Each of the cards contains the rules you need to be able to use the card during the game.
The number of cards you have purchased for the character tells you how many times you can use a spell or ability before you need to rest.
You will have a short character sheet to track your characters current experience, Lifeline (our name for levels), totaled stats and remaining Hit Points.
You will have a Gamemaster who is in charge at the table. We believe the GM is always right, so do not bother to argue. Relax and Embrace the Chaos that is Dragon Storm.
Whenever you need to make a contest roll, of any type, you will need two six sided dice.
In other words the cards become your characters personal rules book and list of abilities. The GM is the guide to the fantasy world your character is living in.
In the explanations below I will be using the Human Dragon Character Shape Shifter. There are more possibilities, but lets keep the confusion down for the moment.
First, let me give you a quick character background. Your character lived as a farmer in a hamlet until the age of 16 to 18. Then your Dragon’s Blood kicked in and suddenly you were a Dragon shape shifter. Somewhere in your history there was a dragon in the wood pile, as my Great Grandmother would say. This is exciting! The knowledge of your Dragon abilities floods in to you, you feel the surge of power! Then it dawns on you. While it is a great thing to be a magical shape shifter, you are now a hunted outcast. You see, most of the world is ruled by Necromancers. Necromancers raise the dead and drain shape shifters. A Necromancer wants to put you through a long ritual to remove all of your magic and store it for their use. The side effect is that it kills you, and nobody wants to be a dead trophy on a wall.
Fortunately you live in a free hamlet that does not hate shape shifters. Your neighbors are Elethay worshippers and the goddess Elethay is friendly to shifters. So, while you scare them, they do not start hunting you. The problem is that rumors will spread about a new shifter. If you stick around a Necromancer will come and hunt for you. Necromancers are not careful when hunting shifters. You are a danger to your friends, neighbors and relatives.
What is a new shifter to do? Well, your local Elethay Priestess knows which way you need to go to find a group called the Valarians. The Valarians are shifters and friends who are training each other and fighting to overthrow and kill Necromancers. You will be heading out into the world to become an adventuring warrior Dragon.
Congratulations! Learning all of this has earned you 20 role playing points. As a Novice additional cards cost 20 role playing points to buy one Card Point. We will get back to this in a moment.
This is your character card. Each character has a number of starting card points. It is 13. It is that number in the upper right hand corner of the card, with the “+” in front of it.
The characteristics are on the right, below the +13. If you need to make a Strength contest roll to break a door, punch someone, or arm wrestle, your contest roll would be 2d6+1. It works the same with all characteristic contest rolls.
The text in the middle of the card tells you that your character can use Dragon, Human, and Universal cards. You will be spending your card points to get cards you can use. As you adventure you will earn “Role-Playing” points as experience. You use those points to add more cards to the character to grow.
This is the Farmer Background we mentioned earlier. It is good to be a Farmer.
This is a permanent card. See the “P” at the end of the second text line? We call that the Card Type Line, it contains useful information about the card in shorthand. Don’t worry, you will learn what it all means over time.
The result is your character now has 34 HP and 8 CAP. You will be tracking that on your character sheet.
The Stat line on the cards line up so you can fan your cards and see what your current Stats are.
This is your newest card. Since the starter pack has 13 card points in it, you will be using your first 20 role playing points you earned above to add this one Card Point card to your character. (CP is in the upper right hand corner of all ability/skill type cards.)
The card type line is just below the art on the card. This line tells you that this is a Dragon card.
Next it says it is a Form Card. That is important because you can only have one form in play (L1P) at a time. No stacking those cool bonuses.
Then it says it takes an Action to put into play. How much you can do in a round will be learned in your first combat.
Then comes the “V”. “V” means that the card has a variable duration once put in to play. It will drain when you want it to, or when the GM causes it to drain.
The Stat bonuses make you a real mean machine. You now have 17 Strength. For a Strength contest to hit someone you get a 2d6+17 damage. Enough to kill most normal people in a single attack.
Your Defense (DEF) goes up to 7. That means your scaly skin blocks the first 7 points of incoming damage.
At the end of your characters first adventure you should find the Valarian Champions. They will teach you your characters first boon. Lucky you. You have friends, teachers, and one more point of Wisdom (WIS), plus 8 more HP. Put the increases on your character sheet, because this is another “P” card. It is rare to ever loose a “P” card, but it can happen. Dragon Storm is a very chaotic world, almost anything can happen.
This is your Lifeline Card. When you get to 100 Card Points you will trade it in for the Lifeline Two card.
To look at the rest of your characters starting cards, go to the DS Core Products Page. Then the Samples download page will show up in the navigation window on the right. Click on it and find the Dragon Starter Set, have a look.
When you are there, take a look at Item set 404. They will be your characters starting Items.