Abeir Toril › Character creation

Make a Character

Six steps. The order matters — your past sets your numbers, your numbers set how much of you can be replaced.

  1. Pick a Lifepath

    Where you come from. This is the only source of ability bonuses at creation — your species grants none.

    Ability scoresYour Lifepath names three. Take +2 / +1, or +1 / +1 / +1.
    SkillsTwo, arriving as Skill Shards already socketed. You did not learn them. Your past installed them.
    ToolOne proficiency.
    GearA starting kit and some €$.
    Special FeatureOne, unique to that Lifepath. This is your origin feat.
    Your Lifepath never gates your Role

    The suggested destination is a suggestion. A warren rat who walks into Kessel's Yard becomes a Redliner, and the fact that they grew up in a megastructure is the interesting part.

  2. Pick a Role

    Your Role is one implant with twenty Marks. Choosing it is choosing the hardware, the company that made it, and the person who signs for you.

    You start at Mk1, and Mk1 of your first implant is free — the Fixer's Favour covers it. Somebody paid. They have not forgotten.

    All twelve Roles ›

  3. Work out your three numbers

    Everything downstream is these:

    Load Σ Marks + chrome every Role Mark you hold, plus every optional implant
    Capacity CON + highest Mark only the highest, never the total
    Overload Load − Capacity above zero and you are saving every fight
    Why this stays honest

    Your highest Mark is on both sides, so it cancels. A single-Role character has exactly CON points of room for optional chrome — at Mk1, and still at Mk20. The numbers climb; the room does not shrink.

    A second Role adds its full Mark to Load and gives nothing back. Solo Mk10 / Netrunner Mk10 at CON 10 has zero room left for so much as a pair of optics.

  4. Buy your chrome — two limits, not one

    Optional implants answer to both limits, and they do different jobs.

    LimitGovernsMeasured in
    Capacityhow much chrome your body tolerates at allLoad
    Location slotswhere it goes — 2 per locationslots

    A piece of chrome must pass both: a free slot and the Load to carry it. Slots stop you stacking six implants in one forearm; Capacity stops you stacking the whole catalogue across your body.

    Locations, slots and the catalogue ›

  5. Firmware at Mk3

    Your subclass. You do not choose it and you cannot swap it — your lienholder specs the implant, and there is no catalogue to browse. One per Role.

    RoleFirmwareRoleFirmware
    SoloChampionMedtechTriage
    NetrunnerSchoolMediaPatron
    FixerThiefExecBloodline
    RockerboyArchiveTechShop
    NomadHunterCyberpsychoBerserk
    LawmanOathAsceticOpen Hand
    Custom firmware is a commission

    Not a character-creation choice. If you want something that is not on that list you will be paying somebody to build it, and that is a story, not a line on a sheet.

  6. Know who owns you

    Every Role implant has a lienholder. They made it, they license it, and they can take it back. This is not flavour — it is the thing your GM will use to ruin your week.

    Ask three questions before session one

    Who fronted your Mk1? It was free to you. It was not free.

    What are you behind on? Payments, favours, silence.

    What would you refuse to have removed? Name it now, so it means something when they ask for it.


Advancement

You do not gain a level. You go somewhere and have something installed.

PrereqThe previous Mark. That is the entire prereq system.
Load= the Mark number. A Role at Mk N weighs N.
PriceLoad × 1,000 €$, plus street cred for anything restricted.
Hit pointsFirst implant Mk1: max hit die + CON. Every Mark after: average hit die + CON.
What you getMark N grants every feature that class gets at level N. No Mark is ever empty.
Ability score improvements are a real decision here

ASIs feed CON, and CON is Capacity. So every ASI is a choice between being better at what you do and being able to do more things. That tension is the whole build game.

Skills

Skills are Skill Shards — items, socketed, findable and losable. Your Lifepath's two came pre-installed. The mechanics are unchanged from standard play; only what the skill means is different.

StandardHereStandardHere
ArcanaNetloreReligionDoctrine
NatureBiotechAnimal HandlingHandling
SurvivalStreetcraftHistoryArchives
MedicineTraumaInvestigationForensics