Character Creation Guidelines

Pseudo-Supernatural, and What on Earth that Means.

Entroido Vermello is a real-life setting site, with a supernatural twist. And a bit of an extra twist on that twist. Are you still with me? Good.

What we mean by pseudo-supernatural is that we are not your typical vampire and werewolf site. Frankly, we feel this would be old hat, so we'd like to encourage some originality, creativity and diversity. The easiest way to describe the characters of Entroido Vermello would be to call them Normal Humans in Abnormal Circumstances. Save for a select few old supernatural standards -which you'll find only on our canon list- all of our characters are mostly human. We'd love you to get inventive with your ideas for this, and if you have any questions or concerns about what you might or might not be able to get past our application process, you can always contact one of our members of staff, or ask me directly in PM or the chat box.

To help you out in deciding what sorts of characters we're looking for, you can take a look at our list of suggested scenarios below.

Normal Humans in Abnormal Circumstances.
Remember, these are just suggestions to get the cogwheels going. If you have an idea of your own, roll with it!

Occult Dealings, Talents and Mishaps: Magic, dark or light, can play a prominent role in the carnival. Perhaps your character has a special talent gained through ritual, or a terrible flaw gained through some occult mishap. What we don't want to see, however, is people carrying wands and/or shooting fireballs, etc. Keep it subtle. It needs to be something they can hide... If they value their hide. The Ringmaster will not tolerate carnival members flaunting their powers outside of carnival or circus shows. Spectacles should be saved for the advertised spectacles, basically.

Infernal What-Nots and Devilish Deals: We will not approve demons on Entroido Vermello unless for some reason -like temporary staff insanity- they show up on the canon list one day. However, we will approve characters who have had dealings or disasters with them. Perhaps they signed a deal for some sort of perk, or perhaps they double-crossed the wrong minion of the underworld. Like the occultists, they should keep whatever powers they gained to themselves, of course, unless it's behind closed doors or a part of the show. Feel free to be as inventive as you like with your mishaps or curses, just keep it subtle. They must be able to pass for 'normal' when required.

Sixth Senses and Things you Can't Unsee: Full-blown psychic positions on Entroide Vermello are canon positions, but there are other special talents or predicaments that could be incorporated into a character within reason. The Carnival's main psychic doesn't appreciate others muscling in on his territory, but this wouldn't exclude those who have special friends of the deceased kind, of course. Mediums, those who speak to the dead or see the dead, or those with tagalong friends who are no longer alive are acceptable. Be creative though. We'd love to see something more inventive than a fellow and his friendly ghost. Perhaps your character has some other related ability. Perhaps they read auras, or perhaps they can see the dead that follow others.

Imagination is the Limit: Think outside the box. As long as your character is mostly human, anything goes. Shoot us some ideas and we'll tell you what we think! We'd love to hear your thoughts and what strange circumstances you can come up with for your characters. Oh, and don't forget, most importantly, your character doesn't have to have a strange circumstance at all, because it's almost guaranteed that a strange circumstance will find them in the carnival anyway! It may be just as fun to start out with a virgin, as it were, and open their eyes to the world of the strange.

Beware the Dreaded Sue!

When thinking about making your character and what their circumstances might be, we have to warn you now to beware the dreaded Sue trap. We refer of course to the dreaded Mary-Sue. A Mary-Sue character in this sort of setting might be a character that has fantastic powers with no flaws. They might have powers that are disproportionate to the powers of others in a drastic way perhaps. They might be good at absolutely everything they have ever done or will do. They might have a cripplingly tragic history that doesn't seem to affect their day to day life now. They might never lose in a fight or a competition. If you're not familiar with the archetype of a Mary-Sue, we highly recommend that you do some research in order not to fall into this trap. We must add the disclaimer, of course, that not all tragic or talented characters are Mary-Sues. A well rounded and well thought out character may have some of these traits and still be acceptable on the site. There are a number of well known literary characters, even from classics, that would be considered Mary-Sues by today's rigorous RP standards, but because they are well developed and plausible, they have become... well, classics. (We enthuse the point that we do not Consider Bella Swan and Edward Cullen to be amongst these...) In short, we encourage you to put time, thought and effort into your character creation. We'd love to see real character development as plots go on, and we hate characters that can't or won't change despite changing circumstances. We love engaging backstories and detail. So have fun with the creation! Take your time with it! Make a show-stopper!

What's in a Name?

We would like for you to register your characters with their first and last name. Please remember that their birth name must be plausible for the place and time in which they lived, or else we'll ask you to explain it in painfully exacting detail, and you'll get very bored of us very quickly. We do not want to see names like "Lithium Vixen Suicide" or other such Scene Kid nonsense. Keep it realistic, and if possible, easy for someone who is not you to actually read and pronounce correctly. I love ethnic names as much as the next person, but it gets old having to explain how to pronounce them to every new person you meet.

It is perfectly acceptable for your performer to have a nickname. Many performers in circuses and sideshows do have stage names. Please don't register them as such though. There will be room on the application to include a stage name if needed, and you may incorporate it into your signatures if you like. But for ease of filing, all accounts should be Firstname Lastname.

To Canon, or Not to Canon.

We have two separate positions lists on Entroido Vermello. Our Non-Canon positions are just as you'd expect. They are simply open employment positions within the carnival, into which you can place your own handcrafted characters, who fall within the above character creation guidelines, or have been approved after chatting to a staff member if they're different from the above. Our canon characters are characters that either hold positions of power, have markedly different abilities, aren't entirely human, or are any combination of the aforementioned. The reason we have some of these positions as canon is to limit the number of overtly supernatural creatures we have on the site. Canon character applications are subject to deeper scrutiny than non-canons. But we don't want to discourage you from picking one of them to play! For more information, just check out the canon list, and see what we have up for grabs!