The Character Creation Guide
From Magical Hogwarts Wiki
Contents |
Introduction
This guide is intended to help you create your first, as well as additional, Magical Hogwarts character(s). Before you start reading this topic, ensure that you are familiar with the Basic Rules & Regulations as well as the New Player Guide. This guide directly builds on the information provided in those two topics, therefore it is important for you to be familiar with them.
When first thinking about your character, you will have to make a decision about what kind of character you would like to make. Magical Hogwarts offers you a number of choices in that respect. You can make a student character of Hogwarts, Durmstrang or Beauxbatons respectively, an adult character, a canon character or a special character such as a ghost or a centaur. If you are new to Magical Hogwarts, and you probably will be if you are reading this topic, we recommend you begin with either an original student or an adult character. You may create different and additional characters once we know you as a role player a bit better. In short, canons, like Harry, Hermione or Ron and special characters such as centaurs and ghosts can only be made by special permission of the Magical Hogwarts staff. If you have just joined, it is unlikely that we can grant that permission, given that we have not seen your role playing yet.
In order to help you decide what kind of character you would like to make, we offer a wide range of background materials to help you understand what is expected. Each school has a guide detailing its classes, houses, teaching methods and cultural backgrounds. Even if you are planning to make an adult character, it is essential that you read these guides, as each adult will have went to school at some point. While you are at liberty to make adult characters from all over the world, we recommend that your adult character should be European as all plots and points of interest in Magical Hogwarts are situated and will take part in Britain and continental Europe. While Asians, Americans and Africans are strictly speaking possible, there will be little to no opportunities to play such characters.
Therefore, generally speaking, whatever kind of character you are making, you will have to be very familiar with at least one of the three magical schools. If you are making an adult you will also need to be familiar with adult professions and occupations. There is a guide provided for that as well: Adult Characters. On top of that there is some additional information to consider should you plan on making a wealthy, well known and/or pureblooded character. In order to keep things realistic on Magical Hogwarts, we require that for each rich, influential and/or pureblooded family some background information is provided on top of a regular character sheet. These backgrounds are known as Established Family Backgrounds. They are necessary as obviously not everybody in the game should be from a rich and powerful family, but only a select few. Even those of muggle descent have to list their family if they are rich and influential in society. All rich, influential families must fill out this information. If you are upper middle class or lower, it is not necessary to fill out the established family background but you are welcome to if you feel so inclined.
Guides and Backgrounds
Below you will find an overview of the guides and backgrounds described above.
The Character Sheet
Once you have made your way through whatever guides and backgrounds you may have to consult before making your sheet, you will need to retrieve the correct sheet template. Students templates can be retrieved in the sorting topic of their respective schools. Adult templates can be found in the sorting topics of their former schools. Adults who did not graduate from one of the three schools as well as canon or special characters will all find their templates under Hogwarts Sorting.
Each template has a few subtle differences, therefore this guide only covers the areas the sheets have in common. Adults in particular should consult the Adult Character Guide.
General Information
First and Last Name: This is pretty simple, all you need to remember is make sure your character's name matches their nationality and school. Hogwarts names should be from Ireland, Scotland, Wales or England. Please refer to the Beauxbatons Guide or the Durmstrang Guide concerning names for those schools. Middle names are optional. Be sure to read the rules regarding names too, located here. Additionally when making a Russian Durmstrang character, please ensure that you also add a patronymic. Those are explained in the Durmstrang Overview.
Heritage: This is where you specify whether your student is a pureblood, halfblood, or muggleborn. Note that even if both your parents are wizards, this does not automatically make you a pureblood. The children of halfblood parents are still halfbloods. Even a halfblood grandmother will still make you a halfblood. Durmstrang per canon only allows half- and pureblood witches and wizards.
Nationality: The nationality of your character must align with his or her school and their name. Hogwarts students and graduates should be from the Ireland, Scotland, Wales or England. Durmstrang admits only Russian, Slavic, Scandinavian and German students. Beauxbatons admits French, Belgian, and Swiss students. Also for Beauxbatons, characters from the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany (French Bordering Area) and Spain (French Bordering Area) are not unheard of. Note that without good explanation we do not accept Japanese characters, regardless of how much you think you may know all about them because of manga and anime. The same can be said for Americans, other Asians or Africans. This rule is not in place because the staff or the community has anything against residents of the areas in questions, but because these characters do not fit the setting of Harry Potter. However, there is no rule without its exceptions. If you are willing to provide a minimum of five hundred words background story on why your character should be from one of these areas we might consider this application. Note that approval of such characters is at the admin’s discretion and can be declined if found unsuitable for the Magical Hogwarts environment.
Languages: At Hogwarts English is the main language, at Beauxbatons French, and at Durmstrang Russian. All students attending those schools should speak the language of their respective school. Should this language not happen to be your character’s native language you should include how well they speak the language of their school and how they learned it. Students, especially young ones, should know no more than two or three languages. Please be careful which languages you pick. Just because you enjoy manga and anime, this does not mean your eleven year old Russian Durmstrang student needs to know Japanese. When selecting your languages, always select languages that your character has a reason to know. Also always include the level of proficiency with a language. If nothing is stated we will assume fluent language proficiency. We are generally lenient about how many languages adult characters speak as long as you explain how and why they were acquired. Note that “liking languages” or “spending a holiday there” are generally not considered sufficient reason to be fluent in a foreign language.
Place of Birth: This is where they were born, usually just the city. Being born at a hospital is kind of assumed. This should match up with their nationality and their school.
Age/Date of Birth: Their age should be appropriate to their year. No year on the birth date. That is a highly stressed rule, hence why it is in bold. Please note that professors are generally over thirty years old. Note that we may change the age of your student character if you provide insufficient background later on.
Approved Special Features: This is where you put any special features you might have been approved for. Note: If you are new you will not have been approved for them yet. This is something that happens after you’ve been a member for a while. They must be applied for. (Special Features Guide)
Looks
Eyes: What colour are their eyes, shape, and size, anything special about them? Be careful black eyes, super bright almost white blue eyes, and different coloured ones, really aren't as cool as they sound and are less likely to be approved. Eyes don't change colour, either. Please do not apply for eyes that change colour at random.
Hair: How long is it? How is it styled? How does your character take care of it? What colour is it? Please note that waist length curls are very hard to maintain and that pink, purple and green hair is not acceptable.
Height: How tall is your character? Remember average heights for age groups. Especially our American role players should look up average heights of different European countries if they aren’t familiar with them already.
General Appearance: In this section you are supposed to describe all the physical aspects of your character. This includes if your character is thin or perhaps chubby, their skin tone, if your character is muscular or lean, if the character has freckles and many things more. This section is supposed to give a person who has no concept of your character a way of visualising your character. While detail here is good, please do not include pointless detail. We know that people generally have two ears and ten fingers and so on. This is about what sets your character apart and not about how to distinguish a human being from an inanimate carbon rod.
Dressing Style: Outside of school what does your character like to wear? Be it muggle fashions, wizarding society, or someplace in between, this is where you describe your character’s style. When filling this section out mind that pureblood characters (and some halfblood characters) are unlikely to be familiar with muggle fashion at all. Even the Weasleys, a very muggle friendly pureblood family, do not understand very much about muggle matters, so take this as your frame of reference. Pureblood supremacists will not be wearing muggle clothing and please spare us goth, punk or fetish pureblood characters. Also please spare us students with tattoos, facial piercings other than earrings and any sort of body modifications. These things have their place, but it’s not the Harry Potter world. You will not be approved.
Personality
General Character Traits: What kind of person is your character? Nice, funny, or loveable? Cold, harsh, what about a good liar? This is the spot where you describe your character's personality. How do they behave in big groups or around close knit friends? Do they even make friends? Anything you feel describes your character can go under this category. Be creative and have fun with it. This needs to be at least a paragraph long, but in many cases will easily exceed that recommendation.
Likes: What interests your character? What do they do during their spare time? What kind of food makes their mouth water? Please also explain why your characters likes the things mentioned and what it tells us about your character as a person.
Dislikes: What makes your character’s skin crawl? What do they dislike? Please also explain why your characters dislikes the things mentioned and what it tells us about your character as a person.
Habits/ Mannerisms: Any trademarks. Do they constantly gnaw on their lip? What they do all the time? This is a place where you include characteristics such as the sound of their voice, facial expressions; does your character have some sort of tick?
Strengths: What qualities does your character have that others could admire in him? In this section succinctly and to the point, summarise the good qualities of your character. Is your character honest, understanding, very intelligent or determined, just to name a few examples. This can be written prompt style, should you have an excessive amount of text in the general character traits section in order to avoid repetition. In most cases however this should be written in full sentences. Classes and academic strength do not go here. The best way to deal with Strengths and Weaknesses both is to explain out how their strengths apply to their character.
Weaknesses: What qualities of your character would other look at unfavourably? In this section succinctly and to the point, summarise the bad qualities of your character. What problems and shortcomings does your character have? Is your character impatient, easily angered, irrational, vengeful, again just to name a few examples. This can be written prompt style, should you have an excessive amount of text in the general character traits section in order to avoid repetition. In most cases however this should be written in full sentences. Classes and academic weaknesses do not go here. As with Strengths, you should try to explain how their weaknesses apply to their character. If they are impatient, tell us how they show this.
Please note that your personality will definitely define which house you end up in. Below is a description of all the houses, and what schools they belong to.
Gryffindor
Bravery, chivalry. Gryffindors are the brave hearted honourable ones. They do what they have to in order to achieve what they feel is right. They are the ones with high moral values who stand up for their convictions no matter what the risk. They're also loyal to their friends.
Hufflepuff
Loyalty, patience. Hufflepuffs are the patient ones, the good listeners who are loyal to their friends. They're kind and understanding, usually very friendly and outgoing. They're also typically the 'good' ones; they do not break the rules very often unless they have to. Hufflepuffs are also the kind of people who return kindness with kindness.
Ravenclaw
Wisdom, wit. Ravenclaws are the smart bookworms of the group. They typically follow the rules, and they're usually pretty far advanced. They are the academic ones, enjoying learning. Not quite outgoing but most of the time they are not snotty or mean. In other words, they're the smart ones.
Slytherin
Ambition, cunning. There are two types of Slytherin. The leaders, ambitious and clever, ruthless in their pursuit of getting their way, deceptive. The 'leader' Slytherins are very proud. The second type of Slytherins are the followers; these are your bratty, spoiled rich kids. They will throw aside anything to save their own skin. All Slytherins are sly and typically have sharp tongues. Common among them is selfishness. All Slytherins are also ambitious, having big goals for themselves and those around them - though typically themselves is top priority.
Drakonya Krov
Durmstrang Institute
Honesty, loyalty, honour, ambition, and physical strength are the typical traits of a Drakonya Krov. They are unforgiving people and can be vengeful if honour demands. They do not forget things, especially when they are wronged. However, typically they are very rational people, quiet and calm, and they usually prefer to keep to themselves. They favour the old arts such as necromancy and ancient runes.
Klyk Vampira
Durmstrang Institute
A Klyk Vampira is characterized by quick wits, intelligence, manipulative tendencies, and natural born actors. These people are sly, deceptive, self-responsible, unsupportive, and generally perfectionists. They rely on themselves more than others, naturally independent soloists. Typically, Klyk Vampira students turn out Dark Wizards more often than light. They tend to favour the new arts, such as illusions and alchemy.
Bellefeuille
Beauxbatons Academy
The students that are members of this house are lovers of nature with a strong sense of bravery and loyalty to all they hold dear to them. These students are caring and sensitive to people's needs around them. They are hard and efficient workers and are characteristically book smart. The students sorted into this house think the necessities of life are what is important they prize family and friends above all else.
Bellefeuille students often feel a strong connection with nature, are caring and kind to animals and respect all aspects of flora and fauna. They often have a good and quick perception of the emotions around them, know how to act accordingly in most situations. Bellefeuille students are realists through and through. May it be that they are not the smartest, they surely get their work done. Those of Bellefeuille usually find physical activities more enjoyable than those that require logical thinking, are often skilled with their hands knowing how to craft different things.
Ombrelune
Beauxbatons Academy
The members of this house are very often those that prescribe to the concept of “the end justifies the means” they can be manipulative and cunning. They are very cool and calculating students who are very adverse to irrationality and prize people for making well thought-out and logical decisions.
Ombrelune students are cold, rarely display emotion openly unless they see some direct gain in doing so. They are in the most ambitious of the Beauxbatons houses. They are very smart, logical and structured. They are very curious interested in the world and the intricate way it works in. Ombrelune students often strive for power and perfection more than anything else.
Papillonlisse
Beauxbatons Academy
Students that are sorted into this house are naturally gifted in the arts they are thoughtful of all others around them as well as kind and gentle. Some have a tendency to have a fluttery personality and are very social people. Some also act in the spur of the moment and are unpredictable people. Students sorted into this house are known for their sophistication and surprising maturity at all ages, they prize beauty of the mind and beauty of appearance above many other characteristics and are always striving to improve aesthetic qualities of life.
Students of Papillonlisse are often daydreamers, hopeless romantics, those that want to change the world with their idealism and undying love. They often fail to see things for what they are as they are not the most analytical of all people. Those sorted into this house share the humanist perception of the world: they don't learn to gather knowledge, but learn to become a better person. They are introvert, focused on their own internal state. Papillonlisse students are often very emotional, and bring strong feelings and strong dedication into their work.
Personal History
Parents: Here in history, it’s your job to make sure that you fully cover every part of the character’s past. You start off here with parents, this includes all sorts of parents, step, birth and adoptive parents are all applicable. Even if your character does no know his or her parents you as the writer are expected to know. Some good things to include are things like age, occupation, relation to the character, the relationship they share with the character, and possibly a little bit of their personality. For magical parents it would be good to include their former school and house. A mini-history is acceptable, however keep in mind you are writing a sheet for your character not their parents. So keep it short and sweet. As a note, killing off your character's parents is not as cool and original as it sounds. Unless it is absolutely necessary to your character design we recommend against this.
Siblings: Similar to parents, this includes all sorts of siblings – blood, step, and adopted. Again, if you character, for whatever reason, does not know about his or her siblings, you as the writer should. This is very similar to the part of history for parents. Good information to have here would be things like age, year (if they’re in school presently), house (if they’re magical), occupation (if they’re beyond school years), and relation to the character, and what the relationship is like with the character. Again, short and sweet, this does not need to be paragraphs long.
Background Story: This is, perhaps, the most important part of the profile, second only to personality. It is this part that is generally longest and this part that will determine what year your character is placed into if you are making a student. Here you should include as much detail as possible, but make certain to organise your data well. Backgrounds should always be written chronologically. If there are certain flaws in your character’s personality that stem from childhood events, or scars that happened as a result of a childhood accident, those should be explained and elaborated here. If you character has a rocky relationship with one of his or her parents explain how and why through events that happened. Children don’t hate their parents for no reason. The background story for students should include the character’s childhood and a paragraph for every school year they have already completed (for example – if you are applying for third year status you would need to account for the first and second year and maybe part of the third year, depending on what month it is in playtime).
For adults, it should consist of their childhood, their entire school time, and any years after that up until current time. How to structure an adult background well depends on the age of the character you are creating. The details you give in the background should be proportional to what period of your character's life was affected by the events you are describing. In concrete, a twenty year old character will have experience little other than childhood, school and beginning their first real job. As such your background should be focused on his or her school years, which took up most of your characters life so far. It would be appropriate to provide a paragraph for each year spend in school. However, when making a sixty year old auror the proportions should be different. School only makes up a small fraction of your characters experiences in this case and detailed information, on for example first year in Hogwarts, is not required unless something dramatic and life changing happened to your character. The main focus of your background in this case should be on the years spent working as an auror and the family life of your character.
Regardless what kind of character you are making provide relevant information. Nobody cares about that one day, when they went to the lake, and had some sandwiches with a good friends and nothing much happened. The background story is supposed to explain why your character is the person they are, and what events in their life shaped their beliefs and morale.
Note: Rich families require more detail as to how they got their money. That should be included in the background as well. Also, if you want a character from a country other than the ones they should be, this will have to be exceptionally detailed as mentioned before. Please do not make your character move country countless times in the history, especially not if the country they are moving to is a war zone, such as Britain in the current time line.
Sorting
Strong area of magic: This is where you ask yourself what your character’s best subject is. This doesn’t have to be your character’s favourite subject just what they’re best at. Please list only one or two here.
Weak area of magic: The opposite of strong area of magic, this is your character’s worst subject. Just because it is their worst subject does not mean it has to be their least favourite class. Please list one or two here, but please don't be bad at only Divination or Herbology; the latter is a relatively easy subject and this is over-done. Also check that your strong and weak area of magic work well together. For example it makes little sense to have a character who is a potions genius but fails herbology. How would the character be able to make good potions if he or she can't even handle the ingredients. Lastly, please make sure, especially for students, to only refer to subjects taught at their respective schools. We know Durmstrang students may not be good at divination, seeing how it is not taught at the school.
Hogwarts
Preferred House Choice: Gryffindor for the brave and loyal, Slytherin for the cunning and sly, Hufflepuff for the hard working or Ravenclaw for the intelligent? Which one does your character fit?
Responsibility or Guidance: Pick one.
Forgiveness or Justice: Pick one.
Adventure or Security: Pick one.
Never tickle a sleeping dragon: As this is the Hogwarts motto it is important to know what it means to your character. Do they take it literally or do they see some figurative meaning to it?
Durmstrang
Preferred House Choice: Which house does your character fit best in your opinion?
Ruthless or Smart?: (just pick one)
Lively or Noble?: (just pick one)
Quick or Quiet?: (just pick one)
Revenge or Forgiveness?: (just pick one)
Do you like dragons?: (yes or no)
Beauxbatons
Dreamer or Realist? What is your character like? Would they tend towards the realm of fantasy or towards the real world instead?
Arts or Science? Which does your character value more?
Handy Work or Studies? Hands on things or bookwork is the basic underlying question here.
Life or Death? Self-explanatory choice.
Beauty or Efficiency? What do they value about things? That they can do what they’ve been designed for well or that they look nice?
Complex or Simple? Talking about everything really.
The moon is ...? What does you character see it as? To be completed in sentence form.
Flowers are ...? What does your character see in them? To be completed in sentence form.
Poetry is ...? What does your character see in poetry? To be completed in sentence form.
Minor Details
Pets: What pets does your character own? Please note only owls, toads, rats and cats will be accepted for students without asking admin before you post your sheet.
Wand: Here you can specify details about your wand. What length is it? What wood is it of? What’s its core?
Quidditch: Do they play? And if so, what position?
Anything Else: Anything that there wasn't a spot for, this is the place.
Native English Speaker: This is a question about you, not about your character. We only ask for this information in order to make your sorting easier for both you and the Magical Hogwarts staff.
RP Response: When you get to this point, you’re basically almost finished with your profile. As if the rest of this profile wasn’t designed to show your writing, here is where you use your writing to show that how you can accurately portray the character you’ve created and also follow the rules in your rp. Here you write a third person account of an occurrence in your character’s life. If you have a lack of inspiration, some ideas for you might be their first time at Durmstrang/Hogwarts/Beauxbatons or receiving their letter.
Any Questions?
This is basically all there is to be said about characters and how to make them. If you are still unsure about character sheets there are a number of Character Sheet Examples, to help you when working through the different sections of the template. Also, please do not hesitate to make use of the The Sandbox and Questions & Answers should there be anything that is still unclear to you.
