Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 13: The Well

For Day 13 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I received in the Secret Satan (a play on Secret Santa) gift exchange that I had blogged about earlier. This is The Well Roleplaying Game by Shoeless Pete Games. I had never heard of it before I had opened the package and that’s what I loved. When asked what I wanted, I asked for some thing that I could use in the challenge. Past challenge entries that came this way included Mutant Crawl Classics, Teenagers from Outer Space and Fantasy Age 2nd Edition.

I had blogged about the system and the world that this game had been set in, so I’m going to jump right into character creation. Besides having a one-page character sheet, there was also a one-page creation checklist for your gravedigger (the character that you play in the game.

It’s not listed as first on the list, but at the top there is a section for the name of the character. I selected Barton the Bastard just because. There is a list of all the weapons and armor available and I’m instructed to select three of them. The weapons are broken down by 1-handed or 2-handed. I quickly read through the descriptions and picked Sword, Spear and Cuirass and Hauberk.

The Kit is the next item on the checklist and it’s the equipment the character has. Several items are already selected such as a bat, flint & steel, knife and torches. I’m allowed to pick five more items so Barton has bandages, booze, food for three days, 10 m of rope and a waterskin.

The book says history is next, but the checklist shows skills. I’m going to go with the Skills since it’s right there. I pick one for “you are better than most at…” (which I picked Awareness). There is also a section for Runes (the magic system in this game) but Barton isn’t smart enough to know how they are used.

Ok, now History. Before Barton was a gravedigger he was a… Vagabond. Besides being lower-class, I’m not certain what this gives the character. When you go up the well, what waits on your return? There is a list of possible options and I had difficulty choosing here. There were some I eliminated from consideration automatically, but I selected “a vicious rival” so that I could move on.

Contacts is next and I pick two of them. One Barton knows, the other he owes a favor to. The first is other Gravediggers who give him advice. He owes a favor to Criminals (perhaps this is where that vicious rival comes from?). On the Reputation, the checklist says “You have a reputation for…” and I selected Greed.

Next on the checklist comes the Self-Image. I’m instructed to pick three words that describes how Barton sees himself and his actions. I picked hard, observant and shifty. The last item was two Habits that Barton has. Well since I picked up booze in the kit, I’m going to say drinking and suspicion.

I think I transfer information to the sheet. The checklist states that the resilience is 10 and the asset points is 0. I noticed that there were several sections not filled in on the character sheet. Complications (which happens during game play) and Tasks in Progress. This last item I believe that the GM would let me know what to put here. I scanned both sheets so you could see them.

Afterthoughts:

Character creation was short and sweet, which I appreciated. I would have liked a little more information on what the history of the character provided (if anything). Like I said in my review, I wonder how this game plays at the table? I do like that the reason for humanity being in The Well and why the dead are rising back up is completely up to the GM. Some possible suggestions are given, but left vague.

Additional Notes:

While I had been re-posting their posts on BlueSky, I was unaware that Chant Evans had been posting his entries in the challenge on the Ex Stasis Games blog. I’ve added it to the links found at the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge page. If I’m missing any blog or message board, please let me know.

Coming Up Next:

Worlds Beyond

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Star Wars

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 12: Star Wars The Roleplaying Game 2nd Edition

For my second dip into the Star Wars RPG pool, I’m using the Star Wars The Roleplaying Game 2nd Edition from West End Games. This is for Day 12 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. Now I have played the 1st edition Star Wars RPG a lot back in the 80’s and 90’s. I even used the 1st edition in the 2021 Character Creation Challenge. Since I had a physical copy of 2nd edition, but never played it, I decided to use it here.

The Beginning Characters setup starts on page 7 of the hardbound book. The first item they recommend is talking with the GM and other players to make sure that you are creating a character fit for the campaign and party. They also recommend coming up with a character concept. I made a pilot for the 1st edition character, let’s make a bounty hunter in 2nd edition.

Next the book goes over the template (character sheet) starting with the name. Arcus Junn is a kewl name I plucked out of the air. The Template Type is next, but the book states that this is a couple of words that accurately describes who the character is. I’m not certain where this goes on the sheet. So I’ll come back to it. Player is where my name goes. I decided to go with Human on Junn’s species and he’s a male that is 28 years old. I randomly selected 6’0″ for his height and 200 lbs for his weight. I gave him blonde hair and brown eyes and decided that he would have a scar after a fight got him into the business. He is loyal to his friends, but obviously in this for the money.

There was also a spot for the objective of the character, I decided that his brother was killed by some bounty hunters, so he became a bounty hunter himself to see if he could track them down. The Quote is something that I really liked from the 1st edition and I’m glad to see that they continued it in this version. I selected “I get paid and I do the job.” Connection with other characters? I tried to ask them but the voices in my head didn’t respond. Usually they are much more talkative and I can’t get them to shut up. So I don’t know what the connection is.

Ah, we are finally to the Attributes. They are Dexterity, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength and Technical. Now I’ve run into the first problem that I can see. I’m not told what to use here. In 1st edition I was instructed to find a template for the character type and use that. There are some in the back, but it’s an alien bounty hunter. Has the racial stats already been included in them? Searching the book I didn’t find anything else so I’m going to write down the info on the template I found on page 168. This also included the equipment listed.

I kept going through the details listed in the Basic Character and came up next to Skills. I’m instructed to spend 7D on the skills that I’d like Junn to have. I selected several skills that I thought a Bounty Hunter might find useful.

Next came information for Force-Sensitive characters, of which Junn is not. After that was Advanced Characters, which comes into play once we’ve earned some Character Points in play. So, I think I’m done? I recall the 1st edition being pretty simple. This was simple, but still confusing as it wasn’t spelled out very well. Here is the character sheet.

Afterthoughts:

This was really my first deep dive into this edition. I’m really wondering if the writers thought “Yea, everyone will know the game from 1st edition and we’ll just give updates.”? It was a little frustrating not having actual steps and better guidelines. Come to think about it, I don’t recall anyone playing 2nd edition. When I participated in a one-shot last year, I believe it was just 1st edition.

While I have homebrewed and played 1st edition, I don’t really see myself doing any of that for 2nd edition. I’ll still pick SWRPG by WEG for my first choice to play in a galaxy far, far away. But it will probably be more of 1st edition with some cherry picking of 2nd if I see something that I like.

Additional Notes:

I had one participant in the 2026 Challenge tell me they were bowing out. Not because they couldn’t make 31 characters in 31 days. It was due to their RPG writing schedule. They had committed to writing several publications and the Character Creation Challenge and Dungeon 26 was taking up too much time. I applaud this because creating a product (that is for sale) should come first. If you would like to support this small-publisher, I’d recommend checking out her DriveThruRPG site here.

Coming Up Next:

The Well

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 11: Warhammer Fantasy 1st Edition

Day 11 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m going to be using a game that was popular in the United Kingdom back in the day. Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 1st Edition which recently came up on sale at DriveThruRPG. Readers of my blog know that I had been scanning in and talking about older character sheets that I had recently re-discovered from a lost binder. One of those that I posted about was a WHFRPG character that I don’t recall ever playing. So at one point in my early gaming career, I did at least touch the system. It may have been a session zero to get the characters ready for a campaign that never happened. I remember seeing advertisements for WFRPG in different gaming magazines, but I never really looked at it since we all had Dungeons and Dragons to use. I had always associated Warhammer with the tabletop miniature games that were really popular. I did like the artwork that I saw in the advertisements.

From what I understand, this is a percentile based system. The summary for character creation starts on page 20. There are eleven steps in total. Each character has several characteristics (with the in-game abbreviation) which are Movement (M), Weapon Skill (WS), Ballistic Skill (BS), Strength (S), Toughness (T), Wounds (W), Initiative (I), Attacks (A), Dexterity (Dex), Leadership (Ld), Intelligence (Int), Cool (Cl), Will Power (WP and Fellowship (Fel). Will Power deals with mental and magical resistance, Cool is the ability to remain calm and Fellowship is the social skills and appearance of the character. The other Characteristics are the standard that we find in different RPGs.

The first step is to select the character’s race, gender and name. The four racial choices are Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling. I’m going to stick with Human for this male character and his name is going to be Teowulf. The second step is to generate the characteristics stats based off of a chart listed. Each race had a different column, some with simple responses, others with different used dice. I rolled the different dice listed under the “Man” column and wrote them down on the character sheet in the Starter Profile. I then wrote down the racial abilities for Teowulf. For age you had to determine if he was young or old. If ye was young, roll 6d6 and if he was old roll 6d10. He is young and is 20 years old.

The Alignment is next and I’m sticking with Neutral. Next comes Fate which for a Human is d3+1 so 2 is what I rolled. And fate must have been looking at this character since he didn’t have a high enough WS to be a Warrior, but he did have a high enough BS to be a Ranger. So Teowulf is a Ranger.

Next comes the Skills that Teowulf has. Being aged 20 he doesn’t get to add to the d4 to determine how many skills he has. Luckily I rolled a 3. There are no automatic skills for being a Human. But I do get to roll randomly on the Human/Ranger skill chart to see what skills he has. This came up with Sing (what?), Very Resilient and Ambidextrous. OK, the last two I can see how they would help, but I wasn’t expecting Teowulf to be skilled in singing. But I’ll run with it.

Now the Trappings are the equipment and money that Teowulf had acquired before he started the adventure. I looked at what was listed for Rangers and I wrote it down on the sheet. I rolled 13 gold crowns in his purse.

I don’t know why this was separate from the skills step, but next is to roll against the Human/Ranger Basic Career Chart. Another percentile roll resulted in Teowulf also being a Hunter. That makes sense. I checked the Hunter description and wrote down the additional characteristics, skills and trappings he now has.

Step eleven is The Free Advance. The book explains that since adventurers are a cut above the normal population, this extra stuff helps them as heroes in the story. I can add +1 to S, T or W or any other by +10%. Since I can see Teowulf being one of the possible front line fighters, I elected to up his Weapons Skill.

Technically this is where the summary ends. There were still quite a few blank spots left on the character sheet. I elected to look at the skills, weapons and fill in some spots that needed them (description stuff mostly) and called it good.

Afterthoughts:

I had to snigger when I saw there was a BS skill, but it didn’t mean what BS usually stands for. I don’t know if they were trying to go for a different look, but I think that using three letter abbreviations would have helped me keep track of the different characteristics.

While I had a little bit more of an understanding for the character sheet that I scanned from my book, I really don’t see myself playing this game. I don’t know anyone who plays WHFRPG and I have other fantasy systems to scratch that itch.

Additional Notes:

On the Modiphius Discord Server, Michael Dismuke (who runs the STA fan website Continuing Missions) liked my entry for Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log. He thanked me for showing of the system.

On Mastodon, @SaltyMonk@mastodon.online also responded to my my Captain’s Log character. He remembers making a similar mistake to the ones that I had made when he first make a CL character.

Coming Up Next:

Star Wars Roleplaying Game 2nd Edition

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 10: Tales from the Loop

Day 10 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and we are looking at Tales from The Loop: Roleplaying in the ’80s that never was. I was able to pick this book up as one of my thank you gifts from GMing at SaltCON. Three of the games that I’m using for this year’s challenge came from volunteering or connections at that convention. So, thank you to all of those involved and to the contacts that I’ve made.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Tales from the Loop, it’s based off a series of sci-fi paintings done by Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag. These paintings showed life in an alternate timeline 1980’s where robots and weird science was prevalent (usually with lots of kids watching them, hence this is a game about kids in this alternate timeline). These paintings were then put into a book, and eventually the RPG and even a TV series on Amazon. When I had a choice of which RPG book to take as a reward, the allure of gaming in the 80’s appealed to me. This is also one of the many Free League games that I’m using in this year’s challenge. Previously I had created a character for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition.

The hardbound RPG book is published by Free League that also publishes Alien, The One Ring and more. It has 191 pages and was written by Nils Hintze and uses something called the Zero Game Engine. I believe this is the same one that I’ve played when I had a chance to sit at an Alien one-shot at SaltCON. On page 49 it talks about the character creation process where the player makes a Kid. There are fifteen steps in total with the last two done with the group playing at the table.

Step one, selecting the Type of Kid you are playing. This is the class of the character. The options are Bookworm, Computer Geek, Hick, Jock, Popular Kid, Rocker, Troublemaker and Weirdo. Something tells me that I’m going to base most of this character on me in the 80’s. I wasn’t popular, or a jock (not without trying) or a hick. I wasn’t wild enough to be a rocker (but I loved the music). Of the remaining, I think that Computer Geek probably fit the younger me the most. Each Type has a set of key skills and I get to choose something for the following categories. Iconic Item, Problems, Drive, Pride, Relationships to Other Kids, Relationships to NPCs, Anchor and Name. There were examples listed for these categories that I could choose from or come up with something on my own. I wrote down my choices on my notes.

Selecting the age is step two. The book recommends between 10 and 15. I went with the age of 14. I’m also instructed to select my birth-date, so I selected a random one. A few sentences down I discovered that once the character turns 16, they are no longer a Kid within the game and are out.

Step three and we are at the Attributes. There are four of them that include Body, Tech, Heart and Mind and will have a score between 1-5. These represent the number of dice you roll when using the attribute. The number of points to spend per attribute is the character’s age. Every year on their birthday, they get one more point to allocate until they reach the “out-of-game” age of 16. I wonder why 16 is this cut-off age? I could see 17 or definitely 18, but 16? Oh well.

The next step is determining how many luck points the character has. Take the character’s age away from 15 for the total. So in this case he has 1 luck point. Apparently because the older kids are better with their attributes they don’t need the luck as much as the younger kids. When he turns 15, he will have zero luck points.

Skills is next on the list to create the character. “You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.” OK, that’s just a quote from Napoleon Dynamite. But it was the first thing that popped into my head when I started reading next item. Each attribute has three skills (some were already listed when I selected the type) and can have a score between 0-5. If the skill can be helpful when I’m rolling the dice vs Trouble, I can add the number of dice listed in the score. I have ten points to allocate between skills. The key skills can have up to 3 points allocated, with other skills capped at a maximum of 1.

The next series of steps I’ve already completed when I selected the character’s type. The Iconic Item (step 6) is the computer. The Problem (step 7) is “The tough guys hit me.” The Drive (step 8) is “I love solving puzzles.” And the Pride (step 9) is “I think I can do anything.”

Steps 10 is about relationships that the character has. With the other characters in the party I selected “We are best friends.” Obviously this step would need to be talked about within the group of players (just in case someone wants to have their characters be siblings). The second one is relationships with NPCs. It had some examples in the book that I wrote down, but as I’m reading the later section on this, it really should be done with the GM who has set up the NPCs. But some of the examples included “The strange scientist, Diane Petersen, is my aunt, but that doesn’t mean I like her.” or “My friend Leeanne told me that strange creatures have moved into the Cooling Towers. She thinks they are aliens.”

On step 11 I get to decide who the character’s Anchor is. this is someone that you can go for support, comfort and care that’s not another kid. I picked one of the examples for simplicity and selected the character’s father. And apparently I’ve already completed step 12 earlier when I came up with the character’s name. I altered my name slightly since this is an alternate 80’s world. Kirk Stark. For the description (Step 13) I’ll probably describe my geeky 80’s self. The last step before the group decisions is “Pick the character’s favorite song.” Ah man, how do I pick just one song. I bounced between “Our House” by Madness, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by The Eurythmics before selecting “Mr. Roboto” by Styx.

The last two steps need the GM and other players to complete. So I won’t go too deep into them here but they consist of “Where is the Hideout for you and your friends?” and a series of questions that the GM will ask both the Kids and the group. These seem to be mostly background information on the character and team. Having reached this stage, I transferred my notes to the character sheet and scanned it below.

Afterthoughts:

I was getting a Stranger Things vibe while making the character. I could very easily see someone homebrewing this series using Tales from the Loop. They even talk about the characters playing RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons or Star Frontiers in the Tales of the Loop core rulebook.

I also liked the step of having a favorite song. I know that the radio and MTV provided a large portion of the soundtrack to my life while growing up. It made this kid seem more real as a character.

I almost forgot to finish the description of the RPG system. You set up a dice pool using attributes, skills and equipment. You roll that many dice trying to get at least one of them to come up with one six (for normal difficulty) or higher for tougher tasks. Like Star Trek Adventures, if you roll more successes than you need, you can “Buy Effects” which can the scene in the game. It looks interesting. I wonder if I’ll get a chance to play a one-shot at a convention in the future?

Additional Notes:

I had several readers from discord and message boards send me a wink since they got the special name of the character that I created for Rebel Scum. Glad to see you guys got it.

While re-reading my entry for Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log, I noticed that I had screwed up in other areas. I had an extra value in the description, but didn’t write it down on the sheet. So the sheet is good, but my notes are bad.

Coming Up Next:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 9: Star Trek Adventures Captain’s Log

On day 9 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to use a Star Trek RPG that I haven’t looked at yet. Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log by Modiphius. This is a solo RPG book from the makers of Star Trek Adventures. This is actually my first time looking through the PDF, I can see why another STA fan I know liked it. Lots of random charts that could be used in different ways.

Since this book came out before STA2e, is it more like Star Trek Adventures 1st Edition? From what I’ve heard, it’s more slimmed down than STA1e. So let’s take a look at the character creation process that starts on page 91. I’m going to use the Lifepath method for this character.

So the same attributes and disciplines are present in Captain’s Log as they are in STA1e. Control, Daring, Fitness, Insight, Presence and Reason (I explain these a little bit more (using D&D terms) in my STA2e character creation) for the attributes. Command, Conn, Security, Engineering, Science and Medicine for the character’s disciplines. I’ve always liked these in the STA style games because we’ve seen Starfleet officers perform duties outside of their department when the needs arise. I get a starting score of 7 for each attribute and 1 for each discipline. Step one is to select the species for this character. There are die rolls to create a random character which I’m going to use. First, is the era, which came up TNG. Scrolling down to the TNG list, I rolled a Kazon. Wow, I wasn’t expecting that, but let’s roll with it and added the attribute adjustments for the character.

Next step is the Environment, or where the character was raised. I rolled an Isolated Colony. Perhaps this Kazon isn’t like the others? This gave the character his first value which I picked “If I need it, I can do it.” I also picked the attribute and discipline increase from the suggestions for the setting. Also part of this step is the condition which ranged from utopian to total war. Another random roll resulted in Asceticism and Introspection or a simple life not by lack but by choice. What type of Kazon colony was this? Probably one of the factions that fled instead of trying to fight the stronger ones. They must have found a place overlooked by the other factions and tried to keep things simple as to not attract attention to themselves. This also resulted in another value for the character “Keep is simple”, another attribute and discipline increase.

Now we are onto Step Three, the early outlook of the character. How they were raised and educated before they became the person on the character sheet. The random roll for Upbringing resulted in Diplomacy and Politics. Perhaps this character’s parents were the leaders of the faction that founded the isolated colony. Did he accept it or rebel against it? Odds = yes, evens = no. Yes, it is with the roll of a 7. I added the increase to the character’s attributes and disciplines to my notes and selected his first Focus (specialty skill). I picked one that I thought a Kazon might need in a cutthroat political environment. Aspirations is the next sub-step in Step Three. What drives the character. Wait, I read this wrong. I pick one of three options, so I don’t use aspirations since I already used Upbringing (that’s what I get for thinking this was just an off-shoot of STA1e). I’ve already rolled so I’m not going back to change anything. Just to make sure I didn’t screw up, I went back and looked again at Step Two. After the re-read it looks like I did that right. Gah, I’ve got to make sure I’m clear on the steps before proceeding.

Step Four is the Education of the character. Checking to see if I have one path or multiple paths here. There are multiple paths here but there is a random table on which I rolled Diplomatic Training (this is a weird Kazon) which only has two tracks. Diplomatic Corps or Honorary Status, of which I rolled the later. It says that the character had an illustrious career (in doing what?) and was named a diplomat. The parents ran the colony administration as a family business of which the character participated in. When they passed on, the oldest sibling took over the colony, but didn’t want the character around for one reason or another (perhaps this is a plot point for something in the future) so he was sent off to be a representative to another colony. Yea, that’s the ticket. I added the Value of “I’ll take on the burden so my colony doesn’t.” I also added the Attributes, Disciplines and Focuses.

The Career Length is Step Five. There is another random table that I’ll stick with since the randomness has been interesting so far. Is this character a Novice, Experienced or a Veteran, and the d20 says Experienced. Several years in the political game apparently. This results in a Value of which I picked “Planning can help you with the unexpected.”

Step Six gives us two Career Events that has happened to the character. These pivotal moments will give us some additional stats for the sheet. The first randomly rolled event was Lauded by Another Culture. He earned some praise from a non-allied culture and are now considered a friend to them. Talaxians, the are Talaxians in the same neighborhood of space as the Kazon, so he did something that impressed them? What was it? Heck if I know. I think I’ll leave that for a possible flashback scenario. But he now knows some Talaxian traders very well who will help him out. I added the increase to the Attribute and Discipline and gained the focus of Talaxian Culture (as per the book). The second random event was Special Commendation. Again, weird for a Kazon. Sticking with the aliens of the region, a Trabe attack on a Kazon Maje from another sect resulted in the ship being severely damaged and the Character’s survival skills helped save the Maje’s life. However the Trabe despise the Character now. Added again to the three items listed above with the focus being more generic.

The last step includes the Finishing Touches. We get to add one more Value of which I picked “Never trust the Trabe.” I also get to increase two Attributes and two Disciplines by 1. Checking to make sure I had everything the book instructs me to make sure my Attributes all added together come up to 56. And somehow I had one extra, so I’ll just knock one down. Added together all of the Disciplines should total 16, and again I had one extra (where did I screw up at?) so I knocked one down. I was correct on the four Values, but I was short by two focuses (again I don’t know where I screwed up at) so I went back and added the missing two at random. Next came the Assignment and it listed a bunch of Starfleet positions. I don’t know if the civilian positions were overlooked or what, so I just put down Diplomat/Spy. There is no rank for civilians.

I think I’m also supposed to put together the stats for a starship. But considering the lack of time I have right now, I’ll skip this part and come back to it. Especially since he’s not on a Starfleet ship. I dubbed this character Valltex of the Kazon-Pikaar and transferred my notes to the character sheet. While I was adding things, I noticed there was a spot for equipment, so I just jotted down some simple items.

Afterthoughts:

I had actually picked up the PDF on DriveThruRPG with the credits that I had earned there so I could use it in a challenge, but I’ve always had another ST game to use. Well this year I decided that I wasn’t going to wait and for the first time I’ve looked at this book. Why? Well I’m not big on solo roleplaying. Table top gaming has always been a social activity for me. Getting together with friends, eating bad food and telling jokes as we threw the dice. Eventually I’m going to get the dead-tree version of this book, and I was thinking that I was going to use it then. But something told me to make one now, and perhaps it’s because I need to buckle up and try a few different solo games. If I do for Captain’s Log, I’ll make a real Starfleet character.

With my Star Trek RPG focus being on STA2e, I don’t know if I’d do any homebrewing for Captain’s Log. Perhaps I’ll change my mind after I’ve had a chance to go through a solo session or two. I did see how there were some differences from STA1e and building blocks to STA2e.

Additional Notes:

By following the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge on Mastodon, I was able to find another blog participating in the challenge. I’ve added Esoteric Renaissance to the list. If I’m missing anyone, please send me the URL.

Coming Up Next:

Tales from the Loop

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 8: Rebel Scum 2nd Edition

Day 8 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and I’m going to use another roleplaying game that was gifted to me. For those of you who have read my past challenge entries, I had a last minute substitution last year adding the Red Dwarf The Roleplaying Game after my good friends gave it to me. So thank you again to Rich and Evelyn who gifted me a physical copy of Rebel Scum 2nd Edition The Antifacist Space Opera Roleplaying Game. As you can probably guess, it’s a Star Wars inspired game with the serial numbers filed off from 9th Level Games. It says “powered by polymorph” at the bottom that I’m not familiar with.

The physical book is an A5 sized publication with 79 pages and was published in 2025. The cover looks like an action figure on a card. A lot of the art on the inside look like action figures, trading cards or comic book covers. The character sheet itself is called an “action figure card back” and is one page. The player always rolls the dice (doing something or responding to something) and the die can explode a its highest number. The rules to create your rebel start on page 40.

First choose a class. Because this determines which card back character sheet that is used (and I had to print one out for the photo listed above) I had already selected The Robot. I could have also picked Renegade, Revolutionary, Rogue or Ronin (aka Jedi). It just hit me that all of these start with the letter R. Weird.

Next I pick a name. This robot shall be called Lifter THX1138. He was a worker droid who was originally assigned to work in a factory and was ordered by some bad guys to kill some civilians just for the hell of it. When he refused, they tried to dismantle him so he went on the run. And its role (the next step) is The Tank, which I think gets a D10. I’m not certain. These instructions are not written out very well.

Shining Star is the next item on the list. This appears to be the thing your character is best at. And it appears to already be on the action figure card back.

Each character stars with two Edges that are listed under the class. It looks like I just mark them on the sheet. They only gave a description for some of the edges later in the book. I really wish that they had been more complete. Sure, some sound self-explanatory, but that’s open to interpretation.

The only other thing listed in the creation list is the Bonds that the character makes with the other characters, but that’s only after the session has been completed. So, I think I’m done? Yea, I’m done. Here’s the sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I love Star Wars. I love roleplaying games that try to emulate the feel of different shows out there. I’ve seen games for fans of Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Cowboy Bebop and others where the serial numbers have been filed off. But I wasn’t really impressed with this book. Sure there’s a lot of back ground is presented here. But a core RPG book needs to explain the system. It needs to answer the questions about how to play the game. It almost seemed like the system was just barely presented. I was impressed with the artwork and the filing of serial numbers in the universe. And I agree with Indiana Jones who said “Nazis? I hate these guys.” But this book didn’t inspire me to want to try to get some friends together and play like the above examples I just linked to. I’ve got plenty of other RPG options to use if I want to play in a galaxy far, far away.

Additional Notes:

On the RPGGeek message board I received a response to the White Lies 3rd Edition entry. Davwj commented “I also got a copy of this and like yourself am quite impressed. Love the new artwork, plus the new ‘Rookie Assignment’ section is another nice addition (including the very Traveller-ish possibility of permanently benching your agent before they’ve even started )” Thanks for the feedback.

Coming Up Next:

Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 7: Attack from Space

And with this entry, the first week is in the bag. For Day 7 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m using a game that I picked up as a thank you gift at SaltCON. Attack from Space an RPG by Kris & Friends. The way he explains it, this game was inspired by the random drawings he use to doodle in his notebook while in school during the 80s. After a Kickstarter campaign, the designer made the game and had a ton of artists send in doodles for it. This is a game where aliens attack a medieval kingdom and the players have to bring their knights to the table. I was given both the standard and ditto edition. The standard has more artwork in it, the ditto edition is more focused on just the rules.

There are three attributes and three qualities that each knight has. The attributes are Slash, Thrust and Parry. These represent the powerful actions, fast actions or precise actions of the character. Blood, Valor and Weird are the three qualities which represent health, determination and mental resistance. Then the knight has skills and equipment. The basics of the game is that when the knight wants to do something, they roll the bones (D6s) equal to the number in the attribute score. Then they keep the single highest result, the higher the roll, the better the result.

So, creating a knight has six steps. 1- Choose a class, 2- Train your knight, 3- Define your qualities, 4- Equip your knight, 5- Visit the armory and 6- Tell your story.

Classes: There are four classes of knights. Arrow (shoots arrows), Axe (tank that smashes things), Saddle (speed and a lance) and Sword (all around effectiveness). Each class comes with a different set of skills plus upgrade options when they gain experience. I think I’m going to go with simple and use the sword class. I wrote down the skills listed in the book.

Training: I’m instructed to add 1 to each attribute. Then I have 4 more points to spread between them (no attribute higher than 4).

Qualities: Each quality starts with a score of 2 (other than Weird which is 0). I have 8 points to spread across these, but it was advised the first two would be more beneficial.

Equip: I’m instructed to select two equipment items from the list. There is also an option to randomly roll for them. Ya know what, yea let’s see what the SaltCON dice say. Heh, a Tinder Box and a Bone Fishhook and Line. Better than I was expecting. I could have ended up with a copy of Wizard Magazine or Mustache Wax.

Armory: Ok, so we pick a primary weapon, some armor and a back up weapon. I’m going with the Longsword for the primary. Chain for the armor and a throwing axe for the backup.

Story: Name your knight. I dub thee Sir Reginald the Fourth. Pick or randomly roll some heraldry (The roll resulted in a bear. Actually that sounds kewl). As for any type of backstory, he comes from a long line of knights and wants to father Sir Reginald the Fifth. Gaining notoriety will help him get the best lady of the court to fulfill this sacred duty. Yea, that’s the ticket.

And we’re done, I transfered everything over to the character sheet and scanned it here to give the post a little bit more flavor. I hope you enjoy it.

Afterthoughts:

I picked this game to use today because I thought it would be a quick and easy creation on one of my busy days. And it was. It sounds like a silly game that could last a session or two with the right group of people. I’ve already got my games scheduled for SaltCON-Spring, but who knows, this could be my silly game for one of the next two SaltCONs after that. Anyone want to come try it out?

Additional Notes:

I was able to add a bunch of message boards to the list of links. Thanks to Thorr-Kan for attempting to get other message boards involved.

I received some feedback on my Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia entry. Apparently each character also has a wrestling skill that I forgot to add. Also if the free Wrath of the Immortals supplement is used, then the character can also get special abilities depending upon their deity.

Coming Up Next:

Rebel Scum

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 6: White Lies 3rd Edition

So far, so good with my entries for the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. Today, Day 6, I’ll be making a character using the 3rd edition of the espionage roleplaying game, White Lies. In 2022 I used White Lies 1st Edition to make a character, and in 2024 I followed up with White Lies 2nd Edition. This game was originally based off of the D20 White Box RPG that used the Open Gaming License (hence the name White Lies). After Wizards of the Coast had their disastrous OGL fiasco a few years ago, the author wisely decided to remove all OGL items from this game and release a new edition. DwD Studios wasn’t the only publisher that decided to pull up stakes and head out to the land of Creative Commons licensees. A little after the 2nd edition came out, the author elected to move to a 3rd edition where he removed all of the AI generated imagery and replaced them with original artwork and polished up the system. I wanted to thank him by picking up and reviewing this latest edition. This game is PWYW on DriveThruRPG, but I would highly recommend chucking in a few bucks when you pick it up because a lot of love and effort went into this publication. Plus this is a small publisher (I think it’s only Bill Logan, the author, as the only employee of DWD Studios) that can use all the support they can be given. He’s doing something that I want to do so I look up to his works as a source of inspiration. Bill has also released BareBones Fantasy, Covert Ops, Frontier Space and more.

This book came out in 2025 and has 116 pages in the PDF. The character sheet is two pages long. Agent Recruiting (aka creating a character) starts on page 5. There are six steps listed.

Generating the five abilities are the first step in the process. These abilities are Toughness (formerly Strength in 1st edition), Dexterity, Intellect (formerly Intelligence and Wisdom), Discipline (formerly Dexterity) and Influence (formerly Charisma). I roll a D20 and consult a table for the score (ranging from -2 to +5) and place them where I want. I had all plusses except for one -1 score.

Step two (and new to this edition) is the background of the character on page 6. This is what the character was doing as an occupation before being recruited into the espionage business. There are 16 different trades available (with an option to roll a d20 to randomly choose) with 10 specialties under each one. The player can pick one (if they have something in mind) or randomly roll like I’m about to. They don’t even have to be limited to this list. This guy is in Technology & Engineering as a Software Developer. I’m then instructed to pick a skill that is appropriate to the background and note a talent bonus of +2.

Training is part of step three. I get to select a division (aka character class) that the character is a part of. I get to note the details from the division including the first roll on the rank & promotion table. With my +4 to INT, I also get to pick that many additional skills from the skill list. This guy isn’t very strong (that’s where my negative number went) so I’m going to make my own Q type character in the Engineering Division. I wrote down the skills, added the extras, determined his starting Stamina (aka hit points).

Now we are onto outfitting the character. The Engineering division didn’t get anything automatic during the character creation process (that happens in the mission briefing). I did write down the basics listed in the agent recruiting steps including the starting money. I’m going to just note the money now and would decide on any additional purchases after the mission brief.

Step five is another new step compared to 2nd edition. The rookie assignment. Roll a percentile and see what your character learned from the experience on their first mission. This reminded me of the experiences that new characters in Star Trek Adventures would get when they got to roll for what happened in their past. I thought it was a nice touch. On the rookie assignment, my yet-to-be named character had an impressive performance helping the agency track down some money being used to fuel tensions between western nations. I wrote down the additional attribute and skill bonuses received from the experience. I’m glad I rolled this one, like Traveller, the character could have been wounded enough to force me to make a new character.

And the last step (six) is the final assessment of the character. This includes things like Rank & Merit (level and experience points), Stamina (HP), Defense, Movement, Initiative, Languages, Skill bonuses, weapon information and finally a name. We shall call this character Walter Cunningham, because why not? I transferred everything over from my notes to the character sheet. I didn’t scan the second page as it looked like it was just for notes.

Afterthoughts:

I love how under the copyright Bill Logan states “Be a muse to others.” We need more support like this in the RPG community.

Earlier in the 2026 challenge, another participant had posted a White Lies character on one of the message boards. When I gave my approval and informed him that I would also be making a character, the poster informed me that he had been running a White Lies campaign.

I do wish the PDF file had been bookmarked. I was moving back and forth between sections while making this character. That’s the only negative thing I can think of so far in regards to this book. The rest is beautiful and I would love to write or homebrew for this system.

Additional Notes:

I was informed of another blog to add to the main 2026 #Character Creation Challenge page. Please look at the list and let me know if I’m missing any. These can be personal blogs or message boards.

In response to my Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia entry, Sharro on RPGPub responded. “I see you also got fooled by the camouflaged page numbers. I had the book for years before I found them. Lots of swearing about a book that made reference to page numbers but didn’t number the pages…”

I’ve got some personal business dealing with a funeral coming up. I’ve set up a buffer so hopefully I won’t miss a day. But if real life prevents a post from happening on the day, I will get caught up.

Coming Up Next:

Attack From Space

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 5: Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia

And here we are on Day 5 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge and today we will be making a character for the Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia. Now I can probably hear a few of you saying: “But Carl, didn’t you already use BECMI for your very first Character Creation Challenge entry back in 2021?” Yes… but the first players handbook in that set walked a new player through the character creation process and rules by going through a solo “pick your own way” adventure. While the character creation is basically the same (no pun intended), there are some extra rules that are available in the Rules Cyclopedia. I had picked up this book quite a while ago via DriveThruRPG PoD (click link for review) and I thought that it would be good to use this system with the extra items.

There is a different character sheet provided with this version. The one seen in the red cover Basic Player’s Manual was… well basic with lots of wasted real-estate. This character record sheet has more sections for some of the different rules. The steps for creating a character are found on page 6. They are 1- Roll ability scores, 2- Choose a class, 3- Adjust the ability scores, 4- Roll up hit points, 5- Roll for starting money, 6- Purchase equipment, 7- Generate other numbers, 8- Note adjustments for ability scores, 9- Select alignment, 10- Name, personality and background, 11- Determine the height and weight of the character and 12- Earn experience. I’m not certain what that last one is. If it’s not listed in the next couple of pages, I’ll also be flipping back a few pages to the weapon and non-weapon skills.

This is roll 3d6 in a row system according to RAW. I rolled the six standard D&D ability scores with the special D6s I picked up from SaltCON last year. And it looks like this new character is going to be a not-so good looking Human cleric with the following stats. Str- 10, Int- 11, Wis- 17, Dex- 9, Con- 12 and Cha- 7. I briefly considered forcing this character into a demi-human class, but that’s just to high of a Wisdom score to let go. I looked at the adjust ability scores information and you can trade two points from an ability score to your prime requisite by one. You can’t pull these numbers from Constitution, Charisma or Dexterity. Well I don’t want Charisma to get any worse. I also can’t lower any ability score past 9 so this character’s Strength will not be going down. I could drop the Intelligence to a 9 and not suffer any negative effects, but it could affect any skills that I select that are Intelligence based. So I’m going to not adjust anything at this time.

All right, the important Hit Points of the character. The Cleric rolls a 1d6, so sticking with my SaltCON dice I rolled a 5. Unfortunately, the character’s Constitution score isn’t high enough to earn a HP bonus.

Starting money for this Cleric is determined by rolling 3d6 and multiplying it by 10. I rolled a 14 (I could have used that during the ability score generation), so 140 gold pieces to start. The RAW states that the character already has normal clothes. I picked up the standard fare that most starting characters have including the standard holy symbol. With the higher GP count, I did splurge for some chainmail and a shield.

Next I calculated up the AC and found the character’s saving’s throw information. With the high Wisdom score, I can add the bonus to the savings throws vs magic. There was an option for THAC0, but I stuck with the regular attack roll table. I’ve never really been a fan of THAC0. And to be honest, I’m more of a fan of the Ascending AC (if your opponent’s AC is 13, you need to roll a 13 or higher to hit it). This book has the Descending AC.

For the Alignment, I’m going with Lawful. There are only three of them in this system. As for a name (reaches up into the reaches of my mind), lets go with Brother Carthan of the Good Guy Church. Hey, I don’t know what world this guy is playing in so we’ll go nondescript until the DM tells me what gods they use. After an (insert bad guys here) raid on his farmstead left him an orphan, the Good Guy Church took him in. He is trying to repay the church by going on various quests for them out in the field with his friends the other player characters. Grin. The chart for determining the character height and weight is just a generic chart. Nothing to roll, so I picked something I thought would fit a traveling Cleric. As for the “Earning Experience” section, it just describes going up in level and what happens when you reach “name level” (aka Level 9).

So that’s the end of the standard character creation process, but as I have mentioned above, I wanted to include some optional rules found on page 75 “Other Character Abilities”. This includes Weapon Mastery and General Skills. At first level Brother Carthan gets two weapon mastery slots as a Cleric. Had he been a Fighter he would have started with four. At certain class levels, the number of slots increases that I can spend to learn new weapons, or increase a current weapons mastery that the character has. Anything without a slot is considered “unskilled” and only does half damage if a successful attack is made. And these can’t be generic in nature (e.g. Normal Sword mastery doesn’t cover Bastard Sword). There are some weapons that come in as Basic (the first level of mastery) such as throwing rocks. I selected War Hammer and Sling since that is what I had purchased earlier. If I decided to increase a mastery of a weapon that I’m already skilled in, eventually it would lead to attack roll/damage bonuses, AC bonuses, the ability to attack more than one target and even place an opponent(s) in Despair (which may cause them to flee or surrender depending upon their intelligence). It is not limited to just Fighters, but they get more slots than the other classes.

At creation, each character gets four General Skills. A higher intelligence can add more. There is a list of suggested skills and what ability they fall under. More can be added by the DM if needed. When a character needs to use a skill, they roll a D20 and try to match or roll under their ability score. The DM can give bonuses or penalties depending upon the situation. Later, when Brother Carthan gains more levels, additional skill slots can be acquired and spent on the same skills (making them better) or adding new skills all together. I selected Bravery, Ceremony, Danger Sense and Detect Deception. I then transferred everything over from my notes to the character sheet. Since Clerics don’t get spells until 2nd level, I did not scan the Spell Book Sheet.

Afterthoughts:

I hadn’t noticed this until now, but the page numbers are smack dab in the middle of the footer surrounded by a leafy graphic. It was easy to hide the page number in it.

When reading the rules for weapons mastery and skills, there were rules for unskilled use of weapons, but not for skills. What happens if my character tried to start a fire without flint and steel? This is something that the DM would have to make a decision on. Later, while I was reading some of the skill descriptions, they had guidelines for unskilled use, but not on all descriptions. I really want to compare some of the different OSR skill rules against each other at some time.

I can see how Weapons Mastery may lead to some roleplaying opportunities. You found a magic weapon, but you are not a master of it’s type, you need to search out a trainer who can teach your character.

I was getting some flashbacks while creating this. But I can also see why I’ve moved onto other OSR systems like Basic Fantasy.

Additional Notes:

I’ve had a few participants in the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge tell me that they are making characters, but not posting them online. I’d like to encourage these participants to post them on social media, discord or one of the message boards. Let’s share them for others to see. I’m already finding out about games that I’ve never heard of. In 2020 there was a game released called Visigoths vs Mall Goths which involves time travel to a 1990’s mall which sounds like crazy fun.

Coming Up Next:

White Lies 3rd Edition

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.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games

2026 Character Creation Challenge Day 4: Twilight: 2000 4th Edition

On Day 4 the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to create a character for a game that I remember playing when it first came out but has the latest edition available. This character will be for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition by Free League Publishing. I just realized that I’ll be using a lot of their books this year. In the early 90’s had played the first edition of Twilight: 2000. I don’t remember much about the system, but I do remember enjoying the campaign the GM was running. In the 2025 challenge I created a character for Twilight: 2000 version 2.2.

I had played the 4th Edition of this game at a past SaltCON back in 2023. I don’t recall much about the system other than thinking it was a little crunchy at the time. Like Rivers of London, I’m going to go on the scenario that there is a game with some friends later that day and I need to quickly get a character put together so that I can join them at the table. We are stuck in Europe after everything has broken down with the goal to get home to the United States.

The PDF set that I had picked up from DriveThruRPG had several books in the core set including a Player’s Manual. It lists two different ways to create a character for the game. Following a Life Path (more options) or using an Archetype (quicker creation). Had this been a planned event, I would have gone with the Life Path option, but I really want to see of the Archetype could get me a character that I wanted to play. The steps for the Archetypes are found on page 20 and contains nineteen steps (as compared to twenty-one for Life Paths).

Step one is to choose the archetype itself. There are nine in total including The Civilian, The Grunt, The Gunner, The Kid, The Mechanic, The Medic, The Officer, The Operator (aka special forces) and The Spook (aka the spy). I played a grunt type character in the first edition game. I made a medic last year for the challenge. I don’t recall what character I played in the one-shot, but I don’t think he was anything special. For some reason, the Spook is really catching my attention, so I’m going to go with that. Just the thought of a spy caught behind the lines when the war breaks down appeals to me.

The next step has me picking the nationality of my currently unnamed character. I’m sticking with USA since I’m thinking that the rest of the party is American soldiers. After that, the branch of service is chosen for the next step. As The Spook, I only have one option of Intelligence. Had I been a grunt I could have picked the branch of service. This also affects the next step of rank, of which he has none as a spy. I do recall James Bond holding the rank of Commander but that was from his previous military service.

Step five is to determine the attributes of the character. They are Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Empathy. I’m instructed to start all of these at a baseline of C (which uses a d8). I’m allotted three step increases that I can spend (up to B or A which would result in using a d10 or d12). For my yet-to-be named espionage agent, I selected Agility and Intelligence.

On step six we determine the hit capacity and stress capacity. Basically the health of the character. Hit is determined of STR+AGL die added together and divided by 4 (rounding up). Stress is the INT and EMP in the same formula.

Next comes the skills and they use the same D (d6) to A (d12) rating. I’m instructed to pick one B level skill, two C level skills and three D level skills. After reading the skill descriptions, I picked the skills I thought a spy would have. Connected to the skills (and step 8) is choosing the starting specialty from the archetype. I selected Infiltration since getting into places unseen is what spies do.

The Coolness Under Fire rating was determined by the Archetype (which I had already written down). And after that, the next step is determining the unit morale. According to the book, it’s equal to the highest command skill of a group member. Well making this character on my own I’ll leave this blank for now.

For step eleven I pick a moral code for the character. There are some suggestions under the archetype or I can make one of my own. I selected “The mission can succeed with the right amount of planning.” Step twelve is the big dream of the character. Again the archetype has some suggestions. On my own I came up with “My government can survive, even if it’s just through me.”

The next two steps have to do with the group (which again on my own is a little difficult to do). So my buddy in the group would be determined later. How the character met them, they were a backup support team assigned to the character when he was on an infiltration mission. Things went to hell before they could get back to their assigned unit.

Step fifteen is the appearance and I went with the one described in the archetype. Also from the archetype is the selection of gear (which I already had written down). Group gear and vehicle is on steps seventeen and eighteen. I’ll skip this for the time being since I’m without a group.

The last step is the number of starting permanent rads the character has been affected with. Since this is a war that nukes have been dropped in, everyone has been caught in some sort of nuclear fallout. This is determined by rolling a d6.

When I was making the version 2.2 Twilight: 2000 character last year, the first step was to pick a name. I didn’t see that option in this series of steps, so I’m picking one now. I pulled up a random name generator and selected Benton Ward. I then transferred my notes over to the character sheet to present here.

Afterthoughts:

The basics of the game is to use the die from your Attribute and your Skill (if any) and see how many successes you roll (usually 6 or higher). There are methods to push rolls at the cost of stress

I’m actually quite glad that I made a character for this system. It reminded me a little of the one-shot game that I played. If I recall correctly, we didn’t do a lot of dice rolling at the table, so I’d want to try it out a little bit more. But I loved the fact that the Referee’s manual had a conversion guide for T2K 1st and 2nd edition to 4th edition if they wanted to use the published adventures that had already been released.

I remember the GM for the 1st edition T2K campaign that I played in did a lot of homebrewing for the game. He loved looking up the information on different weapons and hardware. I could easily see myself doing the same for this game, if I thought there was a chance to get into a campaign. I remember collecting and reading combat magazines in the 80’s and 90’s and Twilight: 2000 was right up the alley of those publications.

Additional Notes:

On the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server I had a participant (clash_bowley) tell me that they were having fun making their characters even if they made three of them in a day. That is part of the reason that I run this challenge.

On the RPG.net message boards, I think it’s kewl that Greyarea13 is using Advanced Fighting Fantasy to make Masters of the Universe characters. Also on that same thread, Hafwit loved my Time Lord character and loved that he had the skill of Cheat Death.

Coming Up Next:

Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia

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.

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