Character Creation in Wyrdwood

Creating a character in Wyrdwood is about bringing a real person into a living world, not selecting a class or locking yourself into a predefined role.

There are no classes in Wyrdwood. Characters are not built around rigid archetypes or fixed advancement paths. Instead, your character grows naturally over time — shaped by their experiences, choices, successes, and failures.

You might begin as a militia volunteer, later learn the craft of alchemy, discover a talent for gardening, and eventually take up the axe again when circumstances demand it. That path is valid. So is changing direction, retraining, or blending disciplines in unexpected ways. Wyrdwood characters are meant to feel like people, not stereotypes.

Character creation is optional.

Members who choose not to create a personal character may still take part in immersive play by assuming the role of a non-player character (NPC) when entering in-character areas of the site or setting. NPC roles exist purely to support immersion and storytelling and are not persistent. An NPC may be injured, captured, or killed as part of the narrative, without affecting the player’s ability to continue participating as another NPC.

This requirement applies only within designated in-character areas. Members who do not wish to engage with immersive roleplay at all — such as wargamers, CCG players, or other non-immersive participants — may freely participate in Wyrdwood without ever creating or portraying a character.

This page explains the character creation process, what is required to create a character, and how characters are reviewed and approved. Detailed rules for skills, combat, magic, and advancement are covered on separate pages.

Eligibility & Character Limits

Any Wyrdwood member may create a character if they wish. Character creation is optional and not required for participation in Wyrdwood.
Each member may have one primary active character at a time. This helps ensure clarity, balance, and consistency within the setting.

Characters are created in a draft state and become active once approved. Approval ensures that characters fit the tone, setting, and world of Wyrdwood and allows staff to resolve any conflicts or adjustments before play begins.

Members may revise or update their character over time, subject to review, as their character grows and changes within the world.

Character Backgrounds

When creating a character, you will select a background that represents who your character was before arriving in Wyrdwood.

Backgrounds exist to provide narrative grounding, not to define rigid roles or grant automatic advantages. They help establish your character’s past — their upbringing, trade, experiences, or former way of life — and explain why they possess certain skills, knowledge, or perspectives.

Wyrdwood provides a wide range of starting backgrounds, covering martial, civilian, rural, urban, scholarly, spiritual, and unconventional paths. These are not classes and do not lock your character into a specific future. A background simply describes where your character came from, not where they must go.

Some backgrounds may suggest appropriate starting skills, equipment, or resources. However, backgrounds do not guarantee any specific mechanical benefits by default. Any starting skills, equipment, or other considerations are determined during character review, based on:

– The clarity and depth of your character concept
– Consistency with the setting
– Overall balance and fairness

Players may also select “Other (Requires Explanation)” to propose a custom background or choose from the expanded background list.
Custom backgrounds must be clearly described and may require additional review or adjustment before approval.

Core Stats

Every character in Wyrdwood is defined by a set of core stats that represent their natural aptitudes, strengths, and limitations.

Stats are shared across both live-action play and tabletop (TTRPG) use. A character’s stats mean the same thing whether you are acting in-character, participating in an immersive event, or using the Wyrdwood ruleset in a tabletop format.

Stats are not classes or roles. They describe how your character approaches the world — physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually — and they can change over time as your character grows, suffers setbacks, or is altered by events within the world.

Starting Stats

When creating a character, players receive 60 points to distribute across the seven core stats.

– Each stat has a minimum value of 4
– Each stat has a maximum starting value of 18
– There is no required or “correct” distribution

These limits are intentional. Characters are meant to feel human — capable, flawed, and shaped by trade-offs rather than perfection.

Stat Growth & Change

Stats are not fixed.

Over the course of play, stats may increase or decrease due to:

– Training and long-term practice
– Injury or lasting physical harm
– Magical effects or supernatural influence
– Certain attacks, events, or narrative consequences

A character might grow stronger through years of labor, lose resilience after a severe injury, or gain spirit through ritual and belief. Likewise, recovery and retraining are possible, though never guaranteed.

Live Action & TTRPG Translation

For tabletop use, stats translate directly into percentage-based checks:

Each stat point equals 5%
Example:
Might 10 = 50%
Precision 14 = 70%

This ensures consistency between live play and tabletop sessions, allowing characters to function seamlessly in both formats.

The Seven Core Stats

Might — Physical strength, power, and raw force
Precision — Accuracy, dexterity, and fine control
Resilience — Endurance, toughness, and resistance
Resolve — Willpower, courage, and leadership
Cunning — Awareness, cleverness, and adaptability
Intellect — Knowledge, reasoning, and technical skill
Spirit — Intuition, presence, and connection to the unseen

Strong characters may be fragile. Clever characters may lack resolve. Well-rounded characters may never excel in a single area. These trade-offs are intentional and help ensure characters feel like people, not optimized builds.

Skills & Starting Focus

Skills represent what your character knows how to do — abilities learned through experience, training, and lived circumstances.

While stats describe natural aptitudes, skills reflect applied knowledge. A strong character is not automatically a capable fighter, and a clever character is not automatically skilled. Skills must be justified through your character’s background and concept.

Starting Skill Focus

When creating a character, players select a starting skill focus to indicate where their character’s experience is concentrated.

Skills are divided into three focus levels:

Primary Skills — Core competencies central to your character’s life and experience
Secondary Skills — Supporting abilities or closely related knowledge
Tertiary Skills — Minor training, familiarity, or limited exposure

This structure exists to help staff interpret and support your character concept, not to rigidly limit it.

Concept Depth Matters

Starting skill allocation is not automatic and is not based solely on the number of skills selected.

Instead, staff review your chosen skill focus alongside:

– Your character’s background
– The clarity of their history and experiences
– The depth and consistency of the concept

A well-developed character with a clear, grounded history may begin play with more starting skills than a vague or undeveloped concept.

For example:

“I’m a fighter. I fight things.”

Versus:

“I served in the militia of a small border village near the Heartland Plains. We spent most of our lives responding to goblin raids and bandit incursions. Training was informal but constant, and survival depended on learning quickly, watching each other’s backs, and adapting to whatever came over the hills.”

The second example provides staff with context, justification, and narrative hooks — allowing your character to begin play feeling more complete and believable.

Quality Over Optimization

Wyrdwood values depth, clarity, and imagination over mechanical optimisation. There is no advantage to writing the “perfect build,” but there is value in creating a character who feels real and grounded in the world.

Detailed skill lists, progression rules, and mechanical effects are explained on the Skills pages.

Character Submission & Approval

Once your character has been created and submitted, it enters a draft state for review.

Character review exists to ensure that characters:

– Fit the tone and setting of Wyrdwood
– Are internally consistent and believable
– Feel fair and appropriate alongside other characters

This process is collaborative, not adversarial. Staff may ask questions, suggest adjustments, or help refine aspects of your character to better support your concept. The goal is always to help your character feel complete, grounded, and ready to exist within the world.

Once approved, your character becomes active and may be used within designated in-character areas and immersive play.

Characters are not static. As your character grows, changes direction, suffers injury, retrains, or experiences major events, updates and revisions may be made over time through the same review process.

A Note on Systems & Future Development

Character creation in Wyrdwood is currently a manual, staff-assisted process. Characters are submitted using forms and reviewed individually to ensure quality, fairness, and consistency within the world.

This approach is intentional at this stage. It allows us to focus resources on building the setting, events, and experiences themselves, rather than locking early development into complex tooling.

As Wyrdwood grows, we intend to expand toward a more automated character system, including:

– Easier character creation and updates
– Clearer tracking of progression and changes
– Streamlined administrative review
– Better support for campaign actions and outcomes

These systems will be developed as the project matures and resources allow. Until then, manual character creation ensures flexibility, collaboration, and a strong narrative foundation for every character.