A good start is to begin with a personal history for your own character. When you write this, you should keep in mind a few things:

1. The world is already quite well-developed, with a lot of geographical detail known. Try to fit in with what's already been written by others, so that we can keep everything consistent.
2. DT has laid down some clear guidelines. Break them at your peril. For a start, the Ascendancy does NOT kill people (except in the most extreme cases of self-defense). So if you want to be the sole survivor of a murdered village, tortured by Mobius' troops, then tough. It doesn't fit in.
3. Similarly, you don't come from the Eastern Continent. You might think you do, but you don't. Nobody knows anything about the Eastern Continent.

There have been a number of excellent guides written on this (how to write personal histories, and how to avoid common mistakes). The most extensive is probably the one by Marcus Antonius, which can be found here. Chitra has also written a most useful set of guidelines, and that's reproduced below. Slightly different, but very useful, is Polerand's guide to role-playing.

Chitra's Guidelines

As one of the Directors of the West Foundation I am often asked to review character histories of new (and not so new) exiles. The primary thrust of the Foundation is to encourage those who click to consider the backgrounds of their characters so as to present a more consistent, believable impression to the world in general. What follows here was originally part of an internal discussion by the Directors regarding story backgrounds, SWC Lorian asked if she could post it here. With some minor revisions deleting references to specific stories under consideration, I agreed.

In support of the general idea of character, a rather large collection of Exiles has banded together to create a Historical project. The project is concerned with both basic history, and racial history in specific. Each race is represented and has an exile who oversees and edits cultural material which is posted on the web. In addition Lorian and Sleipnir have created a map of Shan Deral, which shows basic geography and general political divisions. It is also important to note that the project as a whole has the general approval of Joe himself, so while individual aspects might not becorrect, it's safe to assume that glaring errors in the consistency of the background have been removed.

Given my position as a West Foundation director, I believe it is my duty to speak out for a general level of overall consistency in the stories we accept. When one is writing a character history it is important to remember that others must share the background with you. Earth shattering events, things that others might have noticed, things that might have changed the course of history are generally things one should stay away from.

As the historical project progresses there is more and more information available to new exiles about what Shan Deral was/is like. Key among the basic facts of our world, is the idea that most of the violent wars of conquest were over long before any current exile was born. The idea of mass violence is frequently a common thread in many of the character histories I have seen. However, the very nature of the Ascendancy would tend to prevent such atrocities. From what we've been told, it's just as likely that most of us were exiled for such heinous crimes as having a fondness for (say...). red clothing, or insisting on apple flavored dressing or our salads instead of peach, as any thing else. More than anything else, the Ascendancy is supposed to frown on the idea of violent death, both as actions by the populace, and as punishments. So, whenever I read a story that has some sort of large conflict with lots of death in it.. I grumble and mutter to myself.

In a recent story I reviewed the idea of a culture with two races living side by side was presented, based on the Historical project and the maps of Shan Deral, that isn't so... as peoples, the individual races live in different areas. I'm not saying that a given member of a given race might not have wandered far from his people and chosen to live out his life with a different racial group ... but such an action would be the exception rather than the norm.

Next is the idea of breeding, Joe has actually spoken out on this in the Fen'neko forum run by Bvael'frr (fen_forum@topica.com) According to Joe, and race may interbreed with any other, however, the child takes on the dominant traits of one of the parents, with no evidence of genes from the other parent. Obviously, this is intended as a way to explain the lack of "half-breed" icon sets, which would be a nightmare to create from a workload perspective. However, this IS the official word from on high. <shrug>

Next we have the idea of magic as a common everyday part of society. Again, according to the official word, magic is rare in the world, the Lok Grottons being rather an exception. Specifically, we know that Moonstones aren't supposed to exist on Shan Deral.

I also think the Ascendancy would frown on the idea of slavery personally. I don't have much in the way of evidence to back this up but it seems likely.

As a general rule: when one creates a character history, if one plans to differ dramatically from the stated histories, one should think of a good reason why, and also a good reason why no one would have noticed the differences one thinks are important to one's story.

Regards,
Chitra

(Chitra is a highly respected member of the Fellowship of the Red Quill, and we love her dearly :) )