Character Creation

Overview

Overall, making your character should be a rather simple experience, but in this document are a few additional things you will need to keep in mind when building. Primarily, Constitution and some mental statistics will be a bit more important than physical attributes overall, but aren't required to have good roleplay by any means. Additionally, there will be combat, but I will be dividing my pillars equally between Combat, Roleplay & Exploration; therefore, min-maxing is allowed, but slightly discouraged.

Ability Score Array

The current array for character creation is - (17, 13, 13, 13, 11, 8)

Starting Equipment

During Character Creation, you may choose to either gold buy or take your class's pregenerated equipment, but not both.

Additional Rules for Character Generation

Homebrew Resources

I personally have a lot of third party resources for character creation; therefore, all personal homebrew classes, races, items, etc; will be disallowed. If you are looking for something outside of the scope of official content (or as I add things to this WorldAnvil), please ask me and we can talk about what you might be looking for and try to figure it out)

Free Feat at Level 1

Starting at Level 1, you may take a free racial feat based on your race. If your race does not have any racial feats associated with it officially, I do have some additional resources I can provide you or we can discuss other options.

Additional Feat for Being Marked at Creation

For those looking for a feat that is more combat related, you can take an Astral Mark at Character Creation and gain any feat that is available as long as you meet the statistical prerequisites. The Astral Mark is a unique mechanic to this campaign and is outlined below.

Mechanic - Astral Marks

Astral Marks arise from beings in the Astral Plane attempting to take control of an individual in the Material Plane, so that they may remain in this plane alongside their "hosts." These marks appears as a physical manifestation on the creature, with the size of the Astral Mark varying based on its source. Marks have the following effects:

• Artes (Psionic). The connection to an Astral Being allows an individual to cast artes (e.g. spells with a fixed spellcasting ability) in exchange for points of Stress (detailed later in this article). Typically, a mark will give an individual 2 Artes that are somewhat unique to the creature has bestowed the mark.

• Possession. Sadly, beings in the Material Plane have limits and their wills can falter to the control of any Astral Being. Whenever your number of Astral Marks exceeds your Constitution Modifier, you become possessed by an Astral Being and lose control of your character immediately.

Whenever a creature attempts to mark you, you will resist with a Saving Throw and on failure, will gain an Astral Mark. However, you can remove an Astral Mark simply by slaying the Astral Being that bestowed it upon you. When removed, all benefits of the Astral Mark are lost. Additionally, creatures that have bestowed an Astral Mark will have certain benefits themselves, so keep that in mind.

Sanity

We will be using the optional Sanity rules from the DMG and an additional Stress Mechanic to emphasize the role of Sanity in the campaign. Whenever you need to make a Sanity Check, you will refer to your Wisdom Saving Throw and on failure, gain an amount of Stress based on the situation.

Mechanic - Stress

Stress is a value that will keep track of mental exhaustion and its limit is the sum of your Constitution, Intelligence & Wisdom Modifiers (Normal Max of 15). Whenever you gain an amount of Stress equal to or above your limit, you will gain a point of Exhaustion and your total Stress will reset back to zero.

Campaign Specific Options

Background - Seer

Seers have a crucial importance to this campaign, and I will let a small number of players take this background due to their rarity. The details of this background are still being worked on, but the idea is that they can perceive the Astral Plane at the potential cost of their sanity.