Character 9 - Belly of the Beast

So Belly of the Beast is a game with a strange little setting that I kickstarted *checks watch* oof. Several years ago now. It's medieval fantasy with a super fun twist: The whole planet your game's set on, all the kingdoms and knights and wizards and whatever else were eaten by a giant monster. A huge asteroid crashed into the planet then a couple generations later it hatched and the creature inside it just started eating everything. EV. REE. THING. So now it's been another couple generations or so and you're all living in this giant monster which is presumably flying through space to its next meal. You don't know, you're in the Belly of the Beast and have other things to worry about like going deeper into this thing's guts and getting the resources necessary to survive in a pretty hostile environment. Don't worry tho, because of [REASONS] there's enough plants and animals and mountains and such stuck in here with you. Remember, the great Devourer ate the whole entire planet, often in large chunks, and it's got a slow metabolism so it isn't done digesting much of it yet. So that's the basic setting. Let's create a scavenger and descend into the Evergut!

Character Creation

Right, so creating a scavenger is a pretty simple six step process.

1. Create a character concept.
2. Select two instincts.
1. Select a maneuver for each instinct.
3. Select or define a specialty.
1. Each specialty lets you automatically overcome certain tasks or do tasks that others just can't.
4. Rank your skills (Awareness, Coordination, Influence, Lore, Might, Resolve, Stealth) in one of four ways.
5. Select or define your talent, a word or phrase that describes how you excel in a particular circumstance.
6. Optional: As a group, answer some starting questions or define any bonds.

So it shouldn't take us long to crank out a scavenger but, unfortunately, there's no available form-fillable character sheets online so you'll just have to find a regular one and play along at home or imagine it in your mind. Let's get started, shall we?

1. Create a character concept

This is pretty self explanatory and a good first step in any RPG. Discuss with your group the kind of game you're wanting to play. If the group decides they want to play a game where the primary focus is fighting off raiders then it might be more helpful to make someone who's useful in combat more than someone whose skills are in wheeling and dealing and negotiating trade agreements. 

Start with the Who and the What. Who is your character? What are their personality traits, motivation and the like? What does your character do? What do they add to the group? 

Our Scavenger, Shaelyn, was born to a small nomadic survivor group about 16 years ago (48 farrows, years aren't really a thing in a setting without a sun or even a planet so they keep track of time by measuring the length of a hog's pregnancy which takes about a third of a year). Shaelyn's mother was a Scavenger and her father was a hog farmer so they had a good deal of status among their survivor group. None of that mattered when the reaver band found them and killed half the group while rustling their hogs. Shaelyn's parents decided that they'd had enough of the nomadic life after losing half of everyone they knew and took as many of the survivors as wanted to go with them to a more permanent settlement they knew of a few miles distant. Shaelyn was born en route and life in the settlement was all she knew growing up. Her parents did tell her tales of their lives as nomads of course and that's what set the seed of the Scavenger in her mind. One day she'd grow up and become a Scavenger herself, like her mother before her. 

That day is now! Shaelyn learned everything she could about what was safe(st) to live on in the Beast, how to find her way in the darker tunnels and cavernous gaps of the Insatiable One and how to find the best materials to bring back home. Learning at the foot of her mother and some of the other Scavengers in the settlement, Shae feels she's ready to go out and make her own way in the Belly.

2. Select two instincts

Instincts are what drive your character, determine how they act in stressful situations, define their innate characteristics and what motivate them. Each Instinct has two Maneuvers that further define them and there are five total Instincts:

• Curiosity.
• Fear.
• Greed.
• Loyalty.
• Violence.

So looking through the list the two that jump out at me for Shaelyn are Curiosity and Loyalty. Hearing the stories of her parents made her want to go out into the wider world and see what was out there then bring home what was useful to her friends and family in the community. For her Curiosity maneuver she'll pick option 1: Spend 1 ID (instinct die, gained by acting in line with your chosen Instincts) to learn of something immediately useful that's currently unknown in the Scene. Her Loyalty maneuver is going to be option 2: When you spend ID to complete a Scene or Long Task with help from other Scavengers, those ID count as automatic successes. So her curiosity helps her find new useful things and her loyalty lets her work in a group to accomplish bigger tasks.

3. Select or define a specialty

Each character has a specialty, a role or ability that describes them and/or their abilities. These could be because of where you were born, what you've studied, or other abilities you've gained up until the start of play. Each specialty gives you a permission to do something that others can't and automatic success  on actions that are second nature to you. The book gives ten examples with short descriptions:

• Alchemist - You're an expert in concoctions and chemicals.
• Bileborn - You were birthed in one of the Belly's most bilious regions.
• Chirugeon - Your allies fear your saws almost as much as their enemies' swords.
• Connections - You know people, and can call in a favor when necessary.
• Engineer - What others would view as sorcery you view as the proper application of leverage.
• Forager - You're able to find scraps for dinner even in the dankest of pits.
• Iron Lungs - You're gifted with long-lasting breath and can avoid noxious fumes better than anyone.
• Smith - You can scrape together even the most rusted of detritus and make it useful again.
• Tracker - If it moves, you can track it. If there's a path, you can find it.
• Trader - You'll never settle for less than optimal price, and you usually get your way.

Of the ten, Forager and Tracker both seem like they'd fit Shaelyn as we've described her so far so let's drill down into those two to see what the differences are and which one is better for the character. If this were part of a normal game, discussing the options with the other players would be strongly encouraged at this point. So Forager gives you Permission to roll either Cunning or Lore to forage edible food or helpful bits of debris anywhere in the Evergut and lets you automatically overcome Tasks to feed yourself, regardless of position or supplies. Meanwhile, Tracker gives you Permission to roll for tracking and pathfinding Tasks that would be impossible for others (presumably this is something like being able to track enemies across terrain where they don't leave footprints or similar) and lets you automatically overcome Tasks to estimate rough distances, directions or ways out of convoluted paths or environments. 

So of the two I think Forager fits more with the character I'm envisioning Shaelyn being so I'll go with that one and mark it down on the sheet.

4. Rank your skills

So everything you do falls under the purview of the eight skills:

• Awareness. Physical perception, inner awareness, reading people, keen eyesight and so on.
• Coordination. Ranged combat, dodging blows, balance, agility, overall finesse.
• Cunning. Quick thinking, tactics, logic and anticipation.
• Influence. Charm, negotiation, persuasion and intimidation.
• Lore. History, social situations, applying learning to mental or artisanal endeavors.
• Might. Melee combat, blocking attacks, strength and speed.
• Resolve. Health, immunity, willpower, fortitude.
• Stealth. Hiding in shadows, moving silently, telling lies, looking inconspicuous. 

Each of these has a skill rank which determines what counts as a success when you roll a d6 on a skill test. Rotten skills only succeed on a 6, Acceptable succeed on a 5+, Capable succeed on a 4+, and Brilliant succeed on a 3+. So you pick one of the four skill arrays and apply them to your skills, easy peasy. The game suggests you go with the Standard array since it's standard and most scavengers have something similar, but I think I'll go with the Versatile array which gives us 2 Capable (4+) and 6 Acceptables (5+). I'll select Resolve and Cunning for my Capable skills and leave the rest at Acceptable. Shaelyn is hardy, even among Scavengers, and thinks on her feet with the nearly-best of them.

5. Select or define your Talent

So you just make something up that your character is Talented at and that gives a bonus die to tests of that sort. You can't pick something too broad, that's a Skill not a Talent, so you can't say your character is "Resolved" but you can say that they are "Healthy as a horse" or "Immune to poisons". There are two schools of thoughts on this sort of decision: you could double down on what you're already good at (so Shaelyn is Cunning so I could pick something like "Tactician" or "Always plans ahead") or you could shore up something you're not as good at as you'd like to be. I prefer the second option myself so while Shaelyn only has Acceptable Awareness, I'll say that her Talent is in her Sharp Senses. She isn't super self aware or great at reading people, but she'll get an Advantage Die when she needs to roll physical perception type tests.

And since there's no group to form bonds with, that pretty much wraps up today's character creation! Like I said, there's no form fillable character sheet for Belly of the Beast that I could find, but you can find the standard sheet on the Sigil and Stone website.