Nyonia - Player's Guide

Player's Guide

Because Nyonia is a custom campaign setting with unique history, races, nations, magic, and cultures, creating a new character for Nyonia can be challenging. We also use the Hero Game System for gaming mechanics, which requires more upfront work than creating a character in many D20 games.

Develop a player concept

The first part of the Player's Guide is intended to provide a new player with enough information about Nyonia to develop a player concept.

Character Concept

Fantasy Hero Complete (pg 11) states, "When creating a character, the first thing you need is a character concept. This is your central idea of the character you wish to play: his personality, his abilities, his history, his profession, his motivation, and so on. The clearer the character’s “profile” in your mind, the easier it will be to choose the right Game Elements to translate that character idea into Fantasy Hero. It’s also important to check with the GM about the nature of the campaign to make sure your character idea fits in."

Each player must know enough about Nyonia to fit in to create a good character concept.

Nyonia Background Material

Player characters in Nyonia can be selected from four playable races. Each race has its own culture and history. Reading about the races, cultures, and histories will help players develop a character concept.

When developing their background, it is essential to consider a character's home country and culture.

All characters in Nyonia know about the Nyonian pantheon even if they don't necessarily believe in the "Gods."

Next steps

The following steps will help create a character using the Hero Game System.

Personality - A sentence or two describing the character's personality
History - A character's history will often define the character's personality, motivations, abilities, and profession. A few paragraphs are often needed to develop a character's history truly.
Motivation - Why does the character wonder the world looking for adventure, danger, and/or risk
Abilities/Skills - Generally grows out of history and profession
Profession - Profession can be 'adventuring' occupations (bodyguard, explorer, soldier, retainer, etc.) or non-adventuring (bookkeeping, blacksmith, etc).
Magic - Nyonia is a world full of magic and wonder. In Nyonia it is possible for a character to know a few magic spells while being fully focused on another profession. It is also possible to focus entirely on magic and become an arch-mage. A detailed description of magic in Nyonia can be found here.

Examples of Character Concepts

Once this character outline has been created, it should be emailed to the GM.