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This is a how-to style guide that attempts to demonstrate the easiest way of writing an article about an inhabitant. The term "person" is used quite loosely to mean any distinct inhabitant of the Forgotten Realms. An article about a person could be about a human, a dwarf, or even a dragon or a god. This can also be used for unnamed and generic characters, as well as named characters. Please note these are all non-player characters (NPC), and player-characters (PC) are usually homebrew, and not allowed on the wiki. If your article is about a species or a race, then you should see Help:Writing an article about a creature.
You might also want to refer to the policy on citing sources to provide references for the statements in your article.
Infobox[]
You should begin the article by using the {{Person}} template to create an infobox. Visit that template page, and copy the text from the usage box. Once you open the "edit source" option, you can just paste this at the beginning of your article and fill in the blanks. Don't worry about trying to fill in every entry, as not all entries will be necessary. 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. You may remove entries that won't be used to reduce the length, but save some that may be filled in by other uses at a later date. Do try to fill in as many as are applicable, particularly the character's name, species or race, home, and classes if they are known. The template page explains the purpose of each entry and how it may be used. See also the example Person template for Tessaril Winter on this page.
If writing an article about a deity or similar powerful or divine entity or concept, then use the {{Deity}} template, which has many more entries relevant to deities.
Introduction[]
Next, begin with a short introduction, to quickly tell the reader who the character is, what they are, and why they're important. As usual for wiki articles, begin with the name—or names—of the character in bold. For fun, you can treat this like a NPC's statblock or a PC's character sheet, with name, gender, race, class (alignment is typically too crunchy). You can follow with a mention of where they're from and what they do. For a particularly important character, or a very long article, you can also add a brief summary of other key aspects of the character: their personality, achievements, relationships with other important people, and other unique features.
For example:
- Tessaril Winter, formerly known as Tessar the Mage, was a female human fighter and wizard. Previously an adventurer, she became the lord of the town of Eveningstar in Cormyr. She was beloved as an easy-going and attentive ruler, who used her magic to keep the peace. She was good friends and a one-time lover of King Azoun IV, and notably had a tressym familiar.[1][2][5][4][3]
This is the common style evolved on the wiki, but you may feel a different arrangement is more effective. But please consider if it's really necessary first.
Citations should be placed here, as everywhere, especially those that give a good overview, first appearance, or main appearance of the character.
Sections[]
There are no hard-and-fast rules on what sections should or should not exist within an article about a person, although there is a logical convention that has built up on the wiki with the creation of many articles about people. You might use different section titles, but bear in mind some editors may change these as a matter of habit. You can also change the order of sections, particularly if some aspect of a character needs to be explained first before another aspect makes sense. History can often go first, to explain why a character is in the position they're in.
Sections are not essential either. A very short article about a minor character, such as Dualah, does not require sections. An article may look odd if it has only one line per section or has more sections than text.
Section headings[]
You might consider using, but are not forced to use, the following sections in your article:
==Description==
==Personality==
==Abilities==
==Possessions==
==Activities==
==Relationships==
==History==
==Reputation==
==Rumors and Legends==
==References==
{{refs}}
- Description
- A physical description of the person. In some cases, it might be useful to provide clothing information here, but armor is generally better placed in the "Possessions" section (see below). You might call this Appearance instead, but if you choose to use an "Appearances" section (see below) to note which novels or other sources contain this person, you might want to use Description' or Physical description for this heading instead.
- Personality
- The character's personality, views, preferences, even likes and dislikes. This is separate from the "Physical description" above.
- Abilities
- What the character can do that's a bit special. Skill at arms, magic, or thieving, or spells they know, or special powers they wield can all go here. However, if they're only a 6th-level fighter with nothing else remarkable, then this doesn't really bear mentioning.
- Possessions
- A list of magic items, weapons, armor, and significant or noteworthy equipment or jewelry owned by the character. This can also include property or land owned.
- Activities
- What the character does from day to day in general. This can include their job, duties for an organization, or a special project or plot of their own.
- Relationships
- The person's family, friends, and colleagues. This might include simple relationships such as mother, father, and children, but can also include brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, spouses, partners, or any other known family relationships. Friends, comrades, colleagues, or similar relationships can also be presented here. However, to distinguish them from family, these may be better presented in an Associates heading.
- Negative relationships such as rivals and enemies may also be described here. If all known relationships for this person are negative, then Enemies might be a more appropriate heading. If no specific individuals or groups can be named, then consider putting relevant info in the Reputation section.
- History
- The person's history, life story, details of their past or circumstances, and their exploits. This is often split into multiple sections because it can get quite long for very important characters, and different periods or significant dates in their lives are better presented under their own subheadings.
- Reputation
- If a character is well known, famous, or notorious, this can be discussed here. If much of this is in fact rumor or legend, this can go under Rumors & Legends.
- References
- Every article needs a References section to list all the citations used. They go at the bottom of the article.
Subsections[]
If a section gets very long or must focus on distinct topics, then subsections can be used to further arrange the article and break up a wall-of-text.
Appendix[]
A very involved article might have an appendix—a separate section containing out-of-universe discussion under different subheadings. Note that References also appears here as a subsection. If an appendix is used, then don’t use the lone References section above.
==Appendix==
===See Also===
*
===Notes===
<references group="note" />
===Appearances===
===Gallery===
===External Links===
===References===
{{refs}}
- See also
- A place to link to other, similar articles, or key topics of the article you wish to draw attention to.
- Notes
- A place to discuss errors, discrepancies, or controversies related to the article. You can also use Background to discuss the thinking behind or origins of the topic, such as how an author came up with a character or where the idea came from.
- Appearances
- List the novels, comics, and games in which the person plays a role, or sourcebooks in which they are especially important. Use subsections for different media (comic, game, novel, sourcebook, etc.), ranges and trilogy.
- Gallery
- A gallery of artwork illustrating the article, if it won't fit in the main article.
- External links
- A link to another wiki, if the subject of the article appears in another setting, or in a game.
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[]
You only need to add categories for the main class(es) to which a person belongs. For the example on this page, note that Tessaril Winter is both a wizard and a fighter with different levels for different editions, so you would add categories Category:Wizards and Category:Fighters only. The rest are edition-specific class and level categories automatically generated by the {{Class table}} (see the documentation for that template for a complete explanation). For the example, the parameters of the {{Person}} template that make this happen are:
| class2e = {{Class table|edition=2e|[[Wizard]]|12|[[Fighter]]|10}}
| class3e = {{Class table|edition=3e|[[Wizard]]|12|[[Fighter]]|6}}
If the article is about a deity, then the class table would be used in a similar fashion (see {{Deity}}).
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!
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ed Greenwood, Julia Martin, Jeff Grubb (1993). Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 2nd edition (revised), A Grand Tour of the Realms. (TSR, Inc), pp. 44, 49. ISBN 1-5607-6617-4.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Eric Haddock (1994). Cormyr. (TSR, Inc), p. 25–26. ISBN 1-56076-818-5.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ed Greenwood (1992). Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. (TSR, Inc), p. 7. ISBN 1-56076-325-6.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Ed Greenwood, Sean K. Reynolds, Skip Williams, Rob Heinsoo (June 2001). Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3rd edition. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 112–113. ISBN 0-7869-1836-5.
- ↑ Ed Greenwood (July 1995). Volo's Guide to Cormyr. Edited by Julia Martin. (TSR, Inc.), pp. 143, 144. ISBN 0-7869-0151-9.