Sorts
Archetypes for playable characters. Each bestows skills and starting possessions.
Weaknesses
Every sort lists two weaknesses. To qualify for a sort during character creation, your weakness must match one of them.
- Refer to the sort qualifications chart to identify a sort befitting your weakness.
Starting Virtues and Issues
Some sorts come with issues or virtues. These neither give nor cost XP, even if they usually would.
Mutant sorts
Some human sorts are mutants—the product of genomic meddling by Dark Age sorcerers seeking to produce a more durable race of chattel. You have a 1-in-6 chance of being allowed a mutant sort at time of selection.
Unusual Sorts
Unique creatures and personalities. Two of a kind cannot coincide in a party. You have a 1-in-12 chance of being allowed an unusual sort at time of selection.
Bighter
At sea, when a whipping to be dispensed, it is the bighter—the hand best at knots—who ties and swings the biting lash. A jailer, a scourge, and a torturer. Be they soldiers, sailors, or mercenaries, rough folk abide your woeful art: The humbling kiss of rope.
Skills
- Melee: Snap & Lash 2
- Knots 3
- Topic: Seas 2
- Sailing 2
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
- Language: [common] 2
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- 60 yards of hemp rope
- Scourge or bullwhip
- A red-and-white kerchief
- Serrated sailor’s knife or bag of caltrops
Binder
A weaver of swaddled folk. A respected figure in chiffonier circles. An artisan uniquely skilled in the artful binding-up of raveled life; of flowing blood and cloth alike.
Skills
- Topic: Weaving 3
- Knots 2
- Melee: Improvised 1
- Topic: Couturier 3
- Topic: Chiffonier fashion 4
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- 75 yards clean cotton trappings strips
- 50 yards soft leather trappings strips
- 25 yards colored ribbon
- Long-bladed tailor’s scissor (as combat knife)
Blighted vanguard
Where many with your disease have found despair and pariahdom, you have found opportunity. Instead of fear and pity, you engender demand. Demand for your services as an unfeeling living shield.
Skills
- Melee: Shield & Slam 2
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
- Medicine 2
- Topic: Outcasts 4
- Topic: Aveth 3 or Epidemiology 3
- Language: [uncommon] 4
- Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- reinforced saloon door (as large shield)
- thick leather shoulder pads
- 5 bandages
- Wooden rosary or candle and 20 matches
Body snatcher
A medical misappropriator. A thief of the honored dead for sale on the black market, or for your own dissection and harvest.
Skills
- Dissection 1
- Medicine 2
- Topic: Plague 3
- Topic: Black Market 3
- Melee: Crush & Strike 2
- Thrown 2
- Language: [common] 5
Possessions
- Jar of chloroform
or bottle of laudanum - Maple cosh 1#
- Thigh-high stocking with eyeholes
- Roll of 3 scalpels
- Bone saw 1#
Boilermaker
You bring a bit of civilization wherever you go: A lit stove and a boiler of hot water. A beloved ally to venturesome types, for whom heat and comfort may otherwise be so far away.
Skills
- Topic: Metalworking 2
- Topic: Armory 2
- Matchsmithy 3
- Engineering 2
- Woodcutting 3
- Stowage 3
- Topic: Labor unions 4
- Topic: Steamships 4
- Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- 8 tin cups
or big cast iron skillet - 2 units of firewood
- Hatchet
- Steel plate armor patch kit
- Blowtorch
One of these starting stoves:
Caitiff
You’ve been this way all your life: Hated. A poltroon, a lily-liver and a backbiter. A cowardly dastard who’ll not only flee your side but take advantage in due time. You can’t help it—life is more terrifying than anyone seems to realize, only palatable when taken with the upper hand. It’s in your blood, though you’ll never know it: Ancient meddling has sown in your bloodline the makings of a perfect, despicable spymaster.
Skills
- Throw 2
- Cards 3
- Horsemanship 3
- Barbering 3
- Swimming 2
- Etiquette 2
- Knots 3
- Language: [common] 3
- Language: [common] 5
Possessions
- A once-fine silk shirt
or an immodest lace vest - Leather trousers
or cream tennis shorts - Riding boots
or rubber plimsolls - An intimate item that isn’t yours
- An warrant for your arrest in a nearby principality
Cooper
A bender and a binder of stout housings. A tradesman converted by popular demand from a crafter of kegs and wine barrels to an outfitter of cutter’s casques and body-plates.
Skills
- Topic: Cooperage 3
- Topic: Woodworking 3
- Topic: Armory 3
- Melee: Crush & Strike 1
- Topic: Tradesmen 3
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Wooden bucket
- Empty pony keg w/straps (replaces backpack)
- 12 steel spikes
Leather tool roll containing:
- Cooper’s hammer
- Draw knife
- Hand drill
Cutler
A worker in the lively art of blades; in the revitalizing pass of steel over stone and strop; and in the perishing wake of live steel.
Skills
- Topic: Bladesmithy 4
- Topic: Weaponsmithing 1
- Topic: Metalworking 1
- Melee: Lunge & Jab 2
- Hack & Slash 2
- Language: [Common] 4
Possessions
- Whetstone
- Leather strop
- Long, heavy file
- Leather apron
- Fine hunting knife
or fine cleaver
Chimneysweep
A life spent up and down the world’s flues. Bruised, abraded, burned, and suffocated. Knees and spine and elbows tattooed by the shimmy. To outgrow the chimney-pipe places you precariously atop it, stooping to rope out the juniors and thrust the whaletooth brushes. It is among the worst professions in a world, where the stacks stretch ever taller and acquire ever more soot.
Skills
- Throw 2
- Fishing 4
- Melee: Cast & Tangle 2
- Stowage 2
- Knots 2
- Topic: Underclass 4
- Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- Soot flail (2#)
or x2 telescopic pole (2# ea) + chimneybrush (1#)
or creosote trowel (as dagger) - 64 m cotton rope
- thick canvas jacket and trouser
- 3 sacks of soot (1# ea)
You are an ecclesial accessory; a traditional employee of parishes that do no labor upon the Sabbath, but gratefully employ those furry folk who can. For every church, there is a churchmouse. And where the church cannot go, the churchmouse goes instead.
Skills
- Bureaucracy 3
- Matchsmithy 3
- Etiquette 4
- Ceremonies 4
- Topic: Recent History 4
- Topic: Ecclesiarchy 4
- Topic: Aveth 4
- Language: [common] 4
- Language: Ancient Nor 2
Possessions
- Silver chamberstick with candle snuffer
- Box of 20 matches
- Three red tapers
- Cassimere business suit
- White choir dress mantle
- Suede mouse sack with ball closure
Disorderly
You are, or were, valet to some officer or commissioner. By whatever vagary, you have been separated, left aimless with half your gear and a pair of officer’s boots.
Skills
- Bureaucracy 2
- Riding 2
- Entrenching 2
- Horsemanship 1
- Barbering 1
- Shoot: Pistol 2
or Melee: Hack & Slash 2 - Topic: Military 4
- Language: [common] 5
Possessions
- Belt with holstered:
- Pistolette w/ 5 120 gr fléchettes
- or munitions spade
- Black bicorn hat or denim garrison cap
- Burgundy dress uniform w/ red piping or denim padded long coat
- Black jackboots or brown laced riding boots
- Leather saddlebag containing:
- Stiff-bristled brush
- Leather polish
- Straight razor and steel mirror in shaving bag
Driftbrick
A member of the Mason’s Guild, a coalition of itinerants who’ll put a quality brick in whatever wall, fireplace, or offending face an employer desires.
Skills
- Topic: Masonry 4
- Engineering 3
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
- Melee: Improvised 2
- Topic: Masons Guild 2
- Language: [common] 2
- Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- Bricklaying trowel
- Brick
- Leather apron
- Leather chaps
- Two pairs woolen socks or soft hat
- Pewter Mason’s Guild ring
Exposist
Once a crime scene camerist. A exposer of photoplates and the lurid aftermath of lives. The tabloids have lost your loyalty, though: There are subjects more outré—more thrilling to exploit—within the deep of the ancient Coast and the borders of other worlds. Places where flashbulbs have not yet burned.
Skills
- Photogravure 3
- Chemistry 3
- Topic: Criminalistics 3
- Topic: Anatomy 4
or Waste anthropology 4 - Locksmithy 2
or Bureaucracy 2 - Topic: Organized crime 3
or Topic: Folklore 3 - Language: [common] 2
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Spice 0100 Box Camera
- Camera strap
- 12 prepared copperplates
- Camera flash lamp
- 12 Flashbulbs
- Pack of cigarettes
or A lockpick - Lined black coat 2 warmth
- Camerist’s pouch 12 pocket space
Field barber
A cutter of scruff and a mender of the broken. A rare ally in dirty and painful times.
Skills
- Barbering 3
- Medicine 2
- Herbalism 3
- Surgery 2
- Melee: Hew & Thrust 1
or Shoot: Longarm 1 - Language: [common] 5
Possessions
Leather doctor’s bag containing:
- Steel scissors
- Small steel mirror
- Steel comb
- Straight razor
- Shaving soap
- Shaving mug
- 3 Bandages
- 3 ampoules tonic or a tin of soothing ointment
Fieldstone
Found in a barleyfield, struck by a steam tiller. You dealt it considerable damage, and it did so to you, too: A segment of your grieb is missing. Cleaved off, lost. That segment held the main measure of memories, sadly, a loss discovered upon your revival by a geologist—to whom the barleyman sold you. How or when you came to be dead and crystalline in a field will never be answered. There are better questions, however. Like: “How shall I get on in human society?” and “what kind of alcohol do they produce?”
Skills
- Melee: Hand-to-Handed 2
- Topic: Metallurgy 2
or Throw 2
or Topic: Engraving 2 - Topic: Bladesmithy 4
or Boating 4
or Topic: Jewelry 4 - Topic: Armorsmithy 4
or Fishing 4
or Topic: Gemcutting 4 - Topic: Blacksmithy 5
or Song 5 - Language: [common] 1
- Language: Stenghetn 5
Possessions
- Tweed sack coat & trousers (hemmed) or baggy ensemble sewn from chintz curtains
- Canteen of strong barleywine (2u)
- Walking stick
- Smoking pipe
- Box of 20 matches
- Almanac w/ several pages torn out
- Handkerchief, plaid
Gunhawk
A practitioner in the modern art of pistols. A pair of flitting eyes and a palm quick on the draw bought to start violence before it can spring to other hands. A profession well-desired in the marchlands and frontiers, where speed and discretion make peace. And where coin, wet with gore and gun oil, makes right.
Skills
- Shoot: Pistols 3
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
or Throw 2 - Gunsmithy 2
- Surgery 2
- Medicine 2
or Barbering 2 - Horsemanship 3
or Swimming 3 - Topic: Banks 4
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Pistolette w/ leather belt holster
or flat chamois underarm holster - Leather gunbelt
or bandolier - x18 120 gr fléchettes
- White linen shirt w/ band collar
- Cocoa suit jacket w/ matching waistcoat & trousers
or checked serape & leather pants or long plum guncoat & slacks - Pork pie hat
or straw sombrero
or waxed rain mantle w/ face cover
Harlequin
A delightful terror. The devilsome commedia star in the checked suit and jeering mask: Capering, jesting, flirting with the soubrette, cartwheeling away from consequence. In the pantomine, much the same: Bicker with the Sad Clown, harry the grue-mimes with the slapstick, pratfall when kissed by the pretty young thing. Under the bigtop: Don the greasepaint smile, sell the balloons, defy the ringmaster, terrify and enrapture the children. None of that matters anymore, though. The troupe is gone, the money spent, the joke unwound. A fool remains.
Skills
- Acrobatics 3
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 3
- Throw 3
- Melee: Crush & Smash 2
- Play: [instrument] 3
- Song 3
- Language: [common] 3
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- Black comedy mask
or greasepaint palette - Checked short jacket
or silly conical hat - Checked bodysuit
or frilly clown blouse
or colorful trappings - Mandolin/mouth harp/harmonica/penny whistle/cigar box guitar
or slapstick, rubber gun, and juggling pins
Hellion
A human born cursed, they say. Born of old blood; of Dark Age warriors who traded the color and sensation of the world for furious clarity in war. Warriors, like you, whose deadly senses were rocked from numbness only by the roar and swell of pain.
Skills
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 3
- Melee: Maul & Split 2
or Crush & Strike 2 - Butchery 2
- Woodcutting 2
- Throw 2 or Cards 2
- Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- Knuckle dusters
- Long crowbar or splitting maul
or sledgehammer - Scuffed leather jacket
or Padded jacket
Idler
A twiddler of thumbs. A leaner and a smoker in doorframes and shaded corners. A listener and a thinker. Not an actor, but an observer. Not a layabout, but an incipient learner.
Skills
- Topic: [common] 4
- Topic: [common] 2
- Topic: [Obscure] 2
- Language: [Two common] 3
Possessions
- Pack of 12 Waxman’s cigarettes
- Box of 20 matches
- Flatcap or spectacles
or banker’s visor - Pencil
- Notepad
Infected herbalist
A shunned apothecary. A learned pariah, driven into society’s outskirts by its hate for your condition and by your roving search for ameliorating extracts and unknown panaceas. In the obscure and wild places of the world, you seek a cure, or, at least, an easement, for your suffering.
Skills
- Medicine 4
- Herbalism 4
- Dissection 2
or Topic: [common] 2 - Peace 2
- Language: [common] 5
Possessions
- Bandolier of 12 specimen jars
- Belt pouch of 12 ounces grisodate
- 10 bandages
- Swaddling of dirty bandages
- Thick footwraps (replaces starting shoes)
Intrepid child
A child of small stature and outsized ambition. Self-trained by storybooks in wooden swords, stick-bows, and other skills relevant to your ideations of high adventure.
Skills
- Melee: Hack & Slash 2
- Shoot: Bows 1
- Woodworking 1
or Melee: Guard & Bash 1 - Play: Whistle 2
- Swimming 2
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Wooden sword
- Hunting bow
- 5 arrows in fur quiver
- Tin whistle
- Bucket with eyeholes
or bark shield
Intruder
A duplicitous rogue. One possessed of fine limbs, nimble manners, and a predilection for intrusion within homes and minds.
Skills
- Etiquette 3
- Locksmithy 2
- Melee: Lunge & Jab 1
- Barbering 3
- Cards 3
- Knots 2
- Language: [common] 4
- Language: [common] 6
Possessions
- Lockpick
- 20 yards cotton rope
- Folding grapnel colomine musk cologne
- A fine, dusty suit and shoes or hooded leather jerkin and soft shoes
- Stiletto and forearm sheathe
Ironmonger
A roustabout from County Black, Firlund’s smog-choked heart of industry. You are industrious and superstitious, both. Raised on patriotism, toil, and the glory of the Industrial Enlightenment, and hyper-aware of the Other and its hate for all you work for and love.
Skills
- Topic: Metalworking 4
- Topic: [Two topics] 3
- Topic: Firlund 4
- Topic: Heavy industry 4
- Topic: Fairies 3
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 1 or Improvised 1
- Language: Firlish 5
Possessions
- Carpet bag or canvas haversack
- 46 cm monkey wrench
or drop-forged bolt cutters - Slide rule or Caliper or oiler
- Deerskin gloves
- Hard-soled work boots
- Engraved horseshoe
or small iron bell earring
Kriegsminister
You’ve tumbled from the top. One of a hundred or more heads sprouted and subsequently pruned by Lothrheim’s War Ministry in its struggles with Belvirine and her allied banks. You should have expected it—your strategies weren’t any better than the rest—but that’s no excuse to have thrown you down, so. Penniless, banished, stripped of your fraternal allegiances, disavowed by your peers. They’ve sent you to the bottom, where the desperados lie. How fitting it would be to become one of them; one of the caste your country so unwisely summoned war by banning: a cutter.
Skills
- Melee: Hack & Slash 2
- Shoot: Pistol 2 or Horsemanship 2
- Topic: Recent history 6
- Topic: [common] 3
- Topic: [common] 4
- Etiquette 6
- Barbering 4
- Language: [common] 4
- Language: Emperoussin 5
- Language: Lothrsprech 6
Possessions
- Rusted baskethilt
or saber - Double-breasted black dress uniform w/ red piping insignias torn off
- Empty pistol holster
- Soft leather parade gauntlets
- Tin of moustache wax or tube of lipstick
- Gold military academy class ring
- A comb
- Black jackboots
Lee urchin
An awful young huddler in hollow logs and dark alleys. A pickpocket and a risker. Perhaps an orphan, perhaps a victim of society. Likely a criminal. Most definitely a scamp.
Skills
- Topic: Streets 2 or Topic: Woods 2
- Cards 2
- Matchsmithy 2
- Locksmithy 1 or Trapping 1
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- Raggedy set of knit clothes
- Soft sack hat
or Flatcap - Sorry shoes
or a penny (both replace starting shoes) - Small steel jaw trap
or a lockpick or a fuzee lighter - Two six-sided dice
- One cigarette
Log feller
A human of simple means and deliberate action. A woodcutter, a forestman; curiously adept at delving into forests, however gloomy and haunted.
Skills
- Woodcutting 3
- Matchsmithy 2
- Topic: Woodlands 3
- Melee: Maul & Split 2
- Swimming 2
- Trapping 2
- Language: Firlish 4
Possessions
- Felling axe
- Hirsute coat
or buckskin jacket - Tree climbing spurs
- Large stick basket with straps (replaces starting backpack)
Lugger
A conveyor of burdens. A back grown broad and steady neath uncounted crushing loads. Perhaps a stevedore, a farmer, or a bearer of sacred oils. Now, a courier of whatever cargo graces your iron frame.
Skills
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
- Cards 2
- Song: 2
- Knots 2
or Stowage 2 - Topic: [Common] 3
- Language: [Common] 2
- Language: [Common] 4
Possessions
- Lug straps
- Paisley or checkered bandana
One container (4 burden, double the capacity of a backpack)
- Wine crate
- Footlocker
- Small chest of drawers
Linkend
Yours it is the most junior and dreaded job in the venturing economy: The linkend, or linker. A cutter of so little might or skill as to be relegated as forward lantern-bearer for stronger parties. Linkenden walk first in marching order, fulfilling a secondary, unspoken role: To trigger traps and bear the brunt of ambush. You are the first in danger. The first to perish. The last to be paid.
Skills
- Matchsmithy 2
- Melee: Improvised 1
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- Woolen pocketed vest
or short woolen cape - Box of 20 matches
- 3 tallow candles
- Candle lantern
Lurkabout
A lurker and an encroacher. A latent loiterer in dank hovels and dug-out hollows. Your goals and wants are rude, but distinct.
Skills
- Entrenching 3
- Cooking 2
- Matchsmithy 2
- Cards 2
or Play [Instrument] 2 - Melee: Improvised 1
or Melee: Hack & Slash 1 - Topic: Alleyways 3
or Topic: Marchlands 3 - Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- 3 fat dubious sausages
- Rude wooden pipe
- Box of 20 matches
- Shovel
- Rotisserie spit
or Cast iron skillet
Malpracticant
Expelled. Top of your class, and so close to your residency. “Ongoing misconduct of a morally troubling nature,” claimed the Faculty Council. “Staggering criminal and ethical violations.” A unanimous vote for your ejection. No matter: They can’t destroy your thesis. Your work continues elsewhere: In the frontier, the dungeon, or the battlefield will you found your ersatz research hospital, and in cutters find your subjects.
or mouse - Unusual
Skills
- Medicine 4
- Dissection 4
- Surgery 4 or
Chemistry 4 - Topic: Anatomy 4
or Topic: Pharmacology - Topic: Biology 4
- Topic: Hospitals 4
- Topic: [unommon] 3
- Language: Ancient Nor 4
- Language: [common] 5
Possessions
- £300 debt with 1 bank
- black rubber surgical smock
- black leather bag w/:
- x2 standard medical kit
- 3 phenol
- 3 chloroform
- x6 suture needle
x6 suture thread - field surgical kit
Manhunter
You know the thin distinction between a killer and a civil contractor: One has their head on a poster. The other is you.
Skills
- Houndsmanship 2 or Throw 2
- Butchery 2
or Matchsmithy 2 - Medicine 2 or Knots 2
- Melee: Hack & Slash 2
- Topic: Bounty Hunting 4
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Sharpened steel grapnel
or Serrated hunting knife - Munitions hatchet
- Leather jacket
- Rigid bar handcuffs
- A wanted poster for a nearby bounty head
Moonshiner
A kind of merchant refugee. A brewer and a peddler of craft spirits fled from Belvirine, where such products are prohibited.
Skills
- Melee: Crush & Strike 1
- Distillery 2
- Commerce 2 or Matchsmithy 2
- Topic: Metalworking 1
- Topic: Black market 3
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Copper pot-still with straps (counts as backpack)
- Small barrel with drain holes
- Copper tubing
- Clay jug with finger loop, full of white spirits
- Lighter
- Cast iron ladle, long (as crowbar)
Morselieur
A daring victualler. A hunter and a seeker of new foodstuffs, wherever they may hide.
Skills
- Butchery 3
- Dissection 3
- Cooking 3
- Topic: Meats 4
- Topic: Edible plants 4
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Gardening gloves
- Tweed flat cap
or cloche hat - Galoshes
Leather tool roll w/:
- Garden trowel
- Butcher knife
- Secateurs
- Cleaver
- Hunting knife
Parvenu
Briefly, you were nouveau riche: Ascended on an updraft of money and fame to scintillate among the unmasked aristosphere. You attended the dinner parties, the charity balls, the ribbon-cuttings; the rollicking summer social season and its receptions, debutantes, regattas, and opening nights at the opera. The convivial winter of country houses, hunting parties, resort towns, and endless smoky nights nodding and arguing with the fervent heads of politics and industry. But not everyone likes an upstart. Soon enough, they found you out—you impostor—and cut you down.
Skills
- Etiquette 4 or Barbering 3
- Penmanship 3
or Locksmithy 3 - Horsemanship 3
or Fishing 3 - Cards 3 or Drive 3
- Swimming 3 or Knots 3
- Melee: Lunge & Jab 2 or
Shoot: Pistol 2 - Topic: City life 4
- Topic: Aristosphere 3
- Language: [common] 4
- Language: [common] 6
Possessions
- Briefcase (replaces backpack)
- Bank account w/ £56 balance
- Brass fountain pen
- Checkbook
- Aristocrat’s silver mask
- Silver cigarette case
w/ 3 lockpicks - Brilliantine jacket, waistcoat,
and trousers - Patterned silk tie
- Oxblood loafers
- Slightly crushed hat
Pavisier
On the surface, you’re a clever re-adopter of medieval tactics. In reality, you’re a would-be cutter with a torn-off door, a handful of smarts, and a penchant for hiding behind things.
Skills
- Melee: Guard & Bash 2
- Topic: Metalworking 2
- Topic: Woodworking 3
- Topic: Weaponsmithy 3
- Language: [Ancient Nor] 4
or Topic: Dark Ages 4 - Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Rough half pavise (half a door w/crampons on bottom; armor 2/6, coverage 4)
- Hunting crossbow
- 12 crossbow bolts in steel map tube w/cap
- Smith’s hammer
Poacher
A hungry stalker. A hunter and a thief. Phrases like “private property” and “land use rights” are merely phrases. Ones concocted by the wealthy, who are poorer woodsmen than you.
Skills
- Shoot: Bow 2
- Thrown 1
or Topic: Monsters 1 - Topic: Law 3
or Topic: Woods 3 - Topic: Trapping 2
or Topic: Botany 2 - Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Longbow
- Boiled leather quiver of 12 bodkin arrows
- Small leather pouch, with fringe
- Spriggan-tail cap
or Thick leather bracers
Pixie eater
A wretched pup. A catcher and a gobbler of anything small and slow enough to find itself in your grubby paws. Perhaps you have potential. Perhaps you will always be like this.
Skills
- Topic: Pixies 2
- Topic: Bugs 2
- Melee: Cast & Tangle 2
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- Pixie net
- Three glass jars, each containing a random pixie
- Sack of semi-living crickets
or 2 porksnaps
Plumeau
Yours is a role deemed integral to Emperoussin high service: The dust-mouse, who charges the clocks, fluffs the pillows, and cleans the unreachable places. A servant often present, but rarely seen. A hearer of secrets, and a viewer of the strange and recherché pastimes of aristocrats.
Skills
- Etiquette 6
- Topic: Clockwork 2
or Locksmithy 2 - Topic: Aristosphere 6
- Barbering 4
- Topic: [common]
- Language: Emperoussin 6
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Feather duster
- Valet
or Maid’s livery - Black mouse socks
- Set of clock keys
Professicant
A traveling prognosticant. A lecturist who wanders, dispensing samples of their collected stock of knowledge. You forsake academia’s samey halls for the varied schoolrooms that are inns, village squares, and shaded lees. Perhaps you do so out of discontent, or perhaps your erudition is of a kind unfit for civilized lands.
Skills
- Instruction 2
- Lore [Two common] 2
- Lore [obscure] 2
- Language: [Common] 5
or [One noncombat topical skill] 5 - Language: [common] 6
- Language: [ancient] 3
or Topic: Occult 2
Possessions
- Three random books from this list
- Book strap with buckle
- Ash walking stick
- Hat with tassel
- Smoking pipe & box of 20 matches
- An onyx pen
Patescrape
An unusual furrier. Your arts unappreciated by the civil and the human. For you, this is no concern. Such folk are less often patrons than hirsute hides waiting to be dressed.
Skills
- Shoot: Sling 2
- Butchery 2
- Topic: Woodworking 1
- Melee: Hack and Slash 2
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- Leather sling +10 sling bullets
or Heavy curved knife - Huge grinning wooden mask
- or Hide roundshield
- Carving knife
- 10 loose matches
- Carved wooden pipe
- Half a rubber boot sole
Ravelling
A colony of raglings, tangled by need and misfortune into a symbiotic knot. Children unwanted and starving, united mind and body by tied tatters and empty bellies into a woeful, scuttling whole.
When you “die,” one of your constituent raglings dies. You may eat it or cut it from the knot and eject it. When this happens, half your wounds and their corresponding Stress vanish, and you gain 4 distress. If this happens three times, you gain a name, and become a lee urchin instead.
Skills
- Topic: Weaving 3
- Stowage 3 or Knots 3
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
- Language: [common] 1
- Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- 4 wooden spoons
Refector
A priest of the Refective Order. A monk devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of the faithful. As the supper table is your temple, so too are comestibles your blessing.
Skills
- Cooking 3
- Ceremonies 4
- Topic: [common] 4
- Language: Firlish 4 or Alagóran 4
- Language: Ancient Nor 3 or Butchery 3
Possessions
- Silver hand washing basin
- 6 silver dinner knives
- Wooden rosary
- Wicker backpack
or large rotisserie spit - Cleaver with sheath
Revenant delver
Despite a fatal false start to your venturing career, you are ready to begin again. Robbed of your health, your memory, and your first life, you have one boon to your name: A second chance at the dungeon wherein you met your end.
Skills
- Melee: Improvised 1
- Topic: Tombs 3
- Language: [common] 5
Possessions
- Fin maille blouse •• (2/6 torso, back, shoulders, arms)
- Shovel
- Wooden box compass
- 1 random item from this list
- 2 random severe wounds healed to 2 stiches
- 5 Distress (no XP)
- The location of a nearby dungeon
OR the wounds and belongings of a dead companion abandoned recently. Your wounds are healed to 2 stitches each.
Revenant soldier
You awoke amidst the carcasses of your comrades. Bloodied, forgotten, half-buried. Struck down by a mortal blow, yet still alive. To those you once knew, to your old life, you are dead. You know nothing of that life; you are a new creature entirely. How you now remain alive, you will never know.
Skills
- Shoot: Longarm 2
- Melee: Spear & Ward 2
or Medicine 2 - Swimming 2
or Entrenching 2 - Riding 2
or Barbering 2 - Language [common] 4
Possessions
- Rusted pistol gunspring w/ internal mag
- 4 150 gr fléchettes
- Rusted sword bayonet
- Pickelhaube (4|3)
- Ruined woolen uniform
- Ruined black jackboots
- mortal chest wound healed to 2 stitches
- 5 distress (no XP)
Rout hound
A raw and vicious breed. Little more than a set of gnashing teeth and bounding legs, lusty for the fray. An instrument of war bred for the pursuit and dispatch of flighty prey.
Possessions
- Plated collar with heavy ring (4/6, neck) •
- Harness with bandage box
or steel handcuffs and key
Soaplicker
A rogue from the rough port-cities of Maples. There, on the brickwalks and canal-streets, you learned the dance of the liccasapone: The long soap-knife so well known for anointing duelists with arcing, saponated scars. With a fist of rope and a long blade, you will bestow many more.
Skills
- Melee: Lunge & Jab 4
- Knots 2 or Cards 2
- Fishing 2 or Boating 2
- Language: Mapolitan 6
- Language: [common] 2
Possessions
- Mapolitan soap knife (replaces starting knife)
- 4 yards of cotton rope
- Bar of soap
- Numerous thin white scars on your hands, arms, face, and chest
Slubberdegullion
A limbic thrall. Driven by the cost and meager variety of common narcotics to the edge of society, to reprobate lengths and derelict places. To the Desperado’s life, which you lead in violent, feverish lurches between pharmacological oblivions.
Skills
- Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
- Throw 1 or Melee: Guard & Bash 1
- Cards 2 or Song 2
- Bureaucracy 2 or Herbalism 2
- Barbering 4
or Topic: Adventure capital 4 - Topic: Fournisseurs Guild 3
or Topic: [one philosophy] 3 - Language: [Common] 4
Possessions
- Poorly brown suit jacket lined w/ padding & matching trousers
or Sweat-stained padded soft leather vest & culottes
Stew captain
Yours is a role ancient and integral to martial tradition. No company nor mercenary band is complete without such a culinary quartermaster. A keeper, preparer, and distributor of the stewpot’s precious contents.
Skills
- Cooking 3
- Butchery 1
or Gunsmithy 1
or Bladesmithy 1 - Matchsmithy 1
or Bureaucracy 1 - Shoot: Longarm 2
or Melee: Hew & Thrust 2 - Topic: Military 4
or Topic: Adventure Capital 4 - Language: [common] 5
Possessions
- Round-belly copper pot, large, with straps & locking lid
- Woolen uniform coat (military or bank)
- 6 wooden spoons & 6 wooden bowls
- Battered black jackboots
- Sidesword & scabbard
or Single-shot breech action leverette w/ 8 fléchettes
Teamster
A driver and a packer of burdened animals. A maker of mobile order capable of turning the heavy chaos of packages, cargo, beasts, and men into a convoy lashed and bound for profitable ports and expeditious aims.
Skills
- Driving 4
- Horsemanship 3
- Stowage 4
- Knots 2
or Throw 2 - Melee: Hand-to-Hand 2
or Melee: Snap & Lash 2 - Topic: Commerce 4
or Topic: Geography 4 - Language [common] 3
Possessions
- Lug straps
- Bullwhip
or Stockwhip
or fat boot knife - leather lariat
- ranch hat
or Sombrero
or Papakha hat
Trespasser
A crosser of forbidden thresholds. A tomb cracker inspired not so much by burgled gold, but by a perverse urge to trespass ancient seals and immured grounds.
Skills
- Locksmithy 3
- Melee: Crush & Strike 2
- Entrenching 2
or Swimming 2
or Explosives 2 - Topic: [1 ancient culture] 3
- Topic: Dark Ages 2 or Topic: Tombs 2
- Language: [Common] 5
- Language: [Ancient] 4
Possessions
- Crowbar, 60 cm
- Lockpick
- Heavy woolen cape
or One item from this list - Blowtorch
- can of kerosene
Trycook
Your calling is to fuel the cutters, soldiers, lumberjacks, and sailors of the world. Pancakes, fatted prunes, potatoes and hash; slung from greased griddles and burbling pans of fat: All oil for the mechanism of the working body.
Skills
- Cooking 2
- Butchery 1
- Biology: Fats 2 or Matchsmithy 2
- Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Flat-spined cleaver
- Flensing knife
- Small cast iron griddle, round
- Sack of 12 potatoes
- Box of 20 matches
- Jar of 20 pinches salt
Tune carrier
A martial musician. Bearer and employer of the stately fanfares, cadences, and energetic marches by which fighting folk are spurred to purposeful action. By pipe, fife, or beating drum, you stir the heart to war.
Skills
- Play: [instrument] 2
- Melee: Hack & Slash 1
or Hew & Thrust 1 - Topic: Military 2
or Topic: Cutters 2 - Language: [common] 4
Possessions
- Set of bagpipes
or a snare drum and sticks
or a bugle - Army uniform (wool or denim)
or short pleated coat and knickerbockers - Munitions hatchet
- Soft hat with feather
or garrison cap
Unclaimed cargo
First, the farewells; the hurried straw dunnage; the crack of box nails in pine; the bump and cursing of the stevedores; the long days swaying at sea. Then the jerk of the quay crane; the heat of the dockside impound; the bickering of the customs officers; the long dark of the warehouse; the weeks of silence save for rats gnawing without. Weeks at once torpid and nervous. Eager and terrified. Lethally claustrophobic. Who finally freed you? It wasn’t “T.S. Esperanza,” at any rate, his printed name overwritten by a damning red stamp: unclaimed cargo.
Skills
- Language: [common] 3
Possessions
- 3 Distress
Venturesome priest
From the holy crags of Mount Rubitus, you are far removed, bound on a drear errand to aid cutters in the wilderlands. Though they are rude and mostly faithless, their task, to drive out the wild, the Otherly, and the devilsome, is one you count as a great service to humanity. For this, they are supremely holy. You will join them in their ventures, however bloody they may be.
Skills
- Melee: Spear & Ward 2
- Ceremonies 3
- Medicine 1
- Language: Firlish 3
- Language: Ancient Nor 4
- Language: Alagóran 5
Possessions
- Stellate hasta polearm head, broken from pole (counts as knife)
- Writ of Aveth, with straps, bound in steel (Armor 7/9, covers chest front)
- Silver devotional flask w/ holy water (as canteen)
- Wood-bead rosary with silver hastella
Wickie
A trimmer of wicks. A winder of springs and a polisher of lamps. A lighthouse keeper, current or erstwhile. One of a rare, isolated folk. A busy caste filled with lonesome mystery, who find solace in light and in toil, lest the turning of gears and the hiss of lamps fade and admit the mad roar of the sea. Or the cries of shipwrecked men.
Skills
- Matchsmithy 2
- Topic: Clockwork 2
- Melee: Crush & Strike 2
- Topic: Metalworking 1
or Topic: Seas 1 - Language [common] 4
Possessions
- Long oilcloth coat
- Navy hat or long wooden pipe
- Length of heavy wick
- Box of 20 matches
- Oil lantern, thick lensed
Woe friar
A monk of the Sepultural Order. A roaming agent sent to roam the cold and infidel North and ensure holy burial of the honored dead. Your task: to inter human beings. To spare however many you may from a heathen pyre.
Skills
- Peace 2
- Medicine 1
or Cooking 1 - Ceremonies 3
- Language [common] 5
- Language: Ancient Nor 4
Possessions
- Black habit with white rope belt
- Spade
- Pouch of 4 oz Grisodate
- Wooden rosary
Sort Qualifications
| qualifier | norm 1 | norm 2 | norm 3 | Mutant | Uncommon | unusual | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agility or Fortitude |
Trycook | Professicant | Parvenu | |||
| 2 | Agility or Might |
Binder | Morselieur | ||||
| 3 | Agility or Intellect |
Manhunter | Teamster | ||||
| 4 | Agility or Subtlety |
Lugger | Woe Friar | Boilermaker | |||
| 5 | Agility or Immunity |
Body Snatcher | Ironmonger | ||||
| 6 | Agility or Perception |
Blighted Vanguard | Refector | Unclaimed Cargo | |||
| 7 | Fortitude or Might |
Idler | Cutler | Plumeau | Lee Urchin | Malpracticant | |
| 8 | Fortitude or Intellect |
Lurkabout | Intruder | Caitiff | |||
| 9 | Fortitude or Subtlety |
Wickie | |||||
| 10 | Fortitude or Immunity |
Infected Herbalist | Tune Carrier | Revenant Soldier | Linkend | ||
| 11 | Fortitude or Perception |
Trespasser | Caitiff | ||||
| 12 | Might or Intellect |
Poacher | Gunhawk | Pixie Eater | |||
| 13 | Might or Subtlety |
Venturesome Priest | Harlequin | Kriegsminister | |||
| 14 | Might or Immunity |
Churchmouse | Field Barber | Ravelling | |||
| 15 | Might or Perception |
Soaplicker | |||||
| 16 | Intellect or Subtlety |
Log feller | Bighter | Rout Hound | |||
| 17 | Intellect or Immunity |
Patescrape | Exposist | Intrepid Child | Fieldstone | ||
| 18 | Intellect or Perception |
Driftbrick | Slubberdegullion | Hellion | |||
| 19 | Subtlety or Immunity |
Stew Captain | Chimneysweep | Revenant Delver | |||
| 20 | Subtlety or Perception |
Disorderly | Pavisier | ||||
| 21 | Immunity or Perception |
Cooper | Moonshiner |