Building a Character

Character Creation

Welcome to the Dark Millennium

Welcome, to the Prosperitas Sector, fractured by the greed of the Imperium and the dark forces of Chaos, facing lurking alien threats that seek to undermine it, the Prosperitas Sector has endured much. It is into that realm of the Imperium of Humanity that you are stepping, or returning to if your character survived our first season.

So who are you…?

You are a servant of the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition. You are a competent individual with a unique set of Traits that set you apart from the common folk of the Imperium. You serve one of the Prosperitas Conclave’s Inquisitors, and before that you likely lived a life full of surprises. You know secrets about the universe that must be kept from the common folks of the Imperium. You are an Agent of the Throne dedicated to the great endeavour of humanity, fought in the shadows by the Inquisition.

Death Unto Darkness is a character-driven system. While cooperation between characters is key to solving problems, the actions and flaws of any individual are important to the overall outcome of any plot. Characters all have great strengths that they use to contribute towards the success of any given mission, but they also have flaws and weaknesses that can spell the damnation of themselves and their comrades if preyed upon and exposed.

The ideal DuD character is not the idealised hero presented in Imperial propaganda – they have hidden secrets and weaknesses of character that no matter how small will come out to haunt them.

Should you need help with building character links with the plot, or help answering any section of the form, please contact: writingteam.deathuntodarkness@gmail.com

When you wish to submit a character please contact the game team even if it is for a Tale as it will allow us to catch any issues with the characters connection to the Universe.

Starting Stats and Abilities

Even before a character selects their Traits they begin with the following statistics and abilities representing what a baseline human of adult age who has been inducted into the Inquisition would be expected to have.

Resources

Before Traits a character begins with the following Resources;

• A Fate pool of 3
• An Endurance pool of 2

Heroic Endurance (Free)

All PCs have 2 points of Endurance representing their baseline endurance, this is roughly considered to be the ‘average human’ within game terms though players are special because they have the Scars condition whereas most ‘commoner’ NPCs will not. They also gain additional endurance from the following condition;

• Prepared for Combat: A character who physreps preparation for combat such as wearing armour, having extensive exposed bionics, obvious warpaint, synskin or some other obvious preparation that clearly indicates they are ready for a fight gains +2 Endurance. While armour needn’t be the ‘top’ layer of a costume to count parts of it should be clearly visible, should you want more covert preparation then you should investigate the Adept Mortis trait

Iconic Hero (Free; Optional; Requires: Physrepping)

While wearing a costume that draws its inspiration from the vast array of artwork, miniatures and other sources of inspiration that mark the 40k universe, you gain +2 Endurance. This needn’t be a uniform that marks you as an instantly recognizable Agent of a specific Imperial Agency, but it should look specific to the 40k setting. While uniform is an easy thing to target (for what is more iconic than a Guardsman’s uniform, a Commissar’s coat and hat, an Astropath’s robes and staff, the cog-trimmed red of the Mechanicus, an Arbitrator’s black armour and helm, or the distinctive armour and vestments of the Sororitas?) it is possible to gain this benefit though more subtle approaches, for example exemplifying your character’s background in your kit, perhaps you are scum from a hive world...then incorporate gang tats from your homeworld into your kit (ask the Game Team if you need some examples), or a Noble at which point how you dress, perhaps incorporating symbology from one of the Great Houses of the Prosperitas Sector will help you focus.

At the base level you can look at this very simply, many Agents draw strength from the open declaration of their faith both through the symbology of the Imperium and the wearing of purity seals. This can include (but is not limited to) the Aquila (both sector and canon), the Cog Omnissiah and Prosperitas Forge Symbols, the badges of Office of any Imperial organisation (both canon and sector) such as the Inquisition icon, Guild Symbols, Naval Shipwheel, etc or any other piece of Imperial (or Mechanicus) iconography drawn from 40k artwork sources.

It’s hard to list every possible example of how to embody the setting without becoming needlessly prescriptive and making people fret too much about the details. The point of this trait is to encourage telling your character’s story though their kit, to encourage you to think about the kind of small details in your kit that makes your character. You’re very welcome to chat to the Game Team about ideas you have to make your character iconic but we’re not generally expecting any kit currently in the system to fall short of this. We’re very keen that if we feel that any kit needs some tweaks, we’ll approach that with an offer of loans from crew kit and any aid we can give you.

Basic Weapons (Free)

Examples: Stubguns, Autoguns, Lasweapons and any improvised or nontechnological melee weapon.

You can call Blam with a ranged weapon and make uncalled blows in melee with LARP-safe props.