Making a character

Account Registration

• You'll need to register a main account first
• Usename can be anything; you may change your displayed name in your user options
• Once your character is created, attach the character to your main account (if different) by going to the account switcher

Filling out your profile

For character approval, only the required fields are necessary to fill out. Keep in mind that wolf characters cannot have been born in Canis unless they were born in character. Creatures can be born in Canis.

Species

Characters can be any species that is not extinct in the real world.

Character Appearance

Colour

If your character is a mammal, they can be any colour that is found in mammals. "Red" in mammals refers to a fox red, russet, or chestnut. "Blue" refers to rich, blue-toned greys. Colours that occur in horses are a good reference point.

Artwork can take some artistic liberties with colouration, and light artistic liberties with minor exaggerations to a character's appearance. Artwork should still represent the character's real appearance at a glance for your fellow writers to reference and/or have a clearly visible note for differences from reality.

A staff member will let you know at the time of your character's acceptance if their art reference will need a note or not. If you are unsure if your character's design or have questions, you may utilize the design-approval channel in the Canis discord, or reach out to a staff member privately.

Patterns & Designs

• Patterning that occurs naturally in mammals can be found on any mammal in the world of Canis.
• Geometric shapes, especially well-defined patterning that appears to be synthetic (man-made), are not found in Canis.
• If you're not sure if a colour or marking will work in Canis, try making it more ambiguous, or of course you can always Direct Message a staff member.

The Bizarre

On Canis, some wiggle room is given when it comes to character appearances. While they cannot have extra things that wouldn't occur normally on the species (including manes, hair, super long tails, horns, wings), we do give some allowance for reasonable exaggerations to a character's appearance.

What is considered a reasonable exaggeration?

• short ear tufts
• cowlicks and/or messy fur
• protruding (not draping) fur tufts at joints
• minor "bangs"

Generally speaking, reasonable exaggerations should avoid greatly affecting the anatomy of your character. Exaggerations should not cover another feature (Ex. No mustaches, eye covering bangs, trailing fur on the ground).

There are added allowance for dog characteristics if the character is of mixed heritage (e.g., floppy ears, curly or "silky" fur, naturally curled tails, etc).

Keep in mind that weird or abnormal looking characters are not the norm in Canis and they will be treated differently in character.

Size Chart

You can select your character's size with the weight, height, and build dropdowns.

Character Capabilities

New characters can be imported into the game equipped with their previously earned skills from another game (including Canis 1.0) once. This allows you to pick up where you left off regarding any prior skills you may have worked for before joining! Staff reserve the right to approve or reject skill imports on a basis of how similar the system of the previous site was to Canis.

Ex. A site that has tier levels to a skill earned through in character posts will likely be approved. A site that allows characters to pick a skill upon creation for profile display highlighting a character's primary talents will most likely be rejected as no in character work was required to earn the badge.

Pre vetted sites we allow skill imports from

• Canis 1.0
• Vivarium
• Wolf RPG

See our Skills page here. Be aware that if your character went through Reincarnation on Canis 2.0 they can not import their old skills.

Character (In)Capabilities

Even though your character may have come here from another universe, they do not retain the ability to read, write, or create advanced tools.

Puppy Characters

Characters who are under 4 months old must enter the game with a caretaker or immediately find one to avoid a desynchronization event. Puppies cannot survive on their own for very long.

Characters under 1 year old should still seek out a caretaker. Young characters without a caretaker are at risk of desynchronization if they are without one for 6 weeks.

Pregnancy & Children

Characters cannot enter the game pregnant. Somehow, they must lose their pregnancy if they were pregnant before waking up in Canis. Characters can enter with babies that are mobile enough to follow or old enough to be carried safely. If the children are NPC, they must die before they reach two months of age.

Submitting for approval

Once you've finished, simply apply for approval!