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Description
For this process, the first thing I did was grab a setting and theme from a generator, generating 5 choices and picking the one I liked best.

Setting: high fantasy/post-apocalypse. Theme:redemption/reality-is-a-dream story

Having done that, I used the Plot Twist generator to grab me a twist for later use.

Suddenly a farmer arrives and begins locking the doors.

Next, I generated a bunch of names for places and people, and kept them on hand.
The Ethnicity generator gave me a description of the local colour, with a name taken from the list.

Esconian Empire
These people's fine, wavy hair is medium to dark brown and their eyes are generally brown or black. Their height ranges from 4'6" to 5'6" and their build tends to be plump. Their skin is pale gold, and they have angular faces.

I needed to narrow my setting, so I used the Stronghold Creator to get a description, with the leader and name taken from my handy name list.

Gage Castle, built of grey stone and set on a gentle rise, belongs to a learned baroness (Agnes Gage ). It contains a quantity of ancient tapestries and appears to be nearly deserted. It is approached by a wide cobbled road. Nearby is a populous farming settlement in which there is a flower-lined square. The holding is rich in goats.

Next, I generated a list of 10 character descriptions using the Detailed Character Generator and giving them names off of my list.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.

Dalirnis: This easygoing, crabby guardsmen has golden brown skin, grey eyes, and dark brown hair. He is fat, with a pudgy face. He is unmarried and lives alone.

Eossa: This loving, polite goldsmith has light skin, green eyes, and golden brown hair. She is wiry, with a round, cheerful face. She is a single parent.

Trixio: This loyal (to Agnes), manipulative tutor has light brown skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. She is fat, with a round, cheerful face. She is unmarried and lives alone.

Iato: This man is wiry, with nearly black skin and a bland, oval face. He has close-cropped, fleecy, black hair and blue-grey eyes. He is a shipwright who is cynical though quiet. He is married, with a single son, and is an only child.

Ivae: This woman is fat and reddish brown-skinned, with a small-featured, delicate face. She has long, rough, brown hair and blue eyes. She is a physician who is innocent by nature, though moody.

This was the point where I switched to using the Minimus process to flesh out the characters. I had to elaborate on the setting and decide some major events that fit in with the theme. To do this, I drew on ideas that I had for other settings and stories.

High fantasy: This is a world where magic has replaced technology, so tech level is middle ages. Use fantasy tropes ect.
Post-apocalyptic: A huge war has devastated the country. Ten years ago, Maria Hart, a young and spoiled princess, became Heiress to the nearby Kingdom of Paricor. After obtaining a diamond-studded collar from an unknown source, she shocked and horrified everyone by abruptly reversing the benign mandates that her uncle Par the Third had enacted, turning the Kingdom into a brutal dictatorship. After whipping her new domain into a patriotic frenzy, she declared war on every literally everyone else. Her armies are lead by 12 powerful entities, again obtained from an unknown source. They became known as Maria's Diamonds because each wears a collar like Maria's with a single diamond stud.
Reality-is-a-dream: this world is actually a MMORPG. At any point, a person in this world can become controlled by a game player who logs on and dictates the characters actions, going on adventures and completing quests. Since the world is persistent and continues when the players log out, it seems to the people of this virtual realm that people occasionally go insane for no reason and head off to kill monsters. They call this The Madness.
When a player "creates" a character for this game, really what they are doing is entering the criteria for the virtual person they want to control – sex, stats, class, skills ect – and then the game picks the best possible match and gives them control of that person.

I took the characters that I'd generated and gave them each 5 major life changing events, according to the Minimus model. One for Childhood, one for Adolescence, one for Adulthood, and then one related to each Theme.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.
Childhood: Born to a pair of adventurers, she lived on the road. Witnessed bloodshed very early.
Adolescence: Power of rune magic manifested. Parents begin teaching her.
Adulthood: Becomes victim of The Madness as soon as her training is complete. Leaves parents, joins adventuring group.
Theme: Discovered a strange artefact buried in a tomb while exploring the northern wildlands of Paricor. Turned it over as tax to the crown before setting off across the sea. Explored the Western Continent the entire time that the War of Maria's Collar devastated her homeland. The Madness ended when she returned, leaving her confused and exhausted. Unable to remember her past except piecemeal, she mistakenly concluded that she was a member of the nobility - she purchased a title from the Empire, bought estates far south, and settled down.
Theme: Has been a victim of The Madness for her entire adult life, played by a very dedicated RPer who only quit recently. Losing her motivating force has drained her of a lot of personality and her memory has suffered badly.

Dalirnis: This easygoing, crabby guardsmen has golden brown skin, grey eyes, and dark brown hair. He is fat, with a pudgy face. He is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Nearly starved to death while the city where he lived was under siege.
Adolescence: Forced to join militia by father for the free food/lodgings – family can't support.
Adulthood: Drafted into army. Fought in the War of Maria's Collar, returned to Esconia and landed an easy job as the Warden of Gage Castle.
Theme: Personally killed one of Maria's Diamonds, though from ambush, not one-as-one as the stories tell. The Diamond was in the form of a young girl – another fact omitted from legend and something that haunts him.
Theme: Became a victim of The Madness during the war, his actions were out of character controlled by his player. Fighter/Rogue, player dropped out after that particular campaign finished.

Eossa: This loving, polite goldsmith has light skin, green eyes, and golden brown hair. She is wiry, with a round, cheerful face. She is a single parent.
Childhood: Daughter of a merchant clan, she actually visited the capitol of Paricor before Maria became Heiress. She was dazzled by the immense wealth of the city, but also frightened by the squalor of the poorer districts.
Adolescense: Discovered a talent for crafting metal during a forbidden relationship with an apprentice jeweller.
Adulthood: Married a powerful wizard named Urornon, a transmuter she met through her families' merchant connections. Husband teaches her how to enchant her gold inlays, making her work immensely profitable. They have one child (a boy, Auki) before Uromon abruptly leaves.
Theme: Family clan scattered when home city sacked. Moved as far away from the frontline as possible, settled in Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Uromon fell victim to The Madness and left without a word. He eventually flipped sides and became one of Maria's Diamonds, now known as the Black Thaumaturge.

Trixio: This loyal (to Agnes), manipulative tutor has light brown skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. She is fat, with a round, cheerful face. She is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Bullied badly at boarding school for being fat and bookish.
Adolescense: School is used as a staging ground for a group of adventurers while they hunt down cultists. Falls under the wing of one of them, a forgetful but powerful sage called Sigil. Group abruptly leaves for another adventure.
Adulthood: Trained at the library/wizard's tower in capital before mounting search for Sigil.
Theme: Found Sigil, but she has lost many of her memories and is now called Agnes Gage.
Theme: Fell victim to The Madness once and ended up killing an entire Orc tribe and taking their treasury, but she can't remember why...

Iato: This man is wiry, with nearly black skin and a bland, oval face. He has close-cropped, fleecy, black hair and blue-grey eyes. He is a shipwright who is cynical though quiet. He is married, with a single son, and is an only child.
Childhood: Father never at home – fisherman. Learned sea and boat craft.
Adolescense: Father lost at sea. Joins privateer to search for him, not believing him dead.
Adulthood: Ship badly damaged during squall, Iato forced to make repairs with his limited skills. Finds that he enjoys the work, settles into it, marries the young daughter of a timber dealer. They have a son.
Theme: Became quite wealthy during the war building ships for the navy, but home city wiped out when the King of Fortune (one of Maria's Diamonds) sent a massive tidal wave into it. Moved to Gage's Demesne to get away from it all for a while.
Theme: Last year felt the urge to learn how to fight, so he badgered Dalirnis into teaching him some swordplay.

Ivae: This woman is fat and reddish brown-skinned, with a small-featured, delicate face. She has long, rough, brown hair and blue eyes. She is a physician who is innocent by nature, though moody.
Childhood: Born to a husband and wife pair of doctors, becomes comfortable with medicine and the human body at a young age.
Adolescense: Parents volunteer to be field medics in the war, leaving her with her grandmother. They never return.
Adulthood: Grandmother falls ill. Ivae makes ends meet by opening a practice. Grandmother eventually dies, leaving her estate and a previously unknown fortune to Ivae – she moves out to live in the manor house @ Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Has been doing research on The Madness.
Theme: Became very depressed for after her grandmother died and developed an addiction to laudanum as a result. She moved out to Gage's Demesne as part of an attempt to kick the habit.

Next is skills – I look at the characters and their histories and pick 7 skills that they would know. I assign points to these skills based on how good they would be at each. 12 total, no less than one and no more than 4.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.
Childhood: Born to a pair of adventurers, she lived on the road. Witnessed bloodshed very early.
Adolescence: Power of rune magic manifested. Parents begin teaching her.
Adulthood: Becomes victim of The Madness as soon as her training is complete. Leaves parents, joins adventuring group.
Theme: Explored the Western Continent the entire time that the War of Maria's Collar devastated her homeland. The Madness ended when she returned, leaving her confused and exhausted. Nonetheless she was granted a title and land by the Crown and has settled down.
Theme: Has been a victim of The Madness for her entire adult life, played by a very dedicated RPer who only quit recently. Losing her motivating force has drained her of a lot of personality and her memory has suffered badly.
Skills: 1
Survival: 1
Rune Magic: 4
Knowledge  (Geography): 1
Knowledge (Adventuring): 2
Swords: 1
Persuasion: 1
Leadership:  2
Flaw: Delusional
Relationships:

Secret: Discovered a strange artefact buried in a tomb while exploring the northern wildlands of Paricor. Turned it over as tax to the crown before setting off across the sea.

Dalirnis: This easygoing, crabby guardsmen has golden brown skin, grey eyes, and dark brown hair. He is fat, with a pudgy face. He is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Nearly starved to death while the city where he lived was under siege.
Adolescence: Forced to join militia by father for the free food/lodgings – family can't support.
Adulthood: Drafted into army. Fought in the War of Maria's Collar, returned to Esconia and landed an easy job as the Warden of Gage Castle.
Theme: Personally killed one of Maria's Diamonds, though from ambush, not one-as-one as the stories tell. The Diamond was in the form of a young girl – another fact omitted from legend and something that haunts him.
Theme: Became a victim of The Madness during the war, his actions were out of character controlled by his player. Fighter/Rogue, player dropped out after that particular campaign finished.
Swords: 2
Bows: 2
Sneaking: 3
Survival: 1
Knowledge (Military): 1
Knowledge (History): 1
Leadership: 2
Flaw: Greedy

Eossa: This loving, polite goldsmith has light skin, green eyes, and golden brown hair. She is wiry, with a round, cheerful face. She is a single parent.
Childhood: Daughter of a merchant clan, she actually visited the capitol of Paricor before Maria became Heiress. She was dazzled by the immense wealth of the city, but also frightened by the squalor of the poorer districts.
Adolescense: Discovered a talent for crafting metal during a forbidden relationship with an apprentice jeweller.
Adulthood: Married a powerful wizard named Urornon, a transmuter she met through her families' merchant connections. Husband teaches her how to enchant her gold inlays, making her work immensely profitable. They have one child (a boy, Auki) before Uromon abruptly leaves.
Theme: Family clan scattered when home city sacked. Moved as far away from the frontline as possible, settled in Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Uromon fell victim to The Madness and left without a word. He eventually flipped sides and became one of Maria's Diamonds, now known as the Black Thaumaturge.
Appraise: 1
Craft: 2
Transmutation Magic: 3
Merchant: 2
Sense Motive: 2
Persuasion: 2
Flaw: Doomed Love

Trixio: This loyal (to Agnes), manipulative tutor has light brown skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. She is fat, with a round, cheerful face. She is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Bullied badly at boarding school for being fat and bookish.
Adolescense: School is used as a staging ground for a group of adventurers while they hunt down cultists. Falls under the wing of one of them, a forgetful but powerful sage called Sigil. Group abruptly leaves for another adventure.
Adulthood: Trained at the library/wizard's tower in capital before mounting search for Sigil.
Theme: Found Sigil, but she has lost many of her memories and is now called Agnes Gage.
Theme: Fell victim to The Madness once and ended up killing an entire Orc tribe and taking their treasury, but she can't remember why...
Research: 2
Enchantment Magic: 3
Bluff: 2
Sense Motive: 1
Teacher: 1
Daggers: 1
Spying: 2
Flaw: Callous

Iato: This man is wiry, with nearly black skin and a bland, oval face. He has close-cropped, fleecy, black hair and blue-grey eyes. He is a shipwright who is cynical though quiet. He is married, with a single son, and is an only child.
Childhood: Father never at home – fisherman. Learned sea and boat craft.
Adolescense: Father lost at sea. Joins privateer to search for him, not believing him dead.
Adulthood: Ship badly damaged during squall, Iato forced to make repairs with his limited skills. Finds that he enjoys the work, settles into it, marries the young daughter of a timber dealer. They have a son.
Theme: Became quite wealthy during the war building ships for the navy, but home city wiped out when the King of Fortune (one of Maria's Diamonds) sent a massive tidal wave into it. Moved to Gage's Demesne to get away from it all for a while.
Theme: Last year felt the urge to learn how to fight, so he badgered Dalirnis into teaching him some swordplay.
Sailing: 2
Fishing: 1
Craft (Boatmaking): 2
Swords: 2
Swashbucking: 2
Diplomacy: 2
Knowledge (Navy):
Flaw: Unlucky

Ivae: This woman is fat and reddish brown-skinned, with a small-featured, delicate face. She has long, rough, brown hair and blue eyes. She is a physician who is innocent by nature, though moody.
Childhood: Born to a husband and wife pair of doctors, becomes comfortable with medicine and the human body at a young age.
Adolescense: Parents volunteer to be field medics in the war, leaving her with her grandmother. They never return.
Adulthood: Grandmother falls ill. Ivae makes ends meet by opening a practice. Grandmother eventually dies, leaving her estate and a previously unknown fortune to Ivae – she moves out to live in the manor house @ Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Has been doing research on The Madness.
Theme: Became very depressed for after her grandmother died and developed an addiction to laudanum as a result. She moved out to Gage's Demesne as part of an attempt to kick the habit.
Healing: 2
Knowledge (Anatomy, Biology): 2
Craft (Potions): 2
Knowledge (Medicines, Poisons): 1
Knowledge (The Madness): 2
Diplomacy: 2
Doctor: 1
Flaw: Unreasonable Pessimism

I'm skipping the special abilities part. Next up is the hard part – mapping out relationships. I need to write down three people related to each character by blood, love, or association. Two like my character, one dislikes them.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.
Childhood: Born to a pair of adventurers, she lived on the road. Witnessed bloodshed very early.
Adolescence: Power of rune magic manifested. Parents begin teaching her.
Adulthood: Becomes victim of The Madness as soon as her training is complete. Leaves parents, joins adventuring group.
Theme: Discovered a strange artefact buried in a tomb while exploring the northern wildlands of Paricor. Turned it over as tax to the crown before setting off across the sea. Explored the Western Continent the entire time that the War of Maria's Collar devastated her homeland. The Madness ended when she returned, leaving her confused and exhausted. Unable to remember her past except piecemeal, she mistakenly concluded that she was a member of the nobility - she purchased a title from the Empire, bought estates far south, and settled down.
Theme: Has been a victim of The Madness for her entire adult life, played by a very dedicated RPer who only quit recently. Losing her motivating force has drained her of a lot of personality and her memory has suffered badly.
Skills: 1
Survival: 1
Rune Magic: 4
Knowledge  (Geography): 1
Knowledge (Adventuring): 2
Swords: 1
Persuasion: 1
Leadership:  2
Flaw: Delusional

Description
For this process, the first thing I did was grab a setting and theme from a generator, generating 5 choices and picking the one I liked best.

Setting: high fantasy/post-apocalypse. Theme:redemption/reality-is-a-dream story

Having done that, I used the Plot Twist generator to grab me a twist for later use.

Suddenly a farmer arrives and begins locking the doors.

Next, I generated a bunch of names for places and people, and kept them on hand.
The Ethnicity generator gave me a description of the local colour, with a name taken from the list.

Esconian Empire
These people's fine, wavy hair is medium to dark brown and their eyes are generally brown or black. Their height ranges from 4'6" to 5'6" and their build tends to be plump. Their skin is pale gold, and they have angular faces.

I needed to narrow my setting, so I used the Stronghold Creator to get a description, with the leader and name taken from my handy name list.

Gage Castle, built of grey stone and set on a gentle rise, belongs to a learned baroness (Agnes Gage ). It contains a quantity of ancient tapestries and appears to be nearly deserted. It is approached by a wide cobbled road. Nearby is a populous farming settlement in which there is a flower-lined square. The holding is rich in goats.

Next, I generated a list of 10 character descriptions using the Detailed Character Generator and giving them names off of my list.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.

Dalirnis: This easygoing, crabby guardsmen has golden brown skin, grey eyes, and dark brown hair. He is fat, with a pudgy face. He is unmarried and lives alone.

Eossa: This loving, polite goldsmith has light skin, green eyes, and golden brown hair. She is wiry, with a round, cheerful face. She is a single parent.

Trixio: This loyal (to Agnes), manipulative tutor has light brown skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. She is fat, with a round, cheerful face. She is unmarried and lives alone.

Iato: This man is wiry, with nearly black skin and a bland, oval face. He has close-cropped, fleecy, black hair and blue-grey eyes. He is a shipwright who is cynical though quiet. He is married, with a single son, and is an only child.

Ivae: This woman is fat and reddish brown-skinned, with a small-featured, delicate face. She has long, rough, brown hair and blue eyes. She is a physician who is innocent by nature, though moody.

This was the point where I switched to using the Minimus process to flesh out the characters. I had to elaborate on the setting and decide some major events that fit in with the theme. To do this, I drew on ideas that I had for other settings and stories.

High fantasy: This is a world where magic has replaced technology, so tech level is middle ages. Use fantasy tropes ect.
Post-apocalyptic: A huge war has devastated the country. Ten years ago, Maria Hart, a young and spoiled princess, became Heiress to the nearby Kingdom of Paricor. After obtaining a diamond-studded collar from an unknown source, she shocked and horrified everyone by abruptly reversing the benign mandates that her uncle Par the Third had enacted, turning the Kingdom into a brutal dictatorship. After whipping her new domain into a patriotic frenzy, she declared war on every literally everyone else. Her armies are lead by 12 powerful entities, again obtained from an unknown source. They became known as Maria's Diamonds because each wears a collar like Maria's with a single diamond stud.
Reality-is-a-dream: this world is actually a MMORPG. At any point, a person in this world can become controlled by a game player who logs on and dictates the characters actions, going on adventures and completing quests. Since the world is persistent and continues when the players log out, it seems to the people of this virtual realm that people occasionally go insane for no reason and head off to kill monsters. They call this The Madness.
When a player "creates" a character for this game, really what they are doing is entering the criteria for the virtual person they want to control – sex, stats, class, skills ect – and then the game picks the best possible match and gives them control of that person.

I took the characters that I'd generated and gave them each 5 major life changing events, according to the Minimus model. One for Childhood, one for Adolescence, one for Adulthood, and then one related to each Theme.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.
Childhood: Born to a pair of adventurers, she lived on the road. Witnessed bloodshed very early.
Adolescence: Power of rune magic manifested. Parents begin teaching her.
Adulthood: Becomes victim of The Madness as soon as her training is complete. Leaves parents, joins adventuring group.
Theme: Discovered a strange artefact buried in a tomb while exploring the northern wildlands of Paricor. Turned it over as tax to the crown before setting off across the sea. Explored the Western Continent the entire time that the War of Maria's Collar devastated her homeland. The Madness ended when she returned, leaving her confused and exhausted. Unable to remember her past except piecemeal, she mistakenly concluded that she was a member of the nobility - she purchased a title from the Empire, bought estates far south, and settled down.
Theme: Has been a victim of The Madness for her entire adult life, played by a very dedicated RPer who only quit recently. Losing her motivating force has drained her of a lot of personality and her memory has suffered badly.

Dalirnis: This easygoing, crabby guardsmen has golden brown skin, grey eyes, and dark brown hair. He is fat, with a pudgy face. He is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Nearly starved to death while the city where he lived was under siege.
Adolescence: Forced to join militia by father for the free food/lodgings – family can't support.
Adulthood: Drafted into army. Fought in the War of Maria's Collar, returned to Esconia and landed an easy job as the Warden of Gage Castle.
Theme: Personally killed one of Maria's Diamonds, though from ambush, not one-as-one as the stories tell. The Diamond was in the form of a young girl – another fact omitted from legend and something that haunts him.
Theme: Became a victim of The Madness during the war, his actions were out of character controlled by his player. Fighter/Rogue, player dropped out after that particular campaign finished.

Eossa: This loving, polite goldsmith has light skin, green eyes, and golden brown hair. She is wiry, with a round, cheerful face. She is a single parent.
Childhood: Daughter of a merchant clan, she actually visited the capitol of Paricor before Maria became Heiress. She was dazzled by the immense wealth of the city, but also frightened by the squalor of the poorer districts.
Adolescense: Discovered a talent for crafting metal during a forbidden relationship with an apprentice jeweller.
Adulthood: Married a powerful wizard named Urornon, a transmuter she met through her families' merchant connections. Husband teaches her how to enchant her gold inlays, making her work immensely profitable. They have one child (a boy, Auki) before Uromon abruptly leaves.
Theme: Family clan scattered when home city sacked. Moved as far away from the frontline as possible, settled in Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Uromon fell victim to The Madness and left without a word. He eventually flipped sides and became one of Maria's Diamonds, now known as the Black Thaumaturge.

Trixio: This loyal (to Agnes), manipulative tutor has light brown skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. She is fat, with a round, cheerful face. She is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Bullied badly at boarding school for being fat and bookish.
Adolescense: School is used as a staging ground for a group of adventurers while they hunt down cultists. Falls under the wing of one of them, a forgetful but powerful sage called Sigil. Group abruptly leaves for another adventure.
Adulthood: Trained at the library/wizard's tower in capital before mounting search for Sigil.
Theme: Found Sigil, but she has lost many of her memories and is now called Agnes Gage.
Theme: Fell victim to The Madness once and ended up killing an entire Orc tribe and taking their treasury, but she can't remember why...

Iato: This man is wiry, with nearly black skin and a bland, oval face. He has close-cropped, fleecy, black hair and blue-grey eyes. He is a shipwright who is cynical though quiet. He is married, with a single son, and is an only child.
Childhood: Father never at home – fisherman. Learned sea and boat craft.
Adolescense: Father lost at sea. Joins privateer to search for him, not believing him dead.
Adulthood: Ship badly damaged during squall, Iato forced to make repairs with his limited skills. Finds that he enjoys the work, settles into it, marries the young daughter of a timber dealer. They have a son.
Theme: Became quite wealthy during the war building ships for the navy, but home city wiped out when the King of Fortune (one of Maria's Diamonds) sent a massive tidal wave into it. Moved to Gage's Demesne to get away from it all for a while.
Theme: Last year felt the urge to learn how to fight, so he badgered Dalirnis into teaching him some swordplay.

Ivae: This woman is fat and reddish brown-skinned, with a small-featured, delicate face. She has long, rough, brown hair and blue eyes. She is a physician who is innocent by nature, though moody.
Childhood: Born to a husband and wife pair of doctors, becomes comfortable with medicine and the human body at a young age.
Adolescense: Parents volunteer to be field medics in the war, leaving her with her grandmother. They never return.
Adulthood: Grandmother falls ill. Ivae makes ends meet by opening a practice. Grandmother eventually dies, leaving her estate and a previously unknown fortune to Ivae – she moves out to live in the manor house @ Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Has been doing research on The Madness.
Theme: Became very depressed for after her grandmother died and developed an addiction to laudanum as a result. She moved out to Gage's Demesne as part of an attempt to kick the habit.

Next is skills – I look at the characters and their histories and pick 7 skills that they would know. I assign points to these skills based on how good they would be at each. 12 total, no less than one and no more than 4.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.
Childhood: Born to a pair of adventurers, she lived on the road. Witnessed bloodshed very early.
Adolescence: Power of rune magic manifested. Parents begin teaching her.
Adulthood: Becomes victim of The Madness as soon as her training is complete. Leaves parents, joins adventuring group.
Theme: Explored the Western Continent the entire time that the War of Maria's Collar devastated her homeland. The Madness ended when she returned, leaving her confused and exhausted. Nonetheless she was granted a title and land by the Crown and has settled down.
Theme: Has been a victim of The Madness for her entire adult life, played by a very dedicated RPer who only quit recently. Losing her motivating force has drained her of a lot of personality and her memory has suffered badly.
Skills: 1
Survival: 1
Rune Magic: 4
Knowledge  (Geography): 1
Knowledge (Adventuring): 2
Swords: 1
Persuasion: 1
Leadership:  2
Flaw: Delusional
Relationships:

Secret: Discovered a strange artefact buried in a tomb while exploring the northern wildlands of Paricor. Turned it over as tax to the crown before setting off across the sea.

Dalirnis: This easygoing, crabby guardsmen has golden brown skin, grey eyes, and dark brown hair. He is fat, with a pudgy face. He is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Nearly starved to death while the city where he lived was under siege.
Adolescence: Forced to join militia by father for the free food/lodgings – family can't support.
Adulthood: Drafted into army. Fought in the War of Maria's Collar, returned to Esconia and landed an easy job as the Warden of Gage Castle.
Theme: Personally killed one of Maria's Diamonds, though from ambush, not one-as-one as the stories tell. The Diamond was in the form of a young girl – another fact omitted from legend and something that haunts him.
Theme: Became a victim of The Madness during the war, his actions were out of character controlled by his player. Fighter/Rogue, player dropped out after that particular campaign finished.
Swords: 2
Bows: 2
Sneaking: 3
Survival: 1
Knowledge (Military): 1
Knowledge (History): 1
Leadership: 2
Flaw: Greedy

Eossa: This loving, polite goldsmith has light skin, green eyes, and golden brown hair. She is wiry, with a round, cheerful face. She is a single parent.
Childhood: Daughter of a merchant clan, she actually visited the capitol of Paricor before Maria became Heiress. She was dazzled by the immense wealth of the city, but also frightened by the squalor of the poorer districts.
Adolescense: Discovered a talent for crafting metal during a forbidden relationship with an apprentice jeweller.
Adulthood: Married a powerful wizard named Urornon, a transmuter she met through her families' merchant connections. Husband teaches her how to enchant her gold inlays, making her work immensely profitable. They have one child (a boy, Auki) before Uromon abruptly leaves.
Theme: Family clan scattered when home city sacked. Moved as far away from the frontline as possible, settled in Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Uromon fell victim to The Madness and left without a word. He eventually flipped sides and became one of Maria's Diamonds, now known as the Black Thaumaturge.
Appraise: 1
Craft: 2
Transmutation Magic: 3
Merchant: 2
Sense Motive: 2
Persuasion: 2
Flaw: Doomed Love

Trixio: This loyal (to Agnes), manipulative tutor has light brown skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. She is fat, with a round, cheerful face. She is unmarried and lives alone.
Childhood: Bullied badly at boarding school for being fat and bookish.
Adolescense: School is used as a staging ground for a group of adventurers while they hunt down cultists. Falls under the wing of one of them, a forgetful but powerful sage called Sigil. Group abruptly leaves for another adventure.
Adulthood: Trained at the library/wizard's tower in capital before mounting search for Sigil.
Theme: Found Sigil, but she has lost many of her memories and is now called Agnes Gage.
Theme: Fell victim to The Madness once and ended up killing an entire Orc tribe and taking their treasury, but she can't remember why...
Research: 2
Enchantment Magic: 3
Bluff: 2
Sense Motive: 1
Teacher: 1
Daggers: 1
Spying: 2
Flaw: Callous

Iato: This man is wiry, with nearly black skin and a bland, oval face. He has close-cropped, fleecy, black hair and blue-grey eyes. He is a shipwright who is cynical though quiet. He is married, with a single son, and is an only child.
Childhood: Father never at home – fisherman. Learned sea and boat craft.
Adolescense: Father lost at sea. Joins privateer to search for him, not believing him dead.
Adulthood: Ship badly damaged during squall, Iato forced to make repairs with his limited skills. Finds that he enjoys the work, settles into it, marries the young daughter of a timber dealer. They have a son.
Theme: Became quite wealthy during the war building ships for the navy, but home city wiped out when the King of Fortune (one of Maria's Diamonds) sent a massive tidal wave into it. Moved to Gage's Demesne to get away from it all for a while.
Theme: Last year felt the urge to learn how to fight, so he badgered Dalirnis into teaching him some swordplay.
Sailing: 2
Fishing: 1
Craft (Boatmaking): 2
Swords: 2
Swashbucking: 2
Diplomacy: 2
Knowledge (Navy):
Flaw: Unlucky

Ivae: This woman is fat and reddish brown-skinned, with a small-featured, delicate face. She has long, rough, brown hair and blue eyes. She is a physician who is innocent by nature, though moody.
Childhood: Born to a husband and wife pair of doctors, becomes comfortable with medicine and the human body at a young age.
Adolescense: Parents volunteer to be field medics in the war, leaving her with her grandmother. They never return.
Adulthood: Grandmother falls ill. Ivae makes ends meet by opening a practice. Grandmother eventually dies, leaving her estate and a previously unknown fortune to Ivae – she moves out to live in the manor house @ Gage's Demesne.
Theme: Has been doing research on The Madness.
Theme: Became very depressed for after her grandmother died and developed an addiction to laudanum as a result. She moved out to Gage's Demesne as part of an attempt to kick the habit.
Healing: 2
Knowledge (Anatomy, Biology): 2
Craft (Potions): 2
Knowledge (Medicines, Poisons): 1
Knowledge (The Madness): 2
Diplomacy: 2
Doctor: 1
Flaw: Unreasonable Pessimism

I'm skipping the special abilities part. Next up is the hard part – mapping out relationships. I need to write down three people related to each character by blood, love, or association. Two like my character, one dislikes them.

Agnes Gage: This woman is slight, with coffee skin and a pudgy face. She has shoulder-length, brown hair and amber eyes. She is a hermit who is brave as well as forgetful. She is married, with two small children, and has no living family except an uncle.
Childhood: Born to a pair of adventurers, she lived on the road. Witnessed bloodshed very early.
Adolescence: Power of rune magic manifested. Parents begin teaching her.
Adulthood: Becomes victim of The Madness as soon as her training is complete. Leaves parents, joins adventuring group.
Theme: Discovered a strange artefact buried in a tomb while exploring the northern wildlands of Paricor. Turned it over as tax to the crown before setting off across the sea. Explored the Western Continent the entire time that the War of Maria's Collar devastated her homeland. The Madness ended when she returned, leaving her confused and exhausted. Unable to remember her past except piecemeal, she mistakenly concluded that she was a member of the nobility - she purchased a title from the Empire, bought estates far south, and settled down.
Theme: Has been a victim of The Madness for her entire adult life, played by a very dedicated RPer who only quit recently. Losing her motivating force has drained her of a lot of personality and her memory has suffered badly.
Skills: 1
Survival: 1
Rune Magic: 4
Knowledge  (Geography): 1
Knowledge (Adventuring): 2
Swords: 1
Persuasion: 1
Leadership:  2
Flaw: Delusional