Character Creation and Roles

Build a human character using Core Rules, Character Creation. Black Flag substitutes Origins for Backgrounds and Roles for Careers, then adds a Starting Stake in pieces of eight. The procedure below separates the free talent into its own step, making seven steps from the Core's six.

Origins and Roles impose no starting penalties. Apply Prejudice during scenes through Era Rules, Prejudice.

Creating a Character

1. Species. Human.
2. Characteristics. Start all six at 2. The free adjustment raises one by 1 and lowers another by 1 (Core Rules, Character Creation). Starting values must remain between 1 and 4.
3. Origin and Role. Select one of each. Skills appearing on either profession skills list receive the lower profession-skill rank costs (Core Rules, Character Creation). Your Origin supplies languages and a Strength. Your Role supplies kit, Standing, favored talents and your occupation aboard or ashore. Favored talents guide choices; they cost normal XP.
4. Spend 110 XP. Buy characteristics, skill ranks and talents at Core Rules costs. Starting skills cannot exceed rank 2; talents of Tier 3 or higher are unavailable.
5. Free talent. Choose any Core or Era Tier 1 talent at no cost. Your Role's favored talents offer suggestions.
6. Kit, Stake and derived values. Collect your Role's kit and Starting Stake (Era Rules, Money and Credit). Use Core Rules to calculate Resistance, Wound Points, Strain Points, Defenses and Initiative.
7. Name and details. Name your character and establish appearance, age and motive. Add one connection to another player character and one to the wider world.

Languages. All player characters speak working English for colonial trade and can read and write one chosen home tongue (English for English and Creole Origins). Other listed home tongues are free to speak. An additional tongue costs 5 XP spoken and another 5 XP for literacy. Sailing Master, Quartermaster, Merchant Captain or Supercargo, Fence and Factor, Colonial Clerk or Advocate, Chaplain, Priest or Pastor, and Minister receive literacy in a second tongue free. With GM approval, a few words in other languages cost nothing: greetings, bargaining, curses or orders. These permit the gist of simple exchanges, without checks or reading.

Infamy. Start every player character at Infamy 0.

Mixed heritage. If raised in two communities, choose one Origin's skills and Strength and gain the other community's home tongue free. This includes European and Indigenous or African and Indigenous heritage, alongside the Mixed ancestry Origin.

Any Role, any Origin. Any Origin can take any Role, male or female, with one exception: Chaplain, Priest or Pastor is male. A woman who ministers takes the Minister Role. The entry identifies authorities and welcoming audiences. Player and GM establish how an unusual Origin fits the occupation. Company articles can forbid women aboard or admit them by vote (Era Rules, Crew and Articles). A woman can serve under a man's name without the Company's knowledge.

Origins

Choose the community that raised your character. Each Origin supplies four profession skills, home tongues and a Strength. Once per session, add 1 Boon Die to one check using either listed skill in the specified setting. All Strengths have this same limit.

Tongues and peoples. Name an African-born character's language and home coast. For an Indigenous character, name the people: Miskito of the Mosquito Coast, Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, or another group approved by the GM.

Dress. Clothing follows people, climate and season. Period European accounts describe many island and coastal peoples wearing little or nothing in humid heat, often barefoot. This book's Indigenous portraits use trade-coast cloth, linen and beads as an illustration choice. Player and GM can follow the clothing of the character's people, location and year.

Standing and Starting Stake

A Role's Standing determines its Starting Stake in pieces of eight. Find the Stake table and creation Debt in Era Rules, Money and Credit.

Roles

Sixteen occupations serve aboard and ashore. Entries list:

• Answers to / Owns / Welcome: authority, responsibilities and friendly audiences; these also support a cover identity.
• Profession skills: six.
• Kit: book and entry references for starting items. The owning book controls statistics; Gear and Prices provides the essential table.
• Standing, and Pay. Standing and earnings; see Gear and Prices for the complete pay table.
• Favored: Core and Era talents (Skills and Talents).

Able Seaman

• Answers to: the Captain or Master through the Boatswain. Owns: a knife and sea chest. Welcome: waterfront taverns, the Company's forecastle and ports seeking hands.
• Profession skills: Operate, Athletics, Melee, Fortitude, Reflexes, Readiness.
• Kit: Falchion (the cutlass), Belt Pistol and Knife (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory).
• Standing: Hand. Pay: a Navy able seaman 24 shillings a lunar month (5 and a third pieces); a pirate hand one share (Era Rules, Crew and Articles).
• Favored: Weather Eye, Quick Hand, Boarding Rush, Hardy, Wayfarer.

Gunner

• Answers to: the Captain, and in a navy ship the ship's gunner (a warrant officer). Owns: a linstock, a powder horn, a rammer. Welcome: a gun deck, a fort, a battery.
• Profession skills: Operate, Craft, Science, Readiness, Perception, Leadership.
• Kit: Sea Service Pistol and Hatchet; a Light Gun is the ship's (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory; the Light Gun, The Heavy Armory).
• Standing: Officer. Pay: one and a half shares.
• Favored: Master Gunner, Cool Under Fire, Keen Eye, Steadfast, Danger Sense.

Boatswain

• Answers to: the Captain and the Master. Owns: a call, the rigging and the hands' work. Welcome: a forecastle, a ropewalk, a yard.
• Profession skills: Leadership, Operate, Athletics, Intimidation, Craft, Melee.
• Kit: Falchion, Belt Pistol and Grapnel (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory).
• Standing: Officer. Pay: one and a half shares; a fourth-rate boatswain in the Navy £2 10s a lunar month (11 pieces).
• Favored: Quick Hand, Voice of the Company, Strong Arm, Hardy, Momentum.

Carpenter

• Answers to: the Captain and the Master. Owns: a tool chest and the care of the hull. Welcome: a shipyard, a careening beach, any ship under repair.
• Profession skills: Craft, Operate, Science, Athletics, Fortitude, Perception.
• Kit: Hatchet and Belt Pistol (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory), and a carpenter's chest (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Officer. Pay: one and a quarter shares.
• Favored: Careener's Skill, Quick Hand, Skilled, Conditioned, Keen Eye.

Sailing Master

• Answers to: the Captain. Owns: the chart, the compass and the ship's course. Welcome: a quarterdeck, a chart-maker's shop, any port that needs a pilot.
• Profession skills: Operate, Survival, Science, Perception, Leadership, Lore.
• Kit: Sea Service Pistol and Dagger (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory), and a telescope and a compass (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Officer. Pay: one and a half shares.
• Favored: Dead Reckoning, Reading the Wind, Weather Eye, Keen Eye, Wayfarer.

Surgeon

• Answers to: the Captain, while retaining a share and a vote. Owns: a surgeon's chest. Welcome: inns, sickbays and Companies seeking care for sick hands.
• Profession skills: Medicine, Science, Craft, Fortitude, Readiness, Lore.
• Kit: Knife (The Fantasy Armory); Poppy Tincture, Emetic and Theriac (The Apothecary); and a surgeon's chest (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Officer. Pay: one and a quarter shares and a chest allowance from the stock.
• Favored: Ship's Doctor, Cool Under Fire, Steadfast, Helpful, Boon Reader.

Quartermaster

• Answers to: the Company. Owns: the shares, the discipline and the first boarding of a prize. Welcome: a Company's mess, a fence's back room.
• Profession skills: Leadership, Negotiation, Intimidation, Perception, Lore, Melee.
• Kit: Falchion, Sea Service Pistol and a ledger (The Fantasy Armory; The Black Powder Armory; Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Officer. Pay: two shares.
• Favored: Plain Speech, Honest Weight, Voice of the Company, Cool Head, Convincing.

Marine or Soldier

• Answers to: the garrison commander or a naval officer. Owns: a coat and musket. Welcome: militia musters, forts and naval vessels. For a commissioned naval or garrison officer, such as a lieutenant or company captain, set Standing to Officer and replace Athletics with Leadership. Marine regiments existed in 1664 to 1713; ships in 1716 carry detachments of foot soldiers.
• Profession skills: Ranged, Melee, Readiness, Fortitude, Athletics, Perception.
• Kit: Musket, Plug Bayonet and Falchion (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory), and a Leather Jerkin (The Armourer).
• Standing: Hand. Pay: a Virginia soldier in 1715 30 shillings a month (6 and two thirds pieces).
• Favored: Cool Under Fire, Short Shrift, Guarded, Steadfast, Hardy.

Privateer Officer

• Answers to: the owners and a governor, by a letter of marque. Owns: a commission and a quarterdeck. Welcome: a colonial governor's table, a prize court.
• Profession skills: Leadership, Operate, Melee, Ranged, Lore, Negotiation.
• Kit: Sea Service Pistol and Falchion (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory), and a letter of marque (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Officer. Pay: a privateer's share by the owners' articles; on Rogers's voyage of 1708 the council fixed a lieutenant's or master's plunder lot at £70 (311 pieces).
• Favored: Voice of the Company, Short Shrift, Reading the Wind, Cool Head, Convincing.

Merchant Captain or Supercargo

• Answers to: a merchant house or the owners. Owns: a share in a ship and a cargo, with a creation Debt. Welcome: a counting house, a wharf, a customs office.
• Profession skills: Negotiation, Operate, Lore, Leadership, Craft, Streetwise.
• Kit: Belt Pistol and Dagger (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory), and scales and an account book (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Master, with a creation Debt (Era Rules, Money and Credit). Pay: the ship's profit; no fixed wage.
• Favored: Honest Weight, Safe Harbour, Convincing, Helpful, Wayfarer.

Tavern Keeper and Broker

• Answers to: the governor's licence and the Company's custom. Owns: a tavern, a tally board and the news. Welcome: a pirate port's beach, a fence's back room.
• Profession skills: Streetwise, Charm, Negotiation, Perception, Deception, Intimidation.
• Kit: Knife, Belt Pistol and Blunderbuss behind the counter (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory), and a stock of rum and a tally board (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Master, with a creation Debt (Era Rules, Money and Credit). Pay: the house; rooms and credit.
• Favored: Safe Harbour, Fence's Eye, Plain Speech, Low Profile, Convincing.

Fence and Factor

• Answers to: a merchant house or nobody. Owns: a warehouse and a ledger. Welcome: a port's back doors, a governor's side table.
• Profession skills: Streetwise, Negotiation, Craft, Deception, Lore, Perception.
• Kit: Belt Pistol and Dagger (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory), and scales and a ledger (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Master, with a creation Debt (Era Rules, Money and Credit). Pay: a fence's rate on what passes through (Era Rules, Prize and Fence Loop).
• Favored: Fence's Eye, Honest Weight, Lie Low, Low Profile, Convincing.

Boucanier or Logwood Cutter

• Answers to: a hunting company, a cutting crew or a Maroon town's captain. Owns: a long gun and a smoking frame. Welcome: a coast, a logwood camp, a buccaneer's anchorage, a Maroon town in the interior.
• Profession skills: Survival, Ranged, Craft, Athletics, Fortitude, Stealth.
• Kit: Fowling Piece, Hatchet and Knife (The Black Powder Armory; The Fantasy Armory).
• Standing: Hand. Pay: the hides, the wood or the meat when it sells.
• Favored: Quick Hand, Weather Eye, Wayfarer, Keen Eye, Hardy.

Colonial Clerk or Advocate

• Answers to: a governor, a court or a merchant house. Owns: a desk and a seal. Welcome: a customs house, a court, a governor's office.
• Profession skills: Lore, Negotiation, Charm, Deception, Perception, Subterfuge.
• Kit: Knife and Belt Pistol (The Fantasy Armory; The Black Powder Armory), and a writing case and a seal (Gear and Prices).
• Standing: Clerk. Pay: fees and a salary; no fixed figure.
• Favored: Plain Speech, Lie Low, Low Profile, Convincing, Skilled.

Chaplain, Priest or Pastor

• Answers to: a bishop, a congregation, a governor or a captain. Owns: a Bible or a missal and a travelling case. Welcome: a church, a deathbed, a prison, a ship's burial.
• Profession skills: Lore, Charm, Leadership, Medicine, Readiness, Negotiation.
• Kit: a Bible or a missal and a plain gown or cassock; no weapon unless the player takes a Knife (The Fantasy Armory; Gear and Prices). An Anglican chaplain, a Catholic priest and a Huguenot pastor are men.
• Standing: Clerk. Pay: a stipend from a see, a colony or a Company's stock.
• Favored: Plain Speech, Safe Harbour, Helpful, Cool Head, Unshaken.

Minister

• Answers to: a meeting or a congregation of dissenters, a governor or a captain. Owns: a Bible and a travelling case. Welcome: a meeting house, a sickroom, a prison, a ship's burial.
• Profession skills: Lore, Charm, Leadership, Medicine, Perception, Negotiation.
• Kit: a Bible and a plain dress or coat; no weapon. A Quaker meeting recognises women and men as ministers, and a woman who ministers takes this Role at any Origin; a man may take it for a Quaker or another dissenting meeting.
• Standing: Clerk. Pay: gifts from the meeting and a small trade or stipend.
• Favored: Plain Speech, Safe Harbour, Helpful, Cool Head, Honest Weight.

A Role That Is Not Listed

With GM approval, create an occupation from six Core skills, equipment from the cited books, a listed Standing and Core or Era favored talents. Captaincy requires no separate Role: any officer Role can become captain through the Company's vote (Era Rules, Crew and Articles).