Creating a Character
First, decide on your character’s age. Each diamond on your character sheet represents 12 years of life. If you don’t want to make a decision about this, roll a die, and fill in that many diamonds. Each part of life goes a little longer than the last: the first 12 years cover childhood, the next 24 young (12-36) adulthood, the next 36 (36-72) mature adulthood, and the final 48 (72-120) elderhood. For each stage of life you’ve lived (minimum of 1 for children, or a maximum of 4 for elders), you can have a special bond with another place. Add your place to one of these bonds and describe the nature of it.
Next, tell us about your character. Touch on each of the periods of your character’s life (childhood, young adulthood, mature adulthood, and elderhood), the things that fascinated you and attracted your focus during those periods, and how you distinguished yourself. Then, the rest of the table will come up with your common name, the name that most people use for you. This name should describe you in some unique way, speaking to your reputation, demeanor, strengths, weaknesses, history, or personality. You can use the ritual phrase, “I don’t see it” if you really don’t like it, but try to appreciate the name your friends have given you — whether as an honor, or an opportunity to rise above it.