CraftWork Character 7 Day Challenge IV

Well, I never really said which 7 days they were! Onward!

Character Quarto

A human who grew up helping their family run an inn in a small town, learning about herbs and plants, possibly from a kindly relative. Business soured and the family moved back to a village near the water, where they worked at a mill and spent some time as a ship builder and cooper. Probably in this village they began a fascination with dreamwork. They have 20 HP, 10 coin, and they are 26 years old with proficiency 3.

Skills

Find healing/useful plants 

Shipbuilding

Cooper 

Wood carving

Parry 

Slieght of hand/ hide item

Abilities 

Alter memory 

Dreamwalking 

Make Whispersledge 

Make Dream net

Stuff

Woodworking tools

10 ft of chain 

Pot of glue 

Spyglass 

Magical herbs that evoke dreams 

Whispersledge 

Dream net

Notes: This one was curious as I kept rolling skills rather than anything much to do with DreamCraft. They sort of have the minimum, so I imagine they are a bit of a dilettante, or maybe they are very focused on dream walking. Maybe obsessed? And why the Alter Memory; maybe they have a story they want to hide in the village? They would make an excellent NPC for a seaside or boat situation.

CraftWork Character 7 Day Challenge III

Onward!

#3

This elf grew up in a wig making shop, but the business did not survive the Great Purge. They left to become a farmer of herbs, then acquired levels of Warcraft and Skincraft. They are 22 years old and have 19 hit points, proficiency 2, and no money.

Skills

History 

Improvised weapons

Head butt 

Long, short, and crossbow 

Aided climbing 

Persuasion 

 

Abilities etc

Elemental weapons (Water) increases damage, other effects 

Archery 

Great leaps and bounds (unusual distances and height)

Skincraft 

Panther 

Shape change is precipitated by happiness

Fears rods, poles etc

Stuff

50 ft of rope 

10 ft of chain 

Longbow 

Lantern 

Tinderbox 

Drill 

Fake jewels

Notes: This is the first character in this series that crosses into FaeCraft. It is the third character that has been touched by the Great Purge, which obviously had a deleterious effect on this group of people! None of the possessions came up as magical, and the change agent for the lycanthropy was generated by asking Google for a random emotional state. I found it cool that the elemental weapon rolled up as water, which is not a typical weapon feature. It raises all sorts of interesting questions about what water arrows would do.

CraftWork Character 7 Day Challenge II

Creation continues ...

#2

This character is a 29-year-old human with eight coin, 32 hit points, -1 charisma and +1 dexterity. They spend time in War, Wild, and Soulcraft.

They started life as a simple villager, a miller, and then became a hunter in a nearby forest after being scarred by politics. They serve the Oak Mother as a holy officiant.

Skills

Proficiency 3

Jewelry tools 

Improvised weapons 

Navigation tools

Pole arm 

Two weapon fighting 

Heavy armor

Hide item 

 

Abilities etc 

Devotion 5

Favored terrain is forest 

Their preferred prey is forest herbivores

Holy Power,: Shield of Wood, Copse Guardian 

Miracle: Growth

Stuff

Five skins

Pole arm 

Navigation tools

Jewelry tools 

Pulleys 

Mirror 

Horn

Grease

Magic Helm; Birch Skin

Notes: This was interesting, as there is definitely a forest theme building up from the first character and both of them perhaps entering the forest due to political turmoil. For the Soulcraft abilities, I used an online deity generator, which also seemed to fit, and then riffed off of that for the powers and miracles.

   

CraftWork Character 7 Day Challenge!

7 days, seven characters, all made using the character generation tables in CraftWork and FaeCraft.

#1

A gnome, 21 years of age with 22 HP and 16 coin. They started as a teamster, but were driven out by the great fire and became a porter, until the Purge. They retreated to the forest and have spent time learning the ways of the woods (ie 3 levels of Wildcraft).

Skills

Deception

Animal Handling 

Abilities Etc.

Preferred Terrain: Forest

Preferred Enemy: Soldiers and Guards

Animal Companions: Bear and a Cat

Possessions 

5 Spikes

Traps and snares

Waterskin

Magic Chisel

Process Notes: For terrain, I used one of the background charts in FaeCraft. For the animal companions, I asked my phone to pick a random animal. For possessions I used the Knave charts. I rolled randomly among them to make one magical.

Disability & TTRPG's @ EF Funeral Camp

looking back at the Exalted Funeral convention a week or so ago, one of the highlights was the open discussion about disability in TTRPGs. A couple folks stopped by and the conversation was wide-ranging and dug deep.

One question was: what does disability even mean in a fantasy or fantastic setting? Many people would describe a lack of accessibility as a hallmark of a disability, whether the accessibility is to social status, physical space, wealth etc. So, we know that the definition of a disability can shift from culture to culture and from period of history to period of history. I also know that I identify my disability as such generally in the context of not being able to access something other folks are able to access. What constitutes a disability in a particular setting? What constitutes accessibility in that setting?

We also dug into the large amount of creative work done around disability and TTRPGs in the last few years, from super wheelchairs to entire kickstarted volumes of tables and conditions of disability. My main impression is that many of these are taking contemporary, North America and/or Western European ideas about disability and transposing them on fantasy worlds. The consensus deemed to be that, while these are good steps,we can be more creative.

Finally, we talked a lot about our own experiences entering into non-disabled gaming spaces, and then dug into the accessibility, or lack thereof, for us as gamers in particular settings. Related to this were particular problems and particular solutions that we, or others, could bring to bear to make various gaming spaces more welcoming and accessible. The explosion of virtual play over the last few years has, in many ways, really expanded accessibility, and we wondered how these varied interfaces with gaming might evolve going forward, and what that might mean for folks with disabilities.

Crafting Agency

Now that both CraftWork and FaeCraft are out, I want to outline or explore what they mean to me as a set, as a pair. A critical analysis of role-playing in general allows for the premise of 'radical agency' to be part of a role-playing, or the role-playing, experience. That is, role-playing allows an individual to conceive of and take actions that would otherwise be inaccessible or impossible for them to take in their reality. This is one thing that makes role-playing games, at their best, so good at creating community and supporting personal and emotional growth.

Exploding the possibilities for character creation and growth was the main impetus behind developing the two volumes. A second motivation was to make this procedural, so that unexpected, rather than preconceived, character development can be possible. Between the two, a player is not locked in to any particular path.

At the same time, the mechanical advantage of having a skill is not so great that it precludes a player from trying anything (using 10 levels, it tops out at +4 or 20%). The character sheet contains flavors, not solutions or answers.

I don't know how many permutations there are in the two books combined, but there are a lot! Character development is a meandering path, and using the tables as a way to prompt, but not dictate, imagination is perhaps the most fun way to use the two. If you have use them, let me know what you came up with!

Wherein I Bow to Commerce

FaeCraft is available!

Right here...