Traits & Skills

Traits are abilities everyone has.  These five should be on every sheet – whether or not you are any good at them - since they are likely to be rolled regularly.

Strength – raw physical power, ability to lift, move, push, pull, or throw
Agility – Acrobatics, speed, jumping, dexterity
Health – endurance, resisting disease or poison
Perception – spot and listen
Willpower – conviction & belief, defense against mental or spiritual attacks

Skills vary from Player to Player. Each player will likely have a unique skill list.  But I know what some of you are thinking – “I don’t want to build an entire skill list from scratch!”  Fear not, here is a list of generalized skills to help you make your list.  You are, of course, not limited to what is here.

Talkie Skills:
Persuade – Convince an individual of something.  Can be Truth or Fiction.
Empathy – Reading people, uncover a lie, or comfort someone.
Presence – Oration and speeches, ability to command, or ability to attract people to follow you.
Rapport – Friendly conversation, getting someone to open up, flirting
Intimidation – interrogation, provocation, fear

Sneaky skills:
Burglary – Lockpicking, pickpocketing, casing, and covering your tracks
Disguise – Costuming, mimicking, hiding in plain sight
Stealth – Hiding, shadowing, planning an ambush

Combat skills:
Unarmed – brawling and martial arts
Guns – how well you shoot – I would allow you to set specific guns at a lower die (lower is better in window) than the generalized "guns"
Melee – knives, staffs, whatever

Others skills:
Craft/Repair (list specific craft) – Anything you can physically build or repair. From Cars to Computers, to Cabinetry.
Investigation – Crime scene examination, Surveillance, noticing details
Research – Any research you do that does not involve talking to people – Internet, Library, etc.
Software – Using a computer, hacking (except for research) – honestly, this shouldn’t play much of a role in this campaign, but if you just really wanted to play a hacker-type character, we might could make it work.
Survival – Outdoors, Scavenging, tracking.


There are no knowledge skills, because what you know will be based on your characters backstory and experience rather than die rolls.  So if you want to be knowledgeable about something, make sure it is in your backstory! So if a character asks, “Do I recognize that symbol?” I’ll look at your backstory and tell you whether or not I think it makes sense.

Having multiple languages requires backstory, or your character taking the time to study them.


Assigning Skill Points:

Pick 10 skills to go along with the five traits.

Then Assign:
1 d8
4 d10s
5 d12s
5 d20s
Every other conceivable skill is at D30

If you want to suck at an Trait, you may set it at D30 and add another skill.

Final skill lists require GM approval.

Competency
Low (d30) – You suck at this. Everyone has almost every "skill" imaginable at this level of competency.
Below average (d20) – You have some skill at this.  Could be a hobby or a skill that you are just beginning to learn.
Average (d12) – You are ok this.  You are practiced, but still far from expert.
Above Average (d10) – You’re pretty good at this.  The average professional hits about here.
High (d8) – You are an expert in your field.
Very high (d6) – Olympic Level.
Incredible (d4) – Supernatural beings or artifacts are involved.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:06, Wed 27 Feb 2019.

Senior Airman (E-4 USAF, active) James Urquhart, 58th Rescue Squadron Nellis AFB Las Vegas, Nevada

Born:  October 19, 1996 at Seattle Grace Mercy Hospital in Seattle, Washington

Parents:  Sergeant (E-5 USMC, retired) Jacob Williams , Krystal Urquhart (deceased)

Height:  6'0"  Weight:  163#  Hair:  Brown  Eyes:  Brown

James broke with his family's tradition of service by enlisting in the Air Force instead of the Marines like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him.  He's had no contact with his father other than a few visits before the Glasgow Incident (though he knows little about his father's work with INTERPOL and nothing about the events leading up to Glasgow).  His parents separated when he was 7 after his father was placed on administrative leave from the Bossier City Police Department following a nasty but inconclusive investigation into a bizarre incident that occurred at a retirement party for a fellow officer.  His father was recruited by INTERPOL for a special taskforce shortly after.  James had hoped for his parents to reconcile and that they'd get back together after they'd had some time to sort things out but their relationship deteriorated further until they officially divorced shortly before the Incident.

James grew to resent his father's absence afterward, even though they had been extremely close before Jacob left for Scotland.  This resentment led him to have his last name legally changed from Williams to Urquhart, his mother's maiden name.  Though James and his mother remained close with his grandparents (Thomas and Patricia Williams), Jacob's complete absence combined with the heated argument Jacob and Krystal had shortly before left a wound that couldn't heal.

On his 17th birthday, James signed his enlistment papers and shipped off to Lackland AFB a week after graduating high school.  He finished BMT at the top of his flight and started "Superman School" immediately after.  He further distinguished himself both in training and in his first deployment, he earned both the Bronze Star and Combat Medical Badge for his role in saving the lives of marines critically wounded in an ambush in Syria.

James is self-confident and reliable, but reserved except around his closest friends.  He recently lost his mother to an aggressive cancer and has taken some leave to visit his family in Louisiana.

*clarification*    Meaning that he signed his enlistment papers on his birthday and then shipped off in May, not October.  */clarification*

In reply to The Storyteller (msg # 1):

I am thinking of playing a Special Victims Detective. I am still trying to come up with a back story but think similar to Olivia Benson from Law and Order SVU

Looking good so far...though your NPC boss is going to just looove that she's been saddled with a team full of Americans.


Another thing to spark character creation interest...while none of you have special "powers or abilities" yet, those will be available in the second season. So if it helps with backstory, you can start thinking about how you might gain those abilities. (I'm waiting until later for abilities, because I need to figure out how window works before I give you extra chances to derail my plots!)

Possibilities to think about:
Maybe you are descended from an ancient bloodline (think mythological or legendary characters)
Maybe you want to discover an ancient artifact along the way that will give you powers.
Maybe you are the religious type, and want to be come a kind of holy warrior. (In a magical setting Faith has actual power.)

Why, is our boss David Bowie?  Because he was afraid of Americans...

Heh, no. Your boss in an Israeli woman who has operated mostly in Europe and the Near East, and therefore has a "Eurocentric" view of Americans - often loud and annoying.  She likes to break things that are loud and annoying...

In reply to The Storyteller (msg # 12):

Lol, my character is loud and annoying!

Okay, I'm here!!

I've had this page open for a few days now, trying to come up with a backstory for my character. Here's what I know:

She's former MI6, and was usually assigned weird/inexplicable stuff because it didn't bother her like it did most other agents.

I'm working on a more intricate backstory/possibly having been close to/involved in the Glasgow Incident (up to the boss), but this is where I want to take it.

Well, the Incident only had one "official" survivor - so you couldn't have been at the site itself, but it is possible that you investigated the aftermath, or worked alongside certain members of CLOUD taskforce, ITU's predecessor, before the incident in 2015.

So far, it looks like we have, for sure, a "psychic" with an eidetic memory and a skilled Air Force Medic.

We might possibly also have a criminal profiler, a Special Victims investigator, and an MI-6 agent loosely associated with "the Glasgow Incident," whatever that is.

I'm liking this make-up. I think it'll be pretty fun!

Would anyone be interested in playing out their recruitment interview? I might be willing to give a bonus point of XP, for those willing.  A question answer session might help you flesh out your character as well.

Let me know if you like the idea, and I'll open a separate thread for each player interested.

Sounds like fun to me, and I love bonus XP.

I'm game.

Ok. I'll start putting something together.  I'm giving a test in several classes tomorrow, so I'll likely have something for Howard Rorn started then.  For James Urquhart, I will need a better picture of how much he remembers about his Father's co-workers. I don't want to go in expecting he knows someone that he doesn't remember at all.

More than just a medic, Air Force Pararescue is what Sam Wilson was before he was the Falcon in the MCU.  Granted, I don't have his cool robotic jet pack wings and drones, but I'm still pretty cool.

Basically, what Pararescue does is either jump or helicopter in to rescue downed pilots and/or other personnel trapped behind enemy lines.  Sometimes that means jumping in, patching them up, and then guiding them back through enemy territory to safety while evading enemy patrols, etc.  They may not be as immediately dangerous to the enemy as SEALS, Delta, or Rangers but they call their training "Superman School" for a reason.

In reply to James Urquhart (msg # 21):

My real-life Dad (Mel) did the same kind of stuff. Albeit, he was in the National Guard, so his training was less intense than the Air Force "Superman School," but he still jumped out of planes and choppers as part of a medic and rescue-team; most of his training was in Arctic climates, while he was in Alaska.

He also hates heights, which we never understood. We always picked on him for jumping out of planes but sending us up to the roof of our houses to get limbs down.

I can't say too much, I was always comfortable on a scissor lift or boom lift but ladders scare the crap out of me even though I was way higher up on a boom lift than I ever went on a ladder.  But I think part of it was also that I was tied off in the lift and didn't have any fall protection on a ladder (except when I was working at the paper mill and we had to be tied off to something if we went above the 2nd step on a ladder, never mind the fact that we'd have to climb higher than that to tie off to something with a lanyard that wasn't going to stop us from hitting the ground if we fell off of that 3rd step).

I even did okay rock climbing, but again, I was tied off to a belay line so when I fell, I wasn't going to plummet to my death.  Of course, the guy that was belaying me was about 150# lighter than me, so if he hadn't tied off to a big tree or boulder he wasn't going to stop me from falling.  It was going to be a very messy, very painful physics equation for both of us.

I'd love to play out the recruitment session, if that offer is still on the table!

Sure! But I'll need a character name and basic description first.

Okay, her name is Flora MacTavish, and she's a redhead from Ireland. She is currently working for MI6 investigating things that "just don't make any sense." Unexplainable things really don't phase her, so they send her to handle the things that bother most other agents. If you're okay with it, I'd love it if she was part of the team that investigated the Glasgow Incident. Maybe it's how MI6 learned that she wasn't really bothered by supernatural happenings. Her immediate family are all dead, killed in a bombing when she was a small child, but she has a quirky (read paranoid) uncle that took her in after her family's deaths and who she keeps in touch with from time to time.

For my nitpicky clarification - She's from Northern Ireland (which is part of the UK) not Ireland (which is a separate country) right?  Since she's MI6/SIS that's UK.

In reply to The Storyteller (msg # 27):

That's correct. :)

In reply to The Storyteller (msg # 1):

My characters name is Greer Fraser who is a Special Victims detective from Scotland. My family don't approve of my career choice. My father is the only one in my family who still talks to me.

I was in Scotland when the "incident" happened. I am the best detective in my squad. I am able to empathize with the victims as well as getting perps to talk.

I would like to play out how I am recruited if that is still possible.

Sure, I'll set it up.