Here's the one I threw together for the playtest.  After having used it for a few sessions, I'll be taking another crack at it because we found some issues.

1) Specifically, while The Death Spiral is really fun themetically it's a pain to work with off of the character sheets themselves.

2) In general I prefer portrait character sheets; I made this one landscape because I just modified what was given to us in the Quick Start.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9reQ3Y3K0zedTI3WHhIbFhZOUU/view?usp=sharing

NOTE: While I've downloaded the preview, I haven't read it yet, so for all I know some of this may have been addressed already there.

Not heroic for the character or the player?

Something to bear in mind is that you have two backgrounds and only two backgrounds.  This implies that they are the two most important parts about your past, not the only things in your past.  Like probably everyone else who played first edition, I tried to rebuild a character in the 2E rules.  He was a Montaigne diplomat, who was half-blooded.  After struggling for a little while to get that to work, I realised that I didn't need to have the Porte Sorcerer background.  Joachim had magic, but it wasn't a major part of his story.  Being a noble was, and being a spy on Serine for l'Empereur was (at least to start with).  So, I used the Aristocrat and Spy backgrounds, then spent 2 of my advantage points on Sorcery.

Likewise, it's possible for people to have parents who died young without being obliged to take the Orphan background.  If they do, it implies that it was something very important to them.

One thing I thought about is the idea that there might be multiple "sets" of glamour mantles, all based around different geasa.

This is especially true given that there are supposed to be several Sidhe queens.

So for example, the knights of King Eliodd could be considered the glamour of the Lady of the Lake, with a geasa to protect Avalon and her people.

But there might also be a set of mortals that had particularly impressed the Sidhe queen of Air, who might be based more around traditional trickster mantles (such as Jack and Robin Goodfellow) and have a geasa that's more focussed on entertaining the Sidhe

There could also be a more malicious glamour set for Queen Medb, the Sidhe queen of the Sea, who might have a geasa bound around more deceitful goals.

Hell, throw the Horned Man in there as well (he's often associated with the Sidhe) and have a glamour set and geasa more focussed on Avalon's ancient druidic past.

I might try to make a few "Geasa specific" glamour tricks to keep things interesting, but at their core the mantles are largely fluff (simply with different major and minor traits and a different geasa, which essentially boils down to a code to follow.)

Hmm, 

Middle class implies that he's from a working family.  Maybe Crafter or Merchant.  Possibly even servant.

Playing hooky and jumping around pretending to be Los Vagabundo.  Criminal talks about breaking rules to do what's right.  Explorer might also fit.

Well, they are going to be releasing a board game of it, at some point.

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War should give you an idea...

Word is that will be coming in the Nations of Theah book. 

I don't think you're required to spend Steps immediatley. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to save up for those five-cost advantages, like Duelist Academy.

For "Ice Magic" consider setting her up with Sanderis and a "Cold" deivas and then downplay the bargianing with the devil elements (unless of course you think she'd like the idea of her "Elsa" character getting powers from deamons and having to bargain for them, but I'm making the assumption this isn't the case.)

I remember reading that Rob had to argue quite a bit to get even the Signature Item advantage in.

There are other things: a couple of Secret Societies offer access to a Reliquary, for special items, like Dracheneisen.  Wealth is mostly used for getting hold of expensive stuff.

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe Rich is supposed to stack with your profession income?

Unless it's knowing the time where you are now, which wouldn't help longitude at all.

Yeah, I totally agree with you on languages.  Going from knowing 1 to ALL of them seems like a convenient way to avoid thinking about the issue.  1e probably made it too complicated (we didn't really need stats on pidgin and accents), but there's definitely a middle-ground there.

I did a double-take when I saw both of them!

I started the other thread about homosexuality, and I feel the same way.  I would love for the supplements to delve into Theah's thoughts about gayness, especially comparing the different nations.  But if JWP wish to use art and not words to say, "We acknowledge that it's there, but it's up to the GM to decide how to incorporate it into your world," I'm cool with that too.

I think it's great that they are included, although they come off a bit heavy-handed since there's only two pictures depicting physical affection in the entire book and they're both gay couples. 

I think it's telling that I completely missed the art the first and second time through the book.

UPFRONT: I had nothing to do with the writing or designing of this section of the corebook. I actually only did some pre-development history and some pirate rewrites for the corebook. So I'm not a primary source here, this is all my perspective as someone who knows John personally and also works with him, not as someone who worked on this and discussed this with him directly.

Having gamed with John on a regular basis I know for a fact he's talking about swashbuckling heroes here and the difference between justified killing of a bad guy and murder. Mike and John, and the entire design team have had long discussions about if Inigo Montoya gains a Corruption point when he kills the Six Fingered Man.

I think, personally, that Inigo is justified, he's avenging the murder of his father in an unjust world where the only thing for justice is the death of the murderer. 

So I think that's completely fine and not murder. 

But say the situation was different and you had to either tie up a guard or slit his throat when escaping a prison. An innocent guard who worked for the totally legit non-villianous City Guard, a guy just doing his job.

If you slit his throat, that's murder. You didn't need to do it. It'll be more complicated for you later, but that's swashbuckling. You don't murder, you only defend yourself when attacked and only kill those trying to kill you or to avenge the death of the innocent. But a different example you brought up: a fight with a brute squad. That's self-defense. They've attacked you and are trying to kill or capture you! That's justifed, and not murder.

You brought up Quenten Tarantino, who I enjoy, but QT is NOT Swashbuckling. AT BEST he's Noir, but he's more borderline gore and shock/exploitation films.  A QT hero would absolutely slit a guards throat. But again, that's not a typical swashbuckling hero trope, it's a Noir trope.  Heroes in Noir are grey, not black or white. I wrote an entire RPG about Samurai Noir, I did a crap ton of research on it. Noir and Swashbuckling films are my two favorite genres.

Also to punch more holes in your argument. John is a Libertarian. I'M the far left wing socialist. Btw, I LOVE guns and own a crap ton of them, so don't go making assumptions. Especially since the design team is made up of people across the entire political, religious (John and I are YUGE atheists while we have some incredibly devout religious members), and social spectrum, but I shouldn't even bring that up because it doesn't play into our decisions as game designers directly. We're trying to emulate an entire genre of swashbuckling action. Pirates of the Caribbean and Captain Blood have been bouncing around in my head for Pirate Nations, Sinbad and 1,001 Nights will be bouncing around whoever writes on Crescent Empire, and so on and so forth. 

We want to make a game that when you finish playing it feels like you were just in a swashbuckling adventure movie. THAT is our goal. And swashbuckling heroes don't commit swashbuckling murder. They may kill, and they may end a villians life via justified vengeance, but they don't kill innocents or for convenience sake. :)