Chapter 2 — Making a Character

“Everyone in Sulamir is four questions deep before they’ve said a word: what are you, what can you do, whose are you, and what do you believe hard enough to pay for it. Answer those and you’ve made a person. The rest is arithmetic.”

This chapter walks you through building a character from nothing to ready-to-play, pulling together the five chapters that follow. If you know 5e, most of this is familiar — the differences are flagged, and there are two that matter: your people grants traits, not ability scores (those come from your Origin), and if you cast, you’ll set up two cost-clocks and write a Tenet instead of tracking spell slots.

Have paper, a pencil, and a set of dice ready. Work down the steps; a worked example runs alongside them at the end.

Step 1 — Imagine your character

Start with a sentence. A disgraced House retainer who swore an oath she can’t take back. A Steam-Worker’s kid who came up channeling fire she can’t afford. A frontier scout who’s seen a wall breached and can’t stop watching the sky. You don’t need mechanics yet — you need a person with a want and a wound. In Merretia, it helps to know one thing early: who does your character owe? This is a city that runs on debts and oaths; a character with no one to answer to is a character with no story yet.

Step 2 — Choose a People (Chapter 3)

Your people is your lineage. Record its size, speed, and traits — its signature trait (its Order/Chaos tilt) and its crack (the pole it can’t shed). Note your languages. Do not record any ability-score increases here — a Merretian people gives you what you are, not what you’re good at.

Step 3 — Choose a Calling (Chapter 4)

Your Calling is your class. Record its Hit Die, its signature engine (Oaths, Grit, Threads, and so on), your saving-throw and armor/weapon proficiencies, and its level-1 features. Note whether you’re a caster (you’ll gain a Reaching into a discipline) or martial (no Reaching — and no weaker for it). You choose your Path (subclass) at 3rd level, so leave that for later.

Step 4 — Choose an Origin (Chapter 5)

Your Origin is where you came from — a guild, a House, the Temple, the deep, the frontier. This is where your numbers come from. Record:

the three abilities it offers (you’ll assign the bonuses in Step 5),
its Origin Feat,
its two skill proficiencies and one tool,
its starting equipment (or 15 gold seals to spend in Chapter 8).

Step 5 — Set your ability scores

Generate six scores by one of the usual methods your GM allows: the standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), point buy, or rolling (4d6, drop the lowest, six times). Assign them to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma to fit your concept.

Then apply your Origin’s increases: raise one of its three abilities by 2 and another by 1, or raise all three by 1. Work out your modifiers. (Your proficiency bonus at 1st level is +2.)

Step 6 — If you cast, set up your magic (Chapter 6)

Skip this step if your Calling is martial. Otherwise:

Note your Reaching — the discipline you channel, and its colour (your eyes flash it when you cast).
Draw your two cost-clocks. Both cap at 10 + twice your proficiency bonus (so 14 at 1st level). You’ll fill STRAIN when you cast an Order discipline (it clears on a short rest) and FRAY when you cast a Chaos one (it doesn’t).
Set your Conviction to 1, giving you a d4 Faith Die.
Write your Tenet — the one sentence your character believes above all else. A Working cast dead-center of your Tenet is your cheapest and strongest.
If you channel a Chaos discipline, write your Loss Menu — the six small, specific things your character could lose their grip on (a memory, an edge of feeling, a scruple). You author them now; the dice only decide when they surface. This is the most important sentence you’ll write on the sheet.

Everyone — caster or not — can also spend to lend unshaped Faith (Chapter 6): no one in Merretia is magically mute.

Step 7 — Buy your equipment (Chapter 8)

Take the starting gear granted by your Calling and Origin, or spend your seals. If you carry an arc-lock, note its cell and shot count; if you channel above the smallest Workings, note your focus stone. Record your armor, your AC, and your weapons with their damage.

Step 8 — Fill in the sheet

Total it up:

Hit Points: your Hit Die’s maximum + your Constitution modifier.
Armor Class: from your armor (Chapter 8).
Proficiency Bonus: +2. Apply it to your proficient saves, skills, weapons, and tools.
Skills & languages: from your people, Calling, and Origin.
The diegetic details: your eye-flash colour if you cast, your focus stone, your people’s tells, your oath or Stand if your Calling has one.

Step 9 — Bonds, and the table

Finish the person. Give them a bond, a fear, a debt, and — if you didn’t in Step 1 — someone they owe. Your Tenet (if a caster) and your oath (if your Calling swears one) are not flavor; they are levers the game pulls. Share your character’s hook with your table so the GM can hang the world on it.

Leveling up (the short version)

As you gain levels: your proficiency bonus grows (+3 at 5th, and up); you take an Ability Score Improvement or feat at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th; you choose your Path at 3rd and gain Path features at 6th, 10th, and 14th; and if you cast, your Reaching reaches higher Working Tiers on the curve in Chapter 4. One thing does not rise with your level: Conviction. Your faith deepens only when the story earns it — when you hold an oath at real cost, or move a crowd when it’s dangerous to try. That is the game telling you belief is something you do, not something you buy.

Worked example — Vessi Orn-Kade, a Fendrik Cipherwright

Step 1 — Concept. A gnome archivist who reads people like forged documents, and owes a debt to the academy that trained — and expelled — her.

Step 2 — People: Fendrik (gnome). Small; speed 25 ft. Signature: Ledger-Mind (advantage vs the Knowing discipline; one Int skill — she takes Investigation). Crack: The Leak — under stress she sheds involuntary illusion-glamour, and takes disadvantage on her own Stealth and Perception in the radius when it fires. Prismatic eyes. Languages: Sulamiri, Fendric.

Step 3 — Calling: Cipherwright. Hit Die d6. Engine: Threads (she weaves Filaments). She’s a caster: Reaching into the Knowing (magenta). Light armor, one Filament Technique at 1st.

Step 4 — Origin: Discipline Student. Abilities Int / Wis / Cha. Feat: Focus-Touched (she learns one cantrip-tier Knowing Working, free, and a starter focus stone). Skills: Arcana, History. Tool: scholar’s kit.

Step 5 — Ability scores. Standard array assigned: Int 15, Dex 14, Wis 13, Con 12, Cha 10, Str 8. Origin bonuses: +2 Int, +1 Wis. Final — Int 17 (+3), Dex 14 (+2), Wis 14 (+2), Con 12 (+1), Cha 10 (+0), Str 8 (−1). Proficiency +2.

Step 6 — Magic. Reaching: the Knowing → she flashes magenta on every cast. Two clocks drawn, cap 14; she’ll fill FRAY (Knowing is Chaos). Conviction 1 → d4 Faith Die. Tenet: “No pattern is beyond reading.” Loss Menu (the six she hopes never come up): the sound of her sister’s laugh; her fear of deep water; her certainty she’s the sharpest mind in any room; her first teacher’s name; the belief that her expulsion was unjust; her rule against reading a friend’s thoughts uninvited.

Step 7 — Equipment. Cinder-leather (AC 13), a work-knife, her starter focus stone, a scholar’s kit, a discipline primer, an eye-shroud, and a handful of seals.

Step 8 — The sheet. HP 7 (6 + 1). AC 13. Skills: Investigation, Arcana, History (+ Cipherwright picks). Saves and Threads noted. Eye-shroud in a pocket for when she’d rather the magenta not show.

Step 9 — Bond. She owes the Core academy a debt of record she intends to erase — and she cannot lie to herself that erasing it is anything but theft. That’s her story’s first thread. She’s ready to play.