Description

Your character's appearance, demeanor, name, and history are all up to you. The GM has final say over what is appropriate for the setting.

Character Points

The GM gives out a certain number of character points (CP) to build a character with initially. During play, you also gain CP by serving your connections. The GM may pass out the occasional bonus CP or two as a reward for excellent roleplaying, tactics, or originality.

You spend CP to increase traits or quintessence, or to buy more connections or treasures. Whatever you spend them on, you have to do it all at once; you can't buy on an installment plan. You can spend CP as soon as you acquire them, assuming you have something to spend them on, or save them for later.

Quintessence

Quintessence measures a character's ability to succeed and perform incredible acts. Quintessence represents ki, or magic, or luck, or willpower, or training, or whatever the setting dictates. It is the thing that your character draws on in times of need and the thing that defines him; the core of his being, and the source of his abilities.

How much quintessence you get is set by the GM, as is how fast it refreshes. You can increase your current and maximum quintessence by 1 by spending 5 CP.

Each point of quintessence is represented by a single 6-sided die.

Traits

Traits simply determine how good you are at what you do. These should be kept very broad, like "sneaking" or "business" or "fire magic". They can even be personality traits, like "stubborn" or "innocent". The breadth of traits is also affected by the setting. Some traits are disallowed depending on what style of game the GM wants to run. No ice magic in a police drama, for example, unless you're into that.

Treasures

You can have any basic equipment or gear you want appropriate to the situation. You're assumed to have anything you need to use your talents effectively. However, some items actually enhance your abilities, and these are called treasures. A treasure might be a top-of-the-line laptop, a magic sword, a holy relic, or a unique armor polymer.

A treasure gives a bonus to checks, just like a trait does, but is usually more narrowly focused than a trait. Also, any bonus given by a treasure does not increase the amount of quintessence that can be used in an action. Treasures that give a bonus above 6 are extremely rare, and cannot be purchased with CP.

Connections

A character also starts with three connections. These are people, ideals, places, or things that the character wants to protect, destroy, promote, study, perfect, and so on. Every time you do something significant (as ruled by the GM) that serves your connection, you get 1 CP.

You can gain another connection by spending 3 times your current number of connections in CP.