Creating a character in Moonrise involves the following steps:

1. Choose a Class from the following:
   1. Warrior - Combatants who push themselves beyond their limits
   2. Priest - Worshippers who empower allies with blessings from their god
   3. Creator - Tinkerers who build devices to aid them
   4. Doctor - Medics who administer medicines to heal and buff
   5. Spirit Guide - Mystics who guide others on Vision Quests
   6. Mage - Scholars who manipulate reality with strange new powers
2. Determine the character’s Soul Shape (see below).
3. Choose initial level 1 skills from the General Skills and those of their class.
   1. A starting character has 5 skill points and may have any amount of additional XP added from monstering.
   2. A starting character also gets the Combat Proficiency skill for free (though may choose not to have it in order to have one other skill instead).
4. Choose a nation of origin, by default most characters will come from one of the three nations of Falgarias:
   1. Faltur - A kingdom with a ruling class of nobles
   2. Gari - A state that works towards the greater good
   3. Illiask - A collective where favour and influence are everything
   4. Note that although the three have merged into Falgarias as it stands, it remains common for people from these nations to have no dealings with or knowledge of life in the nations they don't come from
   5. More widely, it is common for the average member of one of the Myriad Nations to be only loosely aware of wider goings on or the cultures of the other Nations
   6. If none of these or the other nations suit, players may approach the LARPOs with a vague concept of a more distant nation and if approved can write a description that nation and have their character come from there
   7. At game start all PCs must originate from the Myriad Nations, most notably surviving Ennarian Colonists are not initially playable
5. Choose a name. See your chosen nation's description for their typical naming conventions.
6. Optionally, do some or all of the following:
   1. Choose which Genus your character is (the default is Human).
   2. Choose an organisation from your nation of origin; you start with 6 Favour with that organisation representing a previous working relationship pre-enlightenment
      1. If no organisations you think your character would work with have yet been written up talk to the LARPOs about the concept and you will probably be able to write up an appropriate organisation
      2. If you are writing up a new organisation who's reach does not touch any part of Falgarias or its immediate neighbours the LARPOs will probably give you additional starting Favour with them as some form of ambassador (although admittedly using their Favour will be more difficult on the average adventure)
   3. Work out your character's religious affinities

Individual souls also have a shape/nature which can determine some overarching detail of a character and provides a wide-reaching effect of some sort. These can be thought of as “playstyles”. All characters must choose a Primary Soul Shape which will to a degree define the way in which they play. Characters may have any number of Lesser Soul Shapes. These are chosen at character creation and cannot subsequently be changed.

If none of the Primary Soul Shapes particularly seem of interest, you can default to being Unyielding - there is no IC significance to Soul Shapes and no obligation to ever invoke the option it provides, so if you don't want to avoid character death you can just… not do that.

If you want to just “play normally” with no modifications, therefore, the default is Unyielding (which you don't have to invoke) with no Lesser Soul Shapes.

For players who don't like character death/things not going their way, or for the rest of us.

A tenacious soul which refuses to be changed by the void. Can spend <n> XP to undo death/long-lasting effects between adventures, where <n> is the number of times this ability has been invoked including this usage.

For players who love metaphysical deformities.

A tenacious soul which refuses to be lost to the void. Can spend 1 XP to undo death at the end of the adventure, this will have long lasting consequences which between multiple uses will eventually make the character unplayable, these will be almost entirely negative and in some way thematically linked to the circumstances of death.

For players who revel in character death and want to rush to the higher levels of power for a fast turnover.

Each XP spent on this character is worth two skills (this may be tweaked based on actual system lethality with the current estimation that 50% of characters will die before hitting level 4). Incandescent characters cannot also have the Careful soulshape.

After 12 adventures they will cease to be playable.

For players who want to drop in and out.

Intended for those who cannot come to LARP regularly or just awkward characters to fill in slots on LARPs for which nobody has a level appropriate character:

• No XP is gained for playing character.
• Build the whole character in advance/up to the highest level they have been played, this becomes a fixed order of skills. Always goes out with a GM assigned XP level (approximately lower quartile of party XP) for any given adventure. Wildcards can be a member of as many organisations as they can hold favour with but cannot spend reputation beyond the free favour from organisation membership other than for transferring favour. Any skills higher level than the highest level non-Wildcard party member are unavailable this adventure.
• The maximum single Act of Power level they can perform is half the number of adventures they have completed (rounding down), ie. from their third adventure can perform a Lesser Act of Power, from their fifth a Greater Act of Power, from their seventh an Epic Act of Power. A player may change their fixed order or skills or even class by resetting the count of adventures they have been on for the purposes of acts of power.

For players with a flair for the dramatic.

If you die/become unplayable, you always get the opportunity to have a drawn-out dramatic death. If someone else dies/becomes unplayable, you can take their place and also get this opportunity. If sacrifice is made for someone else no mechanism can save you (not even one that could have saved them if you’d only waited 30 seconds for the person with the clever idea to come along).

Death Count is reduced by 30 seconds.

For those that sometimes just want to get the job done.

You can choose to accept, at any point on your death count or whilst being executed, that something needs to be achieved at any cost. At this point you are already dead and cannot be saved from death by any means nor can you sacrifice your life for some other purpose, you will return to a more normal state of death at the end of the adventure regardless of outcome. Take a HEAL, you now Refresh your Resource whenever you HEAL, you may permanently lose a maximum body hit in order to HEAL yourself (for simplicity effects that work on fractions of your body hits operate based on your original maximum). You appear as a spectral figure for the duration of this affliction having left your corpse behind.

The character’s soul does not anchor to anything around it after death and cannot respond to beseechment.

For those who want emotional trauma from their NPCs.

Where GMs have NPCs undergoing suffering at the hands of their adventure (kidnapped, dead, missing) or poorly fleshed out minor bit part villains they may ask someone with this Soul Shape pre-LARP, “Who that you love (with required trait X) has gone missing lately?”. They can then use elements of provided characterisation/identity in the victim/bit part villain.

For those who don’t like judging when to use long term combat resources

Your class resource is replaced as per below. You are unaffected by the call EFFECT “REFRESH YOUR RESOURCE” (please warn any Spirit Guides in your party of this fact), you cannot call in favours to acquire alchemy or Ennarian medical kits. You cannot buy the skill Traditional Alchemy.

• Warrior - Exhaustions now only last until the end of the encounter. Each Manoeuvre can be used at most once per encounter. Each stack of Off Balance increases impairment duration by 5 seconds, and each stack of Faltering increases the STUN duration on hit by 5 seconds.
• Priest - Reduce your maximum spirit hits to a quarter of their original value (rounding down), you may in every encounter use each buff provided by your skills once on yourself and on other members of your Congregation once for each spirit hit reduced in this way. You cannot take the Flexibility skill.
• Mage - You do not have Manipulations, instead you can cast up to 6 unique spells per encounter or up to 3 unique spells casting one of them twice. For the purposes of other skills, each encounter counts as a single Manipulation. You cannot take Additional Manipulation but count as having it for skill requirements.
• Creator - You do not have Potentials, each encounter you may choose one of a batch of alchemy that lasts for the encounter or the ability to make a construct or contraption. Once per encounter you may deal yourself a HEX and expend the remainder of your per encounter calls from any source to call HEAL on a fallen ally with 10 seconds of work. You cannot take Unlock Greater Potential but count as having it for skill requirements.
• Spirit Guide - You do not have linkages and thus cannot expend them to refresh others. Whilst in the physical world you are constantly considered to be in a linkage state but your standard Katas take an additional second (hard mode Katas are unaffected), step out/break out if purchased become once per adventure between them.
• Doctor - You do not have a long term pool of Urgency instead you have one Urgency per encounter. Greater Urgency increases your per encounter Urgency to two.

For those who refuse to put thier life on the line under normal circumstances.

• When dropped in combat and not bleeding out you instead have a 60 second flee count which is affected identically to a death count by STABILIZE, SUBDUE and HEAL (any effects that adjust your bleed count up or down also adjust your flee count)
• At the end of your flee count you have found a perfect opportunity to remove yourself from the combat and depart the encounter (call GONE), leaving behind any plot relevant objects you were carrying acquired during the adventure
• If you are the last player dropped in an encounter and the monsters do not have a reason to be targeting you specifically rather than the party as a whole you are also able to use this escape ability even if you are SUBDUE'd during the encounter cleanup
• At the end of a combat you escaped from you may assess the overall situation and make a choice between rejoining the party in their current state and leaving the adventure. If you choose to leave the adventure you make your way home in a fugue state of which you have no memory. Returning home in this way will never have physical or meta-physical consequences for you, though the act of abandoning the adventure may have social consequences.

This one is highly experimental and quite possibly needs heavy tweaking. It is an attempt to create a soulshape for those who really don't like tracking different damage calls. This does have the side effect of making demi-bears terrifying and marauding unicorns relatively tame.

In order to opt out of called damage and tracking different damage calls you have the following effects and should always brief the monsters at the start of the adventure that you are Ethereal.

• You take all damage calls and (non-ZERO) physical strikes against you as a one hit
• You do not call damage with physical strikes (the uncalled damage level is locked at DOUBLE in physical or SINGLE in spiritual with an Ethereal player)
  • You cannot swap out Combat Proficiency for another skill
  • You do not get the benefit of any +1 damage granted by skills
  • Whilst under the effects of SAP, you must call ZERO for any hits you land
• Physically you have a base of 2 hits, or 4 hits with armour
  • Every full 4 physical hits you would gain from skills gives you +1 physical hit
• Spiritually you have a base of 4 hits, or 8 hits with armour
  • Every skill that grants +1 spirit hit still gives you +1 hit
• You must call IMMUNE to GAIN <N> HITS, and GAIN <damage>
• The only effect of BUFF is to end a SAP early or protect against one being applied