Who are you?

You are certainly more than your name, but if you ask someone, “Who are you? Tell me a little about yourself.” you can learn more about them by listening carefully. “I am a mother,” they might tell you, “I am Australian, and I like to go shopping when I can.” With just these three things you can start to understand their identity. They prioritize family, they identify with their nation and perhaps its ideals, and then a conflict they show what they want to do but cannot. This is heart of storytelling. Even with such a simple response, you can see there’s the potential to delve deeper.

Who is your Investigator? How would they answer that question? And what does that say about them? Once you answer that question, you can work backwards from that, what are their values, how does that make their identity, what drives them? Once you have answered this, collect this information together, then talk to your Conspirator. You and your Conspirator will talk about this rough outline and then you will play through this creation story in one to three short sessions before the game proper begins, giving you a living backstory. This allows you and Conspirator to start off on the same page and allows you to understand the world and your place in it from your Investigator’s perspective.

Once you and your Conspirator have a rough idea of what kind of person you would like to play, you may begin your creation story. Xor’Veil ties mechanical creation of your character with your story. However, for shorter campaigns or one-shot sessions, there are also rules for quick character creation.

(why have a creation story)

The creation story serves two purposes, one so both you and your Conspirator can go over the rules of the game. The second is so that you are both on the same page of the script. Some people have very different pictures of how a place or a person is these can be talked through a lot more easily in a quick private session than they can in a group starting session.

Creation

Creation is designed to add detail to the significant events, people, places and life experiences that make up your backstory. Your investigator is more than just dots and numbers on a sheet of paper, and the tales of how they came to be can shape their motivations, emotions, and personal identity.

Origin Story

Before group play begins you should complete one to three sessions with your Conspirator in order to develop your Investigator. These sessions should cover three essential stages in your character’s life: childhood, adolescence, and exile.  In this way, you and your Conspirator can discuss the kind of investigator you wish to play and build them together through play.

Creation

Unlike quick character creation, creation is meant to help you learn the mechanics of the game and gives you an idea of how you became the investigator you will become through play. Before childhood, select your two core abilities; This will give you your special ability. Then spend five skill points in order to represent your Investigator mechanically as a child.  After the childhood stage and before adolescence, spend 10 skill points. After the adolescence stage and before exile, spend the final 6 skill points.

Xor’Veil Simple

Follow all the rules above and you’re finished your character creation.
And give them their status (also known as reputation)

Xor’Veil Homelands

After the childhood stage and before adolescence gain one homeland virtue and one homeland vice. After the adolescence stage and before exile if your conspirator allows you may take your second vice and then take your second virtue.
And give them their status (also known as reputation)

Xor’Veil Advanced

After the childhood stage and before adolescence gain one homeland virtue and one homeland vice. Then you may select on branch of a talent tree. After the adolescence stage and before exile you may choose to take a flaw and then complete your current tree and select another full tree, or select two other talent tree branches. If your conspirator allows you may take your second vice and then take your second virtue. Then if your conspirator allows you may take your second vice and then take your second virtue.
And give them their status (also known as reputation)

Xor’Veil (Xor’Veil Ruleset)

After the childhood stage and before adolescence gain one homeland virtue and one homeland vice. Then after this you gain 7 talent points, this is where you may select your first flaw, you do you gain 7 talent points for that flaw which you may spend now. After the adolescence stage and before exile you gain your remaining 14 talent points which you may now spend freely. If your conspirator allows you, you may take a second flaw. Then if your conspirator allows you may take your second vice and then take your second virtue.
And give them their status (also known as reputation)

Childhood

An investigator’s earliest years provide a foundation upon which to build their future. The circumstances of their birth, environment, and family all have a role to play in shaping their future.

Family

During this stage, you establish the circumstances of your investigator’s earliest life. Who are your family members? Are you a part of a large family with many brothers and sisters, a small family with only one sibling, or are you an only child? Do you have extended family, just the folks, or a single battling parent? Even if you are an orphan you will still have family, right Peter, Bruce? Who are the people who took care of you?

What do your folks do? Was their bad blood between the family? Were you a sore spot, or were you the only thing they had in common? Look beyond your birth. Who are your parents? Are they paranoid or naïve? Affectionate of distant? How has that affected your world view? What do they do and how does it affect you?

Homeland

Just as important as family is your homeland and how it shapes you. Sometimes our homelands affect us in subtle ways you can’t even notice it until you’re in another culture, other times it is quite overt in how it affects you. Where does your family fit? Are they beggars or barons? Also, think of the context of their situation; while there are commonalities, the life of a beggar in Grandport is very different to that of one from Barzon’s Undercity. In addition, there can be many differences within the same city.

One noble family may have a reputation for intrigues, and as a result, exists with a web of treachery and deceit, while another in the same city may be less politically active and have a reputation for being a generous host and holding lavish parties. These different upbringings in different social and cultural contexts will have widely different outcomes as well as play a major role in shaping your investigator’s adult character.

Childhoods end

We all have it, perhaps you cannot remember it or perhaps it is etched into your mind. A moment where you realised that you're different, that something isn’t quite right, or perhaps your not certain, but you know that things will never be what they once were.  This is the end of your childhood. It may not have ended that day, but it was the begin of its end.

Perhaps it was when you realised everyone carried swords… and swords are for killing so why does everyone need them? Maybe it was when you realised everyone bowed to your father, but their smiles always lied. It could have been when your mother went to purchase something that wasn’t for sale… or someone. When you play the background in this way you gain a much greater understanding of the society in which your investigator lives in, how it works, and your place in it.

This will be where your first session ends, discuss with your Conspirator if you like about how this may change your concept for your Investigator, or perhaps you may change the virtues, vices, and so on you wish to choose. Next comes adolesce.

Adolescence

You can’t put an old head on young shoulders. There are a thousand clichés for saying youths must be allowed to fail on their own to understand why they failed. This is typically a turbulent time, involving incidents of confusion, rebellion and questioning, as a young person seeks to understand who they are, and the adult they will become. Events during this period can have a heightened sense of importance, which is why who your friends with is so important. During this stage of creation, the focus is on creating the Investigator’s supporting cast.

Friends, Foes and Associates

Desire for acceptance and recognition from your peers drives the decisions of most adolescents. Much of an adolescent’s sense of identity comes from the attitudes of those around them, and the degree to which they conform with or rebel against those attitudes.  It is at this point that your investigator will establish a peer group of friends, associates and enemies. For you the Investigator, your developing potential characters to shift to if the worst is to happen and you die, allies, and rivals. For the Conspirator they are developing enemies, allies, and plot hooks.

Seeds of Doubt

Thematically your plot picks up from childhoods end, your older more skilled and more knowledgeable, however you’re still struggling with who you are. At childhoods end you had just a peak into your culture, now you are a part of it. This is where the idea of your concept clashes with the reality. Perhaps you thought your character would be persecuted in their society for something, only to discover no one cares about it or it is the norm. By contrast a simple part of a mundane concept could be completely taboo in another society. You may wish to change your concept accordingly. From a story perspective this their seed of doubt.

As they grow into their adolescence skills, beliefs, contacts and ideals which they will use as the foundation for their later life, beginning to learn more about their world and its place in it. So what plants their seeds of doubt? A beautiful woman? A powerful man? Mysterious strangers? Perhaps in their quest for adolescence acceptance among their social group they did something taboo. Maybe they did something to move forward in their society. It could be the most terrible of crimes, they remained silent. Love, family, duty, honour, any all of those things could plant the seed. Those seeds were so small they couldn’t be noticed at first… or maybe you just didn’t want to notice them?

Exile

As a child a certain amount of freedom is allowed, now you’re an adult, and you have gained the responsibilities and burdens that come with that. Will you reject your role, or embrace it? Does being the good man in the world of the corrupt cause your downfall, or is it been a single vile act to preserve a greater good that made you exiled. Whatever the case you’re here now.

Motivations

By now, your Investigator should be well-developed. Their wishes and fears, goals and aspirations, what they dread and desire is all known. If not, now is the time to develop them. Perhaps they are a late bloomer, and only the burden of becoming an adult showed them who they are, but time waits for no one.

Finalising

If you wish to mechanically change things, now is the time. Dot the I’s and cross the T’s. This is a good time to go over skills and talents chosen. If it hasn’t been brought up before, give them their reputation/status. Make sure everything is in order for the first session of play.

Exiled

No one truly chooses to be an Investigator, circumstances lead them down that road. The Investigator is the man who walks between worlds (or woman).  These men and women have been thrust into a world that has made them desperate. Did the echoes of war force them to act? Was a call of an eye for an eye? Did your sweet love leave, or were they taken?

As you can see with these examples, not all of these situations require the investigator being a literal exile, but sometimes it can be. In this case, Exile is that point where your investigator decides they can never go back to living the life they did before. Whatever the decision was, it was the moment when your investigator’s destiny was sealed. An investigator lives alongside, but outside of society. They are between places, the one who can go anywhere, and belongs nowhere.

This is the end of creation, and a new beginning. Into the world comes you the investigator.

What truths will you unveil, what lies will you spread, what truths will you hide?

Status

Humans begins are social creatures and, like it or not, being alone is one of the quickest ways to death. What can sometimes be worse than being alone is feeling alone, or feeling outcast. In some cases, this lack of social interaction can have a profound effect on a person’s physical or mental wellbeing, with the body and mind reacting to being cast out to being outside of your community. As a result, a person’s social status can affect them physically regardless of whether they believe it does. Even when going to a new area, a person carries that need to interact with others with them.

Calculating your status

When you begin as an investigator during creation, you won’t have access to any of your status resources. This is because your place in a wider society is still forming. Once your story is finished, your conspirator will give you your investigator’s social status, influence, honour, and fear. Alternatively, if you are meeting up to play and haven’t done backstory or are doing a quick play session there are other ways of calculating your status. 

Quick play option

With quick play you should simply have two low social status stats and one high. This will represent the kind of investigator you’re playing. High influence characters would be the wheelers and dealers of this world, but may not be trusted or feared. High honour characters are people known for their word being their bond, trusted in a world of scum and villainy. High fear characters are the bruisers, mobsters, and no-goodniks of the world.

Social Status

Quick play option

With quick play you should simply have two low social status stats and one high. This will represent the kind of investigator you’re playing. High influence characters would be the wheelers and dealers of this world, but may not be trusted or feared. High honour characters are people known for their word being their bond, trusted in a world of scum and villainy. High fear characters are the bruisers, mobsters, and no-goodniks of the world.

Quick character creation

For those who don’t have the time to go through the full character creation system, this optional system allows for quick and simple character creation. Quick character creation is very simple and is on the sheet.

This person has selected Mental and Physical. As Wits is in between them, you gain Wits. If you Selected Mental and Charisma you would gain Persuasion, whereas if you chose Physical and Charisma you would gain allure.

Buying skills is simple.

To buy One point in Intimidate costs one.

To buy Two points in Stealth costs three, one for the first point and two for the second.

To buy Three points in Wisdom costs six, one for the first point, two for the second, and three for the third.

However, the person using this Investigator, would roll three dice for Intimidate as they have both Physical and Wits giving them two of their maximum six already.

If you are playing Xor’Veil simple you’re finished quick play character creation

Except for quick play rules on Status.

Quick play options for the versions of Xor’Veil

The rules for selecting homeland virtues and vices, and talent trees are vastly simplified for quick play character creation, many normal creation rules are disregarded for the sake of getting to play as quickly as possible.

Xor’Veil Homelands

Flip to any page in the Xor’Veil Homelands section select a homeland you like the look of, but remember to be quick people are waiting on you. Once you select that homeland select one virtue and one vice from that same page and nowhere else. Ignore all other normal restrictions!

Xor’Veil Exile

Follow the rules above for Xor’Veil homelands. Then find your highest skill you have one branch in that skill’s talent tree. After that choose Adventurer or Investigator.

·        If you chose Adventurer choose one weapon skill and one armour skill.

·        If you chose Investigator gain either your full talent tree in your highest skill or one more additional skill talent (recommended from your second highest skill) and your reputation talent (based off your highest status)

Xor’Veil

You cannot use quick character creation for Xor’Veil Ruleset.

You may convert an Advanced Xor’Veil Investigator into Xor’Veil Ruleset Investigator later, but you cannot use Xor’Veil Ruleset for quick character creation!

Speak to your Conspirator after this game to ask how you can change your Investigator to a Xor’Veil Ruleset character.