Use the Character template to write about any named creature in your world! This includes people, but also the protagonist's pet dinosaur, a vengeful god, and even sentient doors. If it has a name and a personality, it's a character!
Contents
What should I use this template for?
Characters are very important in any world. They are the protagonists of your stories, the agents of change and conflict. Here are some example uses of the Character template!
People
This is probably the most obvious use for this template: people in stories are characters! Named and recurring characters in your story or campaign are perfect for this template. For nameless or one-off characters, it might be enough to have them as part of another article. For example, an Organization article could include short profiles for its members.
Deities & spirits
Deities in fiction (especially fantasy) are often similar to Ancient Greek gods: incredibly powerful creatures that have human-like personalities or behavior. But spiritual creatures that don't look like people are also characters. For example, a forest spirit of an animistic or shamanist religion might not act as a person, but would still be a character. Some examples of spirit-like characters are Pantalaimon (a spirit animal familiar in His Dark Materials), Sylphrena (a fairy-like spirit in The Stormlight Archive), and the Night Walker (a god of life and death in Princess Mononoke)
Pets & mounts
Animals may or may not be people depending on the setting (and the definition of "person" you use), but they can definitely be characters! For example, Toothless, a dragon in How to Train Your Dragon, is the whole reason the entire movie happens. Ghost, a dire wolf from A Song of Ice and Fire, is not as central to the story but is still an important character and companion of Jon Snow, one of the main characters.
Sentient objects
We don't think of objects as characters... but what if the object is "alive" and has a personality? For example, R2D2 in Star Wars is a robot, but no one would question the fact that he's also a character. But even something like the One Ring, from Lord of the Rings, is described as having its own will and being able to take decisions. To choose between the Character and Item templates, think about the role of the object in the story. If it's important because of how people use it (rather than because of who the object is), then it's an Item instead of a Character.
Special features for Characters
The Character template has a couple of special features:
Use family trees and bloodlines to display an interactive visualization of the character's family.
Family tree from The Silver Family, by E. Christopher Clark
Relationship panels
With relationship panels you can display how much two characters like (or dislike) each other.
Template walkthrough
Character is the deepest template on World Anvil, which makes sense, since characters come in all shapes and sizes! As always, there's a free-writing section at the top (which we call vignette) and the prompts are under the Expand prompts & connections button. Remember that all prompts are optional, and some might not be relevant depending on the type of character you're writing about.
Character prompts are organized in tabs. Here's a brief explanation of each tab:
- Generic
You can think of the Generic tab as the basic profile. It contains short-form text fields and dropdowns for quick data like eye color, gender, current location, birth, and death. - Naming
The Naming tab includes individual fields for each part of the character's name (honorific, given name, middle name, etc). If you use these fields, the full name will be built based on them and displayed as a subtitle udner the article's main title. - Mental
What goes on in the beautiful mind of your character? In this tab you can write about character traits like personal morality, intellect, accomplishments & failures, education, sexuality, and more. - Physical
Here you'll be able to write in detail about how the character looks. This is not only about their physical condition, but also about their clothes and equipment. - Personal
This is the personality tab, so you'll find fields to write about their motivations, likes and dislikes, virtues and flaws, legacy, and more. - Social
This is about everything about the character that isn't the character itself. For example, how wealthy they are, family ties and friendships, their hobbies, and so on. - Divine/deity
Deities are characters, but they're still a bit different from regular people. Here you'll be able to write about their divine domain, link it to its religious organizations, and more.
Show character locations on maps
You can use draggable markers to show the current location of a character. This way, you and anyone else with access to the map will be able to move the characters around. Use this for a campaign map shared with your players to let them move themselves around the world. Check here for more information.
Step-by-step guide to writing a character
Every character is unique, but here are some quick steps you can follow to create your character, regardless of what type of character they are:
- Why are they in your world?
The most important question you need to answer is: what's the role of this character in the world/story you're writing? This is a meta question (i.e. it's out-of-world information), but it's very useful and will guide you through the rest of your creation process. By thinking about this first, you'll make sure that everything else (their personality, appearance, ideals...) are all well-integrated into the story. - How are they fullfilling this role?
Or, in other words, what's the character's motivation? All interesting characters need to want something, and it will usually be something to improve their own life (even if it's in a misguided way). Make sure that some of the things they want are not part of the main plot; real-world people aren't just focused on a single goal, so adding unrelated goals will make your character feel more real. - What obstacle are they trying to overcome?
What is preventing the character from achieving their goal or following their motivation? This could be something external (the dinosaur police is chasing them!) or internal (related to their flaws). Whatever they may be, this will create conflict (which can also be external or internal!), which is essential to create engaging worlds and stories.
Need more pointers? Take a look at these guides:
- 5 tips for writing compelling characters
- 5 types of hero, and how to write them
- Tips to write autistic characters and one-eyed characters
Community examples for inspiration
Need some inspiration? Here are some character articles written by our amazing community!
