Basic Concept
Alex Riker is my first attempt at creating a character for Hunter: the Reckoning. I was intrigued by the idea of the Imbuing – the character leads a perfectly normal life, until one day he witnesses some mind boggling event, and the curtain of deception is torn from his eyes so that he can see reality as it really is.
I decided to play around a bit with that concept and make my hunter a delusional drug addict, who has a hard time distinguishing between what’s real and what’s not anyway. I’ll have Alex witness a drug deal, and suddenly be imbued, seeing the drug dealer for the undead monstrosity he is. He grabs a crowbar and beat the drug-dealer to death, and then pass out. When he awakens, he is sure he killed a man while under the hallucinogenic influence of drugs, and only later comprehend what he actually did and what he’d actually become.
From his imbuing, Alex seems to be an Avenger, which means his Primary Virtue would be Zeal and his Starting Conviction would be 3. Even though Alex seems to be an Addict, he is slowly breaking free from the monkey on his back. The truth is that Alex is a Survivor in nature – he broke his addiction, and he will let nothing and no one bring him down. I’ll record these decisions on his Character Sheet.
Attributes
Now, we should determine Alex’s Attributes. As noted, Alex has broken his drug addiction, but just recently, so I won’t give him Physical Attributes as his primary attributes, but only as secondary. I decide his primary attributes should be Social, since he is very good at scamming for drugs and money, and leave his Mental abilities as tertiary.
I have six points to allocate to Social Attributes. I decide I want Alex to be quite good at conning people, so I’ll put three points into his Manipulation score (giving him a total of four points), two to his Charisma score, and one to his Appearance.
Now for his secondary attributes – the Physical category, which I have four points to play with. Keeping in mind Alex’s probably violent background, I want to make him a decent fighter and allocate two points (in addition to the one he gets free) to his Strength and Dexterity scores. This leaves me with no points to add to his Stamina, which is fine with me – being a drug addict for so long probably didn’t help Alex stay in shape.
I don’t have any special preferences for his Mental Attributes, so I’ll just distribute them evenly – one point to each attribute. Perhaps I’ll use some freebie points to increase his Wits later, but I’m not sure yet.
Abilities
It’s now time to choose Alex’s Abilities. As a successful graduate of the school of hard knocks, most of Alex’s abilities are probably self-taught Talents, so those should be his primary abilities. I doubt his life style left him with many opportunities for formal education, so Knowledge would be his tertiary. This leave Skills to be his secondary.
Starting out with talents, I’ll give Alex all the abilities he’d need to survive on the streets – Alertness 2, Brawl 2, Dodge 2, Intuition 1, Streetwise 3 and Subterfuge 1. I may want higher scores in Brawl, Dodge and Subterfuge, and perhaps a point or two in Intuition and Awareness, but they will have to wait for freebie points.
For Skills, I’ll distribute the seven points to give Alex the Skills most useful for his lifestyle – Drive 1, Firearms 1, Melee 1, Security 2 and Stealth 2,
I’ll use the four points of Knowledge I have to round out Alex’s character and give him some knowledge he picked up on the way, mostly from being arrested – Finance 1, Investigation 1, Law 1 and Medicine 1.
Advantages
It’s now time to flesh Alex out a bit with some Advantages.
Backgrounds are the toughest to find for a character like Alex, who should have nothing. So, I decide that all his backgrounds should be people he knows – one Bystander (the girl he saved from the undead drug-dealer when he was imbued), one Ally (a detective in the Narcotics department he worked as an informant for), and three contacts (a pusher, a fence and semi-minor figure in the local mafia).
Thinking back on Alex’s background story, I decide to put all three of his virtue dots in Zeal. I don’t see him as bright enough to have any dots in Vision and Mercy simply doesn’t fit his character.
For Edges, I have three points of Zeal to allocate. I’ll start with Cleave (from the Vengeance path) which Alex used to strike down the drug-dealer during his imbuing, and Discern (from the Judgment path) which his probably used to see the monster to begin with. Since he has I bystander relying on him, I think it’s plausible to give him the Ward edge (from the Defense path) to protect her.
Finishing Touches
Alex’s starting Conviction is 3 (since he’s an Avenger) and his starting Willpower is also 3 (just like everybody else’s). I vision him as a highly determined young man who has suddenly found a direction in his previously empty life, so I’ll use freebie points to raise his conviction to 5 and his willpower to 7, and record them in the appropriate place.
This leave me with 15 freebie points. First of all, I’ll buy that extra point of Wits I wanted earlier. I then decide to raise his Subterfuge and his Intuition to 2. All of this leaves me with 6 freebie points. On second thought, I decide a higher perception goes well with the Discern Edge, and raise it to 3 too. I use the final freebie point I have to buy another point of Willpower. I want Alex to be very determined.
The last thing in order is to record Alex’s specialties. He only has one trait as high as four points – Manipulation. He strikes me as a Silver-Tongued con-man, so I record in his Attributes section.
Now all there’s left to do is record Alex’s background, personality and appearance in an orderly fashion, and we’re done.