Here is an example of a character build. We'll call her Venus. She's a flying spaghetti monster. Her hobby is trivia contests – remember that Trivia Skill? Venus wants to become the undisputed trivia champion of the universe. In order to improve her own knowledge base, she abducts humans from around the universe and extracts facts from their brains.

Venus begins with 1 point in each attribute and zero points in each skill.

    Body 1, Mind 1, Persona 1, and Cosmic 1

She could be an omni-alien, the most common Childhood for player-characters in Alien Fiction RPG. The Omni-Alien option as a Childhood offers Cosmic +1, Collection +1. Wait, look at that. There is also a Childhood called Avatar. These avatars have the same access to cosmic power as the omni-aliens, but they are tied to specific concepts. Venus could be the physical embodiment of the metaphysical concept of pasta or trivia or dark matter or the Milky Way Galaxy. The avatar of Knowledge fits our concept very well, and it would give Venus a little uniqueness. Let's go with that.

Childhood: Avatar (Cosmic +1, Negotiation or Nature +1)

We have the choice between putting our skill point into Negotiation or Nature. Lots of trivia questions are nature-related. Venus would value that knowledge far more than her ability to bicker and barter.

Next, we need to pick out an Education. The Self Taught option looks appropriate but so does the What Education? option. Venus is flighty with little interest in boring formal education, and What Education also grants a bonus to the Trivia Skill, so we'll go with that. (Mind +1, Trivia +1, Nature or Skullduggery +1) Venus is not sneaky at all. She wants everyone to see and acknowledge her presence which is why she chooses to appear as a flying spaghetti monster instead of something more subtle, so we'll choose Nature again over Skullduggery.

It's time to look at her Passion. We could select Collector since she seeks to continually expand her collection of human brains. Venus, however, is interested in knowledge (specifically trivia). Sage: Mind +1, either Technology or Trivia +1. Of course, we are choosing Trivia again. Our character concept is changing and taking more clear form as we move through the Backstory process.

This leaves his Career. Venus is both a Space Warlord and an Acadmenic in concept. Hmm, we will go Space Warlord first. She may gain the Academic career later as she closes in on her life goal. This leaves the character with a likely path for growth and advancement later. Also, Space Warlord is cool and gives the character more opportunity to take an active roll in these games. Space Warlord: +2 Cosmic, +1 Collection, +1 Combat or +1 Technology. Both skills of Combat and Technology fit into our concept but would take the character in different directions. Since she is connected to of a force of nature, she might have less use of

Here are our tallies so far.

    Body 1, Mind 3, Persona 1, Cosmos 4

    Collection 1, Combat 1, Nature 2, Trivia 2

Her Cosmos Attribute ended up larger than expected, but that's okay. She's not the strongest nor the most charismatic with a single point in her Body and Persona attributes. That's okay too. Persona is not merely a matter of likeability but also attractiveness and honor and intimidation and most of all fame all mixed together. She isn't well known nor understood and certainly not attractive by human standards, and this all works towards her concept. Maybe this is even the way she likes being perceived. She's an enigmatic creature even to her fellow immortals.

Anyone with a Cosmos Attribute over 1 gets to pick out a special power through which this power manifests. Venus can leech secrets from any other creature through her noodle-tentacles. That's cool, but with a Cosmos stat as high as her attribute, she can likely do even more. Maybe she can transfer her vast knowledge to other humans, thus creating disciplines or prophets among her worshippers. Maybe after drinking the knowledge of a human brain, she leaves behind a zombie under her command. Maybe she can control pasta or change other forms of matter into pasta. Transforming other forms of matter into pasta seems more limiting but so much more fun, so we'll go with that.

Venus is still entitled to her free points. She gets one more point for an attribute of choice and four more skill points. He's supposed to be big and scary, so we could put that attribute point in either Body or Persona. Body seems to fit best. Then we'll stick her skill points in his Technology Skill (+1 points) so that she can take better advantage of her space fleet, Negotiation (+1 point) because she has none there yet but might want to barter for a choice human or scare a population of primitive scholars, Combat Skill (+1 point) for when negotiations break down, and of course more Trivia (+1 point).

As a beginning character, here are Venus's stats.

    Body 2, Mind 3, Persona 1, Cosmos 4

    Collection 1, Combat 2, Nature 2, Negotiation 1, Technology 1, Trivia 3

    Cosmic Power: Pasta Control (converting non-pasta matter into pasta and absorbing energy such as knowledge through pasta)

We are left with a character who has some diverse skills but isn't what you would call well balanced. She's very strong in Cosmic Power but doesn't have any one skill which is particularly strong in which to focus that power (like Combat). Her Mind is very strong, so she's clever as well as knowledgeable. Her collection is small, but that's because she is rather picky about only collecting the most knowledgeable human brains. Her Trivia skill is high but has room left to grow. This is a character who is ready to play.