If you are looking for my 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge after action report with completion graphic, it will be posted when I’m caught up from being put behind by real-life events. If you made it to 31 characters, email me or privately contact me on one of the message boards or social media and I’ll make sure you get the graphic. Thank you for participating.
Here is my entry for Day 31 of the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge and I’ll be using a game that I picked up at a thrift store. Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game. I had never heard of this game before I had found it. On the surface it appeared to be a store brand version of a steampunk Warhammer 40K RPG, but who ever owned this previously must have loved the rules. The book was so worn from use that I’m afraid that pages were going to start falling out if I’m not careful. There were also stick on tabs on various pages to easily pull up different rules. This was a table copy for this game and very well loved. So let’s see how it looks when I dive in for the first time trying to make a character.
This hardbound book was published by Privateer Press in 2012. It has 359 pages with an ISBN number of 978-1-933362-89-2. Iron Kingdoms was created by Brian Snoddy and Matthew D. Wilson. The fist 100 or so pages covers the history of the world that this game is set in. Basically it contains steam-powered machines, magic, various races, alchemy and lots of dangerous guns. The artwork shows a world filled with dirt, soot and ash.
The character creation chapter starts on page 102. It describes the primary and secondary stats for the character. The primary stat of Physique (PHY) describes the physical aspects of the character with the secondary stats of Speed (SPD) and Strength (STR). The second primary stat of Agility (AGL) covers the reflexes and nimbleness with the secondary stats of Poise (POI) aka hand-eye coordination and dexterity and Prowess (PRW) aka grace and balance. The last primary stat is Intellect (INT) which includes wits, deduction and speed of thought with the secondary skills of Arcane (ARC) aka magical power and Perception (PER). There are also several derived stats of Defense (DEF), Initiative, Armor (ARM), Willpower (WILL). There is also definitions of MAT (Melee Attack) and RAT (Ranged Attack), the Life Spiral (aka health), Abilities (things the character knows how to do which do not increase in level), Connections and Skills (things the character knows how to do that can increase in level).
The Character Creation steps are listed on page 107. They are 1- Pick a race, 2- Pick an archetype, 3-Select two starting careers, 4- Increase the stats and 5- Finishing touches.
The races available for the first step that are listed in the core book include Human, Dwarf, Gobber (aka Goblins), Iosan (they look like gold skinned elves), Nyss (they look like pale elves), Ogrun (aka Ogres) and Trollkin (aka Trolls). As much as I’d love to explore some of the unique races in this book, I’m trying to play catch up with the challenge so I’m going to go with a simple Human to see how a basic race is presented. The race determines the starting stats, which I wrote down. It also details what possible archetypes are available to that race, languages, height and weight and additional characteristics (which bumped up some of the stat values).
The archetypes listed for the second step are Gifted, Intellectual, Mighty and Skilled. Each archetype has a series of benefits that are awarded when selected. One is automatic, the other is selected from a list of available feats and advantages. I picked Mighty and Back Swing. I guess I’m leaning towards a fighter character (obviously I may have picked different if I was creating in a group for a party).
Step three is to pick not just one, but two careers. This would provide the character with a set of skills and abilities. Some careers have prerequisites such as race or archetypes. There are 28 different careers so I’m not going to list them all. They were all very dark steampunkish in nature. Some of these were very close in nature that trying to decide which two to select was a little hard. This is where having other party members might have helped. I knew that I wanted to have this character be some sort of fighter, but which one and what to pair with it? After going through them several times I think I settled on two of them. The Aristocrat (basically a member of high society within the Iron Kingdoms) and a Bounty Hunter. This character is turning out to be someone who was raised with a silver spoon but left that lifestyle (probably upsetting his family in the process) to forge his own path out in the world. Why not. I wrote down what was earned from the two careers on my notes.
Now the book leads us to step four, Increase Stats. On page 150 it states that I have 3 advancement points to the primary or secondary stats. So far I don’t know how the RPG system works, so I just picked three secondary stats and increased them. Now that these numbers are determined, I’m instructed to fill out the life spiral to match the stat numbers by blocking out the excess numbers not used.
Last step is step five, the finishing touches. This deals with party setup (um… OK) and purchasing additional equipment to go with the starting assets from the career choices (only gold crowns for the two I selected). The money is to be used for weapons and armor as there is a basic set of adventurers equipment that each character is assumed to have and doesn’t need to be noted on the character sheet. Even thought it wasn’t listed, I would assume that the character name and background would have been selected here as well. In the Bounty Hunting world he’s known as the Back Adder (yea, I’m being inspired here) those in more polite circles might know him as Sir Edvard Blaccadicus. I still had to do some filling in of the character sheet but there were still a lot of blank spaces. I’m done, here is the scan.
Afterthoughts:
Creation wasn’t too bad, but seemed to be lacking a few steps to make sure that all the “T’s” were crossed and “I’s” were dotted. They could have also used some additional “see page xx for more information” sections. While they did a good job of explaining the stats, I wish that I could have quickly found the “this is how the system works” section. With how the book was starting to come apart I didn’t want to do too many page flips. There were some missing sections on my character sheet. What is social stats? Feat points? I’m sure I could have spent some time digging through the book, but I was done by that point.
While this was an interesting experience, I don’t see myself playing this game. I don’t even know of anyone else who actually owns this game.
Additional Notes:
After I had posted my character for Mazes and Minotaurs on one of the RPG message boards, someone responded. They told me how much they liked the post and wanted to try the game out themselves, but then they asked why I gave a character in a Greek inspired universe a Roman name. I hadn’t even realized that I had done that. The only thing I could chalk this up to is how exhausted I’ve been lately. 2025 has not been a good year so far, so I won’t miss it when it’s gone.
If you’ve stuck with me through these challenging times, thank you. I really appreciate the readers of my blog. Especially those who have contacted me, interacted with me on social media or just joined the conversation on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. I’ll leave my final thoughts for the after-action report, but I wanted to make sure you all heard a thank you from me for being a light in this dark time.
One last note, I was talking with my wife about this while we were driving around. In the future I’m going to try to make the last character of the challenge from a system that is easy to use. This way I’m not looking at a daunting task to wrap up the month.
Coming Up Next:
The real After-Action Report for the 2025 #CharacterCreationChallenge
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com or click on my social media links with any comments.