Yam Guthug
He likes yams and that is his name!
Yam Guthug grew up on the island, his mother a social outcast for raising her half-Orc child. Before he was 5, Yam was captured by the same marauding Orc band that had attacked his village years before. He became a slave to the Orklugs, outcast to both Orcs and humans. Taught to fight in the pits, and small for an Orc, Yam learned to wield two weapons at once in order to better his opponents. After more than a dozen years, Yam and several other slaves managed to kill the guards, and escaped into the wilds. Yam is not particularly friendly having been hurt by pretty much everyone in one way or another. Yet he will still try to do what is right as best he can, not wanting others to have to live what he has lived through. While Yam tried to go vegetarian for a while, his Orc metabolism really requires a lot of meat and he has gone back to a mostly carnivorous diet. He does really like yams and those were easy to find when he was in his vegetarian phase. With his survival skills, he often goes to sleep hungry.
I got to play 1 game of Delve before the pandemic hit, and the GM is probably the best GM I've played with and a model of game mastering I aspire to. Delve has a unique way of generating characters on the fly if you so choose. You are stranded on the beach and learn about yourself as the game progresses, including your stats. My character's name was Barrel for the longest time as he had a bad Intelligence roll and took a long time to recall his actual name! A barrel was the first thing he saw so that became his name for the first few sessions. It was a lot of fun, and of the 4 of us playing, only 2 survived at the end. Funnily enough, the one character in that game who never even got a scratch got killed by a series of critical fumbles at the very end of the game - we killed him by mistake! Those are the games you don't forget. I liked it so much I did that rare thing: bought another RPG book. I got the high-end color hardback and it is well-worth the price!
You can also create a character the more traditional way. It is an OSR style game, and conveniently has 6 races:
- Elf
- Dwarf
- Halfling (these are not your Hobbits!)
- Half-Elf
- Half-Orc
- Human
The steps to a character generation are first to pick your race or roll on a table (which I saw after I did my 1d6 roll! First time generating a character in this system from the actual book). Rolling a d6 I get a 5, half-Orc. The book is a lot of fun to read. Half-Orcs get to choose one of 3 traits, and I like the intimidate: if I can roll under my endurance percentage (we'll get there) if the other person fails their endurance roll, they run away. I also get the following: +10% to endurance, hit points are vitality x3, encumbrance endurance base x3, magic points are 4, and my pace is 30. Against Orcs & humans I do an additional 1d6 damage, and I speak Orc and human. Rolling on the appearance table I get an 83, branded. Slave brand, thief brand, gang brand? Given three choices, a d3 gives me 2 (1) for a slave brand.
To quote the book: If the half-Elves think they have it bad, they need to spend a day in the shoes of a half-Orc.
Next, I roll 3d6 for my attributes. Multiply by 3 for the percentage.
- Dexterity: 12 (36%)
- Endurance: 10 (30 + 10 for being half-Orc = 40%)
- Learning: 7 (21%)
- Vitality: 15 (45%)
- Empathy: 10 (30%)
Based on that, I have additional info
- Hit points: Vitalityx3 = 45
- Magic: 4 points
- Encumbrance: Endurancex3 = 30
There are 3 classes, each with 2 sub-classes: Magic users, Rogues and Warriors. Half-Orcs by definition are most likely to be a warrior, and I'll keep with that. Choosing the fighter sub-class, I get 3 skills at trained level (gives me +10%):
- Dodge (dexterity, so 36% + 10% = 46%)
- Repair (dexterity 46%)
- Tactics (learning, 21% + 10% = 31%)
Plus 3 other skills at known (+ 5%). Looking towards more combat-oriented skills, I choose
- Ranged (dexterity. so this gives me the 36% + 5% for 41% chance to hit)
- Fight (endurance, so 40% + 5% = 45% for melee and unarmed combat)
- Survival (learning, 21% + 5% = 26%. I am probably a hungry half-Orc out in the wilds!)
I also get one of 3 special abilities, and going with dual wield so I can wield a weapon in each hand without taking penalties. I did think about dirty fighting though...
Finally, equipment. This games starts with you washed up on the beach and a large d100 chart. Rolling a 28 I have a large shield.
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