Exalted: Shards of Hope - Character Creation Guidelines

[The Maidens]

1. Decide your character's Caste, Concept, and Motivation. Make a note of your Caste Anima power- how to use it, what it does, what it costs, etc.

2. Prioritize your Mental, Physical, and Social Attributes by listing them as Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary, and allocate 8, 6, and 4 dots respectively. (Don't forget, they all start at 1 dot anyway!)

3. Make note of your Caste Abilities and choose 5 (different) Favored Abilities. As a Solar, you'll get 28 dots to spend on these, with the following restrictions: none can have a rating higher than 3 without spending Bonus Points, at least 10 have to go into Caste/Favored Abilities, and your Favored Abilities must have at least one dot each.

4. Allocate 7 Background dots (none higher than 3 without Bonus Points), pick 10 Charms/Spells (5 must be from Caste/Favored Abilities, must meet the Ability and Essence pre-requisites), allocate 5 dots of Virtues (none higher than 4 without Bonus Points), and choose your Virtue Flaw. (See Virtue Flaws below.)

5. Record your Essence, which begins at 2, but can be raised by spending Bonus Points. Record your Willpower, which is the total of your two highest Virtues. Your Personal Essence pool is calculated as follows: ([Essence x 3] + Willpower). Your Peripheral Essence pool is: ([Essence x 7] + Willpower + [sum of all Virtues]). You'll start with the standard 7 Health Levels (0,-1,-1,-2,-2,-4,INC) unless supplemented with Charms like Ox Body Technique.

Bonus Points: You get 15, and you can spend them at any time during character creation. Point costs are as follows:

• Ability 2 (1 if Favored/Caste)
• Attribute 4
• Background 1 (2 if it's being raised above 3)
• Charms 5 (4 if Favored/Caste)
• Essence 7
• Intimacies 3 increases starting Intimacies to (Willpower + Compassion)
• Specialty 1 (2 dots per point if Favored/Caste)
• Virtue 3
• Willpower 2

Merits and Flaws: We will be using them. There is a list in the 1E Exalted PG that we'll be working from, but if there's one in another WW game you'd really like to use, we can probably work something out via PM. You can have a maximum of 7 points in each. (If there's sufficient need, I'll compose a list of applicable Merits/Flaws from the book.)

Qualities: They aren't actually used, but we're making an exception because we like them. Standard rules apply- the Attribute in question must be a 4 or higher.

Virtue Flaws: Only a few are actually listed in the book, but over the years we've found a number of really interesting ones online. If you want to use one that's non-standard, just drop us a PM with the details.

Intimacies: These are new to 2E. They're things your character cares about (causes, ideals, places, people, etc.), but aren't as potent as his/her Motivation. You automatically start with a number of Intimacies equal to your Compassion, though you can take less if you wish. They generally don't mean much, except in Social Combat, though they have been known to grant more concrete benefits in our games, like regaining a point of spent Willpower when acting in defense of an important Intimacy. Note that, like stunt dice, bonus XP, or regaining spent motes of Essence for particularly good roleplaying, this sort of reward is up to the ST. (If you're not familiar with 2E, we'll be happy to help you decide on your Intimacies based on his/her background.)

History/Background: All characters should have one when (or before) they're submitted. The better and more believable the background, the more likely you'll get something nifty for it, and the easier it'll be for us to abuse guide your characters. In the past, we've handed out additional Artifacts, Bonus Points, etc. for histories that were exceptionally well-done. If you're having trouble, we've got a rather large document of questions (available upon request) that should help crystallize what your character is like and where they've been.

If any of this seems vague, or if you've got any questions, feel free to post here and I'll edit the guidelines and clarify as necessary.

[Dave ST]

Things to consider for backgrounds and survival:

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• We will assume that the circle already knows each other and has been together for at least a few months. Talk with the other players, find out some things. Maybe you hate two of the other Solars already, maybe one is your brother or sister, maybe you already have a crush... have some fun with it.
• Buy something to protect yourself with. Armor or charms.
• Melees weapons are nice to fall back on when you run out of arrows, or lose your bow.
• Cloud and Sephiroth are not acceptable Exalted characters.
• If you walk around in golden armor and swing a grand golden sword... someone is going notice. Discretion people... discretion!