Tried pretty much everything that I could think of at this point.What <scope>s have you tried on the right-hand side? There are only limited possibilities that would work.
For instance, 'father_even_if_dead = { save_event_target_as = father }' and then 'set_father = event_target:father' works just fine within new_character. But 'father = event_target:father' doesn't work from create_character.