# Day 06: Ensemble - Ke'shunt, Mercenary Necromancer tags: #articles/CharacterCreationChallenge/2026 #game/rpg/ensemble > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2026]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] ## Game of Choice Coming out of the gate at the end of 2025, we have a game that is really just a bit of a reconstruction of another game we've talked about multiple times in the past, but it's worth putting on the table in part because the repackaging puts it more solidly in the middle of what is considered mainstream gaming, even though the actual process of play is anything but. What could it be but *[[Ensemble]]*? ![[Ensemble (cover).jpg|400]] I'm just going to deal with this up front. *Ensemble* is basically *[[Loner]]*, except with some more verbiage on how to run things as a GM and architect adventures, none of which was really necessary. While it brings up the fact that the game can be run masterless without a GM, it never actually gives any examples of doing so. And all the examples it gives are of effectively D&D-adjacent kitchen sink fantasy. So is this a necessary text? No. Actually, I think it doesn't really bring a lot to the table, aside from being a nicely formatted and attractive embodiment of the already extant *Loner* rules. So what I'm saying is, don't bother picking this up. Just go pick up the *[Loner Omnibus](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/525484/loner-omnibus)* and any of the setting books, and you're going to have more stuff in your hand than is in *Ensemble* itself. And I'm pretty sure you can figure out how to run it as a group or by picking on some poor schmuck to be the GM without anything in this text. In fact, you're going to end up with a lot more random generation tables to inspire you and help guide your oracular fallout. All that aside, let's create a character because that's what we came to do. ## Acts of Creation This is going to go kind of fast, which I for one deeply appreciate. We're going to go with the book setting of Eldoria, which is about as bog standard of fantasy as you can get, so pretty much anything will fit. It's definitely leaning into the heroic mode, for good or ill. I, of course, am not very good at heroic, so we'll see what shakes out. ### Name, Nickname, Age Right up front, we're going for the character basics. Do any of these things have mechanical weight? No, including age, which is a little bit of a departure from the last game we covered this week. | Name | Nickname | Age | | -------- | --------------- | --: | | Ke'shunt | "the Whisperer" | 43 | We haven't really decided anything about him, but you can probably pick up a few clues from the name. I'm starting to really appreciate the idea of picking your name at the end of a process when you've established elements of the character within the context of the mechanics. ### Concept Now we start to lean into one of my favorite parts about *Ensemble/Loner*, and that's that everything is literally trait-based. Open-ended, flexible, descriptive traits literally make up all of the mechanics. There aren't even quantifiers on them. So what does that mean for choosing our concept? Well, the concept effectively defines most of what our character can do. It provides narrative permission and sometimes even advantageous understanding. You know what the character can do when you start with who the character is. - **Concept:** Mercenary Necromancer Not *quite* a throwback to *[[02 - The Burning Wheel|Day 02: The Burning Wheel - Lord Eberhardt Krell, Grim-Faced Scholar-Necromancer]]*, but you can be forgiven for thinking it is. Ke'shunt is a human necromancer from the hinterlands who makes his living hiring out as "strategic and tactical support" for larger mercenary operations. There are very few in his profession, as most necromancers who can raise small armies go into business for themselves, but there's a certain comfort to letting someone else pick the targets for him. ### Skills Now we just need a couple of traits which represent direct advantages, or as the text puts it, specific skills, natural talents, or superhuman capabilities. At least one of these is kind of obvious. | Skills | Description | | -------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Military Necromancer** | Familiarity with general military operations in the field and how to integrate necromantic forces and spells into those operations, plus fair knowledge of the use of necromancy in general, though with a focus on large scale rather than personal. | | **Disputant** | Sometimes you have to haggle hard to get what you want, and sometimes it just comes down to winning an argument. | Note that neither one of them has any measurable quanta. There is no value associated with them. They simply represent an ability of the character. In play, that means that if either of these are applicable to the situation, they add a chance die representing their advantage. As an example, let's say that our good man here was engaged in a bit of haggling to work out the price of his services. If he's just trying to argue his price up with the mercenary captain, then he would get the base action die plus a chance die because he's good at haggling and arguing. If, however, he also decided to make an intimidating show of a squad of undead ominously looming behind him in order to reinforce the value he brings to the table, that would add a second chance die for a total of three dice being rolled to determine the outcome. If the mercenary captain had any qualities that would improve his position, they would cancel out the chance die on a one-to-one basis. That's it. That's our skills. ### Fraily Every character has a frailty, which is exactly what it says on the tin, a challenge or obstacle that you have to deal with. They can also add risk dice to die tests. - **Frailty:** Enjoys the Good Life I guess we know why he's not out there conquering small countries for himself. Working as a mercenary for other people is a lot less work and a lot more profitable. Do the job, take the money, blow the money, take the job. If someone wanted to make an argument based on threatening his good time, they'd probably have an advantage. If someone pitched him a deal that looked like easy money, they would also probably have an advantage. ### Motive Exactly what it says on the tin. Why does the character do what they do? What do they believe at a deep level that helps explain the life choices they've made? - **Motive:** The dead are tools just waiting to be picked up and used. Motives do more than just explain, of course. They also provide narrative hooks to challenge the character. What if they run into things that fly in the face of their motive? What if they could be wrong? What if they're proven absolutely correct? Motives are great grist for storytelling. ### Goal Like the vows in *[[Ironsworn]]*, the goals here in *Ensemble* give characters direction. They provide a structure for making decisions going forward. Effectively, they define one of the pillars that all good characters need, which is to explicitly say what they want. - **Goal:** Become a rich patron of the arts. This might seem like an unusual goal for a guy that spent his life in the field raising the dead for someone else's gold, but people can surprise you. Unusual goals can guide characters to unusual places. ### Relationships Again, like many other games that we have dealt with and undoubtedly will deal with going forward, relationships are part of character generation. In this case, the player is directed to try and have at least one relationship with another PC and one with an NPC, but we're just going to do two with NPCs because that's what we've got. | Relationship | Impact | | -------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Ryghar Alstead, Mercenary Guild Representative | Ke'shunt's long-suffering guild contact | | Lady Nesta Alstead of Xiaton, Life-Mage and Healer | Ryghar's older sister and Ke'shunt's on-again/off-again love/hate interest | Look, if we're going to give the guy a complicated life, let's really double down on giving him a complicated life. ### Gear What we don't have to put down here is the day-to-day stuff. If you can be assumed to have some gear as part of your concept or skills, you have it in order to make use of those skills. Things under gear should be stuff that tells you a little something about the character. We'll list all equipment intrinsic to the character concept, plus two pieces of additional gear. | Gear | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Necromantic Tome: The Silverwaste | | Hooded Robe of the Order of Nekros | | Lock of Lady Nesta's hair carefully tied in a ribbon and tucked into his saddlebags | | 6lbs of finely ground human bone | | Letter writing supplies, mostly depleted | I think that's a surprisingly interesting set of gear. Every good sorcerer needs their own tome of magic and a nice outfit. That six pounds of finely ground human bone is going to be fun to explain in some cities, and perhaps difficult to replenish. And what about those letter writing supplies? I'm sure that could never end with narrative situations at all. Sure, the gear could literally be things that give obvious mechanical advantage, but I think I like this subtle approach I'm going with here. ## Exunt There we go. The character is done. That's all it took. ![[06 - Ensemble - Ke'shunt, Mercenary Necromancer.webp]] Not the prettiest sheet, but it is the one we have. Frankly, you will probably get more use out of a purely text sheet in your favorite note-taking methodology so that you can make reference to bits of it, draw lines, scribble, drop stuff in the margin, etc. The more personal, the better. I will strongly advise you to [pick up *Solo RPG Notation* from the same author](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/542555/solo-ttrpg-notation) because it's a really convenient shorthand for jotting things down, whether you're doing it in a notebook or online digitally. Plus, it's free—the absolutely best price. In fairness to [*Ensemble*, it is pay what you want on DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/550068/ensemble), which means that it could also be free if that's what you want. You can access [the entire text of *Loner* and all of its setting expansions on the *Zotiquest* website](https://lonersrd.zotiquestgames.com/#/), so it too is free. You can have a lot of stuff for free, is what I'm saying. And you should. Check out all of that free stuff. Prepare yourself for tomorrow when we seriously change gears and do a little adventure wargaming.