Character Creation Challenge 2026 Day 16: Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits!

I've actually had Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits (AOTA) for over 15 years.  I've puttered around with it over the years and enjoyed it.  It is another simple system that can be played with a GM but has a focus on solo play.  The rules originally came in three booklets.  The first covers character creation and the rules of play.  The second is an adventure.  It is essentially a programmed adventure meant for solo play.  The third is to help GMs create random dungeons.  Or it can create a dungeon on the fly for solo play.

 

AOTA is a simple dungeon crawler.  It's intended for you to send your characters into a dungeon to avoid traps, kill things and take their stuff.  Thus, the characters and the rules are all combat focused.  Apparently, an expansion, More Treasure Awaits!, has wilderness rules but I do not have it.

 

Character creation is entirely random.  There are a few point where you make decisions, like choosing which four pursuits (skills) you have and which weapons you get, but the rest is pure random.  This includes how high you are rated in each pursuit and what armor you start with.

 

There are several steps to creating the character:

• Roll Race:  There are four.  Human, Elf, Dwarf and Hobling.  Non-humans have modifiers to their abilities and/or pursuits.
• Roll vocation:  There are three.  Rogue, Warrior, Wizard.
•  Roll Abilities:  Each vocation has six arrays and you roll to find which array that you use.  Abilities can range from 1-5.
• Pursuits:  You choose four from your vocation's list but then roll for its rating.  Ratings range from 1-3.
• Choose Weapon Combination:  From Vocation's list.
• Armor:  Roll randomly.
• Other Gear:  Choose one item from a short list
• Choose Spells:  If you are a Wizard, choose your spells from a short list.

Character creation is a really quick process.  I rolled up two characters.