Character Creation

Tone and Setting

Aurentium is a setting of low to mid fantasy. Magic exists and matters, but it is not wallpaper — a spell cast in a tavern will turn heads, and a walking skeleton is a serious threat. The world is gritty and political and the people in it are trying to survive something that feels genuinely dangerous.

Characters are capable but not yet extraordinary. You are not legends. You might become them.

Human names follow a rough Latin-to-Germanic shift — older established families tend toward Latin (Caelius, Edwyn), frontier and highland stock toward harder Germanic sounds (Halvard, Brek, Grenn). Brythonic and Celtic roots mark ancient associations with places and the old religion (Cael Dun, Metsatark). This is flavour, not rule.

Ancestry

Humans are the dominant population and integrate most naturally into the kingdom's politics and social fabric.

Dwarves and Gnomes have a long presence in the northern ranges predating the kingdom. Respected but not fully integrated — their traditions and the Aurellionite faith coexist with varying friction.

Elves are rare. They are associated in folklore with older knowledge and a history in this land that predates the kingdom itself. An elf will be looked at twice in most places, and may carry a complicated relationship to events that humans consider ancient history.

Other ancestries exist — speak to your GM.

Classes

All classes are available. Some notes on setting fit:

Fighters, Rangers, and Rogues require no justification. The kingdom has soldiers, scouts, and survivors.

Clerics and Paladins of the Aurellionite faith or the Vesper order of Morthanos have strong in-world positioning. Clerics of foreign faiths are accommodated but may encounter friction. See Religion for domain details.

Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks are uncommon enough to attract attention. The kingdom had court mages — the kingdom is gone. Where does that leave you?

Druids with ties to the old ways or the highlands fit the frontier setting well.

Bards are well placed in a world whose founding story may be a lie — someone whose business is stories has no shortage of material.

House Rules Summary

Full detail at House Rules.

Gritty Realism — Short rest is 8 hours. Long rest is 7 days.
Lingering Injuries — Dropping to 0hp or taking a critical hit may leave a lasting injury.
Item Slots — Encumbrance tracked by slots, not weight.
Resource Usage — Consumables tracked with a degrading die.
Crunchy Crits — Maximum damage on the first die of a critical hit.
Shield-Shattering — A shield can be sacrificed to turn a critical hit into a normal hit.

Custom Backgrounds

The following backgrounds are available alongside standard options. Each follows the standard 5e structure. Work with your GM on the details — these are frameworks, not fixed histories.

Garrison Soldier

You served in the Aurentium military, most recently posted to the Grave Aegis or the highland forts. The seal breaking is your problem now whether you wanted it or not.

Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Perception
Tool Proficiencies: One type of gaming set, vehicles (land)
Equipment: A military uniform (now worn), a set of common clothes, a belt pouch containing 10gp, one trinket from a previous posting

Feature: Chain of Command
Military hierarchy is readable to you. You can generally determine the rank and rough unit of soldiers and mercenaries, and you know how to present yourself to be taken seriously within a military structure — or to pass unnoticed within one.

Suggested bonds: A soldier you served alongside. A commander you respected or resented. The fort itself, which has become the closest thing you have to home.

Vesper Pilgrim

You came to the Grave Aegis for religious reasons — to pay respects, fulfil a vow, seek guidance. You are still here. The seal broke three weeks ago and the road home no longer feels simple.

Skill Proficiencies: Religion, Insight
Tool Proficiencies: One type of artisan's tools (associated with votive craft — candles, stonework, cloth)
Equipment: A holy symbol of Morthanos, a journal of prayers or observations, a set of traveller's clothes, a belt pouch containing 8gp

Feature: Rites of Passage
You know the liturgy, customs, and significant sites of the Vesper faith. Morthanic priests will receive you as a known quantity. You are also aware of which deaths in a community deserve formal acknowledgement and how to provide it — a useful thing in times like these.

Suggested bonds: A specific vow that brought you here. Brother Cael Dun, who may know more than he says. A person you came to mourn.

Kingdom Functionary

You administered some part of the kingdom's machinery — tax collection, logistics, legal records, census-taking. The kingdom is dissolving under you. The skills remain.

Skill Proficiencies: History, Persuasion
Languages: One additional language
Equipment: A ledger or record book (partially useful, partially compromising), a set of fine clothes now showing wear, a signet ring of minor office, a belt pouch containing 12gp

Feature: Bureaucratic Memory
You know how kingdoms record things: land deeds, tax rolls, succession documents, court records. You know where such records are kept, how to read them, and — occasionally more usefully — how they can be altered or lost.

Suggested bonds: A superior who may have been corrupt. A record you found that you shouldn't have. A region or town you administered that you still feel responsible for.*

Highland Scout

You know the terrain north of the settled kingdom — the passes, the unmarked paths, the territories that the maps don't accurately represent. Something has changed up there recently, and you have been closer to it than most.

Skill Proficiencies: Survival, Stealth
Tool Proficiencies: Cartographer's tools
Equipment: A hand-drawn map of the local highlands (your own work, more accurate than anything official), a set of traveller's clothes, a hunting kit, a belt pouch containing 8gp

Feature: The Unmarked Path
You know routes through the highland terrain that are not on official maps. Given time, you can find a path between two points in the highlands that avoids roads, checkpoints, and — usually — the worst of the monster territories.

Suggested bonds: Something you saw in the north that you haven't fully reported. A route you know that nobody else does. The moment the wilds changed.

Displaced Noble

A minor family, connections to the capital, the education and the name — but no longer the power. You were in or near Auremar when things started falling apart and made a decision, or had one made for you.

Skill Proficiencies: History, Persuasion
Languages: One additional language
Equipment: A signet ring or family seal (of diminishing political value), a set of fine clothes, a letter of introduction to someone who may or may not still be alive, a belt pouch containing 15gp

Feature: The Right Rooms
You know how to be received. When dealing with nobility, merchants of standing, or political figures, you understand the social grammar well enough to gain an audience where others would be turned away — though what happens in that audience remains up to you.

Suggested bonds: A family obligation that followed you out of the city. Someone who knows something compromising about your house. What you had to leave behind.

Caravan Survivor

The trade routes are collapsing. Your caravan was hit, or stranded, or simply stopped making economic sense. You ended up at the fort because it had walls.

Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Investigation
Tool Proficiencies: Vehicles (land), one type of artisan's tools
Equipment: A detailed knowledge of one major trade route (in your head, not on paper), a set of common clothes, a hidden belt pouch containing 10gp, one trade good of modest value

Feature: Trade Tongue
You have worked across enough of the kingdom to pick up the shorthand of commerce — who buys what, what routes are currently viable, which merchants are reliable and which aren't, and how to have a conversation about value without specifying anything that could later be used against you.

Suggested bonds: Someone you travelled with who didn't make it. A debt owed or owing. What you were carrying when the road went wrong.

A Note on the Founding Artifacts

Rumour

The items Aurellion is said to have taken from the dragon's hoard — the cloak, the circlet, the blade, the horn — have not been seen by living eyes. Or so most people believe. There are stories of objects that match the descriptions turning up in strange hands, in estate sales of old families, in the collections of people who don't advertise what they own. Whether any of them are real is impossible to verify. Whether it matters if people believe they are is a different question.

If your character background involves an unusual object of apparent age and power, speak to your GM before the first session.

House Rules — Full mechanical detail
Religion — Faith and class choices
Factions — Who you might work for or against
The Grave Aegis — Your starting location