• Head to #⁠playbook and download the PDF provided.
• Head to #⁠safety-sheets and fill out the PDF provided- either upload there, or forward to me via DMs if there are privacy concerns.
• Head to #⁠temp-admin-info and vote in the campaign genre poll. (High Fantasy/Court Intrigue won out).
• Optional: look around #⁠picrews and play around with the linked dollmakers for a character reference.
• Optional: Pre-read over the content in #⁠tutorials.

• Is there a character archetype from the playbook I am particularly interested in?
• Do I have anything content-wise I would particularly like to see? Or particularly not see?
• Do I want to have pre-established relationships with my character and others in the campaign? (Examples: lovers, divorcees, rivals, coworkers, etc.)
• If I'm not sure on a name, what style of character names might I like? (Examples: nature themed, gender neutral, biblical, virtue, colour, length, nicknames, etc.)
• If I want to do synchronous sessions, what day of the week, time of day, and frequency would work best for me? Please include timezone, ideally with conversion of times into EST. (Example: every Saturday at 5PM - 9PM, EST.)

Butterfly Court is beautifully laid out for complete beginners. You are welcome to riff off of the structure it provides as well- for example, if you feel like none of the aesthetics suit your character well, or if you have a particular goal you’d like to achieve. The framework is meant to be elaborated on. There can also be multiples of the same archetype in a campaign, though I do encourage you all to peruse through the various options, as the variety is wonderful.

The particulars of each character archetype’s selections will vary slightly, but generally are straightforward enough. They are broadly meant to help you determine a character’s motivations, and any assets/hindrances that would help or hinder progression towards their goals.

The first step to making a character is to select one of the character archetypes that appeals to you. For my example, I will be using Roman Bennett, as I feel that the character build of being someone settled, but interested in arranging the affairs of others, suits him as an older character with a vested interest in the going-ons of court, given his young daughter’s future in it.

Playbook: The Eminent

Aesthetics are qualities that help roughly sketch out a character’s personality. I find that it offers the most interest to select a contrasting pair of qualities, or to choose one that describes them in a personal, and another in a public persona. It’s very likely that the characters in a campaign will have a varying level of familiarity with one another at the start of the campaign, and so having an idea of how yours will react at a superficial, and more personal level is helpful. I have considered both contrast, and public/private persona with Roman.

Aesthetics: Indulgent, intimidating.

Ambitions are overarching goals. They can be thought of as the grand theme behind a character’s actions: they might get involved in smaller side plots, or spiral off into rabbity tangents as the game progresses, but their ambition is foundational to the character’s actions. Roman is highly motivated by family, and in creating a sense of security and stability for his daughter: an elevated social profile and forming allies is highly beneficial to that regard.

This also gives him a reason to interact civilly with the others: in court intrigue: the undercurrent of characters' personal feelings simmer beneath a thin veneer of civility and outward appearances. Tying a character’s ambitions to a motivation to interact with others is very helpful in helping to smooth along interactions with other players’ characters. You can write a lone wolf- but it’s certainly much harder to pull off well!

Ambition: To promote your protege to new heights.

The Eminent asks you to select a regret, as this is a playbook for a more established character at court- someone who’s lived for this long in the game will certainly have something that keeps them awake at night. The noble child in mention is Lucy, since she’s a very important character to Roman. Past relationships don’t need to be wholly fleshed out for characters at the start of the campaign- it’s totally okay to sketch out a vague relationship, like his past lover here.

You can choose to have it remain elusive knowledge (perhaps grounds for another character to, or for yours to fear being, use(d) as blackmail), create a side character you control (a non-player character/NPC), or even have it as a connection that another person in the campaign can write as a character to interact with yours!

Those sorts of pre-established relationships can lend a lot of magic to campaigns, and I’d encourage you all to play around with some. Some examples to consider are: rivals-to-lovers, childhood best friends, coworkers, family members, mentor-mentees, stranger who you’d never forget, saviour, hero/idol, sibling of a friend, divorcees, lovers, affair partners, etc.

Regret: Breaking someone’s heart.

Object of Affection: A noble child.

While a line that will not be crossed is not specified in all of the other archetypes, it is a good question to consider for one that is universal: why does your character care about the problems facing the court? All of these characters have something tying them to the court, (and whether or not it’s enough to keep them at it will be something you discover through play and their natural progression.)

There are large external forces at work in the realm, as well as the pettier, more intimate squabbles of courtly relationships. Your characters will have to respond to these challenges, and equally as important as understanding what drives them to think and act as they do, is understanding what they are not willing to transgress.

For Roman, I have tied his line in the sand to his personality, potential to interact with others, and hinting at his past. ‘Worthy’ is a very vague term, and ‘ruining’ is quite evocative, especially given his role of meddling in the court’s games.

It implies that Roman has the capacity for intense judgement, and some measure of confidence in his decisions: that he is both capable of being the arbiter of whether someone has deserved being ruined, and in enacting said ruination. That ties into how he interacts with others- he might be silently weighing up whether or not someone has crossed him enough to push past the invisible boundary of having earned that wrath. It also makes you question why this in particular is so taboo for him- does it tie back, perhaps, into his regret?

Linking pieces of the character building questions like this, and trying to determine how they puzzle together, helps create complexity in your character, and develop a deeper understanding of how they may behave. It’s okay if you aren’t sure, or if your character changes over time- they may even choose to abandon their initial ambition, and take up another: character growth is normal in long-term campaigns. But it helps to have a solid foundation to start upon- so I invite you to sit down and ponder similar lines of questioning as you read through the archetypes.

A Line You Will Not Cross: Ruining the worthy.

From here, you just need to select a name, pronouns, and a description for your character. Butterfly Court suggests some names for each archetype, though you’re free to choose one that isn’t listed. Re-reading the introductory blurb for each archetype can help you figure out how to describe your character, as well as the aesthetics you chose for them.

It doesn’t have to be especially in depth, though I would suggest at least one sentence for their physical appearance, and one for their major personality traits, as this can be useful for others to reference while interacting with your character, and in case you forget as you’re getting used to writing them.

“Roman is a tall man with a medium complexion, mismatched eyes (one light blue, the other dark brown), and dark, wavy hair that is noticeably greying. Outwardly amiable, there is still always a distinct impression that he’s restraining himself in some capacity: as if let in on an amusing secret others aren’t privy to.”

Butterfly Court includes characters sheets you can extract from the PDF to fill out in an art program, and I’ve linked many Picrew options for you if you’d like something quick and easy. I would also suggest taking at least your character description and formatting them as an easy text reference for the group, (closer to the time of our first session, I will make a channel to act as a character roster for quick skimming, and you can upload your filled out PDFs/PNGs if you’d like, in addition to the text blurb) for ease of reference.

Butterfly Court is a very collaborative game, and so everyone’s decisions in the first session will shape the realm. The basic premise stays the same, but the sort of realm we’re dealing with, and external forces impacting the world around the characters varies. Smaller scale world building can be done on a flexible, as needed basis.

That smaller scale approach can be a fantastic opportunity to tie in your characters' relationships. Examples might be: your characters are from the same hometown far from the court, your characters went to the same boarding school/academy, your characters both stayed at the same inn after an inciting incident (highwaymen robbing carriages, a natural disaster, rogue mercenaries damaging a town square, a chapbook seller’s arrival in town, a travelling troupe putting on a show, etc), your characters met at a vacationing spot you return to every year together, your characters are both guildsmen that have membership at the same group building, and so on.

In Butterfly Court, your character is a member of a royal court nestled in the realm’s capital city. Everything else, including the provided details in the introductory blurb in the book, are all optional and subject to change. The particular ruler is not intended to have much screen time, due to the emphasis of the more collaborative nature of the game’s initial construction and the lateral status among the courtiers, but we can also be flexible on this if need be. (Assassinations are always fun.)

While the political does creep into the personal, the aim of the campaign is more so rooted in the characters and their interactions. As outlined, familial, romantic, creative, and mercenary relationships are all possible between the courtiers- who are all important people, but people who are primarily given that power through their interactions with others: ‘negotiation, socializing, scheming, bargaining, and seducing.’

It is a collaborative, social interactions heavy game, and I would invite you all to approach it with a ‘fail forwards’ or a ‘yes, and?’ mindset. Your characters may encounter stumbling blocks, or fail, but they should fail *interestingly,* and in a way that continues to push them towards interactions with other players.

This following section will take place in live time, due to the democratic nature of how Butterfly Court approaches world building. Selecting two current issues facing the country is fairly straightforward- think of this as like, things you might see in world news. The list of questions that follows hones in more closely to the court itself: and frames the gossip that might percolate around the capital city. Lastly, the two factions in opposition to one another frames the intimately personal: this will have a strong influence among character alliances and rivalries, influencing how the courtiers directly interact with each other.

Generally, Butterfly Court’s world building moves in from the macroscopic towards the microscopic, focusing on character knowledge of what might be pertinent to them: the dangers facing the realm, salacious scandals, and interpersonal relationships. Specific locations details can be worked out together on an as-needed basis.