Making your first character at KHRPF!

[JeY k]

Hi everyone and welcome to KHRPF! I see that you're ready to make your first profile here! This guide is intended for those who are new to Role-Playing here and in general, so if you're an RP vet but new here it wouldn't hurt to take a glance as we do have some very specific guidelines!

Now, hopefully you've already read the stickies/"must read" topics which would definitely ensure your readiness prior to reading this little guideline, however it's not a big deal if you haven't yet as this guide will still get you started. I'm going to start with a mini-FAQ regarding character reaction.

Q: Can I be a Heartless/Nobody/[insert any race here]?

A: Yes! As long as you can give a thought-out and decent explanation for the race/existence of your character, your character can literally be anything within reason.
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Q: Can I apply for Riku/Axel/[insert any Canonical character here]?

A: Yes, you may. Please be sure to read the rules pertaining to the canon process that we host here on KHRPF (For example, you need 100 forum posts before being able to apply for a canon). It's possible for a canon to be roleplayed by multiple people at once. Staff just needs you to fill out a template to tell us what abilities and weapons you plan to use for what canons. The template's located in the Save Point section.
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Q: I want my character to have a keyblade! Is that okay?

A: Once you have 100 forum posts, any original character you make may have a keyblade.
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Q: Can I have some help with [insert specific aspect of character creation]?

A: Of course! Post what you have in the 'Profile Drafts' section and visit our chatbox at the bottom of the forum to ask politely if anyone would be willing to help, or send a PM to someone you may already be acquainted with!

Better yet, we even have a Roleplay helper section specifically geared for this kinda stuff! Make a topic and one of our designated Roleplay Helpers will get back to you shortly.
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That's enough for the questions we often get, so here's the good stuff.

MAKING YOUR FIRST CHARACTER FOR KHRPF

First and foremost, you need a character idea. Chances are you already have one and that's why you're here! Just keep a few things in mind: Try to be ready to write detailed and thoroughly explained information for each section of the character template. The more details you have, the better it is to imagine your character! This will help when you're planning threads with other members and they go to look at the characters you have.

Next, for their abilities you want to do the same thing. The more specific and detailed you are when explaining what an ability does, the easier the approval process will be. I'll explain later some points you want to consider when writing down your abilities so moderators won't ask so many questions; since we all look for the same things!

With your character idea in mind, it's time to go look at the character template ==Here==. What I'm going to do is show you an example profile piece by piece and then break down what makes it acceptable by forum standards, followed by the complete profile.

Member Information

Player Username: tehjey
Current Character List: Derge, JeY, Evia, Colossi, Kalaraine
Random Character Notes (Add anything extra here):
You'll see this again soon ;D This will be my demo char for the guide.

Easy and straightforward. Enter the username you used to sign up for the forum or your current display name, either one works. Character list can be hyperlinked to your profiles or just a basic list of names as a refresher. Notes... just leave whatever will be helpful to readers or other fun things.

Character Basics

Character Name: Jillian Grace
Character Age: 18
Character Race: Human
Character Gender: Female

The basics! Name? Anything you want! Age? Same thing; within reason I guess [if you want a 305 year old human, I hope you provide a decent explanation!]. Race? Anything, we really accept anything. Gender? Male, female, both, none, other, doesn't matter.

About the Character

Character Personality: Jillian is a swell girl full of bubbly cuteness and a positive attitude. She is often happy-go-lucky and too nice for her own good, perhaps so much that she would be easily taken advantage of. She is friendly and easily trusts others and despite any hardships she is ready to forgive. She can never quite get mad for any reason, except when she sees others who inflict pain for no reason and don't say that they're sorry! Then she will often throw a tantrum while expressing her altruistic views on why they shouldn't be so mean. It's an odd quirk which rarely shows, but is certainly prevalent for anyone who has witnessed it.

Character Appearance (Please include such things as height, hair color, eye color, body type, clothing, weight, etc. You need to actually write a description. You may include a picture for reference):
Jillian is about 5'2" tall, weighing at only 105 pounds being a rather small girl but not exactly skeleton skinny, while boasting a pale complexion. She has long brown hair sitting on a cute face with an average-sized nose and mouth with bright blue eyes. She often wears clothes that are similar to her school outfit since she finds them the most comfortable, most often consisting of a simple white t-shirt and a red and blue plaid button-up jacket and a matching miniskirt.

On her legs are long white stockings with thin red stripes going vertical and plain brown sneakers on her feet. She doesn't wear any accessories; earrings, necklaces, jewelry of the sort. She looks pretty plain but she sure does pack a punch!

Character Hobbies/Activities (Optional Field): Hanging out with friends is her most favorite activity; though while alone she loves to read manga.

Okay, so these parts. Appearance and Personality both have a 5-sentence minimum. Even if it isn't directly stated, you will be asked to provide at least 5 sentences for these two descriptions.

As for personality, really give an in-depth feel for how your character feels and thinks. You want other people to get to know them in that you can begin to predict (though some things are always random!) what that character will do when placed in certain generic scenarios. Try to really describe who your character is! How they interact with strangers, how they feel about well-known concepts, their social routines are a few examples of where to start at least.

Going to the Appearance, you want to do the same thing for personality but instead paint a mental picture. What I like to do is start from the top down and give a full layout of my character. First, I start with their body type (or build) and complexion, then I do hair, eyes, face, and just work my way down to the feet and add in any details I may have missed at the end or exciting bits that are easy or hard to spot, finally any defining features that aren't typically used in descriptions like tattoos and such.

For hobbies or activities, you can either leave it blank (as it is optional) or fill in a few tidbits on what your character actually likes to do in spare time!

Battle Statistics

Character Position: Lawful Good
Character Abilities:
--Passive, Strength: Jillian is actually a lot stronger than she looks. When she gained the ability to access star magic, the magic imbued within her to make have three times the strength of a typical human, having constant access to a potent super-strength. However, she is in good control and can exhibit any level of strength from no boost to maximum boost at any time.

--Jillian Beam: By holding out her hand and calling this ability's name, she can fire a bright pink star beam with the diameter of her palm in straight line toward a target, inflicting light magic damage. [Up to twice per post, cooldown of 1 post]

--Star Call: When Jillian waves her hand and calls this ability's name, an assortment of 4-6 [random] small bright pink stars fall unnaturally fast from the sky and aim for a single target, inflicting mild magic damage with little knockback. If there's a ceiling, they will just fall from the ceiling. [cooldown of 1 post]

--Star Boss: If Jillian uses Star Call on herself, she instead absorbs the stars and becomes empowered in all physical attacks and physical speed by 150%. [lasts for 1 post]

--Star Punishment: If the enemy won't apologize or is not sentient enough to be able to be able to apologize, Jillian can call this ability's name and one large [about four feet in diameter] bright pink star will fall from the sky or ceiling to inflict heavy magic damage and knock back or stun the target if it hits [for 1 post] [2 post cooldown]

--Star Judgment: If a fight has escalated long enough [for 12 posts or more], Jillian can access this ability. She can hold out her hand and it will glow for a second, and then three bright pink portals will open around a single target or a cluster of targets [about six feet away from the target(s)] and will charge for another second before the portals start spraying a massive stream of small stars in a straight line [for 1 post] to inflict heavy magic damage. [4 post cooldown]

--Passive, Tantrum: Whenever Jillian enters an angered state, she gains a passive agility bonus so on top of super strength, she can now move 50% faster than a typical human. Lasts until she calms down.

--Tantrum, Claw: When Julian enters a justice-educed tantrum, she has access to this ability. She will imbue a dark purple energy around her hands in the shape of claws and will viciously swipe at the enemy for a furry of 4 attacks before the energy fades. [two post cooldown]

--Tantrum, Blast: If an enemy is too close while Jillian is in tantrum, Jillian will shout and lean back, and a small wave of dark purple energy with form around her and expand outward for a total diameter of six feet. It inflicts light magic damage, but heavy knockback and is sure to get enemies in melee range who aren't rooted to the ground away from her. [3 post cooldown]

--Tantrum, Calm: When Jillian exits a tantrum, her passive strength fades [for 3 posts] as she is fatigued, and of course loses her agility bonus.

Alright, now here's the toughest section. Your character's abilities! Well, at the top it starts of simple with their alignment. I prefer D&D alignments with a [Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic] prefix followed by their [Good, Neutral, Evil] alignment, but you don't NEED a prefix. Just one of the last three will suffice, however you'll describe just a bit more of your character with a prefix. You can even use something even more descriptive here if you'd like.

And now the best part, abilities. First and foremost, you are allowed a maximum of 15 abilities. Next, each ability must be a specific and unique function. You cannot have a fireball that is also a fire sword at times; that is two different abilities and must be written as such. This is to prevent extremely overpowered and ridiculously-fueled characters.

Another bad example is "This character has control over water". That is far too broad of an ability and must be broken into specific functions. I'll just explain what makes each of the above abilities within the constraints to be approved.

"Passive Strength": Written here is an ability that buffs one of her physical aspects, up to a specifically written number of 3 times normal human strength, written there as a logical comparison. You know exactly what this ability does from what's written.

"Jillian Beam": Described here is how to activate the ability (you don't always need an activation, you can write abilities in which your character can 'just use'), the specific function of the ability when activated, and how often it can be used relative to a post count. We employ post cooldowns to prevent spammy pressure in fights, to balance them out and make them controlled. Any ability that can be 'used' (as in not passive) needs some sort of cooldown or another drawback that balances it out.

"Star Call" and "Star boss": Pretty much the same thing as Jillian Beam, abilities have an activation and a unique effect. Now, this is a good separate example because Star Boss is activated through a specific use of Star Call. Just because they're similar in this aspect does not make them use the same ability slot since these are two unique functions, and this, use separate ability slots. And yes, using Star Boss would mean that Star Call would go on cooldown.

"Star Punishment" seems to have an odd activation, but quirky natures like these are what makes abilities pretty fun. In retrospect, this one encourages creative writing to determine when an enemy 'won't apologize' or 'isn't sentient to do so' in order to allow use. This also goes into great detail concerning the actual effect of the ability, using a measurement of size and a countable duration for the stun instead of simply using vague terms like "large" alone. The apex of this ability 'knocks back or stuns' thus allows another character to react however they see fit for the situation (or how YOU see fit if it's an NPC).

"Passive, Tantrum" is an interesting ability too, this one allowing the writer to rely on their creativity for this passive's activation. There is no specific length defined here, since fights are typically not decided in length before hand, and this is perfectly okay as long as it isn't an insanely powerful passive that is simply active all the time. It should be noted that the detailed specifics of this abilities function, even though it's a varied-length passive, are clearly defined.

"Tantrum, Claw" and "Tantrum, Blast" bank on the previous passive to be active, which would specifically be stated by the user during the fight. Unless you have declared that you entered a specific state, you are not considered 'in it', so pay close attention when writing abilities like these that depend on other abilities to be currently active! However, while it is, you have access to this handy tool. This ability simply describes what it is, what it does and the signs of it being used (the dark purple energy). There are no mysteries of how these abilities behave, despite being based off of another passive to be active at the time!

"Tantrum, Calm" is a balancing procedure thrown in there. If you were thinking to yourself, 'well having that passive on for any length of time sure is neat!' you were right, but this encourages a sense of realistic battle play and taxes the user for spamming this type of ability. Thus, not all of your abilities have to be beneficial - if you want something a little stronger, also have some drawbacks! You cannot have all push without a little bit of pull at least.

Character Weapons (Maximum of 5 weapons allowed – members must have 100 posts before their characters may wield a keyblade):
--Star Staff: Jillian carries around a large white pole with a hot pink star bordered in gold on the end. It hits pretty hard and can inflict puncture wounds as the star on the end is sharp. She can swing this staff to launch a weak star bolt at an enemy, however each full swing only fires one bolt.

Weapons, accessories and items...

You may have up to five of each. Dual-wielding counts as TWO weapons, too! For weapons, you may be creative, anything up to your imagination (except for keyblades or keyblade-like weapons) can be made here. Frost daggers? Done. A hunting bow with arrows? That's just one weapon! But, any additional ammo type (poison and explosive arrows for example) would be additional weapon slots, but default ammo is also free, courtesy of the ranged-weapon. Your weapon can even be imbued with a mild magical effect that does not count toward your abilities, like Jillian's star staff here!

Character Strengths (1 required): Her positive energy, her eagerness to help, her indomitable spirit.
Character Weaknesses (1 required): Trusts too easily, Blindly follows sense of justice, susceptible to pain.
Character Summons (Optional field – no canon summons allowed – maximum of 2 allowed and maximum of 2 abilities each allowed):
-==Tatheryali, spirit of the Northern Stars==-
While fighting to protect someone she cares about when she knows she can't do it alone, Jillian calls upon the spirit which she borrows her magical spells from. She's a humanoid that looks similarly to a slime creature texture with a large [about eight feet in diameter] windmill blade coming out of her back. She does not speak, but glows a valiant bright pink and is like a large soft-pink neon sign. She can use powerful melee attacks, or her two abilities:

--Luster Strike: The spirit sinks into the windmill on it's back and the windmill grows twice as big, which then starts spinning rapidly and viciously rips through all enemies in sight [5 post cooldown]

--Luster Shield: The spirit jumps in front of Jillian or target ally and turns around, rooting to the ground or a nearby solid surface, able to absorb the entirety of the next incoming attack while suffering no recoil. The windmill then shatters, making the spirit and the protected entity defenseless. [Windmill comes back in 3 posts, which then it can shield again immediately. Cannot use Luster Strike while on cooldown].

[This summon lasts 12 posts max before fading away. Can be dismissed before then]

Character Racial Ability (Optional - Your character may have ONE passive ability that seems to have an abnormal affect due to being a particular race. Merfolk can breathe underwater, Lava creatures are immune to fire, that sort of thing): None!

As clearly stated, you get two NON-CANON summons (must be original) and each summon may have two abilities. Treat these like you would your own character's abilities and define them as SPECIFICALLY as possible with post-cooldowns. You must include a little information as to how your entity is summoned, how long it lasts, and a brief description of its form/appearance. Summons can be fairly powerful allies to characters, but please limit their potential to prevent major unnecessary turn-around in character-versus-character roleplay.

And the character racial ability is pretty self-explanatory, in fact, exactly how to use it is explained in the template itself! Jillian is human, so there's nothing really special here. In fact, trying to squeeze in one more ability where it shouldn't go is highly discouraged!

Next is Jillian's history and writing portion sections, which must be 10 sentences each and contain complete, thorough sentences. The history should describe a bit of a back-story to your character, where they are from and how they grew or anything major that happened in their past. Keep in mind you don't have to define EVERYTHING about your character here (which isn't a good idea anyway since it leaves no room for development), but some important bits as to how they got to be who they are when they enter the role-play are important.

As for the writing portion, it must be completed ONLY ONCE for the very first character you ever apply for approval here at KHRPF. It must be an original piece of writing, and it doesn't have to be about your character but that is typically what users do on this forum. All we ask if you write it from scratch specifically for that section of the profile so we have a heads up of your writing prowess. Keep in mind, we welcome writers of any ability and typically will not deny characters just for this section (unless it is under the sentence requirement).

Character Story

Character History (Minimum of 10 sentences required – proper grammar & punctuation required):

Jillian was born into a magical world from loving, talented parents. From the start, she had always been that cute bubbly girl who always wanted to make friends and play with others, however she would soon get involved into the world of arcane and learn the dark secrets that awaited her steps into the real world. There were evil creatures all around the world of Kelthytia which were answered with individuals who trained to become powerful wizards to fight them off with magical spells. Little did she know at first, Jillian would become one of those.

One day Jillian encountered her first school bully who tried to take advantage of her unconditional kindness, but she didn't like the feeling of being used and asked the bully to apologize. He refused, which made the girl feel pretty sad that someone wasn't being nice despite given a chance. Nearly in tears, she pointed at him and yelled "Why won't you say sorry!?" to which came everyone's surprise. A small wave of arcane energy spurted out and knocked the boy over. Jillian slinked to her knees wondering at what she had done. She never wanted to hurt the boy. He was fine of course, it was just a small bit of force, he got up and looked at her in horror and ran away. Jillian only wanted to be friends.

A nearby wizard who watched over the school grounds had taken notice and approached the girl sobbing to herself and calmed her down, and offered her a way to control her power. From there, she took wizard training alongside her regular schooling to gain a grasp on her inherit ability to use magic. After a few years of intense instruction, she managed to gain near-full control of magic from the heavens, Arcane Stars. She was even given a custom-tailored staff as a birthday gift from her wizard instructor Kologthem. It was near-full control, due to a training accident which occurred once demonstrated she had a bit of feral inside of her.

Jillian had a younger brother for which she was responsible for babysitting one day, except she had a field exercise that day and despite the threat of danger she had to bring him along. Kologthem assured her it would be fine, as he would be watching over and make sure nothing happened. What they didn't anticipate was an unnatural landslide caused by monsters. Her brother got trapped, and after a few minutes of not being able to reach him, Jillian became slowly more and more rage-induced. It wouldn't take her long to throw a temper tantrum, to which she gained an immense level of strength and lifted huge boulders with ease and uncovered him in seconds. It was from there on Jillian seemed to notice she had super strength, and could control how much power she could exert up to a certain point.

However, it wasn't long before a new breed of monsters started showing up. They were always in groups and attacked relentlessly. They seemed to be spirited yet mindless, some had funny symbols on them. They just attacked people, without much purpose. Not a while after the appearance of the new monsters was a strange visitor who wielded a weapon in the shape of a key, which seemed really odd. Jillian had all sorts of questions for the man, and surprisingly he answered them with finesse and knowledge. She wanted to be taken to where these creatures, she found were called "Heartless" came from. The man warned her of the place being a far off world called Traverse Town, which was a central location to where Heartless come from. She didn't care, she just wanted to go. She packed her things and left with the visitor.

Now she wants to learn as much as she can about the new Heartless so she can come back to her home world and continue protecting that which is dear to her...

Writing Portion

Sample Post (Required for first time character creators only - provide us with a fresh sample of your roleplay skills; we prefer new works written by yourself especially for this purpose – proper grammar & punctuation is required - a minimum of 10 sentences is required):

"I sure... hope he isn't late!" Jillian exclaimed. she was supposed to meet her new friend for a bit of a history lesson. There was a nice boy at the cafe that seemed to be interested in her appearance, and once she explained she was a magician he took more interest, and she offered to be friends and tell him about where she came from, and if he knew anything about heartless to share his info. He agreed, gave her a time and a place, and excused himself to get some work done in the mean time. It was five minutes past that time, and exactly at that place.

She looked around, hating to wait alone. It was starting to get dark and the area where this bench was wasn't the most busy at this time of day. Luckily, there was some lamp post nearby that turned on and shed some light nearby. However, that aggravated the nearby shadows... which suddenly popped up! A few shadow Heartless surrounded the poor girl, who jumped and readied her staff. "Oh no! Heartless! Get awaaaay!" She yelped. She wasn't the most fond of fighting. She hung out her left hand and readied her arcane energy to access her magic. "Jillian Beam!" she called, firing a majestic pink star beam at one of the heartless, and then turning to fire at another while vaporizing both of them.

The last Heartless sunk back into the ground and crawled around, and popped up in front of her where Jillian raised her staff and swung it straight down onto its head, then spinning completely around and batting it away causing it to puff back into darkness. The heartless were defeated! "Bravo, I see you're pretty capable. What did you say your name was?" a nearby boy with strange yellow and purple eyes asked. "Oh... It's you! I'm Jillian!" She said.

Kingdom Hearts

Please Answer the following questions using the answer provided; apply the answer to the character you are creating.

1. Which form will you choose?
The power of the mystic

2. What is most important to you?
Friendship

3. What do you want out of life?
To broaden my horizons

4. What are you afraid of?
Being different

As for the end of that, consider the Kingdom Hearts questions a little flare =) However they are mandatory for profile approval so don't think you can just ignore them.

And that's it! To see the whole profile, just follow -this link-.

Hopefully this guide was of use to you and answered all the questions you may have had about making your first character here at KHRPF. Of course, if you have any additional questions, don't be afraid to make a post in the Roleplay Helper section or PM one of the staff here!

Happy Posting!