# Pregenerated Characters
*The Old West, An Exodus NDS Era Book, Wyoming and Colorado, 1869 to 1876. Source: https://oldwest.exodusnds.com/pregenerated-characters*
Seven characters are ready to play; six are members of the Era Cast, and the seventh, the doctor, is not. Each is built with the seven steps in Character Creation and Roles and the 110 XP the rules allow, and is set in the spring of 1874.
No pregenerated character begins with a penalty. Prejudice is a situation in a scene (Era Rules, Prejudice), not a number on a sheet, and every character has a Strength where the character's community is at home.
## Using the Pregenerated Characters
1. **Pick one.** A player takes a character, keeps the name or renames it, and plays. The sheet is complete.
2. **Check the tie.** Each character lists one tie to another pregenerated character and one to the world. If the table uses different characters, replace the ties.
3. **Change the date.** The kits assume 1873 or later, because the Single-Action Revolver begins in 1873 (Gear and Prices, Dates of introduction); the Lever-Action Repeater is available throughout (the Winchester Model 1866 before 1873). For a game set from 1869 to 1872, swap each Single-Action Revolver for a Cap-and-Ball Revolver.
4. **Build a new character for a different Origin or Role.** Use Character Creation and Roles. A changed pregenerated character is a new character.
### Reading a Sheet
- **Characteristics.** Might, Agility, Intellect, Savvy, Willpower, Charisma.
- **Pool.** A check uses the higher of characteristic and skill as the number of dice and upgrades a number of them equal to the lower. The sheets print the pool as Mastery Dice and Ability Dice: *2M 1A* is two Mastery Dice and one Ability Die . A skill not listed is rank 0 and rolls the characteristic alone, in Ability Dice.
- **Ranged.** *The Black Powder Armory* prints Light Ranged and Heavy Ranged. In this book both are the single skill Ranged (Skills and Talents).
- **Initiative.** On Watch uses Savvy and Perception; Surprised uses Willpower and Readiness (Core Rules, Character Creation).
- **Defense.** Melee and Ranged Defense are 0 for every character here. Nothing in the kits adds Defense or Resistance.
- **Standing.** The Role's place on the Standing and Starting Stake table (Character Creation and Roles); a Tribal Nations character holds the Stake as horses, robes and trade goods ("Wage (in goods)" in the table below).
- **Money.** The Starting Stake is cash on hand after the kit. The Credit limit is twice the Stake, or three times with Good Credit (Era Rules, Money and Credit).
- **Papers.** A Tribal Nations sheet lists the papers the character starts with; each is Cover under Prejudice (Tribal Nations, What a Tribal character carries in town).
- **Encumbrance.** The Core Rules set no carrying limit for a character. The Enc values in the gear tables are for a mount's Carry (*The Stable*) and for the GM's judgment of a load.
- **Talents.** Sheets give talent names, tiers and costs only; the effect is in Skills and Talents or the Core Rules.
- **XP.** Each sheet shows the 110 XP as spent.
### The Party at a Glance
| Character | Origin and Role | Standing | Stake | Best at | Cast |
|:--|:--|:-:|--:|:--|:--|
| Josiah "Si" Tolliver | Black American, Cowhand | Wage | $31 | Rifle shooting, riding, trail craft | Yes |
| Anselmo Ybarra | Tejano, Horse Breaker and Tracker | Trade | $67 | Horses, tracking, a steady hand | Yes |
| Edmund Harrow | English, Surveyor and Land Agent | Professional | $143 | Surveys, law of land, bargaining | Yes |
| Elk Walks First, Oglala Lakota warrior | Oglala Lakota, Warrior, Hunter and Camp (warrior) | Wage (in goods) | $31 | Mounted fighting, scouting, a rifle | Yes |
| Marie Tessier, Northern Cheyenne interpreter | Northern Cheyenne with a French-Canadian father, Go-Between | Trade | $67 | Languages, bargaining, reading people | Yes |
| Wong Yik Lun | Chinese, Merchant | Professional | $143 | Trade, credit, knowing the town | Yes |
| Hedda Lund | Northern-born, Doctor and Healer | Professional | $143 | Medicine, the sickbed, a steady voice | No |
## Ties Among the Characters
The ties on each sheet are the starting links. This table gives further hooks that connect the seven to each other and to the factions of the corridor. The GM uses them to put pressure on the party at the start.
| Pair or group | Hook | Faction or place |
|:--|:--|:--|
| Tolliver and Ybarra | A cattle outfit near Cheyenne hires both for the fall gather; one foreman pays the Anglo hands more for the same work. The two choose whether to ask for the same pay. | A cattle outfit; see Cattle Interests |
| Tolliver, Ybarra and Michael Deveney | Deveney, the Irish Union veteran who is a deputy U.S. marshal at Cheyenne, asks the two trackers to follow a bunch of agency beef with a fresh brand to Wade Carrick's outfit. | Law Enforcement; the Adversaries chapter |
| Harrow and the interpreter | Harrow needs an interpreter to explain a survey to a camp whose ground the line crosses. The interpreter is paid by Harrow's company and pressed by her mother's people. | The railroad; the Northern Cheyenne |
| Harrow and the Oglala warrior | A survey crew has staked a line on ground the warrior's band hunts. The warrior reads the stakes, and Harrow is the person who put them there. | The Oglala Lakota; the railroad |
| The interpreter and the Oglala warrior | The interpreter carries the Army's message to the warrior's band. The warrior hears it and decides what the band will answer. | The U.S. Army; the Oglala Lakota |
| Wong Yik Lun and Odette Marchand | Marchand buys goods from Wong and holds a note against a customer he also extends credit to. | The Cheyenne business street; see Cheyenne |
| Wong Yik Lun and Harrow | A railroad official owes Wong for goods and says the company will pay when the survey is filed. Harrow knows when that will be. | The railroad; the Chinese community |
| Lund and Wong Yik Lun | Wong's account book carries her drug bill, and his cooks carry her name to the section crews. A crew boss asks him to send her to a boarding house where men are falling ill, and the company does not want it known. | The railroad; Illness (Era Rules) |
| All seven | A rancher posts a bounty on a man who stole his stock. Each of the seven can help find him or be linked to him. | Notoriety and Bounty; the Adversaries chapter |
##### Josiah "Si" Tolliver, Drover and Marksman
**Age 29. Black American, Cowhand. Standing: Wage.**
Tolliver was born enslaved in Texas and freed in 1865. He left Texas and learned the cattle trade on the drives north, and he is paid by the herd and by the day. He is a rifleman and rider, in Cheyenne with the wages from his last drive and a rifle he bought for his own use. He wants steady work with an outfit that pays what it owes.
**Play hint.** Tolliver is a quiet shooter who is not the first to draw. Hold a rifle at Long range and take the shot that settles a fight. His Charisma is low, so someone else should do the arguing.
**Ties.** To the party: Ybarra drove with him on the same trail herd and vouches for him to outfit owners. To the world: the Wyoming cattle outfit that hired him for the summer still owes him two months of pay.
##### Anselmo Ybarra, Tejano Horse Breaker and Tracker
**Age 34. Tejano, Horse Breaker and Tracker. Standing: Trade.**
Ybarra grew up on a south Texas ranch where his family worked cattle before there were Anglo cowboys. He came north with a herd and stayed. He tracks and breaks horses that other men have given up on, and outfit owners hire him by the animal at lower rates than they pay Anglo hands. He wants work that pays in cash.
**Play hint.** Ybarra is the party's tracker and horse man. He judges the horses the group buys, follows stock thieves by their trail and keeps the mounts fit. He shoots well, but not as well as Tolliver.
**Ties.** To the party: he drove north with Tolliver and trusts him with a rifle. To the world: a Cheyenne livery keeper owes him a favor for a horse he saved, and a ranch near Fort D.A. Russell has a string of unbroken horses waiting for him.
##### Edmund Harrow, Union Pacific Land Agent and Surveyor
**Age 33. English, Surveyor and Land Agent. Standing: Professional.**
Harrow trained in England as a civil engineer and came out to work for the railroad's land department, which decides which land is worth a line and which belongs to someone else. He surveys and plats routes across ground claimed by ranchers and Tribal Nations. He is courteous and precise, and he wants the survey filed and the line approved.
**Play hint.** Harrow is the party's expert in deeds, plats and claims, and its best bargainer after the interpreter. He has no Ranged skill, so keep him out of fights. His plats count as evidence, so draw one before a dispute.
**Ties.** To the party: he hires the group as chainmen and guards for a survey trip, and the interpreter is the only person who can explain the work to the camps he crosses. To the world: his superiors in the land department want a line through ground that a nation or a rancher says is theirs.
##### Elk Walks First, Oglala Lakota Warrior
**Age about 30. Oglala Lakota, Warrior, Hunter and Camp (warrior kit). Standing: Wage, held in horses and goods.**
He is of the Payabya band of the Oglala Lakota, from a nation that signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and has since seen the railroad, gold seekers and the Army violate it. He hunts, fights mounted and sits in council with his band. He rides to Cheyenne to trade and to see what the railroad is building.
**Play hint.** He is the party's best mounted fighter and scout. His Intellect and Charisma are low in a town. He answers to his band's headmen and his society, not to an employer, so the table decides why he travels with the others.
**Ties.** To the party: the interpreter carried his band's words to the Army and has asked him to guide a trader's party. To the world: a relative at Red Cloud Agency, in Nebraska, wants news of what the surveyors are marking.
##### Marie Tessier, Northern Cheyenne Interpreter
**Age about 38. Northern Cheyenne, Go-Between. Standing: Trade.**
Her mother's people call her Sweet Grass Woman; they are a Tsitsistas (Northern Cheyenne) band that trades at Camp Robinson. She was raised between her father's trading house and her mother's people, and she speaks Cheyenne, Lakota, French and English. She interprets and carries messages between the Army, traders and the nations, and the Army pays her.
**Play hint.** She is the party's voice. Use Plain Words when two sides will not talk, and read the room before the group commits. She fights poorly; she carries a pocket revolver.
**Ties.** To the party: she works with the Oglala warrior's band and is paid by Harrow's company to explain a survey. To the world: an Army officer at Fort D.A. Russell wants a report on a camp she knows, and a trader at Cheyenne holds a note against her account book.
##### Wong Yik Lun, Merchant
**Age 41. Chinese, Merchant. Standing: Professional.**
Wong came from Taishan to California in the early 1860s on a district association's passage loan, cooked for a Central Pacific grading crew and kept its accounts because he could write, and came east in 1869 when the Union Pacific hired Chinese men to maintain its line across Wyoming. Since 1872 he has kept the Wo Hing store on Wazee Street in Denver, selling dry goods, rice, tea, tobacco, tools and medicine, supplying the Chinese cooks, laundries and section crews along the line on account, and contracting hands to outfits that ask. He rides the Denver Pacific to Cheyenne a week in every month to collect and extend credit at the depot. He keeps his accounts in two scripts, knows who owes money in the Chinese community and in the town, and which merchants pay on time.
**Play hint.** Wong is the party's source of money, credit and rumor. Open credit with the Good Credit talent and learn who is buying what. He has no Ranged skill and the lowest Agility in the party.
**Ties.** To the party: he sells the group its supplies on account, and Tolliver and Ybarra each owe him a small debt. To the world: a customer from the Union Pacific has not paid, and a Cheyenne parlor house keeper buys goods from him and asks questions about the town.
##### Hedda Lund, Doctor
**Age 34. Northern-born, Doctor and Healer. Standing: Professional.**
Lund was born in Sweden and came to Illinois with her parents as a child. She took her degree at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1868 and came to Denver in 1872 with her husband, a consumptive sent west for the air; she buried him in 1873. She keeps a two-room office, attends births, fevers and the injuries of the yards, and rides the Denver Pacific to Cheyenne when a case or a fee calls her there. She wants her bills paid, her patients alive and her name on the medical society's roll.
**Play hint.** Lund is the party's doctor. Her Care check is Average with clean water, rest and supplies (Era Rules, Illness); Sickroom Skill lets her give a patient 4 Boon Dice and tend two patients in a day, Practical Expertise covers a trail without instruments, and Helpful makes her the assist on any check that needs a steady pair of hands. She carries a Derringer and nothing else; keep her behind the others when a fight starts.
**Ties.** To the party: Wong Yik Lun supplies her drugs and dressings on account, and she set Ybarra's ribs after a horse put him into a corral rail. To the world: Odette Marchand pays her by the visit to attend the women of her house and expects discretion, and the Arapahoe County coroner sends for her at night when the men will not come.
| Might | Agility | Intellect | Savvy | Willpower | Charisma |
|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
**Derived.** Resistance 1. Wound Points 11. Strain Points 14. Melee Defense 0, Ranged Defense 0. Initiative: On Watch 1M 1A; Surprised 1M 1A. Notoriety 0.
| Skill | Rank | Pool | Cost |
|:--|:-:|:-:|--:|
| Medicine (Intellect) | 2 | 2M 1A | 15 |
| Charm (Charisma) | 2 | 2M | 15 |
| Science (Intellect) | 1 | 1M 2A | 5 |
| Lore (Intellect) | 1 | 1M 2A | 5 |
| Craft (Intellect) | 1 | 1M 2A | 5 |
| Negotiation (Charisma) | 1 | 1M 1A | 5 |
| Readiness (Willpower) | 1 | 1M 1A | 5 |
| Survival (Savvy) | 1 | 1M 1A | 5 |
| Perception (Savvy), out of profession | 1 | 1M 1A | 10 |
| Riding (Agility), out of profession | 1 | 1M 1A | 10 |
**Talents.** Steadfast (Tier 1, free). Sickroom Skill (Tier 2, favored, 5 XP). Quick Recovery (Tier 2, favored, 5 XP). Practical Expertise (Medicine) (Tier 2, favored, 5 XP). Cool Head (Tier 1, 5 XP). Helpful (Tier 1, 5 XP). Specialist: Medicine, fevers at the bedside (Tier 1, 5 XP).
**Languages.** English, Swedish (the Northern-born Origin covers Scandinavian settlers; Character Creation and Roles, Communities not listed as Origins).
**Strength (once per session).** With soldiers, veterans or a Northern congregation: add 1 Boon Die to Charm or Negotiation.
**XP.** Skills 80. Talents 30. Total 110.
**Kit (Doctor and Healer).** Antiseptic, Poppy Tincture and Emetic (*The Apothecary*, The Apothecary's Shelf). Derringer (*The Black Powder Armory*, Master Tables). Riding Horse with Riding saddle and Bridle and bit (*The Stable*, Master Tables and Tack). A black riding habit, a plain bonnet and a watch on a chain.
**Money.** Starting Stake $143; Credit limit $286. She has bought a doctor's bag with instruments for $25 (Gear and Prices) and has $118 in hand.
### Party Pairings
Any four characters make a table:
| Table of four | Strength | Risk |
|:--|:--|:--|
| Tolliver, Ybarra, Harrow, interpreter | A trail party with a guide, a marksman, a clerk and a voice | Short on mounted fighters |
| Ybarra, Oglala warrior, interpreter, Wong | A scouting and trading party | Short on shooters |
| Tolliver, Harrow, interpreter, Wong | A town party: deals, plats and rumors | Hard in a fight |
| Tolliver, Ybarra, Lund, interpreter | A trail party that can nurse its own sick | Lund's Derringer is the only second gun |
| All seven | The full corridor: stock, rails, nations, money and medicine | A large table; the GM balances scenes for seven |
## The Kits at a Glance
The eight items the seven kits carry. Each line matches Gear and Prices, The Essential Gear Table, where the owning sourcebook, the dates of introduction, the tack, the arrows, the mule and Tolliver's Breechloading Rifle are. Dollars is this book's price; the Units column is the owning sourcebook's own price figure, kept as a cross-reference to its row, not a rate (Gear and Prices).
| Item | Skill | Dmg | Crit | Range | Enc | Dollars | Units | Qualities | Source |
|:--|:--|:-:|:-:|:--|:-:|--:|--:|:--|:--|
| **Derringer** | Ranged | 5 | 4 | Short | 0 | $8 | 150 | Concealable 3, Limited Ammo 2, Inaccurate 1 | *The Black Powder Armory* |
| **Pocket Revolver** | Ranged | 5 | 4 | Short | 1 | $10 | 150 | Concealable 2, Limited Ammo 5 | *The Black Powder Armory* |
| **Single-Action Revolver** | Ranged | 6 | 4 | Medium | 2 | $17.50 | 350 | Accurate 1, Limited Ammo 6 | *The Black Powder Armory* |
| **Lever-Action Repeater** | Ranged | 7 | 3 | Medium | 3 | $45 | 450 | — | *The Black Powder Armory* |
| **Lasso** | Ranged | — | — | Short | 1 | $1.50 | 10 | Ensnare 2, Limited Ammo 1 | *The Black Powder Armory* |
| **Knife** | Melee | +1 | 3 | Engaged | 1 | $2 | 40 | Thrusting, Cutting | *The Fantasy Armory* |
| **Horse Bow** | Ranged | 7 | 3 | Medium | 1 | $8 | 625 | Accurate 1, Fragile 1, Cumbersome 2, Point Blank 1 | *The Ranged Armory* |
| **Riding Horse** | Riding | — | — | — | — | $50 | 300 | Wounds 11, Res 2, Carry 16, Travel 30; Swift, Temper 1 | *The Stable* |