Skip to main content

Character Creation

Concept​

Published Savage Worlds settings often include both character ideas and pregenerated archetypes. In Astrabound, those archetypes are less about fantasy classes and more about the life your hero lived before reaching the Outer Rim.

You might play a Commonwealth idealist who left comfort behind because the Rim needed help. You might play a Syndicate runner who knows the right ports, the wrong people, and the one rule that matters: get paid and get out. Or you might play a Starstrider chasing Celestar relics and old Astra echoes because no one else is brave enough, or foolish enough.

Look through the player-facing sections of Astrabound, or talk with your Gamemaster about the campaign’s tone. The Outer Rim can be heroic, grim, hopeful, criminal, or all four in the same session. Pick a concept that gives you reasons to take jobs, make enemies, and keep flying.

Ancestry​

Astrabound is crowded with species, cultures, and engineered lineages. Choose any ancestry allowed in your campaign and let it shape how your character moves through the galaxy.

Your ancestry provides special abilities and limitations that reflect biology, adaptation, or design. Some are subtle, like heightened senses. Some are dramatic, like extra limbs or aquatic physiology. In Astrabound, ancestry also shapes reputation. A Drakneri in a backwater cantina draws different assumptions than a Voidborn Human or a Vendi diplomat.

Use the ancestries presented in this book. If your table creates new ones, follow the ancestry-building rules your Gamemaster approves.

Hindrances​

Hindrances are flaws, drawbacks, obligations, traumas, or dark secrets drawn from a character’s history. You can take up to 4 points of Hindrances. A Major Hindrance is worth 2 points, and a Minor Hindrance is worth 1 point. A hero could take two Major Hindrances, four Minor Hindrances, or any combination that adds up to 4 points. You can take more Hindrances if you want, but the maximum benefit is still 4 points.

Taking Hindrances does more than define your hero. It also gives you points you can spend during character creation for more capability or better gear. In Astrabound, Hindrances also give the Gamemaster strong hooks: debts, enemies, vows, addictions, reputations, and the consequences of life on the edge.

For 2 points, you can:

  • Raise an attribute one die type.
  • Choose an Edge.

For 1 point, you can:

  • Gain another skill point.
  • Gain additional starting funds equal to twice your setting’s starting amount.

Traits​

Characters are defined by attributes and skills, collectively called Traits. Both work in the same way. Attributes and skills are ranked by die types, typically from d4 to d12, with d6 representing a capable adult. Higher is better.

Attributes​

Every character starts with a d4 in each of five attributes: Agility, Smarts, Spirit, Strength, and Vigor.

You then have 5 points to increase your attributes. Raising a d4 to a d6 costs 1 point. You may spend these points however you like, except that no attribute may be raised above d12 unless an ancestry ability says otherwise. If it does, each increase beyond d12 adds a +1 modifier. Increasing a d12 Strength two steps, for example, results in Strength d12+2.

Skills​

Skills are learned abilities such as firing weapons, hand-to-hand combat, xenobiology, piloting, negotiation, and surviving where the maps end.

Skills in Savage Worlds are intentionally broad to keep play fast and flexible. In Astrabound, that means a single skill can cover a lot of practical, lived-in action. Shooting covers pistols, rifles, and shipboard gunplay. Repair covers keeping a ship alive with whatever you have on hand. Persuasion covers both a diplomat’s careful argument and a bribe slid across a customs counter.

Core Skills: Five skills are marked with a red star in the Astrabound skill list: Athletics, Common Knowledge, Notice, Persuasion, and Stealth. These are abilities most adventurers have through sheer survival. Unless an ancestry ability, Edge, or Hindrance says otherwise, your character starts with a d4 in each of these five core skills.

Buying Skills: After core skills are assigned, you have 15 additional points to raise core skills or buy and raise new skills as you see fit. Each die type costs 1 point, starting at d4, as long as the skill is equal to or lower than the linked attribute. If you raise a skill above its linked attribute, the cost becomes 2 points per die type.

Skill Maximums: Skills may not be increased above d12 during character creation unless the character’s ancestry starts with that skill at d6. If a skill starts at d6, its maximum increases to d12+1.

Derived Statistics​

Your character sheet contains a few other statistics you need to fill in.

Pace is how fast your character moves in tactical situations like combat. Standard Pace is 6, which means six tabletop inches per round. Each inch equals two yards in the fiction.

Parry equals 2 plus half your character’s Fighting die type, or 2 if the character does not have Fighting, plus any bonuses from shields or certain weapons. This is the Target Number to hit your hero in hand-to-hand combat.

For Fighting higher than d12, such as d12+1, add half the fixed modifier, rounded down. For example, Fighting d12+1 grants Parry 8, while Fighting d12+2 results in Parry 9.

Size defaults to 0 unless altered by ancestry abilities, Edges, or Hindrances. It cannot be less than -1 or more than +3.

Toughness is your hero’s damage threshold. Damage rolls that equal or exceed this number cause harm.

Toughness equals 2 plus half your hero’s Vigor, plus Armor using the armor worn on the torso. Vigor above d12 is calculated the same way as Parry.

Edges​

Attributes and skills are a character’s foundation, but Edges are what turn a capable spacer into someone with a signature. In Astrabound, Edges represent training, reputation, lineage, station life, military discipline, outlaw habits, Astra talent, or the kind of hard-earned instincts you only get by surviving the Outer Rim.

Characters gain Edges from Hindrances, from ancestry abilities such as Human Adaptability, or from Advances once play begins. This setting book may also include Edges unique to Astrabound, such as Alliance qualifications, Starstrider perks, Astra traditions, or Syndicate connections.

Gear​

Some campaigns provide your hero with all the gear they need. Most grant a starting amount of funds you can use to purchase what you like from the relevant lists of weapons, armor, and adventuring gear.

Unless the Gamemaster says otherwise, the standard starting amount is $500.

Depending on the campaign, this might be everything the character owns, or it may represent only their job gear, with the rest stored in a locker, a berth, a hab, or a ship’s hold. In Astrabound, many characters live out of a duffel and a tool kit, and their real wealth is often access: a port that will still service them, a contact who still answers, or a ship that can still make the run.

Players usually do not need to worry about how much they can carry, but if it becomes important, use Encumbrance.

Background Details​

Finish your hero by filling in whatever history matters to you. Ask yourself why they are out here and what they want from the galaxy. Where do they sleep when they are not on the job? Who taught them the skills they trust with their life? What will they never do, even for credits? Who is looking for them, and why?

Or just start playing and fill in those details as they become important.

You might also want to talk with the other players. Maybe your characters know each other from the start. Maybe you served on the same ship, survived the same job, or escaped the same station together. Or maybe you coordinate so the crew covers the basics: someone who can fly, someone who can fix, someone who can talk, and someone who notices the ambush before it happens.

If you do, make sure you are still playing what you want to play. There is no point in becoming the crew’s face, medic, or gunhand if that is not a role you actually want.