Character:Marcus Catallus

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A character for The d6 System, created by Shisumo.

Character Stats[edit]

Marcus Catallus
Concept Cocky Knight Aeris

Strength 2D
Agility 3D (Acrobatics 5D+2, Melee 5D+1, Thrown 4D)
Stamina 3D
Reflexes 3D (Dodge 4D+1)
Intelligence 3D (Profession: farmer 4D)
Perception 2D+1
Charisma 2D+2 (Interaction 3D+1)
Willpower 2D

Air 5D (Aerial Dodge, Distant Vision, Enhanced Initiative, Flight, Windspeech)
Earth -
Fire -
Metal 3D (Arrow Block, Living Blade, Will of Steel)
Water -
Wood -

Advantages/Disadvantages
Delusions of Grandeur (+1D), Extremely Competitive (+1D)

Initiative 3D (8D with Enhanced Initiative), Soak 9/18/27/36/45 (breastplate, 13/26/39/52/65)

Character Description[edit]

Marcus Catallus used to be a farmer. Today, he is a legionaire. Tomorrow, he will be a Citizen... he just knows it.

Marcus was born to a plebian family in the northern part of Alera, not far from the shieldwall that protects the Imperium against the Icemen. His family was poor and uninteresting to anyone, including Marcus himself, until he came into his furies. They were some of the strongest seen in that region in years, and almost instantly, Marcus and his fury Alexis became local celebrities. When the time came for Marcus to do his mandatory two years in the legions, the village gave him a fete, and he set off with a smile on his face.

Basic training was something of a shock, however - not in that the work was hard, but because there were actually other people who were as strong as he was. Though strong enough to recieve an appointment to the Knights Aeris, he faced serious ridicule for his background and his named fury, because most of his fellow officers were patricians, or even the children of Lords and Ladies. Twice he challenged a particularly aggravating fellow Knight to a Citizenship duel; in both cases, however, their superior officers broke up the fight before it could be settled. So now Marcus looks toward the end of his enlistment, where he will be offered Citizenship for his performance on the battlefield. He only needs a chance for glory, and it will be his...

Commentary[edit]

Sometime in the early 90s, while wandering around my local game store in Manhattan, KS, I came upon a tiny little book on the "new releases" shelf called The d6 System: The Customizable Roleplaying Game. It had the shockingly low cover price of $10, a page count that reached the majestic heights of 77 pages, and was from a company, West End Games, that I knew and somewhat liked - they were the publishers of the Star Wars game at the time, and I had something of a soft spot for the system. (The SW RPG was d6 based too, so I had some idea what I was getting into.) So I bought it, and it's still on my shelf, so it's technically part of the Character Creation challenge.

There's only one teensy tiny little problem: it's not actually a game.

The d6 system - which I suspect of being the foundation for WEG's more recent "generic system" hardcover trilogy d6 Space, d6 Fantasy and d6 Adventure, though I cannot prove it since I've never actually read any of them - is intended more as a toolbox, the skeletal framework for potentially dozens of games. It includes incredibly thin sections on magic (5 pages), psychic abilities (1 page), and super powers (2/3 of a page). There are a list of possible Attributes and possible Skills to choose from, along with several variants on the combat system and so on.

In other words, for me to make a PC for this game, first I have to design the damn game to make the PC for.

So, fine. Game design. First, I need a setting. Well, as it happens, I've been looking for a system I might use to run a game set in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera> world... so I'll try to use this to do it. (I'd been playing around with a d20 version, but whatever.)

Given that I'm going to be doing Imperial Roman-style fantasy, I start looking for Attributes and Skills. The game has a set of "core four" Attributes that are used in most of the versions of the combat system: Coordination (which I rename Agility), Strength, Endurance (which I rename Stamina), and Reflexes. In addition to these four, I consider the spying, strategy and political intrigue in the Codex Alera books and settle on Intellect (now Intelligence), Perception, Confidence (now Charisma) and Willpower.

Now Skills, which in The d6 System are tied to Attributes. This is trickier, but I like fairly limited skill lists, so I'm gonna aim for 25-30 total. Hemming and hawing, I wind up with this: Animal Handling (Cha), Archery (Agi), Arts (Per), Acrobatics (Agi), Brawl (Str), Craft: varies (Int), Dodge (Ref), Empathy (Per), Endurance (Sta), Etiquette (Cha), Expression (Cha), Interaction (Cha), Knowledge: varies (Int), Melee (Agi), Medicine (Int), Might (Str), Notice (Per), Profession: varies (Int), Resistance (Will), Ride (Agi), Sail (Per), Stealth (Agi), Streetwise (Cha), Survival (Per), Throw (Agi). I might be missing something, but this is a first draft, so bear with me.

Now, for magic. For the moment, I'm only going to worry about furycrafting - I have some ideas about the Marat, but I'll let that go for now. After some kicking around, I think I'm going to add 6 additional Attributes - Air, Earth, Fire, Metal, Water and Wood. Ratings in each fury will come out of the same pool as ordinary Attributes. The elements can be used to boost specific Skills; also, the character will gain special abilities for every die assigned to a fury Attribute.

Which reminds me - I should explain about how The d6 System rates stuff. Stats are in dice and pips, where each die is worth 3 pips. Dice are exactly what you expect: they're d6s you roll and add together to overcome a difficulty. Pips are flat modifiers to the die roll, so you can have 3d6+2 (three dice plus two pips); you would roll the 3d6 and add 2 to the total to see how you did. Skills and Attributes both can be broken down this way. You can't have more than two pips in anything, though, because a third pip becomes a die. The sequence goes like this: 1D, 1D+1, 1D+2, 2D, 2D+1, 2D+2, 3D, 3D+1, etc. (If you have to add XD+2 to YD+2, the four pips become 1D+1.)

The d6 System also includes advantages and disadvantages that apply to the total number of Skill dice you have to play with; following the game's suggestion, I set the starting amount of Skill dice at 7D. Attributes are a bit trickier... but to allow for furycrafting, I set the starting Attribute dice at 30D. (Human average in an Attribute is 2D. I imagine non-heroic types would have around 20D for their Attributes total.)

And for character creation... I'm done, other than derived attributes like initiative and soak. You can see the result above. Also, if you haven't read the Codex Alera, go do so right now.

(creation time: n/a)