# Character Creation Challenge 2025: Day 18 - Blood Engine - Corinth the Fearful tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2025 #game/rpg/blood-engine > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2025]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] ## Game of Choice You ever have one of those moments where you feel compelled to say, *"I know I've seen this before. Where did I see this thing?"* Then when you discover what it is that triggered that memory, it was way too recent to be forgotten and you feel like an idiot for having done so? Yeah, that was me today. For the record, and not because anybody asked but because I think it's interesting to put down, the way that I normally go about making these character creation challenge entries is I make sure that there is a game identifying page in my [Obsidian Vault](https://obsidian.md]) for it before I start working on the CCC. That involves extracting the cover and saving it into a reasonable image size, creating the text for the actual game page, double-checking that the links that are used in the generated text are functional, accurate, and well-named — and it often takes upwards of 30 minutes to get everything refined just so. That way, anytime that I refer to that particular game, it's automatically linked. And if you're interested in one or the other, you go to that page, look at the links that are coming into it, and you can see every reference that's ever been made to it. It's very convenient. Automatic wikis are wonderful things. This also means that I have the book open and I'm flipping back and forth through it to double-check things, and generally being the usual obsessive-compulsive geek when it comes to games that you expect me to be. That's why I'm here. That's more than likely why *you're* here. I had the book open, I was flipping back and forth inside of it, I was reading the basic description of the mechanics and looking for the character generation section and I just knew that I had seen all of this before I just couldn't put my finger on where. ![[Blood Engine - Essential (cover).jpg|400]] **[[Blood Engine - Essential|Blood Engine: ESSENTIAL]]** is effectively a stripped down (compared to a lot of its competitors) grimdark fantasy which adheres to a lot of the standard tropes that you expect and declares itself to be an OSR game while borrowing handily from a lot of fairly modern designs, including [[Powered by the Apocalypse|PbtA]] and [[Blades in the Dark|FitD]]. The thing is that I knew that I absolutely had said *exactly* those things about some other game in recent memory, and I just couldn't put my finger on it. I literally had to go off to [the publisher's page on DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/27979/oddplan) and start digging around to figure out where I had seen this system before. Then I felt like a screaming moron. It was literally: - **[[Character Creation Challenge 2025 - Day 11 - Hellsquad|Character Creation Challenge 2025: Day 11 - Hellsquad - Hank Star, Saviour of the Human Race]]** Yes, that was literally *a week ago* and yet it didn't stick in my head, even though this is a fairly unique system and I had worked through it step by step to create a character. This is one of the drawbacks of having somewhere on the order of several thousand tabletop RPG systems kicking around in your head and working on something like this. Everything can't really be swapped in at the same time. The older you get and the more data you accumulate, the harder it is to connect individual parts together even when you are literally working on them a week apart. It's not just because I'm *old*, it's because I'm *experienced*. Regardless, we're doing old school, hyper-lethal sword and sorcery fantasy with a grimdark flavor. On the positive side, we've already run through the basics of these mechanics before, so if you want more insight on that, go read the referenced article. Let's jump right into chargen. ## Acts of Creation > [!quote] Blood Engine: ESSENTIAL, p20 > In the Blood Engine, Player Characters are not heroes, and the stories they live through their quests are far from being considered epic. If they survive long enough, these adventurers may retire wealthy and successful, but it probably won’t be them to save the world: they’re explorers of hostile, insidious worlds where danger hides behind every corner. If we're going to be fair about it, it's at least kind that they told us that right at the beginning of character generation. This is not epic high fantasy; it's supposed to be grim and gritty, down in the mud and blood. So set your expectations accordingly. That helps a lot with character conceptualization because it's easy to get lost in thinking you're going to be Elminster when it turns out you're going to be [the guy from **The Last Unicorn**](https://thelastunicorn.fandom.com/wiki/Schmendrick).^[Though at least you might get to be immortal until you properly master magic. Read the book.]^[Also, *foreshadowing.*] ![[Shmendrick from The Last Unicorn.webp]] ### Characteristically Summed As we've seen before, we need to determine our **Vigor**, **Instinct**, and **Cunning Dice**. To do so we need to roll 4d6 and take the best three and add them up, then split those points across the three characteristics to purchase their respective dice. We have to spend as many points out of that pool as possible buying characteristic dice, and anything left over goes into **Blood**. For any characteristic that doesn't have a die, we add an additional Blood to the starting maximum. > [1, 2, 4, 1] Also, have I mentioned that any kind of randomness despises me? And that is why I have a great distaste for random stat generation systems. Look at those dice. That's absolute garbage. Okay, fine, we'll keep to the spirit of things and take the rolls we made because it's that kind of game. 1 + 4 + 2 = 7. I can literally only afford Cunning at d6, then pass on both other characteristics. I literally can't take a trait at 4 and then pour the other 3 points into Blood. That flies in the face of spending as many points as possible on die faces. On the positive side, we do have +3 Blood to start with as our max because we literally couldn't spend characteristic points on two slots and had one left over. I have a bad feeling about this. - **Vigor:** - - **Instinct:** - - **Cunning:** d6 ### Role-Master Now we figure out what our **Role** is going to be in this case we're talking about something which is roughly analogous to a class in other games but not quite as specific in certain ways. On the other hand, to randomly determine it we take a d66 roll, which is effectively just rolling 2d6 and reading them as independent indices into a 36-element table. As part of our role we get some Expertise attached to it which is specific and unique, as well as some extra gear. Again, this is probably starting to feel a little familiar, though expanded on compared to **[[Hellsquad]]**. You know what? I'm feeling spicy. We'll see what we get if we roll for it and, if that is utterly at odds with our situation, then I'll try and pick something appropriate. Here goes nothing. > [1, 1] Remember what I said about randomness and I and how we don't get along in any way, shape or form? Yes, we are playing that out right now. Pulling an 11 out of that gives us the role: **Explorer**, which has the expertise **Natural Bond**. > Once per session, you can spend 1d4 hours to obtain 1d4+1 Rations as long as the general area has berries, animals, or any other source of food and water. Well, great. We can scavenge for food. We're not completely a waste of flesh. Sure, let's go with this. In terms of extra gear, we get a sundial (I assume not the size of a dinner platter), a telescope, and a small piece of a map with some notes. Sure, why not? ### What Makes the Grass Grow? Starting Blood is easy, just 2d6+3 thanks to our wonderful starting Characteristics. > [3, 1] Yeah, checks out. We get to start off with a nice solid **7 Blood**. How could this possibly go poorly? I can't imagine a single way. We're playing an explorer without any particular ability with physical resilience, dexterity, or reaction speed. But who does have a chunk of a map, can read the stars, theoretically knows what time it is, and can keep you from starving. All that in a hyper-lethal low fantasy grimdark setting. I can't imagine how this could go wrong at all. This is amazing! We are immortal! ### Equip These In addition to our sundial, telescope, and bit of a map, we get: - Backpack - Flint and steel - 1d4 torches - 1d4 rations - 1d6 + 6 pieces of silver - One small weapon with the [hidden] tag, or one medium weapon Obviously for this guy we're going for a dagger/large knife which can be tucked away because no one should be out in the wilderness without a sharp edge to whittle away the time. As for the rest… > [3, 4] Well, that's generous! 3 torches and 4 rations, the very thing we can find more of easily. > [4] 10 pieces of silver. We can't afford anyone to betray Jesus, but at least we can pick up a few supplies in the shop. Somewhere, I'm sure. Just as in **Hellsquad**, we also have to figure out how much weight we're carrying based on the amount of gear. The flint and steel can hang out with the ten pieces of silver as knickknacks and be 1 weight together. Torches are bulk items, so they are 1 weight. Rations are a bulk item, so they are another 1 weight. We'll assume that the sundial and the telescope go into the knick-knack pile as well and don't add significantly more mass. What do we have in total? 3 Weight. Lucky for us, that's no effect. One of the great things about being the least threatening thing on the battlefield is everything will look at you last. So there is that. ### Growing Boy Since it's a starting character we don't have to worry at all about any of the character growth mechanics, though they do exist and they are surprisingly not terrible. Every time you gain 5 XP in total, you get to choose an Advancement. You gain XP from doing one of a number of things during a session, including exiting a scene and living to tell about it, or surviving where another PC died, or a *single XP* if a boss enemy was defeated. Then you get to increase your Blood, choose an Expertise from the fairly extensive list, which are essentially additional skills that can go under each of your characteristics. And if you survive that first outing, *everyone* gets the Magician quality, which means that everyone can cast spells using *Cunning*. Everyone. I suppose this does solve the occasional fantasy RPG problem where characters need to have some sort of increasing abilities which aren't necessarily explained by purely physically or intellectually improving, but it's an interesting choice. Once you get the quality, you pick an element to dedicate yourself to and a spell from that list. If you already have the Magician quality, then you pick another spell. Weird, but we'll take it. And that's it. We're done. ![[Blood Engine - CCC2025 - Corinth the Fearful.webp]] ## Exunt Now ask me if it tells you where to find your Base Die in character creation. It does not.^[It's all the way back at the beginning of the book, the first time it refers to them.] On the one hand, I was saved from trying to figure out how to fill out this actually quite cramped and not particularly useful equipment section without using a pencil, by simply having jack-shit in the way of anything to start with. I feel like there's really no excuse for character sheets not to be fairly intuitively laid out for filling out digitally. I did cheat by putting in a light background behind the expertise section because I just couldn't figure out the proper combination of font size, line height, and offset to make it work with the lines that were present. This is absolutely cheating, but I also think that if you have a table with strong lines and a section where multiple things are going to have to go in (as is the case with expertise as you gain advancements in this game), you probably need to be lightly struck about the head and shoulders to be reminded that even people with a pencil aren't going to be able to fit stuff in there. Otherwise I quite — well I can't say I quite *like* this game because it's definitely outside my particular preferences on multiple axes, but I don't *dislike* this game and that's saying something fairly significant. It takes itself deadly seriously but manages to sidestep being a fantasy heartbreaker by dint of being creative with the mechanics in actual play. It makes heavy use of clocks as a mechanical construct to keep the pressure on. It wants to be relentlessly fair and open about stuff, which I appreciate. While I am *never* going to run this, I wouldn't object if someone *else* wanted to run it and invited me to play. That sounds like a good time, even if I am playing a character which is going to be dropping a single d4 whenever issues of his physical capabilities come up. Alas, a man who is not long for this fallen world. Tomorrow, [oh, frabjous day, callooh callay](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky), I get to tinker with a game from one of my favorite publishers and one who has actually had me write for them. Not on this coming product, but elsewhere. This is going to be fun but a little bit weird.