Shadowdark Character Generation

It occurs to me I never created a Shadowdark character, despite all the suspicious house rules I’ve written over the past few months. Let’s remedy that now.

Attributes

Using three dice, I roll up the six attributes (“stats”) in order, as Crom intended.

(Yes, I actually rolled an 18 …)

This character is incredibly dextrous and intelligent, only somewhat above average in might and resilience, and absolutely abysmal at noticing things, mental resilience, or social and mental dominance.

Ancestry

I’m going to pick Human, which gives me the Common Language, one additional common language (I’ll pick Dwarvish), and an additonal Talent roll at first level.

Class

With my Attributes this character would be best suited for a Wizard or a Thief. Their low Charisma makes them especially vulnerable to mind control magic, so I think Thief might be the better career.

A Thief is limited to the following weapons: club, crossbow, dagger, shortbow, shortsword.

Likewise, a Thief may wear only leather armor or mithral chainmail, since stealth is such an important part of the class.

A Thief only has a 1d4 hit die per level. At 1st level, our character gets their CON modifier plus one roll of the hit die: I rolled 1. So two HP.

A Thief’s abilities are as follows:

Backstab. If you hit a creature who is unaware of your attack, you deal an extra weapon die of damage. Add additional weapon dice of damage equal to half your level (round down).

Thievery. You are adept at thieving skills and have the necessary tools of the trade secreted on your person (they take up no gear slots). You are trained in the following tasks and have advantage on any associated checks:

• Climbing
• Sneaking and hiding
• Applying disguises
• Finding and disabling traps
• Delicate tasks such as picking pockets and opening locks

In addition, I have two rolls on the Talents table at level 1, thanks to being Human. I roll the following:

• +1 to melee and ranged attacks.
• +2 to Strength, Dexterity, or Charisma stat.

I’ll pick the Charisma stat, obviously, elevating it to 9 (-1 mod).

Background

I make a roll on the Background table and get:

Urchin. You grew up in the merciless streets of a large city

Alignment

I choose Neutral, not because this character align[s] with the cycle of growth and decline, but simply because they don’t care about either the “good of the whole” or grand ambitions. As long as they can earn, i.e. steal, enough to put a roof on their heads and food in their stomach, they don’t care a fig about others, one way or another.

Deities

This character will pay lip service to any deity, but doesn’t care about the gods because they apparently don’t care about tis character.

Titles

Characters of specific classes and alignments get “titles”. Our character is a “Robber”

Languages

As stated before, our character knows Common and Dwarvish.

Starting Gear

Our character starts with 2d6 × 5 gp of gear. I rolled an 8, so 40 gp.

Here’s what he has:

The character can carry their STR (13) Gear Slots of gear. I wanted to buy a Lantern and two flasks of oil, but that would put me over. Let’s leave room for loot.

Name

I have no strong preference for name, so I roll on a random table and get “Yuri”.

Putting It All Together

Name: Yuri

Talents

• +1 to melee and ranged attacks
• +2 to Charisma (added above)

Gear

1. Leather Amror
2. Shortbow
3. Dagger
4. Arrows (20)
5. Flint and Steel
6. Grappling Hook
7. Iron Spikes (10)
8. Rations (3)
9. Rope (60')
10. Torch #1
11. Torch #2

Free Gear: Backpack, Coins (14 gp, 9 sp, 10 cp), Thieving Tools