Living Death Character Creation Guidelines

The following are guidelines for initially creating your own Living Death character and for enhancing that character when you play in official tournaments and gain experience points and other benefits. You may use the official Living Death Character sheet or provide one of your own, as long as it is complete and easy for a judge to read. You are responsible for keeping a copy of your character and a list of all the items, wealth, and experience points he or she earns during tournament play. You must be able to provide a Treasure Certificate to prove that your character has earned any special treasure appearing on your character sheet.

Living Death tournaments are held at conventions throughout the world. RPGA Network members play their own characters in these events. The more tournaments you play, the more levels, power, and wealth your character gains.

Any use of Living Death tournaments without written Network approval is prohibited. All members can play tournaments, but meta-tournament aspects of the campaign are open to Guild-level members only.

All Living Death characters must fit the AD&D 2nd Edition rules as modified by the Masque of the Red Death campaign expansion for the Ravenloft game rules, as well as the special campaign rules in this Player Pack.. Occasionally, changes may be made which might affect your character. Such revisions are not made arbitrarily but with game balance in mind. Exceptions to the most recent version of these guidelines must be documented with official Living Death certificates and/or a signed letter from RPGA Network Headquarters. Network HQ will serve as the final authority of rules for the Living Death campaign.

Follow these steps to create your own Living Death character:

1) Select a Class and Kit

All Living Death characters must be human, but all of the classes and kits in the Masque of the Red Death boxed set are available for play. (Additional kits will become available as the campaign progresses.) Dual-classed characters are permitted, but Living Death characters may change classes only once, after which they may not change again nor earn experience in the former class.

2) Choose an Alignment

In Gothic Earth, a character's alignment is more important than in other Living Settings. All Living Death PCs must be of Good alignment, but they may be Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. Any Living Death PC whose alignment shifts to Neutral suffers penalties until she returns to a Good alignment. Characters whose alignment shifts to evil are immediately and permanently considered NPCs and may no longer be played in Living Death tournaments. Guidelines for adjudicating alignment shifts appear in the judges guidelines, as well as in individual adventures.

This alignment restriction does not mean that you cannot play a tough or "edgy" character. It simply means that all heroes in the Living Death setting are motivated by good reasons to oppose the evil of the Red Death and all its minions. It's why we call them heroes.

3) Assign 72 Points to Ability Scores

You have 72 points to divide among your character's Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma scores. Scores may range from 318, but no two scores may be the same. Thus, PCs may have only one Ability Score of 18. Characters begin at first level and must meet the minimum statistic scores for their classes and kits.

4) Select Proficiencies

Note that when using the optional proficiencies rule, PCs do not acquire languages beyond their one native tongue except by spending proficiency slots. All proficiencies listed in the Masque of the Red Death boxed set are available for use. Additional proficiencies will be made available as the campaign progresses, in some cases allowing characters to gain more proficiencies than they normally would be allowed.

5) Select Equipment

Living Death PCs begin play with the maximum possible money described for their class in the Masque of the Red Death rules. You may use this money to purchase any equipment from the Masque of the Red Death rule book. The beginning of some adventures, however, may preclude the use of unconcealed weapons or explosives.

6) Describe the Character

Since problem solving and role-playing are even more important in the Living Death campaign than in others, your character should be more than just a collection of powers. Your character should have a distinctive personality, a memorable appearance, and an interesting history. So before your Living Death character is done, fill in the physical description, personality, and background sections of the character sheet (or attach a page or two of description to the sheet). These descriptions can be as sparse or as elaborate as you like, but all character backgrounds should include two elements:

- At some time in your character's past, she has had an encounter with the supernatural. The experience could be as subtle as a night spent locked in a presumably haunted house, or as extreme as a personal encounter with a werewolf. Regardless of the nature of the encounter, it instilled a lasting fear of and opposition to evil and the supernatual. (Ironically, many Living Death characters will themselves possess knowledge of the mystic arts or borderline supernatural abilities known as knacks.)

- Sometime after your character's unusual encounter, she received a cryptic message inviting her to join a secretive group, a qabal established to oppose evil in all its forms, but especially those supernatural phenomena which seem to be occuring with more frequency as the turn of the century approaches. While your character learned nothing more about the group, she knows that their sign is the white rose, and that when they need his help, she shall be contacted again.

Hit Point Advancement

Living Death PCs have maximum hit points at first level. At each additional level, Living Death PCs gain hit points based on their base hit die type:

Hit points for high Constitution scores are added to these base figures. For example, a soldier (warrior class) with a 17 Constitution gains 10 hps per level beyond first.

 Enhance your character with :

Kits | Knacks | Stock Characters | Period Information | Character Generation Guidelines

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This page last updated 10/13/98.  For problems/questions/comments regarding the pages contact the webmaster.