Psychology and Appearance
Package provenance — this chapter ships with the Ontology & Structure Engine. Provenance tag:
source-ontology-project. When loaded into a new world, grep the tag to find the engine's templates and instructions.
An interactable NPC is a person, not a stat block — and so is a player character. Both the NPC and Character types carry the same two structured blocks: psychology, the behaviour matrices, and appearance, the body itself. Monsters and throwaway enemies stay light — this depth is for people who talk, bargain, betray, and remember.
The psychology matrices
Every axis is a 1–5 scale unless noted. 3 is the middle. You do not have to fill every axis for every person — fill the ones that will matter at the table, and leave the rest for when they grow.
Alignment (classic two axes)
alignmentLawChaos— lawful / neutral / chaotic: obedience to codes, laws, and promises vs. freedom and impulse.alignmentGoodEvil— good / neutral / evil: altruism and compassion vs. selfishness and cruelty.
The nine classic boxes fall out of the two axes; the axes are stored separately so a person can be nuanced (lawful in procedure, neutral in effect — see Tolliver).
Big Five (OCEAN)
The standard personality research matrix, each trait 1–5:
| Trait | 1 | 5 |
|---|---|---|
| openness | conventional, closed | curious, imaginative |
| conscientiousness | disorganized, careless | disciplined, dutiful |
| extraversion | reserved, withdrawn | outgoing, energetic |
| agreeableness | combative, critical | warm, cooperative |
| neuroticism | emotionally steady | anxious, volatile |
Dark Triad
The Machiavellian family — the traits of the calculating operator:
machiavellianism— 1 straightforward/trusting, 5 cunning/manipulative; the ends justify the means.narcissism— 1 self-effacing, 5 grandiose, needs admiration.psychopathy— 1 empathic and conscientious, 5 callous, impulsive, lacking remorse.
Integrity and corruption
integrity— how firmly the person holds principles: 1 none to speak of, 5 unbending.corruptibility— willingness to abandon integrity for gain: 1 never, 5 eagerly.corruptibilityNotes— the crucial part: for whom and at what price. Personal gain, family, clan, cause? Someone with integrity 5 who would betray everything for their tribe is a different creature from one who sells out for silver.
Stability
stability— 1 volatile and unpredictable, 5 rock-steady under pressure. This is the axis that shows how someone behaves in a crisis.
Beliefs (political-compass style)
socialTradition— 1 progressive/reformist, 5 traditionalist.economicDistribution— 1 collectivist/shared, 5 private property/market.politicalAuthority— 1 egalitarian, 5 authoritarian/hierarchical.beliefNotes— free text for ideology, creed, or rulings that don't fit the axes.
The appearance block
Appearance describes the being itself — never worn equipment (that lives in inventory and equipment references). Fields: height, build (slight → hulking), musculature (frail → powerful), skinTone, skinTexture, eyeColor, hairColor, hairStyle, secondarySexCharacteristics (none / subtle / moderate / pronounced, plus secondarySexCharacteristicsNotes), and distinguishingMarks — the scars and details witnesses notice.
Dimorphism lives on the species
Sex-based appearance differences are a property of the species, not the individual. Every Species file carries:
dimorphism— none / subtle / pronounced (default none).secondarySexCharacteristics— the typical differences, e.g. "males grow throat wattles; females are broader-hipped with larger eyes".typicalAppearance— the height range, build, and coloration the species runs to.
An individual's appearance is drawn from that palette — the species file is the ground truth for what is normal.
The character creator translates prompting into matrices
The Character type's creation flow (/file-types/character/creation-flow.json) walks a player from free description to structured sheet. Archetype choices and open prompts carry ai_instruction metadata that tells the generator how each answer maps onto the matrices: a free-text concept becomes alignment, Big Five, and belief scores; a body description becomes the appearance fields; ratings set integrity, machiavellianism, and stability directly. The player never has to know the axis names.
Psychology is mutable
The matrices describe how a person is actually played, not a contract written at creation. When a player's actions contradict the sheet — a 'lawful' character breaks a sworn oath — update the file the same session. Change the axis that is wrong; record the change rather than quietly rewriting history. Appearance mutates too: new scars, wounds, and changed build belong on the sheet. The GM instructions carry this rule into play.
Sources
The matrices draw on established frameworks so the vocabulary is shared: the classic two-axis alignment grid, the Big Five / OCEAN model, the dark triad (Paulhus & Williams), and political-compass-style belief axes. None are prescriptive — a setting without moral absolutes can ignore alignment entirely, and a species with no sexes sets dimorphism to none. The axes exist so retrieval has one stable vocabulary for "manipulative", "traditionalist", or "steady under fire" instead of a dozen phrasings.