The Broken World is a game where you tell a story. A story about clans, their heros, and their interactions in the building of a new world. First you will need to decide who your players in this story will be.
For inspiration, have a look around the site. Read some of the setting, and nose through the skills and traits available. Find a few points that really interest you, and try to build a clan or character around them.
Each player in the Broken World is backed by a clan. This could be your friends, clan, or comerades in arms. They could be your willing servants, or your overlords. In any case, your primary reason for attending the Assembly is to serve the interests of your clan.
While you are the hero of this story, out there changing the world, your clan are your biggest backer. If you build something, its your clan that wield the hammers. If you invent something, your clan are the first people to adopt it. If you believe something, your clan are the first people to be convinced. They are the steady hands, holding the world still for you to hit.
Your clan are not mindless puppets however. They have their own needs, and expect you and every other clansman to help fill them. For the most part they will be doing the day-to-day tasks that keep you all safe, warm and well fed. How much you can pull them away from tending the crops depends on your Clan Influence.
An average clan has between a dozen and two dozen members. Some of your clan will be children, some elders. Some of your clan will be related, others will be people you picked up along the way. You needn't describe every member. Just give us a rough idea of what your clan is like.
Once you have an idea, you should choose the Clan Traits that best fit it.
Whether hero, villain or comic interlude, your character is a prominent member of your clan. Most importantly, he is a member with the time or the excuse to attend the gathering.
The Broken World is such an eclectic place that there is a wide range of possible character concepts here, from inbred mudsucking Brother Jeb who wants to discover new ways of growing crops to Felix Octavius Burnstein the 14th, latest in a line of proud warrior/do-gooders who seek out and punish evil with sword and flame.
Your character is easiest described through the skills and traits you pick. Anything extra you tell us, however, will only make the game more fun for you.
While you describe your clan, the other members will be under GM control. We will do our best to match actions to the description you give us, but don't expect your clan to always do what you want them to. They will display self preservation, they will make mistakes. You will most certainly not be the only person influencing your clan.
You also can expect other members of your clan to turn up to court. These will be played by the GMs.
Thus an important thing to do is to create one important npc from your clan.
If you are still looking for inspiration, or are bored and feel like writing cool stuff, here are some more questions about your concept to consider:
We're not here to play harvest moon, but everyone on the New World farms something, and fragments have some extremely varied fauna. What makes up your clan diet?
Everyone believes something different about what the world used to be like. On a cold day by the fire, what tall tales does your grandfather tell you?
Unless you’ve picked the Eligible for Marriage trait it’s likely that you are attached. If not, give us some ideas why. Is romance/marriage beneath you? Are your preferences outside society’s norm? Are you too old, young or widowed?
What’s your clan's reason for having upped sticks and moved to the Archipelago? Give us some ideas of the sorts of things your clan has encountered before and where they came from. Based on what you give us, we'll likely give you access to some rumours that other players won't know…
What kind of Fragment did you live on before coming to the Archipelago? What kind of Fragment did you settle? Is your fragment rich in ores? Fertile fields? criss-crossed by rivers? What's the local weather like? What's the terrain like? Where did you settle on the fragment? Next to the edge? next to a lake?
Any information you can give us about where your clan now lives will help;
What’re the general traits of your clan? Are you short and hairy, or pale with a hereditary lisp?
An easy one to forget. With such a variety in backgrounds and cultures here, pretty much any name is acceptable, but you’ll generally make it easier on others if your name is memorable and easy to pronounce (no Mau'iecentai Gnaeir of the xXphureit please)
With no unified culture, 'fashionable' is a very malleable term. You are unlikely to be enrobed in the finest silk with gold trim, though you may have a patched and battered hand-me-down from a finer age mixed in with the rest of your garb. Be eclectic, wear purple, put you trousers on backwards and wear inappropriate things as hats. Anything goes.
That said, as the game progresses, a consensus on what is 'in' may form in the new world. If you want breeches to be the only choice of headgear for the discerning gentleman, you may have to fight for it.