RPG Character Backgrounds

I've not been feeling up to putting anything particularly complicated together this month, and I just finished my first run through Dragon Age: the Veilguard, and it occurred to me that I've never shared the computer backgrounds I make for my characters after finishing an RPG before and it might be interesting.

All of these descriptions will have spoilers, so if you haven't played one of these games and don't want to know things about them, probably skip those.

My first go at this, for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Vivikyr, the dunmer spellblade I played through first, was – looking back on it – rather busy and uncoordinated. I tried to stuff everything that was important to the character in, with... mixed success.

So we've got the Moon-and-Star symbol of the game (and Nerevar, thus your character the Nerevarine) in the upper left against a background of Vivek-the-city followed by Vivek-the-god, then a head and shoulders shot of Vivikyr, then Sotha Sil, then Azura appearing, then momst of the right half is Dagoth Ur in with a House Daggoth urn in the upper right, followed by Caius Cosades, then one view of Vivikyr's room in his house near Ald'ruhn, then Vivikyr in his final armor with Trueflame, then the Heart of Lorkhan, then Vivikyr casting a spell in his older (but more favored) Indoril armor, and then the other side of Vivikyr's room in his house, and finally Almalexia, the third member of the Tribunal. (Side note: Vivikyr's name having some similarities to Vivek is a coincidence, kind of an awkward one, but there it is.)

If I were to do this again I'd cut out most of the miscellaneous elements and focus on Vivikyr in the center, and Dagoth Ur/Heart of Lorkhan/Tribunal stuff on one side with Azura and maybe some Vvardenfell scenery on the other. But I think part of why I did it this way is that Morrowind, being an older game, isn't particularly high resolution, so I would have had to upscale things to make that work.

You can also tell this was made for my old, nearly square monitor. This one filled the screen.

The next game I tried this with was Dragon Age: Origins, with Zemariel Tabris, the city elf rogue I played first. I tried for a more 'movie poster' style with this one (designed to have some blank strips on the side of my old nearly-square monitor), and went through several iterations before I settled on one.

The first, above, had Zemariel at the front but towards the right, in his final game armor, with Zevran (who Zemariel romanced) just behind and to the right. I don't remember my logic in taking a screenshot with him in plate armor; that's definitely something I'd change were I to do it again. Just for visual difference from Zemariel, who was wearing leather already? I don't know. Then behind and to the left of Zemariel are his father and cousin, and then after that Alistair and Wynne, his other two main companions. The middle background has people who were important to Zemariel's story: Duncan, the one who recruits your character into the Grey Wardens; Flemeth, who assists early on; and Morrigan (Zemariel got along with her and reluctantly did the Dark Ritual, and I do remember why she's in armor, I'd made her an Arcane Warrior). Then the background has villains: the Archdemon, the Architect (who Zemariel spared), and Loghain (who he absolutely didn't).

The second version is very similar to the first, but I switched some groupings around, and chose different screenshots of a few characters. Zemariel and Zevran are in the center of the front row now, with Zemariel's cousin and father to the right of Zevran, and Alistair and Wynne to Zemariel's right. I also gave Duncan more prominence in the middle row, and picked a different Archdemon screenshot.

I think this one is a definite improvement on the first.

The differences between this and the second one are a lot more subtle. Mostly I faded the background out more behind the first row so that Zemariel especially would stand out more, and I think I dealt with some harsh edges.

In basic idea, this one was okay, I think, but I would change a few things now, such as applying some color gradient to bring it together, and choosing a screenshot of Zevran with armmor he actually wore in-game.

For Dragon Age 2, featuring Thanatos Hawke – sword-and-shield using warrior – I went with a very similar format to the DA:O one above, but I clearly had more trouble selecting a few important things to highlight.

Front and left is Thanatos himself. Right behind him is Fenris, his primary party member and love interest; then behind him is Aveline, who (along with Varric, who appears elsewhere) was the other person Thanatos mostly took around. Behind/above that grouping is Thanatos' family (mother, uncle, brother, sister), all of whom died during the course of the game. Above that in the top left is Varric, who is also the narrator of the game. Then at the top it gets a little confusing: there's Chantry statues, a minor antagonist to do with the Chantry, a minor antagonist to do with Varric, a minor antagonist to do with the mages, then Anders (party member who Thanatos ended up opposing and killing), then Meredith, the main antagonist of the end of the gamme, with the Kirkwall Chantry exploding. Then midway down there's the old viscount (why is he here?) and the Arishok, who seems like the primary antagonist for much of the ggame. Then in the bottom right there's Thanatos with his dead mother and in the background the mage who killed her, Thanatos and Fenris, and the Magister who had enslaved Fenris in the background.

I think parts of this work. The bottom right area is fairly cohesive and all points to things that were important to Thanatos specifically. Varric at top works out because of his dual role as companion and narrator. I would, were I redoing this, cut down a lot on the miscellaneous antagonists (probably the Arishok, Anders, and Meredith would stay and the others would go), and try to pick more meaningful screenshots of Thanatos' family.

Next up is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, featuring Nidrani Adurnashi, dunmer warrior. This is back to the full monitor filling format, still with my old squarish monitor.

I tried to select things that were important to Nidrani specifically here, but I also threw in some things that were a little less so, which I might not keep now. In front left and again sort of center right/top is Nidrani herself, in her daedric armor. I believe the background in the left is her house, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Top left is Parthurnax and top right is Alduin, which makes sense; both were important to her/the main story. There's a random dragon in the middle top and some scenery (I'm not sure why that particularly blurry guy any more). Bottom right is Nidrani fighting... Alduin, I think? And then in the middle of the bottom there's a statue of Azura and the guy in control of the Imperial Legion faction. (You can, uh, probably tell that Skyrim is the one of these games I haven't replayed since making these. I've forgotten a bit.)

If I were redoing this, I would remove the Imperial Legion guy because that wasn't that important to Nidrani (she just thought that the Stormcloaks were real jerks), the random dragon, and whoever the blurry guy is. I'd probably add in some from the Dragonborn expansion, because that mattered a lot more to Nidrani than anything but the main quest in the base game. I'd also try to cut it down to only one main image of her. Basically, this one is a little bit of a mess, definitely a step backwards from the Dragon Age ones.

And now for Dragon Age: Inquisition, featuring Tegwen Lavellan, dalish elf warrior. This was also full monitor (the last one done for my old squarish one), but I was aiming for the more posterish style I'd been doing for Dragon Age besides that.

We've got Tegwen herself front and center, and this game has enough resolution for that to be easily done. Then, in the background, clockwise from bottom left, it's: somewhere in the forest, an ancient elven guardian and Solas, Flemeth, the Anchor, Corypheus, Tegwen drinking from the well, and Solas killing Flemeth from the ending animation.

It works fairly well, but there are some odd ommissions. I usually include party members, or at least characters' family or love interests if applicable, so at least adding Josephine (her love interest/Inquisition Advisor) and maybe Cassandra, Dorian, and Varric (most common party members) is something I would do again, probably in place of the random scenery, or slightly decreasing Flemeth's prominence. But this did only include things that were important to Tegwen, and it's more smooth visually.

Fast forward a good decade or so, because no game I wanted to give this treatment to came along until Baldur's Gate 3. This was the first of two I did, featuring both Yezka'al (githyanki warrior, my first character) and Vethryn (drow paladin and Dark Urge, my second character).

This one is fairly simple; a screenshot of Vethryn in his final armor on the left and Yezka'al in their final armor on the right, with in the middle a screenshot of the city of Baldur's Gaate, and an image of the Emperor behind the logo.

I probably wouldn't do anything much different here for including both characters, although maybe non-bloody screenshots would've been better... or just for Yezka'al, anyway.

Then I decided I was going to try the more poster-inspired style again, but just for Vethryn, because while I liked Yezka'al they ended up kind of blasting through the game and not caring about large portions of it, whereas Vethryn integrated a lot better.

Vethryn is in the center front here. I chose a screenshot I liked, which didn't end up having the final armor he wore, but this is the one he wore for the majority of the game, so it works. On the left, and bleeding over to the right, are things to do with the Dark Urge/Bhaalspawn storyline: Withers in the top left, Vethryn being temporarily killed by Bhaal after resisting him (three different shots: dying, recovering right under Withers, dead at lower left), and then Bhaal's blood projection. On the right there's the Emperor in the background, then Sceleritas Fel, and a shadowy image of Bhaal, and th en in the lower right there are more positive things for Vethryn: petting the owlbear cub, hugging his love interest Astarion, and then with his final party at the end-game (Karlach as an illithid, him, Astarion).

I would tweak a few things if I were doing it again. Almost a third of the space devoted to being killed and brought back after defying Bhaal is excessive, although it was important to Vethryn; the mid-right area is muddy, and although I think Jaheira is in that group screenshot, considering how important her guidance was to Vethryn she ought to have a bit more focus.

The latest one is for Dragon Age: the Veilguard, featuring Vesper Thorne, a city elven Grey Warden sword and shield warrior.

I tried to do a similar poster-style take as I'd done for the other Dragon Age games here, but my monitor is different, and that gave me more room to play around with. So the overall background is the crucial (and engineered) eclipse towards the end of the game, overlayed with Solas, Ghilan'nain, and Elgar'nan seen against the breaking Fade. Vesper is at the front in their final armor. Behind is a near-end game shot featuring assorted companions, but focusing on Taash, Neve, and Davrin, who are the three he took the most often. The left has, from top, the final throne in the sky, then Elgar'nan, then Ghilan'nain, then Vesper trying to resist Elgarn'nan. At the right, the top featuring Solas first in the Fade and then towards the end, and below that there's Varric (dead), and then Vesper with Davrin (his love interest) and Assan (the griffon).

Since I just finished this one there's nothing I'd change at the moment, or I'd have done so, but I'm sure I'll come up with things later!

With no guarantee of another Dragon Age game (or, let's be honest, non-MMORPG Elder Scrolls), and Baldur's Gate 3 already being somewhat of a surprise, I don't know if or when I'll be doing one of these again. Perhaps for Avowed? We'll see!