Choose sex: Man or Woman. Men tend to be foolhardy, women are often physically weak. Women gain an additional +2 bonus to all rolls to resist diseases of all sorts, magical or otherwise.
Roll stats. These are Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma, in the traditional manner.
Record stat bonuses as appropriate. Those confused should consult the guide here.
Select your character’s alignment. Valid choices are:
Choose a class. Select Fighter, Magic-User or Thief. Learn about your available choices here.
Choose your character’s race. This effectively provides the character with a second class and new abilities, at the cost of slower character advancement. The options are Human, Changeling (ie. Half-Elves) and Dwarfkin (those distantly related to the supernatural spirits of the earth). Learn more here.
Roll hit points. Roll whatever is listed under’HD’ (Hit Dice; these are always six-sided) in the relevant column in your preferred class’ descriptive table. If unsatisfied with the initial roll, another may be attempted, but the second throw is inalterable (even if lower than the first attempt).
Record your starting languages, based on your class. These are:
Roll for additional languages [7VoZ]. Using percentile dice, roll first on the Language Type table, then roll on the appropriate table for the language rarity indicated.
If a Magic-User, select spells for transcription into your spell book [Holmes]. You may begin with the minimum number of first-level spells known, as per your characters Intelligence or Wisdom statistic, so recorded. One of these spells is always Read Magic (any prospective Magic-User who proves unable to learn this most fundamental spell is expeditiously referred to the local Fighter’s Guild by their former mentors). Each spell to be recorded may be selected by the player, but must be diced for against the percentage chance to know spell, also as per the character’s Intelligence; if this value is exceeded on percentile dice, another prospective spell may be selected and rolled for, until such time as the aforementioned minimum number of spells has been acquired. If the character proves so doltish that, when the full list of spells has been diced for and the minimum number was not reached, he may reroll for previously failed spells.
Purchase starting equipment. Each character begins with between 30 and 180 silver pieces to spend (ie. the total of three six-sided dice, multiplied by ten). The equipment list can be found here.