Project "Nonfi Nis" - week 51

I'm using the "Big Five" personality traits for my characters. This model is widely used in computer science, and I've dealt with it for about a decade now. Now, there are scientific papers which list different facets within these traits - originally, I wanted to look at those, but then I decided to just wing it. After all, this is not a research project, right?

Nevertheless, I had to think about the adjectives and behaviors which are commonly used for defining or measuring these traits. So let me sum them up here.

• Openness is associated with creativity and unconventional thinking, curiousity and an interest in aesthetics.
• Conscientiousness is associated with order and organization, discipline, reliability and adherence to rules.
• Extraversion is associated with confidence, assertiveness and authority, as well as sociability and expressivity.
• Agreeableness is associated with friendly, caring and forgiving behavior, along with a trusting mindset.
• Neuroticism is associated with impulsivity, mood swings and strong negative emotions like anger, fear or guilt.

Alright, with that in mind, let's have a closer look at Op Vaha, the grandfather. Back when I assigned the personality scores, I did so by letting a random generator select a number between 1 and 5 for each trait, and then manually tweaking them to keep them balanced among family members. The chart below maps these values to the midpoints of 5 intervals on the axes.

• He's very low on Openness. So he lacks most of the associated qualities.
• He's low on Conscientiousness. So he lacks many of the associated qualities.
• He's neutral on Extraversion. This means he is quite balanced in this area.
• He's very high on Agreeableness. So he has most of the associated qualities.
• He's very high on Neuroticism. Note that this trait is negative - so he has most of the associated problems.

Now it's time to translate that to human terms. On WorldAnvil's "character" article template, there are several sections where the associated descriptions fit in. Here's how I filled them.

The severe lack of Openness goes to the section "Vices & Personality flaws". There, I described the opposite of an open mind:

For Conscientiousness, I picked one adjective that is used in personality questionnaires and indicates a low score for this trait. "Forgetful" caught my eye. I decided that the section "Intellectual Characteristics" was the best fit here, and thought about what this forgetfulness implies.

His Extraversion is pretty unremarkable. Anyway, it goes to the section "Social Aptitude" like this:

Now Agreeableness comes to the rescue. This is his strongest positive trait, so it clearly goes to "Virtues & Personality perks".

This character strentgh also affects many other areas, such as his social aptitude. Therefore, I can now elaborate on the lackluster sentence from before. This is also a good opportunity to think of the downsides of such a strong trait - nothing in life comes without a price tag attached.

Note that this already hints at the last trait, his high Neuroticism which indicates strong emotional reactions. According to this traits' definition, these tend to be negative. So I have one more sentence for the "Vices & Personality flaws" section.

Now that the fundamental traits are written down, I can take a moment to look at two other sections of the template and put some thought into the wider implications of his personality. How do they translate to his overall life goals?

Well, let's get back to the warmhearted, caring aspect. He's not going out of his way to meet new people (neutral Extraversion), so this is most likely to refer to his family. I also need to keep in mind his conservative way of thinking. Taken together, this gives me the following snippet for the "Motivation" section.

Now let's look at his tendency to get emotional. Remember what I said about looking at the downsides of a strong trait? This works the other way, too. Here this means that he's likely to get passionate about something - and what would that something be for a conservative Rilanga citizen?

One of the Rilanga core values was knowledge, mirroring the way that the Nimýric Empire strives for enlightenment and spreads this enlightenment to others, whether they like it or not. Last summer, I had already decided that Vaha would be a retired teacher of some sort. Specifically, he is now a retired university professor for geography - a subject that covers relatively stable environmental conditions. Remember, he does not like change. I also decided to have him specialize in the connection between said environment and the cultures that live in it, because that's a topic that I need to learn about anyway for my worldbuilding.

So here's the rest of the text for the "Motivation" section.

The biographical side of the article was a lot more trickier, however. When I decided to fill in the "Education" section, I immediately got stuck on the fact that I did not know how many years he would have spent in school. I also needed a proper name for his home town.

So off I went to write about the home town and the school system. The latter was on my ToDo list anyway, because I had found a prompt for this topic some time ago and I had already written about the graduation ceremony. You can find both articles on WorldAnvil: Rilanga School System (organization) and Kiv Mingumisel (settlement)

I put the milestones for his school education in the family's timeline, but then I was itching to continue writing his article. After all, I had been putting this off for far too long. So I mentioned the degrees he had, and the fact that he was working as an "academic teacher".

Back in summer, I had also decided that his wife had been working as his secretary. Boss and secretary may sound like a rather cliché romance story - but they're both conservative personalities, so cliché works just fine for them. Also, it made sense that Vaha would develop a strong bond with his secretary - he's an absent-minded professor, and Akos has enough Conscientiousness to compensate for this. Read: She's the one who keeps him functioning. The backstory of their relationship was sorted... or so I thought.

After finishing Akos' article, I suddenly realized that the family's timeline did not make sense anymore. I had completely missed the fact that Vaha would need many more years to get to this position after graduating from school. If he were to meet his wife at that point in his career, their children would be born long before the parents even knew each other. Oops.

That left me with two options - change the age of the following two generations, or change the backstory for Vaha and Akos. Option one would have required me to change the basic information for 5 out of 7 characters. Sure, they were all still in the early draft phase, but that didn't sit well with me. Also, this would have eliminated the partners of the youngest generation - Ures' wife Kohip, who was supposed to be in the shelter with them, and Etru's lover whom I had thought of when I came across an interesting prompt for a "secret love letter".

Option two it was, then. I reluctantly erased the text I had written for Vaha's and Akos' relationship. And then I sat down to write a proper article about the academic education system in the Rilanga Union and get my timeline in order. You can read that article here: Rilanga Academic Education (organization)

Several days after my decision to finally write the character articles, I found myself filling the timeline with events instead. And unsurprisingly, there was this nagging feeling that I was wasting my time and avoiding the "actual" work that I had been planning to do a year ago. I had to remind myself that this planning step was necessary, and that I had just seen what would happen if I did not pay proper attention to the timeline.

Let's have a closer look at some of the events that shape the lives of the family members.

First of all, I need to rework the first encounter between Vaha and Akos. A professor and a secretary obviously have rather different career paths. But what if they meet at the university? What if, in Rilanga society, secretaries require a degree for managing anything related to education? This makes sense - those more-civilized-than-thou snobs took their education very seriously. So Akos gets a basic degree in accounting.

Now, where and when would two students from completely different fields meet? During lunch, most likely. I still wanted to keep the "scatterbrained Vaha needs Akos' help" dynamic, and I wanted it to already shine through in their first encounter. Enter the real-world experience. In my university's cafeterias, people use electronic cash cards which double as the student/employee ID card. And over the years, I've seen several people almost leave their cards behind at the coffee machines, if it hadn't been for others alerting them. The perfect touch point between two strangers.

So Vaha drops his wallet at the drink dispenser, walks away without noticing and Akos comes running after him to return it. Right now I won't bother with how exactly they go from "hey, you dropped your wallet" to Akos managing his entire life, I just write down "she quickly came to like him" and leave the rest for later. They probably start talking because they find each other cute, hot or both. Right now it doesn't matter, because I have to take care of the other family members.

For Ninu and Ures, I simply go with the "highschool sweethearts" approach and have them connect over shared interests - namely, literature. Ninu goes on to become a theater director (those more civilized-than-thou snobs love the arts), and Ures becomes a literature teacher. On to the next generation.

Now, after setting up the milestone events for the youngest generation, I notice something odd. By the time the family moves to the shelter, all three of them are in the middle of their studies. Why on Ranul would those more-civilized-than-thou snobs neglect their education like that?

Well, whenever I need an explanation for something on Ranul, the answer is usually related to the Final War. And in a story about the war, this is a no-brainer. Therefore something war-related has to happen to their university. Something that cuts the teaching activities short and makes it unlikely that they will be resumed soon. Something awful and destructive.

But the university is still a civilian target. And while both factions in the Final War are racist a**holes, neither of them is that monstrous. The Ran-E-Zu still need a reason that somewhat justifies such an attack. Enter a random "high-ranking politician" who gives a talk in front of the university students. As it turns out, he also was a driving force behind a Rilanga attack on Ran-E-Zu cities. REVENGE!!!11!1!

This idea gives me a lot to work with.

• I have the needed explanation for why the university suspends teaching activities - its main auditorium hall is destroyed, and many academic teachers were among the casualties.
• I have something to put into the "Mental Trauma" section for several character articles. And in the case of Urem and Kohip, the two conservative students, it's a justification why they hate the Ran-E-Zu even more than they did before.
• I have a reason why the family says "screw this - we're out of here" and gets far away from civilization.
• I have a use for the Kef-Endu, a species of dragonfly-like insects which are trained to carry bombs into enemy territory. One of the things that I wrote during WorldAnvil's Summer Camp challenge a few months back.
• I have reasons to put scars on the characters and make them visually unique.

You can find the result in the character articles of the youngest generation:

Op Etru | Op Urem | Op Kohip | Ed Obla (Etru's secret lover)

Expanding raw personality scores into a human-readable description is rather straightforward. Think of synonyms for the adjectives associated with the trait, and if a traits is especially strong in the character, don't forget to have a look at possible downsides of the apparent qualities.

The history behind that collection of flaws and qualities may require more attention to detail. Without a defined timeline, events can quickly become inconsistent, especially when there are multiple characters involved. So I recommend thinking of important, "mandatory" milestones like school graduation or career steps before diving into social encounters and the like. But if a conflict occurs anyway, try to find a good explanation for it - one that makes sense based on the world in which the characters live.

My next blog entry will probably be about creating clothes for the family. I've grown tired of putting the Rilanga into the seamless shirts and leggings that may make sense for their distant future descendants, but not for a culture that is more similar to late 20th century Earth. Therefore, I've tasked myself with creating three outfits for each of the seven characters in 2022 - regular outfit, sleepwear and outdoor winter clothes.

If you have any comments or feedback, just let me know!