Character Creation

To create a player character for Animus, follow the steps below.
You do not need to create a playable character to attend a LARP, as you can opt to monster instead.

(1) Pick a Class (Optional)

All skills cost 1 XP.
You have 5 XP to spend on a new character.
You can add up to 2 XP from your personal pool to purchase more skills.
You may purchase these skills from the General Skills page or from your Class page.
Some skills are restricted based on your level. Starting characters are always level 1.
Some skills have a pre-requisite (pre-req). This means your character must purchase the pre-requisite skill first before learning that skill.
Some skills require you to spend Favour, as well as XP. New characters have no Favour.

Gain the Affiliate skill with any one organisation of your choice.
You can suggest a new kind of organisation that does not exist in the wiki; this will be subject to LARPO approval.
Alternatively, you can choose to keep this free Affiliation pick until later in your character's story to gain an in with an organisation when it makes sense for you to do so.

Optionally, work out any goals you have for your character (e.g. “Become Grandmaster for my Order”).
These are useful for your GM as it means we can advise on if your goal is supported in the system, and/or some ways to start progressing towards it.
We will also use this information to contact you if we think there is an adventure relevant to your OC goal coming up.
Of course, you may have no idea what this will be when you start out - that's fine! It's also fine (and natural) if your goals change as time goes on. We encourage you to update your character / reach out to your GM when and if this occurs.

Finally, submit your character to the LARPO, who will approve it, or ask you to make changes.
Our preferred method of submission is for you to email the LARPOs at gm@animus.chaosdeathfish.com with your submission. After approval, we'll register an account for you (if you're new) or give you the go-ahead to add your character to the wiki.
Characters must be listed on the wiki in order to advance and gain XP.
If something is unclear or you'd like help building a character, you can always ask the LARPO.

three players representing different character archetypes: one peppy and fighty, one snarly, one looking nonplussed by the antics of the former

Alternatively, you can skip this process, choose one of our Print & Play character templates, and you're good to go!
Our print & play characters were created with simplicity and ease of play in mind.
Character names and background are still subject to LARPO approval.

If you would prefer, you may eschew taking a class as part of character creation and join a class in play, when it is narratively appropriate to do so.
If so, you may formally join a class as a downtime action.
You then gain the class features of that class for free.

Players may elect to play without offensive weapons as a valid play choice, but will be mechanically at a disadvantage when doing so. We would suggest considering Forest Touched or Erosion Weaver for such a concept.
Please check out the Themes & Accessibility page for our Accessibility policy.

Sometimes it can be difficult to know which skills to pick.
We would like to stress there are no 'wrong' skill choices. There are skill picks that might be better if you want to optimize how well you do in fight, but that is only one of several valid ways of building a character.
Building a character to suit a particular kind of playstyle, or building flaws into that character, or picking skills which fit the personality or outlook of your character, are also valid approaches.
The LARPO are always happy to offer advice if you don't know what skills to pick for your character and would like some help.

You gain 1XP for attending a LARP.
You gain an additional 1XP if you GM or co-GM a LARP.
All characters start at level 1.
Once your characters have gone on a certain number adventures at their current level, they must level up.
The level up thresholds are as follows:
Level 1 → Level 2: 1 adventure.
Level 2 → Level 3: 2 adventures.
Level 3 → Level 4: 2 adventures.
Level 4 → Level 5: 2 adventures.

You can buy additional skills for your character in between adventures.
So long as you have the XP, and you follow any restrictions listed against the skill, there are no limits on how many skills you can buy in this way.