🚧 Work in Progress 🚧

This section is still under development.

Roots and Origins

Welcome to the Table

Before you start to write down a single stat, you'll need to know where your character's story begins. In this game, your character is built using two distinct physical playbooks that layer together to tell your whole story: your Heritage Playbook and your Legacy Playbook. These playbooks aren't just generic character sheets, they are physical, two-sided pages, that fold up into thirds, and over the course of a campaign you'll cross things out, attach extra sheets and other crafty things.

If you pick up any of the playbooks, their cover will tell you if they are a Heritage Playbook or a Legacy Playbook. Flip them over to the back, and you'll find a short, descriptive blurb detailing exactly what that life has to offer. Do keep in mind that these blurbs are just there to give you a rough idea about its narrative impact on your character; don't be afraid to put your own spin on it.

What is a Heritage Playbook?

Think of your Heritage Playbook as your character's past and their safety net. It determines who raised you, what instincts you developed to survive your youth, and how the world initially reacts when you walk into a room. Once we finish this chapter, you'll move on to Chapter 3 and build out your Legacy Playbook, which defines your Archetype, i.e. your job or training, and what you are going to do next.

But before we look to the future, let's lock in your roots.

Grab Your Vibe (aka Choosing Your Playbook)

Take some time to look over the Heritage Playbooks available to you. Flip them over, read their blurbs, and pick one to be your foundation. Don't worry about the numbers yet, just find one that makes you say: "Yeah, that's the vibe I'm going for."

Here are some options you can pick from:

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Remember, these are not all the Playbooks that are out there. Have a discussion with your Game Moderator, as they might have a list of additional playbooks to choose from.

When you've selected your playbook, unfold it and lay it flat on the table. Got it? Good! Let's move on.

Unfolding from Right to Left

Now that you have your Heritage Playbook sitting in front of you, we are going to start filling it out. However, we aren't going to start on the left with a bunch of empty math boxes. Instead, look at the panel on the far right of the page, it should be the one where the top ribbon is already pre-printed with the name of the playbook.

We are going to build your character from the outside in, working our way from the fiction on the right, through your physical talents in the middle, and finally locking in your attribute values on the left.

The Right Panel: Your Cultural Anchor

🚧 Work in Progress 🚧

This section is still under development.

• Point out the pre-filled ribbon
• Flesh out the background details

The Middle Panel: Your Ancestral Manifestation

🚧 Work in Progress 🚧

This section is still under development.

• Fill in the ribbon with your ancestry
• Note down your visual signature, a few distinct visual tells that reflect it
• Select 2 ancestry traits

The Left Panel: Your Math Boxes

🚧 Work in Progress 🚧

This section is still under development.

• Fill in the ribbon with your character's name
• Assign your Attribute values
• Show off the Endurance and Morality pools

Reading the Ribbon

Take a step back and look at your completed Heritage Playbook. See that continuous ribbon running all the way across the top? Since we built your character from right to left, you may not have noticed that you were actually writing a mad-libs style introduction sentence for your character.

Read it from left to right. It seamlessly connects your Name, your Ancestry, and your pre-printed Origin into a single, cohesive statement:

Xeno the Red Fox of the Smouldering Streets

Beautiful, right? It's an instant snapshot of your roots.

But remember, this is only the first half of the puzzle. When you turn the page to Chapter 3 and select your Legacy Playbook, that ribbon is going to keep on extending. Your Legacy Playbook will have spaces to fill in your Archetype (the thing you're good at) and your Foundation (how that thing manifests).

When you place the two playbooks together on the table, the ribbons will align to create a massive, grand title that tells the entire table exactly who just walked into the tavern, the boardroom, or the starport:

Xeno the Red Fox of the Smouldering Streets who became a Smuggler utilizing a Pirate Radio Method

Your past and your future, heritage and legacy, laid out together on the table. By the end of your campaign your grand title will have expanded to show off the growth your character makes along the way.

Turning a New Leaf

Your roots are set. You've got a name, a face, your attributes, and a community that has your back (or maybe they're hunting you down). Fold up your Heritage Playbook and slide it to the side. It's time to grab your Legacy Playbook and figure out how you're going to use that stats to change the world.

Forging Your Legacy

Welcome to the Future

Look down at your table. Your Heritage Playbook is sitting there, locked in. You have a past, an ancestry, a baseline set of survival numbers, and a hometown. That's your safety net.

Now, look at the other pile of sheets on the table. It's time to grab your Legacy Playbook.

If your Heritage is who you were up until this moment, your Legacy Playbook is what you do next. This is your sword, your career, your specialized training, and your active drive. It defines how you choose to impact the world, change the system, or get paid.

The Legacy Playbook is a two-part ecosystem:

1. Your Archetype: Your core calling or profession (like a Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, or Tech-Weaver).
2. Your Foundation Annex: The starting modular sub-sheet that defines how you specifically perform that job (like a Pirate Radio Method or a Guerilla Setup).

Flip the sheets over, read the professional blurbs on the back, and pick the combo that matches your current ambition. Grab it from the pile, flip it back to the front, and lay it down on the table directly to the right of your Heritage sheet. Notice how the ribbons at the top perfectly line up? Good. Let's start filling it out. And yes, we are continuing our grand tradition of ignoring the boring math on the left panel until the very end. Look at the far right...

Step 1: The Right Panel — Tools, Capital, and Drive

Your career isn’t a vague concept; it's defined by what’s in your pockets and what wakes you up in the morning. Because you grabbed a pre-printed Archetype, this panel is already loaded with your specialized baseline.

• Tools of the Trade: Look at your starting kit list. This isn't just generic junk. This is where your signature weapon, your encrypted data deck, your forged corporate credentials, or your modified toolkit lives. Circle your optional gear picks. This is the physical manifestation of your job.
• The Capital Track: Right below your gear, you’ll see your specialized resource or wealth tracker. Whether you are tracking corporate liquid leverage, black-market favors, or cold hard scrip, this is your economic engine.
• Your Core Drive: What keeps you moving when the pressure is cooking? Is it a payday? Loyalty to your crew? Cold, unadulterated revenge? Proving your old mentor wrong? Circle the narrative trigger that fuels your character's forward momentum.

Step 2: The Middle Panel — Legacy Talents

Slide your eyes left to the center panel. This is where your professional training gives your character actual, game-breaking mechanical teeth.

• The Career Perks: Look through the starting talent menu printed here. These aren't passive numerical bonuses; they are active permissions to rewrite the rules of a scene. If you're a Smuggler utilizing a Pirate Radio Method, this is where you choose the talents that let you completely hijack security frequencies, execute impossible blind jumps through a planetary blockade, or smooth-talk your way out of a customs bust.
• Pick Your Suite: Choose your starting active talents. Write them in, customize their fictional descriptions to match your visual signature from Chapter 2, and get ready to deploy them when things inevitably go sideways.

Step 3: The Left Panel — The Capability Grid & Expertise Dice

Finally, we arrive at the left panel. Notice how the left edge of your Legacy Playbook now sits perfectly flush against the Left Panel of your Heritage sheet. They lock together to form a master matrix.

Your Legacy Playbook doesn’t alter your raw, genetic attributes—it layers professional mastery on top of them.

• Dropping the Expertise Dice: Look at your Archetype's starting capability profile. It will tell you exactly where to allocate your starting Expertise Dice (represented as d8s).
• The Matrix Synergy: If your Smuggler archetype grants you an Expertise Die in Grace and Ingenuity, draw a hollow d8 icon directly next to those attributes on your matrix. Now, whenever you roll a task using those stats, you aren't just relying on your raw instincts—you are throwing an extra d8 into the pool because you have a professional degree in getting things done under pressure.

The Grand Payoff: Reading the Banner

Now, lean back in your chair. Take a look at the entire physical layout you’ve assembled across both playbooks.

Because we built everything from right to left, look at that glorious, unbroken mad-libs style ribbon running all the way across the top of both sheets from the far left of your Heritage panel to the far right of your Legacy panel. Read it aloud to the table.

You aren't just a collection of numbers and static skill boxes anymore. Your sheet literally introduces your character for you in a single, unbroken cinematic title sentence:

[AARON] the [RED FOX] [STREET SCAMP] who became a [SMUGGLER] utilizing a [PIRATE RADIO METHOD]

Your past, your face, your stats, your career, and your methodology—physically locked together on the table.

Character creation is officially over. Pick up your dice. Turn to Chapter 4. Let's go see how we actually play the game.