Ack, I just realized that I never got around to answering jesterz' ability score question. I'm using method 2, the point buy, found in the player's handbook, where you start with five tens and an eight and have 22 points to increase them. Starting items are, as zeusthunder pointed out, one item each of 5th, 4th and 3rd levels and a half-level item's worth of gold.<br/><br/>Also, a note on ressurection spells: They've always annoyed me. Hearing the players say "Oh, it's no big deal, I'll sacrifice myself to allow you guys to escape. You can always recover my pinky finger and resurrect me" rubs me the wrong way, which in turn leads to grudge monsters. I tend to use a sort of compromise.<br/><br/>Bringing back someone who is well and truly dead, and whose soul has passed on, is beyond mortal magic. Decapitation, disintegration, and of course, digestion, all destroy the body thoroughly and cannot be easily reversed. HOWEVER, if a player character just gets reduced to -con hitpoints by getting struck down or coup d'graced in a fight, they're "only mostly dead", clinging to life, and they can be brought back with a 'ressuscitate' spell that works just like the Raise Dead ritual in the players handbook.<br/><br/>However, in keeping with the 'one plane of existence' theme of Gespinium, the place that dead souls rest between mortal lives is physically accessible, though extremely heavily guarded.