Character Creation Challenge, Day 14: Jaws of the Six Serpents

 

Jaws of the Six Serpents is a sword-and-sorcery RPG that runs on the Prose Descriptive Qualities (PDQ) system. Its setting is inspired by the stories of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and other giants of the sword-and-sorcery genre: a mishmash of historical Europe and the Mediterranean that draws on elements dating from late antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages, with its own sort of magic and metaphysics added to the mix. In this case, also, the world is a little bit stripped down--a simpler map, a smaller range of ethnocultural groups, overall a world that's a little easier for a gamemaster to manage. 

The Six Serpents of the title are the elements that make up the game's universe, also known as Urges: fire, metal, wood, earth, wind, water. They relate to each other in a cosmic game of rock-scissors-paper, and are often depicted as a circle of snakes, each eating the tail of the next. Each element is also tied to human personality traits, much like the humours of premodern Western medicine, and is the basis for most of the game's magic. 

Characters in PDQ games are defined by Qualities, short descriptive phrases that indicate significant things about the character. Each Quality is ranked on a five point scale ranging from Poor (-2) to Master (+6), with a corresponding die roll adjustment on attempts to do things related to that Quality. If you’re a Good Swordsman, to use a very basic example, you’ll get +2 on rolls related to using a sword. If you have Expert Burglary, you’ll get a +4 on things like breaking and entering, sneaking around, and picking locks; if you have Poor Money Management, you’ll have a -2 on rolls related to restraining your spending or investing wisely.  

When you take punishment such as physical damage in combat, humiliation in a social setting, etc., that damage is expressed as lost Ranks in your Qualities, and you’re knocked out of a conflict when you’ve had all your Qualities knocked down to Poor and you still have ranks of damage left to apply. 

You have eight Ranks to assign to Qualities, but you must take at least one in each of three categories: one that embodies a traditional strength of your People, i.e., the ethnic/cultural group from which you come; one that references a Faculty or innate ability of the sort that most games turn into attributes such as strength, quickness, perception, and so forth; and one relating to your primary motivation or Driver. The baseline for most Qualities is Average; buying a Rank in each type will bring them up to Good (+2). 

Now, there are nine Peoples or ethnocultural groups to choose from, and to be honest they're not far removed from historical real-world ethnic stereotypes.* I want to play a civilized swashbuckler instead of the primal Conan the Barbarian type these settings usually put front and center, and the most urbanized societies in the world of the Six Serpents are Nilsomar (the setting's not-Arabia) and Sartain (its not-Paris). I'm going to choose Sartain, a city-state with a sharp division between aristocrats and commoners. The citizens of Sartain are known for intrigue, for being streetwise, and for their facility in the professions; their aristocracy are renowned as connoisseurs of art, food, drink, and the other fine things in life. I'm going for the low life rather than the high life, so I'll make my character Good (+2) in Streetwise and perhaps fine-tune that with a more nuanced description later. 

For a Faculty I want something that enables swashbuckling, something that will support both acrobatics and dueling. Good (+2) Agile as a Cat covers balance, leaping, and quickness nicely.

As a Driver I don't know whether I'd rather be motivated by fame or by greed; I think fame, insofar as "the greatest thief in Sartain" sounds more fun than "the most successful thief in Sartain." I want to die in the lap of luxury, sure, but more than that I want people to tell stories of my exploits, and that is fame. So let's call that Good (+2) Wants to be the Greatest Thief in Sartain.

That leaves me with five more ranks to fill out my character's strong points. I'm allowed to take Qualities that overlap, though I might end up regretting it if they overlap too much. I'll spend two on Expert (+4) Burglar to expand my thieving skills, add Good (+2) Liar to help cover my tracks and Good (+2) Friends in Low Places to give me a network of contacts. I still want to beef up my fighting skills, though, so I'll finish with Good (+2) Swordswoman. I wonder whether Good is a good enough Swordswoman, but I should be able to overlap it with Agile as a Cat pretty frequently so i'm not too worried.

Now I need a Weakness, one quality that ranks at Poor and can be used to throw me into interesting trouble. Well, I'm ambitious and flashy, so I expect I'd be inclined to take big risks, often unnecessarily. Actually, we can probably just call that Poor (-2) Flashy; any time I need to be subtle or understated, I'll be at a disadvantage.

That pretty much concludes the mechanics of character generation. You're generally assumed to have whatever gear your Qualities imply, so I've got a sword as well as breaking-and-entering tools and some flashy, raffish clothes. At the beginning of each session I'll start with one Fortune Point that I can use for a bonus, and I'll be able to earn more in the course of play, but those are irrelevant for our purposes. Since she doesn't do magic, I don't need to assign Urges to her character, but if it ever came up she'd definitely be a Fire: impulsive, restless, joyful.

I do, however, still need a name and perhaps a little background. Citizens of Sartain tend to have vaugely French names; I like Sabine, which sounds a little rakish to me. Instead of a last name we'll give her an epithet: Sabine the Cat. Sabine's parents were respectable tradespeople, but they died when she was a child, leaving her to fend for herself. She grew up in the streets of Sartain, developing her larcenous talents among the gangs of street urchins and dodging both the city watch and the crime bosses who sought to bring her under their thumbs. She wants to be the greatest thief of all Sartain--a high distinction indeed--but she is surrounded by rivals both friendly and unfriendly, and her thirst for renown may well prove her downfall.

And that brings us to Statblock Time!

Sabine the Cat

People: Citizens of Sartain

Strengths: 

Expert (+4): Burglar

Good (+2): Agile as a Cat, Friends in Low Places, Liar, Streetwise, Swordswoman, Wants to Be the Greatest Thief in Sartain

Weaknesses:

Poor (-2) Flashy

*including not-Arabs, not-Englishmen, not-Celts, not-Frenchmen, and not-Eastern Europeans who are really more not-Roma than not-anything else. This is very common in the source material, but it's the sort of thing that really didn't need to be carried over.