Step 1: Background
Our two dice for Background this time around give me 2 and 7. That means Blank Slate, Academic, and Performer. Two of those are taken, which means my choices are Performer or Military, but I’ll stick with Performer. I am required to take Finesse, since I’m almost out of Qualities, so what kind of performer…
Mike Wu is a professional stage magician! He uses his Finesse (d10) for his tricks, and his Banter (d8) to hold the rapt attention of his audience. He has a decent following and a few tricks of his own. For his Principle, the Principle of the Detective is why he got into stage magic; he loves seeing how things fit together.
Step 2: Power Source
Performer gives d10, d8, and d6 for Power Source, and my roll gives me 5, 5, and 1. That’s Accident, Mystical, Nature, and Tech Upgrades. Is it weird that I don’t want the magician to be Mystical? That feels too stereotypical. Instead, I’m going to do something ridiculous and give him Nature.
Mike was looking for a new white rabbit for his act, and found a sickly and exhausted rabbit in a mysterious pet shop. He took her home, and nursed her back to health, at which point she revealed that she was a magical rabbit on a quest to find a champion for the world; she gifted him with powers because of his good heart. This power has given Mike the ability to command the weather, speak with animals, and withstand terrible blows. It’s weird, and he’s not sure what to do with it, but apparently he’s a defender of the Earth now? Plus, being able to talk to the rabbits and doves really helps with his act, as does his ability to make thunderclaps happen for dramatic effect and stir a breeze to ruffle his cape.
For Abilities, Call to the Wild is a pretty reasonable way of grabbing animal minions, and Predator’s Eye creates weather that attacks enemies, but also empowers them. In Green, he uses his weather control to Hinder large groups.
Step 3: Archetype
We have a d10 and two d8s for selecting Archetypes, and rolling them gives me access to 7, 7, and 2. This means Shadow, Armored, Elemental Manipulator, and Minion-Maker, which means that I’ve actually got Minion-Maker and… Wild Card. Yes, let’s do that. Wild Card it is.
Awareness d10 gives our magician a good view of the world, and Acrobatics and Insight give him a solid range of Qualities. For Green Abilities, Unknown Results is very funny but also very bad, so I’m going to take Gimmick and Multitask. At Green, Mike uses his Awareness of the situation to Boost or Hinder, and maybe exploit an opportunity, and can use his Finesse to do a couple of things at once.
Yellow is much harder. I definitely want a Reaction. Break the 4th seems like the most powerful thing ever, but I love the idea of waiting to apply bonuses until after you roll and see how you did… no, I need to give him Break the 4th, it’s just too much better than the other Yellow options.
Wild Card also hands us our second-ever Ideals Principle. (For those keeping track, we’re at seven Expertise, five Responsibility, four Esoteric, two Identity, and now two Ideals.) I’m going to give Mike the Principle of Liberty. He believes in freedom and choice, and hates to be restrained.
Step 4: Personality
Two d10s gives me double 6s, which opens up Distant and Nurturing. Since those are both gone, we get Fast-Talking and Analytical instead. Those both work, but I’m going to take Analytical. Mike can do the fast-talking thing, but his impulse is to figure out what’s going on and take advantage of the situation. This makes him best in Green.
For our roleplaying quality, I’m giving Mike Coco the Rabbit. Coco is a sentient rabbit who may or may not be a nature spirit, and is Mike’s animal companion.
Step 5: Red Abilities
In Red, Mike is starting to get worse at doing things, so I want a pair of Abilities to offset that. Summon Allies lets him create a whole host of animal friends, through psychic powers this time, and a Finishing Blow lets him turn the penalties he creates into a single, powerful hit (which with a horde of Hindering doves can be really strong.)
Step 6: Retcon
I don’t really need a new Power or Quality, and I am keenly aware that I keep just boosting everyone with a d6 Red die to d8, so I’m going to deliberately duck the trend and give Mike a new Red Ability instead. Impossible Knowledge lets him just turn penalties into bonuses, which will do well.
Step 7: Health
Oh, hey. (8 + Vitality 6 + Red 6 + 4) gives us a mere 24 Health, by far the lowest we’ve seen to date. We now officially have an example of the weird semi-failure state – with Physical Qualities at d10 and Intellectual Powers at d10, Mike’s stuck with a d6, and since he’s not great in Red he ends up in Red faster, which is sort of an interesting effect.
Step 8: Alias
I really want to call this guy Magic Mike, but I’m not going to. Instead, he is Ilamar the Inscrutable, Master of Mystery! Ilamar doesn’t actually mean anything, he just liked the sound.
Character Sheet
Ilamar the Inscrutable
Alias: Mike Wu
Background: Performer, Power Source: Nature, Archetype: Wild Card, Personality: Analytical
Principles: The Detective, Liberty
- Roleplaying: You can always tell when an important piece of information is being left out or
- obscured, though you might not know exactly what it is. You believe strongly in liberty and side with the oppressed. You can never truly be mentally restrained.
- Minor Twists: What important clue did you miss? How do you become temporarily trapped?
- Major Twists: What major information was revealed that you wish had stayed hidden? How have you become a prisoner yourself?
Status Dice: Green d10, Yellow d8, Red d6
Health: 24 (Green 24-19, Yellow 18-10, Red 9-1)
Qualities:
- Finesse (Physical) d10
- Acrobatics (Physical) d8
- Banter (Social) d8
- Insight (Social) d8
- Coco The Rabbit (RP) d8
Powers:
- Weather (Element) d10
- Awareness (Intellectual) d10
- Animal Control (Psychic) d8
- Vitality (Athletic) d6
Green Abilities:
- Principle of the Detective (A): Overcome to learn hidden information and use your Max die. You and your allies gain a Hero Point.
- Principle of Liberty (A): Overcome in a situation in which you are restricted or bound and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Blasting Winds (A): Hinder using Weather. Use your Max die. You may split that penalty across multiple nearby targets.
- Quicker than the Eye (A): Take two basic actions using Finesse. Use your Min die for each.
- Set The Stage (A): Boost or Hinder using Awareness. Use your Max die. If you roll doubles, you may also Attack with your Mid die.
Yellow Abilities:
- Hat Trick (A): Gain a d8 animal minion. It acts on your turn, and goes away at the end of the scene. You may only have one such minion at a time.
- The Storm’s Eye (A): Attack an enemy with Weather. Use your Max + Min die. Then gain a Boost using your Mid die. The target of the Attack gains a Boost of the same size.
- Callbacks ®: Uncheck one of your Collections.
Red Abilities:
- Summon Nature’s Allies (A): Use Animal Control to create a number of d6 minions equal to your Mid die. Choose the basic action they perform. They act at the start of your turn.
- Nothing Up My Sleeve (A): Attack using Finesse. Use your Max die. Remove any number of penalties from the target, and add your Min die once for each penalty removed.
- The Old Switcheroo (I): At the start of your turn, change any penalty into a bonus.
Out Ability: Remove a bonus or penalty of your choice.
Aftermath: Boy, I changed the rules just in time. Ilamar the Inscrutable had to use my new rule set twice. The next ten heroes I make are going to be real restrictive.
With that said, this quick-talking magician who has actual powers that are not in any direct way related to stage magic is pretty great, and I could see him becoming a fun part of the team. There’s also some dangling story threads about his literal magic rabbit – where is she from, what is she after, how is this going to go down, can anyone but him hear her, or do they all just think he’s talking to a rabbit (or even better, anyone could hear her, but she’s shy and doesn’t like to talk…)
Now that we’re ten heroes down, I thought that I would also quickly take stock of how they handled the options:
For Backgrounds, I only have three of the first ten unlocked, so we’re likely to see a lot more of “pick from two high-end choices” popping up going forward. This is also true to exactly the same degree for Power Source; I didn’t get a lot of high numbers rolling previously. This is even worse for Archetypes; only two of the first ten are around, and one of them is Speedster, which requires a 1 to be rolled. Oddly, Personalities aren’t nearly as tilted, with seven of the first ten still available.
My requirement to include every Quality is just about over; Medicine is the only one left, so someone’s going to get that soon (probably Medical, if they’re drawn before I get “any Info”). I have 18 Powers that I haven’t included, and thus would like to have in my last ten characters, but they’re quite spread out; half of them are Energy or Materials, with the other half spread out across five categories and every Athletic power picked (Hallmark too, but there are only two Hallmark powers so that’s different.) Materials in particular seems uncommon; I hadn’t noticed that there were only five Power Sources and four Archetypes that use them, and didn’t take them a couple times early on, so I’ll have to focus in on that when possible.
For Principles, I still have nine Esoteric options, seven Expertise, eleven Ideals, ten Identity, and seven Responsibility to choose from. I hadn’t run through all twenty of my remaining options to see how many I’d have left when I was picking. (Spoiler alert: Expertise is… a thing.)
And finally, I still have 43 Red Abilities to pick from, and will be picking 20-30. I’m going to have to keep an eye on some of the categories to try and pull from them to keep my options open overall, but I haven’t accidentally picked an entire category clean yet.