Since ICON handles “Narrative Play” and “Tactical Combat” very differently, you essentially have different character sheets for each of them.

As a character sheet, make a copy of this gsheet. That document uses separate sheets for the narrative parts of your character (“Narrative - Minimal”) and the tactical combat parts (“Tactical - Minimal”). It populates the shared features of your tactical sheet from the narrative sheet, so you should make sure to use the Narrative sheet when inputting your Name, Pronouns, Kintype, Culture, Chapter, or Level.

It doesn’t really matter whether you do the narrative side of character creation first or the tactical side, but I’m going to present narrative character creation first, and then tactical character creation. Then at the end, I’ll talk about customizing the camp you share with the other characters.

Narrative Character Creation

Narrative character creation is pretty simple:

1. Choose what kind of Kin (pp. 25-27) your character is. This has no mechanical effect.
2. Choose your character’s Culture (pp. 27-30). Your culture lists three Actions (sort of your main narrative stats), pick two of them to take +1 to (by checking a box in the appropriate row under Actions on the sheet).
3. Choose a Bond (pp.31-37), which is like your class or playbook for the narrative side of play. Your Bond defines a bunch of things, most of which the sheet will handle automatically when you select the Bond from the dropdown list.
   1. Add the Action bonus(es) it lists (again by checking a box or boxes in the appropriate row(s))
   2. Fill in 4 more Action boxes of your choice (but taking no single Action higher than 3 for now)
   3. Choose one Bond power from those listed on the page for your Bond in the book (and put it on your sheet in the “First Bond” dropdown under Bond Powers).
4. You’re done with the narrative side of things, congratulations!

Tactical character creation

Okay, so, for tactical combat, your bond doesn’t matter, nothing you did above has any mechanical impact on tactical combat. So switch to the Tactical sheet.

The tactical side is also pretty simple, at least to start:

1. Choose a Job (pp. 53-105). Put it on your sheet by first selecting the Class (sort of the over-Job for several kinda similar Jobs) from that drop-down, and then your desired Job from the Current Job dropdown. Also stick your Job in the first “Acquired Jobs” dropdown if it didn’t auto-populate correctly. It’ll auto-populate your class & job’s passive traits and basic stats.
2. Choose two abilities from the list in your Job. To add them to your sheet:
   1. In the “Abilities Learned” section on the center left of the sheet, select the abilities from the dropdown in two of the spots.
   2. In the “Abilities” section to the right of and below that section, select the abilities’ names in the uppermost blank rows of the section. It’ll automatically fill in the tags and description of the ability for you. You might find it convenient to change the vertical align of the descriptions to “top”.
3. You’re ready to get out there, explore some Arkenruins, kick some butt, etc.!

Job/Class summaries

(the outermost layer is the class, then the inner list are the jobs in that class) As a note, in the rulebook each class has a listing and summary of some of the “most relevant rules” for that class at the beginning of the class (well, after the Class traits but before getting into the jobs).

• Stalwart: Weapon master and unparalleled soldier. Tough in-your-face fighters who have the abilities to stand their ground, protect their allies, and control the battlefield. Use Heroic versions of your abilities once per combat, or sometimes more.
  • Bastion: Proud and unbreakable knight. Push your foes around like playthings with your Big Fucking Shield and interpose yourself between your foes’ attacks and your allies.
  • Demon Slayer: Monster hunter and dark knight. Fight impossible odds with impossible strength of your own! You won’t be the first to take a swing, but damned if you aren’t the last.
  • Head Lopper: Berserkers. Take a beating, hit harder for it, and shrug it off at the end of the fight.
• Vagabond: Rogue, scoundrel, and blade for hire. These are the slippery, roguish types. Hit hard, move faster, strike from afar. Punish your bloodied enemies with Finishing Blows.
  • Fool: Teleport everywhere, tumble up or down slopes without a care, phase through everybody else. Gamble on randomized abilities, but load the dice.
  • Freelancer: Divine punisher, wielder of the Holy Chamber. Crits, crits, and better crits. Never stop running and never stop shooting even while you’re running. Summon angels in order to ricochet your bullets off of them to electrically shock foes around corners.
  • Shade: Nocturnal assassin. Split your soul and fight alongside your own Darkside. Stealthily teleport around and throw knives everywhere.
• Mendicant: Wandering hero and storyteller. Heal your allies, pacify your foes, Bless your friends, cleanse debuffs.
  • Harvester: Priests of death (and of life). Destroy your foes with the power of your blessings, grow life to protect your allies and harm your enemies. Reap the lives of your foes to rejuvenate your friends.
  • Sealer: Warrior monk and purger of evil. Burn your foes and weave together combination attacks. Pacify them and inflict criticals on them afterwards. Bless your allies’ strikes.
  • Seer: A fortune teller and unparalleled master of fate. Draw cards to tell your allies’ good fortunes. Pass over your allies with area effect attacks that heal them instead of harming. Twist fate and alter causality.
• Wright: Mage, thaumaturge, and master of the arcane arts. Master the raw power of creation. Wield ever more terrifying power with every turn. Infuse Aether into your abilities for even greater effects.
  • Enochian: Unbridled destruction. Burn your own life force to burn your foes to cinder, then be reborn like a phoenix. Burn, burn, burn.
  • Geomancer: Guardian of the pure earth. Reshape the earth, ignore damage, release the energy of the blows you’ve taken as volcanic force.
  • Spellblade: Swordmaster, wind dancer. Electrify your blade, deflect attacks, strike across lengthy lines and arcs.

Camp

Your group has a shared camp, which is what you draw on or use when you camp during an expedition to recover stuff or spend XP. Your camp has a camp sheet of its own. The character sheet doc above has a sheet titled “Camp Sheet” to use for tracking your Camp. The camp might be an airship, a wagon, a caravan, or even just the tents and bedrolls stuffed in your backpacks.

Your camp sheet has these things:

1. An optional group name
2. 1-3 long term group goals (Ambitions) to work towards during interludes between expeditions.
3. Camp fixtures which provide a variety of benefits when camping or during interludes.

Your group starts out with two camp fixtures and can spend Dust (money, basically) to upgrade them or buy new ones during Interludes.