Getting Cultured – Creating Your Persona
Prepared for the Aire Faucon Newcomer Meeting on 2 February 2017
by Lady Prudence the Curious
website: penpoint.biz email: PrudenceCurious@aim.com
So you been to an event or two and a few A&S meetings and fighter practices and gentles keep asking what your name is. When you say “Wendy” (a name which started use only in the late 1800s and was popularized in Peter Pan in 1904 by J.M. Barre), they ask you what your persona name is.
In the SCA you end up being three people.
The Modern You – the person you are at work, the person you are for any legal transactions, and the name they put up on websites so people can contact you.
The SCA You – this person uses the SCA name you chose but doesn’t actually stick closely to the persona definition. This part of you does service at events, makes period armor using modern welding techniques, pays US dollars for medieval glass, and attends the business meetings in modern clothing.
The Period You – this is the persona you have created. Someone who could have existed in medieval or renaissance time but did not. They lived in a country and culture during a time frame and this tends to be the primary timeframe you will do much of your research in, but the SCA You is not limited – so if you want to go to a Japanese event in Japanese garb with your 12th century Irish persona name you can.
Creating a Persona – Questions you should ask yourself
- What clothing do I look good in?
- What sort of things do I like to make and when is the most interesting times they were made?
- What sort of things am I interested in (example boats, agriculture, banking systems)?
- What countries do I like to visit/research?
- What historical period is interesting to me? (Fall of the Roman empire, the Viking expansion, etc)
PERSONA CREATION SHEET
Name Ideas
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Centuries interested in
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Countries interested in
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Cultures interested in
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Arts & Sciences I Like
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Clothing I Like
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