Character Creation

Step 1: Concept

Who are you? Answer these questions:

Duskaran Roles

Rather than a "job before the collapse," you have a role that defines your expertise:

Daywalker: Day-side salvager with exceptional thermal resistance. You venture into scorching margins to recover mining drones and rare materials.

Weatherworker: Psychic ritualist who senses and influences atmospheric patterns. You guide caravans, protect settlements, and predict superstorms.

Water Judge: Resource arbiter who manages distribution and resolves disputes. You hold power over life and death in a world of scarcity.

Caravanner: Trade guild member who knows the routes, politics, and dangers between settlements. You broker deals and navigate intrigue.

Deepkin Scout: Cave explorer from the night side. You navigate Deep Roads, harvest geothermal resources, and communicate through resonance.

Beastwalker: Fauna bonded, with a psychic connection to wind serpents, thermal lizards, or other native creatures. You're tracker, messenger, and protector.

Archivist: Lore keeper who preserves Earth knowledge and investigates Duskaran mysteries. You decode data crystals and study ancient structures.

Stormchaser: Reckless explorer who pushes into danger zones for discovery, glory, or profit. You thrive on risk and live for the next expedition.

Pick a role or create your own. It's a starting point, not a constraint.

Step 2: Skills

You have 6 skills that represent your capabilities. By default, all skills start at d4. Assign one d10, one d8, and one d6 to skills your character excels at.

The Six Skills:

Endure: Withstand thermal extremes, storms, hunger, psychic burnout, physical exertion.

Navigate: Traverse twilight belt, Deep Roads, ruins, day-side margins, storm-lashed routes.

Perceive: Thermal sensing, psychic awareness, tracking, noticing details, environmental assessment.

Commune: Weather working, deep bonding, negotiation, psychic communication, ritual.

Resolve: Repair tech, solve problems, analyze data, decode Earth archives, improvise tools.

Assert: Intimidate, defend, attack, command, physical confrontation.

Step 3: Psychic Ability (Optional)

Psychic abilities are common on Duskara but not universal. If you want one, choose from the list below or roll randomly.

Overuse causes psychic burnout—represented by stress or skill degradation. The GM decides when you've pushed too hard.

Psychic Abilities

1. Thermal Sensing: Perceive heat signatures and temperature gradients with precision. Navigate day-side margins, detect hidden life, sense geothermal activity.

2. Weather Working: Sense and subtly influence atmospheric patterns—wind speed, pressure changes, storm formation. Guide caravans, protect settlements, predict superstorms.

3. Deep Bonding: Psychic connection to native fauna (wind serpents, thermal lizards, shadow stalkers). Communicate, command, and share senses with bonded creatures.

4. Shadow Walking: Move unseen through low-light environments. Blend with darkness, traverse night side undetected, infiltrate settlements.

5. Water Finding: Sense underground aquifers, hidden water caches, and moisture in air. Invaluable in a world of scarcity.

6. Resonance: Perceive and manipulate vibrations through stone. Communicate across kilometers in cave systems, detect structural instability, navigate Deep Roads.

Psychic abilities can add narrative advantage (GM may reduce risk or allow automatic success) or replace skills for certain checks (use a d10 or d12 for abilities you've mastered).

Step 4: Starting Equipment

You begin with 1 item in your backpack as a d10 item. Choose something that reflects your role:

You also start with 1 med kit (clears 2 stress).

Character Sheet Example

Name: Kael Serin
Pronouns: They/them
Role: Deepkin Scout

Skills:

Psychic Ability: Resonance (sense vibrations through stone)

Starting Equipment:

Stress: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]