Building a Character
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 and the nature in which they have been chosen by fate to be dragged into our story.
Endurance
Characters begin with an Endurance of 2
A character has a number of ways to improve their Endurance pool without purchasing traits - we do not believe in tying any endurance gains to armour as might be seen in other LARPs preferring to allow a character to represent their toughness. In a universe where an angry jungle dweller in a tank top is considered as tough as one armoured in sci-fi plate it doesn't feel accurate to the visual feel we are trying to create with our game to insist on using armour phys reps to represent toughness in our game. Rather we would prefer ways to encourage visual phys repping that reward characters for looking more 'in universe' via the use of -any- materials and costume rather than only hard materials like metal and plastic plate. Simultaneously we want characters who want to be vulnerable in combat to have the option of being more vulnerable by avoiding dressing like a character who is tough and ready for combat.
Following the following phys-rep guidelines grants +2 Endurance for each for a combined +4 if you meet both guidelines.
Appearing prepared to face Combat - You get this for showing off their character is ready to face combat such as wearing armour or military fatigues, or a suit of synskin, or even just exposed bionic enhancements, scars, gang tattoos and even warpaint that show to anyone they are tough and up for a fight - this is a wide and open category if you feel you are showing that your character is a fighter visually then consider yourself benefitting from it, anything that doesn't make you look like you are more of a harmless individual that foes should deal with last. If you want to appear harmless at first glance but instead be quite dangerous then the Adept Mortis trait covers the ability to be so.
Dressing Iconically to the Setting - You get this for wearing costume that draws its inspiration from the vast array of artwork, miniatures and other sources of inspiration that mark the 40k universe. 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 through 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 through 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.
Resources
No character begins with any Resources other than Fate - access to Mission Supplies and Willpower are granted by certain traits.
Basic Weapons Training
Either through the necessity of being inducted into the Holy Ordos or the harsh reality of surviving in the Dark Millennium all characters know how to use simple firearms and how to swing a blow with a weapon - they might not like fighting at all and might not be willing to handle certain weaponry due to certain beliefs but they know how to use these weapons if forced to.
Any Character can call Blam with a ranged weapon (if they have the Supplies to do so) and make uncalled blows in melee with LARP-safe props.
First Aid
All characters have basic training in management of a battlefield casualty that the Inquisition expects of all its agents. They can pause a character’s bleed count by using their full attention to treatment, and can administer chems at a Medicae or Chirurgeon’s direction. See the Medical Treatment section for full details.
Knowledge or Strength
Most Servants of the Holy Ordos are prized for one of two things. Their knowledge of the awful threats that face humanity, or their physical ability to mete out suffering on the enemy.
A starting character may choose to have one of the following abilities;
- Knows too Much - your character has one of the Lore Disciplines (no specialism).
Or
- Tough Enough - your character is hardy thanks to their life experiences, less likely to have been hired for their intellect vs their talent to crack skulls, they gain +1 Endurance.
Lores do not represent something the 'average' Imperial citizen knows, that can be found here but rather than which is largely 'forbidden' and should be kept from average citizens.
Character Traits
Traits are the mechanical ins and outs of what your character can do. They are the features of your character that, when brought together, create the set of skills, equipment and natural abilities that bring your character together.
Characters in DuD are mechanically defined by their Traits. These are abilities, selected during character creation, which represent a character’s background, training, and heritage. Which Traits a character can access determines how they can impose effects on other characters, solve puzzles, gain information, and otherwise affect the game world.
Your character has Ten Traits these represent a lifetime of experiences and training and skills learned from an interesting life in the Prosperitas Sector. Ten is the maximum number of traits any character will have in the game, these things take a lifetime to develop.
Despite the hard limit and lack of ability to gain further traits, bear in mind that you may change your character’s Traits in between events. Reasons might include (but are not limited to) a notable IC change in their attitude and direction, and IC injury, a change in planned physrepping or costume, or a change in your OC interest in or ability to engage with some sections of the rules or game. If you wish to do this, you can talk to the refs between events to discuss how the change happens IC if applicable. The traits you select at character creation are not set in stone.
There are seven types of trait:
The fluff and physrepping guides around every trait are designed to create a framework to help players not familiar with the setting have an easy time comprehending the purpose of each trait, but they are not designed to stifle creative ideas - if you have a concept that an existing trait could mechanically represent but the fluff does not fit it feel free to talk to the Game Team about the idea of 're-skinning' it to fit your concept - in most circumstances we can make this work with some potential added drawbacks where relevant, where we can't make it work a Unique Trait (see beneath) might be more appropriate.
Unique Trait (Requires: Ref Permission)
Every character may have one unique trait - this is simply because we have found the work involved in generating these means that creating multiple ones per person is unviable with the time-on-hand to create an event and it is easier to track one unique interaction with the rules per person.
In earlier versions of these rules the term 'Relic' was used to describe a unique artefact belonging to the character - however this is restrictive, having 'an object' is not always relevant to every character, it doesn't always 'fit' - but there are still ways in which characters within this universe can vary from the norm - the framework presented by the basic traits allows for the most 'common' concepts we could envision, or wanted to encourage within the game.
A unique trait represents something unusual about your character, at the most simple level this could be a deadly artefact from a bygone age, a holy relic, a piece of xenos technology - but it could be something more intrusive, such as coming from a species other than humanity, a pact with an entity beyond the veil that claws at the soul, or perhaps an origin from beyond the Imperium... - these are all examples, this trait is entirely unique to you.
These traits character of their own, when you design a unique trait (with the assistance of the ref team) it will eventually be issued a relic/trait sheet which serves essentially as a character sheet in its own right. Containing an overview of the mechanics, as well as the narrative consequences for possessing the trait...
Drawbacks: Death Unto Darkness is not set in a setting where power comes without consequence - these can be in the form of a unique deck of cards similar to those representing the backlash from from psychic or techno-arcana powers - or it can be something more permanently costly to the character, just as each of these traits are unique, each of these drawbacks are unique.
Wargear and Carry Limits: Where your unique trait would represent a unique weapon that might normally belong in the Wargear Traits, you do not have to take that trait, for example a Unique Trait that gives you a special melee weapon would supersede the need to talk the Assault Weapons trait as a character with the Assault Weapons trait can only replace one of their weapon slots with an advanced melee weapon and a Unique Trait weapon does the same - the same applies for ranged weapons (meaning that a character with Unique Trait ranged weapons cannot also take a Special Weapon or a Heavy Weapon).
Submission: If you wish to take one of these you should write up what you would like the item to be, what you’d like it to do, and what you are thinking of using to represent it. When you’ve done this, please send your ideas to us at writingteam.deathuntodarkness@gmail.com - we’ll discuss with you and refine the design of the trait before drawing up lore for it that best fits it into the narrative of our game. Your trait may be acquired in downtime, or be gifted/discovered in uptime. Sometimes opportunities for such traits will be found in the uptime game environment, at which point this trait would be what you would select if you wished them to be acquired permanently.
Character Progression
In Death Unto Darkness many characters are at the pinnacle of what they could achieve normally - represented by the ten traits chosen at character creation which are the result of a lifetime already spent before or in Inquisitorial servitude - as such DuD is a flat-progression system with limited gained-via-play benefits. Perhaps appropriate for the setting we have chosen to run our game in the most reliable source of 'advancement' on a mechanical level comes from how often a character dices with death and comes out the other side - our world is a world where characters grow through the suffering they endure and come out the other side a little different for the experience.
The most explicit form of progression we have is Scars.
Adjustments
Our lives OC can change drastically, as can physical and mental health, what might be something easy to engage with one event may be impossible to the next and then possible several events later. To this end there is no shame to be had in asking to entirely alter your traits' at any stage - we only ask that you give us warning in advance as a game team by contacting us about the skills you wish to change. Most things can be handled easily but be aware that Faith and Fire as well as Spymaster, and Trade Connections all require pre-game prep so it is best to swap these as soon as possible as it saves both game-team time and ours.
Additional Design Notes
But what about this talent I have in my background?
There are enough Traits without us introducing highly specific ones that won't be relevant to the majority of games or players. The best example here is Piloting and Driving which, due to budget, are unlikely to appear often and when they do appear only do so in the context of narrative. Many of these ‘unlisted’ Traits and skills could be represented at a player event by an interactive game or puzzle, so be careful about overegging your talents because you might be expected to back them up in play via an unfamiliar system – but we won’t make you spend Trait slots on them.
But what about my bionic prosthesis?
There are several Traits that mention wearing bionic physreps to represent them. This does not mean you aren’t allowed to wear bionic physreps as part of your costume, or as the result of Scars and other wounds – in this circumstance they don't take the full effect of Haywire but should glitch or react in a minor fashion.