On this page, I will attempt to sum­marise char­ac­ter cre­ation for those with­out a Nobilis book or with­out the time to pick through it in search of the actual rules.

Yel­low boxes con­tain infor­ma­tion that is spe­cific to my Nobilis game, “Where Only Lilies Bloom”, rather than to the Nobilis set­ting in general.

Resources (none of which were cre­ated by me):

• There is an editable PDF char­ac­ter sheet here if you’d like to fill it in as you go. Note that it lists the cost for Com­pre­hen­sive flex­i­bil­ity in a Gift as 1, it should be –1.
• “So you’ve been enNo­bled…” (PDF) answers many of the ques­tions of first-time Nobilis players.

Char­ac­ter Concept

As always, your char­ac­ter con­cept is the most impor­tant thing, and ide­ally you should have a clear idea of who your char­ac­ter is before start­ing to stat him or her. A back­ground, as bul­let points, prose or even some­thing stranger still, is strongly encour­aged so that the GM can write bet­ter plot for your character.

Estate

A Noble’s Estate is the con­cept over which they have power. It can be any­thing from jeal­ousy to beaches, dark­ness to icing sugar. Your role as a Noble is, in part, to sus­tain the exis­tence of this con­cept against those who would seek to remove it from the world.

Code

A Noble’s Code rep­re­sents their moral stand­point. They are summarised:

• Heaven: Beauty is the high­est prin­ci­ple; Jus­tice is a form of beauty; Lesser beings should respect their betters.
• Hell: Cor­rup­tion is the high­est prin­ci­ple; Suf­fer­ing is a form of cor­rup­tion; Power jus­ti­fies itself.
• Light: Human­ity must live, and live for­ever; What must be done ought to be done cleanly; Humans must be pro­tected (par­tic­u­larly from themselves).
• Dark: Humans should destroy them­selves (indi­vid­u­ally); Human­ity should destroy itself (except for a few toys); Ugli­ness to human eyes shows that one is worthy.
• Wild: Free­dom is the high­est prin­ci­ple; San­ity and mun­dan­ity are pris­ons; Give in kind with a gift received.

You may also invent another code for your char­ac­ter to fol­low. Later, you will cre­ate your Imper­a­tor, who also has a Code. Your char­ac­ters do not nec­es­sar­ily have to fol­low the same code as each other, or their Imperator.

Attrib­utes

You have 25 CP to spend on Attrib­utes, extra Mir­a­cle Points, and Gifts. We’ll deal with Attrib­utes first. All attrib­utes start at 0, and can be raised at a rate of 3 CP for 1 dot. Higher ranks in each attribute mean that per­form­ing mir­a­cles asso­ci­ated with that attribute will become eas­ier. The four attrib­utes are:

Aspect

Your phys­i­cal and men­tal being.

• 0: Of Mor­tal Form: You suck. You’re pretty much human.
• 1: Metahu­man: For­mi­da­ble phys­i­cal and men­tal abilities.
• 2: Leg­endary: Com­pa­ra­ble with the great heroes and villains.
• 3: Inhu­man: Not only phys­i­cally per­fected, but empow­ered by magic.
• 4: Celes­tial: Touched with the divine.
• 5: Exem­plar: You fully inte­grate your divine essence and use it to its utmost extent.

Domain

Your power over your Estate. You can have mul­ti­ple sec­ondary estates if you choose, but they can­not exceed your Pri­mary in level. For each estate after your first, points cost an extra CP per level. For exam­ple, to be the Mar­quessa of Dreams and the Vis­count­ess of Cake would cost 3+3+3=9 CP for Dreams and 4+4=8 CP for Cake.

• 0: Pawn: You have no power over your estate.
• 1: Baronet: Power enough to work only small miracles.
• 2: Viscount(ess): Mir­a­cles of com­fort and div­ina­tion come eas­ily. Estate starts to be reflected in your mor­tal appearance.
• 3: Marquis/Marchessa: Power to sus­tain and defend your estate.
• 4: Duke/Duchess: Your pow­ers seem god­like, able to shape the ener­gies of Creation.
• 5: Regal: You are as a god, your mas­tery of your Estate is complete.

Realm

Your mys­tic and mun­dane power over your Chan­cel, in which a good pro­por­tion of the game takes place. The more points you allo­cate to Realm, the more Chan­cel points you get to put towards your Chan­cel when you cre­ate it.

• 0: Cit­i­zen: You have no gift of rule over your Chancel.
• 1: Radi­ant: Your reign extends mostly to ghosts, traces of light and fleet­ing visions.
• 2: Realm’s Heart: You may know any­thing about your Chan­cel or its con­tents with a thought.
• 3: War­den: You may make sub­tle and overt bar­ri­ers, and raise the Chancel’s militia.
• 4: True King/Queen: You may hold off even an Imper­a­tor or unsharded Excru­cian within your Chan­cel. Per­son­ally respon­si­ble for much of how the Chan­cel works.
• 5: Tem­pest: You can shape and reshape at the Chan­cel at will, and it responds instinc­tively to your needs.

Spirit

The strength of your Imperator’s soul-shard within you, your effect over human Anchors, your pro­tec­tion against other Nobles’ Mir­a­cles, and your abil­ity to dis­guise your own Miracles.

• 0: Can­dle­flame: Your Noble essence has no great integrity; you are lim­ited to one Anchor.
• 1: Hearth­fire: Your pres­ence can be felt, there is some syn­ergy between your human and Noble selves. You under­stand some­thing of divine souls. Two anchors.
• 2: Incan­des­cent Flame: You under­stand the nature of divine essence, your soul burns with it. Three anchors.
• 3: Sun­fire: Your Imperator’s soul-shard is inte­grated into you seam­lessly, and you have a deep spir­i­tual cen­tre and per­sonal bal­ance. Four anchors.
• 4: Con­fla­gra­tion: Your base per­son­al­ity is aug­mented enor­mously by mirac­u­lous power. Your pres­ence has a pro­found effect on mor­tals, and some effect on Nobles. Strongly pro­tected against Nobles’ power. Five anchors.
• 5: Inferno: A ter­ri­ble power is leashed inside your heart. You may wear (up to 6) anchors’ bod­ies as your own. Skill with rit­ual magic begins to match that of an Imper­a­tor, and only rarely can your use of mir­a­cles be traced back to you.

Mir­a­cles

Mir­a­cles are super­nat­ural “things you can (try to) do”. Each mir­a­cle your char­ac­ter attempts will be asso­ci­ated with a par­tic­u­lar Attribute, and the more dots you have in that Attribute, the eas­ier the mir­a­cle will be.

Mir­a­cle Points

A char­ac­ter has a num­ber of Mir­a­cle Points asso­ci­ated with each Attribute. These are expended when you per­form the more dif­fi­cult Mir­a­cles. You have Per­ma­nent and Tem­po­rary dots in each. (Much like the White Wolf games, Per­ma­nent dots are your max­i­mum, Tem­po­rary dots your cur­rent level.)

You have five (per­ma­nent and tem­po­rary) Mir­a­cle Points in each Attribute to start with. You can buy more at a cost of 1 CP per dot.

Gifts

Gifts are spe­cific skills and abil­i­ties that you can buy at char­ac­ter cre­ation. Rather than being adapt­able like Mir­a­cles, their effect is com­pletely fixed. How­ever, you will always be able to do them for free. They are up to you to design: they can rep­re­sent any­thing from tra­di­tional wiz­ardly spells to inte­gral parts of your character.

Their cost varies wildly accord­ing to how pow­er­ful a Gift you cre­ate. A gift will always cost at least 1 CP. Each Gift has a num­ber of mod­i­fiers to it which will increase its cost. In gen­eral, the more pow­er­ful an action the gift rep­re­sents, the more things it can effect, and so on, the more expen­sive it will be.

Each gift has the fol­low­ing attributes:

• Attribute: Each gift is asso­ci­ated with one of the four Attrib­utes. Pick the most appro­pri­ate for what­ever abil­ity you have in mind.
• Mir­a­cle Type: Mir­a­cles come in var­i­ous flavours and two strengths. The cost in CP to cre­ate a gift based is a fac­tor of both. For guid­ance on whether the Gift you have in mind is based on a Lesser or Major Mir­a­cle, see the exam­ples later. The types (and costs) are:
  • Lesser Div­ina­tion (2)
  • Lesser Preser­va­tion (3)
  • Lesser Cre­ation (4)
  • Lesser Destruc­tion (5)
  • Lesser Change (6)
  • Major Div­ina­tion (5)
  • Major Preser­va­tion (6)
  • Major Cre­ation (7)
  • Major Destruc­tion (8)
  • Major Change (9)
• Pen­e­tra­tion: This rep­re­sents how pow­er­ful the Mir­a­cle is against those that have the power to resist it, such as Nobles, Anchors and Imper­a­tors. Pen­e­tra­tion is tested against the target’s Spirit. Pos­si­ble val­ues are between 0 and 7, and these add between 0 and 7 to the CP cost of the gift.
• Invo­ca­tion: How the Gift is acti­vated. One option is Auto­matic, at a cost of 1 CP. You can reduce the CP cost of the gift by requir­ing a Mir­a­cle check to acti­vate the gift (i.e. it could fail). Mir­a­cle checks cost neg­a­tive CP to add, i.e. they will give you CP back to spend on other parts of the Gift. Options are based on how hard a Mir­a­cle check you have to pass to acti­vate the Gift: Sim­ple (-1 CP), Nor­mal (-2 CP) or Hard (-3 CP).
• Area: The gift’s area of effect. Pos­si­ble val­ues are: Any­where / Global (1 CP), Local (-1 CP), One Per­son (-2 CP) or only your­self (-3 CP).
• Flex­i­bil­ity: Say­ing that gifts are com­pletely inflex­i­ble mir­a­cles is some­what untrue. In fact, you can choose how flex­i­ble they are: Full (all imag­in­able uses are pos­si­ble) (1 CP), Com­pre­hen­sive (a wide vari­ety of sit­u­a­tions) (-1 CP), Lim­ited (-2 CP), or One Trick only (-3 CP).
• Com­mon: Is the Gift com­mon in the set­ting? (Ask the GM if you’re not sure.) Com­mon gifts do not cost any extra, rare ones cost one extra CP.
• Domains: Most Gifts affect only one Estate. To affect an entire fam­ily of Estates, the cost of the entire Gift is dou­bled. To affect every­thing, i.e. not tied to an Estate, the cost of the entire Gift is instead tripled. (To affect every­thing in a spe­cific Chan­cel is a gift of the Estate attribute, and need only be pur­chased at 1x cost.)

Exam­ple Gifts

Here are some exam­ple Gifts, and how they’re cal­cu­lated. There are many more start­ing on page 115 of the Great White Book, and of course you can invent your own.

Durant (Dif­fi­cult to injure)
Aspect, Lesser Preser­va­tion of Self (3), Auto­matic Invo­ca­tion (1), Self Only (-3), Lim­ited Util­ity (-2), Com­mon.
Cost: 1 CP.

Immor­tal
Aspect, Major Preser­va­tion of Self (6), Auto­matic Invo­ca­tion (1), Self Only (-3), Full Flex­i­bil­ity (1), Rare (1).
Cost: 6 CP.

Ele­men­tal (You may trans­form your body into a con­struct of your Estate)
Domain, Lesser Change of Form (6), Sim­ple Invo­ca­tion (-1), Self Only (-3), Lim­ited Util­ity (-2), Rare (1).
Cost: 1 CP.

Devoted Pop­u­lace (The denizens of your Chan­cel love you)
Realm, Major Cre­ation of Love (7), Hard Invo­ca­tion (-3), Global Range (1), One Trick (-3), Rare (1).
Cost: 3 CP.

Good Luck (Spend only 1 Spirit Mir­a­cle Point to guar­an­tee some­thing sig­nif­i­cant will go right)
Spirit, Major Cre­ation of For­tune (7), Nor­mal Invo­ca­tion (-2), Global Range (1), Lim­ited Util­ity (-2), Com­mon.
Cost: 4 CP.
(You could add Pen­e­tra­tion to this to ensure your good luck even against other Nobles.)

Do not feel pushed into cre­at­ing expen­sive Gifts at the expense of your base Attrib­utes — remem­ber that Attrib­utes are required for suc­cess­ful use of Mir­a­cles, and a Gift is only a very spe­cific kind of Mir­a­cle. Char­ac­ter Points are awarded as EXP, so you’ll have chance to buy more Gifts later.

Hand­i­caps

Hand­i­caps are char­ac­ter flaws that will give your char­ac­ter extra Mir­a­cle Points at var­i­ous points. The amount of MPs for any Hand­i­cap should be agreed with the GM dur­ing char­ac­ter gen­er­a­tion. They come in four flavours:

• Lim­its: Hand­i­caps that remove some of the util­ity of the pow­ers your char­ac­ter has. You will receive extra mir­a­cle points at the start of a ses­sion. Exam­ples include ‘Dis­abled’ (Aspect limit) or ‘Hated’ (Realm limit).
• One spe­cial, and com­plex, Limit is called Focus. This rep­re­sents a phys­i­cal item that holds some of your character’s power. You may put some of your 25 Char­ac­ter Points into attrib­utes and gifts that belong to your Focus rather than to your­self. While you posess the focus, those attrib­utes add to yours and those gifts become yours to use. But if sep­a­rated from your Focus, you lose them. In rec­om­pense for this risk, at the start of each ses­sion, you gain 1 extra Mir­a­cle Point for each 3 CP you have invested into your item (rounded down).
• Restric­tions: Mis­cel­la­neous smaller lim­i­ta­tions, such as inabil­ity to cross run­ning water or step into a pen­ta­gram. Tem­po­rary Mir­a­cle Points are gained when­ever this causes a prob­lem for your character.
• Virtues: Aspects of your being that both empower and limit you. Tem­po­rary Mir­a­cle Points are gained when­ever a virtue ‘forces’ the char­ac­ter into doing some­thing that the player knows is not objec­tively a good idea. This is gen­er­ally a lesser num­ber of MPs than with Restric­tions. Exam­ples include ‘Cruel’ and ‘Reckless’.
• Affil­i­a­tion: This is the Code you selected at the begin­ning. Every time you go to great lengths to serve it, you will regain tem­po­rary Mir­a­cle Points.

In all cases, the player may dis­trib­ute the gained Mir­a­cle Points amongst their four pools.

Bonds

You have 20 Bond Points to allo­cate to any num­ber of things that your char­ac­ter holds dear, be they other Nobles of the group, their Imper­a­tor, Estates, Chan­cel, human friends and fam­ily, items, or even hob­bies. This helps to flesh out your char­ac­ter, and though they have no mechan­i­cal effect, they allow the GM to tai­lor plot to your character.

Anchors

Anchors are par­tic­u­lar humans whom you have bonded with using the Servant’s Rite. You may see through their eyes and even con­trol them, and you may trans­fer your Gifts to them and work mir­a­cles through them. They are a great respon­si­bil­ity which is not to be entered into lightly.

Wound Lev­els

Take your character’s Aspect, and add 4. Divide these evenly among the Deadly, Seri­ous and Sur­face wound cat­e­gories. If you have one left over, add it to Sur­face. If you have two left over, add one to Sur­face and one to Serious.

…And that’s it for your char­ac­ters! Tune in next time for Imper­a­tor and Chan­cel creation!

Exam­ple Character

Here’s a fairly bal­anced exam­ple char­ac­ter. She doesn’t have any gifts — this is fine, you can always buy them later. The num­bers in brack­ets show how many Char­ac­ter Points were spent on each area.

Elsa Lan­gridge, the Power of Machinery

Attribute	Level	Mir­a­cle Points
Aspect	(6)
Domain	(9)	(1)
Realm	(3)
Spirit	(6)

Hand­i­caps:
Affil­i­a­tion: Code of the Light
Virtue: Tinkerer

Bonds:

Strength	Sub­ject
7	Thorn
4	Fas­ci­na­tion with heavy machinery
4	Her Par­ents
3	Gen­der Equality
2	The Farm

Wound Lev­els:
2 Sur­face, 2 Seri­ous, 2 Deadly