Approver's Guide to a Less Painful Approval

This is a guide on how to make a character form that will get approved more easily and hopefully with less stress. This is written by an approver, with what an approver actually looks for in the form.



Name: Okay, so, this part is fairly easy. However, if you have any trouble with it, I recommend using a name generator. [No celebrity names or canon character names though, eg Angelina Jolie or James Bond.]

Gender: Male, female, trans-gendered, genderfluid. This doesn't need a great description.

Age: Below 19, above 4. Make it something you’re comfortable with.

Eyes: Natural colors only, please. They can wear contacts that change the color, though.

Hair: Natural colors, unless he/she/xir colors their hair.

Height: Keep it fairly in line with what’s natural for their age. If the character is 11, they shouldn’t be 6’0”.

Body Type: Endomorph, exomorph, mesomorph. Burly, skinny, lanky, muscular. Doesn’t have to be a big entry, but give us a little bit to work with.

Mortal Parent: THINK ABOUT THIS ONE. Think about who he/she is and why he/she attracted the god that he/she attracted. Their personality should have something appealing to the deity they attracted.

God Parent: Okay, this one is also very important. You want the god/goddess to fit the personality of your character, don’t pick one just because the powers he/she can do sound cool. Especially since the coolest powers are going to be the hardest to pass.

Country of Origin: This is self-explanatory. You can also go into further detail if you want to.

Pets: Cats, dogs, snakes, rats, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, ferrets, etc. are fine. Anything you can get without needing to have a license. Things that are considered exotic: Owls, wolves, any mythological creatures.

Talents: Okay, so what we’re talking about here has nothing to do with your god-parent. Well, maybe something to do with your god-parent. We are talking about things that are not supernaturally aided by your god parent, but might have something to do with your personality.

These are non-supernatural things that your character are naturally good at. This means things like singing, or fighting, or crocheting. Things that go easily and they don’t have to work much at. It could also be things like talking to people.

This site HERE can help with some things if you’re short on ideas. Or just googling “character talents”.

Because no developed character has zero talents.

You can list these either in bullet format, or in descriptive phrases.

Example 1 - Bullet format:
* Skiing
* Making jokes
* Listening to people
* Basic first aid

Example 2 - Descriptive phrases:

Joe Scmuckatelli has always found making jokes really easy, as well as listening to people. He doesn’t have to try hard to be friendly and approachable with those two things. He also has a knack for skiing and basic first aid.

Weapon**:

Greeks: This really depends on your god-parent, but you can’t go wrong with a xiphos or a kopis. The xiphos is the smaller of the two swords, and is the same type of sword that Percy Jackson uses. A kopis is a little larger, and better for larger characters. You can also go with spears, or daggers, bows and arrows, and other such things.  These need to be made from Celestial Bronze.

Hunters: SIlver bows and arrorws and daggers tend to be the weapons of choice, however, you don’t have to be constrained by it.

Romans: ROMANS! Lend me your ears! No, seriously, best method is to go with the standards for Romans. Gladius, a two foot long short sword best for stabbing. A pugio is a 7-10 inch long dagger. Hasta and Pila are spears. Bow and arrows are fine for children of Apollo. Spathas are calvary swords(but cavalry is for dirty dirty Graecii). Other options are available, but you can’t go wrong with these. Also keep in mind Camp Jupiter is a Roman camp that values order, standard equipment, and discipline.

You MAY have them change form in order to hide the weapon from mortals. Keep these reasonable.

Personality:

Okay, here we get down to the nitty-gritty. What we want for personality is so that any person who reads your character’s form will have a good idea how your character will react to something. So we can know what they personality of the character is, in case we want our characters to have been established friends with the character, or we want to make friends with the character(Or enemies. Enemies are good too.) Also a good place to mention sexuality.

So “Joe Schmuckatelli is very nice. He is fun. He likes to read. He gets mean when he is angry.” does fit the minimum criteria for a personality, but it doesn’t really tell us anything. A lot of people think they are nice. A lot of people think they are fun(despite your definition of fun and my definition of fun and a third person’s definition of fun all being very much different.) And a lot of people get mean when they are angry.

Instead, try to answer some of these questions: What do they like to do? What do they do when they’re faced with conflict? What are they afraid of? What do they do when they are afraid? What do they love? How do they react to other people? Are they introverted or extroverted? Are they loud or quiet? Are they secure in their talents or insecure? Do they have any biases? How do they react to their half-siblings, or fellow hunters, or cohort mates? How do they feel about their parents? What is their life goal?

Also use your talents and flaws to incorporate into the personality. Use descriptive personality traits.
This site HERE has a helpful list of descriptive terms. Please remember, you do not want a personality with no negative traits, that’s boring. And also you need at least three flaws to be approved, which mostly lies in personality. Although you don’t have to use those words exactly in the personality descriptions.

Example:
Joe Schmuckatelli is a very approachable and laid-back guy, who likes to help people and listen to them. He loves to get out into the sun and play, but he also likes cold-weather and snow, which is how he found his love and talent for skiing. The young man likes to play around quite a bit and make jokes, but sometimes he can be really insensitive or tactless about his jokes and he’ll end up offending people.

Joe is a bit of a clutz, and has managed to hurt himself more times than he’s willing to admit. He learned basic first aid as a result, and now he likes to help people when they get hurt too. Maybe one day he’ll grow up to be a paramedic or a doctor. He’s not really sure what he wants to do with his future yet, he is after all only 14, he has plenty of time to choose.

A son of Apollo, Joe doesn’t really mind any of his fellow campers, but he really doesn’t like the Roman camp, because they’re all so militaristic and disciplined. Joe likes to let loose and be himself, and he thinks the Romans are stuck up and need to relax. Of course, some times he relaxes too much and doesn’t get what he needs to get done accomplished. But that can always wait for another day, right?


Flaws:

Okay. Flaws. Flaws are a big thing. Still got that link with character traits? Go down to the bottom and look at negative character traits. Now let’s look at Joe’s personality. He can be insensitive or tactless. That’s one. He dislikes the Romans. That’s not really as much of one as it is a weakness. He relaxes too much and doesn’t get things accomplished, you can make that lazy, but as the last sentence comments about waiting for another day, you can also say he’s a procrastinaor.

So, we have our three flaws.

Example:
* Procrastinator
* Lazy
* Insensitive

Abilities & Powers

Before I actually get into the nitty gritty of abilities and powers, let’s just make a few statements here.

90% of your roleplaying will have nothing to do with your powers. It will have to do with personality. Spend more time on that than on powers and abilities. Your writing and enjoyment will improve if you do.

Also, powers and abilities. Yeah, they help you, but you should also keep in mind that they can be made to also increase conflict in your writing and shouldn’t be infallible. In fact, if you add a fault to your powers or abilities, they’re much more likely to get approved(as long as they are related to your godparent. Google is your friend.)

Abilities (must relate to god parent; optional):

Abilities are supernatural abilities related to the god parent that do not take any energy to use. They are, essentially, passive powers. Think of them as being always on in the background.

Examples of this are: Percy Jackson being able to breathe underwater or talk to Pegasi. Piper McClean being able to speak French. A child of Veritas being unable to lie. A child of Cupid being able to tell who is in love.

Powers (must relate to god parent; optional):

Powers take energy. Let me state that again. Powers take energy. They drain people, and they make them tired. These are the things that were described in the books as having that feeling right below the navel. Because they take energy, we require limits and cooldowns. And because time is hard to tell in roleplaying games, we break the fourth wall and set powers limits and cooldowns based on how many number of posts you have made.

So, let’s talk about limits. Limits can involve things like how far the power is good for, or how many posts it can be held, and how powerful it is. Powers involving the mind can be resisted, so you need to think about how something is resisted if you’re going for a mind power.

Cool downs are a little funny. The more powerful the power, the longer the cooldown. However, if you have something that you can use a little of or a lot of, you can have a fluctuating cooldown. So like if you can pull up 5 undead warriors, but you only pull up 1, you have less time to cool down because it doesn’t take as much energy.

Example - Healing:

Joe Schmuckatelli can heal basic traumas like lacerations up to 5 inches long and 2 inches deep. It takes him only one post to do so, but he can only do it once every 5 posts.

Example - Water:

Joe Schmuckatelli can control 100 gallons of water in a tidal wave, up to 100 feet around him, for up to 3 posts, but he requires a cooldown of 1 post for every 10 gallons of water controlled, with a minimum of a 3 post cooldown.

Example - Love:

Joe Schmuckatelli can make people fall into puppy love, or infatuation with someone. He can only do it if he’s within 10  feet of both people, and it only lasts for 3 posts. He can only do this once a thread. It can be resisted by children of Aphrodite/Venus, or children of Cupid. It doesn’t work if someone is already in a relationship or it is against their sexuality.

Example of powers that can backfire:

Joe Schmuckatelli can call up one undead warrior to fight for him, this lasts for 5 posts, and the undead warrior can be killed with 2-3 strong blows. He can only do this once a thread. The undead warrior is not under Joe’s complete control, and if he raises the wrong warrior, there is a possibility that the warrior will not follow his commands, or could even be encouraged to attack him. This power has to be used with care.


Life Before Camp*:

Let’s talk about life before camp. Why is this important? Because it’s how your character was shaped to have the personality they have when they get to camp. Every memory they have affects how their personality was shaped. If they hate spiders, did something happen to them involving spiders? Are they withdrawn and not very approachable because they were hurt in the past? Do they love skiing because their mother took them up to their crazy Uncle George’s house up in the Adirondack mountains every Christmas?

You don’t just suddenly appear at camp and not relate back to your life before camp. Percy thought about his mother all the time. Annabeth talked about Luke and Thalia before camp, as well as her family. This is why the past is important.

So, constructing a past. Here are some things you can think of to write about: What your character’s mortal parent is like, what they do for a living, how they met their godly lover, how they reacted when your character was born. How your character interacted with their parent growing up. How they did in school. How they did outside of school, if they had any friends. How they got to camp. If they aren’t new to camp, you can also talk about how

Notes for Greeks:
* Satyrs bring demigods to Camp Half-Blood, which is on Long Island, in New York.

Notes for Romans:
* Roman demigods and legacies are found by Lupa's wolves, then taken to the Wolf House in California to Lupa for training before the demigod is sent to find the Caldecott Tunnel and Camp Jupiter alone as a method of determining if they have the ability to survive.

Notes for Hunters:
* The Hunters have to find your character and offer a chance to join. Then swear an oath to Artemis. No boys.

THINGS TO AVOID:
Having your character meet his/her god parent before they get to camp.(Flat out not allowed)
Having your character have a familial relationship with a book character.
Having your character have a celestial bronze/imperial gold weapon with no good reason
Having your character fight off hordes of monsters without any training without getting hurt and without weapons.
Having your character commit a bunch of crimes without having the police involved.
Having your character live on the streets, alone, without child services being notified or involved.*
Exceptions can include being from war torn countries, third world countries, or countries where large children homeless populations abound.


RP Example*:

This is so we see how you RP. If you have to edit a power and it is used in the RP, we will make you edit the RP as well. Also, if you use a power in the RP and it’s WAY beyond what we assume reasonable is, or the written limits of your powers, we will assume you are irresponsible.

Look HERE for prompts.

Notes: THIS IS ONLY FOR THE BASIC FORM, BECAUSE I’M LAZY AND HAVEN’T MADE A DETAILED FORM ONE YET