Starting Age

In "A Band of Joyous Heroes" a character's nominal starting age is 15. The actual age is determined in part by the stat generation process, and in part by the talents and flaws taken.

When generating the character's stats, a roll of '6' is taken to mean a "natural" - a child prodigy, someone who picks up things easily, hence the bonus talent. Rolls of '1' or '2', however, indicate that things don't go so smoothly. The character is going through the "school of hard knocks", as it were. The character gains a bonus talent but he had to earn it and, if a second '1' or '2' is rolled, then there is a cost as well, as he gains a flaw.

Each roll of '1' or '2' adds +1 or +2 years to the character's starting age, respectively.

Each roll of '6' allows the player to adjust the character's starting age up or down by 1 to 3 years after the final starting age is calculated. This is at the player's discretion and is completely optional.

Some traits require time to acquire. One does not become "battle-hardened" overnight, for example, nor does one typically amass a huge fortune in only a short time.

The following traits will modify the character's starting age by the listed amounts:

Battle-Hardened - plus 1d3+2 years;
Weapons Master - plus 2d6 years;
Elite Training - plus 1d3 years;
Learned - plus 2d6 years;
High Rank - plus 2d6 years;
Scholar of Note - plus 1d6+6 years;
Friends and Allies - plus 1d6 years;
Wealthy - plus 1d6+6 years;
Well Placed - plus 2d6+3 years;
Successful - plus 1d3 years;
Respected - plus 1d6+6 years;
Good Reputation - plus 2d3 years;
Stupid - plus 1d3 years;
Dull Witted - plus 1d6 years;
Low Rank - plus 2d6+6 years;
Enemies - plus 1d6 years;
In Debt - plus 1d6 years;
Exiled - plus 1d3 years;
Bad Reputation - plus 2d3 years.


The character's starting age is the total of 15 plus all of the above modifiers. Poor rolls or an abundance of time-consuming traits could potentially cause the character's starting age to be quite high. In some circumstances it may be so high as to render him or her infirm from old age, or make the character so old that they must surely be dead! In such cases, assume that the character lived a full but unassuming life and start over - only don't choose so many time consuming traits next time!