Your character is not interesting because of what category they belong to. They are interesting because of what they choose when the world becomes dangerous.
Veyra character creation should answer two different questions immediately:
What people am I?
Where did I grow up?
Heritage and homeland overlap, but neither replaces the other.
After that, the player builds the life that happened between birth and the beginning of the campaign.
Step 1 — Choose Your People
The five currently established major peoples are:
- Humans;
- Beastfolk;
- Dwarves;
- Elves; and
- Demonkin.
Mixed heritage also exists.
Your people influences:
- appearance;
- lifespan;
- inherited history;
- the form of your Mark;
- family traditions; and
- how other societies may perceive you.
It does not provide Attribute bonuses, automatic morality, profession, intelligence, or combat superiority.
Step 2 — Choose Your Homeland
Homeland determines much of what your character considers normal.
A Demonkin raised in Valemere may speak Valemerian Common first and know little about Tsukara.
A dwarf raised in Caelora may identify strongly with the High Spine and Common Standard.
An elf raised in the Shattered Isles may have never entered the Elderwood.
A human raised in Tsukara may speak Tsukari as a first language.
Your homeland informs:
- language;
- food;
- law;
- religion;
- education;
- technology;
- social expectations;
- clothing;
- travel experience; and
- attitudes toward other regions.
Step 3 — Choose Age and Life Stage
Age means different things among Veyra's peoples.
Players should choose an age appropriate to the story rather than treating adulthood as one universal number.
Ask:
- Are you newly independent?
- Have you already had one career?
- Are you old enough to remember events others learned as history?
- Do other people consider you young even though you have decades of experience?
Age provides perspective, not free skill ranks.
An older character has had more time, but game balance assumes that only the experience relevant to adventuring is mechanically represented.
Step 4 — Languages
Choose the languages your life reasonably gave you.
Your homeland's everyday language should usually be first.
Family, education, profession, trade, and travel may add others.
A character does not automatically know an ancestral language.
Multilingualism is common among:
- merchants;
- sailors;
- scholars;
- diplomats;
- border residents; and
- cosmopolitan families.
Step 5 — Your Mark and Coming of Age
Decide what happened when your Mark appeared.
Every ordinary character learns immediately whether their Gift is:
- Fixed; or
- Open.
Human Marks additionally reveal the broad divine resonance most closely associated with the Gift.
Other peoples must discover deeper affinity through experience, study, or unusual revelation.
Ask:
- Who saw the Mark first?
- What ceremony followed?
- Was your family pleased, frightened, disappointed, proud, or confused?
- Is the faded scar easy to see now?
- Do you display it or cover it?
Step 6 — Fixed or Open Gift
Fixed Gift
A Fixed Gift is one supernatural truth about you.
At character creation it should be useful but narrow.
It normally provides:
- a persistent minor supernatural quality; and
- Edge (+1d6) in a narrow relevant circumstance.
It deepens through Revelations, not ordinary XP purchase.
Open Gift
An Open Gift gives access to Mana and learned spellcasting.
An Open-Gift character should decide:
- whether they received formal training;
- which magical tradition influenced them;
- who taught them;
- whether they enjoyed training; and
- why they use magic now.
Mana remains:
(Intellect + Vigor) × 2
Step 7 — Background
Background describes what you did before the campaign.
Background is not a class.
It should grant social context, likely knowledge, contacts, and a reason for learned skills.
Background Framework
The following are suggested broad backgrounds rather than rigid packages:
| Background | Typical experiences |
|---|---|
| Artisan | craft, guild life, customers, materials, apprenticeship |
| Court / Official | administration, law, politics, etiquette, records |
| Faithful | temple, ritual, charity, theology, community obligations |
| Farmer / Herder | land, animals, weather, rural community, food production |
| Frontier | survival, patrols, monsters, remote travel, self-reliance |
| Healer | medicine, patients, anatomy, herbs, clinics, emergencies |
| Laborer | docks, mines, construction, factories, transport, unions or crews |
| Merchant | contracts, appraisal, languages, travel, finance, negotiation |
| Sailor | navigation, weather, rigging, ports, maritime law |
| Scholar | research, archives, languages, history, institutions |
| Soldier | discipline, weapons, logistics, command, military culture |
| Hunter / Scout | tracking, wilderness, animals, local terrain |
| Ruin-Seeker | archaeology, salvage, ancient hazards, research sponsors |
| Outlaw / Smuggler | criminal contacts, evasion, black markets, distrust of authority |
| Performer | audiences, travel, reputation, storytelling, social networks |
| Wanderer | broad travel, odd jobs, languages, adaptability, uncertain roots |
The final rules can decide whether Background provides mechanical ranks, narrative permissions, or both.
Step 8 — Attributes
Use the established generation method:
Roll 6d4.
Choose any four results and assign them to:
- Brawn;
- Agility;
- Intellect;
- Vigor.
Discard the other two.
If the four highest dice total 8 or less, reroll all six.
No ancestry modifiers are added.
Step 9 — Derived Resources
- Health = (Brawn + Vigor) × 2
- Stamina = (Agility + Vigor) × 2
- Mana = (Intellect + Vigor) × 2, Open Gift only
Step 10 — Foundations and Specializations
Established Foundations are:
- Athletics;
- Combat;
- Craft;
- Influence;
- Investigation;
- Lore;
- Medicine;
- Nature;
- Stealth;
- Survival;
- Travel;
- Magic.
The current suggested training remains:
- two Foundations at Rank 3;
- two at Rank 2;
- two at Rank 1;
- others untrained.
Exact Specialization allocation remains controlled by the current rules/playtest rather than this world-guide section.
Step 11 — Special Move
Every starting character receives one Special Move tied to learned expertise.
A Special Move is what makes training distinctive.
Equipment gives you possibilities.
Special Moves show what you have learned to do with those possibilities.
Step 12 — Faith or Philosophy
Choose what your character believes, if anything.
Options include:
- one or more Old Gods;
- Aureon;
- Varesh;
- ancestors;
- local gods or spirits;
- Tsukaran traditions;
- secular philosophy;
- uncertainty;
- active rejection of worship.
Do not ask only:
"Which god do I worship?"
Ask:
"What did I grow up believing, and what do I believe now?"
Step 13 — Social Knowledge
World Principle
A character automatically knows the ordinary social basics of their homeland without rolling.
A Solvarran knows that openly insulting the Church is dangerous.
A Valemerian understands basic contract culture.
A Caeloran knows how public services work.
A Tsukaran knows that foreign access restrictions are not optional suggestions.
A Shattered Isles resident knows to ask who controls the harbor before assuming the law.
Rolls are needed for specialized, secret, technical, or unusually obscure information—not for making a local character ignorant of ordinary life.
Step 14 — Personal Ties
Character Questions
Choose at least:
- One Bond: Who would you return home for?
- One Obligation: What do you owe someone?
- One Belief: What principle do you currently think is true?
- One Doubt: What belief are you beginning to question?
- One Goal: What do you actively want?
- One Fear: What outcome would make you walk away if you could?
These do not need numerical mechanics to matter.
Step 15 — A Personal Item
Choose one ordinary object that matters to you.
Examples:
- a family tool;
- a letter;
- a religious token;
- a broken instrument;
- a military badge;
- a child's drawing;
- a journal;
- a ship token;
- a repaired heirloom.
It should matter because of its history, not because it gives a bonus.
Step 16 — Why Are You Adventuring?
Veyra needs reasons for capable people to leave ordinary life.
Possible motivations include:
- monster outbreaks;
- debt;
- scholarship;
- military service;
- religious calling;
- ruin exploration;
- protecting a community;
- political exile;
- investigating family history;
- earning money;
- searching for someone;
- escaping expectations;
- curiosity;
- uncovering the truth of the Sundering.
Campaign Starts
The Shattered Isles Expedition
The easiest mixed-party origin.
Characters from anywhere can join a salvage, research, escort, rescue, or monster-hunting expedition.
The Miasma Response
A temple or settlement begins failing in a way authorities do not understand.
Characters may arrive as soldiers, healers, priests, scholars, locals, or hired specialists.
The Arcrail Incident
A train carrying strangers from different backgrounds becomes isolated by sabotage, monster activity, magical failure, or political violence.
The Border Company
A mixed group is assembled to deal with a problem crossing national or clan boundaries where no government trusts the others completely.
The Missing Scholar
A researcher investigating contradictory Sundering records disappears after finding evidence that several institutions would prefer to control.