In the war-ridden realm of Anhelm, occasional commoners still eke out an existence in hiding. If your ongoing game features these sad souls, these rules can be used to create them, although they should pose very little threat to a wizard (no more than an angry dog). You can even the playing field some, so check out the extra section below on adding non-magickal skills to your game. Creating Commoners (Non-Wizards)
Character creation is essentially the same as for wizards, except that you ignore the steps related to magick. You can also nix the sections on Events, unless a player decides he wants to play a commoner in a fit of insanity. The following steps do apply to the process: Concept, Name, Attributes, Derived Attributes, Description, Background, and Events (optional). Your commoner will be pretty harmless in the scheme of things, but that may be a boon. Many wizards would love to keep able hands to help out around the castle, especially able hands that do not pose a direct threat. Protection and a small retainer fee may be all that a commoner requires in exchange for his services, since Anhelm is such a dangerous place for someone without magickal abilities. Note: Focus is useless for a Commoner, since it is a magick-related attribute. Sample Commoner
Abner
Agility: 4
Speed: 12
Endurance: 9
Life Points: 27
Concentration: 2
Focus: 6
Abner is a brawny fellow, usually wearing overalls and carrying a pitchfork. He prefers to wear a straw hat when working beneath the sun and talks in a slow drone when asked questions. He likes to lift heavy things and prefers to stay out from his master’s watchful eye if it all possible. Abner remembers a better time, when he worked a small farm before the Breaking. He longs for those days, although he survived by casting his lot with the local wizard, who has turned out to be a scheming but trustworthy individual. Non-Magickal Skills
Once you add commoners to the mix, you may want to add some parity to the game. Could commoners do something wizards cannot do? Who painstakingly sews all those wizard robes anyway? Clearly, the need for skilled craftsmen becomes an issue for any wizard intent on taking over the world and collecting a fine set of china. Adding non-magickal skills is a step in that direction. These skills would cover all sorts of mundane actions that normally fall under attributes. Your commoner could have a skill in Sewing, Pottery, Stonemasonry, Sneaking, Disguise, or any other sort of knowledge. Best of all, wizards can also get non-magickal skills, although they end up spending many of their precious points on magickal skills. If you choose to add non-magickal skills to your game, all characters, commoner and wizard alike, get 50 points to divide between them (instead of 35). A wizard still must abide by the rules in the magickal skills section of character creation, but remaining points can be put into mundane skills of choice. The gamemaster and players may create a list of skills that suits their game. The skills then work as normal, adding into rolls for related actions. For example, Abner has the Lifting Things skill at 15. When he decides to lift something, the player rolls the dice and adds 15 to the action.