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As suggested, here is a guide to help potential members and current members to come up with unique original characters.

arrow Type of Character

The first thing you need to think about when creating a character is, what are they. Is he/she a rogue shinigami, a human with special abilities, a drifting ghost waiting to be sent to Soul Society, or something else altogether?

But you also have think about how logical your character would fit within the timeframe, too. A flying, purple-furred werewolf who can shoot fireballs at things isn't going to be able to interact much with anyone, let alone is it even remotely canon. Seriously, you don't see werewolves and vampires, or whatever else, roaming around in the Bleach universe. The only supernatural theme in Bleach is that of ghosts and an afterlife. That's it. No monsters, no unicorns, no Tragic!Sue demon-fox half-vampires with a past so boring that you want to shoot yourself.

Of course, that's going into another section altogether. So, back to type of character.

Basically, you have all of 2 choices: a human (starting with or without spiritual abilities), or a shinigami.

Technically, if you are following the manga there are other choices than the two above. While we wont specifically say no to characters that draw from spoiler content, we will be somewhat restrictive on them as not everyone knows the same information, and we don't want to unintentionally spoil something for someone. If you apply and are accepted as someone who has spoiler content in his/her bio, we will edit that content out from the bio until it is shown in the anime. We will also ask you to send us your posts before you submit them in any threads so that we can be sure no direct spoiler content (or very strong hints) are located within your post, and we will do this until we feel comfortable with your game playing abilities. Again, this is to make sure that later information is not accidentally leaked to someone who hasn't reached a certain point in the series.

arrow Character Type: Shinigami

Now, everyone wants to be a shinigami. They're cool. They can kick your a** with a sword.

There... aren't many option that you have with them.

What I mean is that typically a shinigami is assigned an area (all or part of a city) to watch over. It is usually a one-man job, and a boring one at that since Hollows really don't appear that often. (Karakura is special because of Ichigo's enormous reiatsu that likes to attract them.) Rukia, who may have had her powers stripped from her, is still assigned to Karakura, so there cannot be another shinigami who is randomly sent out to help her. Unless of course she is having difficultly taking care of the Hollows, which, as shown, she and Ichigo are doing just fine.

Okay.. so what sort of shinigami does that leave you with? Theoretically your character could be a seated officer in one of the divisions, but as we're not in a SS-arc yet, we wont get to see your character at all. So really, your only option is to somehow find a reason for your character to be roaming around Karakura, other than "He/she had a day off and decided to take a stroll in the mortal plane." Er.. no. That's just retarded. Shinigami stay in the mortal realm long enough to find the Hollows they are looking for, then they leave after taking care of them. They don't stray around and hang out with people. Even then, souls/shinigami who have been dead for 50+ years don't have a clue as to how human culture works. They just wouldn't be able to blend in properly.

Your best bet if you want to have a shinigami character is to create another character that will fit within the mortal realm better, then wait until we get to a SS-type arc to bring in your shinigami character.

Now I'm not saying that having a shinigami character at current is impossible to have, just highly unlikely. It is something that has to be thought over a long while to come up with a good reason why your character is there.

arrow Character Type: Humans

Unfortunately human characters tend to be boring, and have less than spectacular abilities that are outdone by the shinigami. What can I say? They're only human, so they don't have 100 years to work on their spiritual abilities like shinigami can. That doesn't mean that you can't create a human with interesting abilities. Unfortunately, most humans cannot see or even sense Hollows and spirits, which means more than likely your character would start out not having any sort of abilities to begin with. And that leads into the question, how did your character come to obtain his/her powers? We're aware why Ichigo had his abilities as a child, and we know his reiatsu is awakening abilities in his classmates, but what about your character? What was the catalyst to allow him/her to start seeing ghosts, and then start to develop his/her abilities? The answer to these sort of questions will help develop your character's history along with potentially explaining why that sort of ability grew.

arrow Character Type: Quincy

They're a near-dead group, just like the Uchiha clan. (It's damn disturbing of the similarities between those two.) This means that there only be a select few Quincy still running around, and more than likely not anywhere near Karakura. Since the Quincy were more or less killed off a couple hundred years ago, any surviving Quincy are probably in hiding and either abandoned their abilities, or don't use them frequently. You having a Quincy character is not impossible, but it's just not likely.

arrow Abilities

Canon Abilities. Aren't they awesome? Unfortunately, your character can't have their powers. Why? Because that defeats the purpose of being original. However, while you can't use a canon's abilities exactly how they appear in the series, you can use that character's abilities as a basis. Revise it so that it's still original and fresh. You can do this by changing the way a power is done, the effects of the power, or add/remove limitations. Just make sure that you twist the ability enough to make it work for you, without it being too similar to the original canon ability.

But what do you do if you want to do something completely original? Well I'm sorry to say it, but nothing is ever original. Everything has been done ten times over in various other anime and TV series. It's the spin you put on it that makes it unique. You gotta use your imagination and come up with something. But where do you get ideas to start off with? Look around you; there's plenty of stuff in the world to work with. Think of things you would like to be able to manipulate, or have some sort of effect on. Or try looking at yourself. Find an interesting quirk about yourself, or something you excel at. Even a disability could be tweaked to become an ability.

There's also science to look at. Consider physics, chemistry, and biology. Think about what you could manipulate in those areas to create in interesting ability. Also, social sciences such as history and geography are great places to look. Plate tectonics, varied weather manipulation, chemical synthesis, there's so much that can offer potential abilities.

You can even try getting some ideas from mythology, books or movies. Anything that you have an interest in, look at what the characters from those sources can do. See if any of that can be revised into an ability that would work in the Bleach-verse.

Stuff to add / Working on:

arrow Personality

arrow History

"Unknown" is never a good summary of a character's life. Ever. Even if the character has no recollection about themself prior to of the day before, he/she did come from somewhere, even if the character is not aware of his/her past.

A character's bio is not supposed to include the information known only to the character, but present all (or at least most) of the information regarding him/her, even if he/she is not aware of something. This is so that you as teh writer and roleplayer, as well as we the mods, will understand the character better.

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I hope this guide has helped you come up with an interesting original character that you can be proud of. Below is a list of canon and OC abilities to show you what sort of abilities have been done. If you have any suggestions for this guide feel free to PM Kruen.