All game concepts are copyrighted by Ran Ackels and Precedence Publishing. Many of the details regarding random aspects of the NPC have been fine tuned with help and feedback from members of the Immortal mailing list (Immortal-L@Lightbearer.com). For some details about the NPC that are not specified in the game rules, I have used "house rules", which will be discussed below. A few background information concepts were originally taken from the anime game Mekton Zeta.
This is only a fairly basic script and not a true simulation. Sometimes the randomly rolled personality traits may not be appropriate, or there may be other contradictions. The Narrator should always review the NPC for viability, and I strongly recommend that this script only be used for quick or unimportant NPCs. Major NPCs should always be manually created by the Narrator.
To use the script, select information in the control panel fields (in the left-hand frame) and then click on the "Generate" button. A table of information about the non-player character will appear in the right-hand frame, overwriting these instructions. After generating a character you can return to these instruction by clicking on the "Read Notes" button.
By default, each time you generate a new character it will overwrite any characters already displayed in the right-hand frame. If you wish to generate several characters and keep them all, click on the "Append" radio button on the bottom of the control panel. Please note that this does NOT save the characters between sessions - it just keeps adding new characters generated in the current session to the bottom of the right-hand frame.
This script includes a VERY crude name generator - it is intended to provide the user with a starting point. If you leave the name field of the control panel blank, the script will generate a semi-random collection of letters. It is not intended that these letters should be used as the actual name! Choose a name which is phonetically similar to the random name, or ignore it. I just find it easier to come up with a name I like which is similar to the generated letters than to come up with good sounding names from scratch. :) If you want to have no name shown in the output, just put a space in the name field of the control panel.
When the script randomly generates information like Himsati, Tier, Pride and Calling, it uses weighted percentages instead of having even odds for each possibility. For example, Prides Phoenix and Peri (and Dracul, now) are on the small side and will occur less often, while Highbinder is one of the larger Callings and will occur more often. To see what percentages I have assigned to each field of random content, click on the "Show Percentages" button at the bottom of the control panel. If you feel that the program is not accurately representing your world view, please contact me. Depending on the nature of the changes, I can easily modify this script or help you to make a modified copy for your own use.
Some specific and important assumptions that I make include:
Clothing preferences are included, but are intended to represent what the character would wear on an average day. If their current activities would indicate some other form of clothing would be more appropriate (or required) at that time, then obviously those should be used. At this point the clothing selection does not make use of any cultural or Pride-based information, but describes the general style of clothing and should be modified as appropriate for the NPC's Pride.
At this time, the method I am using to display the character sheet in the second frame doesn't seem to allow the information to be either directly printed or saved. I am still trying to find an alternative way to present the character sheet that will be printable. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know... :) As a temporary work-around, in Internet Explorer 4.0 (the browser I'm currently using), I can right click in the frame and choose the "view source" option. Then I save that source as an html document on my hard disk, open it in a new window, and print from there. Its kind of a pain, but I haven't figured out anything better yet.
Please email me if you find this script useful, or if you have any suggestions, additions or comments about its functions.
Revision Changes
Version | Date | Notes |
0.905 | 12/15/98 | Fixed a sneaky bug, accidentally introduced in version 0.904, in the function that determines Visage. The bug had caused Visage to be 15 most of the time. |
0.904 | 12/13/98 | Improved the age generation algorithm to be more in line with the consensus of the mailing list. |
0.903 | 12/12/98 | Modified the script to use arrays for assigning percentages to random content, to make changes easier, and added a button to display those tables. |
0.902 | 12/2/98 | Modified the random determination of halos to increase the amount of Soul for certain Callings, increased the percentage of Rooks from 20% to 33% in the Perpetual Society, and added a Loyalty field to the control panel (along with other related adjustments). |
0.901 | 11/20/98 | Improved random age generation for Phoenix, Eremite and Magdalen, plus added some himsati categories from Shapeshifters Manual. |
0.900 | 11/16/98 | This is the initial public release of the script. |
The JavaScript NPC generator is Copyright © 1998 by Jim Stoner
Last Modified December 15, 1998