2025 Character Creation Challenge, day 11 (delayed): Longhand Bernard, for Tiny Pirates

source: RPGGeek.com

The next game in our Tiny d6 tour is Tiny Pirates, which adds mechanics for ships, ship combat, cargo and supplies, and weather to the character and personal combat rules from other games in the line. We'll see something of the ship rules, as well, because part of character generation involves deciding what kind of ship you belong to and what your role in the crew is.

Ship and Role determination is usually done as a group, but since I'm doing this on my own as an exercise I'll just trust my own judgement and any advice the designers provide. 

First, a ship. The designers recommend starting small, with a sloop, fluyt., or barque. The sloop is lighter (6 hull points as opposed to 10) but faster (6 sail points as opposed to 4) and carries less crew (max 2 points vs 3) than the fluyt, with the same base firepower (3). The barque is larger and slower (10 hull, 5 sail) than the sloop, but carries more crew (5) and guns (also 5). The sloop also has capacity for only 3 modifications (including a cargo hull), as opposed to 7 for the fluyt and 8 for the barque. But I like the speed of the sloop; it's a good smuggling boat and can get in and out of trouble quickly. The low hull and crew ratings are a bit worrisome--the first number represents the ship's structural hit points, the second its capacity to take personnel losses--but piracy is a dangerous game and you've got to assume some kind of risk. 

For my two modifications I foresee some tough decisions. I can upgrade the Hull with Shallow Draft or Smuggler's Compartments, I can boost our Sail rating with cotton (+1) or silk (+2) sails, I can add chaser guns or carronades to build up its firepower, or I can add hammocks to raise the ship's Crew rating. Shallow Draft is the only one that can't be added later, so that's going on the list to help us evade customs frigates and other large predators by cutting through shoals. That leaves one more. I see this crew starting out as smugglers and then drifting into piracy, so starting out with extra guns is kind of unnecessary--as is extra crew. The secret compartments are very tempting, but so is the extra sail. We're going all-in on smuggling: Smuggler's Compartments it is, better sails can wait. 

Ship still needs a name; I'll get back to that after we've built our crew member and deal with both at once. The first thing we need to know about our character is their role in the ship's crew. All the options are positions of relative authority; ordinary Able Mariners are apparently all NPCs or abstracted as Crew points. Suggested Roles include Captain, Quartermaster, Pilot, Bosun (or Boatswain if you're inclined to be fancy about it), Master Gunner, and Ship's Doctor. I'm ready for another Big Bruiser, and the Bosun's qualifications include being loud, strong, and fighty, so sign me up. The associated Trait is Discipline, which provides advantage on Tests to get orders obeyed by the crew as well as Tests to gauge the crew's morale.

Now I choose two more Traits to customize our Bosun. There are lots of melee-related options as well as ones relating to size and strength; again it's going to be a tough pair of choices. Large grants a hit point bonus (+2) as well as an increased reach (Near with Light Melee weapons and Far with Heavy Melee Weapons, that's a one-zone boost), for the sake of variety I'll take that over Strong's advantage on Strength tests. And then there's Barfighter, which grants proficiency with improvised weapons and (in lieu of a Mastery option) adds an extra Action if you're wielding one. (Alas, belaying pins and boathooks do not seem to count as improvised weapons; I'll need some other heavy blunt instrument to serve my beatdown purposes.)

We've just covered Weapon Group and Mastered Weapon above, so let us proceed to Background. How did we become this large, loud, felonious person? I assume the largeness occurred naturally, with perhaps some help from a bountiful diet. A well-nurtured foundling, perhaps. Raised in a religious orphanage. Treated kindly until one fateful day, one bad decision, and then expelled from the Garden shortly before he was due to age out. Ran away to sea, fell in with a smuggling gang that put his size and strength to work, first for loading and unloading and eventually, as he earned respect, as the sailors' offcial foreman. 

Does that arc lend it self to a particular Belief? Our dude may have some trust issues or deep-seated guilt about the incident that got him kicked out of the orphanage (I imagine it as a romantic but not-overtly-sexual entanglement with one of the novices). Whatever you give of yourself, keep your heart close may suggest storylines I wouldn't really want to play out, but for our purposes here it will be fine.

Jean-Marie "Longhand" Bernard, formerly of Martinique, scoots around the Caribbean with the officers and crew of the sloop Rossignol ("nightingale"), evading customs duties to deliver minor luxuries and contraband around the turn-of-the-18th-century Caribbean. He has a reputation as a hard and brooding man but a reliable comrade, a doughty fighter and a melancholy drunk.

Sloop Rossignol

Hull: 6    Sail: 6    Crew: 2    Guns: 3

Modifications: Shallow Draft, Smuggler's Compartments

Jean-Marie "Longhand" Bernard

Role (Trait): Boatswain (DIscipline)

Background: Convent-raised Orphan

Belief: Whatever you give of yourself, keep your heart close

Weapon Group: Improvised    Hit Points: 8

Gear: pirate's kit

Traits: Large (+2hp, +1 zone Reach), Bar-fighter (Improvised Weapon proficiency, extra Action when so armed)

2025 Character Creation Challenge, day 10: Dr Cornelius, for Tiny Frontiers

source: RPGGeek.com

Fell a little behind here, will try to catch up between today and Monday. Tiny Frontiers takes the Tiny d6 system into SPAAAACE! The basic rulebook tries to be setting-agnostic, and it contains a dozen setting ideas to build on; character options contain a lot of space-opera type ideas and nearly as many cyberpunk-type ideas, though the setting ideas nearly all revolve around FTL-level space travel. I'll be working from the 2018 revised edition for this character.

Heritage makes an appearance for the first time in our series since, what, Tiny Dungeon? The Tiny Frontiers universe is a big place with a lot of species, and the rules give us at least 15 to choose from. I'm not sure I like any of them that much, truth be told. I think I'm going to make this character a Hologram, basically an AI in a little hovering globe that can project a full-sized image in hard-light, capable of interacting with solid objects. That visual can be anything the AI wants it to be, but it is generally recognizable as a hologram. A Hologram character starts with 8 hit points and the Hardlight Heritage Trait: the character is not affected by healing or repair Tests and can only heal by recharging (sleep, only for AIs), but up to twice a session they can attempt to self-recharge while in action (at Disadvantage) to regain 1 hp.

Our holographic spacer will get three more individual Traits from the general list. As usual, this is where I get most of my professional skills, so now I have to consider what this little orb is going to do when it's on the clock. Some sort of engineer? A thief? A diplomat? We've already done two criminals in a row; let's pick a technical specialty and throw in some general-knowledge traits to round them out. I don't want to recreate Voyager's holographic doctor, but instead of medicine perhaps an expert in exotic technologies? Xenotech Expert will be the Trait that gets our AI hired for jobs; it offers Advantage on Tests to identify devices from unknown civilizations and allows me to activate them without further training. That starts to bring things into focus, I'm getting an Alex Benedict vibe now: our floating ball is the subject expert in a space-salvage crew that scours the spaceways for valuable ancient technologies and sells them for profit. We'll add Educated (Advantage on tests to know specific information) and Hacker (Test to shut down a digital/robotic/cyborg opponent until it makes a Save).

The hardlight thing means our AI can probably use melee weapons as well as ranged ones, but Light Ranged makes the most sense as a Weapon Group for a character who isn't combat-primary. We'll build a laser projector into its ball and call this mastered weapon a Laser Pistol.

Family Trade is a flexible concept for this kind of character (and probably should have been renamed, but no harm done). I can see this character having been designed as a sort of portable reference library; I've used Librarian before but it still fits here.

That brings us to Belief. What motivates this character? The crew is a profit-making operation, but it seems to me our AI is more interested in documenting their finds for posterity. "Expand the Frontiers of Knowledge" suits this motive.

Source: Wikipedia 

I still need to give them a name and some kind of backstory--not to mention an appearance. Orignally designed as a scholars' interactive research reference, CN-3200 was scheduled for sale after budget cuts to their university library led the adminstation to liquidate mobile reference units as an unjustifiable luxury. While waiting to be auctioned off, the AI found itself with a lot of time to ponder its identity and purpose. CN-3200 found inspiration in Planet of the Apes and renamed itself Dr. Cornelius, fashioning an avatar based on the makeup and costume of Roddy MacDowall's portrayal of the chimpanzee archaeologist.

Now to sum it up:

Dr. Cornelius (CN-3200), AI archaeologist and scholar
Heritage (Trait): Hologram (Hardlight)

Family Trade: Librarian

Belief: Expand the frontiers of knowledge

Weapon Group: Light Ranged

Mastered Weapon: Laser pistol (mounted in orb)

HP: 6

Traits:

Xenotech Expert (advantage to identify unknown tech, ability to use freely)

Educated (advantage to know specific information)

Hacker (able to freeze digital and partly digital opponents by infiltrating systems)

2025 Character Creation Challenge, day 9: Rosemary Ann Ferraro aka Zap!, for Tiny Supers

For a few years back in the '90s I ran a recurring convention scenario for Villains & Vigilantes called "The World Championships of Crime," featuring a team of super-criminals from each continent. By the time I'd stopped doing it, I had a nice little stable of super-powered characters, many of whom could be converted from villains to heroes with very little effort. So when I cracked open Tiny Supers for this project, I thought I'd dip into that reserve and convert one of those characters.

One of my favorites is a super-speedster who steals for thrills under the codename Zap!* Her signature powers are supersonic flight and photon blasts. Pretty simple, and should be easy to convert to another system.

The Tiny Supers character generation process is very similar to that of other Tiny d6 games: choose an Archtype to organize your powers around, select a number of Power Traits (or mundane Traits, which have the same in-game weight) to match the game's power level, adopt a Belief and select a proficient weapon group (which can include your attack powers), figure out your hit points (or Stress Capacity, in this game's terms). In addition, your Super will also have a Power Origin (which is kind of like a Background) and a Weakness.

Zap's V&V charaacter sheet

Some of the Archetypes are more reminiscent of the class roles in D&D 4e than they are of the analogous feature in other Tiny d6 systems; they actually include Striker, Defender, and Controller as well as the moral-example Paragon, techie Gadgeteer, mostly-mundane-yet-highly-skilled Expert, and minion-managing Mastermind. Zap!'s schtick is zooming around, well, zapping people--that's sounds like a Striker to me. The associated Trait is Powerful Blows! which exempts your attacks from damage reduction effects.

The number of Power and/or mundane Traits you can take depends on the power level of your game. The default is three, for what the designers call a "mid-level" supers feel. Reduce the number for a more street-level feel (and note that the Expert archetype can take extra mundane Traits if they take one or fewer Power traits), or raise it for something more high-powered (5 for Avengers- or Justice League-caliber save-the-world play, 8 if you want to go full Cosmic Power and save the universe). Furthermore, certain Power Traits can be purchased in installments (or Tiers) depending on how much oomph you want for them; both Flight and Light Control fall into this category. Fully supersonic Flight is a Tier 3 Power (and it imposes Disadvantage on attacks against you when you're moving at full speed), so it looks like we're going to want to ratchet the power level up to 5 if we want those energy beams. Light powers are a variety of Energy Control; at Tier 1 you can temporarily blind your target, but at Tier 2 you can actually deal hit point damage, as it gains the qualities of the Tier 1 Blast power. (Tier effects are cumulative for most powers, including this one). That's five slots right there, so we're done with Traits.

Power Origin is next on the checklist, and it's something I never bothered with for a character that was designed for a one-shot slugfest. The game offers seven types of Origin, and the character will get to take Advantage on any non-combat Tests related to the Origin you select. (Not just the type of Origin, I believe, but related to the actual circumstances that granted the Powers.) So if Zap! had found an alien device that changed her physical makeup to enable supersonic flight and light blasts, she would get Advantage on Tests related to that alien culture's technology (and perhaps other aspects of their society as well). That works for me as an Origin: found an extraterrestrial machine at a crash site, played with it, was bathed in weird energies, and came out able to zoom around and fling photons. Power Origin: Alien.

I may have to depart from the original concept for Zap's Weakness. V&V has multiple types of disadvantage, from fears and phobias to powerful enemies to adverse substance reactions and so forth. Original-recipe Zap! was vulnerable to sonic attacks. In Tiny Supers the Weakness can take a wide variety of forms, but its effect is always the same when any character encouters theirs: Disadvantage on all rolls until the source of Weakness is removed. Works great to model kryptonite or a phobia, not so great in this case. Sample characters in the text have a variety of Weaknesses, the in-game effects of which are not always clear from the text. So let's just declare that Zap is vulnerable to sonic attacks, that characters using them gain Advantage on their attack rolls, and if she gets hit she suffers Disadvantage on rolls during her next turn.

Now the Weapon Group thing. Zap's weapon of choice is her light blasts, so we can call her proficiency group Ranged (or Ranged Powers) and her mastered weapon Light Blasts.

Finally we give our (anti?)heroine a credo or Belief. I think we can still lean on thrill-seeking as her primary motivation and phrase it as Adrenaline is my drug of choice.

As a teenager, Rosemary Ann Ferraro was a wild child straight out of a movie--drag racing, bridge jumping, recreational sex and drugs, petty vandalism and shoplifting, the whole package of risky behaviors. Then one of her similarly-inclined friends dared her to investigate what seemed like a plane crash nearby. It turned out to be some kind of spacecraft, and no one but Rosemary was willing to enter. A few button-pushes later, she found herself bathed in a blast of bluish-green light and fell unconsious. Her comrades fled from the glow, and she woke up a few hours later with a splitting headache and feeling like her whole skin was trying to vibrate off her body. Running away from the wreck, she tripped over a root and, instead of falling, took flight. 

Rosemary quickly learned to manage flying and in the process discovered that she could emit light beams from her hands. A brief career as a super-criminal ended when the local super-team lured the impetuous Zap! into a trap. In super-prison (with some guidance) she decided that she could get just as big a charge out of stopping crimes as she did when committing them, and upon her (supervised) release she became a probationary member of Excessive Force, protectors of San Cataclysmo, California.

And now for her statblock:

Codename: Zap!
Name: Rosemary Ann Ferraro
Archetype: Striker (Powerful Blows!)

Uniform: full-body catsuit in aqua with ZAP! at a diagonal in bright yellow, safety-style sunglasses

Belief: Adrenaline is my drug of choice

Power Origin: Alien

Weakness: Vulnerability to sonic attacks (Attackers get advantage, inflict Disadvantage in addition to damage on Zap's next turn)

Weapon Group: Ranged Powers

Mastered Weapon: Light attacks

Power Traits:

Flight (tier 3): supersonic top speed, full acceleration in 1 action, attackers get disadvantage if she's at full speed)

Energy Control (Light) (tier 2): blinding flash (save test or suffer Disadvantage next Action), blast (ranged attack, 2 damage)

*which may be influenced by Scott McCloud's Zot!, but to be honest I don't remember anymore.

2025 Character Creation Challenge, day 8: Jenny Turbo, for Tiny Spies

source: RPGGeek.com

Tiny Spies brings the Tiny d6 system into the world of James Bond and Jason Bourne. The game's departures from the core Tiny d6 model are going to be pretty familiar; they're mostly things we've already seen in other expressions of the game engine.

The character's core concept is expressed in an Archetype, such as we saw in Tiny Cthulhu. Each Archetype confers a relevant (and exclusive) Trait, to which the player adds three more Traits chosen from the general list. The character gets proficiency in a Weapon Group and selects a particular Mastered Weapon from that group.  They select a Background and its associated Trait, formulate a Belief that guides the character's decisions, then come up with a Name. Vehicles and Gadgets are options specific to Tiny Spies that we'll explore here as well.

The concept I had in mind was a wheelman, which indeed has its own Archetype, called the Driver. The associated Trait is called Wheelman, funnily enough, and gives you Advantage on Tests to keep control of a vehicle under stressful (i.e., car chase) conditions.

To build on that foundation I turn to the Traits list and look for entries that suggest quick reflexes. Agile Defense is second on the list and lets me Evade at Standard (2d6) instead of at Disadvantage. Follow-Up Attacks lets me attack a second target at Disadvantage right after I drop an enemy to 0 HP. And I had an idea for a Background that makes Nimble Fingers (Advantage on attempts to pick locks, hotwire cars, etc) a very appropriate choice.

As the concept came into focus, I saw an origin--a virtuoso car thief caught boosting an agent's heavily modified ride, offered a new career by an employer who valued such skills highly. Criminal is indeed one of the Backgrounds on the list (thank you Alexander Mundy!), and its perk is a network of underworld contacts who can provide at least one piece of information relevant to each mission (requesting a second tip requires a Test at Disadvantage, and failure can result in loss of access to that contact). Our agent's primary motivation is thrillseeking, so we can formulate their Belief as "I do it all for the kicks, man." (Which may raise questions about her loyalties in the course of play.)

But here I've skipped weapon proficiencies and masteries. Interpersonal (as opposed to vehicular) combat is not super interesting to this character, so I go for a typical Ranged Weapons group with an Automatic Pistol mastery. 

All right, let's meet our agent. Gina Vanucci loved the thrill of boosting cars as much as she loved the thrill of driving dangerously, but her career as a master car thief came to an abrupt end when she broke into Marcus Flint's McLaren, not knowing it had been heavily modified for the NSA agent's use. She almost got away with it, but just missed disabling the car's emergency route-guidance system and found herself carried to an office-building garage where a half-dozen suits wearing Ray-Bans and packing Glocks met the stray car and Gina. Instead of handing her over to local law enforcement, Flint and his handler Agent Silver realized her talents could be put to excellent use in national defense, given the proper incentives. So now Gina Vanucci, codenamed Jenny Turbo, does much the same work that she did as a freelancer--only with better gear and higher stakes. 

Jenny needs a ride of her own, so let's consul the vehicle creation rules to provide one. The first step is to pick a chassis. Motorcycles are fun, but sometimes you need a little more carrying space, so let's start with a sports car, something stylish and Italian such as a classic Ferrari. A sports car has 8 hit points, can carry three passengers, and comes with one of two Upgrades: Detroit Steel (for your muscle cars) or Supercharged (for your European-style speedsters); we'll take the latter. We get three more Upgrades, which I'll choose primarily to enable escapes. Off-Road Capable (ignore Disadvantage in rough terrain) will surprise a lot of pursuers; Smoke Dispenser provides cover for sudden turns and other maneuvers (Advantage to lose a pursuer); and Nitro (+1 momentum at beginning of a chase) will provide a nice headstart when the chases begin.

The Gadget rules are more open; instead of a list the rules provide a simple guideline: usually a Gadget gives you Advantage on Tests relevant to its use (or imposes Disadvantage on something an emeny is trying to do), and ideally has a limited number of uses. There's an appropriate example already in the rules, so I'm going to give Jenny Turbo a pair of Gadget Glasses. They look like high-fashion sunglasses, but they grant the wearer the Traits Darkfighter (avoid Disadvantage when your sight is impaired) and Perceptive (Advantage on Tests to notice stuff). However, they run the risk of becoming inoperable after each use (Save test to avoid).

All right, now we'/ve got everything in order for her statblock:

Name: Gina Vanucci
Codename: Jenny Turbo
Archetype: Driver (Wheelman)

Background: Criminal (Connections)

Weapon Group: Ranged        Mastered Weapon: Automatic Pistol

Traits: 

Agile Defense

Follow-up Attacks

Nimble Fingers

Vehicle: modified Ferrari sports car (built-in Trait: Supercharged)

Modifications:

Nitro

Off-Road Capable

Smoke Dispenser

Gadgets:

Gadget Glasses (Darkfighter, Perceptive)

2025 Character Creation Challenge, day 7: Phuoc Nguyen, for Tiny Living Dead

Source: RPGGeek.com

I'm not a big fan of zombie survival horror (or indeed of horror in general), but Tiny Living Dead is part of the bundle and next in line on the file directory so here we go.

One of the upsides of the genre, however, is that it is a place where Regular Folks can shine, so that's the kind of character I plan to create for it. Several years ago Pinnacle released a zombie-attack adventure (and quickstart set) for Savage Worlds, and in it the first scene goal was for survivors to reach a gas station convenience store where they could barricade themselves for a little while and stock up on supplies. It stuck with me (I ran the adventure at my FLGS that year) and I tend to associate the zombie-survival genre with convenience stores and similar establishments. All this being a long-winded way to saying that our character for today will be the proprietor of a convenience store. 

There's a gas station with a tiny store near my workplace; it's run by a taciturn, middle-aged Vietnamese guy who seems to spend most of his on-duty downtime scrolling Vietnamese-language news websites. I don't know him well enough to actually model this character on him, but I can imagine someone like him sticking it out with grim determination in the event of a zombie apocalypse, and if he can't be a model he can at least be an inspiration. (Though my keyboard regrettably can't seem to cover the full range of Vietnamese diacriticals, so I'm going to do what a lot of Westernized Vietnamese apparently do and drop them.)

Our shopkeeper is going to start with the usual Tiny d6 allotment of 6 hit points. We'll give him three Traits, a Weapon Proficiency group and a particular Mastered Weapon, and then add a Family Trade and a Belief to round him out.

Without a clear idea of our hero's backstory, I'm going to focus on Traits that you might expect to see in a convenience store operator. Insightful is good for the small businessperson who's often worried about being cheated or robbed. Vigilant, which gives advantage on initiative rolls, has a similar utility,l especially when dealing with the occasional holdup. Lucky comes in handy for just about anyone.

A gun behind the counter is a common trope for a shopkeeper in action fiction, so Ranged is a solid choice for Weapon Group. As far as Weapon Mastery goes, Shotgun is a popular choice for people who don't have a lot of time or ammo to practice marksmanship, such as a merchant who only packs to protect himself and his store.

Family Trade is kind of tricky; it's entirely possible our guy did something entirely different back in Vietnam (and in my headcanon he came to the States well after the war on a family-reunification visa and family members who preceded him here helped him get set up with the store); on the other hand, he would have been a small child or even a baby when the war ended, so he basically grew up in Communist Vietnam and his parents (assuming they survived) would very likely have had to give up whatever business they might have operated before 1975. It's a lot of factors to weigh, and it might be easiest to say he was some kind of low-level store clerk, using a similar skill set, back in Vietnam before his cousins contrived to have him join the part of the family that made it out of the country in 1975. So that puts us back where we started with Small Retail as his Family Trade.

Earlier in this process I suggested "grim determination" might be his mode of dealing with the horrors of this new era, so his Belief should embody that somehow: You can't know whether it gets better if you don't persevere. A heavily tempered optimism in that.

OK, let's put it together. Phuoc* Nguyen was running a convenience store in a Los Angeles suburb when the big outbreak happened. He was fortunate to get word of it on his laptop before the first waves of zombies reached San Dimas, and he had time to load up his car with canned goods, bottled water and other necessities from the shop's inventory, driving through a pack of shamblers as he reached the Foothill Freeway. But then the car broke down close to Pasadena, where Phuoc found a band of survivors delighted to see his supplies and eager to prove themselves worthy comrades in a quest for safety.

Phuoc Nguyen, Zombie Apocalypse Survivor
Family Trade: Small retail

Belief: You can't know whether it gets better if you don't persevere.

Weapon Group: Ranged

Mastered Weapon: Shotgun

Hit Points: 6

Traits:

Insightful: Advantage on Tests to determine if someone is lying

Vigilant: Advantage on Initiative Tests

Lucky: Reroll one Test per Session.

*the given name means "lucky" or "blessing," Phuoc isn't yet sure whether the cosmos has decided it should be ironic.

2025 Character Creation Challenge, day 6: Megaloteuthis Basileos, for Mecha + Monsters Evolved

source: RPGGeek.com

I promised y'all a kaiju built with Mecha + Monsters, and here it is. The first thing I knew I wanted was size; I passed on the ginormous Titan chassis yesterday and though I don't regret that I still want my monster to be one of the biggest critters on the razed block. 

Kaiju creation mirrors mech creation, without the pilot rules and with some changes in terminology. There are four basic types of monster, each termed a "bioform": the striker-analogous Mokin, the versatile Bakemono, the heavy-hitting Oni, and the gargantuan Daikaiju. As I mentioned above, I'm going large today and that means Daikaiju.

A kaiju has Health points where mecha have Structure points and Energy where a mecha has Fuel, and for balance reasons a Daikaiju has a lot of base Health (12) and not a lot of base Energy (4). Each bioform also comes with an inherent Trait; for Daikaiju this is Unstoppable Mountain, which for a cost of 2 energy lets the Daikaiju ignore Disadvantage when making a Test roll. (Given the form's low base Energy, that's pretty expensive.)

Kaiju have four categories of customizable Traits, here termed Evolutions (as well as an Origin trait to select, which we'll do next): Intelligence, Attack, Defense, and Movement. Daikaiju can select 1 Intelligence, 2 Attack, 3 Defense and one Movement Evolution.

There is one Intelligence Evolution that has Daikaiju written all over it: Alpha. An Alpha kaiju can scream or bellow out a challenge that forces all kaiju and mecha in range to suffer Disadvantage when attacking it, until the end of the alpha kaiju's next turn. Sold!

Shopping the Attack Evolutions I come across Grasping Tentacles, which confers three Light Melee attacks at Disadvantage, and inflicts Disadvantage on the target's next roll if all three hit. That sparks an idea, and I note that Extra Limbs is also an Attack evolution; it grants two extra Attack Evolutions at the cost of one Defense Evolution. Now I'm beginning to see a giant squid or octopus come into focus. For my two bonus Evolutions I take Vicious Chomp to represent a beaked mouth (Light Melee attack with an extra point of damage carried over to my next action) and, in order to add a ranged threat, Bio-electric Discharge (Light attack at melee or range, damage plus, if target has electronics, shot down one system for a turn). Lots of ways to hurt enemies here, is none of them seem quite worthy of the Daikaiju title.

I would ordinarily get three Defense Evolutions, but I swapped one for Extra Limbs so that leaves me two slots in this category. And a lot of these Evolutions cost two slots, which is kind of annoying. Massive Evolution costs only one slot and gives me 5 extra Health points, which seems quite on-brand. And there are stealth-based defensive Evolutions that would be very squid-appropriate, but they don't really say "titan of the depths." So I opt for Layered Plating, which gives me a point of damage reduction against multiattack powers, and call it a day.

The Movement Evolutions are relatively few in number and not super attractive for the kind of creature I'm building towards, either for thematic reasons or due to energy cost. I settle for Powerful Lunge, which costs 2 Energy but lets me make what is basically a charge attack combining a move action with an Attack action at disadvantage. 

None of the Origins directly reference the seas or oceans--a failure of imagination on the designers' part, it seems to me--but Born of Cold is not entirely unsuitable; the effect allows me to slap Disadvantage on the target of my attacks, and to force them to spend power points if that attack is already at Disadvantage. 

It seems to me that, in the name of game balance (which to be honest TIny d6 isn't that good at anyhow), the Daikaiju and its mech analog the Titan are kind of underwhelming. It might have been better to keep these concepts NPC-only in order to preserve their grandeur.

And now all that remains is to give our lord of the deep a name (I'm sorry to admit I don't really have a backstory for it) and present a statblock. I couldn't come up with a Japanese name I liked (and maybe that field is a little too heavily cultivated anyway), so I turned to Greek (and set aside the existing taxonomy, a little) to dub my creation Megaloteuthis Basileos, the giant king squid of the Mediterranean world's nightmares.

Megaloteuthis Basileos
Bioform: Daikaiju
Bioform Evolution: Unstoppable Mountain

Origin: Born of Cold
Intelligence Evolutions: Alpha
Attack Evolutions: Extra Arms, Grasping Tentacles, Vicious Chomp, Bio-Electric Discharge

Defense Evolutions: Massive Evolution, Layered Plating

Movement Evolutions: Powerful Lunge

Health: 17

Energy: 4

2025 Character Creation Challenge, day 5: Jun "Skip" Asano and Tubthumper, for Mecha and Monsters

source: RPGgeek.com

Mecha + Monsters adapts the Tiny d6 engine to the mecha and kaiju genres, which have been swimming in the same genre waters since at least the 1970s and are a natural fit for each other.* The rules allow for both piloted mechs and kaiju as PCs, so I'll be creating one of each, starting with a mech and its pilot, and using the second edition (titled Mecha + Monsters: Evolved).

There are two parts to creating a mech in M+M:E: the jockey and their rig. Jockeys don't bring a lot of mechanical weight to the game, but they do have a Trait and a Drive as well as a name and a backstory. The name "Skip Asano" popped into my head as I contemplated what I want to do, so I'm going to run with that and see where it takes me. The Japanese surname and Anglophone nickname suggests (if not with overwhelming force) a Japanese-American (or perhaps Japanese-Australian) background. If "Skip" is short for "Skipper," this character probably holds down some kind of leadership role in their organization. (Or is noted for boating in their spare time, but I'll stick to the leadership thing.) Something is starting to coalesce here. The nickname skews a bit masculine but not excessively so, so I'll go with Jun in a nod to Gatchaman and name our leader Jun "Skip" Asano. 

There's a Pilot Trait called Leader which lets the pilot give an ally a reroll once per session by providing advice and/or encouragement. Works for me, now let's come up with a Drive. It's tempting to come up with something along the lines of "leave no pilot behind" or "mechs are expensive but pilots are priceless," but I'm not sure I want to play into the mother-hen trope that female characters often get slotted into. At the risk of playing into another feminine stereotype, however, I'm going to make her Drive "Teamwork makes the dream work," because its head cheerleader/corporate morale consultant vibe is making me giggle. Pilots also all start with 6 HP (note however that if an out-of-mech pilot gets hit by a mech or kaiju they're instantly killed).

The first step to creating your mech is to select a Chassis, which roughly defines its combat role: highly mobile Striker, versatile Scout, heavy Knight, or ultra-heavy Titan. Though any of these might suit a team leader depending on their style of leadership, it seems to me that the Scout's flexibility has the most to offer.

The Scout has a base Structure (or HP) rating of 8 and an Fuel (power points) rating of 8. A Scout has slots for seven mech Systems: 1 sensor, 2 weapon, 2 defense, 1 movement, and one wild-card slot that can be used for any type of system.  

We haven't introduced Systems yet, so this is a good time to do so. There are five types of System for describing a mech's capabilities:

Basic Systems are common to all types of mech, so there's no need to select them when customizing. These include Basic Weapons such as limbs, improvised weapons (e.g., vehicles or chunks of buildings), and small guns (energy or projectile, doesn't matter for game-mechanical purposes), as well as the mech's Colossal size and heavy lifting capabilities.

Sensor Systems include not only scanners but also various options such as jammers, disguise hologram generators, predictive learning software, and direct hookups to the pilot's nervous system.

Weapons Systems include anything that can be used to directly damage opponents or other targets: particle beams, missiles, colossal melee weapons, etc. This is the longest of the System lists, unsurprisingly.

Defense Systems include armor, cloaking devices, repair drones, and anything else that the pilot can use to prevent or mitigate damage to their ride.

Movement Systems can enhance movement (e.g., flight engines) or Fuel-related functions (e.g., bigger tanks, reserve capacity, or even last-ditch reactor explosions)

Let's start Jun's mech off by filling prescribed slots first, then finish with the wild-card slot once its style has taken shape. 

Sensors: i'm thinking either long-range scanners (it's useful for team leader to know when baddies are coming, though in a starship this would be someone else's job) Probablility AI (makes sense to give the head of the squad the big-computer toy) or Interior Scanners (weakening an opponent to set up an ally for the kill). Let's go with the Long-Range Scanners.

Weapons: I'm assuming another squad member will handle brute duties, so let's forgo the big-damage options in favor of setup opportunities and reliability. EMP mines disable Systems, so that's a good choice. Should the second one be a melee option or another reliable ranged attack? Big Glowy Sword has kind of a leader vibe, you can point with it or thrust it into the air for emphasis; let's take that.

Defense: lot of damage reduction options here. I haven't taken any fuel-consuming systems yet, so let's start with repair drones (3 fuel for 2 structure healed) and add multi-phase shield (DR1 vs ranged weapons)

Movement: Bodyguard Protocol is tempting, but better suited to a tougher mech. Emergency Power (cost 3 fuel to end at 3 structure instead of 0) complements the repair drones (though that's a lot of fuel when you put them together).

Bonus System: those extra fuel tanks are tempting, but let's see if we can find something that enhances teamwork. Jamming Array has a fuel cost, and we've already loaded up on that kind of system, so Interior Scanners are looking really good right now. 

We're kitted up now, so we just need to come up with a codename or callsign for Skip's mech. I want to focus on its resilience, something like "Diehard" or "Comeback Kid." Oh, hold a moment. Big jock jam with the chorus "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down." Perfect! I dub thee Tubthumper.

Before we cut to statblock, however, I want to go back to our pilot and fill in her backstory a little. As long as she can remember, Jun Asano has been a leader. Organizing play in preschool. Picking teams at recess. Volleyball captain. Head cheerleader. Drum major. Organizing study groups. Managing group projects. And now commanding a squadron of battlemechs. Friends have called her "Skip" since high school. Always supportive, always positive, and always pushing to get a little bit more out of her team. Her Scout rig is customized to spot trouble, set up opponents for her team's finishing moves, and above all bounce back from adversity: she's named it Tubthumper, after an old song that she's always found inspirational.

Jun "Skip" Asano, Squad Leader

HP: 6

Pilot Trait: Leader (can give an ally a reroll 1x/session)

Drive: "Teamwork makes the dream work!"

Mech Name: Tubthumper

Chassis: Scout

Structure: 8        Fuel: 8

Systems:

Sensor: Long-range scanners (Advantage on search), Interior scanners (1d6 test to disable a target system for 1 round)
Offense: EMP mines (light attack, damage + diasble 1 system for a round), Big Glowy Sword (heavy melee attack, +1 damage)
Defense: Repair Drones (3 Fuel/restore 2 Structure), Multi-phase Shield (DR 1 vs ranged attacks)
Movement: Emergency Power (when reduced to 0 structure reset to 3 structure)

*Go Nagai's Mazinger Z (1972) is credited as the first instance of a piloted mecha in popular media. If you want to include non-robots, Ultraman premiered in 1966 and featured a robot-like hero fighting kaiju-stykle monsters on the regular, and the remote-controlled Jet Jaguar appears in 1973's Godzilla vs. Megalon.