How to Make an Encyclopedia Page Tutorial

What Should be in my Encyclopedia?

You can be as fancy and as inclusive as you would like or you can keep the information you provide in your Encyclopedia quite simple. The more information that you provide the better it will be for those that you wish to roleplay with. At a very minimum we need you to provide us with 2 posts in your Encyclopedia Thread.


1.) A Basic Character Post. This post would contain basic information about your character such as their name, their school year, their race, age, wand, history. You can be as detailed as you would like providing more information if you wish but you need to at the very least provide the following basic information:

Full Name:
History/Background Story: This would be your character’s life prior to Hogwarts as well as what has happened during your time at Hogwarts.
First Instance of Magic:

2.) A Trunk Post. This post will be the repository for where you place your stats, and where a list of any special abilities you might have will be listed. You post the initial post. The poster will be changed to the Game Master account by a moderator. This is done to prevent cheating or changing stuff on the sly. To update your statistics or abilities post in the (Encyclopedia Update Form)
3.) Optional Posts. Some players have chronological accounts of every thread that they have ever been in, what relationships their character has with other characters, etc. These are optional posts that you can choose to have or choose not to have.  
4.) Adding New Posts After Your Trunk. You can make new posts after your trunk has been approved if you want to expand your Encyclopedia page. The only moderator controlled post is your trunk. Please do not make a new thread for your encyclopedia when you wish to add new stuff or make changes, please edit your original encyclopedia.

While we allow players the ability to edit their threads in the encyclopedia area for the purpose of updating their stats, bio, making their encyclopedia more aesthetically pleasing, etc. Major updates to your character's already approved backstory would need to be approved by the index staff using Index Re-Application. Small additions such as clarifying that your father's name is Daniel or that you used to vacation in Germany during the summers is not a major change to your backstory but if you are adding a major element to your backstory, removing portions of your backstory or changing parts of your backstory all together, then you need to go through the index team for approval.

Formatting My Encyclopedia

You might notice that we have everything from the utilitarian basic profile to the grand profile that goes over every detail of a player character and uses a variety of BB codes, pictures and even fonts. You can be as fancy or as simple as you like when you make an encyclopedia page. This post serves as tips for formatting.

1.) All Encyclopedias require a Character Sheet. A Character Sheet contains the following:

Full Name:
History/Background Story: This would be your character’s life prior to Hogwarts as well as what has happened during your time at Hogwarts.
First Instance of Magic:

The most utilitarian approach is to simply fill in the following code:

Code: Select all

[u]Full Name:[/u]
[u]History/Background Story:[/u]
[u]First Instance of Magic:[/u]

If you want to do something fancier you can simply add a header, a footer or a side picture. Great options would be using a Signature Font Generator such as mylivesignature.com or cool online tool's signature generator for instance. There are hundreds of options similar to these online that you can find with a basic search engine. Find one that you like and make use of it. Another option is to search for an image header. A quick google search can satisfy this. Another option would be to find a picture of your character and use that.

I am going to provide an optional sample formats, but you can do anything that you wish in terms of formatting as long as it is legible. Yes, you have permission to use this and I have a copy of the code below.

With a combination of bbcodes, we can make a basic post that is appealing to the eye. For the purpose of this tutorial, I will be using Harry Potter's information:

ABOUT ME

Full Name: Harry James Potter
House: Gryffindor
Age: 11
Wand: 27.9cm Holly Wood and Pheonix Feather Core
School Year: First
Patronus: Unknown (at this time)
Species: Human (Parseltongue)
History/Background Story:

Reducio

Harry James Potter was born on 31 July 1980, at Godric's Hollow in the West Country, England. Lord Voldemort, who believed Harry was a part of a proficiency that had been made on his downfall, targeted the Potters, causing them to hide during the first part of Harry's life. After Voldemort murdered his parents, but failed to kill Harry and had his killing curse backfire on him, Harry was discovered by Hagrid. He was taken to live with his only living relatives; his mother's muggle sister, Petunia, her husband Vernon Dursley, and his cousin, Dursley. The family hated magic and resented Harry for possessing it, though he himself did not know he was a wizard. They lied to Harry about his parents' death, claiming they had died in a car crash and treated Harry as if he were a servant.

Harry's first instance of magic happened when his Aunt Petunia cut his hair because she was angry it would not lay flat. This upset Harry greatly, as she left the boy basically bald. Petunia was horrified to discover it had grown all back the next morning.

On the week of Harry's birthday, hundreds of letters began arriving at the Dursleys' home, addressed to him from a place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When the Dursleys saw the first letter was addressed as "cupboard under the stairs", they panicked and Uncle Vernon disposed of them. The Dursleys moved Harry to the upstairs bedroom, but were horrified to discover that the address on the letters changed to "the smallest bedroom".

In a final desperate move, the Dursleys moved to a shack on a rocky island at the edge of the sea. At midnight on Harry's 11th birthday, Rubeus Hagrid appeared in person to find out why Harry had not received his letter. He was furious to discover how the Durleys had treated Harry, and that the boy had no idea that he was a wizard. Hagrid told Harry the truth about his parents, how he was a wizard, how he had defeated Voldemort as a baby, and how he was going to attend a magical school for wizards. This is where Harry's story begins.

Copy and paste the code below to test it out yourself:

Code: Select all

[quote][center][b][size=150][color=#000000]ABOUT ME[/color][/size][/b][/center][/quote]
[quote][b]Full Name:[/b] Your Character's Name
[b]House:[/b] Your Character's House
[b]Age:[/b] Your Character's Age
[b]Wand:[/b] Your Character's Wand
[b]School Year:[/b] Your Character's School Year
[b]Patronus:[/b] Unknown until sixth year
[b]Species:[/b] Character's Race
[b]History/Background Story:[/b] [reducio]You can copy and paste the information you wrote in your main biography when you were first joining the site here.[/reducio][/quote]

You might want to add some extras into your ency after looking through others and noticing they have written things about their characters that were not required for index. Offering more information about your character can be a helpful tool for those who are RPing with you and wish to know more about your character.

Many people take advantage of the tables command to help spice their ency up, so we'll be taking a quick look at controlling tables. Tables are pretty easy to understand. Let's look at the basic code the site gives you when trying to add a table:

Code: Select all

[table][tr][td][/td][/tr][/table]

The [tr] part of the table counts as rows. This is more important if you are making a traditional looking table, if you do not care if your rows are even, you can simply press the enter button while in the same [td] section. Putting text within the [td][/td] will separate what you write into columns.

To learn more about how tables work, check out this helpful tutorial.

Using the table command and the [font=] command (I selected the font typewriter), we can create a visually appealing basic ency post:

BASIC POST:

ABOUT ME: Full Name: Harry James Potter House: Gryffindor Age: 11 Wand: 27.9cm Holly Wood and Pheonix Feather Core School Year: First Patronus: Unknown (at this time) Species: Human (Parseltongue) History/Background Story: Reducio Harry James Potter was born on 31 July 1980, at Godric's Hollow in the West Country, England. Lord Voldemort, who believed Harry was a part of a proficiency that had been made on his downfall, targeted the Potters, causing them to hide during the first part of Harry's life. After Voldemort murdered his parents, but failed to kill Harry and had his killing curse backfire on him, Harry was discovered by Hagrid. He was taken to live with his only living relatives; his mother's muggle sister, Petunia, her husband Vernon Dursley, and his cousin, Dursley. The family hated magic and resented Harry for possessing it, though he himself did not know he was a wizard. They lied to Harry about his parents' death, claiming they had died in a car crash and treated Harry as if he were a servant. Harry's first instance of magic happened when his Aunt Petunia cut his hair because she was angry it would not lay flat. This upset Harry greatly, as she left the boy basically bald. Petunia was horrified to discover it had grown all back the next morning. On the week of Harry's birthday, hundreds of letters began arriving at the Dursleys' home, addressed to him from a place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When the Dursleys saw the first letter was addressed as "cupboard under the stairs", they panicked and Uncle Vernon disposed of them. The Dursleys moved Harry to the upstairs bedroom, but were horrified to discover that the address on the letters changed to "the smallest bedroom". In a final desperate move, the Dursleys moved to a shack on a rocky island at the edge of the sea. At midnight on Harry's 11th birthday, Rubeus Hagrid appeared in person to find out why Harry had not received his letter. He was furious to discover how the Durleys had treated Harry, and that the boy had no idea that he was a wizard. Hagrid told Harry the truth about his parents, how he was a wizard, how he had defeated Voldemort as a baby, and how he was going to attend a magical school for wizards. This is where Harry's story begins.

Try it out yourself! Here is the code:

Code: Select all

[table][tr][td][quote][center][b][size=150][color=#000000]ABOUT ME[/color][/size][/b][/center][/quote]
[quote][font=typewriter][b]Full Name:[/b] Your Character's Name
[b]House:[/b] Your Character's House
[b]Age:[/b] Your Character's Age
[b]Wand:[/b] Your Character's Wand
[b]School Year:[/b] Your Character's School Year
[b]Patronus:[/b] Unknown until sixth year
[b]Species:[/b] Character's Race
[b]History/Background Story:[/b] [reducio]You can copy and paste the information you wrote in your main biography when you were first joining the site here.[/reducio][/font][/quote][/td][td][quote][img]IMAGE URL HERE[/img][/quote][/td][/tr][/table]

How do I Make an in-depth Character Description for my Encyclopedia?

There are two main areas that we describe in our characters:

1. Their physical description. This would be their eye color, their height, their build, the clothes that they wear, the way they wear their hair. If you are role-playing a physical handicap of some sort please be sensitive regarding how you display it.
2. Their mental description. How do they think? If you are role playing a mental illness of some sort please be sensitive regarding how you display it. How do they interact with others. How do others perceive them? How do they try to be perceived.

I am Having Difficulties Writing a Biography For My Character.

When writing a biography for your character, a lot of players mix up describing their character's backstory with their character's personality or they simply start and stop with their genealogy. The fact that you like ice cream and the color pink are character traits, not a character history. Your genealogy is where you start of course but consider the following questions:

1. Where and when were you born?
2. Who were your parents?
3. Were you an only child? If yes, how did that effect you? If no, tell us about your siblings - who is older, younger and how did this effect you?
4. Did you grow up in a magical household?
5. How does your family feel about magic? How do they feel about muggles?
6. If you are a special race/ability, talk about that. How did it enter your family line? How has this effected you growing up if at all?
7. Did anything relevant happen to you during your early childhood? If so, what?
8. Did you ever go to school? Was it a muggle school or a basic school where other magical children attended? Were you home-schooled? We presume you are literate in character so you had to learn to read or write somewhere.
9. Did you have any friends growing up before Hogwarts?
10. When did your magic first surface?
11. When you got your letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, how did your life change? 
12. Once you have entered Hogwarts, discuss your life and the years as you experienced them.

What Sort of Things Will Not be Accepted?

1. Obviously abusive backgrounds. Please remember, we are a PG-13 community. While conflict is a necessary part of a story, we do not want to read about beatings, starvation, psychological abuse or worse.
2. Relationships with canon characters. This includes no Death Eater parents.
3. Contradictions to your current story. What do we mean by this? Simply put - if you have always roleplayed that you are German and now you are French, we will not approve of this change. We will approve addendum and clarifications. We will likely approve changes you have not roleplayed (such as perhaps being an only child and not having a school-aged sibling because a real-life friend of yours has joined) but we would expect that you have not been roleplaying as an only child, bringing players to your home where you are an only child. This would be very unfair to those you roleplayed with that they are now forced to recon part of their experience so we will not facilitate this.
4. Getting married/engaged at an abnormally young age. We are not allowing engagements below 14 or marriages below 16 here.
5. References to special powers you do not have. In addition, you do not have powers from a different fandom (for example, you are not Elsa from Frozen)
6. Having family members taking on very specific roles in the wizarding community that there are only one of (for example, your father is not a Minister of Magic).
7. Information or references that contradict the setting lore.
8. Aspects about your character or family that you cannot explain. For example -- if you claim your family is very poor, make sure you have a means to explain it. Same thing if your family is very rich. How/why is your family very rich?
9. There are no orphanages in the modern UK.
10. Every child has a caretaker/caregiver/parent/guardian. We do not allow homeless children in this setting.
11. Please make sure that you tie up loose ends. There are no mysteries in the biographies that Index accepts. If you are vague with your parent/backstory/talents you will be asked to give confirmation on what you plan to do. There is no "but I want it to be a mystery". The answer to these staff inquiries do not have to be in the encyclopedia, but the staff needs to know the plans.
12. We don't allow mafia/clan/samurai characters. Our 11-year-old students are not trained killers, eleven years old are not supposed to even wield sharp objects generally so being a trained killer is a stretch beyond what Index is willing to accept.
13. We have a pet system, we do not allow you to bring your own pet. However when you have the galleons to buy one, you can claim it was a pet from home (as long as it is one of the pets we allow, you cannot buy a rat and claim it is a pet dragon).

The above is not a fully inclusive list, but these are some of the more common issues that Validators come across.

Trunks

Trunks have a standardized format for the sake of consistent format and moderation.


What will be allowed?
This is an example of how your trunk should look:

Statistics and Abilities

Your Stats go here

You Abilities go here

Rules

1. Your whole trunk may contain up to two pictures. This can be a header, or a picture at the bottom, or in the middle. It does not matter, if it's a small picture or a large picture. Everything counts as one.

2. Do not create a picture with all of the trunk information and post that as the trunk. The picture is meant for decoration. Stats, Abilities etc have to be written out and not be posted as a picture.

3. One reducio under each category may be used.

4. No more than two quote boxes within each other (nesting quotes) are allowed.

5. The order of headings can be chosen freely.

6. The usage of Tables is not permitted.

7. No colour, special font or size under 100% is allowed.

If a trunk does not follow the above format, this is not an exception made by the staff but rather either an oversight (which we will rectify with that user if notified) or the trunk is very old and has not been updated since these standards were enacted.

Character Stats

Every character has six core statistics that represent their strengths and weaknesses. These stats are used in official Dueling, Quidditch, Broom Racing, and Adventure events.

Your statistics are permanent and help define what your character excels at throughout their time on Hogwarts.io. You can learn more about player starts in Index Applications: Player Stats.

How Do I Get Stats?

When your character is created, you receive a pool of stat points to distribute however you wish.

• Human characters begin with 35 stat points.
• Characters with approved special races or talents begin with 30 stat points.

You are free to place these points wherever you like to create a build that matches your character. For example, a future duelist may invest heavily in magical statistics, while a Quidditch player may focus more on physical ones.

Once allocated, stat points normally cannot be removed or reassigned (with limited exceptions, such as changing from a human to an approved special race).

You can earn additional stat points throughout your Hogwarts career by:

• Winning an official Duel (+1)
• Winning an official Quidditch match (+1)
• Winning an official Broom Race (+1)
• Graduating to the next school year (+5)

What Does Each Stat Do?

• Stamina – Your health and endurance. The more Stamina you have, the longer you can stay in a fight before being knocked unconscious.
• Evasion – Your ability to dodge attacks. Higher Evasion makes you harder to hit, whether the attack is magical or physical.
• Strength – Your physical power. This affects actions such as grappling, pushing, lifting, and the damage dealt by physical attacks.
• Wisdom – Your magical control and awareness. Wisdom is used when casting certain spells, using magical items, and noticing things others might miss.
• Arcane Power – Your magical strength. The higher your Arcane Power, the more damage your offensive spells deal.
• Accuracy – Your chance to successfully hit a target with either a magical or physical attack.

How Do Stats Work?

Most actions use a twenty-sided die (d20).

When a moderator asks for a roll, your relevant stat is simply added to the result.

For example:

• Casting a spell at an opponent? Add your Accuracy.
• Trying to dodge a Bludger? Add your Evasion.
• Attempting to overpower someone physically? Add your Strength.
• Trying to notice hidden clues or control a magical item? Add your Wisdom.

The higher your stat, the better your chances of succeeding.

Stamina works a little differently. Every point of Stamina provides 100 Health Points (HP).

Example:

• 1 Stamina = 100 HP
• 5 Stamina = 500 HP
• 10 Stamina = 1,000 HP

When your Health reaches 0, your character is knocked unconscious and can no longer continue participating.

Strength and Arcane Power also increase the damage dealt by physical and magical attacks respectively, making them important offensive statistics.

Stat Caps

To keep gameplay balanced, each year has a maximum number of points you may place into a single stat.

• Years 1–2: Maximum of 10 points in any one stat.
• Years 3–4: Maximum of 15 points.
• Years 5–6: Maximum of 20 points.
• Year 7 & Adults: Maximum of 25 points.

Important: You must place at least 1 point into Stamina. Without Stamina, your character would begin every event with 0 Health and be unconscious.

Can I Have Multiple Builds?

No.

Your statistics represent your character's overall abilities across the entire site.

This means an exceptional Quidditch player may not also be the strongest duelist, and vice versa. Choosing where to invest your stat points creates meaningful strengths and weaknesses and helps every character feel unique.

Where Do I Record My Stats?

Your official statistics should always be recorded on your Character Encyclopedia page.

Many players also include them in a Reducio tag or in their forum signature during events to make moderation easier, but this is optional. To update your stats after a successful sport game or graduation into a later year, post in the Encyclopedia Update Form.

Your stats should be listed like this:

Stamina:

Evasion:

Strength:

Wisdom:

Arcane Power:

Accuracy:

Please remember that modifying your statistics without authorization is considered cheating and may result in disciplinary action.