Hey Game Fans, today we’re going to make another character for Exalted 3rd Edition. You all voted on Twitter for this one, so today we’re going to take a crack at making a Merchant Princess type of characters. Now we’ve had a little more practice at this, so we’re going to omit some of the explanations along the way. If you want a step by step breakdown of the hows, check out our articles on Rey, which you can find here, here, and here. This is after 3 solid reads of the relevant chapters and digging into the nuts and bolts of everything. So let’s dig into this article and get things started. If you’re curious what we’re talking about and don’t know what Exalted is, check out our First Looks article Here.
Step 1: Caste and Concept
So we started with an idea of a character that would fit with this setting, and in an easy sentence, that character is “A master merchant who can’t seem to keep track of her own wealth, but is a boon to the people she trades with” This puts together the basic concept of what the character is and what his goal for life is. We’re going to be putting in a lot more work on the backstory for this character than we typically would for a D & D character because the setting for Exalted is big enough to tell Mythic stories with big ideas and ambitions. Expect a longer backstory and character bio for this character because of the setting and it’s depths.
The Capsule bio for this character is “Exiled from Chiarascuro for a series of trades that went poorly, Allana is a well respected trader who spends her time as an advisor to rulers across the South. Actively courted by the Guild, she works with them on a case by case basis, floating where her talents shine. She spends her free time trying to figure out how to break the curse that saps her personal wealth. She accepts no payments for her services, but loves gifts.”
Some notes:
Allana is Twilight Caste, with a concept of Merchant Princess
Step 2: Attributes
Allana is an interesting character to put together and i personally think she favors her mental attributes, uses her social attributes to get by, and doesn’t prioritize her physical attributes. You could make the argument to go social over mental and that’s an equally valid choice. I’m going to put her together using Mental as Primary, Social as Secondary, and Physical as Tertiary.
We think the best way to run Physical is to assign 1 dot to Strength, 2 dots to Dexterity, and 1 dots to Stamina. This gives us 2 Strength, 3 Dexterity, and 2 Stamina (remember we get a free point in each attribute). Social attributes are pretty straightforward. Allana isn’t built as a superbly social character, but she does have 2 dots in Charisma, Manipulation, and Appearance. That gives her 3 Charisma, 3 Appearance, and 3 Manipulation. Mental attributes are where she shines, and assign 3 dots to Perception and Wits, and 2 dots to Intelligence. This puts her at 4 dots in Perception and Wits, and 3 dots in Intelligence.
Step 3 Abilities
Some Notes:
Allana has selected Bureaucracy, Craft, Investigation, Lore, Occult, and Craft as her Caste Abilities. In addition, she picks up Archery, Integrity, Linguistics, Presence, and Socialize as her other favored abilities. This gives us a character that’s skilled in identifying goods of value, working the system to her advantage and capable of advising others.
She chooses Bureaucracy as her Supernal Ability.
Step 3 Continued
Now that I’ve identified our favored abilities and Supernal ability, it’s time to start spending some points.
Notes:
So I’ve got 28 dots to spend. We’re going to assign 3 dots to Craft (Cooking) and 3 dots to Craft (Artifacts), and 3 dots to Craft (Geomancy). I assign 3 dots to Bureaucracy, 2 dots to Archery, 2 dots to Lore, 2 dots to Occult, 2 dots to Linguistics, 2 dots to Presence, 2 dots to Socialize, 2 Dots to Integrity and 2 dots to Investigation.
For Specialties, I select Keeping Secrets for Integrity, Mercantile for Bureaucracy, Business for Socialize, and Exotic Goods for Investigation.
Errata #1: After looking at the character, i went back and redistributed dots away from Craft Artifacts and Geomancy into other abilities that i liked better. This increased Lore to 3, Occult to 3, Investigation to 3, Presence, Socialize and Integrity also went to 3.
Step 4: Merits
Allana has an interesting smattering of Merits. Her job basically requires her to have friends and allies everywhere, so I’m going to spend 3 points for Allies, picking separate allies at 1 point each. I’ll give them separate names when i write them down, but for now they’re just points on the sheet. I’ll spend 4 more points to pick up Backing, Guild Factor. She doesn’t have a territory of her own and represents an interesting conundrum for the higher ups. For 2 more points i’m going to pick up Eidetic Memory, which seems very useful for a character who spends their days calculating the value of various things. We’re going to spend our last point on Followers, representing her personal minions and merchant assistants. (We’re also tacking down a bunch of notes for other things to spend bonus points on, including contacts, influence, possibly a manse, Language, and Resources with an asterisk)
She also has a Flaw, Cursed. Her Curse manifests whenever she tries to make wealth or money for herself, and when she attempts to perform a job or a task she is paid for, the job somehow never works out right, and is often sabotaged with spectacular results, like the fireworks factory she was attempting to work at in Chiroscauro that exploded and led to her banishment from her home. It also applies to things she herself purchases for herself, and that leads to items breaking, food souring and a host of other calamities.
Step 5: Charms
Most of Allana’s charms are focused on her mercantile skills, but she is eventually going to want to start crafting at some point. .
Craftsman Needs No Tools
Frugal Merchant Method
Insightful Buyer Technique
Consumer’s Evaluating Glance
All-Seeing Master Procurer
Illimitable Master Fence
Deft Official’s Way
Enlightened Discourse Method
Irresistible Salesman Spirit
Uncovered Market Awareness
Semantic Argument Technique
Empowered Barter Stance
Harmonious Presence Meditation
Wise Arrow
Soul Snaring Pitch
Note: We forgot Soul Snaring Pitch, and that takes the place of Stubborn Boar Defense.
Note: We forgot Soul Snaring Pitch, and that takes the place of Stubborn Boar Defense.
Step 6: Intimacies and Limit Trigger
Well, Allana has been built with a couple of ideas in mind. The first one of her Intimacies is a Principle “Commerce drives Enlightenment.” She believes this with a strength and passion that gets her out of bed every morning to scour the world for markets to manipulate and she honestly believes that economic power is what will eventually destroy the realm.. It’s a defining trait for her. Her other principle is “A Favor banked is A Favor earned.” She happily does things for other people and trades heavily in favors as much as she does material goods. However, if she does a favor for someone, she will expect a commensurate favor in return at some point.
Her ties are a little easier to work out. One of her ties is to The Guild, whom she owes loyalty through an accumulated bank of favors given and traded. The Guild has been very good to her over the years and she has risen to a fairly high rank within the organization. Her other tie is animosity towards Chiroscauro. She has never forgotten (nor forgiven) city for her exile in disgrace. She slights them at every opportunity and works very hard to make sure they are on the losing end of any trade deals she has a hand in.
Allana’s Limit Trigger is being denied the opportunity to play the market. It’s a vice for her that she loves with reckless abandon and things that get in the way of her fun tend to piss her off with violent results, or it stokes her greed to the point where she bets the house and usually wins.
Step 7: Bonus Points
We have to spend some points for a couple of things. First we have to spend 2 points to raise Bureaucracy to 5 to get all of our Charms. Most of the rest of our points are going to Merits and other background elements. Contacts 5, Resources 4, Influence 3, and Languages 1 (Guild Cant) rounds out the rest of our points.
Step 8: Finishing Touches
Background
Allana is originally from a lower classed family in the city of Chiroscauro, who carry a family curse related to dirtying one’s hands. The family’s dire financial straits forced her to try to enter the workforce, which turned out to be a disaster when her curse activated inside a fireworks factory. Banished on pain of death, she ended up indentured to a guild trader on her way out of town. She spent the next 10 years of her life studying the guild and learning from her teacher. Her Exaltation came as quite the shock to her, but she had gotten very good at keeping secrets. Her newfound abilities were noticed by the Guild who slowly moved her into a position where she could move from place to place very easily if needed and put her talents to work for the Guild.
Appearance
Allana is a tall woman with short curly red hair and fair skin. Soft green eyes study the world around her with curiosity but a sharp edge. She dresses in brightly colored robes and jewelry. She is usually accomponied by one of her allies, and if she’s in the same circle as Rey, she spends a great deal of her time in the company of the giant, who does an effective job of keeping her safe from any foolishness.
Role
If we play this character as part of a circle, this is the character who like provides the resources and information for the rest of the party. Not a serious combatant by any stretch of the imagination, Allana’s strength is making sure that the rest of her companions have the resources they need to do their various things.
We’re going to post a link to take a look at the character sheet for Allana later this week once we’ve put all the charms in. We used a Form Fillable Exalted 3e character sheet that we think we found on Reddit. We’re also going to provide a link to that Here, but claim no ownership or creation of it. . Game On, Game Fans.
Her Finished Character Sheet is Here
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