact from the Contact Type Table and set their Affinity at Dislike and Power at 3.

Many statistics used in gameplay are calculated after character creation. Leave these fields blank until after you have bought gear and finalized all potential bonuses that might affect these stats.

Passive thresholds are used when other characters or NPCs act against your character. These thresholds are static and built by a combination of attribute calculations and gear bonuses.

Active pools are used when your character is taking a related action. Active pools may be changed by situational effects, gear, skills, or traits.

During gameplay, character damage is tracked on the health and stun trackers. For every 3 boxes filled in, characters receive a dice pool penalty for all actions.

By default, all characters have 8 boxes available for both Health and Stun. Some traits may enable a character to have more or less than that, which will affect their ability to withstand damage during gameplay.

In Neon Sorcery, characters personality and will are tied to their soul, but this soul does not have to be tied to a body

Body-soul is called essence. By default, all metahumans are born with 6 essence. Essence helps the body heal and manipulate the world, and results in an affinity for good luck, called Savvy.

Metahumans can also have innate mana or resonance. Mana unlocks the ability for metahumans to manipulate astral forces to cast magic. Resonance allows metahumans to innately manipulate technology to hack or control devices.

During character gen you’ll have chances to convert physical essence into innate mana and resonance with the Awakened and Emerged trait. Each point of mana or resonance removes 1 essence from the soul pool. The total pool of a character’s soul always adds up to 6. Essence can also be converted to resonance with bioware during character generation or during gameplay. Essence can be converted to mana during gameplay through magical initiation or special events.

Soul pools are not the only way for characters to access magical and technological abilities. Magical and technological items may add temporary mana and resonance to your characters pool without affecting your character’s soul composition. This mana and resonance is dependent on the item and is only available to your character when they have their gear with them.

A character that has 0 essence will not be able to be resurrected or return to their body. Upon physical death, the character’s soul becomes fully astral or digital, and an appropriate magical or android body is required to house their soul.

All soul types added together should equal 6 at end of character creation.

Savvy, Mana, and Resonance can all be supplemented later. Only soul pools are innate.

To play a character that uses technomancy abilities, you must purchase the Emerged quality during Heritage.

Savvy, mana, and resonance power special abilities during gameplay. Make sure to note how much of each innate pool you have.

During character creation you’ll have the option to select variable traits. Traits have a cost or benefit that is subtracted or added from your trait character build point pool when you choose them.

Your trait pool must be 0 or above at the end of character creation. You do not have to purchase traits, especially not negative ones, but it is recommended to spend your build points.

Traits should be split evenly between qualities that your character was born with, and that they acquired before the campaign starts, with 3 traits for each.

These traits can only be purchased during the heritage phase of character creation.

To play a character that uses technomancy abilities, you must purchase the Emerged quality during Heritage.

Spells and programs are purchased during gear buy, and can be bought at any time during gameplay.

Characters can only know the # of Spells as their Casting skill x Logic, and # of Programs as their Hacking skill x Logic.