Choose an Ancestry from the list of available options. This will give you a character size and speed as well as several unique features and bonuses.

Choose a Profession, this will grant you an item and inform what skills and abilities you have.

You begin the game with the equipment you need to undertake your first quest. The following items provide you a mix of standard items, plus items you choose. If you prefer, you can forgo the starting equipment presented here and instead start the game with 2 gp. You can use those funds to purchase items from the Equipment section, to which you should also refer to gain information about the items presented below.

• Clothing: You have a set of normal clothes
• Weapons: You have a dagger.
• Gear: You have a backpack, waterskin, provisions, 5 torches, and a tinderbox.
• Bonus Equipment: Choose one of the following options.
  • Brigandine armor, shield, club
  • Leather armor, shield, longsword
  • Leather armor, shortbow with a quiver of 20 arrows
  • Padded armor, quarterstaff, 2 blank books, writing kit, 3 poultices
  • Leather armor, short sword, sling with bag of 20 bullets, lockpicks
• Personal Effects: You have whatever personal effects that make sense for your character. Examples include a pair of gloves, a comb, or an extra pair of underclothes, or a memento. Such items have little to no game effect.

A major choice when creating a character is choosing a Novice Path Novice paths are high level archetypes of fantasy heroes and are very broad, consisting of Fighter, Mage, Priest, Rogue. As you gain levels as a hero you will gain Expert and Master paths with much more specific abilities to make a unique character.

Some ancestries have their own novice path as well. These are an option as well.

Your novice path defines the following for you:

• Natural Defense - Your defense when you're not wearing any armor. This is the target number for attacks against you.
• Health
• Languages
• Bonus Damage - bonus damage increases the damage your attacks do or can be expended to allow for multiple attacks.
• Traditions - Some paths grant you magical traditions. When you discover a tradition, you gain one talent from that tradition. You may select the same tradition multiple times to learn multiple talents.
• Spells - Some paths will grant you spells, they specify the tier of the spell you learn. You choose the spell from any tradition you have discovered. You can choose the same spell an additional time to gain more castings of it.
• Talents - each path provides special abilities and actions for your character.

Your path presents sets of scores (and modifiers) to place in your four attributes. You can move them around between your four attributes.

You can create your own set of scores by starting with the following: 12, 11, 10, and 10. You can increase one score by 1 and reduce a different score by 1. You can make this adjustment twice. When you finish, assign one score to each attribute until you have assigned all four scores. Make Strength your high score if you want to be durable and excel at hand-to-hand combat. Make Agility your high score if you want to be light on your feet, nimble, and skilled at fighting with ranged weapons. Make Intellect your high score if you want to be clever, know many things, and make use of magic. Make Will your high score if you would be brave and bold, charismatic, and resolved. Will is also important for casting certain spells.