The Academy For Mythical Creatures discussion
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GOULE'S GUIDE TO DEVELOPING CHARACTERS ; part ii
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[ 01 ] overview
[ 02 ] starting concept
[ 03 ] finer details
[ 04 ] repetitions & trends
[ 05 ] disabilities & abilities
[ 06 ] compact brainstorms
[ 07 ] final thoughtsFINER DETAILS | continued
you can also take his appearance into consideration. he looks very much like a beautiful young woman. he could have led many people to their doom with this appearance, as is often written about of fox spirits.
so where we are now is a character pretty well fleshed out. they look a bit like this now:Name: Ngo Nhung Tu
Age: 19
Year: Senior
Gender: Male
Species: Ho Li Trinh
Appearance:
Personality: On the outside, Tu is an exceptionally polite individual. Someone with all the social graces and manners of a well-behaved person. But — Tu is not to be mistaken as kind. He excels at being just polite enough that people don't think much of his slightly off remarks. The mischievous curve of his lips as he politely informs others of a thing he might have heard someone say about them. He's learned to be quite apt at maneuvering in social spaces, using his cunning to turn others against each other for his benefit. He most enjoys watching younger students get lost in his illusions after he so kindly guides them to where a class ought to be.
History: Tu was born to a relatively small family. They secluded themselves in the mountains of Vietnam, keeping away from the general populace. Throughout his childhood, Tu heard the stories of his ancestors. Of how they had at one point been benevolent guardians until the fleeting opinions of humans betrayed them. He, from an early age, had decided that he would treat humans as they were meant to be treated: as food. He left his mountain home to attend the Academy, to show the world that a ho li trinh should not be trifled with.now, as per the guidelines, this character needs some abilities.
REPETITIONS & TRENDS | a few things to avoid
one of the things that can happen in a group where people make a lot of characters is that there are trends that occur. a certain species, a certain trait; sometimes it's even a general appearance. that's not so bad when they occur as isolated incidences. if you happen to have characters that are similar to another person's, it's not the same as it being an exact copy of that character. you want to avoid copies.
this is just a thing to make known, of course. having a lot of the same character is just — no fun.DISABILITIES & ABILITIES | real meets the fantastical
disabilities are a part of life and you may be wanting to give your character some. mental disorders may fall into these categories. they are not personality traits or quirks or flaws, which is something that should be stressed. you don't give a character a disability to make it be their whole personality. that's rude and inconsiderate.
you can write characters with disabilities, while being respectful. Kai Yun, for example, is essentially blind. she works around this with all her other enhanced senses. she can create an image, so to speak, of what and who she might be faced with, but she can't actually see.
her abilities, while helpful, came with her disability (and her death). so let's take a look at Tu. as a ho li trinh, he should have the basic abilities of most fox spirits. across the board, fox spirits are able to shapeshift. that's one ability down. we can do another: illusions. fox spirits are known for creating illusions outside of their shapeshifting to entice their victims. so that's two. some variations of fox spirits are known to control some elements, such as fire or lightning. based on Tu's history and personality, I think this ability would add an extra something to him. but they would also have natural weaponry, such as claws and fangs.
that pushes Tu to four abilities. we can have the natural weaponry be passive. most, excluding the teachers, have tiers of abilities: passive, mastered, and unmastered. mastered abilities fall into the limit, with unmastered available to be used but it's not likely, and passive abilities are just ones that exist as a default.
if I wanted to add anything else to Tu in terms of abilities, they would need to be unmastered or passive.
so now, Tu is at this point of completion:Name: Ngo Nhung Tu
Age: 19
Year: Senior
Gender: Male
Species: Ho Li Trinh
Powers: Shapeshifting, Illusion Manipulation, Pyrokinesis
Appearance:
Personality: On the outside, Tu is an exceptionally polite individual. Someone with all the social graces and manners of a well-behaved person. But — Tu is not to be mistaken as kind. He excels at being just polite enough that people don't think much of his slightly off remarks. The mischievous curve of his lips as he politely informs others of a thing he might have heard someone say about them. He's learned to be quite apt at maneuvering in social spaces, using his cunning to turn others against each other for his benefit. He most enjoys watching younger students get lost in his illusions after he so kindly guides them to where a class ought to be.
History: Tu was born to a relatively small family. They secluded themselves in the mountains of Vietnam, keeping away from the general populace. Throughout his childhood, Tu heard the stories of his ancestors. Of how they had at one point been benevolent guardians until the fleeting opinions of humans betrayed them. He, from an early age, had decided that he would treat humans as they were meant to be treated: as food. He left his mountain home to attend the Academy, to show the world that a ho li trinh should not be trifled with.we can add his clubs and such in later. maybe sorcery club, though he might dislike the presence of wizards. or maybe he's in no club at all.
and we are pretty much done! we've fleshed out a character. i would generally add more detail myself, but this is just the basics of how the process of creating a character can look like.COMPACT BRAINSTORMS | quick ideas
sometimes you can't sit down and make a character in one sitting, or you just have an idea that you want to flesh out later. you've probably seen my character thread where I put all my brainstorms. having them is also good to reference if you're still new to writing a character or you just need a refresher to spark a new idea in a roleplay. i do them quick and put basic references like powers, personality traits, and history details.
in the case of Tu, his would look like this:
ngo nhung tu + 19 ; ho li trinh / student
powers: shapeshifting; illusion manipulation; pyrokinesis; semi-immortality
. cunning
. tends to pull a lot of pranks on people
. polite
. deceptive; has a habit of lying often
. distrusting of most humans
FINAL THOUGHTS
i do like reading about the different characters that a group can produce. interesting new ideas are always fun, but you can lose that luster when there's no energy put into a character, or if it feels like there's no effort being put into a character. i hope that, through this guide, you can think more about your characters as you make them. because, you are essentially creating something here.
i look forward to the creations you all share with the group.
— goule .
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GOULE'S GUIDE TO DEVELOPING CHARACTERS ; additional thoughts on history
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I've noticed that people have been struggling still with history — which isn't bad! Histories can be hard when you overthink them. Sometimes a history sounds great, but doesn't fit well with a character. Sometimes you're just lost on where to go with the writing.
A character backstory can be broken down in several different ways. Depending on the age, you could go based on stages of development (i.e. early childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, etc). For the sake of this group, we might look at it a little differently. You can start from their home life, childhood, into them attending the academy. If you're struggling with this, you can ask yourself the following questions:— Where was your character born?
. what was this place like?
. did people hate mythical creatures/magicians? did they coexist peacefully?
— What was their immediate family like?
. were they born as a mythical creature?
. are all members of their family mythical creatures?
. was the family wealthy or middle class or poor?
. how did this affect them?
— What was their childhood like?
. were they exposed to violence/persecution/discrimination for being a mythical creature?
. did they live in a place with other mythical creatures?
. were they isolated (i.e. lived in a forest, underwater, in the mountains, etc.)?
. did they have a normal elementary school experience?
— How did they come to attend the Academy?
. did a parent go to the academy?
. did someone they know (not an immediate family member) go to the academy?
. were they given a formal invitation?It might seem like a lot, but it really isn't. I'm not asking you to write a thousand words for a backstory, but we do ask that you put some thought into the history you give your character. At best, we would like at least 4-6 sentences on a backstory. You want it to be relevant to the group, otherwise we can't really approve your character.
If you would like to see these questions in practice, we can use Tu's updated history from his sheet as an example.TU'S PAST is nothing particularly special. If anything, one should think more on his family history. They were revered as deities, guardian spirits for the small Vietnamese village he was born in. Somewhere along the way, though, something changed. Lines were crossed as new religions were introduced. The once peaceful relationship of guardians and their charges shifted. Tu had not yet been born when the first of his kin to be struck down had died. But the stories of it lived on.
From his mother's generation, came bloodshed. The Ngo family had turned. A brutal war was waged in the wilds. Both sides faced losses. Tu's own father, who had then had five tails, had three taken from him as a show of power. Peace did not come all at once. In fact, many wonder if it ever came at all. But a victor had been decided and it had been the ho ly tinh. They reclaimed the land which many of them had shed blood for, expelling the humans from their land. Those same humans would try several times to return, but to never permanently stay.The first two paragraphs alone knock out several of the questions. We know where he was born (a village in Vietnam), how mythical creatures were treated, and how his family was. The next two paragraphs are as follows:
By the time Tu was born and entering into his fiftieth year, humans had gone from charges to prey. The other fox spirits that would have been warded off to protect those humans were bargained with, the humans as their bargaining chips. Tu's family did not expand, their power consolidated into the remaining foxes that had survived the war. He grew up on these stories, the things he could not participate in. His first hunt was of humans, shown the best ways to charm them. He excelled at this, leading them right onto what might as well have been a silver platter.
It was through whispers that he learned of the Mythical Academy. But he had no interest in mingling with other species; he was content where he was. He was content to be the apex. Tu was marked as next head of the family before the current head decided that he would send the young(er) folks out into the world. As upsetting as this decision was, Tu couldn't fight it. So he, and several others, were sent to MC for the sole purpose of displaying the prowess of the Ngo family.This gives information on his childhood (how he was taught to treat humans, etc) and how he was directed to the Academy. It also shows that he wasn't isolated and that he had regular socialization, which is something that tied back into his personality. (Like I said before, history can influence personality.)
Hopefully, this addition has been helpful. Please remember that you don't need a tragic backstory to make an interesting character. Happy creating,
— goule .