Character Creation - An In-Depth Guide

If you're new to World Anvil and/or character creation in D&D, this guide will walk you through the process. This guide assumes you have made decisions regarding your backstory and class.

Creating a Character Profile

1. Create a free WorldAnvil account. You do not need to have a paid WorldAnvil account for the purposes of participating in The Longest Year. When doing so, select the option that you're interested in
2. Upon account creation, you may be prompted to create a character. If you are, do so. If you are not, navigate to the "Home" tab, select "Your RPG Characters" from the top ribbon and on the right hand of the screen click "Create a New Character".
3. Fill out the initial information for your character (Name, starting description, picture). If you do not have a picture already, there are two methods that we recommend for finding character art. Firstly, you can search for an image on Pinterest. This will be a lot more successful than if you do so on Google Images. Secondly, you can create a custom miniature using the service Hero Forge and screenshot it to serve as your character art.
4. For the Choose RPG System dropdown box, select “Dungeons & Dragons 5e”.
5. Click "Save Changes". You will now have a character profile created.

Items in the Character Profile:

• Stream: This is where you can share posts for your characters. There are five types:
• Thought/Idea: For generic posts (What is your character feeling like right now?)
• Achievement/Life Event: For milestones (What has your character done to be proud of?)
• Quote: For quoting yourself (or others) (What has been said that was memorable?)
• Artwork/Image: For posting images (What have you drawn/seen recently that’s been cool?)
• Out of Character: For saying things out of character (What comments do you, the player, have?)

You can also access Journal Writing from this area (which we will go over later).

• About: This shows your character information.
• Sheet: This is where you will add a sheet for your character (which we will guide you through soon). This is also where sheets for any companions or mounts you may get will be located.
• Equipment: This is where all of the stuff your character is carrying is stored.
• Scrapbook: This is for note-taking. The scrapbook automatically saves as you go. If you want to remember the name of that one blacksmith you always forget, write it here!
• Gallery: This will collect any profile picture you add for your character.
• Journal: This is where you can write journals. We highly recommend that you write journals after sessions. You don’t need to ham them up, but they’re incredibly important for this type of campaign.
• History: This is a timeline of the things that have happened to your character.
• Followers: This shows the followers of your character.

As an example of what a character profile could look like, check this example character: Mister Example
Next, we will look at conceptualizing your character.

Creating a Character Concept

This is the most important part of the character creation process. We have an entire article about figuring that out! How to Create a Character Concept Click this to read it. if you're not new to D&D, you can most likely skip it. Before you continue, you need a class, a subclass, a race and a position. Positions are specific to this setting, and they replace backgrounds. Read about them here: Positions
We will now guide you through adding non-mechanical information such as your personality and looks to your character profile.

1. Click the Edit button on the left-hand side of the screen.
2. In your basic profile:
   • The current date is "21st Day of Month 3048"
   • For "Current Location in The Longest Year", type and select "Hunter's Keep, Srennaia Rim".
   • You will most likely have no Honorific (at this point, anyway).
   • Leave "Current Character Sheet" alone. We will not be using a World Anvil integrated character sheet.
3. In your extended profile, there are a lot of fields. Don’t be compelled to fill everything out, though you’re more than welcome to. Fill out as many fields as you feel would be useful for your character fleshing out process. I will not go through them one by one in this guide.
   • Write down your age in months. To get what your age would be in months, take your age in years and multiply it by twelve.
4. Click "Save Changes", and then click "Go to Character Profile" to get back to your profile.

Next, we will look at creating a character sheet for your character.

Creating the Sheet for Your Character

Your character sheet is where you track all of your character's stats and abilities. Learn to love it! Your character sheet will be held in the campaign's Google Drive. Only you will have access to it.

1. Navigate to your Google Drive folder and open "Beta Sheet v2.1 v0.1".
2. The sheet works as follows: You enter names, words, skills, etc. on the v2.1 sheet, and you enter anything that ends up as a value on the Data Input sheet. If something tells you not to edit it, don't edit it. If a cell has a formula, don't overwrite it.
3. On the v2.1 sheet, write your name, your character name, your class along with your level in said class, and race into the labelled boxes near the top.
4. On the Data Input sheet:
   • Under "Ability Scores", add the stats you've generated using point buy to the "Raw Score" column. Point Buy Calculator With point buy, you have a number of points that you can spend to increase your stats above 8. Ignore the "Select Race" box on this website and just use it to generate the raw scores.
   • In the "Racial Bonus" column, add the bonuses from your race, whether you're using fixed racial stat increases or movable ones.
   • Under “Saving Throws", add a "Y" in for saving throws your class is proficient in.
   • Under "Skills" add a "Y" for every skill that you're proficient in. If you have expertise in a skill, add an "E" instead. If you're a Bard and have Jack of All Trades, add a "Y" in the corresponding box. Leave the Misc. column alone for now.
   • Initiative will auto-fill with your Dexterity modifier. If you have any miscellaneous bonuses, add them in the Misc. Bonus column.
   • Passive Perception will auto-fill with your Perception modifier. If you have any miscellaneous bonuses, add them in the Misc. Bonus column.
   • Under "Speed" add your racial speed in the first column and any other speed to the second column.
   • Under "Armor Class (AC)", add the AC given by your armor in the first column, the AC given by your shield in the second column, and any miscellaneous bonuses in the third column.
   • For each level in a class that you get, add that level's corresponding hit dice into a box in the "Hit Dice" table. For example, if you have 4 levels of Barbarians, 4 boxes should have "d12" in them. If you have 3 levels of Paladin and 1 level of Warlock, 3 boxes should have "d10" in them and one box should have "d8" in it. Add your level 1 hit dice in the top left box.
   • Every time you get an experience reward, enter it into one of the boxes in the "Experience" table. This will add it and calculate your level automatically in order to avoid addition errors.
5. Back on the "v2.1" sheet, you can add the following things:
   • Personality Traits, Bonds, Ideals, and Flaws. use these if you so desire.
   • Position. Select your position from the dropdown (speak to Hex if your position isn't there).
   • Alignment. use this if you so desire.
   • Current Hit Points, Temporary Hit Points and Condition. Update these as you gain/lose these things in combat.
   • Death Saves. Use these as you're teetering on the precipice of life and death.
   • Inspiration. Add a "1" to this box if you have inspiration.
   • Comfort Level. This number refers to your current comfort level. Update it as you lose comfort over the course of an adventure. Remember to use your comfort dice!
   • Proficiencies. Add any proficiencies such as armor, tools, weapons, or vehicles into this box.
   • Attacks & Notes. Add any attacks you want to have on hand in these boxes.
   • Languages. Add any languages you know in these boxes.
   • Equipped Items. Add any items you have equipped in this box.
   • Features & Traits. I've organized it by Class, Subclass and Racial/Misc, but organize it however you see fit. To add more info to things in this area, my preferred way is to add notes to boxes.
6. If you haven't already, make sure you've added every proficiency and ability granted by your race.
7. If you are a spellcaster, do the following:
   • Scroll down to the next section and choose your spellcasting class from the top-left-hand side dropdown.
   • If you have bonuses to add to your Spell Save DC or your Spell Attack Bonus, add them in the respective tables on the Data Input sheet.
   • Add the maximum slots for your level to the "Max" box, and use the "Slots" box to track how many spell slots of each level you currently have. The number on the far edge is the level of the slot for that section. You can add your spells on the different lines. By toggling the dot next to each entry by typing a "1" or a "c" into the cell, you can change the spells between being unprepared to prepared, if that matters for your class (I tend to just do it for all my spells if I'm not playing wizard, though, because it makes them a normal opacity). You can add spell descriptions by inserting a note onto the cells. I also tend to put the casting time, whether it's a ritual or not and whether it's concentration or not next to the spell name but you do what works for you.
8. If, at this stage in your character creation, you are proficient with less than three skills (the minimum you could have is two), choose an additional skill proficiency to bring your skill total up to 3.
9. Starting Equipment will be stored in the World Anvil. You will start with the amount of gold written for your position. Beyond that, you can start with one piece of equipment called an heirloom item. The restrictions on this item are that a) it cannot be magical, and b) it cannot be sold. For example, it could be a family sword, some chain mail worn by your father, or a sweater knitted by your grandmother. Note that the item can't have a value more than 100gp (such as plate armor).
10. Choose a theme song for your character. This can be anything, but it needs to evoke who your character is. It must be a serious choice and not a meme song. Store this somewhere on your World Anvil character bio.
11. Once you're at this step, send us a message in your DM hotline. We'll send you a link, and if you click it while logged into your World Anvil account, your character will be added to The Longest Year.

If you've done all of this successfully, then congratulations! You've made your character!