Turns out CoC Character creation follows a very few simple ruleset which you can download here.
A character can be boiled down to a few certain attributes, which that PDF will go over, just like most RPGs. And also like most RPGs those attributes will be instantly familiar to you, and generally you can infer what each will mean.
The majority of these attributes are created randomly during character creation. The remaining attributes are created based off of those random assignments.
As you work your way through the character creation, you will fill out the last few pages of this PDF document.
Primary Attributes
Major influencers of gameplay. Set to determine how smart, fast, resourceful, strong, or SEXAY your character is.
- Strength
- Constitution
- Dexterity
- Size
- Intelligence
- Power
- Appearance
- Education
Secondary Attributes
These are generally influenced by the primary attributes, but are used commonly during the game process to determine if you’re about to die.
- Idea
- Knowledge
- Luck
- Damage Bonus
- Magic
- Hit Points
- Sanity
Occupation and Skills
Once you see how your character is fleshing out, you can decide on an occupation that would make sense for the character. For example, an moderately intelligent, highly educated, good looking character could be a businessman that’s got by on his looks and credentials. Or a character that is huge, slow, but incredibly lucky could be the rich lazy son of a English Duke. A dilettante of sorts. Those same attributes with low luck you could make a dock worker. And so on.
Once you choose the occupation, you can pick from the list of occupation skills that are in the skills list of the Character Sheet. You assign percentage points to those skills that fit within the character’s backstory and occupation. You wouldn’t normally assign the dock worker any accounting skill points, but maybe his spot hidden would be highly refined due to working around dangerous equipment. You determine the pool of points for those skills based on your EDU (education) point total multiplied by 20. For example, if you had 15 EDU, you would have a starting point pool of 300. You could then assign those points to each skill as you see fit. However, no skill type can be greater than 75. Also,the Cthulhu Mythos (knowledge of the ancient gods and monsters that lurk in the universe) should not be increased, since the characters we’re creating have not yet encountered such terrible tentacled beasts. Yet. That’s what we’re going to put them through during our adventures. You’ll see your characters grow in Mythos knowledge, and likely in insanity and sweaty palms.
For hobby skills, you take your INT score, and multiply it by 10. That pool can now be used and assigned to skills in the same manner as occupation skills, except do not need to be limited by the occupation and background you’ve chosen.