Character Creation

Characters require certain attributes that go along with being a story-important person.

• Name: Self-explanatory. This is what the game world will refer to them as. Certain deeds or high renown may bestow a character’s name with a title, which can affect interactions with NPCs. NPCs may also come with a title signifying their status.
• Backstory: The summarized life-story of the character. This creates a foundation for their personality and a set of past history they can draw on. It is possible to give your character equipment as well if it fits from your backstory.
• Goals: The character’s dreams and aspirations. These will be not only a roleplaying aid, but also a narrative mechanic.
• Personality: The character’s flaws, ideals, habits, etc. This is mostly to serve as a roleplaying aid to construct how the given character would speak/act in a situation.
• Species: What species the character is. This also determines a character’s size.
• Skills: The character’s areas of expertise, if any. Expanded further in Skills.
• Perks: Unique abilities that characters attain through experience. Expanded further in Perks.

Goals and Power Points

At character creation the GM allots each player a set number of Power Points (PP) to distribute to the seven SPAMFIC stats. Players must keep them within the limits the GM sets, or, lacking that, the maximum scores defined by their species. Once the stats are distributed, the player calculates the derived stats of their character and gives them equipment.

PP are also awarded during the game, as a means of character progression. Here is where goals come in.

As even the lowliest beggar might dream of becoming a feudal lord, so do characters in Cold Iron strive towards their goal. In doing so, they break free of their previous standing and become more powerful. There are three types of goals:

1. Legend Goal: Some great, overarching thing that ties all the player characters together.
2. Dream Goal: The character's personal long term goal.
3. Minor Goal: Something small that the character wants to get done, in keeping with their personality and beliefs - max of 3.

Completing the Legend Goal should reward players with the most PP, while the Dream and Minor Goals should reward players with less, as they can be constantly fulfilled. The GM, based on how quickly they want characters to progress, should aim to award 0-1 PP for Minor Goals per session. If the player character makes strides towards their Dream Goal, the GM should award 2-3 PP. Major progress in the Legend Goal should grant everyone some small number of PP (1-2), and slightly more for those who contributed the most to the progress (3-5).

Character Sheet

The character sheet can be found here. Once you fill out the fields for your character, you can download it as a file and load it back into the page for use later.