CCC day 10- Ming, narcissistic parkour instructor (Fate Core)

This is the same PC for the same game but generated through random dice rolls under the Fate Core system that was the precursor to my actual PC under Cortex and I didn’t quite make it to completion : 

Description: Male, 20s, short and lithe 

Aspects:

  • High Concept: Narcissitic parkour practitioner 
  • Trouble: Rigid in thinking 
  • Values certainty 
  • Petty

Skills:

  • +4: Athletics
  • +3: Notice, Fight 
  • +2: Physique, Provoke
  • +1: Will 

Stunts:

  • Artful dodger.  Use Athletics in combination with Physique to Defend against physical attacks 

CCC day 9- Ming, peacock parkour instructor (Cortex Supernatural)

This is a character for a new zombie apocalypse game that I will be participating in as a player: 

Agility: d10

Strength: d6

Vitality: d8

Alertness: d8

Intelligence: d8

Willpower: d8

Initiative: d10+d8

Life points: 16

Endurance: 2d8

Resistance: 2d8

Assets:

  • D6 allure: You’re hot. You either got good looks or sex appeal that defies explanation. Your Trait die is added to any Influence actions involving someone who might find you appealing. Only works in person though; phone calls don’t count unless the Game Master says so.
  • D6 Natural athlete: Your Trait die is added to actions involving endurance, physical training, or fitness. This Trait don’t help with combat directly, but if you spend a lot of your fights leaping over tables or running from demons, it can come in handy.

Complications

  • D2 absent-minded: It don’t matter whether you’re a genius or a dumbass … you forget stuff all the time. It’s hard for you to remember appointments or what you had for breakfast. Most of the time you’ll just role play this, but when attempting to remember things or concentrate while distractions are present, your Trait die is added to the Difficulty.
  • D6 honest to a fault: You can’t lie to save your life. Maybe it’s how you were raised, perhaps you’re just too simple to come up with something clever. Regardless, you don’t have a poker face and have hard time lying even when you wanna tell a good whopper. When there’s a call for using the dice, your Trait die is added to the Difficulty of any action attempting to conceal the truth or pull one over on somebody.

Skills:

  • D6 Athletics: d10 climbing, d10 jumping (14 SP)
  • D6 Perception: d8 sight (8 SP) 
  • D6 survival (6 SP)
  • D6 Influence: d8 conversation (8 SP)
  • D6 melee weapons: d8 clubs (8 SP)
  • D4 Knowledge
  • D6 Medicine: d8 First Aid (8 SP) 
  • D4 Lore
  • D4 Discipline
  • D4 Artistry 

Equipment:

  • Backpack
  • Baseball bat: d6 B

Travel plan for 2026: Italy and Greece

Originally we were planning on a Greek trip at around October and the original pairing was with Turkey but after some back and forth from Mum, we decided to change the pairing to be Greece and Italy instead. The current plan is 12 days in Italy and 2 weeks in Greece. 

The 3 home bases of Italy are Milan, Naples and Sorrento, spending 4 days in each place. The Greek part is still up for revision because the major takeaway from the Spain/Portugal trip is that each home base has to have at least 3 days in order for the trip to be not too rushed. So I had fixed up the Italy part with that in mind and now I have to go over the Greek itinerary with the same goal in order to correct the pacing. I will have more to report later in the year, before the trip. But that’s it for travelling this year. 

CCC day 8- Honest but obstructive female military support officer (Central Casting 2e/D&D)

I had actually been using Central Casting on the side and yesterday I’ve gotten a pretty interesting character as follows: 

Family: 2 parents, 4 brothers plus 2 illegitimate brothers

Born in a cave, with a curse of frequently fumbling 

Significant events of childhood

  • Character develops jaded tastes for exotic and possibly expensive pleasures
  • Learn song writing 
  • Character was imprisoned for a fraud she did not commit and had her tongue cut out and could no longer speak. She was also sent to a medium security work camp where 1 prisoner accompanied her 
  • A favorite, possibly valuable, possession was lost.

Significant events of adolescence

  • Learnt to use a weapon appropriate to the character’s culture and social status at rank 3 of competency
  • Character was molested by an adult neighbour

Significant event of adulthood

  • Character joined the military, mistakenly thinking she was applying for some other government job, and was assigned to non-combat duty. But she still managed to learn the use of a new weapon 

Most valued person: a sibling (strength=average)

Most valued thing: item that is a symbol of patriotism (strength=strong)

Most valued abstraction: patriotism (strength=strong)

CCC days 6 and 7- the 4 Holy Beast Guardians (2) [Fate Core]

Following on from yesterday, here are the other two descendants. 

Nam Gong Chor (南宮楚)

Male, medium height, stocky, 22-23

Aspects: 

High Concept: Perfectionist descendant of the Crimson Bird Guardian working as scribe

Trouble: Intolerant of cold 

Values humility 

Perceptive 

Special equipment: Crimson Bird Fist 

Skills:

+4: Notice

+3: Physique, Fight 

+2: Will, Lore, Investigate 

+1: Contacts, Athletics, Empathy, Resources 

Stunts: 

  1. Wind Damage. +2 to attacking with Shoot when using the Green Dragon Bow
  2. Lies upon Lies. +2 to create a Deceive advantage against someone who has believed one of your lies already during this session.

Buk Tong Ling (北堂靈)

Female, 28-29, tall and shapely 

Aspects: 

High Concept: Innocent descendant of the Snake-Turtle Guardian working as an embroiderer

Trouble: Excessively dependent 

Values communication 

Melodramatic 

Special equipment: Snake-Turtle Shield 

Skills:

+4: Crafts

+3:  Notice, Resources

+2:  Rapport, Empathy, Athletics

+1: Will, Physique, Stealth, Lore 

Stunts: 

  1. Agile turtle. Add Athletics to Physique when Defending against physical attacks 

CCC days 4 and 5- the 4 Holy Beast Guardians (1) [Fate Core]

I’ve randomly come up with the following premise for a Chinese story but don’t intend to write it so I’m using it for the character challenge instead: The Kingdom was guarded by the Armies of the 4 Holy Beasts led by the 4 Guardians until an ambitious Emperor eliminated or forced away the 4 Guardians. Generations later, the Kingdom is invaded and the only hope lies in recruiting the descendants of the 4 Guardians once again under the banner of the Kingdom. 

This post contains the first two of the four descendants. 

Dong Feng Kwok (东方玨)

Female, late teens, Petite with a gap-toothed smile 

Aspects: 

High Concept: Insinuasive descendant of the Indigo Dragon Guardian fallen on hard times

Trouble: Boastful 

Values adaptability 

Lack of confidence 

Special equipment: Indigo Dragon Bow

Skills:

+4: Deceive

+3: Stealth, Athletics

+2: Notice, Physique, Will

+1: Shoot, Rapport, Ride, Contacts

Stunts: 

  1. Wind Damage. +2 to attacking with Shoot when using the Green Dragon Bow
  2. Lies upon Lies. +2 to create a Deceive advantage against someone who has believed one of your lies already during this session.

Sai Mun Gwo (西門戈)

Male, 24-5, tall and muscular but average build 

Aspects: 

High Concept: Patient descendant of the White Tiger Guardian working as bodyguard

Trouble: Slothful 

Values harmony 

Selfish

Special equipment: White Tiger Spear 

Skills:

+4: Fight

+3: Rapport, Contacts

+2: Notice, Physique, Athletics

+1: Will, Drive, Investigate, Provoke 

Stunts: 

  1. Sharpness of Metal. +2 to attacking when Fighting with the White Tiger Spear
  2. Harmless sloth. Use Rapport rather than Deceive for Defence against Investigate 

CCC day 3- Strong willed Jack (Numenara)

I got a little bored with Fate so I moved onto making a character for Numenara. I pretty much followed the guide except that I skipped out on starting equipment:

Strong-willed Jack

Might: 11

Speed: 12

Intellect: 13 (Edge: 1)

Effort: 1

2 Cyphers

Skills: 

  • You’re trained in resisting mental effects.
  • You’re trained in tasks requiring incredible focus or concentration.
  • Perception 

Inability: 

  • Willful doesn’t mean brilliant. The difficulty of any task that involves figuring out puzzles or problems, memorizing things, or using lore is increased by one step.

Tricks of the Trade:

  • Hedge magic (1 Intellect Point)
  • Pierce (1 Speed Point) 

Background:

  • You remember little of your past, which has always seemed strange to you

Initial Link to the Starting Adventure:

  • Against your better judgment, you joined the other PCs because you saw that they were in danger.

Character Focus: 

  • Crafts unique objects 

Writing plans for 2026

I don’t tend to create new year resolutions but I had an idea yesterday which was to create a new novel project besides the WIP. To be honest, I really think that I should let it go but for now, I’m giving it the slow fade approach that I use for personal relationships. 

Meanwhile, I am trying to approach the next project a bit differently and enter it from the angle of characters as opposed to plot although I do have a main plot in mind. It would still be Chinese fantasy and while I was initially debating between urban versus traditional high fantasy I’ve now decided to settle with traditional high fantasy. My protagonists would be teenagers (because the stakes would be higher with that setup) although I’m not sure that would really make it YA- my vocabulary use and writing style is not that compatible with a YA audience. Then again, there is no rule that says having a teen protagonist or protagonists makes the novel YA per se so I will just do the writing first and then categorisation/genre later. 

The main plot would centre on the abduction of a protagonist who has a telepathic bond with her twin sister. So the stakes for the sisters are very clear: for the abducted, to escape and for the other one, to save her sister. I’m intending to use first person for the abducted sister and third person limited for the other one. I will try to keep the number of casts down for this project since I feel like what ‘killed’ the other one was too many people involved that I just can’t feel into the head of. 

CCC days 1 and 2: Lan and Chi, twin sisters (Fate Core)

For starters, I am using the FATE Core system for character generation which is a very quick process compared to alternative systems. I am not doing it all the way, just 4 aspects for each twin sister and their starting skill pyramid. But that is really just skipping 1 aspect and the stunts section (which can be thought of as special moves or more generally how skills work differently for the given character). 

Below are snapshots from roll20 templates:

ChiDownload
LanDownload

Character Creation Challenge 2026

I’ve decided to take part in the 2026 character creation challenge. And I’m not going to post up every day but would rather combine two days at least because otherwise the post would be too sparse. 

Days 1 and 2: Lan and Chi, twin sisters for my new novel project

Day 3: Strong willed, Jack (Numenara)

Days 4 and 5: the 4 Holy Beast Guardians (1) [Fate Core]

Days 6 and 7: the 4 Holy Beast Guardians (2) [Fate Core]

Day 8- Honest but obstructive female military support officer (Central Casting 2e/D&D)

Day 9- Ming, peacock parkour instructor (Cortex Supernatural)

Day 10- Ming, narcissitic parkour instructor (Fate Core)