ZenBear
2018-07-07, 12:45 AM
I’ve started a new campaign with all new players and a new take on my homebrew setting. This week we had our session 0 where I taught our four new players how to make characters and we all discussed how they fit into the setting and how they came to be an adventuring party.
I use the map of Westeros (http://quartermaester.info/) from A Song of Ice and Fire and have done an admirable job, if I do say so myself, in shoehorning in every playable race and relevant monstrous category in along with some new inspiration from the Warmachine (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Main_Page) setting for regional factions.
This thread will be my ongoing campaign write-up, and for today I will be starting with an introduction of the five PCs which collectively shall be known as...
The Heroes of Westeros!
Sergeant Morik
A veteran infantryman from the feuding cities of the Westerlands who has grown weary of war as he reaches middle age. During a routine escort mission from Lannisport to Old Town he met a fiery young scholar named Zaheed, and the two formed a bond. It was Zaheed’s influence that finally pushed Morik to retire from the military and seek his fortune as an adventurer.
Morik is my brother’s character, a straightforward Fighter wearing medium armor and wielding a longsword and pistol. It took a lot of convincing to get my brother to play because his first experience with D&D didn’t go so well. He’s the straight man of the group, being generally level-headed and serious without any obvious quirks. In my campaigns I always run high powered PCs so not only does he get a feat for being VHuman, but also a bonus feat for being in my game. He took Medium Armor Master to round out his DEX and make stealth easier, and Martial Adept to have fun with Maneuvers from the get-go.
Stats: STR 16 DEX 16 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 8
Skills: Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Vehicles (land)
Theme song: Now You're A Man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXaT_1I-vw)
Dr. Zaheed Abu-Nar
A brilliant and arrogant scholar from Old Town who has grown bored in the stifling confines of the great library. During a trip to Lannisport running errands for the tenured Doctors he met the straight-laced Morik and couldn’t resist pressing his buttons to try to get some kind of rise out of the stern soldier. Over time the two became friends, and Zaheed recognized the opportunity before him when Morik spoke of his ambitions to earn a fortune before retirement. Zaheed is a self-sufficient, independent soul, but also rather fragile. He would need a good meat shield to protect him on his adventures as he sought excitement and arcane knowledge beyond what the musty tomes of Old Town could grant.
Zaheed is a Fire Genasi Wizard with the bonus feat Spell Sniper. He has a lot of interesting dynamics with the other characters, being a dangerously proud spellcaster with a bit of a chip on his shoulder from his abusive family life. He’s picked up a few blast spells like Magic Missile and Burning Hands, but also some utilitarian picks like Sleep and Mage Armor. Despite being largely combat focused at level one, he’s expressed interest in the Colleges of Illusion and Enchantment as possible subclass choices, grabbing Charm Person and Disguise Self as a potent combo in social situations. For a first-time player, Zaheed has good instincts.
Stats: STR 8 DEX 12 CON 10 INT 16 WIS 14 CHA 14
Skills: Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation
Theme song: Field On Fire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvyywDE67tY)
Voss and Lacroix
The story of the twin siblings Voss and Lacroix is quite unique. They know nothing of their parentage, only that they were once humans. When they were just toddlers an unknown guardian, perhaps a parent perhaps not, polymorphed them into ravens and cast them out to flee their squalid lives on the Iron Islands, an archipelago ruled by pirates and undead (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Cryx). They spent most of their formative years as birds, wandering the shores of Ironman’s Bay feeding on carrion from the constant battles and pirate raids. One day, just a few months prior to the events of our campaign, they were discovered by a Blackclad Wayfarer (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Blackclad_Wayfarer), a Druid of the Circle Orboros (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Circle_Orboros) who tried to restore them to their natural forms. Something went wrong, and the twins were warped by strange magics. Only one of the siblings can be in Kenku form at a time, while the other remains a shadowy raven. Their connection to death magic has manifested as a Warlock Pact of the Raven Queen, in my setting an Unseelie Fey of immense power. After gaining their new hybrid humanoid/raven form, they wandered from town to town, begging and performing mimicry tricks for coin until they came in contact with Cranberry and Tortuga, who took them in as a member of their traveling troupe.
Voss is the brother, Lacroix the sister. Originally their names were Vos and Vey, but I cracked a joke about Voss the fancy bottled water, and he had brought cans of Lacroix for the party to share, so the group unanimously decided on the new names. Kenku do exist in my setting, and though VL look like a Kenku they are technically distinct. The origin of Kenku is pretty much the same though, being former humans transformed by fey magic in the ancient past. VL and Zaheed have a fun pseudo-rivalry, as VL is utterly oblivious about how their magic works yet have similar spells to Zaheed who worked hard for years and endured tedious study to earn his skills. Z is always suspicious of VL, thinking their air headedness an act in some elaborate mental chess match, while VL is just an idiot. He has a slightly altered Actor feat that grants him Performance as a skill in place of the mimicry which comes natural to Kenku.
Stats: STR 8 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 18
Skills: Deception, Intimidation, Nature, Performance, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival
Theme song: Surfin' Bird (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnYzQsZXIRc)
Cranberry
If you thought VL was weird, get a load of Cranberry. A fallen Aasimar from the celestial plane, she is a child of the Lord of Light (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eLaCmCxb4tA/maxresdefault.jpg), the primary deity of the setting worshipped by several monotheistic cults in a similar sense as Judaism/Christianity/Islam. Despite being of purely divine origin, there was always something not quite right about her, being oddly clumsy despite her preternatural grace and infuriatingly whimsical to her disciplined angel-kin. One fateful mistake ended up with her being cast out of Heaven and she fell straight into the heart of the hellish Skorne Empire (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Skorne). She landed smack dab in the middle of the Grand Colosseum in Godsgrace, in the midst of a titanic battle between the favored slave gladiator of Dominar Rasheth (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Dominar_Rasheth) and some terrible fiend. The gladiator used the sudden distraction of the fallen Aasimar to gain the advantage in combat and slay the beast, and in so doing saved Cranberry’s life. From that moment on, the naive girl was in love. Despite being a Lawful Good aspect of the divine embodiment of Lawful Goodness, her senpai Tortuga is anything but Lawful or Good.
Creating Cranberry has been a major test of my homebrewing and mental gymnastics skills. Originally my friend gave me the pitch for her character to be a “loli tank that is so cute enemies don’t want to hurt her” and in my efforts to make that silly dream a reality, I created the Oath of the Waifu (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562892-Oath-of-the-Waifu) Paladin subclass. I’m quite proud of the meme-tastic motley homebrew, and I thought she would be ecstatic that I had worked so hard to accommodate her. She was, but... I was still a bit off. During character creation, she elaborated that she didn’t just want to be cute and ditzy, she wanted to be useless. She used that word exactly. She wanted to be weak, clumsy, frail, ditzy, oblivious, and so socially inept as to be incapable influencing people in any way other than through sheer pity. I admit I was at a complete loss how to react. It took some doing between myself, her boyfriend and their friend, but we got her to accept being weak, ditzy and oblivious, but still graceful, tough and charismatic. I also had to do some major retcon world building to make her fallen angel backstory fit my setting, since I didn’t originally have a clear cosmology that included a “Heaven” as she wanted to be from. I made it work, and in retrospect it actually makes a lot of sense and the effort fleshed out my world in ways that needed tending to, but damn was this a trial! In combat she’s sturdy and dangerous but is effectively a support character. I gave her the Healer feat for even more support options.
Stats: STR 8 DEX 16 CON 16 INT 8 WIS 8 CHA 16
Skills: Arcana, Religion, Performance, Persuasion
Theme song: Yoshi's Island (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulvM1lzy6f8&feature=youtu.be)
Tortuga
Born a human slave in the Skorne Empire (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Skorne), Tortuga earned a reputation in the fighting pits for his talent as a professional wrestler. As he continued to win the battles and the love of the crowd, he earned the favor of the ruler of Godsgrace, Dominar Rasheth (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Dominar_Rasheth), and was given the opportunity to make a Faustian Deal. In return for his escape from slavery, he surrendered his eyes and tongue. From that day on, Tortuga has worn a BDSM-style leather gimp mask, complete with ball-gag and blindfold (https://www.tapeciarnia.pl/tapety/normalne/149651_mezczyzna_voldo_soul_calibur_iii_katary.jpg ). Donning the mask also transformed him from his natural human form to that of a Tiefling, which gave him the ability to blend in with the populace when he made his escape. Tortuga’s final battle as a champion gladiator of the Godsgrace Colosseum was one that would ostensibly earn his freedom, were it possible to win. The devil he was pitted against was entirely insurmountable, and despite his best efforts and greatest performance of his life he was nearing his end, until the sudden appearance of Cranberry saved his life as she crashed between the combatants, granting Tortuga the moment of distraction he needed to land a brutal Sneak Attack.
Where Cranberry is the only Lawful Good character in a party full of True Neutral and Chaotic Neutral, her senapi Tortuga is Chaotic Evil. Cranberry has a blind faith that her savior is a good man, and Tortuga takes great pleasure in taking advantage of her naivete. How that dynamic will play out in the campaign and how they affect each other will be fun to explore. They escaped from Skorne together as master and slave and wandered the southlands for a time, performing, thieving and conning for coin. They recruit VL as a part of their troupe, and eventually run into Morik and Zaheed in Riverrun. Tortuga manages to instigate Morik, who is egged on by Zaheed to try and best him in a street fight. Tortuga very nearly loses his life as he pushes Morik a bit too far, and it’s only through the intervention of Zaheed that he lives. Once tempers cool, Zaheed and Tortuga strike a deal to band together as an adventuring company. While Morik earned Tortuga’s respect for his prowess, he also earned Cranberry’s envy for Tortuga’s attention. For obvious reasons, Tortuga has the Grappler feat. One major hurdle we have to face though, is that Tortuga was built with the Vicious Mockery Tiefling racial spell, and it was only later in the session that we came up with the ball gag. It started as a Luchador mask because the player is a big wrestling fan, then it was twisted by the sadomasochism of the Skorne and our delinquent sense of humor. He hasn't yet decided if he wants to ditch the gag, the cantrip, or somehow work around the issue by being fluent in sign language (in lieu of Thieves Cant) and use VM through obscene gestures and bodily contortions. We'll see where it goes.
Stats: STR 14 DEX 16 CON 14 INT 8 WIS 10 CHA 12
Skills: Acrobatics*, Athletics*, Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Sleight of Hand *Expertise
Theme song: Master and Servant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIL2yPZpmec&feature=youtu.be)
With so many players brand new to D&D it was a bit difficult teaching them how to make a character. I had to start very vague, asking about how they envisioned their character as far as what armor they wore and if they used magic, and work the details in to fit their ideas. I tried my best to keep things interesting, moving from one player to another as I explained how to fill in each section of the character sheet, and changing topics entirely when I sensed the tedium starting to chafe. Once the math was done, I took my break to eat and told them to discuss among themselves how each character knew one another. I was extremely gratified with how enthusiastic the group got at this stage, and at this point I feel like we're all on the same page for the tone of the campaign and each player is just as invested in each others characters as in their own.
We actually managed to finish character creation with time to spare, and so I ran them part way into my first quest despite being completely unprepared to do so. Beginning in the hub town of Crossroads, our adventuring party was hired out to locate the missing hirelings that were supposed to have delivered an important shipment for one Captain Arlan Strangewayes (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Captain_Arlan_Strangewayes). The party traveled the High Road, and because Morik is generally familiar with the trade routes he knows about the relevant short cuts that many messengers and delivery services frequent. On one such path they come across the bodies of two dead horses. Voss sends his sister to scout around, and rolls very high for Perception, but not quite high enough. As the group moves in to investigate, they are ambushed by a pair of Skaven (http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Skaven) (filling the role of goblins in my setting, since gobbos and orcs are playable civilized races and not the vermin they are in most of D&D) and ROUS's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOv5ZjAOpC8). In the surprise round, the first Skaven whiffed his attack against Tortuga and the first ROUS hit, which we described as the Skaven making a leaping attack which gets blocked by Tortuga giving him The Chair (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CxVvcVCUFU) (that's his Sneak Attack weapon :P) and the ROUS hit him low with a bite to the leg. Cranberry went down right away as the other Skaven crit her and the ROUS hit her. Morik steps forward and hacks one Skaven's head off, and both Tortuga and Voss whiff their attacks. Zaheed saves the day by putting both ROUS's to Sleep, and the remaining Skaven misses its parting shot before bolting into the nearby bushes. As Morik and Tortuga coup de gras the ROUS's, the mages fail to take down the fleeing rat man. Cranberry actually rolls a natural 1 on her second failed death saving throw, but since it occurred at the end of the combat and it was the very first fight of the campaign, I ruled that Tortuga stabilized her. That was all we had time for, so we'll pick up in a couple weeks with the group taking a short rest to recuperate and decide their next move.
As you can tell, my group ranges from the basic to the absurd. It's gonna be an interesting game to say the least!
I use the map of Westeros (http://quartermaester.info/) from A Song of Ice and Fire and have done an admirable job, if I do say so myself, in shoehorning in every playable race and relevant monstrous category in along with some new inspiration from the Warmachine (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Main_Page) setting for regional factions.
This thread will be my ongoing campaign write-up, and for today I will be starting with an introduction of the five PCs which collectively shall be known as...
The Heroes of Westeros!
Sergeant Morik
A veteran infantryman from the feuding cities of the Westerlands who has grown weary of war as he reaches middle age. During a routine escort mission from Lannisport to Old Town he met a fiery young scholar named Zaheed, and the two formed a bond. It was Zaheed’s influence that finally pushed Morik to retire from the military and seek his fortune as an adventurer.
Morik is my brother’s character, a straightforward Fighter wearing medium armor and wielding a longsword and pistol. It took a lot of convincing to get my brother to play because his first experience with D&D didn’t go so well. He’s the straight man of the group, being generally level-headed and serious without any obvious quirks. In my campaigns I always run high powered PCs so not only does he get a feat for being VHuman, but also a bonus feat for being in my game. He took Medium Armor Master to round out his DEX and make stealth easier, and Martial Adept to have fun with Maneuvers from the get-go.
Stats: STR 16 DEX 16 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 8
Skills: Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Vehicles (land)
Theme song: Now You're A Man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXaT_1I-vw)
Dr. Zaheed Abu-Nar
A brilliant and arrogant scholar from Old Town who has grown bored in the stifling confines of the great library. During a trip to Lannisport running errands for the tenured Doctors he met the straight-laced Morik and couldn’t resist pressing his buttons to try to get some kind of rise out of the stern soldier. Over time the two became friends, and Zaheed recognized the opportunity before him when Morik spoke of his ambitions to earn a fortune before retirement. Zaheed is a self-sufficient, independent soul, but also rather fragile. He would need a good meat shield to protect him on his adventures as he sought excitement and arcane knowledge beyond what the musty tomes of Old Town could grant.
Zaheed is a Fire Genasi Wizard with the bonus feat Spell Sniper. He has a lot of interesting dynamics with the other characters, being a dangerously proud spellcaster with a bit of a chip on his shoulder from his abusive family life. He’s picked up a few blast spells like Magic Missile and Burning Hands, but also some utilitarian picks like Sleep and Mage Armor. Despite being largely combat focused at level one, he’s expressed interest in the Colleges of Illusion and Enchantment as possible subclass choices, grabbing Charm Person and Disguise Self as a potent combo in social situations. For a first-time player, Zaheed has good instincts.
Stats: STR 8 DEX 12 CON 10 INT 16 WIS 14 CHA 14
Skills: Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation
Theme song: Field On Fire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvyywDE67tY)
Voss and Lacroix
The story of the twin siblings Voss and Lacroix is quite unique. They know nothing of their parentage, only that they were once humans. When they were just toddlers an unknown guardian, perhaps a parent perhaps not, polymorphed them into ravens and cast them out to flee their squalid lives on the Iron Islands, an archipelago ruled by pirates and undead (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Cryx). They spent most of their formative years as birds, wandering the shores of Ironman’s Bay feeding on carrion from the constant battles and pirate raids. One day, just a few months prior to the events of our campaign, they were discovered by a Blackclad Wayfarer (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Blackclad_Wayfarer), a Druid of the Circle Orboros (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Circle_Orboros) who tried to restore them to their natural forms. Something went wrong, and the twins were warped by strange magics. Only one of the siblings can be in Kenku form at a time, while the other remains a shadowy raven. Their connection to death magic has manifested as a Warlock Pact of the Raven Queen, in my setting an Unseelie Fey of immense power. After gaining their new hybrid humanoid/raven form, they wandered from town to town, begging and performing mimicry tricks for coin until they came in contact with Cranberry and Tortuga, who took them in as a member of their traveling troupe.
Voss is the brother, Lacroix the sister. Originally their names were Vos and Vey, but I cracked a joke about Voss the fancy bottled water, and he had brought cans of Lacroix for the party to share, so the group unanimously decided on the new names. Kenku do exist in my setting, and though VL look like a Kenku they are technically distinct. The origin of Kenku is pretty much the same though, being former humans transformed by fey magic in the ancient past. VL and Zaheed have a fun pseudo-rivalry, as VL is utterly oblivious about how their magic works yet have similar spells to Zaheed who worked hard for years and endured tedious study to earn his skills. Z is always suspicious of VL, thinking their air headedness an act in some elaborate mental chess match, while VL is just an idiot. He has a slightly altered Actor feat that grants him Performance as a skill in place of the mimicry which comes natural to Kenku.
Stats: STR 8 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 18
Skills: Deception, Intimidation, Nature, Performance, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival
Theme song: Surfin' Bird (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnYzQsZXIRc)
Cranberry
If you thought VL was weird, get a load of Cranberry. A fallen Aasimar from the celestial plane, she is a child of the Lord of Light (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eLaCmCxb4tA/maxresdefault.jpg), the primary deity of the setting worshipped by several monotheistic cults in a similar sense as Judaism/Christianity/Islam. Despite being of purely divine origin, there was always something not quite right about her, being oddly clumsy despite her preternatural grace and infuriatingly whimsical to her disciplined angel-kin. One fateful mistake ended up with her being cast out of Heaven and she fell straight into the heart of the hellish Skorne Empire (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Skorne). She landed smack dab in the middle of the Grand Colosseum in Godsgrace, in the midst of a titanic battle between the favored slave gladiator of Dominar Rasheth (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Dominar_Rasheth) and some terrible fiend. The gladiator used the sudden distraction of the fallen Aasimar to gain the advantage in combat and slay the beast, and in so doing saved Cranberry’s life. From that moment on, the naive girl was in love. Despite being a Lawful Good aspect of the divine embodiment of Lawful Goodness, her senpai Tortuga is anything but Lawful or Good.
Creating Cranberry has been a major test of my homebrewing and mental gymnastics skills. Originally my friend gave me the pitch for her character to be a “loli tank that is so cute enemies don’t want to hurt her” and in my efforts to make that silly dream a reality, I created the Oath of the Waifu (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562892-Oath-of-the-Waifu) Paladin subclass. I’m quite proud of the meme-tastic motley homebrew, and I thought she would be ecstatic that I had worked so hard to accommodate her. She was, but... I was still a bit off. During character creation, she elaborated that she didn’t just want to be cute and ditzy, she wanted to be useless. She used that word exactly. She wanted to be weak, clumsy, frail, ditzy, oblivious, and so socially inept as to be incapable influencing people in any way other than through sheer pity. I admit I was at a complete loss how to react. It took some doing between myself, her boyfriend and their friend, but we got her to accept being weak, ditzy and oblivious, but still graceful, tough and charismatic. I also had to do some major retcon world building to make her fallen angel backstory fit my setting, since I didn’t originally have a clear cosmology that included a “Heaven” as she wanted to be from. I made it work, and in retrospect it actually makes a lot of sense and the effort fleshed out my world in ways that needed tending to, but damn was this a trial! In combat she’s sturdy and dangerous but is effectively a support character. I gave her the Healer feat for even more support options.
Stats: STR 8 DEX 16 CON 16 INT 8 WIS 8 CHA 16
Skills: Arcana, Religion, Performance, Persuasion
Theme song: Yoshi's Island (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulvM1lzy6f8&feature=youtu.be)
Tortuga
Born a human slave in the Skorne Empire (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Skorne), Tortuga earned a reputation in the fighting pits for his talent as a professional wrestler. As he continued to win the battles and the love of the crowd, he earned the favor of the ruler of Godsgrace, Dominar Rasheth (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Dominar_Rasheth), and was given the opportunity to make a Faustian Deal. In return for his escape from slavery, he surrendered his eyes and tongue. From that day on, Tortuga has worn a BDSM-style leather gimp mask, complete with ball-gag and blindfold (https://www.tapeciarnia.pl/tapety/normalne/149651_mezczyzna_voldo_soul_calibur_iii_katary.jpg ). Donning the mask also transformed him from his natural human form to that of a Tiefling, which gave him the ability to blend in with the populace when he made his escape. Tortuga’s final battle as a champion gladiator of the Godsgrace Colosseum was one that would ostensibly earn his freedom, were it possible to win. The devil he was pitted against was entirely insurmountable, and despite his best efforts and greatest performance of his life he was nearing his end, until the sudden appearance of Cranberry saved his life as she crashed between the combatants, granting Tortuga the moment of distraction he needed to land a brutal Sneak Attack.
Where Cranberry is the only Lawful Good character in a party full of True Neutral and Chaotic Neutral, her senapi Tortuga is Chaotic Evil. Cranberry has a blind faith that her savior is a good man, and Tortuga takes great pleasure in taking advantage of her naivete. How that dynamic will play out in the campaign and how they affect each other will be fun to explore. They escaped from Skorne together as master and slave and wandered the southlands for a time, performing, thieving and conning for coin. They recruit VL as a part of their troupe, and eventually run into Morik and Zaheed in Riverrun. Tortuga manages to instigate Morik, who is egged on by Zaheed to try and best him in a street fight. Tortuga very nearly loses his life as he pushes Morik a bit too far, and it’s only through the intervention of Zaheed that he lives. Once tempers cool, Zaheed and Tortuga strike a deal to band together as an adventuring company. While Morik earned Tortuga’s respect for his prowess, he also earned Cranberry’s envy for Tortuga’s attention. For obvious reasons, Tortuga has the Grappler feat. One major hurdle we have to face though, is that Tortuga was built with the Vicious Mockery Tiefling racial spell, and it was only later in the session that we came up with the ball gag. It started as a Luchador mask because the player is a big wrestling fan, then it was twisted by the sadomasochism of the Skorne and our delinquent sense of humor. He hasn't yet decided if he wants to ditch the gag, the cantrip, or somehow work around the issue by being fluent in sign language (in lieu of Thieves Cant) and use VM through obscene gestures and bodily contortions. We'll see where it goes.
Stats: STR 14 DEX 16 CON 14 INT 8 WIS 10 CHA 12
Skills: Acrobatics*, Athletics*, Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Sleight of Hand *Expertise
Theme song: Master and Servant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIL2yPZpmec&feature=youtu.be)
With so many players brand new to D&D it was a bit difficult teaching them how to make a character. I had to start very vague, asking about how they envisioned their character as far as what armor they wore and if they used magic, and work the details in to fit their ideas. I tried my best to keep things interesting, moving from one player to another as I explained how to fill in each section of the character sheet, and changing topics entirely when I sensed the tedium starting to chafe. Once the math was done, I took my break to eat and told them to discuss among themselves how each character knew one another. I was extremely gratified with how enthusiastic the group got at this stage, and at this point I feel like we're all on the same page for the tone of the campaign and each player is just as invested in each others characters as in their own.
We actually managed to finish character creation with time to spare, and so I ran them part way into my first quest despite being completely unprepared to do so. Beginning in the hub town of Crossroads, our adventuring party was hired out to locate the missing hirelings that were supposed to have delivered an important shipment for one Captain Arlan Strangewayes (https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Captain_Arlan_Strangewayes). The party traveled the High Road, and because Morik is generally familiar with the trade routes he knows about the relevant short cuts that many messengers and delivery services frequent. On one such path they come across the bodies of two dead horses. Voss sends his sister to scout around, and rolls very high for Perception, but not quite high enough. As the group moves in to investigate, they are ambushed by a pair of Skaven (http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Skaven) (filling the role of goblins in my setting, since gobbos and orcs are playable civilized races and not the vermin they are in most of D&D) and ROUS's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOv5ZjAOpC8). In the surprise round, the first Skaven whiffed his attack against Tortuga and the first ROUS hit, which we described as the Skaven making a leaping attack which gets blocked by Tortuga giving him The Chair (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CxVvcVCUFU) (that's his Sneak Attack weapon :P) and the ROUS hit him low with a bite to the leg. Cranberry went down right away as the other Skaven crit her and the ROUS hit her. Morik steps forward and hacks one Skaven's head off, and both Tortuga and Voss whiff their attacks. Zaheed saves the day by putting both ROUS's to Sleep, and the remaining Skaven misses its parting shot before bolting into the nearby bushes. As Morik and Tortuga coup de gras the ROUS's, the mages fail to take down the fleeing rat man. Cranberry actually rolls a natural 1 on her second failed death saving throw, but since it occurred at the end of the combat and it was the very first fight of the campaign, I ruled that Tortuga stabilized her. That was all we had time for, so we'll pick up in a couple weeks with the group taking a short rest to recuperate and decide their next move.
As you can tell, my group ranges from the basic to the absurd. It's gonna be an interesting game to say the least!