The Well is an ingenious—and dark—take on the dungeon-crawling genre, in which characters live in an underground city that must keep expanding downwards to escape the evil that animated their entombed ancestors. Players take the role of Gravediggers, who comb the graveyard levels above the city for valuable salvage, fighting off various types of undead in the process.
Technology is the at the pseudo-medieval level familiar to players of D&D: swords and crossbows, chain and plate armor, torches and rope and lockpicks. Magic is embodied in rune paint, with which people trace sigils that produce various magical effects (including daylight, clean air, and fresh water).
At bottom it’s a game about resource management—not only the logistics of carrying material things, but also the logistics of handling psychological strain. Gravedigging is a stressful occupation, and the coping devices you use to manage that stress also impair your efficiency in various ways.
The designers of The Well have worked hard to make character creation easy; there are several steps, but most of these involve simple decisions, and they provide a checklist to help you work through the process.
That process starts with equipment: the weapons, armor, and miscellaneous gear that you choose to carry when you go upwell. These choices set a style: are you a basher, a dodger, a rune-worker, a burglar, or some combination of these things? You start with three choices from the Weapons & Armor list. I’m leaning toward basher, but I don’t want to lean completely into it. I’ll select a pick from the 1-handed weapons list (it counteracts armor and gives a bonus to maneuvers that maim opponents), a crossbow from the 2-handed list (for range and more armor penetration), and medium-weight armor with a cuirass and hauberk (2 points armor, but also a -2 penalty to stealth and agility). (I don’t have to track ammunition; the game assumes that you don’t run out except when you declare it as a gambit to gain extra action dice.)
Next I select my kit, i.e., non-combat supplies and equipment. All gravediggers are assumed to start with a knife, three torches, flint & steel, and a bag. I’ll get to choose five more items from the list. I’ll take bandages for binding wounds, ten meters of rope and a grapnel for climbing, a crowbar, and a dose of rune paint. This last also allows me to know one rune well enough to paint it without an instruction book, but I’ll select that when I get to that step.
Third I define my history, in particular the career path I primarily followed before I took up digging. The pick suggests mining, so I’ll go with that. I also have to select a motivation for gravedigging, framed as whatever unhappy circumstances in my life drive me to do something so foolhardy as treasure hunting among the restless dead. I’ll keep it simple and pick boredom.
Fourth, I select a skill. You are assumed to be capable of everything on the list, but better than most at one of them. Several of these are appropriate for miners (athletics, awareness, exploring, first aid), but I’ll go with awareness. I’m going to be fairly conspicuous in my clanky armor, so I’ll want to know when something else is coming.
And now I choose a Rune to know by heart. I like annul, which weakens or dispels other magical effects. I feel like I can handle most physical challenges OK, but I’ll want a little edge against magic.
Sixth, I choose my Connections: one group with which I have some influence and which can provide assistance, and another group (or possibly the same group) to which I owe a not insignificant favor. I’ll say I’m well-connected with the Miner’s Guild (having left on good terms) and owe a favor to the Wellguard, or city watch (possibly over a drunk-n-disorderly charge that was allowed to slide). Among the miners I have a positive Reputation as a straight shooter, which can provide a bonus when interacting with them.
Now we get into more creative territory with Self-Image. I need three words or short phrases that describe how I think of myself. What kind of person does my former miner think they are? There’s no mechanical aspect to this; it’s just an aid for roleplaying, so I don’t need to worry about optimizing my choices. Let’s start with tough, a quality often expected of miners. Next is forthright—what you see may not always actually be what you get, but that’s how we think of ourselves anyhow. Finally, we’ll add loyal; we don’t leave companions in the lurch—though sometimes loyalty means calling you out when you’re wrong.
Then I need to define some Habits—less-than-optimal behaviors that help me manage stress. Stress will build up over the course of a gravedigging expedition, and habits reduce your stress level at the expense of the time you spend indulging them. The checklist requires two; I’ll take honesty (telling uncomfortable truths when maybe I should be acting instead) and drinking (which suggests I should have brought booze as part of my kit, but let’s assume I’m trying to control that habit and will end up borrowing a swig from a partner’s flask.)
Finally I set my resilience (or stress meter) at 10, my asset points (or wealth) to 0, and give my character a name and some pronouns. I don’t come from an established family, so I won’t need a family name, and I’m just starting as a gravedigger, so it’s too soon to take on a moniker or sobriquet, so I’ll just call this character Harmony, or Harm for short, with feminine pronouns.
Everything else on the character sheet won’t come into play until the game is under way. The Action Pool is a space on your character sheet where you keep the dice you’ll use in actions for a given period defined by whatever circumstances prevail in the game. You don’t always complete tasks on the first roll, so there’s a space for tasks in progress. Complications are hindrances your character develops as a response to the buildup of Stress or by using Gambits to gain extra dice for task resolution. Reputation is how you’re viewed by specific social groups; it can be positive or negative.
All right, then, it’s statblock time:
Harmony (she/her)
Resilience: 10
Asset Points: 0
Skills: Awareness
Runes: Annul
Weapons: Pick, crossbow
Armor: Cuirass and hauberk
Kit: bag, bandages, crowbar, flint & steel, grapnel, knife, 10m rope, 3 torches
Self-Image: tough, forthright, loyal
Habits: honesty, drinking
History: former miner whom boredom awaits back downwell
Contacts: Miner’s Guild (Reputation: straight shooter)
Favors Owed: Wellguard
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| Character creation checklist |
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| Character sheet |
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