Forgotten Realms Wiki:Help-Writing an article about a person

The term "person" is used quite loosely to mean any distinct inhabitant of the Realms. An article about a person could be about human, or a dwarf, or even a dragon. Note that if your article about a species or race, you should see Help:Writing an article about a creature. You should begin the article by using the Person template. Visit that template page, and copy the text from the usage box. You can just paste this at the beginning of your article and fill in the blanks. The template automatically knows only to display the information that you fill in, so if you leave any of the fields blank, they will just not be displayed. See the example template for Liriel Baenre on this page. You might also want to refer to the policy on citing sources to provide references for the statements in your article.

Sections
There are no hard-and-fast rules on what sections should and should not exist within an article, although there is some logic to the convention that has built up with the creation of many articles about people. You might consider using, but are not forced to use, the following sections in your article:
 * Description: A physical description of the person. In some cases, it might be useful to provide clothing information here, but armor is generally better in the "possessions" section (see below). If you choose to use an "Appearances" section (see below) to note which novels contain this person, you might want to use "Physical description" for this heading instead.
 * Possessions : Magic items, weapons, armor and significant or noteworthy equipment or jewellery.
 * Relationships: The person's family. This might include simple relationships such as mother, father and children, but can also include brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, spouses, partners or any other family relationships that are significant. Friends, comrades, colleagues or similar relationships are better presented in an "Associates" heading.
 * History: The person's history, life story, details of their past or circumstances. This is often split into multiple sections because it can get quite long, and different periods or significant dates are better presented under their own headings.
 * Appearances : The novels in which the person plays a role. The person need only be mentioned in the novel and does not need to be a main or important character. If you are using the "Appearance" heading (see above) for this person's physical description, you might want to use "Novel appearances" here to avoid confusion.

Categorization
Although the following list is not exhaustive, generally an article about a person should be categorized according to:

Race
The race or species of the person. This might be something simple like Category:Humans or could be more specific, such as Category:Shield dwarves. For half-breeds, if there is already an establish half-breed race, use that category, for example Category:Half-elves. In the case of an unusual half-breed, it might be necessary to use two categories, so for a half-dragon, half-ogre, you might want to use both Category:Dragons and Category:Ogres. This is because it would not be worth creating a category for this specific half-breed, due to its rarity.

Occupation
The job or role that the person plays in society. This is not the class of the person, so using Category:Barbarians for this would not be necessary. The person might be a fisherman, merchant or king, which would all be examples of occupations that could be categorized. Because there are so many different terms for the same job, it is recommended you look in Category:Inhabitants by occupation to find an existing category if possible.

Membership
Membership of an organization should be categorized. This is so that the reader can quickly see all the known members of a particular organization. These categories will typically begin with "Members of". It is quite possible for there to be some duality between membership and occupation. For example, a person might be in Category:Guards and Category:Members of the Purple Dragons.

Religion
This is very obvious for clerics, because a cleric of Lathander must be a worshiper of Lathander. For other people, although it is not often known, it is sometimes useful to list deities where possible. These categories will typically begin with "Worshipers of". Note that this uses the American spelling of the word. It is quite possible for one person to be in many religion categories, since it is quite possible that a person will worship more than one deity simlutaneously.

Home
Be as specific as possible with this categorization, although this is not always straightforward. These categories will typically begin with "Inhabitants of". For example, if you know that a person lives in Suzail, use Category:Inhabitants of Suzail. There is no need to put the person in Category:Inhabitants of Cormyr, unless you could only be as specific as this. There is no need to be more specific that the town or city level. For example, if you knew that someone lived in the docks ward of a particular city, just categorize them under that city, not the specific ward. If a person has previously lived in different places, add those as categories too, but if a person is nomadic in nature, it is probably not appropriate to add them to any habitation categories.

Alignment
Quite simply a categorization of a person by their alignment. Be sure to include them all if that person has gone through changes in their personal alignment. For example Bren Tallsword should be added to Category:Inhabitants of lawful neutral alignment as he is of lawful neutral alignment. All of these categories also begin with "Inhabitants of"; they end with one of the nine possible character alignments.

Class and level
Add the person to their class-specific category and to their class-and-level category. For example, Bobby is a level 4 fighter. Add the Bobby article to Category:Fighters and Category:4th level fighters. This is to ensure that readers can find Bobby if they are looking for a fighter of 4th level, or even if they are just looking for a fighter, and Bobby's level is of no consequence. Levels of NPC classes (commoner, expert, warrior i.e.) are to be added before the base class and levels of prestige classes (Mystic Theurge, Dwarven Defender, etc.) are to be added after.

Articles about more than one person
Although articles are usually about a single person, it is sometimes more appropriate to use a single article for more than one person. This should not be a group of people, because a person can be mentioned in a group article while also having their own article. It is more useful for articles such as twins who have only a brief mention and have very little information separating them. You should consider whether, by having more than one article, the articles would be a copy of one another in all but title. If this is the case, it is worth using a single article. If there is any differing information beyond this, it is probably worth using one article per person.

Examples:
 * Haddenbils is an example of a single article about more than one person.
 * Iraun and Srivven are very similar, but sufficiently different that it makes two separate articles worthwhile.
 * Arno and Julian is an example of an article that appears to be about more than one person, but on closer inspection, it is about one creature with two heads, each of which having a different name!