January 2024 Character Creation Challenge – Part 31

Day 31! Great Scott!, What is that bringing us across the finish line? Why it’s none other than “Doc” Emmet Green in his Auto-gyro, A Mad Scientist for Deadlands.

I wanted to round out the Deadlands characters with a stereotypical mad scientist and, as I’m finding with Deadlands/Savage Worlds characters, putting one together was surprisingly easy.

The Edge where you can start with Infernal Devices had to be taken, after all what’s a Mad Scientist with out some possibly about to explode steampunk bullshit ready to hand?

I gave hime a rifle and put a scope on it to counteract some penalties, which would hopefully make up for his low shooting score. Influenced, of course, by Doc Brown’s rifle in Back to the Future 3. (also the influence for his name)

And with that, I’m done.

I’ll ruminate on things for a few days and put up a blog post with some thoughts on the characters I created, the systems, the sheets, and any other things that spring to mind.

Oh, and I already have a few ideas for characters for next year’s challenge.

January 2024 Character Creation Challenge – Part 24

Day 24, back to Deadlands for Loretta Fisher, a Huckster who knows when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to run away.

A traveling gamble who always seems to be on the run, Loretta’s been accused of cheating multiple times and and ended up in many duels from that. All of which she’s won despite never carrying a gun.

As with most of the characters for this I’ve bought minimal gear. The riverboat ticket for getting away from where she is, some cards to ply her trade and hide her magic, and a nice gold watch.This does leave her with a sizeable chunk of change, which is another tool of her trade.

Mechanically I am getting much more used to building Savage Worlds/Deadlands characters. It’s still in the “That was simple, too simple, have I done that right?” phase, but the comfort is growing.

Next week’s Deadlands character is Emmet “Doc” Green, a Mad Scientist.

Tomorrow’s Vaesen character is Gustav Svensson, a vagabond.

January 2024 Character Creation Challenge – Part 17

Day 17 and back to the weird west for Deadlands. This week’s character is Arch Stanton, undead gunslingin’ legend o’ the weird west.

If a game lets you make an undead gunslinger, you make an undead gunslinger.

The basic driving force behind Arch is revenge, pure and simple, and everything was geared towards that. Appearance wise, you know he only wears black, looks like 80’s Lance Henriksen on a bad day, and sounds like Jack Palance with a dry throat.

I decided to go with the image I had for him, pick the Legend o’ the Weird West edge for him, as this gives a massive bump in power from the start. Four advances. The first was used to up his shooting skill to the maximum, I don’t want him to miss his targets. Then I used the rest to buy edges; Stitchin’ to help him heal faster, and Wither and Chill o’ the Grave to act as pretty serious debuffs to anyone he faces.

This early advancement comes at a cost, you have to draw a card an consult a table to see exactly what. I got the Kind of Hearts which is the entry Marked for Death , seems fitting. Someone cursed him and his soak rolls are reduced, lessening his posible damage reduction.

This time around I did buy gear, as this character has a mission, a very self directed one. So a pale horse, a couple of guns and some bacon and alcohol were purchased. The last two items to aid his udead healing and hide the smell.

The other reason for taking the Veteran edge was to see how the levelling/advancement works in this game, and it’s pretty simple. You have a list of things you can spend an advancement on and just pick one, nice.

Next week’s Deadlands character is the Huckster Loretta Fisher.

Tomorrow’s Vaesen character is Wilhelmina Brodd, a private detective.

January 2024 Character Creation Challenge – Part 10

And back to Weird West Wednesday for the second Deadlands character of the challenge. Eleanor Shepard, a Blessed, who travelled west to being spiritual help and comfort those who need it.

Building Eleanor was quicker than Virgil last week even thoguh she engages with more of the game’s systems such as powers. I am definitely getting mroe confident with this system.

I took Pacifism and Lyin’ Eyes as Hindrances asthey’re the kind of thing I’d probably role play with this character anyway. A refusal to fight unless necessary and difficulty being dishonest just seem to fit her well.

Her pacifism is also why I didn’t kit her out with any weapons, she may pick one up later, but she is not a person that goes out looking for trouble. As with Virgil, I left the rest of the gear blank as I would kit her out for a specific mission,

The Power selection was pretty straightforward. Making her a healer and a revealer of magic fit. Maybe similar to a D&D Cleric.

I do like one page character sheets, but I’m not keen on the way Savage Worlds does it. The text size requires significant zooming in to be clear, and no room for backstory/personality so I dump it in the bottom of the gear section. two pages less crammed together would be preferable.

Next week’s Deadlands characte will be Arch Stanton, a Harrowed gunfighter. Tomorrow’s Vaesen character is Josephine Naslund and Academic.

January 2024 Character Creation Challenge – Part 3

Weird West Wednesday is here. Wednesday’s will be for Deadlands characters, the Savage Worlds edition. A system I’m not too familiar with, so am using this challenge as a way of gaining familiarity, like I did with CoC and Dune a couple of years ago.

First character up is Virgil Witt, a Pinkerton Agent sent to the west to recover some magical cards that have found their way out to the general public.

As with learning any system I’m a little unsure I did everything right, but this is how it came out when I followed the steps. A relatively straightforward process, pick this, spend these, add these, buy stuff, done. But there’s still some uncertainty. I’m sure this will fade over the next few characters.

I decided to make Virgil a more thoughtful character, more of an occult researcher than a front line ass-kicker. This made buying his combat skills relatively expensive, which is a lesson for future characters to maybe plan better.

For gear I decided to just buy some ammo for his sidearm and keep the rest of the cash. This leaves a lot of options available to buy mission relevant gear if he ever gets used in a game.

Next week’s Deadlands character is Eleanor Shepard a Blessed. Tomorrow is Thursday which is for Vaesen, where we’ll meet retired military officer Maximilian Henriksson.