Shadow of the Demon Lord is a great game by Robert J. Schwalb and his company, and I swear I'll play it one day! It's core assumptions are Horror Fantasy and sort of GrimDark (probably more so NobleDark) and more modern than High Medieval/Renaissance - it's got a Gunslinger and a few "tech" classes. I found out about it a while back now, when I was looking for D&D 5e alternatives and fell in love pretty much immediatelly. For today's character I'm going to once again randomly generate things but probably spend less time on their background and instead level them up a bit.
So, starting things off is picking Ancestry: in SotDL this is treated as 0th level basically; I'll be rolling a d8 for the 6 options (1, 7-8 are human): 3, Clockwork! These guys are interesting, souls bound into clockwork automaton (like more interesting/diverse Warforged...). Let's name them 8R-0N-2E
Strength: 10 -> Health: 10 (Healing Rate 2)
Agility: 7 -> Defence: 13 (Clockworks have it set at 13)
Intellect: 8 -> Perception: 8 (+2 to both)
Will: 10
Size 1 (reduced to 1/2), Speed 8, Power 0, and speaks the Common Tongue
Clockworks have various immunities, they have to be wound up like a toy soldier, and of course they've got a mechanical body meaning they don't need to eat, drink, or breathe but can't swim. If you are "unwound" you can also get repaired like an object.
OK, next are the background tables - pretty straight forward stuff. 8R-0N-2E is a fairly fresh construct, having been built only 5 years ago. They were built to gather intelligence on various targets - allowing me to increase either Agi or Int, I think I'll go with Int. For this purpose, they were made rather small (Size becomes 1/2, 4 feet tall and weigh 75 pounds). Built roughly and vaguely resembling human apperance, facial features are kinda uncanny. 8R-0N-2E's time with their master didn't laster long, as an accident with fire happened which burned down the house and killed their master. Finally, they're now left wandering, trying to find meaning to their life.
Right, now the next step will be determining their Professions, which are basically the game's skills. I rolled two 2's on the main Profession table, and I got an 11 and 18 for the Common Professions: Fisher or Whaler and Servant or Valet. He occasionally helped his master by catching fish and later was a servant for some city's artificer. Equipment follows after: 17, so Wealthy! 8R-0N-2E was certainly well taken care of by their new master. This gives them the following: a dagger, courtier’s clothing (a fancy hat), a cloak, a backpack, a week of rations, a waterskin, a coil of rope, a tinderbox, a lantern, 2 flasks of oil, a healing potion, a shield, an incantation of a rank 0 spell of the GM’s choice written on a scroll and a pouch containing 1d6 ss. All character also start with an Interesting Thing: in this case I got a mace made from purple metal with a name etched on the haft. Likely his old master's, the sole surviving memento from him but 8R-0N-2E doesn't recognise the name. Finally, before we move onto level up, is Personality Traits: he's Dutiful but also Arrogant.
When 8R-0N-2E levels up to first, Novice Paths become available to them. I was thinking Warrior at first, but looking it over again I'm not too sure. Time to roll a d4 then: 3, so Rogue; it suggests they'll do well if you have high Agility or Intellect, so I guess 8R-0N-2E will focus on being an Intellect Rogue. They undertook Rogue training by joining the city's watch, aiming to refine their spying talent. Alright, let's just jump to 2nd level and see how they look:
Strength: 11 -> Health: 17 (Healing Rate 4)
Agility: 7 -> Defence: 13 (Clockworks have it set at 13)
Intellect: 11 -> Perception: 11
Will: 10
Size 1/2, Speed 8, Power 0 (increased to 1), speaks the Common Tongue, and Fisher, Servant, and Spy Professions
Clockwork abilities as before plus Rogue's Nimble Recovery, Trickery, Exploit Opportunity, and a Roguery Talent (Magic sounds good)
The Magic Talent allows them to gain 1 or 2 spell Traditions and 1 or 2 spells, I'll just pick up two spells from a single Tradition. The Tradition will of course be Divination and the two spells are Eavesdrop (rank 0) and Psychometry (rank 1)
Finally, let's jump up to level 6. This means they'll have gotten an Expert Path at level 3, which I think will be Warlock because they wish to protect themselves against magic users. Here's how they'd look:
Strength: 12 -> Health: 30 (Healing Rate 7)
Agility: 7 -> Defence: 13 (Clockworks have it set at 13)
Intellect: 12 -> Perception: 12
Will: 10
Size 1/2, Speed 8, Power 2, speaks the Common Tongue and Dwarfish, and Fisher, Servant, and Spy Professions
Clockwork and Rogue abilities as before plus Clockwork's level 4 ability: uh, an extra spell!; Rogue's Level 5 abilities: Dirty Tricks and Rogue Cunning; and Warlock's level 3 and 6 abilities: Steal Spell, Vanish, Elude Divination, and Expert Spell Thief.
Gain either two new Traditions of magic and a spell OR a new Tradition and two new spells OR three new spells from Divination. I think I'll go with a new Tradition: Illusion; and two spells: Clamor (rank 0) from Illusion and Truth Ear (rank 2) from Divination.
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That was certainly a long post, but it was kinda fun making this robo-spy. Hopefully this will be of some help to anyone that's never played/read Shadow of the Demon Lord - I'm not too sure if I should keep in all the "Design Notes" as I go through the character, so let me know in the comments what you think! And I probably won't level up future characters like this again, but I dunno haha.
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