Step 1: Imagine your character doing something cool. Don't worry about their name or species or job or what they look like. If you get confused, fall back on this mental picture.

Steap 2: Everyone's got five Traits - they're normally rated in die type for my tabletop game, like Savage Worlds: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12. However, for simplicity's sake (since I'd be the only one messing with the dice) we can rate them from 1-5.

Physical: covers your level of fitness; strength, toughness, athleticism, agility.

Combat: How good you are at hitting and hurting other people with your bare hands, blasters, knives, or what have you. Serves as a general indicator of combat experience.

Knowledge: learned skills that range from cultural to technical. Demolitions, languages, medicine, starship engineering, etiquette.

Wits: Alertness and street smarts. Also covers piloting/driving vehicles as well as stealth.

Spirit: Force of personality, willpower, charm, and of course your innate ability to use the Force.
---
All these start off at 2, which is human average. You've got 3 "raises" to spend amongst them.
---

Step 3: These traits say a lot about your character, but they're not what you might call... specific. You can choose up to 3 "aspects" of your character that you think embody him, her, or it (choosing less than 3 is rewarded with a larger bonus to those aspects, but you lose the variety of having 3). These aspects can be professional in nature ("Great Pilot"), personality quirks ("Charming"), abilities ("Strong as a Bantha", "Lightning Reflexes", "Tough"), just about anything can be used. What CAN'T be used is stuff like equipment ("lightsaber" or "spaceship" aren't aspects).

Step 4: The last game-mechanical step is to pick one thing that's a specialty of your character. Something more specific than an Aspect, more like a skill found under one of your five Traits. If he/she is a gunslinger, you might want to specialize in "Combat: Blaster Pistols". Or "Knowledge: Repair" for a grease-monkey.

Special note about languages that I've encountered in the past: For Star Wars, you'll all be able to understand most common languages, you just won't be able to speak much of anything besides Human/Basic. If you want to make sure you can understand most anything AND speak it, take an Aspect like "Polyglot" or a specialization in "Knowledge: Languages".

Step 5: Background, name, species, etc.. I'm not asking for much, but some idea of what your character's been through might be helpful. Were they involved in the Rebellion? Are they still? Are they ex-imperial? Did they hunt bounties?

Here's the twist though. The first person to post their character does so normally. The NEXT person has to come up with a reason why THEIR character is hanging out with the PREVIOUS character, and so on. When everyone's done, the first person who posted links their character to the LAST person who posted. I don't have enough hair left to lose it trying to get all you turkeys into an adventuring-ready group.

Another note about backgrounds:

1. Ex-stormtroopers don't work for me. You can be ex-navy or ex-army, or even be an ex-army who trained stormtroopers, but just not an ex-stormtrooper.

2. I'm expecting "scum" and "villainy" (albeit with the possible heart of gold), hence the logo image at the top of the page, based on what people posted previously. I am certain that the one thing I WON'T get are those kind of characters, so that's fine. Just make what you'd like to play, link 'em to the previous character, and I'll work something out at the end.

I'll take a shot at this. Let me know what issues you see or further information you need.
- Gordon

Name: Jilleeza (nickname: 'Za)
Gender: Female
Species: Rodian

Physical: 2
Combat: 3
Knowledge: 2
Wits: 3
Spirit: 3

Aspects: Spy, Assassin, Unrepentant Bitch
Specialty: Seduction (few who get into her bed get out alive)

Jilleeza has spent most of the war serving the Empire as a spy and assassin. She has been all over the galaxy, stealing information and slaying leaders of the Rebellion. Now, with the collapse of the Empire, 'Za is looking to hide and survive - and maybe make a few bucks in the chaos.


(Edited by fanchergw at 8:44 am on Oct. 17, 2003)

Wayde Stryker

Wayde Stryker was regular army joining under the premise that, at some point, he was going to travel to exotic planets, meet new and interesting people...then kill them. Twenty years and three chevrons on his uniform later, he was one of the countless grunts left high and dry on Endor when Death Star II blew up. This was mostly due to a certain officer who blasted off as Wayde's platoon secured his shuttle's departure area.

Needless to say, that was the straw that broke Stryker's back. He made sure his men got off the planet, but currently has been living the low-key life of a hired gun/smuggler. Since he left Endor, Wayde has grown somewhat accustomed to life on a starship, gaining know-how in piloting and fixing the ever-breaking-down rust bucket.

(As a mental picture of Wayde, I'm thinking Tom Sizemore from Saving Private Ryan.)

Physical: 2
Combat: 3
Knowledge: 1
Wits: 2
Soul: 2

Physical (athletics, toughness, coordination, strength)
---
Strength
Toughness
Athletics
Acrobatics (3)
Sprinting

Combat (weapons, tactics, reflexes)
---
Reflexes - (6)
Big Guns -
Tactics - (4)
Melee Combat
Small Arms - (5)
Unarmed Combat - (4)
Lightsaber -

Knowledge (mechanics, demolitions, electronics, medicine, systems
operation, sciences, religions)
---
Specific Knowledge
Business
Demolitions
Electronics
Investigation
Mechanics (3)
Medicine
Outdoorsman

Wits (street smarts, cunning, awareness, cool, intuition)
---
Awareness (4)
Sense Motive (3)
Gambling (4)
Driver
Pilot (3)
Infiltration (3)

Soul (presence, willpower, interaction, persuasion, savior-faire,
coercion, fast talking, empathy, negotiation, faith)
---
Creativity
Entertain
Persuasion (3)
Socialite
Leadership (4)
Willpower (3)

Aspects:

Presence: I
Cunning: II
Hates the Empire: II
Luck: II


(Edited by Dieter at 10:43 am on Oct. 17, 2003)

Looking at Dieter's writeup, I have to wonder: Did I totally misunderstand the creation rules ADS posted at the top of the page?

Gordon

Hehehe.... no, you did yours right. Someone else (ahem) didn't read the character creation thing and posted Wayde's stats from a different system...

But if I had to take Wayde and make him along the "correct" lines, I'd do this:

Physical: 2
Combat: 3 (specialization: combat reflexes)
Knowledge: 3
Wits: 3
Spirit: 2

Aspects: Presence, Cunning, Hates the Empire

THAT is a lot shorter.

Right...sorry about that.

California will do that to you.

Hm, interesting.

Name: Reyes Terrall
Gender: Male
Species: Human

Physical: 2
Combat: 4
Knowledge: 3
Wits: 2
Spirit: 2

Aspects: Intuitive Slicer, Curious, Fast Motherfucker
Speciality: Teras Kasi (unarmed martial art)

Reyes grew up in the lower levels of Coruscant, ekeing out a threadbare existence with his mother. An only child of a mother who worked three jobs, Reyes had a lot of free time on his hands. Naturally curious, specifically about things that people tried to conceal from others, he was arrested repeatedly by police by the age of 13 for accessing computer systems without authorization, but he never touched a thing, even if he made it in without being detected. He just could pick out the holes in their security nets without having to spend months searching for them. That, combined with his voracious appetite for information make him an extremely skilled slicer.

Finally, to get him away from the city (and any potential trouble he could get into there), his mother shipped him offworld to her brother, who lived in the middle of nowhere on some backwater planet. Unfortunately for her plans, her brother was also a survivalist freak, and not only supported his curiosity, he encouraged it. He also taught him everything he knew about combat, from blasters to knives to hand-to-hand combat, which his uncle was a master of. Reyes was particularly good at Teras Kasi, or Iron Hands, a very effective form of hand-to-hand combat. He lived there until he was 25, learning everything he could from him. He left, and went out into business for himself, working for both sides of the conflict, which ever one payed the most.

After the Empire collapsed, he decided that it would be best to work as a team with the crime bosses, who were known for screwing over individual contractors. His slicing skills are a little rusty from his years with his uncle and then mostly being known for a brusier instead of a slicer, but his instincts for slicing are still very well tuned and the desire is still there, and all he needs to do is spend a little time getting current and he'll be back to form in no time.

(Edited by Punkey at 10:25 pm on Oct. 17, 2003)

Everyone looks good so far, just two things:

Dieter, link Wayde to Jilleeza somehow, and Punkey, link Reyes to Wayde.

Name: Radow Erit
Gender: Male
Race: Ithorian (Also known as "that Hammerhead alien from the Cantina")

Physical: 2
Combat: 2
Knowledge: 3
Wits: 2
Spirit: 4

Aspects: Calming Presence, Force of Personality, Medic
Specialty: Spirit: Convince

Radow Erit has spent most of his life searching for some sort of ultimate truth. Banished from the sacred jungles of Ithor for lifetime, he drifted from planet to planet, bringing calm and comfort to other downtrodden personas without ever experiencing them himself.

Erit grew up as orphan on Tattoine, one of the worst places to be when you're barely a child, need a lot of water to live, and have little in the way of survival skills. Fortunately, Erit soon discovered that he could reach out to other minds and convince them to agree with his own; thus, he managed to survive by evoking feelings of pity and charity in others. Eventually, though, he began to feel that he was living like a parasite, and decided to use his synchronity with the Force to try and help others - for a price.

Erit is a somewhat capable cleric in that he can channel the Force to evoke healing powers, but he has some limited "normal" medical knowledge too. However, he is most valuable in seeing to it that there are no wounded to tend to by stopping fights before they begin. Erit often wonders if he'd be better off without his powers; even after twenty-five years of adventuring, he still feels guilty for a human slave trader he unintendedly drove insane through intense psionical influence. He recognises that he's good at what he does, but he doesn't like it too much, and wishes for the day when he'll be able to set aside enough credits to just get out of the business and settle down somewhere. In the meantime, though, Erit needs to be attractive for prospective employers, and thus constantly works on furthering his knowledge on all kinds of obscure topics, hoping that a variety of skills will get him hired instead of a simple grunt.

During a stay on Coruscant, Erit ran into a similarly-aged human man returning from a botched job. Through his sensitivity to the force, Erit saw that the man had accepted a rescue operation from the Alliance, but been discovered when he'd walked into a hidden motion detector. Erit instinctively reached out to the hurt man, and stopped both the pain within and the pain without of a near blaster bolt to the right leg. When the patient asked for Erit's price, he saw the opportunity to earn more credits to accelerate his goodbye from the biz, and merely asked the stranger to drop a recommendation for Erit with his employer.

That man was Reyes Terrall, and he did recommend Erit.

The Ithorian had taken his first step into a new level of the game, and he was determined to come out as a winner.

(Edited by Gatac at 7:41 pm on Oct. 17, 2003)

Wayde and Jileeza had an interesting first meeting...they both arrived for a job at the same time.

It was on Nal Hutta, working for Dor'ha, resident crime syndicate lord specializing in "hush hush" types of business. Both Wayde and Jileeza fit the bill for the assignment and Dor'ha was eager to get a two fer one assassin deal out of them.

A few hooka pipes and Bocce Brews later, the contract was signed and the two rogues have been working on and off again with eachother since.

Reyes was hired to crack a building's security prior to an Imperial raid and scout it's security defenses. However, the building in question was an Imperial building, one that had a heavy amount of illegal goods and activities going on at the highest levels. On his way in, he was almost caught by Wayde and his men, and was very impressed by their strategic planning. After he cut off from their system, his report managed to exonerate the lower levels of command in the building including Wayde, and he left Wayde a message about where he could be contacted and what jobs he specialized in.

(Edited by Punkey at 10:19 pm on Oct. 17, 2003)

Arnae Maddock
Gender: Male
Race: Human (Corellian)

Physical: 2
Combat: 2
Knowledge: 3
Wit: 4 (Specialty: Piloting)
Spirit: 2

Aspects: Great Pilot, Devil's Own Luck, Contentious Bastard

Arnae Maddock is often compared with Han Solo, only without the fame, fortune, and hot Alderaani girlfriend. Maddock and Solo were in the same class at the Imperial academy, but while Solo got the boot before his military career was underway, Maddock lasted two tours as a TIE pilot in the Outer Rim before his big mouth earned him a dishonorable discharge. This left him a little bitter.

After his dismissal, Maddock bummed around in various mercenary and pirate outfits until, like Solo, he earned a Corellian YT-1300 in a card game, and started a career as a tramp freighter captain. The Rusty Dagger wasn't half the dream machine the Falcon was. To a fighter jock like Arnae Maddock, that just wouldn't do. The Dagger's current configuration is a bit odd: The escape pods have been moved from the sides to the to the dorsal surface, and their old spots are filled with banks of thrusters. This gives the Dagger a fighter's maneuverability, at the expense of some cargo space. This bodes poorly for Maddock's speculative trading, but it means the Dagger, with Arnae Maddock at the helm, has acquired a reputation as a reliable smuggling craft and blockade runner.

Radow Erit has been an infrequent crewman on the Rusty Dagger, where Arnae commissions Radow to do the kinds of negotiating that his own non-silvertongued nature keep him from excelling in. The two are friends.

Aurelia Connroy
Gender: Female
Race: Human (Corellian)

Physical: 2
Combat: 3
Knowledge: 3 (Repair)
Wit: 3
Spirit: 2

Aspects: Jury-rig Expert, Adept Mechanic, Easy Going

Aurelia Conroy is, by any objective standard, a damn fine mechanic. Unfortunately, Imperial policies have blocked her from getting the job she really wants, babying the drive systems of Imperial crusiers. Instead, she makes what passes as a living as a freelance mechanic. Especially lucrative is her suprising gift with weapons systems, and her ability to rig a system to accept far more power than it was designed to brings in enough to keep her comfortable.

By the way, we probably need a slicer (hacker). Just a message.

Meh, you wouldn't need it as a main specialty. It'd open up some avenues you wouldn't have otherwise, though, so don't think I'm dissuading you. Anyone with a fair Knowledge and a technical or espionage background (Aurelia and 'Za mostly, Aurelia'd be better though) could have a go without actually writing down "slicing" somewhere on their sheet.

Actually, I should've mentioned something along those lines earlier, but I had a lot to keep in mind while writing that first post. The reason I don't ask for a lot of details is A) it's Star Wars - nobody's crying over specifics and I use a lot of common sense when I think about "what would your character reasonably know how to do?"

Let's take Aurelia and Za as an example. They both have Wits 3, but I'm gonna go easier on Aurelia if she tries to pilot a big old spaceship - likewise, I'd give Za a break if she were trying to sneak by some stormtroopers. Greasemonkeys know their way around ships, and spies know how to sneak. You don't have to write it down unless you specifically want to be known for piloting ships or being sneaky.

Fun. Then I'll be making some modifications!

(Edit: How about that? A hacker that can wipe the floor with you.)

(Edited by Punkey at 10:26 pm on Oct. 17, 2003)

Mak Ruk'vys
Male Bothan (sexy bastards, eh?)

Physical: 3
Combat: 4 (blasters (prefer his custom made))
Knowledge: 1
Wit: 2
Spirit: 3

Aspects: Left-hand punch is just as good as his right one, Untrained Force usage.

Mak grew up in a small undeveloped planet who's only contact with the world was the occasional smuggler's ship. Because of the isolation, he slipped under the Jedi Academy recruiters' radar, and never really learned how to use his potencial. While a Jedi Master or even a padawan would use the Force like a hundred delicate chisels and hammers, Mak's approach is more like a sledgehammer; it swings slow and lack finesse, but it's still 15 pounds of godamn iron hitting you in the skull.

Upon reaching adolescence, Mak sensed his old home just wasn't big enough for him and left it on the next ship to stop by, never to return home. He reached a Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy, also known as Mos Eisley, working at the docks as a crate lifter. A passerby noticed him and saw the oppertunity of a great fighter, or at least someone who will go down with a bang, and interdouced him to The Ring, an underground combat areana where the only rule is "There Are No Rules".

To make things short, Mak was now champion of the place, spicing his punches with a little extra Force and dodging his opponents' strikes almost as if he knew where the hits were coming from. The glory brought him to a local crime lord's attention who hired him as a bodyguard. As it turns out, there was a finely tuned blaster user hidden inside Mak, who's reputation now spread as an excellent mercenery when it comes to indoor fighting.

Traveling the galaxy, he heard of a gunsmith who could do wonders. He came to her to get his blasters made in such a way that would remind you of a sawed off shotgun. The results impressed Mak so much that he became an almost reguler customer, coming to her to fix and tune his weapons when necessarily. The gunsmith's name was Aurelia Connroy.


I wasn't sure if you could lower stats as well as raising them. Physical would be 2 if I can't.

Yeah, that's fine. The gun is what I'd call a "sawed-off Bantha gun". Or just "Bantha gun".

I saw your edits, Punkey, and that's all good too.

Further research yields that Ithor - described as something like Planet Eden - was totally and utterly devastated in some catacalysmic battle. Will we use this tidbit or not ?

The reason I'm asking is that it would be important for Erit's character.

Gatac