Set up your Character

How to set up your Character:

You have prime sets to do most if not all your actions in this game. The way you use the dice in this game you have to pull and collect a dice pool. With a minimum of three dice. The three dice system is always used. Where you get these dice is from your primary set. In Arylon your primary set is as follows: Stats, Distinctions, and skills/Professions. Any game using cortex prime can have different primary sets depending on the theme of that game. Instead of rolling only one dice and adding modifiers and effects, all your different modifiers you have are the dice in your pool. You the player move the dice around with two going to be your total and the third one being your effect dice. More on that later.
Every session everyone including the G.M. gets plot points and you lose them at the end of the session. So, spend them. These are the currency within the game. Within in the character sheet there is dice placements throughout the sheet. and you will spend Advance points to increase the die levels in different areas of the sheet. You will never max out all area of the sheet. you will run out of points and will have limits in dice levels in areas of you sheet. No one is Good at everything. These sheets truly express that. Now anything you do not have a skill point in is treated as a d4. Meaning unskilled. General skills and presidencies allowing the character to shine where they are best at.
Cortex uses a simple dice level system where d4 represents totally unskilled and d12 representing a complete master's degree in that skill or stat. In Arylon uses the life point threshold system to illustrate the number of wounds and stuns a character can handle before ending up dead or unconscious. Complications can still be applied to any given character. Most actions in Cortex are one of two situations any character can find themselves in. A test in environmental situation. A Contest is a combat or encounter with another character.
Before you character can set out, you have to figure out what is the concept of your character. this is determined by figuring out the Heritage, Background and discipline of them. The heritage is the also called the race of you character. This also sets up what kind of culture your character came from; as well as, giving the player one step up on three attributes before doing attributes points spending. Heritage also gives the player one Signature asset, as that is the part of their culture they really do. The next thing is choosing one of the backgrounds or write one up if the people and the GM. agree. Backgrounds may give two skills step up or a specialty based on the background for the character. The last decide on the discipline of the character. The discipline determines the job or class of the character. Are they a mage from the College of Magics? or are they a knight for a church order or a bard spying for the queen in another noble's estate? Disciplines may give your character Signature assets or simply give you a clear idea of how the approach combat and non-combat scenes.

D4 Hinders:

Every distinction is automatically set at D8. They do NOT level up. Spells and potions can affect Attributes or Skills but NOT Distinctions. When you're using your character's distinction in a scene the d8 is symbolizing the character is shining bright here. But not every scene has to have your character shine brightly. That would not make for believability. So, rolling a D4 hinder means the character is not up for doing this thing at this time in the scene. The time you decide to do this the G.M. awards you a Plot point. The character may not shrine in the very moment but, now with that plot point will shine later.

Step Two:

Decide of the Discipline/ Class of your character. Is this character a sneaky rogue or Cleaver speaking Bard, who spies for the king. Is your Character a clock working engineer? The discipline will have talents that are keyed to this specific style of combat or playstyle.

Step 4: Buying Attributes:

At character creation all Attribute stats start off at d4. To buy higher stats in the beginning the G.M. awards every point to buys stats. This all depends on the level of the Campaign the table in playing in. At Greenhorn your character are brand new adventures ready for their origin story. Low level campaign at first. The Gm awards 30 points to players to buy their Attributes.
The player buys the die level with a two points per step. Since in Arylon there is 8 attributes to purchase a player can have 3 of the character's best stats at a d12 and one at d10 and the rest at d4. If you're going the Meta build perspective. For more balanced play style. A player would have their best stat at d12 second best at d10, two at d8 and then the remaining four at d6.

If playing a higher levels campaign like Expert level. the Gm. Awards player to buy attributes at 44 points using the same buying level as in the greenhorn level. This could put 5 stats at a d12 with four points remaining.
Legend level Campaign 54 points the G.M. awards the player to buy attributes, again using the same buying technique as above. This could put at least six stats at d12 with six points remaining.
Advancing Attributes- this after you have been playing your character for a while and have been saving advance points and saved up to raise up an attribute. This is done by take the die level you are wanting and multiple it by 4. That is the amount you need to spend to buy the attribute. So if you have a d6 stat and you want a d8 stat you are going to need 32 advance points.
*Note* When spending points beyond d12 you are buying both dice at four times the dice. It does look like it goes up by 8's. You still have to purchase at that next total. Meaning if you spend 64 points to advance your stat to a D12+d4, then to advance to the next level in that stat you have to spend 72 points to be at D12+d6 in that chosen stat.

The Attributes:

There are four categories with two Attributes in each. They are as follows:

• Physical- Strength and Agility
• Mental- Intelligence and Willpower
• Social- Charisma and Manipulate
• Spirit- Psyche and Presence

1. Strength- governs hitting power and how much you can lift and push and drag. As well some of the skills under physical.
2. Agility - governs dodging, movement speed, accuracy, number of times you can strike. As well some of the skills under physical.
3. Intelligence- governs learning, writing, reading, solving complex problems. As well some of the skills under mental.
4. Willpower- governs focusing under stress, applying routine trained skills, keep your thoughts under the influences like beer. As well some of the skills under mental.
5. Charisma- governs how you handle social behaviors, how other preserve you, how you tell a good story or bluff your ass off. As well some of the skills under social.
6. Manipulate- governs your will over others, tricking people into trusting you, seducing them, getting people to do what you want. As well some of the skills under Social.
7. Psyche- governs the amount of magic you can cast, pushing your spirit to affect the physical world around you, blowing up an area with your spell. As well some of the skills under Spirit.
8. Presence- governs other spirits, from taking over you, fighting of mind-controlling spells of other casters, enchanting spirits into items, resisting spells effects. As well some of the skills under spirit.

Note= Attributes and Skills ONLY can level up to d12+d12. Stats/Skills start d4 can advance to the max D12+D12. The plus die goes above the d12. this is treated as one die. The second die cannot fail. the d12 the is the total of effect slot plus the die above it is added together as one die, not two.
Step 6 Buying Talents: The traits of the character are the talents that they have. Talents in character creation starts at d8 in the distinction and then can increase to d12 in the talents and spells sheet. These talents are not the important talents of your characters. The one in the Distinctions are. These are considered minor talents to your character The following is not the important talents. Talents should be used in combat or casting if it fits. Example: Corbynn is a Rune blade discipline, with the talent combat caster, expert of swords in fight skill and has a high Psyche stat when in combat. when she cast in combat rolls five dice.

Life Pool:

The life pool of any character determines how long and how much damage they can take before the die. To determine the Life pool of any character, it is highest of the Physical attribute plus Endurance skill and Healthy trait. Example: Burgard the warrior. His Strength is highest in physical at d10, and his endurance is d8, and his Tough as Nails Talent is d10 all done at character creation. This equals 28. Simply add up the total dice up at max to determine the total. (The Attribute can get as high as d12+d12= 24 points and same for the Endurance skill. = 48 now. Then add the talent tough as Nails which can reach d12 as the highest and you can reach 60 Life points. The Max any character can have.)

Signature Assets:

Players can be these to define your character. Simple buy the die level at character creation. talk about how your character received this specific asset. Maybe from your background. These can be anything from a religious symbol made by your grandmother. It can be the only magic system your character uses. Spells can be treated as normal assets. Which can step up a skill, stat, or talent. It can also be a Dimond infused magic sword your character created to be a Rune Blade in their background. (Advancing the Signature Assets as a talent.) An adventuring NPC character who always fights alongside you. Can be a signature asset. If the run off or fight on their own, you take the die level of that by three. (three dice)

Assets:

Normal assets are gained in role play. they can be bought as an item. Like a ogre strength potion, which step up the strength die. It can a be a spell healing touch spell. which steps up the heal skill two steps. or adds another die to the pool to aid the fallen character.

Step One:

Choose a racial Heritage for your character. there is a lot to choose from. From the High magical Shilen elves or the magical human Keltori people. Each race has their own skills their people tend to focus on. Within the race/ Heritage they have skill the culture pushes on the young. Also, they will have heritage talents, your Character will focus on one. But will have the others as minor talents under the spells and talents sheet. starting out as d6 but can be developed up to d12 during the game play. The major one that you picked can NEVER be taken from your character by magic or other. Your other Talents can be affected if the spell does so. those spells only effect the talents of the spells and talents sheets.

• Albion
• Azurians
• Dwarves
• Elysorry Elves
• Half Elf
• Keltori human
• Lupins
• Lurkins
• Kobolds
• Odey Shashi
• Shilen Elves
• Sidhe
• Witch
• Warlock

Step Three:

Figure out and discuss your background of your character. Maybe your character was a solider, maybe an alchemist, captured by bandits and raised to mug people and steal. It up to you but your main background will be the major effect that had the most effect on them. Thus, will have a d8 effect. Only lowed as hindrance in a scene. Maybe they scene is your character runs into the man who kid napped your character the character is full of anger and their background effect is lowered to a d4. (Player gains a plot point.)

Step Five: Buying Skills:

Make sure you have points for skills and proficiency. Buying skills is determined by the level of game play you are doing.

1. Green Horn, you gain 62 skills points.
2. Expert, you gain 68 skill points.
3. Legend, you gain 72 skill points.

Legend, you gain 72 skill points:

• d4 Untrained
• d6 Trained
• d8 Expert
• d10 Adept
• d12 + Master level

Buying and Advancing Skills

Make sure you have points for skills and proficiency. Buying skills is determined by the level of game play you are doing. Buying is half the cost of the Dice. Advancing cost twice the dice value.
d8- d12 you must write in a Proficiency. A skill can have up to 3 Proficiencies. each one is bought differently and could be at different rates.

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Dice	Buy Cost	Adv. Cost
6	3	12
8	4	16
10	5	20
12	6	24

Example: Vonn the fire mage

• Mysticism d6
• Evocation d12
• Transmutation d10
• Summoning d8

Something Crazy:

In this game there is 20 general skills in all. In greenhorn level you could spend 60 points to have all general skills at trained. But have no points for any Proficiencies. In expert you could do the same thing but only have enough point for 1 Proficiency skill. In legend you could do this again but only have enough for 2 Proficiencies at master level.