Creating Characters That Breathe – The Background
Introduction
Our characters are stories. They live to excite, thrill, horrify, and entertain. They live to create a suspension of belief. They live for wonder and magic.
In the land of Aden, our characters can come to life. You want them to appear living among the people, laughing and crying and breathing and thinking, as if they have always been there long before you came along to the creation screen.
This is the essence of role-playing.
In this guide, I hope to give you a better understanding of the creatures of role-playing in Lineage 2 far beyond what may appear at the surface. You will learn how to create a character that breathes, thinks, and speaks as if he has always done so and always will.
This is meant to be a reference, and a guide expressing my own opinions. I am sure you can create your own unique character by going against everything I say, but this is still a useful guide for those looking to make their characters more realistic and dimensional or those just starting to role-play. At the end of each chapter, you will find exercises to help with each part of the building process. If you have any questions, please contact me here: [email protected]
The Background
Your character came from somewhere. What, you thought he came from the creation screen? Nope. He was a baby and a child, and he had parents and a history and a first kiss and a first kill. Start to think of your character as a real person and you’ve got a pretty good start.
So you’re there at the creation screen, going through the five hairstyles and two facial expressions. Imagine your character on a sunny day, sleeping in his home at night, running alongside his friends, even mouthing off to his parents (or maybe he was an orphan), or eating breakfast. (Does he like ham and eggs or raw keltir meat? Does he like to eat radish soup or human flesh? You decide)
I will guide you through this process with our newly made female dwarf, because she has a cute mouth and smile and I already like her and just because. It’s not really the race or class you pick, not at all, it’s the personality that you put behind it. As you think about these questions, try to create an air of mystery for your character, a history that comes out in his traits.
Now ask yourself these questions regarding your character. Below each question I will put an example that I got from our female dwarf.
What is your character’s gender, age, race, class, and name?
Female, 232 years of age (young for a dwarf!), dwarf artisan, lets call her Blossoms
What physical attributes does your character have? (Make this one as detailed or as brief as you like, since you already have an avatar for physical description. Physical description should have more “personality” than just eye color, hair color, etc, but things that actually describe the character)
Blossoms has long, wiry red hair, with the appearance of an untamed animal. She has wolf eyes that shine red in the dark and leathery skin from working all day at the forge. Blossoms wears chains of flowers as bracelets and headdresses. She has a scar on her knee.
Where was your character born?
Blossoms was born in Elmore, in a small cottage on a mountain. In summer, the fields would be full of flowers. In autumn, the sky would turn the color of red and gold. The town was nearby, where Blossom’s parents went off to sell their homemade wares.
Who were your characters parents and what attributes did they have?
Elle and Barry Maphre met underneath an Elmore mountain when they became trapped in a cave-in. With their courage and strength they managed to survive, pulling themselves out of the rubble and promising undying love to each other. They were married and had two children; Lily their firstborn, and Blossoms their baby. They survived by selling homemade wares and crafts made at their homemade forge. Elle is an entrepreneur and a ferocious haggler. Barry has become a drinker in his old age but his loveable and kind, liking to shower gifts on his two-dwarven children.
What is your character’s fatal flaw?
Jealousy. Blossoms cannot stand her older sisters success because she believes it is falsely gained. Jealousy drives Blossoms to get a job working at the forge and even forces her to steal from the dwarven guild she is a member of. Blossoms cannot stand that Lily is a flawless craftswoman, beautiful, has many suitors, and has the full attention of her parents. Jealousy drives Blossoms to revenge and greater and greater risks.
What is your character’s saving grace?
Mercy. Blossoms shows kindness and graciousness even to her enemies, and showers her friends with gifts and love. She finds that it is hard to hate anyone, except for her sister and parents, of course, because she believes there is an inherent goodness in everyone.
What challenge did your character have to overcome that has shaped her as a person?
Blossoms was held hostage for several hours at the hands of Dark Elves with her sister and three other dwarven companions when they had gone out for some sport hunting. In the freezing cold, huddled together against the wind beneath the blades of the dark elves, Blossoms had a choice to make. She could escape and leave her friends behind, or fight and overcome. She chose to fight the dark elves, but it cost her dearly. She almost had to amputate her arm because of wounds and a dark elf mage burned “holes” into her brain, so that Shillen can now come through and whisper dreams. At the expense of saving her sister and other companions; she is forever tortured and can no longer sleep at night without intensely painful dreams.
Who does your character love?
A human in her guild, a rogue who does not seem to notice her affections. Blossoms becomes painfully shy around the human rogue and cannot express her feelings. She is forever tortured trying to speak to him, and when she does can only mutter a few words. She does not think he will ever notice her because is only a small dwarven girl, and he a hero of great strength.
Who does your character hate?
Blossoms finds it hard to hate anyone except for her sister, with whom she is perpetually locked into a battle with to get honor and praise from their parents. Though Blossoms hates her sister, she still loves her on a primal level and will do anything for her even though they sometimes cannot stand to be in the same room.
What is your character’s goal(s) and why?
Blossoms has only a few goals. First, she wants to become a master warsmith so that she can win approval from her parents. She wants to get the love of the human rogue. And, she wants to find a way to stop Shillen’s curse from keeping her up at night.
Who will prevent your character from reaching these goals?
Lily, Blossoms sister, who tries to sabotage Blossom’s attempts to be truly great, and Shillen, who needles Blossoms until she is so tired she cannot think straight.
Give your character three or more minor flaws.
A determination that can push everything else out of focus and make Blossoms lose touch with reality, a hot headedness when haggling or trying to deal with others who don’t agree with her, and a cloud of sadness that seems to drift around her.
Give your character three or more fun “quirks.”
Likes to get crazy drunk while hunting, likes to sing to herself, likes to jump on people when they are not looking, likes to find stray wolves and kitties and nurse them back to health.
You can see how a character begins to form just by a simple background; now the rest is up to you. Breathe life into your characters; give them a shape and form and attitude.
Now all you have to do is write their story.