Character Creation

In Apprentices, character creation is the Getting Started beat: who you are and how you plan to survive the gruelling, cutthroat Academy. Pick a playbook, set attributes, and get ready for the first session.

What is a Mage?

The Gift

Not everyone can use magic. The ability to sense, draw upon, and shape Mana is an innate biological trait: you either have it or you don't. Roughly one in every twenty people is born with a mana reservoir large enough to cast even the simplest spell. Of those, only a fraction ever receive the rigorous training required to become a true mage. Your character is one of those rare few who both possesses the gift and has secured a place at a prestigious academy.

Mages in Society

The role of mages has changed dramatically in recent decades.

  • The Old World: For millennia, magic was the exclusive weapon of the Noble Houses. Techniques were jealously guarded bloodline secrets, and a single trained battlemage could rout an entire regiment of mundane soldiers. Mages were the aristocracy, and the aristocracy were mages.
  • The Fall: Recent Great Wars and magical plagues shattered that old order. The magical elite broke almost overnight as mundane counter-measures advanced and noble bloodlines were wiped out.
  • The New World: Desperate for fresh mages to fill their decimated ranks, governments established massive, state-funded Academies that actively recruit talented commoners. Magic is being democratized. Your character is a product of this new era, possibly the first mage in their entire family line, sitting in a classroom next to the spoiled heir of a dying Noble House.

Archmage

Above ordinary mages stand the Archmage: mages who have mastered multiple fields well enough to rival or surpass a dedicated specialist in each. No institution grants the title. It is earned purely through reputation. Your character is, needless to say, very far from this level.

How Do People See Mages?

The answer depends entirely on who you ask:

Commoners hold a mix of hope and suspicion. Academy graduates earn excellent wages, but a mage who snaps could burn down a city block. Many parents dream of their child testing positive for the gift.

The Nobility are resentful and threatened. The old Houses see commoner mages as thieves stealing their birthright. They still hold immense political power and will use it to remind "new money" mages of their place.

The Military treats trained mages as invaluable assets — strategic weapons of the state. Generous scholarships often come with mandatory military service clauses buried in the fine print.

The Church is watchful and wary. It holds the sole legal authority over Soul Magic and Necromancy. Any mage who dabbles in forbidden arts will find Templars at their door.

Criminals see magical talent as a goldmine. Smuggling rings, assassin guilds, and underground fighting pits prize it highly. A desperate student drowning in debt is an easy recruit.

Career Paths for a Mage

The Academy teaches you magic and certifies you for a profession. Common career paths after graduation include:

  • Government Mage: Employed directly by the Crown for civil engineering, military service, law enforcement, or bureaucratic spellwork. Stable pay, mandatory loyalty oaths.
  • Guild Specialist: Joining a merchant or crafter guild as a specialist, enchanting goods, refining alchemical products, or providing medical magic. Lucrative but competitive.
  • Dungeon Delver: Venturing into the Dungeon to harvest magical materials, slay dangerous creatures, and retrieve ancient artifacts. Extremely dangerous, extremely profitable.
  • Private Tutor / Researcher: Serving a Noble House as a personal mage or pursuing independent arcane research. High status, but you are at the mercy of your patron's patron.
  • Freelance / Mercenary: Operating independently. The riskiest path, but the most free.

The Dangers

Being a mage is not glamorous. It is dangerous:

  • Mana: Push your body beyond its limits and your own mana will tear you apart from the inside, triggering Exhaustion.
  • Mana Strain: The soul is not invincible. Overuse of certain magics or tampering with forces beyond your understanding can permanently scar it.
  • Sanity: The things you will see in the Dungeon and the moral compromises you may be forced to make all take a psychological toll.
  • Politics: The Noble Houses, the Church, the military, and the criminal underworld all want a piece of you. Staying neutral is nearly impossible.

[!IMPORTANT] You Are Not a Hero (Yet)

Your character is a second-year student. You are not a legendary archmage. You struggle with homework, you can fill your Mana Track casting one good spell under pressure, and you probably can't afford a proper lunch. The world is vast, terrifying, and does not care about your potential. That is what makes this interesting.

Follow these steps to build your Academy student.

Step 1: Choose a Playbook

A Playbook is your complete character package, your class. It carries your attributes, your starting magic schools, your signature move, your origins, your gear, and your advancement identity. Pick the one that sounds like you, then everything else is already decided.

[!TIP] Motivation

After choosing your playbook, write down a one-sentence motivation — why is your character at the Academy? Are they fulfilling a family obligation? Chasing forbidden knowledge? Running from something?

Step 2: Choose an Origin

Inside your playbook, pick 1 Origin from the table. Your origin is your past — where you come from, the social standing you carry, and the obligations that follow you. Each origin grants a Connection: a person, organization, or access you can leverage during play (noted per origin, e.g. 1/session or 1/arc).

Step 3: Choose Your Playbook Moves

Your playbook grants a Signature Move automatically, and you always have it. Then choose 2 of the 6 listed Playbook Moves. These are your repeatable spotlight mechanics: fictional triggers, always written as "when you...".

(As you grow, you will be able to take Moves from other sources, including learning them from teachers.)

Step 4: Academy & Derived Stats

  • Choose 1 Mentor Professor: Pick exactly 1 Professor to be your mentor.
  • Choose 2 Academy Majors: These dictate your afternoon classes and available resources.
  • Physical Health: You have a track of 7 Boxes. Earning wounds inflicts narrative complications and ongoing penalties on physical rolls.
  • Soul Integrity & Sanity: Each has 10 Boxes.
  • Calculation comfort: Calculation. This is your comfort limit for concurrent tags. Exceeding it means you are Pushing the Matrix and invites hard 7-9 choices.
  • Ready Glyphs: At scene start, mark 2 + highest of (Calculation, Memory) glyph architectures as ready. Using known but non-ready glyphs in tense scenes adds one extra mixed-result pressure.
  • Downtime Codification: Keep a list of unstable but promising formulas. Between scenes, use Research Matrix and progression learning tools to stabilize them.

[!NOTE] Your playbook already decided your attributes and schools

Your stat array (sum +4) and your starting school dots come pre-set in your playbook, including your starting Spell Formula (1 per core school dot). No point-spending, no math — your playbook IS your build.