Your character

Every new run starts with character creation. Choose New run on the main menu and you decide who you are, one step at a time, before you set out into the Ascmearc.

1. Race: your people. Your race shapes your stats, gives you your eyes, and sets how old you can be (see Races).
2. Gender: a small push to one stat (below).
3. Class: what you did before the adventure. It shapes your stats again and trains you in a handful of skills (see Classes).
4. Talents: pick two talents from those your character may take. A bard or a human picks three, a human bard four. A letter or Enter marks one, Random lets chance pick, and Done goes on.
5. Name: type your character’s name, up to 20 characters (below).
6. Summary: everything you chose, and what follows from it. It shows your name, race, gender, class, and talents; your age, birthday, and birth sign; the stats you start with, and beside them the skills you are trained in; your starting kit item by item; the alignment you start in; your vision; and where you start. Start the run begins it. Name, Race, Gender, Class, and Talents take you back to that step.

Each step lists its options with a short description. Races and classes also show how they change your stats. Move with the arrow keys (or j and k), press Enter to choose and go on, and Esc to go back one step. The steps remember what you chose when you go back and forward again.

Every step also has Random, which leaves the choice to chance. Come back and press it again for another pick. On the Talents step, Random always gives the same picks for the same character.

Name

On the name step every key types its letter (j and k too), as long as the game’s font can draw it. Backspace erases and Enter accepts. Tab puts in one of your people’s names, picked at random by race and gender; press it again for another.

A name cannot be empty. If you accept an empty field, you get the random name it shows, dimmed. These keys are fixed (see Text fields).

Your name appears on the character screen, the summary, the death screen, and the list of saved characters (see Saving). It changes nothing else.

Gender

For other, fate chooses the stat. Character creation does not tell you which, and the summary shows only your final scores. Once the run has begun, the character screen names it.

Age, birthday, and sign

You do not choose these. Your age is picked at random from your race’s range, and your birthday from the whole year. The year you were born gives you your birth sign: an animal and an element from the horoscope, such as the Fire Manticore. Your sign changes your stats a little too.

How your stats add up

Each of your six stats starts at 10, the average. Then the changes are added in order: your race’s, your gender’s, your class’s, and your sign’s animal’s and element’s. Nothing goes below 1.

Some changes are dice, rolled when you start:

• 1d3 is one three-sided die: 1, 2, or 3.
• 2d2+1 is two two-sided dice plus 1: 3, 4, or 5.
• 1d4-1 is one four-sided die minus 1: 0 to 3.
• −1d2 takes one two-sided die away: −1 or −2.
• A plain number, such as +2 or −1, is always that.

Classes roll their key stats. A warrior’s Strength is 1d3+1, a wizard’s Intelligence 2d2+1. Races are mostly plain numbers, with a few dice. The horoscope rolls none. The summary shows only the final scores. Change a choice and the dice are rolled again.

The choices are not balanced, and they are not meant to be. Some combinations are poor on purpose: a halfling commoner or a gnome berserker has a hard start. That is part of the fun. There is one consolation. Your race and class also set how much experience each level needs. Long-lived races and patient callings level slowly; short-lived races and everyday folk level quickly.

Seeing who you are

The character screen (@) shows:

• your race, gender, and class, your age, birthday, and sign;
• your stats, with your attacks beside them: what you hit with, your bonus to hit, your damage, and a missile’s range (see Combat);
• your alignment, your level, and your experience (see Experience);
• your hit points: your Toughness plus what your race and class give;
• your mana, Defence, and Protection;
• each resource you hold;
• what ails you (see Status effects) and the diseases you know you have (see Diseases);
• what you weigh and carry, against what you can carry (see Burden).

A, there or anywhere in play, shows your skills. W shows your ranks in each weapon skill, which your race and class start you with, and in each fighting style, which your class starts you with.

Your race, gender, class, and sign never change once a run has started. You do get a year older on every birthday.

See also: Classes, Stats, and What’s in the game.