YOUR MUTANT

Your Player Character (PC), your mutant, is your most important asset in Mutant: Year Zero. He is your weapon, your eyes and ears in the world. But he, in return, depends on you making the right decisions for him. Don’t screw it up. Take your PC seriously and play him as if he was a real person. It’s more fun that way. At the same time, don’t try to protect your PC from every conceivable danger. The goal of the game is to create a good story. For that to happen you need to take risks, if you never dare, you’ll never win.

CREATE YOUR CHARACTER

Follow these ten steps:

1. Choose your role.
2. Choose your name.
3. Define your appearance.
4. Distribute 14 points across the four attribute scores.
5. Distribute 10 points across your skill levels.
6. Choose a talent.
7. Roll for a mutation.
8. Choose your big dream, who you hate and who you have to protect.
9. Choose your gear.
10. Describe your den.

ROLE
The first thing you pick for your mutant is his role. The role determines who you are and what you do in the Ark, your position in the Dawnworld. There are eight roles to choose from.

Avoid having several players pick the same role for their characters, as this would make the group
less diverse.

AGE
When were you born? You don’t know. Nobody in the Ark does. But you are all young adults. There are no older people except for the Elder. And there are no children. Unlike the scrawny mutts that live off the Ark’s refuse, the People bear no children. You all realize what this means. If no children are born, and no one arrives from elsewhere, it’s only a matter of time before the People are extinct. Can you find Eden before your time is up?

ATTRIBUTES
Your four attributes determines what basic strengths and weaknesses you are born with. They are measured on a scale from 1 to 5 for PCs and other regular mutants. A higher score is better. Your attributes are used when you perform important actions. The attribute scores are decreased when you suffer different types of trauma. If an attribute reaches zero you are broken.

Starting scores: When you create your PC, you should distribute a total of 14 points across the four attribute scores. Each attribute must have a starting value from 2 to 4, except one. The attribute listed as your “key attribute” by your role description may have a starting score of 5.

STRENGTH
Raw physical power and endurance. Strength is decreased by damage, and recovered by grub.

AGILITY
Your overall body control and motor skills. Agility is decreased by fatigue, and recovered by water.

WITS
Intelligence, alertness and sharpness of mind. Wits is decreased by confusion, and recovered by sleep.

EMPATHY
Your charisma and ability to read and affect others. Empathy is decreased by doubt and recovered by
sympathy.


EXTRA MUTATION
If you choose to start the game with an extra mutation, one of your attribute scores must be decreased one step.

SKILLS
Your skills are trained abilities and learning, things you have picked up along the way in the harsh post-apocalyptic world. In this game there are twelve basic skills that all mutants can use. In addition, every role has a unique, thirteenth skill, a specialist skill. Skills are measured by skill level, from 0 to 5. You can use a basic skill even if you don’t have a skill level. To use a specialist skill, you need at least skill level 1.

Starting Levels: When creating your character, you get to distribute 10 points across your skills. The maximum starting level for any skill is 3, and you must have at least level 1 in your specialist
skill, apart from that, you choose your skills
freely. You can increase your skill levels during play.

TALENTS
Talents are tricks, moves and minor abilities that give you a small edge. They are more specialized than skills and give you a way to fine-tune your character.

You can pick one talent when creating your character, but your choices are limited. Your role
description indicates which talents you can choose from. You can learn more talents during the course of the game, at which point you will have many more talents to choose from.

MUTATIONS
Your mutations are superhuman abilities. Where the mutations come from, no one among the People knows. The problem is that they are both unpredictable and dangerous, even to yourselves. Besides, they can’t always be activated on command. Sometimes the power is there, ready to unleash, some-
times it’s not.

THE MUTATION ROLL
Normally, you get only get one mutation from the start. You don’t get to choose your mutation, instead you roll D66 once on the Mutation Table. Learn to make the most of the mutation you’ve got, even if you would have preferred another. Mutations are random. Deal with it. Two mutations? Once you have drawn your first mutation, you can, if you want to, draw a second mutation and start the game with two. The price you pay is that you must decrease one of your attribute scores by one step, your mind or body is more mutated than most, but also more degenerated. If you choose to have two mutations, you may end up starting the game with the score of 1 in an
attribute, however, this is hardly advisable.

New mutations: Your PC can develop more mutations during the course of the game.

MUTATION POINTS
How the individual mutations work is set out in the Mutation section. To activate a mutation you must spend at least one Mutation Point (MP). Without MPs, you can’t use any mutations. You can never fail when activating a mutation, all you need to do is to spend an MP. But the power of the mutation can have unpredictable side effects.

At the beginning of every game session, you get a number of MP equal to the number of mutations you have.

You can win more MP by pushing a dice roll

You can never have more than 10 MP.