The Elder Scrolls: GURPS - Characters

Introduction

Characters

Magic

Religion

Alchemy and Enchantment

Monsters

Adventures: Elsweyr (Skooma)

Tools

GURPS characters typically start with 150 Character Points (CP), and you gain maybe 2 or 3 per session to spend as you will. You can also take disadvantages, such as lower intelligence or strength, or mental, physical or social problems, which are worth negative points, giving you more points to spend on your positive traits. Typically there's a limit of 75 CP for disadvantages.

In theory, this means that you can build your character entirely the way you want - a masochistic levitating robot head with innate time-travel, fangs and unnaturally bad luck, for example. In practice the GM has veto on anything that doesn't fit the campaign. In TES:G, each character has a race, which costs a certain number of points which come out of your 150 starting CP.

Races

The sentient races in the Elder Scrolls world are Men (humans), Mer (elves), and the Beast races*.

On the pdf, the numbers in square brackets are the point cost, eg it costs 53 points to be a Breton. A specified race is compulsory, but I included "Imperial" as a zero-point "standard" human race. Some players may be tempted to play the "more powerful" races, but the relative power of the races is balanced by the point cost, since they'll have less points to spend on skills and advantages.

Available races are: (links to descriptions on uesp.net)

* "Beasts" isn't a racial group as such, it's more the result of Imperial racism. Orsimer are actually an elven subrace, Khajiit are related distantly to Men and Mer, and only Argonians are part of an entirely different branch of life. Nevertheless, all three have the disadvantage "Social Stigma - Beast Race" in most parts of the Empire.

Races (statistics and player handout)

Birthsigns

Each character also has a birthsign. Birthsigns are mandatory, and cost points in the same way as races, but I'm sure there will be one to uit all players. One of my players didn't want one, but I pointed out he'd already increased his strength and fatigue points, so he just took the Warrior. Alternatively you might choose to get players to role their birthsign randomly.

Available birthsigns are: (links to descriptions on uesp.net)

Birthsigns (statistics and player handout)

Note that all Argonians born under the sign of the Shadow in their homeland of Black Marsh are taken at birth to train as Shadowscales, state-sponsored assassins who have never known any other life.