Character creation in Memento Mundi consists of the following steps:

Each character is a member of one of six classes. This defines the area in which your character is most expert, and grants access to abilities that no other class will have. Each class has access to a series of skill trees from which they can select abilities. The classes are:

• Fighter: Front-line combatants capable of making expert use of weaponry and armour, and absorbing large amounts of punishment.
• Skirmisher: Agile combatants making use of bows and daggers to harry their opponents with surprise attacks.
• Mage: Capable of using into one of five magical rites to call forth arcane power to overcome the challenges that face them..
• Priest: Clerics capable of calling down divine favour to empower them in battle and work miracles.
• Wayfinder: Individuals capable of navigating the Flux’s twisted geography, and reshaping it through the strength of their will.
• Journeyman: Masters of crafting, medicine, alchemy and scholarly pursuits, providing the expertise and equipment needed to render any problem solvable.

Optionally, you may also choose to play a non-human character, although this is not recommended as a first character and you may not have more than one at a time¹⁾.

Every character had a life before they were an adventurer, and the experience and contacts gained during it may grant access to skills most members of the character’s class do not possess. To represent this, select 2 small skill trees from the list provided on the background documents (linked below), and add all skills on them to the portfolio from which your character may pick. Then, come up with an IC explanation of what your character did before they were an adventurer, based on the two skill sets you have chosen.

The background system is designed to allow you to customise your character and fill in gaps in their capabilities. Want to play a Mage who gets stuck in on the front line when the going gets tough? Purchase a background that grants you a weapon or shield skill. Want to play a Fighter skilled at combat medicine or alchemy? Backgrounds provide access to these skills.

The backgrounds available can be found here.

If a level 1 skill a background would provide is already available to a character through their class or another background they have selected, they may purchase that skill for free in addition to their normal skill allocation, to represent the fact that their background complements their chosen career. If a skill is linked off two backgrounds by dashed line, it is part of both trees, and can be purchased by a character with either or both.

Between class and background, you will now have a roster of skills from which your character can pick. You start with 7 points to use at character creation. This can be increased to up to 10 points by accumulating picks through monstering. Each skill costs 1 point to purchase. Skills are divided into levels on the trees. In order to begin purchasing skills from higher levels, your character must have:

1. Had a certain number of skill points spent on them.
2. Gone on at least one adventure in this state (does not apply when spending starting points).

The thresholds to unlock new levels of skills are:

• Level 2: 5 points
• Level 3: 11 points
• Level 4: 17 points
• Level 5: 24 points

These limits also apply at character generation. Therefore, unless a character takes complimentary backgrounds, they will only be able to purchase skills up to level 2 at character generation.

Many skills will have prerequisites, represented on the trees by one or more arrows pointing to them. If this is a solid arrow you must have the skill from which the arrow originates to purchase the new skill. If there are two or more dashed arrows to a skill, you must have at least one of the skills from which the dashed arrows emanate before purchasing the new skill, in addition to any other prerequisite skills.

Each time you play on or monster a linear, you will receive 1 skill point. If you played, you may spend this only on the character you played as, otherwise it may be used on any of your characters, or on a new character. We encourage players to have more than one character at any one time.

Depending on their lives up till the point where you start playing them, a character may or may not have a significant source of income. At character generation, you may pay a skill point to begin play with a single rank of wealth.

As a character progresses, they may find themselves wishing to learn a few tricks outside their normal purview. For example, a mage tired of being beaten down may wish to teach themselves to use heavier armour, while a fighter may wish to learn first aid after watching an ally bleed out at their feet. To represent this, once your character has advanced sufficiently to purchase level 4 skills you may, up to two times per character, spend 2 skill points to purchase a level one skill you do not already possess that is available to any of the backgrounds. Any skills progressing from that skill on the background’s skill tree are added to your own, and can thenceforth be purchased for the normal price of 1 skill point.

Before application of any skills, starting adventurers have the following statistics and abilities:

• 5 body hits.
• The ability to wear light armour to gain two additional hits.
• The ability to repair light armour fully with half an hour’s work.
• Fight with any weapon of 36” or less in one hand, calling SINGLE, and use a main-gauche (a weapon 24” or less) or buckler in their off hand.
• Carry a travel backpack with sufficient supplies to cater for their own needs.
• Sleep on the trail for three days without penalty.
• Drag an armoured person slowly.
• Execute an unconscious individual with ten seconds of hacking at their body.
• Survive for sixty seconds after falling unconscious through lack of hits, after which they will die.
• May halt a character's death count by roleplaying staunching their wounds (although the death count will resume if they stop).
• Carry up to 30 alchemical preperations.

Every Character can begin play with 2 standard weapons (one of which can be swapped for a shield), a standard suit of armour and 27 Riel, plus one adventure’s worth of any income or items their starting skills provide or produce. Equipment comes in several tiers, with the following characteristics:

• Substandard: Can only be used with basic strikes and skills up to level 1.
• Standard: Can be used with skills up to level 3.
• Superior: Can be used with skills of any level.
• Master Crafted: Counts as superior and can be used by a character even if they do not have a skill that would allow them to wield/wear it. If the item is a weapon then it may be used to call the effect call provided by Weapon Talent 1 for that weapon once per encounter (in addition to any instances of this call provided by skills). If the weapon is a great weapon, then it provides a single SHATTER (or an additional shatter with skills).