My first character

This is the bio for my first character, Para. (yeah I know, making myself a character, not very creative...)

Species: Shapeshifter(?)
Gender: Male
Age: About 25-ish
Height: 7 to 8 feet (7'2" AND 8 feet in dridder form! )
Weight: 110 Kilograms
Hair colour: Green
Eye Colour: Black and red.
Most common body colours: Gold and dark green
All other stats are dependant on mask.

Backstory:
Doesn't remember much about his home realm, and doesn't really care. He was zapped from wherever he came from in front of two very odd deities, both wearing masks and shouting a lot about needing him for blah blah blah destiny crap. They pressed onto his face a mask that fused into his skin and rammed a godlike amount of magic directly into his face.

This hurt a great deal.

Driven insane by the mask, Para struck out at the gods, and woke up in Felarya. He still doesn't know wether he managed to kill the bastards.
The first creatures he encountered were nekos, who taught him that tinies are tasty food, not friends. He also learnt that he could change shape with his mask, by making new ones.

He tried to eat a neko once, and failed (so sad! T^T). The nekos ran him out of their community, after failing to kill him several times. Para has several Neko masks from this time.

Personality:
Evil. A villain who eats tinies and tries to eat everyone else (Except nekos, cause they're inedible).
He is afraid of heights, and jellyfish.
He dislikes swimming. He dislikes fish. He dislikes tiny weaponry. He dislikes dogs. He dislikes loud noises. He dislikes spanish (distracción para los españoles. Para para para para!).
He HATES anything being bigger than him. Not the person themselves, just that they're bigger.

Likes: Hugs, will give them freely (Men, women, children, all are fair game. Especially if they are smaller than him.), Tinies, cause they're yummy, and Plotting the eating of giant nagas.

Hunting Habits:
Has no need to eat tinies, but does so when he feels like it (for the Evulz!). Attempted to eat a neko once. It did not end well. Has not yet made the connection between inedibility of nekos and inedibility of giant nagas.
When hunting, he watches from a distance, makes up a plan (normally simple, sometimes stupid), and then noms the victim.

Skills and Abilities:
Shapeshifting: With the use of masks, can freely change species.
Mask Making: Para has the ability to "pull" a mask from a living creature, creating a unique form for him to shift into. Has not yet successfully made a Giant mask.
Para has any abilities the species of the mask he wears has. It will NOT copy an individual's powers. Nor does it come with inbuilt knowledge. He has to figure it out himself.

Further notes:
Believes Nekos to be completely inedible, and ignores anyone eating one, cause they can't be eaten, therefore, a hallucination.
The masks that Para makes are brittle, and most of his collection are broken in some way.
Each mask is unique, and he has his favourites. One in particular he keeps VERY safe.
His current goal is to eat a giant naga. Since he is only slightly larger than the average neko, he is at a bit of a stump.
Para is insane. He may act kinda reasonable, but he will do unexpected stuff. Most often getting him into nasty situations. The only reason he hasn't yet been eaten yet is stupid luck.
Driven insane by the forces at play behind his mask, Para turned to evil. Rather quickly. The gods didnt even have time to tell him WHY they recruited him...
He's a natural at harpy-speech. Says something about the natural state of sanity in harpies, doesn't it?



Please let me know what you think. I'm still working on him. Any suggestions are welcome. And no. Not based off Thas Voidfingers the neko in any way. honest. I blame Bionicle if anything.

This is a very insubstantial bio, and this is being generous. First of all, "shapeshifter" is not a species. It's an attribute of his species. The backstory shows that you didn't care about your character in the slightest and wanted to get it over with. Anyone who types "blah blah blah" and put an absolutely worthless comment in brackets like (so sad T^T) shows no seriousness or even any interest. Nobody is going to be interested in your material if you aren't interested yourself. The personality says nothing about him. Evil? Oh, that tells us so much. Villain? Ooooh, I wonder what eeeevil atrocities he made. And it turns out he's just a cliché "villain" who's branded as evil because he hates everything and eats everything. Woo. The rest of the profile is as worthless as the rest and not worth commenting on. Overall, this is not a character. This is something not even a school grader believes is threatening. This is a half-hearted attempt to make your mark in somebody else's setting and have a laugh out of it. Go back to the drawing board and come back with something you actually show interest in.

While I don't agree with the manner of Sean's post, I can not disagree with the points he made.

Unfortunately, there are times when one must look upon one's work and realise that the direction that one took is not a path that leads to anything good.
The only real course of action one can take then it to start again and keep in mind the mistakes that were made in the previous attempt.

I believe that for you, Para-celsus, this is one of those times.

While I do like to try to give help with characters I will point out here that I'm not sure I can.

Not because the character is inherently bad, but because there is sort of a disregard for biography creating conventions.

It's clear you didn't take this very seriously. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. But a non-serious bio is sort of hard for others to do a review or discussion on (which I'm assuming you wanted since you posted this in the forum) since everything can be written off as a joke.

As well, people like Sean might misinterpret this as something serious and assume you're trolling the forum.

So, while this is... assumably... funny in some way, posting it somewhere where the point is to get feedback is not really going to get any results.

If you need pointers on making a real biography, you can look at the bios on the wiki or ask for help here. There are plenty of people who are good at giving recommendations for character creation.

Well, in the matter of the actual description, I feel compelled to point out that his belief regarding the consumption of nekoes is not a hallucination; it's a delusion. People tend to mix those two up.

Sean Okotami wrote:

This is a very insubstantial bio, and this is being generous. First of all, "shapeshifter" is not a species. It's an attribute of his species. The backstory shows that you didn't care about your character in the slightest and wanted to get it over with. Anyone who types "blah blah blah" and put an absolutely worthless comment in brackets like (so sad T^T) shows no seriousness or even any interest. Nobody is going to be interested in your material if you aren't interested yourself. The personality says nothing about him. Evil? Oh, that tells us so much. Villain? Ooooh, I wonder what eeeevil atrocities he made. And it turns out he's just a cliché "villain" who's branded as evil because he hates everything and eats everything. Woo. The rest of the profile is as worthless as the rest and not worth commenting on. Overall, this is not a character. This is something not even a school grader believes is threatening. This is a half-hearted attempt to make your mark in somebody else's setting and have a laugh out of it. Go back to the drawing board and come back with something you actually show interest in.

Could you be a little less forceful and snarky when you comment please ? This one is bordering on flaming.

The rest of them are right, there's too much feeling in your bio. It is better to be stateful and get the information out. Although it is interesting to see a villain who likes hugs, there needs to be a bit more order in the format for anything to be taken seriously. Overall, not a bad start, but there's still a lot of things to be improved upon. But don't freak out, as long as you don't give up, you'll figure out how to make it work for you. ^.^

I'm no expert in character creation, but in my time in this forum I've learned some things that will be helpful. Let me go in detail with your bio. I don't know if it's a serious character or some little joke - seeing it's a self-insert, you never know unless you're doing it for comedy or self-parody. Anyway, a bio is a bio.

Para-celsus wrote:

Species: Shapeshifter(?)

As far as it goes, there's no shapeshifter species around. According to this, he's supposed to be someone who can change from a human - I suppose he's human or at least a humanoid - to a dridder - at least, for now, it's just a dridder form.

Para-celsus wrote:

Backstory:
Doesn't remember much about his home realm, and doesn't really care. He was zapped from wherever he came from in front of two very odd deities, both wearing masks and shouting a lot about needing him for blah blah blah destiny crap. They pressed onto his face a mask that fused into his skin and rammed a godlike amount of magic directly into his face.

This hurt a great deal.

Driven insane by the mask, Para struck out at the gods, and woke up in Felarya. He still doesn't know wether he managed to kill the bastards.
The first creatures he encountered were nekos, who taught him that tinies are tasty food, not friends. He also learnt that he could change shape with his mask, by making new ones.

He tried to eat a neko once, and failed (so sad! T^T). The nekos ran him out of their community, after failing to kill him several times. Para has several Neko masks from this time.

So let's see... your character is some kind of 'chosen one' for some gods with masks and that he was taught by Felaryan nekos to use his mask - and others - to shapeshift. You need to be a bit more careful with this, since we're talking about someone who'd be too close to Link in Majora's Mask, for example. I see you claim to have been inspired by Bionicle... no idea a bout it... Anyway, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, the concept has always been cool for me, just, and I insist, try to be careful and not to sound like a rip-off.

Anyway, it's clear you've gone not only for the 'random chosen one', but also with the vague backstory that gives nearly nothing about the character, nothing to think why he's that way or another. He just... is, with a mask that supposedly turned him crazy. Just that.

Para-celsus wrote:

Personality:
Evil. A villain who eats tinies and tries to eat everyone else (Except nekos, cause they're inedible).

So he's evil. Just evil. But why is he a villain? There's no explanation for that, aside from the mask. Did actually the mask turn him evil and crazy, twisting his mind? Or was it something else, even if the mask was the first step?

Para-celsus wrote:

He is afraid of heights, and jellyfish.
He dislikes swimming. He dislikes fish. He dislikes tiny weaponry. He dislikes dogs. He dislikes loud noises. He dislikes spanish (distracción para los españoles. Para para para para!).

Hi, I'm Spanish and I'll be glad to stay away from him. xD Now, seriously, why does he dislikes all of this? We can assume that maybe he had an incident with the jellyfish, which will also explain why he doesn't like swimming - he doesn't want to repeat such a bad experience - and maybe anything sea or river related, including fish - but anyway, some people just don't like the taste of most fish, so no big deal with the fish.

The tiny weaponry, the dogs, the loud noises and anything Spanish-related, why? Did he have bad experiences overall? Is he some kind of maniac who just hates something he doesn't trust or he doesn't know?

Para-celsus wrote:

He HATES anything being bigger than him. Not the person themselves, just that they're bigger.

Which will make things a bit hard in Felarya, but I can see the character could have some inferiority complex due to, maybe, finding a giant predator and not having a nice meeting...

Para-celsus wrote:

Likes: Hugs, will give them freely (Men, women, children, all are fair game. Especially if they are smaller than him.), Tinies, cause they're yummy, and Plotting the eating of giant nagas.

OK, so he can also be bipolar, being evil but giving hugs. Sure, he can trick tinies with this, but people of his same size? And what about 'plotting the eating of giant nagas'? Does he have anything against giant nagas? I'll keep reading to solve this...

Para-celsus wrote:

Hunting Habits:
Has no need to eat tinies, but does so when he feels like it (for the Evulz!). Attempted to eat a neko once.v It did not end well. Has not yet made the connection between inedibility of nekos and inedibility of giant nagas.
When hunting, he watches from a distance, makes up a plan (normally simple, sometimes stupid), and then noms the victim.

So he's someone who will eat anything but has some love for tinies, huh? Just because he's evil? Well, not really, if nekos taught him tinies are more food than people, his mindset is that of a neko when it comes to tinies, for him it wouldn't be evil.

The neko/naga part is a bit confusing. We know he tried to eat a neko, but how did it actually happen? And why he failed? I guess that since he thinks nekos arent' edible, he might think they taste awful...

Para-celsus wrote:

Skills and Abilities:
Shapeshifting: With the use of masks, can freely change species.
Mask Making: Para has the ability to "pull" a mask from a living creature, creating a unique form for him to shift into. Has not yet successfully made a Giant mask.
Para has any abilities the species of the mask he wears has. It will NOT copy an individual's powers. Nor does it come with inbuilt knowledge. He has to figure it out himself.

Pull a mask from a living creature? And how does it work? This is where the cool concept begins to shatter. You have to tell us how he does this, how he "pulls" that mask and how the magic the nekos taught him works - nothing big, just something like "fusing" with the nature of the mask he's wearing. And after all, what he does is turning into a basic specimen of the species the mask represents, right? Just that.

Para-celsus wrote:

Further notes:
Believes Nekos to be completely inedible, and ignores anyone eating one, cause they can't be eaten, therefore, a hallucination.

I think the word you look for is deilusion, like Sephimink|Kyle says.

Para-celsus wrote:

The masks that Para makes are brittle, and most of his collection are broken in some way.
Each mask is unique, and he has his favourites. One in particular he keeps VERY safe.
His current goal is to eat a giant naga. Since he is only slightly larger than the average neko, he is at a bit of a stump.
Para is insane. He may act kinda reasonable, but he will do unexpected stuff. Most often getting him into nasty situations. The only reason he hasn't yet been eaten yet is stupid luck.
Driven insane by the forces at play behind his mask, Para turned to evil. Rather quickly. The gods didnt even have time to tell him WHY they recruited him...
He's a natural at harpy-speech. Says something about the natural state of sanity in harpies, doesn't it?

So let me sum it up... He's crazy and unpredictable - maybe due to the original mask, maybe by something else, but nothing explained - and... he tries to eat a giant naga? So everything about nagas is because he wants to eat one despite the size difference? This would make your character not only crazy, but more in the idiotic side.

And also, he's fluent in harpy-speech. It isn't about the harpies' sanity more than the way they like to speak, actually.

Although this can be a bit of a "joke bio", the big problem I see here is the lack of explanation. Things just happen, there is nearly no reason behind them. I'm not saying you should overexplain things, just a little answer to the usual "why this happens?" question. Nothing else. That and trying to give it a better structure, since some of his further notes would either go to his backstory or personality sections.

You should go back to the drawing table and look at this character and how to fix him. I know how it feels...

I also recommend you to have a look at many bios here in the forum, on the Felarya group at DeviantArt and even look at the official characters in the wiki. They can be of help. Also, have a look at this: https://felarya.forumotion.com/t1247-character-idea-guide

And lastly: never hesitate and ask!

Thanks very much for the comments. I can see that I have a lot of work to do to get him up to an acceptable standard. I didn't intend this to be a "joke Bio", but I put humour into practically everything I say and write, it's just the way I am. I'm not an experienced writer, and have only thought about even trying to create some stories recently. I realise now that quite a lot in this bio now is very vague, and will try to correct it as much as I can. Sorry if I come off as a bit disrespectful to writing conventions, or to the felarya setting. I like Felarya and want to add to it.

Hey, there's always room for improvement. We all like to add some humor, but dunno, I thought that maybe a bio would need a bit less of it. However, some stories welcome a bit of humor for relaxing.

Just work on this again and once you think it's done and well done, let us know to see the progress.

of course! As I said, I'm new to writing, but I do want to get better at it.

Para-celsus wrote:

of course! As I said, I'm new to writing, but I do want to get better at it.

Maybe I can help as well. First thing is first.

What do you want this character to be? A character for RP specifically? A character for stories you plan to write or pictures you plan to draw? Or is this just a character you want to submit to enrich Felarya?

After much thought, I've expanded the bio for Para.

Para's Bio

Species: Varies. Started out looking human.
Gender: Male
Age: About 25-ish, He can't remember exactly.
Height: Varies depending on form. Generally over 7 foot (7'2" AND 8 feet in dridder form! (that is what is known as a "joke", dont get too confused now.))
Weight: 110 Kilograms. Mass does not change with mask form.
Hair colour: Green
Eye Colour: Black and red.
Most common body colours: Gold and dark green
All other stats are dependant on mask.

Backstory:
Doesn't remember much about his home realm, and doesn't really care. He was zapped from wherever he came from in front of two very odd deities, both wearing masks and shouting a lot about needing him for some sort of destiny. They pressed onto his face a mask that fused into his skin and rammed a godlike amount of magic directly into his face.

This hurt a great deal.

Driven insane by the pain and magic caused by the mask, Para struck out at the gods with it's power, and woke up in Felarya. The whole incident happened so quickly, he still doesn't know wether he managed to kill the bastards, or even what they wanted him to do...On Felarya, the first creatures he encountered were Nekos.Para first met a hunting group, who took him in because he was too small to be a predator to them, and big enough to be useful as a soldier. They were impressed at his height, which only fed Para's ego. His hugs endeared him to many in the tribe, and he fell in love with a beautiful young lady Neko called Ruena.
The nekos taught him that tinies are tasty food, not friends (as opposed to most humans, who would have probably taught him vice versa). He also learnt that he could change shape with his mask, after making a new one by accident from Ruena.

When he found a tiny python naga, and took a form from it, he discovered he could unhinge his jaw to swallow larger prey (that is to say, he could use the form's inherent abilities, rather than just LOOK like something). He tested this out on various creatures, then attempted to consume his lover. He failed to swallow her, possibly due to his feelings for her, or as he always claims, "Nekos are just plain inedible". The nekos ran him out of their community, after failing to kill him several times. Para has several Neko masks from his time with the neko community.

Para escaped due to a giant naga on the horizon, and the entire hunting group chasing him fled from it. He decided anything that could scare nekos had to be worth eating. His driving goal since then has been to find some way to change his mass to become large enough to eat a giant naga. Sometimes he forgets how small he is in comparison to giant creatures, and will try to attack them anyway. (note superiority complex, and madness). He is still alive mainly due to luck and behaving so unexpectedly that the predators are too confused to eat him.

Personality:
An amoral villain who doesn't have any value for life. As soon as he had a form that could consume prey larger than a rabbit, he betrayed his adopted community. Extreme egotism, and superiority complex.
Doesn't use torture, as it simply doesn't occur to him that others feel pain. His pain tolerance itself seems skewed, minor irritants like loud noises causing him discomfort, but burns and gashes simply ignored until they heal in Felarya's natural magic.

He is afraid of heights, and jellyfish.
He dislikes swimming, mostly due to his fear of jellyfish, even in fresh water. He dislikes fish. He dislikes tiny weaponry. He dislikes dogs (they taste weird). He dislikes loud noises.
He HATES anything being bigger than him. Not the person themselves, just that they're bigger.

Likes: Hugs, will give them freely (Men, women, children, all are fair game. Especially if they are smaller than him.), Tinies, cause they're yummy, and Plotting the eating of giant nagas. If he feels safe that his prey cannot escape, he will hug them and have a bit of a chat before eating them. This is possibly some subconscious desire for friends. More likely he just likes hugs.

Hunting Habits:
Para roams the far outskirts of Negav, preying on travellers returning from the forests, weak and running low on supplies preferable. He avoids the well provisioned and fresh adventurers travelling FROM Negav. Sometimes ventures into the Dridder Forest for a change of pace.
Has no need to eat tinies, but does so when he feels like it. His first meeting with a naga (who was young and a lot smaller than him) he did not feel hungry, so he simply found a wolf pack and threw the young naga into it, not caring if it escaped or not. When hunting, he watches from a distance, makes up a plan (normally simple, sometimes stupid), and then noms the victim. Traps are favoured over ambushes, but nearly never a open assault.

Skills and Abilities:
Shapeshifting: With the use of masks, can freely change species.
Mask Making: Para has the ability to "pull" a mask from a living creature, creating a unique form for him to shift into. Has not yet successfully made a Giant mask.
Para has any abilities the species of the mask he wears has. It will NOT copy an individual's powers. Nor does it come with inbuilt knowledge. He has to figure it out himself.
He cannot yet change his mass with masks. If he took a tiny and made a mask for instance, he would still be just as big as he always is. A 7 foot "tiny" in other words. Quite pointless. But he wouldn't want to be smaller anyway. He is currently trying to make a Giant mask to increase his size at will. Experiments with Battal Oak and Fairy Blossom are so far fruitless.

Equipment:
Aside from the vast collection of objects (mostly of dubious value) he stores at his base, Para carries with him:
1 carrybag (containing the other items)
1 Battal oak and tree moss mask case with a single mask inside.
up to 3 masks, often dridder, naga, and centaur
1 small knife (an essential part of any travellers pack, useful for cutting flowers, or prising open nuts, or picking your teeth)
and 2 jars (for collecting tinies, bugs, nectar, or whatever he finds)

Habitat:
Outskirts of Negav, in the far ranges of the Isolon eye. He lives near a young dryad that he tries out his new forms on. She barely tolerates him, because she's still trying to figure out how he escaped her belly the first time she ate him. (It had nothing to do with him, but he took the credit nonetheless). Her name is Keisha. He calls her Quiche/Keesh.
His base of operations is a treehouse he has built from various junk. A tank provides steam power, mostly for heating, but also an elevator he uses to take more stuff up to his house. He shows off his newest finds to Keesh.

Further notes:
Believes Nekos to be completely inedible, and ignores anyone eating one, cause they can't be eaten, therefore, a hallucination.
The masks that Para makes are brittle, and most of his collection are broken in some way.
Each mask is unique, and he has his favourites. One in particular he keeps VERY safe.
His current goal is to eat a giant naga. Since he is only slightly larger than the average neko, he is at a bit of a stump.
Para is insane. He may act kinda reasonable, but he will do unexpected stuff. Most often getting him into nasty situations. The only reason he hasn't yet been eaten yet is stupid luck.
Driven insane by the forces at play behind his mask, Para turned to evil. Rather quickly. The gods didnt even have time to tell him WHY they recruited him...
He's a natural at harpy-speech, but never swears in any other situation. Mutters sometimes to himself.
Has occasional hallucinations of Nekos being eaten. he attributes this to his traumatic experience with Ruena (I mean he sees nekos being eaten and truly believes it to be imaginary). He sometimes hallucinates other things too.


Para's Dryad: Keisha
Young, about 30 years old and only as big as twenty metres. She has pretty pale green eyes, and is draped in vines with blue flowers. She ate Para when he met her, but somehow he escaped her belly. She wants to find out how he did it before she will eat him again. They say they hate each other, but they always seem to be hanging out. She secretly likes Para's hugs, but would never admit it.




And that's it. I've been writing a story for Para. It's not done yet.