Underkeep Character Customization Explained: Classes, Races, Stats, and Portraits

Underkeep doesn't hand you a face sculptor — it hands you four blank adventurers and a dungeon that will punish a bad build. That is the first thing to understand about Underkeep character customization: nearly every choice on the creation screen is a mechanical one, from the class that fixes your primary attribute to the portrait that ends up blinking at you during camp. If you're used to slider-heavy creators, Underkeep character customization will feel narrower and sharper — fewer cosmetic knobs, much higher stakes per click.

Below is a walkthrough of what the creation screen actually asks of you, how classes and races interact, and where the limits sit, based on a detailed hands-on review, a full demo creation session, and the Steam Community discussion around the game's art.

How Underkeep Character Customization Actually Works

Underkeep is a party-based, turn-based dungeon crawler from Rake in Grass, and it opens with a four-slot creation screen in the spirit of Icewind Dale or the Solasta games. You build the whole party before the first encounter, so there's no companion waiting to cover a hole in your lineup.

The flow, as shown in this full demo character-creation session, runs in a fixed order:

1. Class — warrior, thief, paladin, ranger, void caller, wizard, or blood mage (the demo build offered six, including the blood mage).
2. Race — human, dwarf, elk, stoneborn, raven, or slugman.
3. Stat roll — attributes are rolled for you; you don't spend points manually.
4. Starting skill — one upgrade chosen from your class's active and passive list.
5. Portrait — a painted 2D portrait, after which you're dropped straight into the world.

The trade-off of a fully custom party is laid out plainly in this hands-on Underkeep review: your characters have no banter and no personalities of their own, but you get total control over every mechanical dial. If planning builds is the fun part for you, that's a fair trade.

Classes Decide Your Stats — and Most of Your Dialogue

Class is the heaviest lever in Underkeep character customization. It sets your primary attribute, and per the reviewer, it also carries most of the game's reactivity — magical situations hand wizards an extra dialogue option worth bonus XP, while martial problems favor warriors and thieves. That's the real argument for spreading your four slots across four different classes instead of stacking one archetype.

One practical warning: the reviewer flagged that creation-screen tooltips are thin. If an ability says it causes bleed or burn, the game doesn't explain what those status effects do at the moment you're picking it. You'll learn the details later from weapon tooltips, so budget for some guesswork on your first party.

Races: Small Buffs and One Wildcard

Race is the lighter lever in Underkeep character customization, but it is never purely cosmetic. Each race carries its own buff, and you can legally pair any race with any class — the results just won't be equally good.

The clearest illustration comes from the review's dwarf wizard example. You can absolutely roll one, but the dwarf's stat lean pushes wisdom down, and lower wisdom means less mana to cast with — so the same class performs worse than it would on a raven or slugman frame. Race also triggers a small number of dialogue options, though noticeably fewer than class does.

Stats, Skills, and Portraits: Finishing the Creation Screen

Stats are rolled, not assigned

There are no point-buy screens in Underkeep character customization. You roll, the game re-rolls values each time you click, and the spread across attributes comes from your race and class combined. Class fixes the primary attribute — strength for warriors and paladins, endurance for blood mages, and so on — while the race bends the rest of the distribution.

One skill now, fifteen levels later

You leave creation with a single skill upgrade. Most class skills have five ranks, you earn one skill point per level, and the level cap is 15, which works out to roughly three fully maxed skills per character by the end of a 15–20 hour run. Pick something you'll actually use every fight rather than spreading thin later.

Portraits do the heavy lifting

Because there are no appearance sliders, the portrait is your only visual statement. They're hand-painted, richly colored, available in a wide spread of male and female options, and subtly animated — characters blink at random and close their eyes while resting. Per the Steam Community thread on the portrait art, the style is the work of artist Karel Matějka, and the developers say the full game includes more serious options that weren't in the demo.

Community reports on the art are warmer than the thread title suggests: most posters defended the portraits, and the loudest recurring request was for an import option. In that same thread, captured on 2026-11-06, a developer stated that custom portraits sit on the "nice-to-have" list but probably won't make the initial release.

Party-Building Tips From Hands-On Play

• Run four different classes. Class dialogue options are where the extra XP and alternate solutions live.
• Plan your front and back rows. Two characters soak melee damage up front; the back two are ranged, but mages with staves can still swing in melee thanks to reach weapons.
• Value the ranger highly. Since most enemies must close to contact, a ranger gets free damage before the fight truly starts.
• Stock bones for your blood mage. Without them, the class pays for spells out of its own health.
• Expect to reroll. If a stat spread looks wrong for the class you want, roll again — the game intends it.

If you want the developers' own framing of the class, race, and skill systems, the official Steam news post on classes, races, and skills was published on November 4, 2025, and the Underkeep Steam store page is the place to confirm current build details.

FAQ

Does Underkeep character customization include appearance sliders?

No. Based on the creation flow shown in the demo and described in reviews, you choose a class, a race, a rolled stat set, one starting skill, and a portrait. There are no facial sliders or body morphing tools, which makes Underkeep character customization a build exercise rather than a cosmetic one.

Can you pair any class with any race?

Yes, every combination is legal. Outcomes differ, though — the reviewer's dwarf wizard rolls lower wisdom and therefore less mana than a raven or slugman caster would.

Can you import a custom portrait?

Not at launch, per the developer's statement in a Steam Community thread captured on 2026-11-06. Custom portraits were described as a nice-to-have feature that probably wouldn't make the initial release.

How many characters do you build, and how far can each one go?

You create four characters up front and control all of them. The level cap is 15, with one skill point per level and most skills capped at five ranks, so you can realistically max about three skills per character.