Character Creation

Character Creation for Player Characters in Campaigns set in the world of Arceiron follow a few rules, which are listed below.

The Golden Rules

The three most important rules for character creation, that can't be broken or bent under any circumstances are as follows:

• Your character wants to be an adventurer
• Your character has to be a teamplayer
• Your character can't participate in pvp.

Create a General Concept

The first thing a player wanting to play in any campaign should do is think about a general concept for the character they want to play as. This can be a simple one sentence idea like "I want to play a big tanky guy." or an elaborate concept like "I want to play as a nimble elven rogue, who specializes in assassination and stealth. They aren't evil but need the gold from their contracts to support their sick sibling who needs constant magical treatment to stay alive. Eventually they want to find a cure to this and therefore started a life as an adventurer."
No matter how simple or complex your concept may be, think about some things that you yourself want to roleplay, achieve and experience in the campaign and think about how you can build your character to fit these goals.
The goal of this step is not to create a page long backstory, this can be done at the very end. The focus here should be to give you a broad and general concept that you can use as guidance for your decisions in the following steps of character creation. Don't be afraid of changing some (or even all) aspects of your general concept, if you think of something that might fir the campaign better or could end up more fun for you and everyone else at the table.

Select Starting Ability Score Allocation

Much of what your character does in the game depends on his or her six abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Each ability has a score, which is a number you record on your character sheet.

Determining Ability Scores

Rolling for Stats

You generate your character’s six ability scores randomly. Roll four 6-sided dice and record the total of the highest three dice on a piece of scratch paper. Do this five more times, so that you have six numbers.

Standard Array

If you want to save time or don’t like the idea of randomly determining ability scores, you can use the following scores instead: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.

Point Buy

At your Dungeon Master’s option, you can use this variant for determining your ability scores. The method described here allows you to build a character with a set of ability scores you choose individually.
You have 27 points to spend on your ability scores. The cost of each score is shown on the Ability Score Point Cost table. For example, a score of 14 costs 7 points. Using this method, 15 is the highest ability score you can end up with, before applying racial increases. You can’t have a score lower than 8.
This method of determining ability scores enables you to create a set of three high numbers and three low ones (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8), a set of numbers that are above average and nearly equal (13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12), or any set of numbers between those extremes.

Ability Score Point Cost

Score	Cost
8	0
9	1
10	2
11	3
12	4
13	5
14	7
15	9

Allocating Ability Scores

Now take your six numbers and write each number beside one of your character’s six abilities to assign scores to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Afterward, make any changes to your ability scores as a result of your race choice.
After assigning your ability scores, determine your ability modifiers using the Ability Scores by subtracting 10 from the ability score and then divide the result by 2 (round down). Write the modifier next to each of your scores.

Select a Race

Generally, all races from the books available listed in the Approved 5e Books sidebar, except those specifically listed as banned, can be played. These races use lore and themes particular to Arceiron, so lore associated with a race such as elves or dragonborn in D&D 5e does not carry over here. You can read further about the lore of these races in their articles (see Player Races. Some races also have slight changes to their traits, which are listed in their articles, but which you can also read about in Homebrew Rules.

Age

In most Arceiron campaigns, you cannot play a character that is underage for the race. You may only play adults. For example, Elves reach adulthood at the age of 100, so you cannot play elves that are younger than 100 years.

Subraces

Some races consist of several subraces, that have slightly different features and traits from each other. When a race's features tell you to choose a subrace, you must select a subrace from the list available in the base race's traits. You can't have no subrace.
A subrace's features and traits are granted in addition to the features and traits from the base race, unless specifically stated otherwise.

Examples

• This means, if you for example want to play a Shield Dwarf, you gain the +2 to your Constitution score, as well as the +2 to your Strength score.
• But e.g. in the case of the Korobokuru Dwarf, you gain the Jadan language, instead of the Common language, that the Dwarf base race normally provides.

Arceiron Races

In addition to the standard 5e races, there are several custom races available just for Arceiron. Some of these races have prerequisites to play such as being in a certain faction, or fulfilling certain narrative conditions. They are listed in Player Races alongside the other official races, but feature a disclaimer at the top of their article, stating that they are homebrew material.

Unearthed Arcana

Playtest material from Unearthed Arcana is generally not allowed. Some of the things from Unearthed Arcana might be available for campaigns in Arceiron, while others may not. If something is available and allowed for use, it is listed here on the Arceiron World Anvil, like as a Subrace under a race's article.

Race Rarity

Arceiron is a vast world, populated by a great amount of various races. Not every race exists in every region of the world and not everyone is welcome everywhere. When looking at the articles of certain races, you might notice that some of them list a number of different rarity descriptors. These descriptor tell us how rare a race is at a certain region of Arceiron. This can influence the availability of a race at character creation and thus prevent you from playing such a race, in certain campaigns. When you want to create a new character for a campaign in Arceiron, the DM will tell you what general region the campaign is currently focused in (this can change over the course of a campaign).

See: Race Rarity

Select a Class

All classes and their subclasses from the Approved 5e Books sidebar are allowed. Some classes have slight changes, which are listed on the Class's article, but which you can also read about in Homebrew Rules.

Unearthed Arcana

Playtest material from Unearthed Arcana is generally not allowed. Some of the things from Unearthed Arcana might be available for campaigns in Arceiron, while others may not. If something is available and allowed for use, it is listed here on the Arceiron World Anvil, like as ae under a class's article.

Restricted Classes / Subclasses

Some classes or subclasses might be restricted to certain races or have other requirements that must be met in order to gain a level in this class. If such requirements apply, they are listed at the top of the class's or subclass's traits.

Select a Character Alignment

The Alignments in Arceiron are the traditional nine alignments, from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil.
Unlike standard 5e, character alignments in Arceiron may have subtle and potentially impactful weight to them; therefore, you should consider your choice carefully before choosing.
To learn more about alignments and learn about all the potential weights connected to them, read Alignment.

Attention: Most campaigns do not allow evil aligned characters, unless specifically allowed by your DM.

Background

Characters are defined by much more than their race and class. They’re individuals with their own stories, interests, connections, and capabilities beyond those that class and race define. This chapter expounds on the details that distinguish characters from one another, including the basics of name and physical description, the rules of backgrounds and languages, and the finer points of personality and alignment.
Every story has a beginning. Your character’s background reveals where you came from, how you became an adventurer, and your place in the world. Your fighter might have been a courageous knight or a grizzled soldier. Your wizard could have been a sage or an artisan. Your rogue might have gotten by as a guild thief or commanded audiences as a jester.
Choosing a background provides you with important story cues about your character’s identity. The most important question to ask about your background is what changed? Why did you stop doing whatever your background describes and start adventuring? Where did you get the money to purchase your starting gear, or, if you come from a wealthy background, why don’t you have more money? How did you learn the skills of your class? What sets you apart from ordinary people who share your background?
Choose a Background from Advanced Backgrounds and determine what Profession within that background your character belongs to. This choice grants you features at 1st, 3rd, 6th, 10th and 14th level.

Skill Proficiencies

When creating a character in Arceiron, you potentially gain Skill proficiencies from your Race, Class, Advanced Background, or Faith.

New Skills

Please be aware that a few new skills are available in the Arceiron campaign setting (see Homebrew & House Rules). These skills are added to the available starting skill selection for any class, but they can also be gained from various other sources.

Languages

A language is comprised of its root and dialect. If you know the root language then you can understand, but not speak or write, all of the dialects of that language to a passable degree, unless stated otherwise. Some dialects are locked for narrative reasons and cannot be chosen. Arceiron tweaks a few of the base languages listed in 5e, in addition to introducing a few new ones. You can read through the list of languages and their individual dialects and details in Languages.
As of right now there are no mechanical differences between dialects, but there are narrative implications. Your dialect matters as actually knowing it can make a subtle but impactful difference when interacting with other speakers of a language.
If a Race or Advanced Background grants you a language, you are considered to know the root of that language. If a dialect is not specified with it, you may choose one of them. If you'd learn the same dialect twice, you can instead choose another dialect of the same language. When learning a language at a later point you will always learn the root of the language, and might learn the dialect of your tutor. Learning a dialect of a language you already know the root of, is half as difficult and time consuming as learning a new language of that tyoe.

Select Starting Equipment

You begin play with your respective class's Starting Equipment, and you cannot choose the alternative Silver (SP) option. Instead, any wealth you'd start with comes from your chosen faction, or from a few specific origins. Thus, the factionless by default does not start with any wealth.

A newly created character starts with the following:

• Equipment from class's Starting Equipment
• Equipment given by Starting Factions (if any)
• Equipment from Advanced Backgrounds

Starting at higher Levels

Characters starting at levels above 1st are given additional starting equipment, depending on their level. For details, see the table below:

Level	Additional SP	Additional Items
1-4	-	-
5-7	4d6 + 25 sp	1 common magic item
8-10	5d10 + 50 sp	1 uncommon magic item
11-13	10d10 + 100 sp	2 uncommon magic items
14-16	2d100 + 250 sp	2 uncommon + 1 rare magic item
17-19	5d100 + 500 sp	2 rare + 1 very rare magic item
20	10d100 + 1500 sp	2 very rare + 1 legendary magic item

Determine Character Aspects

Every character in Arceiron has various different Character Aspects, that describe them, their personality, their believes and their relations with others. Aspects are a culmination of many different factors that make up your character, packed together into small snippets of information; single sentences or maybe just a few words, that convey what needs to be known about that aspect of your character.
When creating your character, determine the following aspects for your character:

• 2 Personality Traits
• 1 Ideal
• 1 Bond
• 1 Flaw
• Faith (see below)

Decide on Faith

Arceiron is host to completely customized Deities and Pantheons, each with their own ideals and ambitions.
Most common folk in Arceiron worship a complete Pantheon, suitable to their culture and race. While this might also be true for player characters, they can also choose to follow a specific deity as their patron. They might still believe in and worship the rest of the specific Pantheon, but one of it's members if more important to the character than the others.

Faith Boons

Whenever you choose a deity to follow you receive the Lip Service benefit of that deity, which is generally a small boon, like a skill proficiency. If you have the option to choose, your choice is locked-in once made and cannot be changed as long as you worship that deity. If your character has at least 3 levels in the Cleric, Martyr or Paladin class, you also gain the respective Church Boon, which is generally a greater boon, like a unique feature. The god you worship can also bestow additional boons and blessings upon you.
You can change which god you worship, and thus the respective lip service and church boon benefits, at any time. This may result in in-character consequences.

Cleric Domains

When playing as a Cleric, you can only choose from the domains associated with the deity your character worships. It is also noteworthy, that a humanoid can only choose to worship a deity. To become a cleric of that deity, is not an active decision made by the character, but a joined one with their deity, as they become chosen to represent their patron god on the material plane and in return are granted divine powers.

When a cleric loses faith in their deity, or when the deity stops granting them powers for one reason or another, a cleric loses the ability to change their prepared spells and can no longer cast spells of 4th level or higher, until they start to receive divine powers again.

Changing Domains

A Cleric's domain subclass is closely related to their chosen patron deity. This makes it both easier and harder for a cleric to change their subclass.
A cleric can pray to their patron deity for a new set of powers, more suited to their current situation and divine mission. This allows a cleric character to change their domain to another domain available to their patron deity. This process takes time and training with their new powers, as with any other subclass change (see Downtime). A cleric can not change his domain to a domain not available to his patron deity in this way and praying for a subclass change too many times, can anger a patron deity to a great degree, especially if they feel its unnecessary or disrespectful to they powers they've chosen to provide you with.
Changing to the the domain of another deity, requires a change of patron deities alltogether, and is a major plot point for clerics, that should carry some heavy in-character consequences and development.

Starting Faction (Optional)

Attention: The following rules are an optional variant. Not all campaigns feature starting factions. Speak with your DM if you want to join a Faction upon Character Creation. But in general this system is either used for all player characters or none.
If starting factions are not used within a campaign, it might still be possible to join a Faction later on. Campaigns that do not use starting factions, also don't make use of the Factionless rules.

Factions are organizations in Arceiron run by important NPCs (and sometimes players). They provide a structure through which players can interact with the world. Each is a unique entity which provides, benefits for joining at character creation: including tool proficiencies, additional starting equipment, and potentially greater options. When you create your character you can choose to either start in a faction or be factionless. You can further read about faction rules under Factions. You can also find a complete list of available factions and their individual articles in Factions Category.
Through their adventures and the course of a campaign, a character might rise through the ranks of his factions or lose their favor, they might leave a faction to join another or become factionless. All of these events should become narrative points of the plot and provide meaningful development for the character. As mentioned in Character Alignments, evil characters are restricted to beginning play in a faction that specifically accepts evil aligned characters and can not start Factionless.

Create your Backstory

Now that you've outlined the basic mechanical implications of your character it is time to take all this information and form a coherent backstory from it. As a rule of thumn your backstory should at least briefly mention all things from your character sheet that have a narrative implication, like Race, Class, Origin, Suborigin, Faith, Factions and things like that, but also include some further details, even if it doesn't hold any mechanical weight.
The more detailed your backstory is, and the more characters, past events and oppurtunities for character development and growth you include, the better it is. But don't try to fill out every little detail, and don't resolve every conflice, as purposefully leaving some things open, uncertain or blank can provide your DM with great opportunities to weave your character's backstory into the campaign.
If you're uncertain about some things, don't know if your backstory might fit the established lore, or want to include some canonical events or characters into your backstory, work with your DM to determine the details.

To create a valid and viable character to play in the world of Arceiron you should generally follow the rules below. The rules are split into the following selections, we advise to go through in order:

1. Create a General Concept
2. Select Starting Ability Score Allocation
3. Select a Race
4. Select a Class
5. Select a Character Alignment
6. Select a Background
7. Skill Proficiencies
8. Select Starting Equipment
9. Determine Character Aspects
   • Decide on Faith
10. Join a Faction
11. Create your Backstory

Approved 5e Books

The following are the sources/books allowed as a resource for character creation in Arceiron:

• Player's Handbook
• Sword Coast Adventure Guide
• Elemental Evil Player's Companion
• Volo's Guide to Monsters
• Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
• Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
• Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
• Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
• Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
• Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos
• Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse
• Spelljammer: Adventures in Space
• Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
• Unearthed Arcana
  • Only specific parts included on the Arceiron World Anvil
• Anything within the Arceiron World Anvil that is not Work In Progress (WIP).

The following races from these sources are banned in most campaigns, unless the DM specifically allows them:

• Centaur
• Fairy
• Gith (Githyanki)
• Gith (Githzerai)
• Autognomes
• Warforged