Persona Worksheet
Table
of Contents
1. NAME
What is your name?
How did you get your name? Why were you
given that name?
What does it mean?
How would you be addressed by non-family
members of equal rank? Higher rank? Lower rank?
2. TIME PERIOD
What year is it?
When were you born?
Are you considered a child, an adult, or
elderly?
3. STATION IN LIFE
What station or class are you of?
Is this the same as the station or class
you were born to?
Is it likely to change in the future?
Are you wealthy, poor?
Is this likely to change?
Are you of the same people as those around
you? If not, of what people are you?
How does that effect how the people around
you treat you?
If you are, who is around you that are not
of your people? What people are they of?
Do you interact with them? How do you treat
them?
Is your treatment of them culturally
dictated or a personal decision?
4. BIRTH FAMILY
Who is your father? What is his name?
When was he born?
Where was he born?
Is he still living? If not, when did he
die? If he died, how did that affect you?
What was/is his social position?
Occupation?
Did your father help raise you?
What did you learn from him as a child?
What is he like?
What is your father's family like?
How did his family help or hinder you in
your life?
Who is your mother? What is her name?
When was she born?
Where was she born?
Is she still living? If not, when did she
die? If she died, how did that affect you?
What was/is her social position?
Occupation?
Did she raise you?
What did you learn from her as a child?
What is she like?
What is your mother's family like?
How did her family help or hinder you in
your life?
What does your father's family think of
your mother's family, and vice versa?
Are your parents married?
Is their marriage happy?
What did you learn from their marriage?
Do you have brothers and sisters? Are they
still alive?
What do they do?
Do you have a favourite, and why?
Do you have any siblings you dislike, and
why?
Are any of them half-siblings?
Who are they?
What is the relationship between you and
them like, and why?
Did you know your grandparents, and what
were they like?
What other relatives do you have in your
extended family/clan/kin group?
How closely do you live/associate with
them? (e.g. Do you live or work with them? If not do they live close by or are
they scattered around?)
Is there anyone in your extended family
that is personally important to you? Why? (e.g. Did any of them have an
important role in your upbringing, or in your current life?)
Are they still alive? If not, when did they
die? If they died, how did that affect you?
What was/is their social position?
Occupation?
Do you have a favourite relative? Who and
why?
Are they still alive? If not, when did they
die? If they died, how did that affect you?
What was/is their social position?
Occupation?
Whom in your family do you dislike and why?
Are you still in contact with any of your
family?
5. MARITAL FAMILY
Are/were you married? To whom?
Are/were you happy in your marriage?
What is their occupation?
How does this affect you?
What are the names of your spouse's near
relatives?
Is this your first spouse?
If not, did the previous spouse die, or are
you divorced, and what were the circumstances?
Do you have children? Are they related to
your current spouse?
Do they still reside with you?
If not, where are they? What do they do?
What is the structure of the
family/clan/tribe?
Are children raised at home or fostered
elsewhere?
How many generations of your family are you
really aware of?
How important is knowledge of your lineage?
How is sex outside of marriage viewed? The
offspring of such a relationship?
Do you have a lover who is not your spouse?
Have you ever had one?
Who are/were they?
6. HONOURARY FAMILY
Do you have any family who are honorary as
opposed to birth or spousal? What is their relationship to you?
(Godparents/children, Foster family, adoptive, etc)
How did you come to be associated with
them?
What role did they have in your upbringing,
or in your current life?
Are they still alive? If not, when did they
die? If they died, how did that affect you?
What was/is their social position?
Occupation?
What are the customs associated with honorary
family in your culture?
7. FRIENDSHIP
Presumably you have friends. Who are they?
How did you meet them? Become friends with
them?
Where do they live?
What do you do together?
Are their wealth and/or rank similar or different to yours?
8. CHILDHOOD
What was your daily life like as an infant?
As a child?
What tasks were you set to do?
What kind of toys did you play with?
Where did you get them?
Where did you play?
With whom did you play?
With whom do you live?
Who were your neighbours?
Were there distinct stages of childhood acknowledged
in your society?
At what point did you stop being considered
a child?
9. EDUCATION
How were you educated (formally,
informally, a mix of both)?
What language(s) can you speak?
Can you read or write?
Did you go to school?
What did you study that was directly
applicable to your life and the people around you?
What did you study that was not directly
applicable to your life (e.g., Classical Greek History, if you’re a 1600's
English lady of minor nobility)?
How did you learn to do your work?
Who taught you?
What is your level of education compared to
those around you?
10. CURRENT LOCALE
What country do you live in? What part of
the country?
How did you get here?
What is your first memory of this place?
What is the climate like?
What is the terrain like?
Can you describe life in general in this place
(ie. the culture)?
Who are the people who live in this place?
Who are the people who travel to or through
here?
What kinds of structures would you find here?
What kinds of monuments or place-markers?
What kinds of crops are grown (in fields
and in gardens)?
Are there areas where it is not safe for
you to go? Is it always not safe, or
only sometimes?
What is the largest road and where does it
go?
Where is the nearest market? What do the
things you typically buy there cost?
The nearest church or cathedral?
Nearest waterway? Is it navigable and how?
What is your capital?
How far is it to the capital city? (in
units of measure your persona would have used?)
Have you ever been there?
What social problems exist?
11. BIRTHPLACE
Where were you born?
Why were you born there?
If you lived there long enough to remember
it, what was it like there?
(See CURRENT LOCALE, FLORA AND FAUNA, HOME,
HOUSEHOLD, DAILY LIFE and WORLDVIEW for additional questions you may want to
answer for this section as well)
12. OTHER PLACES OF RESIDENCE
What other places have you lived other than
where you were born and where you live now?
Why were you living there?
Are any of these places additional
residences to your current residence (i.e. multiple homes/properties in your
family)?
(See CURRENT LOCALE, FLORA AND FAUNA, HOME,
HOUSEHOLD, DAILY LIFE and WORLDVIEW for additional questions you may want to
answer for this section as well)
13. FLORA AND FAUNA
What trees grow where you live?
What plants grow wild?
Which ones are useful?
Which ones are hazardous?
What wild animals live near you?
What kinds of birds?
What kinds of fish?
Which ones are hunted/fished for food?
How is this done?
What use do you make of these animals
beyond food?
What pests do you have to deal with?
14. HOME
Are you from a city, village, manor, or
farm?
What kind of building do you live in?
How big is it? How many rooms?
What does it look like outside?
What does it look like inside?
What is your house built of? Who built it?
What is your house furnished with? Who made
it/ where did you get it?
How do you keep warm/cool?
Where do you eat, sleep and work?
What part of it do you spend most of your
time in?
What is your favourite place in or around
your home?
What do you do there?
What is it like at night?
What do you do then?
Where are the places around your home that
you would never go to if you could help it?
What does your favourite chair look like?
What do you sleep on?
What do you see when you wake up in the
morning?
How do you light your house?
What do you use for storage?
Do you have any pets? Do they have a function in the house? Where
do they live?
What domesticated animals live on your
property? Where do they live?
Who cares for them?
What function do they serve?
What are they worth at market?
Who owns the house you live in? The land it is on?
15. HOUSEHOLD
Who lives in your house besides you and
your immediate family? What is their relationship to you?
What is your position within the household
hierarchy?
Are there any people who are living with
you who are not members of your family, but are not staff?
Who are the household servants that you see
every day?
What do they do?
What do you think of them?
How do they interact with you?
How are they paid? Are they paid?
What social obligations do you have to
them?
Are there military retainers to your
family?
Who are they?
What do they do?
What do you think of them?
How do they interact with you?
How are they paid?
What obligations do you have to them?
Do you have any religious personnel
associated with your family?
Who are they?
What do they do?
What do you think of them?
What are your obligations to them?
16. DAILY LIFE
What time do you awaken?
Where and how do you prepare for your day?
What household tasks are yours?
What do the other people in your house do?
What do you use to accomplish those tasks?
What household items do you make
yourselves? What do you buy? (Not just
food or small wares like combs or bowls, but also furniture, clothing, etc.)
What are these items made from?
If you make them, where do you get the raw
materials and tools?
Do you derive any income by selling surplus
from your daily tasks (eg, if you spin more thread than you use, do you sell
any of it to the local weavers)?
Where do you get water for your household?
How do you light the fire?
17. OCCUPATION
What do you do?
Where does your money come from?
How much wealth have you got?
What do you do with it?
Do you have a job outside your household
duties?
Do you work for yourself? Your family? An employer (and if so, who)?
Does anyone work for you?
What are your daily responsibilities in
this occupation?
Do these activities vary seasonally, and if
so, why?
How do you get paid?
What tools do you use in your daily work?
Where do these tools come from?
What raw materials does your trade require,
and where do they come from?
Do you sell what you produce, and if so to
whom and for what value?
Are you part of a professional organization
or an independent worker?
What is your standing within that
professional organization?
If you are a member of the landed
aristocracy, then how do you manage your property?
Your household?
Your family interests?
Do you have other occupations besides
land-owner?
Are you satisfied with your current place
in your society? Why?
If you wanted to change it, how would you
do so?
18. CLOTHING
What do you wear?
How do you obtain or make your clothing? What
steps in the process are you involved in?
How do you clean it?
What is your clothing made of? What does the cloth look like?
How is it embellished?
Do you have different kinds of clothing
(everyday vs. special occasions)?
What are the differences between what you
wear in warm weather and in cold weather?
Do you wear underwear? What kind?
How do you care for your clothes?
Do you have many clothes?
What jewellery/accessories do you wear, and
what are they made from?
What kind of shoes do you wear?
What do you wear on your head?
How do you carry small personal objects
around? How do you carry large things?
Are there any restrictions on what you can
wear?
Who imposes those restrictions?
19. POSSESSION AND OWNERSHIP OF
PORTABLE GOODS
Of the things you use in daily life (eg. tools,
adornments, dairy livestock), do you own them?
If not, who does?
How do you come by the right to use them?
If you do own them, how to you acquire
them?
Under what circumstances would you choose
to dispose of them? How would you dispose of them?
If something has not been deliberately
disposed of, but has not been retrieved, at what point does it become
considered 'abandoned'?
What happens to it then?
If something has been disposed of, by
yourself or someone else, under what conditions would it be acceptable to
salvage it, even if already in it's appropriate waste disposal site?
How is the act of deciding what to dispose
of affected by your social standing? How do your choices of what to dispose of affect
your social standing?
20. FOOD
What meals do you eat? When?
What is your typical daily menu?
Does your menu change during the year?
How & where do you get what you eat?
How is your food prepared & preserved?
How is it served?
What spices do you use? Are they imported?
Are they expensive?
What do you drink from?
What do you eat off of?
What utensils do you use?
Are there special foods at various times of
year?
Why are they special, and why are they
served at that time?
What are the rules of proper etiquette at
the table?
What special dietary restrictions or
requirements do you have?
21. SANITATION AND WASTE
MANAGEMENT
Where is human excrement disposed of? Where
is this in relation to the location of the community? Is it visible to the
community?
Where is animal excrement disposed of?
Where is this in relation to the location of the community? Is it visible to
the community?
Where is food waste disposed of? Where is
this in relation to the location of the community? Is it visible to the
community?
Where is non-organic and organic non-food
waste disposed of? Where is this in relation to the location of the community?
Is it visible to the community?
If you, or members of your household are involved
in producing physical goods, for sale or private use, where is the production
waste disposed of? Where is this in relation to the location of the community?
Is it visible to the community?
What sorts of 'waste' gets reused? For what
purpose? In what way? Can anyone reuse it, or only the person whose 'waste' it
is? Or are there members of the community who are designated, by profession,
life circumstances or choice, are permitted/expected to salvage whatever is
reuseable?
Is it stored somewhere deliberately, or
salvaged only when needed?
What happens when people are unable to
dispose of the waste? (eg. garbage pit is full, sewers are blocked, etc) Who
deals with the problem?
Does your culture have any notions of
sanitation? What are they?
How does one go about being sanitary?
23. HYGIENE AND GROOMING
How do you keep clean?
How often do you bathe?
How do you clean your teeth?
Where do you "go to the
bathroom"?
How do women of child-bearing age deal with
the blood resulting from menstruation?
How do you wear your hair?
What daily grooming habits do you practice?
What frequent but not daily ones?
Which ones rarely (for special occasions,
or once-in-a-lifetime)?
What do your grooming and hygiene
implements look like?
22. LEISURE
What do you do for fun?
If it requires a learned skill, where did
you learn it?
If it requires equipment, what kind? Where do you get it?
Is music played/sung in more informal
settings (like while going about daily work)?
What stories do your people tell? To whom
do the stories belong? Who can tell them?
What kinds of ‘table’ games do your people
play?
What kinds of physical games do your people
play?
Who plays them?
22. ENTERTAINMENT
What entertainments are available to you?
Do you provide entertainment for others?
How?
What kind of music is common in your
culture?
Where and when is it performed? Who
performs it?
What instruments are played? Who plays
them?
What stories do your people tell? To whom
do the stories belong? Who can tell them?
Do you or anyone in your household create any kind of visual
art (e.g. embroider/weave wall hangings, paint, carve, or sculpt, etc.)?
Are
visual arts in your culture integrated into functional items, e.g. decoration
on primarily functional items (like designs on everyday items), or primarily decorative
items with functional purposes (tapestries which can also be to prevent drafts,
for propaganda)?
Are
there any forms of art common which have little or no functional purpose other
than pure decorative value?
24. ILLNESS AND INJURY
What kind of medical care is available to
you?
For injuries?
Illnesses?
Who provides your medical care?
Do you supply medical care for others?
What happens to people with handicaps?
25. HOSPITALITY
Do you ever have guests?
Who are they?
How long do they typically stay?
What obligations do you have to a guest in
your house?
What obligations do you have as a guest in
another’s house?
Does this change depending on which of you are
higher in rank? How?
What obligations do you have to itinerant
travellers?
What gift-giving customs does your culture
practice? What sort of gifts? To whom?
What feasting traditions are
practiced? Who holds feast? Who attends them?
To whom would you offer patronage? Or be offered patronage by?
26. MEASUREMENTS AND SYSTEMS
What is the local system of money?
What other currencies or systems of
trade/commerce do you use?
What units of measurement are used by the
people of your area for:
Distance:
Length:
Weight:
Volume:
Cooking:
Temperature:
What calendar do you use?
By what method do you reckon the time of
day?
27. PERSONALITY
What kind of person are you generally? How
do you see yourself?
How do others see you?
What particular skills do you have that
aren’t necessarily related to your occupation?
What is the one thing about your life you
love the most?
What is the one thing you most dislike?
What is your fondest memory?
What do you wish you could forget?
How do you deal with conflict within your
family? Your community?
Who do you consider the wisest person you
know? Why? Do you try to emulate them?
What are some of your goals in life that
you have yet to achieve?
That you have already achieved?
28. RELIGION
What is your religion?
What are your daily religious practices?
Which are frequent, but not daily?
Which are rare or once-in-a-lifetime?
Why do you practice this religion?
Is it important in your life?
What objects do you have in your house or
on your person that are connected to your religious beliefs?
Does everyone around you practice the same
religion?
How does that affect you?
What church/religious space is closest to
your house?
Who is your religious leader/advisor?
Who is the head of your religion, if any?
Are you part of your religion’s hierarchy
in any way?
29. SPIRITUAL BELIEFS
What superstitions and beliefs about the
occult or otherworld do you have?
What behaviours and customs do you practice
as a result of these beliefs?
What superstitions do you have and why?
What behaviours and customs do you practice
as a result of these fears?
30. PERSONAL MORAL CODE
Do you follow an external moral code,
religious or social?
Do you have a personal moral code? What is
it?
Does it agree or go in opposition that of
the society around you?
How rigidly do you adhere to your moral
code?
31. LIFECYCLE
Where was your mother when she gave birth
to you? (Specifically- e.g.: in home, hospital, etc.)
Who assisted her?
What was done with you immediately after
birth? Over the next 24 hrs? The next
week?
What rites of passage have you undergone
during your life?
What rites of passage do you have yet to
undergo?
If married, how old were you when you
married?
How was the marriage arranged? Why?
What bride price or dowry did your marriage
entail/do you expect to have provided or receive?
Where was the marriage performed? By whom?
When you die, what will be done with your
body? (Rituals and actual disposal of body)
How will your body be prepared?
Who will prepare your body?
What, if anything, will accompany your body
in its final disposal?
How will you be mourned and/or memorialized
by your family and community? For how long? (e.g. memorial markers, visiting of
remains, practices related to honouring or interceding on behalf of deceased
family members, etc.)
Will this differ, depending on how you
die? How?
How are children viewed in your society?
Pregnacy?
How are the elderly viewed in your society?
How long do people typically live in your
social class?
What are the most common causes of death?
32. FESTIVALS
What celebrations and festivals are
observed?
When do these occur, and what do they
celebrate?
Where do they occur, and do you have to
travel to attend or are they held nearby?
How do you prepare for these festivals?
What do you do at or for these festivals?
33. TRAVEL
Have you travelled? Where?
What were the circumstances?
How did you prepare for the journey?
How did you travel?
What did you see on the way? When you got
there?
Where did you stay while travelling? When
you got there?
What did you eat on the journey? When you
got there?
What stories can you tell about your
travels when you get back home?
How will the folks back home receive these
stories?
34. MEMORABLE EVENTS AND PEOPLE
Have any events made a profound difference
in your life? (natural disasters, wars, plagues)
In your parents’ life? Your grandparents?
Have you witnessed or taken part in any
important events?
Who are the most famous people of your day
and age? Why are they famous?
What is the most distant land you know of?
Who are the heroes (contemporary,
historical, or legendary) of your people?
Who is/are the most renowned
thinker/philosophers of your day?
Of the recent past?
Of the distant past?
What scientific discoveries/philosophical
or theological developments have changed your life during your lifetime? Have
made your life different than that of your parents/grandparents?
35. LEADERSHIP AND AUTHORITY
What form of political system do you live
under?
Who is your highest secular ruler/leader?
Who rules the local area you live in?
What obligations are owed to you by those
in authority?
What obligations do you have to them?
What does your society believe is the basis
of their authority?
If you were to meet them, how would you
behave?
Do you support those who rule you? Or are you in rebellion against them?
Do you question authority figures around
you? How do you do this?
Are there various political factions at the
level of local authority? At higher
levels?
What are those factions?
Which faction, if any, are you part of or
support? Openly or in secret?
Which does your family support? Openly or
in secret?
What might make you or your family change
their allegiance?
Are you or your family involved in any
family/clan alliances or conflicts?
Are there any political or religious
movements in your area that seek to counter or change the status quo?
Are you involved or do you support any of
them? Openly or in secret?
Are any of your family involved or do they
support any of them? Openly or in
secret?
Do you hold authority over anyone? Who?
Why? How do you wield this
authority?
Has anyone in your family?
How did you/they come by this authority?
Are you involved in the political system of
your home country/region in any non-governing capacity (Ambassador, spy,
hostage, bureaucrat, etc.)?
If so, does this position involve any
authority? Over whom, and from where/who does it derive? How is it exercised?
Does your position in society give you influence
over governing authority in some non-official manner (e.g. member of family or
household/staff of governing authority, well-known scholar, etc.)?
Who rules the neighbouring peoples?
Are you allies or enemies?
How do you feel it is best to relate to
these neighbouring people?
36. LAW
What kind of legal system do you live in?
Who makes the laws?
Who enforces them?
What happens to those who break them? (ie
what are the typical kinds of punishments)
Who has the authority to decide the appropriate
punishment?
What happens to those who fail to carry out
their punishment?
If the punishment involves being cast out
of the community for a time or forever, what happens to the people who are
given this punishment?
Why do people become or not become
criminals (ie. what do you believe causes criminal behaviour)?
37. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
What is the relationship between your
culture/political state (ie kingdom, tribe, etc.) and the neighbouring ones?
What is the relationship between your culture/political
state and your home (if different)?
What are your personal opinions of those
relationships?
How does your culture/political state feel
about foreigners in your midst? How do you feel about them?
Do those feelings differ depending on where
those foreigners are from?
38. WAR
How have you been affected by warfare?
Do you fight? Under what circumstances?
Who taught you to fight?
What armour and weapons do your people use?
Do you personally use?
How do people of your time & place get
weapons and armour?
What kind of military service does your
region require, and to whom?
Are their professional soldiers/warriors in
your society?
Who are they and where do they come from?
What are the terms of their legitimacy?
(ie. contracts, social ties, source of their authority and permission to be
there)
39. HERALDRY
What is the heraldry of your ruler? Your local lord?
Do you have heraldry? What is it?
Why is that your heraldry?
Do you have a motto?
40. WOMEN AND CHILDREN
What is the legal status of women among
your people?
Can they own land or property?
What trades can they enter?
Can they conduct business?
What legal or social connection did they
have with their birth family after marriage?
What is the legal status of children among
your people?
41. SLAVERY
Are there slaves in your culture?
Do you own any? Does your household?
Where do they come from?
How do they become slaves?
Who enslaves them? (eg. enemy warriors,
'judges', slave-takers)
Who could be kept as slaves? Who couldn't?
Who could own slaves? Who couldn't?
How are they treated?
Who brings the slaves to where you can
purchase them?
How much would they cost? (consider
differences in sex, age and physical ability)
What use could various types of slaves be
put to, if there were different types?
What jobs/tasks/trades are they not allowed
to be put to?
What responsibilities do the owners have
towards the welfare of their slaves?
What rights do slaves have in your society?
What are some of the rights they don't have compared to free-people?
Could they buy/win/be granted freedom?
What behaviour or activities on the slave's
part could result in freedom?
What behaviour or act on the owner's part
could result in freedom? (think both positives such as granting freedom, as
well as the possibility of criminal acts against the slave that might result in
freedom being given as compensation)
If they could gain freedom, what would
their status be once they were free? Does it differ from their status before
being a slave? Does it differ from that of free-people of roughly the same
status who were never slaves?
Once free, where do they go? How would they
go about making their living? Is there anything they are forbidden from
becoming/doing?
What rights and responsibilities does the
freed slave have to their former owners?
What rights and responsibilities does the
former owner have to their freed slaves?
42. CHARITY
Do you give charity?
Why?
What do you give?
To whom?
44. HISTORY
What understanding of your people's history
do you have?
What do you believe is the origin of your
people?
What do you know/believe of ancient
structures in your area?
What portable ancient objects exist in your
culture?
Who do they belong to (private individuals,
individuals holding specific positions within the culture, the people as a
whole)?
How and for what are they used?
How does your culture pass on knowledge of
its heritage?
What do you know of the history of your
personal lineage?
How does you family pass on that knowledge
to the next generation?
43. WORLDVIEW
How does your society view:
Dreams
Magic
Love
Allegiance to authority
The Body
The Self (non-physical)
The surrounding landscape
The stars
The Earth, and its place in the Universe?
What virtues are valued? Why?
What faults are reviled? Why?
What are the biggest social problems of
your society?
In the wider world?
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