Creating basic character information boxes for all species.

Tri-tri-triple post! /Unreal Tournament Announcer Voice


The next race I want to give a standard info box to are the dryads and dryad sub-species.
I think that they should have two additional fields, though I'm not sure if the names are what they should be:

• Mobility - It says in the wiki that some dryads have legs and can roam freely. This is a very important difference between dryads, and I think it should be noted. It would probably contain one of two values: fixed, or free roaming.
  
• Bark Color - Dryads have skin on their upper halves, and bark on their lower halves. These two different types of "skin" can be different colors.
  

This is what their box would look like:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Mobility

Skin colour

Bark colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

Also, a potential third field that doesn't quite seem to fit as it is now (which is why I left it out), would be something called "Plant style". Dryads are combination plant-humans and the plant they take after gives them a particular style: a dryad that takes after an oak would have broad oak-like leaves in places where it had leaves, whereas one that took after a pine tree would have long needles in places where it would have "leaves", and you wouldn't find needles on a broad-leaf dryad, or the reverse (and you wouldn't find either on "scale" based dryads, by which I mean the leaf structure that a tree like the western red cedar has.)

For the more specific dryad sub-species I think that "plant style" would refer to a more specific type of plant that the subspecies is based off of. An example: cactus dryads are, obviously, based off of cacti. Their "plant style" would be defining what sort of cactus they resembled; a stout cactus dryad with no branches on its plant half might be said to have the "barrel cactus" as it's plant style. A cactus dryad with dozens of shoots coming off of its roots could be said to have a plant style of the organ pipe cactus. One with only one or two arm coming off of its plant half that then take right-hand turns and go up would have the saguaro plant style, and one composed mainly of flat discs could have the prickley pear plant style.


So, what do you guys think, and what changes would you make, if any?

Monster kill !

Mhh personnaly I think that the bark color, and eventual type of plant should be more left to the description of the character itself. Mostly because it's something that can't be described easily in a few words I think

Karbo wrote:

Monster kill !

Mhh personnaly I think that the bark color, and eventual type of plant should be more left to the description of the character itself. Mostly because it's something that can't be described easily in a few words I think

I suppose so, since color and plant-type are related to each other (you probably won't have a brown "barked" cactus dryad, for example).








It's been a few days, and nobody else seems to have anything to say about it, so I have gone and updated the dryads. They now have the basic info box that all characters will have, plus the dryad specific field "Mobility".

I'm going to suggest a bunch of changes this time, in order to speed things up.



For angels, I propose the addition of two fields: wing color, and wing span. Both are differences that are easily visible at a distance, and wingspan is important because a character with broad wings is very much visually distinct from a character with cherub/tiny sized wings.

Their info box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Wing span

Wing colour

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

For dridders I want to add only a single field to the standard character info box: exoskeleton color. Dridders have both skin and exoskeleton, and they can be different colors, so I feel that this field is useful.

Their info box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Exoskeleton colour

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

For mermaids I think there should be two fields added: scale color, and fin color. Mermaids have skin, scales, and fins, each of which can be a different color than the others.

Their info box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Scale colour

Fin colour

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

For slug girls I want to add a field, and change one of the existing ones. I want to add a field called "Slug body color", because slug girls, like most/all of our tauric races, have both skin and animal-body colors that can be different from each other. The field I want to change a little bit is (per /Fish/'s suggestion) the "Sex" field, which would automatically get a value of "Hermaphrodite", since slug girls are hermaphrodites.

Their info box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex: Hermaphrodite

Height

Slug body colour

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

Finally (for this time) I propose that demons get the exact same template as angels do. From a physical point of view they're really quite similar.

Their info box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Wing span

Wing colour

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

So, what do you guys think, and what changes would you make, if any?

FrenchSnack wrote:

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with "white" and "black". Crisis, Anna, Katrika, Jissy and many others are white

I know that comment was made a while back, but saying "black" and "white" are incorrect technically, unless one is either albino or some crazy african tribal, or heritage which has near black skin. 'heritage' and 'tribal' for lack of a better term ^^;

for colors instead of white you can use pink white, yellow white, yellowish tone, tan, pure white would be shown with blue shading, grey, but that gives kind of a dirty feel. There's really no "white", albino would be shown with pink white.

"white" as we see it, is more of a compilation of many different colors like light yellows, pinks, blue's etc, that blend together to make the skin look how it is.

I think those are fine ^^

My only remark is that angels have most of the time white wings. so maybe a wing color entry is not needed ? I the wings are different it could go in other characteristic I believe..

Archmage_Bael wrote:

I know that comment was made a while back, but saying "black" and "white" are incorrect technically, unless one is either albino or some crazy african tribal, or heritage which has near black skin. 'heritage' and 'tribal' for lack of a better term ^^;

for colors instead of white you can use pink white, yellow white, yellowish tone, tan, pure white would be shown with blue shading, grey, but that gives kind of a dirty feel. There's really no "white", albino would be shown with pink white.

"white" as we see it, is more of a compilation of many different colors like light yellows, pinks, blue's etc, that blend together to make the skin look how it is.

Hey, I'm supposed to be the pedantic one! "White" might not be particularly accurate, but "pink white" is not a term that is currently in use by anyone, as far as I know... and using the term "pinky" makes the user sound like an Ork or something. (There's a reason I half-jokingly suggested RGB triplets; unambiguity. 255,255,255 is the only *white* color, no if ands or buts.)

Karbo wrote:

I think those are fine ^^

My only remark is that angels have most of the time white wings. so maybe a wing color entry is not needed ? I the wings are different it could go in other characteristic I believe..

I am of two minds about this.

On the one hand, I agree with you that, since wing color will mostly be white, it's kind of a waste to have a field devoted to it.
On the other hand, I suspect that most notable angels, the types that will appear in the wiki, will have non-pure white colorings. If we take Markie to be an example, non-standard coloring of the wings makes the bearer something of a target, which in some cases will make them perform actions above and beyond what regular angels do, thus being more likely to be someone that would show up in the wiki. Nobody makes a story/wiki-entry about John the accountant who has 2.5 kids and an uneventful life, after all.

Okay, the characters are updated, but no sooner had I done so than I realized that there were some changes that I should have suggested but didn't. ^^; So here they are:

I think that the mermaid's "Height" field should instead be called "Length", both to avoid confusion, and also because they don't often hold their upper halves in a manner similar to how nagas do.


I think that slug girls need a new field, one called "Length" or "Total Length", with the subscript of "head to tail-tip" or something of that nature. This is because slug girls, just like nagas, hold their human halves upright, but they also have a total length that is also important to their character. There are a couple of different distances we could measure instead of "head top to tail tip" that, when combined with the current height field in some way, would give us the same data, but I think that the "head top to tail tip" distance is the easiest to use and the hardest to screw up. ^^;


I also suggest that the succubi get the same character info box as the angels and the demons, because there isn't really much in the way of physical differences between any of them.


Finally, we should treat the succubus Kallisti as a special case; she might technically be a succubus, but all her character information is for a naga's form, so I think we should give her the naga's information box (which hasn't yet been made up... soon, I promise ) but noting that this data applies only to her naga form. (Probably just a note above the information box saying more or less: "This data applies to her naga form")




So those are my proposed changes for this round; what you you guys think, and is there anything you think should be changed?

Okay, since there were no comments I implemented the changes.

Quadruple post!!! ^^;

Okay, my suggestions for what are going to be the last character infoboxes made... at least until characters from species that don't have an infobox are added to the wiki.

There are a bunch of species left, but surprisingly they break down into just a few groups.

I propose that Vampires, Giants and Giantesses, Elves, and Humans all get just the plain old basic character information box. All of these creatures are basically scaled humans, maybe with pointed ears, so all their data can be handled easily by the fields in the basic information box. That means that all vampires, giants, elves, and humans would have an infobox looking like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

I propose that the elementals have one extra field, called "Body", since what their body looks like varies from creature to creature. For example, one lava elemental might be composed of smooth and hot lava, while another might have a rocky crust over most of their skin. That means their infobox would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Body

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

I propose that nekos get one additional field: "Fur color", since this is the major difference between them and humans. What locations on their body are covered by fur can be mentioned in the "Other characteristics" field. That means that their info box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Fur colour

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

I propose that chilotaurs get the same character information box as dridders do, plus a "Length" field; they both have exoskeletons as their major visual difference between the two is that chilotaurs are rather long. Thus their character information box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height(head to ground)

Length(head to tail)

Exoskeleton colour

Skin colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

And that just leaves the biggest one of all: Nagas. I think they are pretty straightforward though, so I propose that they get three additional fields: "Length", "Top scale color", and "Bottom scale color". We need a length field because a naga holds a part of themselves upright, so simply measuring their height does not convey their entire size. Snakes generally have different colors for the scales on top and on bottom of their tails, so we need to record that. Most snakes also have patterns, but I think that can be stored in with the "Other characteristics" field. Thus their info box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height(head to ground)

Length(head to tail)

Skin colour

Top scale colour

Bottom scale colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

So, what do you guys thing about these proposed character information boxes?

is it possible to vaguely judge weight for the different species?

Archmage_Bael wrote:

is it possible to vaguely judge weight for the different species?

What purpose exactly would that serve?

just further detailing the species.

Archmage_Bael wrote:

is it possible to vaguely judge weight for the different species?

Well, I haven't put in weight fields for the various characters because the character infoboxes (in my opinion) are for visible differences, and a character's weight is generally not directly visible.


There are some additional complications when it comes to weight as well: the square-cube law being one of them. In essence, height and weight do not scale linearly. Weight grows much faster than height does, and this leads to problems... problems like "Giant humans sink up to their necks in dirt". ^^; (A hypothetical example, I haven't done the actual calculations.) By making estimates on weights, we would have to be committing to some particular solution to this problem; but I don't believe that the forum/Karbo has ever endorsed a particular solution to this problem.

(Personally I would like to just "hand wave" that particular problem away (IE: yeah, they're really heavy but they don't sink into dirt. Why? Felarya's natural MAGIC!). This does have some interesting implications though: giant punches/tackles would be stronger than you would think, because they would have so much more mass, and magically boosted strength to be able to move it around like we move ourselves around. Quite literally their punches would be "like a brick shithouse".) (That said, I thought I recalled something about fairies actually only being one height, and simply being able to change their "scale" with regards to the rest of the universe. That right there is a possible solution to the weight problem. I think the Legacy universe uses a similar system, but my knowledge of that is rather fuzzy.)

Another complication, especially for the tailed creatures (nagas, slug-girls, chilotaurs) is that their weight dramatically depends on how large of a tail they have. A giant naga with a 100 foot tail and one with a 150 foot tail will have drastically different weights.

Yeah I've always wondered if it was even plausable to do so, because of all the different calculations to put in. It'd be more like a guessing game anyway, as weight also depends on things you are wearing (or not, in most of felarya's case), food you eat, etc.

It's just weird because when I play rpgs and I have to fill out my character sheet I always end up having to put the weight, and no one who plays with me really knows how to judge that. Especially for different species.

Okay, I have updated the affected characters with the new character information boxes. We have a lot of nagas; I never want to have to edit one again.

I think 'bottom scales' would sound better as 'belly scales'

/Fish/ wrote:

I think 'bottom scales' would sound better as 'belly scales'

I. Will. Murder. You.
Suggesting that I go and change all the nagas again... murder! In a very painful manner!


(But seriously, what does everyone else think about changing "bottom scales" to "belly scales"? And while we're at it, does anyone have a suggestion for a better name than "top scales"?)



Also



Okay, so you know how I said that my previous suggestion post was going to be my last until Karbo added characters to the wiki from a species that didn't have a character information box? Well he did. ^^; Her name is Fenja and she is a Jotun (giant cow-girl, sorta).




After a little bit of thinking, I propose that they get a "body color" field to represent the color of the skin on their animal half.

That means that their information box would look like this:

Name

Species

Age

Sex

Height

Skin colour

Body colour

Hair colour

Eye colour

Other characteristics

Comments, suggestions, better name for the field? What do you guys think?

Mhh me I'm more for bellys scales personnaly. I feel it reflects more what they are and somehow I always used this term until now ^^

For body color, I would suggest "fur" instead, like for nekos

You could also include a pattern box, like strips, or zig-zag, or bubbly, or any other weird kind of shapes that are on it. That may be a bit over-complicating things though (as if weight isn't? XD)

Okay, so I guess I will be changing the Naga's "Bottom Scales" into "Belly Scales".

Archmage_Bael wrote:

You could also include a pattern box, like strips, or zig-zag, or bubbly, or any other weird kind of shapes that are on it.

I figured that pattern information could go into the "Additional Information" box, since for most characters that box is not going to have much information in it.

I didn't forget about this thread; I was just busy.

Okay, I added the character information box for the Jotuns, and updated the information box for nagas. This means that I am done with character information boxes for now; almost everyone has a race standard one. (Poor Xarmaroch, Q'Tada'x'silath, and Teron; I don't love them enough to propose character information boxes for their species. )


Feel free to comment on any changes you thinks should be made; other than that I don't think I'll be posting anything more to this thread until more new races and characters are added to the wiki.

This is just me, but we should sticky the posts in this thread with the final version of the character boxes so we don't have to search for it anymore. We want to make things convenient for newcomers after all.

Sean Okotami wrote:

This is just me, but we should sticky the posts in this thread with the final version of the character boxes so we don't have to search for it anymore. We want to make things convenient for newcomers after all.

"Sticky" them, as in copy all the boxes into one post for ease of reference? How about a link to a wikipage where all the information boxes are stored for easy use?

*slaps you* How dare you did not make a box for the Centaurs and Sphinxes? Come on, they're the two most underused races in the whole world.