Making a planed character uses the following steps. For Dune: Houses on Fire we’ll use this method for the Ruler, for most Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, we’ll use this for most PCs.
Steps
- Concept
- Archetype
- Skills
- Foci
- Talents
- Drives and Drive Statements
- Assets
- Finishing Touches
Step One: Concept
As you’ve already decided on your House and Homeworld, you are now going to figure out how to make a character who can inhabit this space and make it feel like they belong there. I would suggest using a piece of scratch paper or your favorite digital brainstorming tool and make some notes about what kind of person they are. What is their public face like? Are they different in private. What motivates them, beyond simple power or security? Are there people in the universe more important to them than they are to themselves? What did they do before being swept up in the adventures we are about to begin?
Factions and Templates
For ruler characters, the Faction is simply the name of your House, for other characters, they might have split loyalties, the Lady Jessica is a loyal concubine to Duke Leto, but she is also a Sister of the Bene Gesserit, which gives her, at times, conflicting loyalties. You should not these other factions here if you are not playing a Ruler.
Step Two: Archetype
Next, select a general archetype for the character. These archetypes are designed to be relatively broad and cover a range of concepts, and it shouldn’t be difficult to find an archetype that fits the concept you devised during step one. But if you still can’t find something that fits, either change the theme of an archetype that has the right options or create a new archetype that matches what you are looking for. In both cases, make sure the GM approves your choices.
In summary, each archetype provides:
- Trait: An archetype provides a single trait, representing the character’s role or status, which will be the archetype’s name. You may change or expand this if you wish, to something unique and befitting your concept, but the trait provided by your chosen archetype should serve as the basis for whatever you create.
- Skills: One skill is marked as primary, and one is marked as secondary. These skills will be increased in the next step.
- Focuses: The character receives two focuses for their primary or secondary skill. Suggestions for these are provided, but you may choose your own if you desire.
- Talents: The character receives a single talent. Suggestions for this are provided, but you may choose your own if you wish.
The archetypes also provide suggestions and ideas for what characters of that type will likely spend time doing and what they might believe. None of these suggestion are mandatory, but they can help when it comes to choosing the character’s drives and ambitions later. You can get more information on Archetypes in the Dune: AITI core book pp 113.
You can get an overview of available talents at the Fandom Wiki: https://daiti.fandom.com/wiki/Archetypes
Step Three: Skills
Each character in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium has five skills, as described in the previous chapter: Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand. These cover the character’s broad aptitudes and capabilities, forming a major part of skill tests the character attempts during play.
All player characters have each skill rated between 4 and 8. At this stage in character creation, you will have the following skill ratings:
- The primary skill listed for your archetype is rated at 6
- The secondary skill listed for your archetype is rated at 5.
- The other three skills are rated at 4.
Once you’ve done this, you may increase any skills you wish; you have five points which you may distribute as you see fit between your skills. No skill may be increased above 8 in this way.
Step Four: Foci
A starting player character has four focuses, representing areas of expertise and specialization beyond their broad skills. These focuses will each be associated with a single skill, which represents the skill which will use that focus most often. But any focus can be used with any skill if it applies appropriately to the action in question. However, a focus of Gladiatorial Dueling is going to be used with Battle more often than with Understand, for example.
Your chosen archetype will provide two focuses, one of which will usually be associated with the archetype’s primary skill, and the other of which will usually be associated with the archetype’s secondary skill. You should pick a focus for your primary skill and for your secondary skill (even from outside your archetype). But you may also pick either or both offered by your archetype regardless of skill. Once you’ve chosen these, you may choose two other focuses, which may be associated with any skills you want.
Step Five: Talents
A starting player character has three talents, representing special abilities, advanced techniques, and other significant benefits. These are abilities which define a character, helping them to stand out and feel special.
Your chosen archetype will provide a single talent, and it will suggest several options which are appropriately thematic for that archetype. You may choose a different talent if you wish, but at least one of your talents should relate to your chosen archetypes in some way. Some talents, such as Bold, have to be connected to a particular skill. This connection is chosen when the talent is picked and can only apply to that skill. However, such a talent may be chosen again and applied to another skill. So a character might have Bold (Battle) and Bold (Communicate) as two of their talent picks, for example.
Once you’ve selected that first talent, you may select two other talents. These talents may be selected freely, though individual talents may have certain restrictions on who may take them—Mentat talents can only be taken by Mentats, Bene Gesserit talents may only be taken by Bene Gesserit, and so forth.
The list of talents begins on page127 of the Dune: AITI core rules.
You can get an overview of available talents at the Fandom Wiki: https://daiti.fandom.com/wiki/Talents
Step Six: Drives
Until now, the character creation process has focused on “What does the character do?”. This step deals with the other side of a character: what do they believe?
Every character has five drives—Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, and Truth—which are described in the previous chapter. These are rated between 4 and 8, representing how important that drive is to the character, with 8 representing the most important thing to the character, while 4 represents something the character cares little about.
During this step, you must rank the five drives according to their importance for the character. Then, in order, assign the associated rating: You can determine this order in any way you want, but the key is that this is the point where you determine who the character is and what they believe. Each archetype includes a couple of suggestions about the drives that might be interesting to play for that archetype, but these are suggestions only, and shouldn’t be considered limits on what you create yourself.
| Drive Importance | Drive Rating | Meaning |
| 1st | 8 | The most important thing. |
| 2nd | 7 | High priority for you. |
| 3rd | 6 | This influences you often. |
| 4th | 5 | This matters, but you have other priorities. |
| 5th | 4 | You care little for this topic. |
Once you’ve defined the order of your character’s drives, you’ll need to define some drive statements—a statement for each of the three most important drives. Drive statements are described in more detail on p.105- 106, with numerous example statements available there, but this can be a tricky part of character creation, so additional guidance is provided below.
- A drive statement is one of the driving forces of the character’s worldview and personality, shaping how they interact with the worlds around them and providing motivation for the things they do.
- Drive statements should be easy to understand, so that you and the GM can both understand when they’re helpful, when they’re a hindrance, and when they don’t apply at all. If you don’t know if a drive statement applies to a situation, you’re not able to use it.
- You will want to have at least one drive statement that poses a problem for your character, because that’s how you can gain more Determination to spend (see p.157).
- Similarly, you’ll want at least one drive statement which is helpful to your character, because that gives you more opportunities to use a higher drive score, and more opportunities to spend Determination.
- Drive statements do not have to be positive about the drive they’re attached to. Someone with a strong drive in Truth doesn’t have to be honest, and someone who believes strongly in Faith may believe that faith and religion are dangerous or harmful.
- Your drive statements can and should change over time. The game allows for a character to challenge their beliefs, changing the order of priority and the attached statements, to reflect how people’s feelings and opinions can shift over time. Because they can change, you don’t need to worry too much about choosing the perfect statements right away; simple statements might be a better way to start, becoming more complex as you play the character and their feelings grow more nuanced.
- It doesn’t matter if your drive statements contradict one another. A person can hold conflicting beliefs, and the situations when those conflicting beliefs clash is often a source of interesting role play and tension in play.
- A broad range is also good so you have the option to use a statement on any test. With this in mind, you may want to pick one that reflects how you respond physically, one that reflects how you tend to respond mentally, and one that reflects how you respond socially.
Step Seven: Assets
Assets represent the tools and resources available to a character, which they can use to achieve their goals. Chapter 7: Assets contains a list of the kinds of assets available.
Each asset is a special kind of trait (see p. 143-144), which describes a tool, resource, or something else useful which a character possesses. These assets are used during a conflict (as described in Chapter 6:
Conflict) to overcome opponents and obstacles. Some of these assets are tangible—representing physical
things, from weapons and other small possessions, to vehicles such as groundcars and ornithopters, to squads of troops and the services of agents and other subordinates.
Others are intangible, representing contacts, favors, the ability to call upon friends, and similar useful
things which have no physical presence in their own right.
As we begin, you’ll select three assets, one of which must be tangible. It is important to understand these aren’t the only things you can get your hands on, but they are the things you have with your, and ready commonly.
You can get an overview of available talents at the Fandom Wiki: https://daiti.fandom.com/wiki/Assets
Step Eight: Finishing Touches
You only need a few more details to finish your character.
Trait
Select one additional trait for your character, reflecting the character’s reputation and how they are regarded by others. These do not necessarily have to be accurate descriptions of who the character is, only how others perceive them; a character may seek to cultivate a reputation distinct from who they actually are.
Ambition
Each player character has an ambition, which guides their long-term actions. A character who takes steps
to achieve their ambitions will become more capable, more influential, and generally more effective.
During character creation, your character’s ambition should be based on their highest-rated drive, and your GM will work with you to define one for your character, helping to create something which can come
up in play frequently. This ambition may change over time as a character’s drives shift.
Personal Details
Coming up with the details that turn a character from a collection of numbers and rules into a person is a vital part of character creation, but a part that obviously should be left to the very end, bringing together those disparate elements into a cohesive whole.
- Name
- Personality
- Appearance
- Relationships
If you have trouble coming up with a Dune-y name Emily can give you a hand: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/dune.php
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This is a fan site devoted to running Dune: Adventures in the Imperium by Modiphius Entertainment, based on Dune created by Frank Herbert and owned by the Gale Force Nine, a Battlefront Group Company. No use of eithers’ intellectual property on this page is meant to constitute a challenge to either entities’ rights and is intended under fair use provisions. We encourage you to buy a copy of this fine RPG, if you use one of the links provided on this page we’ll receive a small fee that will help support expansion of the material found here. The planetary illustrations here are mostly from the core book and NASA. Art not coming from Modiphius, or NASA are fan works either from myself or other fans, I credit other artists where I have a source available and would appreciate your help finding the origin of other fan art included without attribution. In many places I cite the Dune Encyclopedia, a collective work released in 1983, which I got from a book of the month club accidentally and was my entry point to the Dune universe, I would love to have a link available so you could get your own, but it appears to be out of print.