Best Left Buried - Character Generation

I've been enjoying Best Left Buried recently.  Some folks have asked for some play through examples, so I decided to start putting some together. Setting up characters seemed like the best way to start. 


Creating Insil One-eye
Best Left Buried recommends starting with a name and an idea, and I thought Insil would make a hard-bitten warrior.

Next, I need to set up his attributes: Brawn, Wit, and Will. I can set one of them to 2, one to 1 and leave the other at 0.  I want Insil to be fast and strong, so I’ll go with:

Brawn 1  Wit 2 Will 0

Vigour (physical health/HP) is 6 + Brawn. Grip (mental health/Sanity/mana) is 4 + Will, so Insil is

Vigour 7  Grip 4

There are a number of archetypes (the base for a character) that fit the warrior mold. To match the hard-bitten aspect, I’m going with Veteran.

A veteran has Years of Experience, I can have the Upper Hand* against one kind of monster (subject to the Doomsayer’s approval.)  I think Insil might have spent a lot of time fighting skeletal creatures, my Doomsayer thinks that’s reasonable, so we’ll go with it.

Veterans also have Danger Sense, they’ve got the Upper Hand on Observation Checks to detect dangers in crypts and the like.

Finally, Veterans are Battle-Scarred, I roll a random injury a 3 on the d3 and a 2 on the d6. Insil has lost an eye and will be Against the Odds* on Observation Checks that rely on vision.

I think Insil lost his eye to a skeletal warrior. This coupled with his experience drives him to fight against skeletons with particular hatred and skill.

Players get to choose an advancement to start the game, I chose to give Insil Horde Killer. This means he can negate 2 instances of the Upper Hand from Ganging Up (a benefit some monsters have) by any monsters he faces.

Finally, I need to pick some equipment.  All characters start with a week's worth of rations, a full waterskin, a backpack, a bedroll, three torches and a set of Basic Armour. They add two weapons, I’ll take a light weapon (a scimitar) and a throwing weapon (3 darts.) Characters also get 5 pieces of equipment, I’ll go with a shield, 3 doses of medicine, some caltrops, 50 feet of rope, and a crowbar. The basic armour and shield give Insil an Attack Target Number of 9. This is the number opponents will need to roll to hit him.

Creating Marcon
I also wanted to create a crypt-shaken spell caster and I thought Marcon would be a great name for her.

I’ll follow the same pattern that I did with Insil:  As a spell caster, I’m much more worried about Will and Wit:

Brawn  0  Wit  1  Will  2

Vigour 6  Grip 6

There are several archetypes that could work, but I’ll go with Cabalist. Cabalists start with an Affliction, my Doomsayer and I talk about it and Hoardlust seems to make sense.  Marcon will be prepared to betray NPCs (or, eventually, PCs) in order to collect more treasure.

Cabalists have Been There and Done That, so the first time they would lose a point of Grip on any adventuring day, they ignore the result and don’t lose it. They also have the ability, I’ve Seen Things, which gives them the Upper Hand on Grip Checks* due to monsters or the environment.

For an advancement, I’m going to give Marcon Fire and Lightning Strange. This lets her attack foes with one specific kind of magical or elemental material. I’m going to go with ice.  Marcon can spend up to three points of Grip to attack an enemy within short range*.  The attack will be with the Upper Hand and deal damage equal to the damage die times the number of Grip points spent.

For equipment, Marcon gets the same starting set of equipment: a week's worth of rations, a full waterskin, a backpack, a bedroll, three torches and a set of Basic Armour.

For her two weapons, Marcon will take a light weapon (a dagger), and wants to use a whip. The section Strange Weapon Types suggests that this be treated as a Wit based throwing weapon.


Marcon will carry two bottles of alcohol, a lantern, a dose of paralysing poison (-1 Wit), and a set of fine clothing.
 

We’ll look at how weapons and equipment work in another post.

* Check out my Best Left Buried Collection page for information on these features of the game.

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Best Left Buried is a Horror Fantast RPG by Zachary Cox and Ben Brown.

There is a Questing Beast review of Best Left Buried.

You can grab a hard copy from either Exalted Funeral or Melsonian Arts Council

And you can grab PDFs from DriveThruRPG