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Now that you know how your character acts and reacts, maybe even the way they think, it's time to construct their history! This section, also sometimes called the "Bio", short for "Biography", is meant to contain any important events which happened in the character's past.

Kara's history isn't exactly a good example of that, however, since I tried to sever all the bonds I could between her and any world other than the tutorial world, and roleplays never do take place in the tutorial world (to my knowledge; if you've already witnessed a roleplay taking place in there, please tell me; I'd like to see the log). Unfortunately, that means that this tutorial will not feature a leading example...

When writing history, you might need to review personality and fit either to the other to make everything fit together; you wouldn't want to write all of your character's history without even realizing that several bits didn't fit with the personality, right?

Remember that any of the main history categories may be skipped if nothing relevant to the character happens in them. You don't really need to mention "nothing very important happened then" whenever nothing out of the ordinary happened at one point of the character's life.

HOWEVER. Your whole character's past may NOT be entirely "unknown". Though you think it may add mystery to your character, most people will actually just see this as an attempt to lazy out on the history because you can't think of anything. Same goes for "nothing much happened to him/her" histories; there's always something worth mentioning about a character. If not, why would you have created it? History is, in fact, the most complex part of the character, because it needs to be linear and has to be unique, but it's just as indispensable as every previous section. Get inspired before saying "unknown".

You may remember from the "Character Sheet Basics" tutorial what this section is about. Not only the character's past, it could also be its family's, its species', or its whole world's history that's explained in there. This obviously means the history section can begin before the character's birth. Did they come from a noble ancestry? Does their species have any sort of special history (did they try to take over all the others, were they persecuted...)? Does the world they come from have a special characteristic to it? Maybe your character is part of a prophecy which originates before it was even born (which would be kind of cliché'd and might be seen as a mary-sue history depending on the importance of the prophecy), or maybe something happened during gestation which created a defect in it before it was even born? It's up to you; the possibilities are literally endless, and this applies to the whole history.

Now, let's skip to when your character is born. Keep it relevant; it doesn't matter if your character was born here or there unless that fact actually changes something about it. For example, it may have been born in a random cave somewhere, but unless it was affected by it somehow (which is unlikely if that's all that happened), it's not relevant. It's rather rare to see a history section that mentions something other about the character's birth than the parents and their social situation, though.

Moving on to your character's childhood: how was it raised? This is very important; this should go along with its personality, since the way it was raised explains many things about the way it acts. This part of history can hardly be skipped, unlike most others, since it explains the fundamental personality of your character. Remember the three E's when writing about the character's childhood: Environment, Entourage, Education.

Firstly, environment. This is where they spent their childhood. Were they raised on a farm, or did they grow up in a castle? These two environments will result in two extremely different characters; a prince will rarely know how to raise farm animals, for example, whereas a farmer would be unable to know the manners required when eating at the king's table.

The next E is the character's entourage. This is who the character spent their childhood with. This will most likely feature the character's parents or parental figures. Someone raised by controlling parents would most likely be used to being controlled and is likely to submit to anyone who shows any sign of dominance over them, a spoiled child will be used to getting everything it wants and will complain when someone tries to oppose them... I'm sure you can figure that sort of thing out by yourself. The entourage also includes any friends they grew up with, if any, as well as the influence they had on the character (if any...). If the character grew up entirely alone, this should definitely be mentioned and should definitely have a huge effect on the character's personality; children raised by themselves are definitely not a thing one sees every day, and are very unique in manners and habits.

Lastly, the character's education. This is usually the least important of the three E's, since most of the character's education may often be implied in its environment and entourage. However, if something that doesn't fit in either wasn't mentioned, it should find itself here. If your character was taught a certain subject which hardly anyone knows, but which they can use (like magic, for a very generic example), this should also be mentioned here, along with how they learned it.

Do note that the three E's of a character's childhood may appear in any order you like.

Somewhere in history by now, you should have included a turning point. A turning point is something which changes the character's life in order to make it a polyvalent character, usually by allowing it to separate from everyone it knew and/or giving it a goal. It may be as insignificant as just moving to another city away from everyone it knew, or as major as the death of its parents or the capture of its girl/boyfriend. The turning point is commonly the start of your character's adventure, whether it is the adventure of adapting to an environment unknown to it, or the adventure of rescuing, avenging, finding or stopping someone, or any other kind of adventure, big or small. This part may be skipped if your character is still a child, but certain child characters do feature a turning point. In the event that your character's turning point happened during its childhood, this will likely affect the character's personality considerably.

Do note that not every character will feature a turning point in its history; the character's situation may have been stable all along its life, it may not have had any need for adventure beforehand, or it might just appreciate having a routine, and that's alright. HOWEVER! Roleplaying a routine is boring, since it doesn't construct anything; in every roleplay you begin with a character that has no turning point, you'll have to make the character break from its life up until now somehow before the roleplay truly starts, make a turning point specific to the roleplay.

The last part of history is the events that happened after the character's "growing-up" period and after the turning point. If it obtained an important skill, item or personality facet only after a specific event after the beginning of their adventure, this should be mentioned. HOWEVER! Each time something important happens, your character should learn something from it. These events shouldn't just be like arcs in mangas and anime, or like cartoon episodes, able to stand alone; they should have a certain level of interdependence, meaning that if one is taken away, the other events before and after it might not flow so well together.

You should remember that including too much in your character's history might just be tiresome to read, and that making your character too important in its own world (with several prophecies, noble ancestries, important events and such) might drive people away from it, since a character with that much history content would make a regular character pale and insignificant in front of it, or the character might be considered a mary-sue. What I mean to say is, there's a fine line separating acceptably-furnished histories and histories that are too full. Characters on that line (and there are many) will make about as many people think it's acceptable as it will make people think it's not. Don't take the risk; include a good amount of events in your character sheet, and describe them in a few sentences each; this will let your character seem full enough, all the while most likely not going overboard.

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History varies hugely from one character to the other. It defines about as many things about the character as it explains; a good part of history will in fact only serve to explain how the character came to have the personality it has, and another will explain how it came to obtain all the skills and items it has. Once again, you should use your judgement when writing something about your character's history; if you have to think twice about mentioning this or that detail about them, then it just might be better left out.

Be creative! Your character's history is the most customizable part of its sheet; invent away!