Characters in Bright‑Dark are ordinary people carrying quiet burdens. This section guides you through creating a grounded, human character whose emotional journey matters as much as their abilities. You'll notice one small subsection towards the bottom that covers non-human player characters in Bright-Dark.
Every Bright-Dark character begins with a wound: a fear, regret, longing, or quiet grief; This shapes their choices. The Create a Wound subsection helps you write a single, powerful sentence; this is a roleplay prompt that describes your character's internal conflict and might hint at their goals and aspects of their personality.
Bright-Dark is a player-skill-forward game. Attributes only cover what players cannot simulate themselves: physical capability, inner strength, and magical force. This subsection explains each attribute and how modifiers work.
Talents represent learned skills, practiced techniques, or special aptitudes. They give characters identity without turning them into superheroes. This subsection explains how talents work, how talents they support the fiction, and how to modify the talents or create your own.
Resources are your Health, Stamina, and Ether. This subsection explains what they are used for and how to interpret them in a Bright-Dark tone.
CHARACTER CREATION
Player characters must suit the tone and setting of the game. Bright-Dark characters are ordinary person who become adventurers. They are rarely extraordinary and never superhuman.
After you've created a wound, determined your attributes and modifiers, chosen your talent, and established your starting resources, go to the Equipment section.
CREATE A WOUND
Every character in a Bright-Dark world carries a wound: a quiet grief, fear, or truth they struggle to face. It is the emotional tension (or pain point) that makes your character human and gives their choices weight.
Think of your wound as a roleplaying prompt that helps you roleplay with depth, not a constraint that limits you.
Create a wound by writing a single sentence describing something your character carries inside them. It might be a fear, a regret, a loss, a burden, a longing, a temptation, or a doubt.
Generic Examples:
“I’m afraid I’ll fail the people who trust me.”
“I can’t forgive myself for surviving when others didn’t.”
“I don’t trust myself to make the right choice when it matters.”
“I’m terrified that the people I love will see who I really am.”
“I keep pretending I’m fine because I don’t know how to ask for help.”
“I want to be strong, but I’m afraid I’m only pretending.”
“I am burdened by this feeling that I was meant to do more than this.”
“I fear that kindness will be used against me again.”
"I'm tempted by wealth and power because then people might respect me."
“I’m haunted by the thought that I abandoned someone who needed me.”
"I regret that my past inaction got my loved ones hurt."
The wound explains why certain choices feel difficult, why hope feels fragile, and why moments of courage or kindness matter. Your wound is the emotional heart of your character’s journey; The place where your light and your darkness meet.
ATTRIBUTES & MODIFIERS
Attributes
Characters in Bright-Dark rely on their own skill, judgment, and creativity. Players solve puzzles, notice details, interpret clues, and interact socially through roleplay. Attributes only measure the things a character can do that cannot be handled by player skill alone.
Attributes fall into two groups: Physical and Inner.
Physical Attributes
These describe clear, intuitive aspects of the body.
Strength
Strength measures raw physical force. Use Strength when you strike in melee, lift, push, or break something, overpower an opponent, exert sudden force.
Endurance
Endurance measures stamina and toughness. Use Endurance when you resist fatigue, cold, poison, or pain, push through long exertion, survive harsh conditions, endure physical strain.
Agility
Agility measures speed, balance, and coordination. Use Agility when you dodge traps or certain magic effects, sneak or hide, climb, jump, or tumble, make ranged attacks.
Inner Attributes
These describe distinct, functional aspects of the mind and spirit. Each governs a different type of non-physical action. Players are expected to user their own intelligence, wisdom, charisma, luck, and creativity in play. These attributes are for mechanics.
Mind
Mind represents what you know and how you apply it. Use Mind when you operate or repair tools and mechanisms, analyze magical effects, recall useful lore, maintain mental focus during complex tasks.
Mind does not govern perception, puzzle-solving, or social insight; those rely on player skill.
Will
Will represents mental and spiritual resilience. Use Will when you resist fear, stress, or despair, withstand corruption or supernatural influence, maintain control during dangerous magic, hold your identity firm against spiritual pressure.
Will is about resistance and self-control.
Emotion
Emotion represents inner fire, passion, and the strength of feeling. Use Emotion when you cast magic fueled by passion, empathy, or courage, channel intense feelings into action, perform acts of bravery or self-sacrifice, express magic through connection or conviction.
Emotion is about feelings.
Why These Attributes Exist
Bright-Dark is a player-skill-first game. Attributes only simulate actions that cannot be solved by player reasoning, involve physical capability, involve inner strength or magical force, require mechanical resolution.
Perception, deduction, social interaction, and puzzle solving belongs to the players, not the character sheet.
Think about the inner attributes like this: Mind is what you know. Emotion is what you feel. Will is your self-control. This makes attributes simple, intuitive, and impossible to confuse.
Modifiers
A modifier is a number that describe an attribute. They are intuitive, small and meaningful.
Modifier Table
Modifier Description
-3 Sickly, Injured, Cursed, Badly Poisoned, Blind
-2 Poor
-1 Below Average
0 Average
+1 Good
+2 Excellent
+3 Peak Human Ability (Rare, World-class)
Note: Modifiers of +3 are rare and represent exceptional individuals. Most characters will fall between –1 and +2. -3 Modifiers are suggestions, not rules, and may be given temporarily by the GM when the fiction suits it.
Stat Arrays
Below are some choice arrays for statistics (modifiers). The GM chooses which array fits their campaign. Alternatively, a GM may create their own. Choose an array that matches the emotional tone of your campaign. Bright-Dark stories benefit from characters who feel vulnerable and human.
Players, distribute the modifiers from the campaign's array among your attributes as you please.
Ordinary characters begin play with:
+2, +1, +1, 0, 0, -1
Characters are capable and human, with one strong trait and one weakness.
Grounded, more vulnerable characters (best for Bright-Dark) begin play with:
+2, +1, 0, 0, -1, -2
Characters feel fragile, realistic, and emotionally grounded. Strengths matter, but weaknesses shape the story.
Gifted, above average characters begin play with:
+3, +1, 0, 0, 0, -1
Characters have one exceptional trait and generally competent abilities, suitable for slightly more heroic play.
Combining Modifiers (restated from the Core Mechanics)
The next section covers talents, which are separate from attributes. Some talents add a modifier to 3d6 rolls. A 3d6 roll can only benefit from one attribute and one talent at a time.
3d6 + attribute + talent bonus
Multiple talents never stack with the same roll. Use the attribute and talent that best fits the fiction.
Examples: A +2 attribute combined with a +2 talent represents excellent ability. A +3 stat combined with a rare talent represents peak human performance.
TALENTS
Talents distinguish your character. Choose one at character creation. Additional talents may be chosen during character improvement, but they must suit the fiction; one does not ordinarily become a magic-user, learn a new language, or gain a brand-new skill spontaneously.
This game encourages DIY. Here is some guidance for designing your own talents:
- Common, ordinary talents grant a flat +1 bonus to specific rolls.
- Uncommon, specially honed or trained talents grant a +2 bonus.
- Rare, powerful talents allow you to roll 4d6 and keep the highest three for certain checks.
- Some talents may grant a specialized skill, ability, craft, or magic that no one else ordinarily has.
As part of the DIY aspect of this game, an existing talent listed here may be improved one step at a time during character improvement, following the guidance above.
- Acrobat: Add +1 to rolls to balance, climb, tumble, vault obstacles, or move through tight or unstable spaces.
- Alchemist: Almost no one understands alchemy, but you do. You know a few basic recipes and can improvise new concoctions using the Mind attribute and the theme of "Fantasy Science." See the Alchemy Section for more.
- Attractive Presence: When you trigger a reaction roll, roll 4d6 and keep the highest three instead of 3d6. Something about your presence draws attention or eases tension. It might be beauty, confidence, authority, or an inner quality that others respond to.
- Brute: Add +1d6 to melee weapon damage, but subtract 1 from your Defense. You hit harder than most, but your aggressive style leaves you more exposed.
- Bushcraft: add +1 to tracking, foraging, pathfinding, and wilderness survival. You have practical knowledge of the wild and how to live in it.
- Diehard: Add +1 to resist fatigue, disease, poison, harsh conditions, long exertion, or heavy physical strain.
- Firearms: Firearms are rare and expensive. Most people do not know how to use them, but you do. Firearms are always loud enough to attract unwanted attention, and bright enough to momentary spoil night vision, but they deal 3d6 damage. On a critical failure, the gun jams and must be cleared as an action. Ammunition crafting is hand-waved for the sake of play, but materials for ammo are rare and costly such that you can reliably restock only a small amount at a time. Expect to carry about six shots.
- Hardy: Base maximum Health is 15 + attribute rather than 10 + attribute.
- Hunter: You have expertise in fighting a specific type of opponent. Choose: Wo/Man (i.e. outlaws), Local Beast (ordinary animals like wolves), Plants, or choose something of your own. Add a +1 to hit and damage against them, and to track them.
- Hurler: Extends normal throwing range from Near to Far.
- Lucky: critical hit range increases to roll of a natural 16 or higher rather than 17
- Marksman: You do not suffer penalties to hit due to range, and you do not suffer penalties to called shots while in Near range.
- Magical Bloodline: Add +2 to resist magical charm and magical sleep
- Magic-User: You can use magic. Refer to the Magic section for rules and additional magic talents for magic-users to choose as part of character improvement.
- Polyglot: You can speak neighboring languages well enough to get by, though not fluently. You recognize their written forms and a few common words, but cannot fully read or write them. Your proficiency is utilitarian and depends on the fiction.
- Pugilist: Add +1 to rolls to grapple, to escape grapples, to make unarmed attacks, and to unarmed damage.
- Scholar: You’re well studied in various subjects. You gain a +1 to recall lore, history, and natural science.
- Shieldbearer: When using a shield, add +2 to Defense TN instead of +1.
- Signature Weapon: Choose a weapon type (staff, mace, hammer, sword, great sword, dagger, longbow, etc.). When you use this weapon, you gain a +1 to hit and damage rolls.
- Steady Presence: You and nearby allies gain +1 to resist fear, despair, stress, confusion, or magical influence. Something about your presence helps others hold emotionally steady in difficult moments.
- Thievery: add +1 to rolls to sneak, hide, pick locks, palm, lift or plant objects without notice, and perform delicate tasks with your hands.
- Quick Reflexes: Add +1 to rolls to dodge traps, avoid sudden danger, and respond to surprise.
RESOURCES
Your resources are Health, Stamina, and Ether. Each resource has starting values. At character creation, you get 3 points to distribute on top of that as desired. See the Rest & Recovery rules information about recovering lost resources.
Health
Begin play with maximum Health of 10 + Strength modifier. It's a measure of your physical condition. Lost health abstractly represents wounds and injuries. Recover 1 lost Health per day; 2 per day of dedicated bedrest in a place of safety (a town). At 0 or less Health, treat as 0, and you are unconscious. While unconscious, subsequent hits are deathblows. See more about Unconsciousness in the Combat section.
Health has a capacity of 20 + Strength. This describes the peak of the human body's ability to sustain wounds and injury.
Stamina
Spend 1 Stamina to you push yourself for one action. This lets you roll 4d6 and keep the highest three.
Begin play with maximum Stamina equal to Endurance (minimum 0). Maximum Stamina caps out at 5 + Endurance. Lose 1 Stamina if you fail a roll against fatigue. Recover all spent Stamina after finishing a night of sleep.
Note: Fatigue is not a mechanical condition. The consequence of having 0 Stamina is that you can no longer push yourself. Narratively, this can describe fatigue or general weakness, and so situational modifiers can apply.
Ether
Ether is only spent when casting spells. Minor spells cost 1 Ether, major spells cost 2+. 1 Ether is lost when a spell roll fails.
Begin play with maximum Ether equal to the best of either Mind, Will, or Emotion (player choice and it should suit the fiction). Maximum Ether caps at 5 + the better of Mind, Will, or Emotion. Recover all spent ether after finishing a night of rest.
Note: Ether is the substance that spirits and magic are made up. It permeates the whole world in trace amounts. This information may not be known, even to magic-users.
WHAT'S MISSING?
No catalog or mechanical rules for fantasy races. If the GM wants fantasy races, add them.
When you introduce fantasy races to Bright-Dark, ignore their traditional high-fantasy forms. They must be people first and archetypes second. Humanize them. They must be grounded, not mythic. Their fantasy should express the world's wounds. They must not overshadow the human-scale stakes.
