Traditionalist Character Creation
Table of Contents
Part One: Character Creation Overview
The below list of steps is a high-level overview for the making of a well-defined and compelling character. Each area of the Character Creation (abbreviated CC) process is further expanded upon in greater detail later in the document. The five general steps as outlined below are meant to be a guide for initial thoughts and a simple reference for more experienced players.
Note: The below steps do NOT need to be done in the order in which they are presented. It is perfectly ok to come up with the Traits your character has before deciding who they are. With that said, the concept should still result in a fully rounded “person” whose Traits reflect the past, current wants/needs and future goals of the character. It should also be noted that the differences for the steps of making a Sorcerer—an individual who practices magick in a more defined and less dynamic way than a Mage—are outlined in Laws of the Hunt Revised.
Step One: Concept and Identity
Define your concept
Who are they? What are they like?
This is a high-level idea for who your character is. Don’t worry about the details yet. Try and keep the initial concept to five words or less. Some examples of concepts are: “modern witch”, “physical fitness coach” or “inquisitive academic scholar.” Once you have a few words to guide your thoughts, begin to break that initial thought down into more specific details.
Come up with both a Nature and a Demeanor Archetype
Your character’s Nature and Demeanor are another one of the fundamental lenses from which they view their perception of the world around them. Oftentimes, a character’s Nature and Demeanor will offer potential motivations, give a way to define how a character acts versus what they believe and can offer a few sentences to help shape the core of your character’s personality.
Create an Avatar & pick its Essence
Choose an Avatar that reflects your mage’s inner guide. Then, select an Essence (Dynamic, Pattern, Primordial, or Questing) to define how that Avatar communicates and the way it pushes your mage toward growth, whether through chaos, structure, instinct, or personal discovery. This relationship shapes your mystic journey.
Picking a Tradition
Select the Tradition your mage trained under—the mystical society whose beliefs, practices, and worldview shaped their path. Each Tradition offers a unique magical paradigm and specializes in a particular Sphere, influencing how your character approaches magic. Your choice will also define your mage’s allies, rivals, and place within the broader landscape of Awakened society.
The Nine Traditions are: Akashic Brotherhood, Celestial Chorus, Cult of Ecstasy, Dreamspeakers, Euthanatos, Order of Hermes, Sons of Ether, Verbena, and Virtual Adepts.
Arete
Arete represents your mage’s enlightenment—their ability to perceive and shape reality through magic. It governs the strength and success of your character’s magick, as well as the depth of their understanding of the Spheres. All mages begin with one Trait in Arete unless Free Traits are spent to raise it (up to a maximum of 2 for new players in Inheritance of Ashes).
Step Two: Select Attributes
What are their core competencies?
A character’s Attribute Traits represent their core competencies and help define what they’re good at both naturally and on what they’ve focused their passions on. Use these to start and get a feel for what your character is good at. If they’re a physical fitness coach they’ll likely be good at Physical activities. If they’re an academic scholar they would likely be focused on their Mental faculties. An occult-oriented modern witch might have focused on using their Social skills to build a coven rather than be focused on purely academic pursuits and knowledge.
The important thing to remember is that while a character doesn’t need to fit a stereotype. You could have a charismatic physical fitness coach, or a scholar who’s not afraid to get their hands dirty for scraps of knowledge. Regardless, there should at least be reasons in their history, background, and experiences that has molded them to into who they are today.
Step Three: Select Abilities
What do they know?
Abilities are the reflection of specific Talents, Skills and Knowledges a character has acquired through their life. At character creation these Abilities should reflect their past experiences. For example, your physical fitness coach would likely have some level of Athletics and Leadership, and maybe some Dodge, Medicine and Academics training if they’re licensed. The scholar may have some Firearms training for a concealed carry, but has likely spent the majority of their time studying the various sciences and the other Talents, Skills, and Knowledges to coincide with their job and passions.
Depending on your character’s Tradition, your character may get free one or more free Traits to be assigned to specific Abilities. This information can be found in the Tradition Advantage section of their respective Tradition.
Step Four: Select Advantages
Backgrounds
Representing advantages of relationships, circumstances and opportunity, Backgrounds are a measure of a character’s internal and external resources. As with Attributes and Abilities, at CC your character’s Backgrounds should be based on essential elements of your character’s history. During the creation process you’ll start with seven free Background Traits to assign.
Record your character’s Affinity Sphere
There are nine Spheres, each of which represent a certain element of reality. In game terms they represent a mage’s ability to manipulate that aspect of reality. Each Tradition has a heritage of study that covers one Sphere in great depth. It is this heritage that determines your character’s Specialty Sphere.
After marking one level in your Specialty Sphere, you will be able to assign an additional five free levels of Spheres to any of your choosing. Note that your maximum level of a Sphere is capped by your character’s Arete; in other words, if your Arete is 2, you can only have two levels in any given sphere.
In total, at CC, your character will get six levels of Spheres to spread among the nine Spheres of magick understanding.
Step Five: Finishing Touches
Willpower
Mages often refer to themselves as Willworkers. In game terms this is actually quite literally the capital-T truth. Willpower determines a mage’s maximum number of Arete Traits and can be used to boost a spell’s power so that it has a greater effect.
Each character starts with 5 Traits of Willpower at CC.
Resonance
All mages have a certain Resonance, which can be thought of as a specific flavor tied to each mage's magick. These individual spins on the magic a mage performs colors their magick subtly when they perform them. The larger amount of Resonance a mage has, the more clearly it can be seen in their Effects
During the CC process a character will be assigned one Dynamic, Entropic or Static Resonance Trait.
Negative Traits
Each Negative Trait taken converts to an additional Free Trait that can be spent later when assigning Free Traits. You may take up to five Negative Traits.
Derangements
Derangements taken at CC give 2 Free Traits up to a total of 2 additional Free Traits; these traits count towards your cap of five Negative Traits.
Merits and Flaws
In addition to Attributes, Abilities and Backgrounds, each of which represent a character’s life and experience, characters may have Merits and Flaws which can be found in the MET Laws of Ascension Companion. Merits and Flaws offer characters unique boons and drawbacks which can be used to round out a character concept. They can range anywhere between a major or minor permanent advantage or disadvantage. Merits and Flaws are subject to approval prior to being purchased.
It is highly recommended that you take at least one to two Flaws for your first character.
Free Traits
As the name implies, Free Traits are additional traits that can be used to purchase additional Traits such as Attribute, Willpower and Spheres. The full list and cost for this is outlined in the “Free Traits” section below.
