Getting Started
There are several elements that comprise foundation personnel:
- Statistics or Stats: Core capabilities for all personnel
- Derived Attributes: Ratings that indicate physical and mental defenses, derived from stats.
- Profession: your operative's specific job title and duties, which determines the number of skill points and Bonds he or she has.
- Skills: What training and education your Agent gained from, school, work, or life in general.
- Reality anchors: Things outside the Foundation which keep them grounded.
Concept
Generating a strong concept is important when creating your operative. A good concept can usually be summed up in a single sentence. Some examples:
- A government agent with a score to settle.
- A thrill-seeking ex-marine trying to run from their past.
- An curious spaceship engineer in debt to the smugglers ring.
Once you have this concept, try to generate a general background of your character. Where are they from? What are their motivations? How did they get involved with the foundation?
Creating your operative
Now it's time to build your personnel file and bring your operative to life. You can also follow the quick generation guide on page $page$.
Step 1: Statistics
The main statistics are:
- Strength (STR)
- Dexterity (DEX)
- Constitution (CON)
- Intelligence (INT)
- Power (POW)
- Charisma (CHA)
These range from 3 (the worst) to 18 (the best), with an average of 10 for an ordinary adult.
Statistics represent core capabilities possessed by all operatives and are incredibly important. See Statistics on page $page$.
The game Administrator may let you assign stats in one or two ways: rolling them or
assigning points.
- ROLL STATS: For each stat roll 4D6, drop the lowest of the four dice, and add up the other three. Place the six rolls in whichever stats you like.
- Assign stats: Divide 72 points among the six stats however you like, or pick one of the sets from page 19 and assign each score to one stat.
Step 2: Derived Attributes
Hit Points, Willpower Points, Sanity Points, and Breaking Point are derived from stats. They represent physical and mental resilience. When your operative is hurt, exercises mental fortitude, or is traumatized, those scores can suffer. (See Derived attributes on page $page$.)
Step 3: Department, Specialty, and Skills
What is your operative's role in the Foundation? Department dictates what skills your Agent has and the number of Bonds he or she possesses. Optional specialties offer certain bonuses at the cost of certain penalties.
Skills require special training, and come from schooling, experience, or personal interest. Skills are measured from 0% (no training) to 99% (foremost expert in the world). (See Department on page $page$ and Skills on page $page$.)
Step 4: Define Reality Anchors
Reality anchors are people and things outside the Foundation that are important to their overall well-being and help them cope with stress. These could be people (like a spouse, children, a partner, or a mentor) or things (like a cherished old car or a record collection). Reality anchors help Foundation agents resist mental trauma—but over the course of their their career at the Foundation and their increased interaction with anomalous entities, these reality anchors can destabilize.
Each Reality Anchor has a value that starts equal to your Agent’s Charisma (CHA). (See Reality Anchors on page $page$.)
Step 5: Final details
Start filling in the details that make your operative interesting and unique. How old are they? What do they look like? Where are they from? What is their name? Any aliases? What is their job and personal life like? How did they get involved in the Foundation? And why do they stay?