The start deck must consist of exactly 40 cards, and have exactly 50 pips. Pips are the coloured dots in the upper right corner of a card that indicate its mana cost. This means that most of the cards in the deck have only one pip. The deck must contain at least five and at most twenty pips of each colour.
The game has five characteristics, each one represented by a colour:
Red: Strength and aggression. The more red pips there are in your deck, the tougher and harder, and the better in combat your character is.
White: Presence and communication. Anything related to interaction with other people falls under this colour.
Green: Agility and grace. Green is for nimble and agile characters, and helps them to dodge or withstand damage.
Blue: Intelligence and knowledge. Scholars would have a deck with many blue pips. Avid magic players won't be surprised to find out that magic is also covered by this colour.
Black: Perception and stealth. The more black pips in your deck, the more you're aware of your environment. You won't be easily surprised. On the other hand, people don't easily notice you if you don't want them to.
After you created your character deck, get some skills. You have 60 skill points with which you can buy skill levels. There are two types of skills; basic and advanced. Basic skills are those that everyone can do; advanced skills require special knowledge or training to be used. Characters begin with a level of 1 in each basic skill, and 0 for an advanced skill. To get to level 1 of an advanced skill costs 3 skill points.
To get from one level to the higher one, pay an amount of points equal to the higher level. So to get from level 2 to level 3 costs 3 skill points.
The skills list gives some ideas for skills in the different colours. As the settings of Dominia and the other worlds portrayed in Magic: the Gathering are very diverse, a short skills list like the one on these pages would not be able to capture the flavour and essence of each of those settings. Therefore, this is not a definitive list, but rather a list of suggestions as to what skills would fit which colours. The GM and players should feel free to modify this list to suit their tastes, so that it fits better with the characters they want to play and the setting they will be playing in.
The skills list also doesn't distinguish between basic and advanced skills. Again, this is for the GM and group to decide. Everyone's view of Dominia and the other worlds is different, and I don't want to impose my view on your RPG group. Besides, regions differ. In one place all people may be able to read and write, while in another part of the world this is only given to a few. But maybe in that other place the ability to fly a magic carpet is what everyone learns at childhood. Swim might be a basic skill to someone who grew up near the river, but it won't be to a desert nomad. Just like this site isn't going to give a definite list of skills, it won't give a definite list of which skills are advanced and which ones are basic either. The GM and group should decide the setting they are going to play in.
Each PC has 20 hit points (let’s call them life points). Optionally, a player can sell life points to add more pips to its deck or more points to its skills. One life point equals two pips or three skill points.