- Joined
- 20-Jun-2003
- Messages
- 2,011
- Reaction score
- 160
- Age
- 51
- Lumina
- 431,082
- Gender
- Female
HP
85/85
EP
79/80
I'm going to showcase how I create a character step by step in multiple posts here. You don't have to use my methods, feel free to create however you want. This is just to give a helping hand to anybody who may be having trouble converting "I have this idea" and putting it down on paper.
So, the first thing you need to know is what game are you going to be playing in. Answering this question will determine what specific skills and abilities your character will possess. It may also affect what options you have to choose from, if the Game Master is using a specific role playing system to run the mechanics of the game.
For this example, I'm going to use the character I'm currently developing, Hikari Amaterasu. She's a character I originally created for my original fiction novel, FARTS: Blowing Shit Up!. While she is 18 in that novel, the game she's going to be in zeros in on first gaining magical power. Like the scene when Nanoha first activates Raising Heart in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, so because of that setting in the game, I'm going to set Hikari's age to 10 years old, slightly older than Nanoha was.
I already have several pieces of information, and if I copy the character sheet template from the game, I can begin filling in some of this information about HIkari. Her name, gender, species, and age.
However, this is a game set within the realm of Nanoha, and there are some additional identifying traits assigned to each character. One of these is magic color. Another is magic system. Finally there's mage type. However, before I get into assigning these characteristics, let's take a look at Hikari's base personality and physical appearance. After all, color has psychological effect, and we certainly don't want the colors to clash. We want a well-put-together person, even as unhinged as Hikari may be. Actually she's not, that's another one of my characters, Matilda, who's unhinged.
Hikari is a very optimistic and cheerful girl. She's always thinking about others--specifically how not to upset them. Yeah, she's kind of a people pleaser. But, she's easily excitable, and can be truly obnoxious with her excitement. I've just conditioned her magical power to be over-the-top, overkill. Think "you just brought a knife to a gun fight", energy, but Hikari's the one who brought an intercontinental ballistic [nuclear] missile instead to a fist fight. But what about her power, exactly? Well, let's look at her name, Hikari, which means light. This combined with her natural optimism, something solar would fit well. So, I'll give her blinding light-dazzling spells, combined with spells that can not only burn and heat things up, but also rejuvenate and heal. But this could still be overly broad. I should select one thing that she's really good at, and specialize in that. Although, her personality would be a great fit a support mage, I'm thinking a ranged fighter, or bombardment mage would give her more action. In fact, the word bombardment just reeks of overkill, and I do love a bit of chaos. Bombardment mage she shall be. But what about the color of her magic. Although white would be a grand choice, I feel that doesn't suit her. Sure, she's innocent-like, but not really all that pure or divine. So what other colors come to mind when I think of the sun? Orange. A brilliant, bright, obnoxious orange is perfect.
But there's still a couple of things to consider. What of her Rank, every mage in the Temporal Space Administration Bureau has a rank, what should Hikari's be? To be honest, as of writing this right now, I have no idea what would be appropriate. I know that she's not an F, but even a C or B-rank might be too low, considering her obnoxiously powerful attacks. She's obviously going to need a Limiter mandated on her. After all, we don't need our heroine going supernova before her eleventh birthday, do we? In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Nanoha was easily already at least an A-rank in potential. After all, even without a formal ranking from the Bureau, she could cast Starlight Breaker-- that literally vaporized buildings and anything else that got in the beams' path. Perhaps Nanoha's initial ranking was AA? If there is an answer out there, I haven't found it yet. So for the time being, I'll make her an Unofficial A-Rank.
There's just two more things I need for this section and that's her IMD (Intelligent Magical Device) and her Familiar. The IMD is something that a lot of careful consideration should be given. This is a core piece of your character. It will affect the way your character fights offensively, and there's no limit to what it could actually be. Just look at Magical Girl Lyrical StrikerS for some inspiration. A Device has two primary modes. Standby mode and Operational mode. Let's focus on the Standby mode first. I'm going to want something that can Bind itself to Hikari, make it so that she can't drop it, lose it, or take it off. I want it to have at least a small form of embarrassment without being too conspicuous. So, let's make it a piece of jewelry. And to make it inconspicuous, let's make it a ring-- a ring she gets out one of those quarter-machines! We'll make it bulky and butch, like it'll almost look like a metallic finger sleeve! With ornate writing etched into it. Of course, it'll be the color of gold, another iconic color of the sun.
But the IMD isn't quite finished yet. We also need to think about it's operational mode. In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, most of the mages have a staff or baton. A staff is a reliable and decent marital arts weapon, so we'll go with that. However, as we find out in A's and StrikerS, devices have like three or more operational modes. So let's go ahead and figure that out now. Hikari is a Bombardment Mage. So her staff will obviously act like a rifle, or perhaps a bazooka in this case, because why not? She should have a melee style weapon. I mean, sure she could just use it as she would a typical staff, but that's kinda boring, don'tcha think? For now, I'll leave modes II and III blank
Finally, we should name it. In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the Device names are fairly straight forward. Fate has Bardiche, which essentially is a glorified bardiche. Nanoha's Raising Heart is a bit of an oddball, but Heart does imply divinity, so I guess that makes sense. So what do we do about a boom stick? And let's remember that the Device names and languages that are spoken by Midchildan Devices are in English. I could go with something generically terrifying, like Boomer, but that's not eccentric enough for my tastes. Let's go look at an online thesaurus... and after many trials and errors, and still being unsatisfied, I resorted to DeepSeek. After about thirty or so names, I finally settled on Luminova. It's bright, shinny, and the nova suffix just reeks of arrogance and almost a bratty attitude, perfect to contradict Hikari's overwhelming cheerfulness with.
As for the familiar... it seems that most new mages have a Familiar to protect them and train them. I'm partial to foxes, so I think I'll create a fox or perhaps a Kitsune to be Hikari's guardian. And for additional comedic effect, I'll make her as a chibi-form Kitsune/fox-maiden! Great. But what do I call this insta-character? ... Well, after giving some thought, I still don't have an answer to this, so for now, we'll make this Kitsune a bit of a pest, and allusive. Her name is a Secret!!
Now with most of those details figured out (that took me about two days), now I can focus on the real meat of Hikari, all the descriptions. I'll probably take like a week to figure out exactly what I want her to look like, how she should behave, and then I'll come up with a couple paragraphs about her upbringing to the age of 10, which is where this game takes place for her. I'll also think about some goals that she should try to achieve, and I'll make a quick spell list so I don't have to think of spells on the fly in the heat of battle. Note that the goals and spell list are totally optional--actually this entire sheet is optional.
Finally, you'll notice that there are some minor formatting differences between the quotes I have here, and the formal character sheet. That's because I want to showcase the process of creating my character. And you can always go back to modify your character posts at any time.
(to be continued....)
So, the first thing you need to know is what game are you going to be playing in. Answering this question will determine what specific skills and abilities your character will possess. It may also affect what options you have to choose from, if the Game Master is using a specific role playing system to run the mechanics of the game.
For this example, I'm going to use the character I'm currently developing, Hikari Amaterasu. She's a character I originally created for my original fiction novel, FARTS: Blowing Shit Up!. While she is 18 in that novel, the game she's going to be in zeros in on first gaining magical power. Like the scene when Nanoha first activates Raising Heart in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, so because of that setting in the game, I'm going to set Hikari's age to 10 years old, slightly older than Nanoha was.
I already have several pieces of information, and if I copy the character sheet template from the game, I can begin filling in some of this information about HIkari. Her name, gender, species, and age.
However, this is a game set within the realm of Nanoha, and there are some additional identifying traits assigned to each character. One of these is magic color. Another is magic system. Finally there's mage type. However, before I get into assigning these characteristics, let's take a look at Hikari's base personality and physical appearance. After all, color has psychological effect, and we certainly don't want the colors to clash. We want a well-put-together person, even as unhinged as Hikari may be. Actually she's not, that's another one of my characters, Matilda, who's unhinged.
Hikari is a very optimistic and cheerful girl. She's always thinking about others--specifically how not to upset them. Yeah, she's kind of a people pleaser. But, she's easily excitable, and can be truly obnoxious with her excitement. I've just conditioned her magical power to be over-the-top, overkill. Think "you just brought a knife to a gun fight", energy, but Hikari's the one who brought an intercontinental ballistic [nuclear] missile instead to a fist fight. But what about her power, exactly? Well, let's look at her name, Hikari, which means light. This combined with her natural optimism, something solar would fit well. So, I'll give her blinding light-dazzling spells, combined with spells that can not only burn and heat things up, but also rejuvenate and heal. But this could still be overly broad. I should select one thing that she's really good at, and specialize in that. Although, her personality would be a great fit a support mage, I'm thinking a ranged fighter, or bombardment mage would give her more action. In fact, the word bombardment just reeks of overkill, and I do love a bit of chaos. Bombardment mage she shall be. But what about the color of her magic. Although white would be a grand choice, I feel that doesn't suit her. Sure, she's innocent-like, but not really all that pure or divine. So what other colors come to mind when I think of the sun? Orange. A brilliant, bright, obnoxious orange is perfect.
But there's still a couple of things to consider. What of her Rank, every mage in the Temporal Space Administration Bureau has a rank, what should Hikari's be? To be honest, as of writing this right now, I have no idea what would be appropriate. I know that she's not an F, but even a C or B-rank might be too low, considering her obnoxiously powerful attacks. She's obviously going to need a Limiter mandated on her. After all, we don't need our heroine going supernova before her eleventh birthday, do we? In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Nanoha was easily already at least an A-rank in potential. After all, even without a formal ranking from the Bureau, she could cast Starlight Breaker-- that literally vaporized buildings and anything else that got in the beams' path. Perhaps Nanoha's initial ranking was AA? If there is an answer out there, I haven't found it yet. So for the time being, I'll make her an Unofficial A-Rank.
There's just two more things I need for this section and that's her IMD (Intelligent Magical Device) and her Familiar. The IMD is something that a lot of careful consideration should be given. This is a core piece of your character. It will affect the way your character fights offensively, and there's no limit to what it could actually be. Just look at Magical Girl Lyrical StrikerS for some inspiration. A Device has two primary modes. Standby mode and Operational mode. Let's focus on the Standby mode first. I'm going to want something that can Bind itself to Hikari, make it so that she can't drop it, lose it, or take it off. I want it to have at least a small form of embarrassment without being too conspicuous. So, let's make it a piece of jewelry. And to make it inconspicuous, let's make it a ring-- a ring she gets out one of those quarter-machines! We'll make it bulky and butch, like it'll almost look like a metallic finger sleeve! With ornate writing etched into it. Of course, it'll be the color of gold, another iconic color of the sun.
But the IMD isn't quite finished yet. We also need to think about it's operational mode. In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, most of the mages have a staff or baton. A staff is a reliable and decent marital arts weapon, so we'll go with that. However, as we find out in A's and StrikerS, devices have like three or more operational modes. So let's go ahead and figure that out now. Hikari is a Bombardment Mage. So her staff will obviously act like a rifle, or perhaps a bazooka in this case, because why not? She should have a melee style weapon. I mean, sure she could just use it as she would a typical staff, but that's kinda boring, don'tcha think? For now, I'll leave modes II and III blank
Finally, we should name it. In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the Device names are fairly straight forward. Fate has Bardiche, which essentially is a glorified bardiche. Nanoha's Raising Heart is a bit of an oddball, but Heart does imply divinity, so I guess that makes sense. So what do we do about a boom stick? And let's remember that the Device names and languages that are spoken by Midchildan Devices are in English. I could go with something generically terrifying, like Boomer, but that's not eccentric enough for my tastes. Let's go look at an online thesaurus... and after many trials and errors, and still being unsatisfied, I resorted to DeepSeek. After about thirty or so names, I finally settled on Luminova. It's bright, shinny, and the nova suffix just reeks of arrogance and almost a bratty attitude, perfect to contradict Hikari's overwhelming cheerfulness with.
As for the familiar... it seems that most new mages have a Familiar to protect them and train them. I'm partial to foxes, so I think I'll create a fox or perhaps a Kitsune to be Hikari's guardian. And for additional comedic effect, I'll make her as a chibi-form Kitsune/fox-maiden! Great. But what do I call this insta-character? ... Well, after giving some thought, I still don't have an answer to this, so for now, we'll make this Kitsune a bit of a pest, and allusive. Her name is a Secret!!
Now with most of those details figured out (that took me about two days), now I can focus on the real meat of Hikari, all the descriptions. I'll probably take like a week to figure out exactly what I want her to look like, how she should behave, and then I'll come up with a couple paragraphs about her upbringing to the age of 10, which is where this game takes place for her. I'll also think about some goals that she should try to achieve, and I'll make a quick spell list so I don't have to think of spells on the fly in the heat of battle. Note that the goals and spell list are totally optional--actually this entire sheet is optional.
Finally, you'll notice that there are some minor formatting differences between the quotes I have here, and the formal character sheet. That's because I want to showcase the process of creating my character. And you can always go back to modify your character posts at any time.
(to be continued....)
