Creating Your Character

Before you can play in Reference II, you will need to ballot for your place in the game. See here for more information on balloting. Once you have had your place to play in Reference II confirmed, you will then need to create your character for the game. To do so, please fill out this form by the Character Creation deadline of . If you do not wish to use the Google form to submit your character, please email the GMs with your answers to the character creation questions, which can be found on the form or below.

You may find it helpful to attend the Character Creation session on to talk to other players and the GMs about ideas for your character. This will also be a chance to ask the GMs other questions about Reference II before the start of the game.

The rest of this page outlines the questions on the character creation form and gives answers for a sample character called Jimbo.

For more information on how Out of Character information is stored and processed in Reference II, please see the Privacy Policy.

What is your name?
Emma H

What are your pronouns?
She/Her

What email address should we use for you?
emmaloubibbityboo@gmail.com

Are you over the age of 18?
Yes

These questions ask about your character, and why they are attending the Exhibition.

Player characters in Reference II will all be humans who are at least 18 years old. The Exhibition is a one-off event, so your character will have a daily life beyond the Bookworm exhibition.

Characters will have chosen to enter Alusia's Exhibition ticket competition, and will have had their reasons for doing so. This could be that they are enthusiastic about the new development in technology from a pure love of innovation, or that being the amongst the first to experience the technology will advantage them in their job, or even something less to do with the Bookworm and more to do with Alusia itself such as wanting access to one of the largest stores of information on the planet.

Nonetheless, characters will have almost certainly had to make some form of sacrifice to attend. This could be having to leave someone or something behind for the character to disrupt their normal life for a week to attend the Exhibition. It could also be that the cost of entering the raffle meant that your character did not have the money required for something else they would have liked to do.

What is your character's name?
Jimbo McJameson II

What are your character's pronouns?
He/They

Outside of the week-long Bookworm exhibition, what does your character's daily life look like?
Jimbo is an entrepreneur who has made a relatively large fortune off a series of investments in the right businesses at the right time. He insists that this is his natural talent an instinct, and conveniently overlooks the fact that many other people had made similar investments in similarly promising companies and have been nowhere near as lucky. They spend weekdays staying in hotels in the city, and on weekends he returns to his coastal mansion with his husband.

Why did your character enter the Exhibition ticket raffle?
To know whether it is worth investing in the Bookworm as their next major business venture, Jimbo wanted to get some hands-on experience with the technology. They were willing to spend a large amount of money (though still a negligible portion of their wealth) to have a lot of entries into the raffle as “expenses” for this trip. He is, of course, excited to try out the technology first-hand, but is seeing this primarily as a business opportunity.

What is your character sacrificing or leaving behind by attending the Exhibition?
Jimbo has had to sacrifice the opportunity to be in the city where possible news on new business opportunities will reach them faster in pursuit of one opportunity which he isn't even fully convinced will be profitable in the long run. Jimbo is also having to leave his husband behind, though they are both accustomed to Jimbo being away from home with work for a week at a time.

A player character's public bio will be visible to all other players on the Player Characters page. This should contain information that is common knowledge about your character, or what people may notice about them at a first impression. The public bio should be relatively brief. We will be imposing a limit (not a target) of 150 words for the public bio.

A player character's private bio will be visible only to that player and the GMs. This should contain more detailed information about your character than your public bio, possibly including information on their backstory and motivations. Information about your character that would be useful for the GMs to know but that you do not want other players to know should be included here. The information in the private bio is likely to overlap with the answers to the IC questions, but there is scope to write more in the private bio than the previous questions.

Since player characters will have had to win tickets to The Exhibition, it is exceedingly unlikely that PCs will know each other prior to the beginning of the game. In circumstances where there is sensible a narrative reason that two people who know each other both won Exhibition tickets this might be permitted, but you must have sought, and received, permission from the GMs for your character to have pre-existing links with another player's character.

Please submit a Public Bio for your character.
Jimbo is a wealthy entrepreneur and might be a recognisable face to those in the business world. They are always well-dressed - rumour has it they even wear a suit to bed. He is tall and imposing, and may be intimidating to talk to for the first time, but they are quite charismatic and easy to talk to once the conversation begins.

Please submit a Private Bio for your character.
Jimbo's father, Jimbo McJameson I, was a businessman who, like Jimbo II, had built up a small fortune. Jimbo I's most successful investment was in a previous Alusia invention. As a result, Jimbo II grew up wealthy, and learned some key lessons about entrepreneurship in their youth.

After his father's passing, Jimbo inherited most of his father's estate and used the money in his own investments. Through this, they were able to make a remarkable fortune, and gained a reputation as a cold, calculating investor, driven only by data and unfazed by emotions. Jimbo has found this reputation helps him in negotiations, so they try and maintain this persona. However, Jimbo does have a sentimental side, and is secretly very emotionally attached to Alusia, thanks to this being the source of their father's wealth.

Jimbo has told themself that they have come to the Exhibition primarily as a business venture, aiming to do due diligence to see if the Bookworm is a worthwhile investment. Deep down, however, he knows his soft spot for Alusia is telling them to invest no matter what, and this has justified the cost of buying a large number of entries into the ticket raffle, and taking a week away from his normal workflow.

The Character Quirks in Reference II are nuances to a character's personality that will not have a mechanical impact on gameplay, but that may be drawn on while role-playing. More information about the available quirks can be found on the Quirks page.

What is a character quirk your character has, and how does it relate to your character?
Fake Moustache: Jimbo spent a sizeable amount of money on repeated entries to the competition so that they could guarantee themself the opportunity to be at the Exhibition. He has been desperate to find the right time to invest in Alusia to honour their father's legacy, but has been trying to convince himself that they are making a sensible financial decision. The sunk cost fallacy from the money spent on the tickets is likely to weigh on their mind, however.

Story quirks will have some impact on the mechanics and gameplay of Reference II. For more information, including a list of available story quirks, see the Quirks page.

Which Story Quirks would you like your character to have?
Ain't From Round Here and Technical Difficulties

Playstyle Quirks are used to help your experience of Reference II align with what you are comfortable with OC. You may take, or leave, as many playstyle quirks as you want. For more information, see the Quirks page.

Mindbender
I would like to take this quirk.

Boot Me Out
I would not like to take this quirk.

If you have anything you would like to tell the GMs OC, such as anything for accessibility or your comfort during the game, or anything you wanted to say about your character but couldn't find the right place to do so, please put them in the OC Thoughts section.

OC Thoughts.
I haven't taken the Boot Me Out playstyle quirk, but I am happy for you to ask me OC beforehand if you would like to Boot Me Out of a story.