Levi Donovan

"A quote important to the character is a nice way to start off the page."



This is an example of how character pages should look. Always try to have some kind of introduction paragraph starting off your character's article that covers the basics of who he or she is. You will definitely want to list the name, and then probably some basic profile details like age, race, profession, religion, and anything else that's key to this character's skin-deep identity. A common styling tool here is to put the title character's name in bold the first time it is mentioned.

For a fully-fleshed out explanation of what to put in a character's introduction paragraph(s), you can see this guide.

Biography
This is the place to write out your character's life history. You may want to write it all out as one chunk of content, but longer biographies benefit from being broken up into subsection because it makes for easier navigation and reading. Whether or not you have a summary paragraph here that quickly explains the bare basics of your character's history here is completely optional.

Childhood
Many roleplayers like to start their character's backstory in childhood. This isn't mandatory, but if you've got no major reason to start at a less usual point, covering a youth section is almost always a good idea since a child's conditions growing up always have a profound effect on his/her life as an adult. This is one of the best places to discuss a child's parental figures and the relationships they had when the child was growing up, whether parental figures were actually the child's parents, were adopted family, guardians, masters, or just any older person who provided for the child until s/he was old enough to handle him/herself. It may also be relevant to mention things like city of origin and social environment, like whether the character was born into Yanillian nobility or grew up as a common farmer in Lumbridge swamps during a social upheaval.

TIP: Especially in this stage, avoid parentless children and loss of biographical history due to amnesia. Without someone to provide for him (i.e, parentless), a three-year-old boy is not going to survive to grow up; you do not teach yourself to hunt, steal, and fight at three years old, and if muggers and bullies and sickness don't kill you, starvation probably will. At the very least a small child would have to be absorbed into a gang of street rats in order to make it, and in that case the gang would be his providing figure until he could be taught to provide for himself. Amnesia should be avoided because of one solid fact: no matter what the character remembers, you know all of it because you are the creator and god of this character's universe. Just because the character doesn't know doesn't mean that you don't, and therefore amnesia doesn't excuse a roleplayer from building part of a character's backstory. At best, this trick is a cop-out and makes players look lazy and inexperienced.

Adolescence
The next section of biography can be any significant stepping stone on the timeline that has content worth writing to further illuminate your character. Adolescence is a good example of one of these possible stepping stones because it's the next stage in a character's life after childhood; at this point, a character is having real, logical, developed thoughts and interactions with the world, is forming concrete belief systems, and has a developed personality and set of relationships. Describe what your character's life was like in this next stage - where s/he lived, what conditions were like socially, environmentally, legally, etc. Describe what relationships your character had, which ones were more and less important and why. If any significant changes were made in the character's life, like moving to a new home or losing a loved one or being accepted into a prestigious school of knights, describe how your character felt about the changes, how he reacted outwardly, and how the people important to him reacted and affected the situation. Mention any circumstances or events that occurred which influenced or displayed your character's real identity.

Important Event
Not all characters have eventful lives, but almost always there are defining moments in every individual's experience which either changed his/her life or truly illuminated who s/he was as a person. These can be traumatic things, like loss of a loved one or being assaulted or having a fire or being exposed to a mortifying situation, but they can also be joyous things, like a turning point in a relationship or achievement of a goal. It can even be an emotionally neutral event, like if the character meets a remarkable new individual or questions his religious faith only to then discover what s/he truly wants to believe. Your character probably has at least one of these, and this is the place to explain it. A good way to go about this is to narrate the event in detail from the character's perspective, because it helps to connect the character with readers who are meant to understand the significant implications of what's happening.

Adulthood
Again, "adulthood" is just being used here as a placeholder for whatever the next stepping stone in your character's life is, whether that's leaving home or taking over Daddy's farm. If your character is in his/her adult years, it's generally a good idea to describe how s/he got to where s/he is now, especially if it involved any big steps like travelling to the other side of the world or learning any major new skill sets. Any time something significant happens in the character's life try to touch on the way your character and the people around your character reacted to the event. As previously stated, mention any circumstances or events that occurred which influenced or displayed the character's real, naked identity.

Present Day
If your character is dead or retired from roleplay, a good way to end the biography is to explain the resolution of his story. If dead, explain the circumstances of his/her death and the results of his/her loss on the people and world around him/her. If your character is retired, resolve the plot by concluding it in a settled place, like where the character ended up and why the character was able to settle that way for good.

Otherwise, if the character's story is still running, a good way to end your character's biography is to provide a succinct summary of the character's current conditions. Where s/he's living, what s/he's doing there, why s/he's doing it, how s/he feels about it, what his/her plans are for the near and distant future, etc. Wrap things up until you have more to add. Try not to add any personal author comments here like "to be continued" or "will add more as story progresses" just because you still use the character; this is implied. After all, Barack Obama is not dead, but no Wikipedia editors felt the need to note that the article would be continued next time he did something interesting. Save commentary for the comments section under your article.

Appearance
This is where you're going to go into detail about how your character looks. This can be broken down into subcategories, especially if the character shapeshifts between more than one form. Most people, however, just stick to describing their character's faces and body types.

Facial
This is where you try to paint the picture about the structure of your character's face. Go into detail about the bone structure and shape of his/her head, cheeks, chin, jaw, and brows. Describe the details of his/her eyes, like the length and darkness of his lashes, the shapes of his eyes, the color and pattern of his iris, the size and shape and expressive quality of eyebrows, and so on. Describe his/her lips, teeth, and nose - what shapes and colors they are, how healthy the skin is. Mention if the character wears any kind of make-up or jewelry, or if s/he has any interesting markings or scarring on his/her face. Is it symmetrical? What is the overall impression someone would get from looking at this character, or looking him/her in the eye?

Bodily
This is where you try to paint a picture about the character's body type and figure. Go into detail about bone and muscle structure and the size and proportions of the character's figure. You might want to mention height and weight, but it's always useful to instead describe how they appear even if you give measurements. Explain muscle tone and build, whether the character is tiny and slender or hulkingly large and ripped with slabs of muscle as thick as cows, or stout and chubby from a life of luxury, or even tall but soft and mostly just skin. Describe the shape of your character's figure, whether s/he has a sensual curve to his/her waist or a strong, straight, utilitarian build, etc. This is also a good place to go into hair color, styling, and quality if you didn't in the facial section. Touch on the character's style of dress - what clothes s/he usually can be caught wearing and what impression it gives. You may even go so far as to describe how s/he holds him/herself when standing and what his/her gait is like when walking. What is the overall impression someone would get from just looking?

Personality
Go into detail about your character's behavior here. Explain what temperaments your character has, in addition to any core, guiding ethics and moral values. How does this person behave alone? In the company of strangers? In the company of friends? Describe what usually makes your character pleased and what causes this character distress. What social situations will this person prevail in, and in which will s/he flounder miserably? What are his/her social strengths and weaknesses? What does it take to set your character off in a rage? What sort of things can cause your character stress, frustration, or sadness? What sort of things can put him/her at peace? How does your character react and display all of these different emotions? This is also a good place to discuss your character's position on the ethico-moral alignment axes, if you like. How would this character be described by a person who had just me him/her, and how would this character be described by someone s/he has known for a long time?

Abilities
This is a section wherein you enumerate your character's noteworthy abilities. Many players stick exclusively to combative abilities in this section, but that's up to you. You can break it down into subsections like we did in the previous sections using titles like "Magic Abilities" for any skills with the various forms of magic, summoning or runecrafting, "Physical Abilities" for strength and physical performance with things like melee, agility, marksmanship, etc, "Survival Abilities" for practical skills like firemaking or hunting, "Professional Abilities," for marketable skills like entrepeneurship or craftsmanship, "Domestic Abilities" like cooking or sewing, and just about anything else you want to get into. In those subsections you would then go into detail about the specific skills your character has, the mastery they have over them, and what they use them for.

Alternatively, you could just create a bulleted list of the various skills your character has learned over the years.

In either case, be sure that you don't overpower your character with too many strong skills. Balancing out your character's abilities to be fair and fun for the others you play with is an important part of roleplay.

Trivia
Touch on details, usually fun facts or quirks, about your character that may not really fit in anywhere else. Most editors compose this as a bulletted list. You might include...
 * Your character's favorite color
 * Favorite food or drink
 * Something your character wants
 * An interesting quote your character once said
 * Any pet peeves
 * The sky is the limit, really.