Character Generation - Attributes
Backstory
In addition to a brief biographical sketch of your character, I'll want some idea of their inner life. These aspects may play into your Sanity loss/recovery or otherwise play a part in the story. They include Ideology/Beliefs, Significant Person/People, Meaningful Location(s), Treasured Possession, and Trait(s). You can pick from these lists or roll them if you aren't inspired. You’ll be able to share this information in character as you want.
Ideology/Beliefs
Pick or roll 1D10 for one of the following. Make the result specific and personal to your investigator.
1: There is a higher power that you worship and pray to (e.g. Vishnu, Jesus Christ, Haile Selassie I).
2: Mankind can do fine without religions (e.g. staunch atheist, humanist, secularist).
3: Science has all the answers. Pick a particular aspect of interest (e.g. evolution, cryogenics, space exploration).
4: A belief in fate (e.g. karma, the class system, superstitious).
5: Member of a society or secret society (e.g. Freemason, Women’s Institute, Anonymous).
6: There is evil in society that should be rooted out. What is this evil? (e.g. drugs, violence, racism).
7: The occult (e.g. astrology, spiritualism, tarot).
8: Politics (e.g. conservative, socialist, liberal).
9: “Money is power, and I’m going to get all I can” (e.g. greedy, enterprising, ruthless).
10: Campaigner/Activist (e.g. feminism, equal rights, union power).
Significant People
Pick or roll 1D10 for one of the following. Make the result specific and personal to your investigator.
Think of names for these people.
First, who?
1: Parent (e.g. mother, father, stepmother).
2: Grandparent (e.g. maternal grandmother, paternal grandfather).
3: Sibling (e.g. brother, half-brother, stepsister).
4: Child (son or daughter).
5: Partner (e.g. spouse, fiance, lover).
6: Person who taught you your highest occupational kill. Identify the skill and consider who taught you (e.g. a schoolteacher, the person who taught you the ropes, your father).
7: Childhood friend (e.g. classmate, neighbor, imaginary friend).
8: A famous person. Your idol or hero. You may never have even met (e.g. film star, politician, musician).
9: A fellow investigator in your game. Pick one or choose randomly.
10: A non-player character (NPC) in the game. Ask the Keeper to pick one for you.
Significant how?
Pick or roll 1D10 for one of the following to determine why that person is so significant to you. Not all of these options will mesh with every person, so you may invent something.
1: You are indebted to them. How did they help you? (e.g. financially, they protected you through hard times, got you your first job).
2: They taught you something. What? (e.g. a skill, to love, to be a man).
3: They give your life meaning. How? (e.g. you aspire to be like them, you seek to be with them, you seek
to make them happy).
4: You wronged them and seek reconciliation. What did you do? (e.g. stole money from them, informed the police about them, refused to help when they were desperate).
5: Shared experience. What? (e.g. lived through hard times, grew up together, served in the war).
6: You seek to prove yourself to them. How? (e.g. get a good job, find a good spouse, by get an education).
7: You idolize them (e.g. for their fame, their beauty, their work).
8: A feeling of regret (e.g. you should have died in their place, you fell out over something you said, you didn’t
step up and help them when you had the chance).
9: You wish to prove yourself better than them. What was their flaw? (e.g. lazy, drunk, unloving).
10: They have crossed you and you seek revenge. For what do you blame them? (e.g. death of a loved one, your financial ruin, marital breakup).
Meaningful Locations
Pick or roll 1D10 for one of the following. Make the result specific and personal to your investigator. Think of a name for these places.
1: Your seat of learning (e.g. school, university).
2: Your hometown (e.g. rural village, market town, busy city).
3: The place you met your first love (e.g. a music concert, on holiday, a bomb shelter).
4: A place for quiet contemplation (e.g. the library, country walks on your estate, fishing).
5: A place for socializing (e.g. gentlemen’s club, local bar, uncle’s house).
6: A place connected with your ideology/belief (e.g. parish church, Mecca, Stonehenge).
7: The grave of a significant person. Who? (e.g. a parent, a child, a lover).
8: Your family home (e.g. a country estate, a rented flat, the orphanage in which you were raised).
9: The place you were happiest in your life (e.g. the park bench where you first kissed, your university).
10: Your workplace (e.g. the office, library, bank)
Treasured Possessions
Pick or roll 1D10 for one of the following. Make the result specific and personal to your investigator.
1: An item connected with your highest skill (e.g. expensive suit, false ID, brass knuckles).
2: An essential item for your occupation (e.g. doctor’s bag, car, lock picks).
3: A memento from your childhood (e.g. comics, pocketknife, lucky coin).
4: A memento of a departed person (e.g. jewelry, a photograph in your wallet, a letter).
5: Something given to you by your Significant Person (e.g. a ring, a diary, a map).
6: Your collection. What is it? (e.g. bus tickets, stuffed animals, records).
7: You seek answers to something you found but don’t know what it is – (e.g. a letter you found written in an unknown language, a curious coin found among your late father’s effects, a silver ball dug up in your garden).
8: A sporting item (e.g. cricket bat, a signed baseball, a fishing rod).
9: A weapon (e.g. service revolver, your old hunting rifle, the hidden knife in your boot).
10: A pet (e.g. a dog, a cat, a tortoise).
Traits
Pick or roll 1D10 for one of the following. Make the result specific and personal to your investigator.
1: Generous (e.g. generous tipper, always helps out a person in need, philanthropist).
2. Devious (e.g. secretive, lies even without reason).
3: Dreamer (e.g. given to flights of fancy, visionary, highly creative).
4: Hedonist (e.g. life and soul of the party, entertaining drunk, "live fast and die young").
5: Gambler/risk-taker (e.g. poker-faced, try anything once, lives on the edge).
6: Arrogant (e.g. exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities)
7: Innocent (e.g. artless, credulous, guileless, gullible, ingenuous, open, unworldly).
8: Loyal (e.g. stands by his or her friends, never breaks a promise, would die for his or her beliefs).
9: Superstitious (e.g. believing in magic, chance, fortune, fate, and the like).
10: Ambitious (e.g. to achieve a goal, to become the boss, to have it all).
