I recently snagged a Humble Bundle that included Dragonbane, and while helping a player create a character for a solo session (keep watching this space for the full review!), we hit a few snags in the process. To save you the same trouble, I’ve compiled this handy guide to make character creation a breeze!
Kin, Age, Profession, etc.
Kin
With access to classic fantasy races like elves, dwarves, humans, etc. you can have quite a few choices and can roll a d12 to randomize it as well. So from the list of Human, Halfling, Dwarf, Elf, Mallard, and Wolfkin, I rolled an 8 and will be building a Dwarf! We’ll name him Vuraz!
Profession
Similar to Kin, Dragonbane has a list of professions, with the classical RPG professions like fighter, mage, and bard, there are also a few different ones, the list goes on with: Artisan, Hunter, knight, mariner, merchant, scholar, and thief. This time it’s a d10 to get a profession from the table and I received the Mariner profession.
Age
Another important decision that will affect attributes as well as trained skills later on. Your character age choices consist of young, Adult, or Old. The older your character is the lower your attributes are but you get higher skill ratings in return. Vuraz is an elderly fisherman with years of experience hunting and navigating the oceans!
Attributes
Attributes consist of 4d6 rolls and dropping the lowest per stat, you then apply these rolls and remember that a stat can’t be lower than 3 and higher than 18 regardless of character age! Also, remember to apply the attribute changes from your age.
The Attributes you’ll be applying these rolls to consist of:
- Strength (STR)
- Constitution (CON)
- Agility (AGL)
- Intelligence (INT)
- Willpower (WIL)
- Charisma (CHA)
The attributes for Vuraz look like:
- Strength (STR) = 11
- Constitution (CON) = 12
- Agility (AGL) = 12
- Intelligence (INT) = 16
- Willpower (WIL) = 9
- Charisma (CHA) = 9
Derived Statistics
Even further, we go to statistics like movement, Damage bonuses, HP, and Willpower Points.
Movement: Dwarves have a default movement of 8 and my Agility Attribute is 12 so I get to add 2 more. So in total, my movement is 10.
Damage Bonus: His Strength-based weapon damage bonus is going to be 0 as his STR is lower than 12, and similarly to STR, his Agility-based weapon is also going to have 0 bonus damage!
Hit Points: It seems like Vuraz must’ve been the navigator on the ship considering how rounded his stats are except for INT, his Hit Points are equal to CON so Vuraz has 12HP.
Willpower Points: Like HP, it is the same as the Willpower Attribute so Vuraz has 9 Willpower points.
Weaknesses and memento
While these are optional it really does just create some depth for your character and gives you a better understanding of how you would go about the world. For his weakness, Vuraz got greedy and always wants a bigger share of all the treasure and as for memento Vuraz has a family heirloom, an ornate key. This might be where his greed stems from as nobody has told him what lock this key opens.
Skills
Skills are the blood, sweat and tears of your adventurer. It represents the knowledge and abilities your character has gained through their life and will be the main tool used throughout your adventures.
Due to his age, Vuraz has had plenty of time to work on his skills therefore he gets to choose an extra 6 skills in addition to the base 6 that you start with.
Awareness, Beast Lore, Crafting, Evade, Languages, Myths & Legends, Seamanship, Sneaking, Spot hidden, Swimming, Spears, and Crossbows. Quite the diverse skillset but all pretty much in AGL and INT.
You start off with the heroic ability, you either earn the abilities or unlock them by leveling up a skill past 18 unless your a mage. Vuraz’s heroic ability will be Intuition which has a cost of 3 willpower and allows me ask my GM a question representing my characters vast knowledge.
In my opinion, while Dragonbane has one of the easiest character setups I’ve experienced, the attributes did confuse me a bit the first time. The wording in the base game book was a bit weird but luckily it was quite easy to move past!
Conclusion
Creating a character in Dragonbane is an exciting and streamlined process, but it does come with a few nuances that can trip up new players. In this guide, we walked through each step—from selecting kin, age, and profession to rolling attributes, assigning skills, and picking heroic abilities. Using Vuraz the Dwarven Mariner as an example, we saw how these choices come together to shape a unique and dynamic character ready for adventure.
Now it’s your turn! Try rolling up a character and experimenting with different combinations of kin and professions. Share your creations and experiences in the comments or on social media—I’d love to see what kind of heroes (or troublemakers) you come up with!
Looking ahead, I’ll be diving deeper into Dragonbane, including a full session review and possibly a combat breakdown to help new players grasp the mechanics. If you’re interested in seeing how Vuraz fares in an actual session, stay tuned for more content!
*This tutorial is an independent, educational resource. It is not affiliated with the game’s publisher. For official rules and content, please refer to the core rulebook.*
