Ex Stasis Games

For day 6 of #CharacterCreationChallenge, I’m taking a short break from apocalypse and disaster, I’m turning to Mappa Mundi, by Three Sails Studios. This is a game about ecology and exploration – about chronicling the places you visit, rather than murdering your way across a continent.

This isn’t as uncommon a perspective as some parts of the internet would say. Even games whose ruleset is focused on fighting (as opposed to Mappa Mundi, which is proudly combat-free) have woken up to giving players good reason to fight: roleplaying, as a hobby, has come a long way from storm the dungeon (or unexplored region) and loot the dead. But it’s a good and fun perspective, and I’m here for it.

Now, reading on a bit, it turns out Mappa Mundi is, in fact, a bit post-apocalyptic. At least, there have been some disasters. The regions of the world are isolated from one another, so the goal isn’t just exploration but reconnection. That’s something I shall keep in mind as I make a character.

Let’s Do This

I’m working from the quickstart, because that’s what I have in PDF and it generously contains full character creation info. I do have the boxed set sitting on a shelf, but I love a PDF for character creation. The supposedly fillable PDF isn’t, and I’m starting to think it’s a problem with my Acrobat Pro, rather than people’s character sheets, because 2/6 is a suspiciously high proportion.

It’s got a nice, one-page, step by step breakdown of character creation, which I always appreciate.

Mappa Mundi’s goes a bit further than others, which I appreciate: as well as a list, we’ve got a summary of what each step actually requires. It’s handy for getting me into the right headspace and starting to think ahead.

Step 1: Name and Description

This is actually a hard place to start, without having read a lot of setting material in advance. Such is the peril of the quickstart: I probably wouldn’t be stumbling on this if I had all ten regions in front of me, and could do a bit more reading to counter my assumptions.

Since I don’t know a lot, I’m assuming the era for this is sort of early modern (C16th-17th), just because on Earth that’s the period when exploration was, for western Europe, a whole thing.

I shall name him Athanasius Carver, and if it turns out that’s wildly unsuitable, I’ll change it. Characters in Mappa Mundi are recent graduates of the Mappa Mundi Institute, where they train as Chroniclers, but there’s nothing saying they need to be young when they enter. So Athanasius is something of a reformed character. A former guard, who protected warehouses for some merchant, who grew disillusioned with his career and his boss, and decided to do something that might actually improve the world. Early forties (like me!) with some habits – suspicion, seeing the worst in people – to unlearn, which he’s very keen to do.

Step 2: Starting Licence

There are four Licenses, equivalent to classes, that define characters’ outlook and starting skills. I’m really tempted by Guardian, a warden and protector (and not just because one of their specialisations gets an animal companion). But it’s a bit… warm and soft… for the man forming in my head, and it better reflects the life he left behind than the one he’s embarking on. Instead, I’m going to plump for Archivist, “the academics of the Mappa Mundi Institute.” Later on, he’s going to specialise as a cartographer.  

Step 3: Training

I have four dice (two D6s and two D4s) to assign to various facets of my training.

Because I’m an Archivist, Observation gets a D6 and Traversal gets a D4. I figure Athanasius is better at places than people, so the other D6 goes to Exploration and the last D4 goes to Deduction.

Step 4: Skills

I get two Observation skills, one Deduction, and one Exploration skill from the Archivist skill path.

To be brutally honest, I would appreciate some headers on this diagram: it’s easy to infer that you choose from the left and your choices unlock skills further to the right, but it’s always better to have too much information than not enough. I’d also really like the colour coding to be explained on the diagram (it’s obviously one colour per stat, but which stat?) and a link/page reference to the skill descriptions. The descriptions are only a couple of pages later, and they have the attributes attached there, but it would be great if I could more easily narrow down which skills I wanted to look at in detail.

 Anyway, I’m taking Local Knowledge and Behaviourist from Observation. Curiosity and interest in what gives places and people their character is what really got Athanasius started on this path.

From Exploration, I take Geography. Athanasius is an enthusiastic student of the natural world, interested in its shapes and formations. It’s the whole reason he wants to be a cartographer.

The last skill needs to be from Deduction, which gives me a choice of Animal Enthusiast, Folk Tradition, or Foundations (history). Easy: Folk Tradition. I’ll be needing that for my Folklorist ambitions.

Certain groups – or paths – of skills lead to specific specialisations (Cartographer) and endorsements (Folklorist), so there’s a certain amount of planning involved in character creation here. This doesn’t fully align with the way I play: if Athanasius’s motivations change based on his experiences during play, I’m worried I might struggle to get him to whatever his new destination becomes without serious re-speccing, which could take time and put me behind the other characters I’d hypothetically play alongside. I don’t know that’s a problem, but it’s a concern.

Step 5: Interactions

Athanasius’s go-to methods are Study, and Sketch. I choose Talk for my third, because I’ve seen Folklorist is available as a later career path, and I’m into it. He collects stories. Eventually he’ll know what to do with them.

That’s the lot. Job done. I’m really curious how Mappa Mundi plays, both to answer that character progression question and just… to see how I do in a game where combat is fully off the cards. Fortunately, it’s got a solo mode, so I might actually give it a try.