Character generation can be done in a number of ways. One of them involves the tables listed in Mythras Core - including the Background Events and Family tables - but there is another method.

Lifepaths.

Originally created for Traveller, Lifepaths - which were focused on careers in that 2D sfrpg - can be useful methods to allow a character to develop a little history to them, beyond the Background Event table (a modern version was published last week in this blog).

Each Lifepath should be unique for each character. They indicate the path the character's life took from around age 14 or some arbitrary age. 14 is the default, because it includes the last four years of one's formative memories - their strongest, most life-changing ones.

The years during which your character lost their childhood, and became the adult they are in play.

Dice Needed

You'll only need a d6 or a d10 for these tables.

Starting Play

Roll on the Family tables in Mythras Core to establish your character's family as they were at age 14. If you don't fancy that, consider just creating your own family from scratch, or deciding that your kid had been in the system for some reason (and you get to pick that reason, whether it involved your character losing your parents, or the State intervening to pull you away from an otherwise chaotic life).

The First Four Years

These are times for childhood sweethearts, or childhood enemies. If your character went to school, these are times of facing down the schoolyard bully, of boring lessons, or of skipping school altogether and spending your days kicking around the back alleys or back country, losing yourself to the streets or the land.

Passions

Here's where you can choose your Passions, as described in Mythras Core.

Culture and Career

At this stage, you can choose your character's Culture and Career, as described in Mythras Core.

Values

Lifepath Events

Once a year from age 14, roll on the table below to see what happens each year till the time your character enters play.

Cash Table

Starting cash is just that - the amount of money your character can call upon, in the form of an independent income, once they enter play. This cash is a liquid asset. Property, vehicles, and material goods such as weaponry, jewellery and so on, do not count - this is income the character does not have to convert from some other source, e.g. selling off heirlooms.

This cash can represent a steady income from a job which requires minimal attendance, a trust fund, interest from a lottery win, or ill-gotten gains from some low-maintenance scheme which just runs itself such as blue chip investments in the stock market.

Roll 1d10 twice, once for the Cash Tabls column and once on the Level of Wealth column. If you rolled "enough to live on for 1d6+6 weeks," you'd have a bit less cash on hand if you were Middle Working Class, than if you'd rolled "enough to live on for 1d6+6 weeks" and you'd rolled "Upper Class, Bottom Rung."

Entering Play

As Games Master, you are encouraged to get the players to develop new Allies and Contacts during play, and to make sure they roll on the Cash and Level of Wealth table.

Don't forget to ask them to complete the final step - to describe their characters' name and general appearance. Round it off by letting the players describe what they'd expect to find in the character's pockets, and with that you are good to go.

Next Week

Starting Play in Modern Mythras requires an Inciting Incident. Next week, we'll go through the Three Act Structure which informs play from the small scale (adventures) to the grand scale (campaigns).