# Day 04: Bloodstone - Rodrigo Salamanci, Hunter-Priest tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2026 #game/rpg/bloodstone > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2026]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] ## Game of Choice You really liked *Dark Souls*. In fact, the Souls-like genre of video games was your absolute favorite. Or maybe you're just really into extremely short-form RPGs—the kind where the rules fit on less than a single page. Well, brother, do I have a game for you. ![[Bloodstone GM (cover).jpg|200]] ![[Bloodstone PC (cover).jpg|200]] Technically, I lied. *[[Bloodstone]]* comes on two 8.5x11 sheets, one of which is intended for the GM and one for the player. Moreover, they're intended to be folded pamphlet style, trifold, which means each column has a fairly and surprisingly generous amount of white space to allow for that formatting. [Right now you can pick it up off itch.io for $2](https://matteosciutteri.itch.io/bloodstone), but the author generously puts free copies into the community pile on a regular basis, so if you can't afford even that much, there's a good chance you can still get one. And if you don't have a copy of *Bloodstone*, you absolutely should pick one up. Mechanically, *Bloodstone* is of the *[[Blades in the Dark|Forged in the Dark]]* lineage. That means that the resolution mechanics are based on pools of d6s, and successes come with rolling the highest die in the pool as a 6. Complications come from fives and fours, and failures come from one through three. Did you roll multiple sixes? Congratulations, you have a critical success. ![[Bloodstone Die Chart (illo).webp]] The GM is effectively given a three-act structure to take the players through, and pacing is handled through filling clocks. All of this is tucked into a couple of pamphlet fold sheets. It's really quite impressive. Let's talk about the setup real quick because it's important. Being just a single pamphlet-sized game, it's extremely straightforward. In fact, if you've ever seen the game *Bloodborne*, you already have an intuitive grasp of what you're likely to be doing.  Effectively, the Blood Moon has risen and the damned city of *Hellweir* has descended into violence and savagery. The population has, for the most part, gone mad and rampaged in the streets with torches and pitchforks, looking for people to kill, torture, and then eat. There's probably some rape going on in there too. A few of them managed to keep their minds and lock themselves away, horrified by being abandoned by the gods. There's always an acolyte, an apostle, who is attempting to ascend by opening a gateway to the realm of the ancients using bestial, horrific means. And that's the target of the operation. The PCs are hunters who have to go into the city, make their way through it, fight their way to the cathedral, and take out the Apostle of the Ancients. That's it. That's the story. It's a race against time. The thing is designed for one-shots. It's good to go. Frankly, it seems like the sort of thing you could play between other games if someone doesn't show up. But damn if this wouldn't be a great thing to print up several copies of and take to a convention and just run session after session with different players having a good time. It's that kind of game. ## Acts of Creation As you can imagine, character generation is a quick and easy affair. Really, it's just a series of questions and simple decisions. Quite frankly, I'm thrilled by that fact because I've done enough complex character generation so far. This one's going to be fast. ### Who Were You Once? I don't want to give away the actual text of this, considering it's so short, but also because it's extremely evocative given the space that it has. First up, we have to determine who we were before we were a hunter, and there's a list of five origins, each of which has a signature ability that goes with it. We had a **troubled childhood**, which means that our signature ability is that **we always know when someone is lying**. The implications of that decision will be left to your imagination. ### What Do You Remember? We have a visceral memory that defines who we are and incidentally defines what our stats are set to. The three stats are Prowess, Resolve, and Wit, and they effectively get set to one dot, two dots, or three dots. They are not being particularly coy with the definition of the stats. They do exactly what you think they would. I can't resist, so I am going to choose, **"a forbidden place, candles on the floor, the gurgling of a being lying in the darkness, the cries behind you, and the sound of devoured brittle bones."** This gives us initial stats of **Prowess 1, Resolve 3, and Wit 2**. Clearly not a great fighter, but smart enough to get out of there. ### What Type Are Your Clothes? Needless to say, we wake up from our dream. Yes, there was a dream. We have to figure out what our clothes were, which actually is effectively picking our playbook in the classic *Forged in the Dark* style. Being somewhat predictable, I'm going to take **Priest**, which lets us **avoid Occult Consequence**. Consequence is very much what you would expect from an *FitD* game. It's what you get when you don't roll a success and you don't roll a failure. Something gets complicated. ### What Is Your Name? And then things kick off with us determining what our name is. I find it interesting that this is another game in which picking your name is one of the last things you do after determining your history and what you do. We'll be **Rodrigo Salamanci**. Why, you might ask? I'm not exactly sure. There's just something about the feel of *Bloodstone* that gives me that vaguely Italian mode of thought. All right, it might be because the author is Italian. Yes, this is another one of those international RPGs that I stumble into once in a while and marvel at how good they are. ### What Are Your Weapons? Every hunter has a trick weapon and a gun. The trick weapon is silvered and will do damage to pretty much everything, and it has two modes: its base mode and an alternate form. Plus, you can imbue the weapon with your own blood to get extra dice. The firearm is used to parry attacks or stun enemies. Don't ask me how you parry with a firearm—I can imagine how it happens with a rifle, but now I'm imagining how to parry with a pistol, and I'm going to say it just makes me smile. I'll accept that. Our trick weapon is going to be a **Cleaver** (again, we can choose from three). The alternate form is a **Saw Spear**, which gives us **+Effect versus beasts**. Since the idea made me laugh, I'm going to choose **Pistol** as our firearm, which gives us a **parry of 4+** and a **stun of 6+**. ### Oath of Hunter All that remains is to recite the *Oath of Hunter*. > We were born wrapped in darkness, covered in blood. > But the light touched us, and now our eyes are open. > The Hunt is our way, the Hunt is our purpose. I enjoy these little game ritual bits once in a while because they really do fit with the generation method, which I don't think I've spoiled, and they provide a sort of commonality across games. ## Exunt That's it. That's character creation. You can probably do it with an entirely new group who's never picked up the game before in under 15 minutes. Possibly under 10 if you talk fast and they're bright. Another 3 or 4 minutes of essentially explaining the rules, and you're out the door. You're done. You're ready to hop on the coach, take it to the front door of Hellwyr, and start dealing with horrific madness. ![[04 - Bloodstone - Rodrigo Salamanci, Hunter-Priest.webp]] On the character page is a list of special actions that you can do, which really are just a list of the actions you can do since they include pushing an action roll, resisting consequences, using armor, and etc. It's a very straightforward system that focuses on doing what it does and doing it well. Is it worth $2? Hell, this is one of those rare occasions I'll say that it's worth $5. If you are the kind of person that enjoys the Souls-like theme, then it's probably worth even more than that to you. If you're looking for just a game to pick up and play once in a while with your buddies, this is up there as a great choice. In fact, this game is so lightweight and so well put together, even I, someone who has sworn off GMing forever, would be willing to run a couple of games of it, and that's saying a lot. One last thing. Despite the fact, or perhaps because of the fact, that this is just a single-page—or four-page, technically—RPG, the layout and color is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to have a physical version of this game just to carry around. There is no art other than the icon on the cover. All of it is in layout, color, and font choice. Gorgeous. I wish more people would pay attention to this kind of work. Absolutely delicious. Tomorrow, we jump into another kind of game entirely. One which doesn't start with some of the basic assumptions of the classic, traditional RPG setup. I hope you'll join me for it.