Persona

An Alternate Personality of "Character", if you will, adopted by Amtgarders. Having a Persona is one of the requirements of Amtgard.

The persona should either be historical or fantastical. For historical, it should be for a person who could have lived anywhere from Roman times up to 1650 A.D., but not someone who actually did. (i.e., do not copy a famous historical figure).

For fantastical it should be fantasy-based, but is a lot more forgiving. People have found ways to justify futuristic personas trapped in an ancient time and things like that. It should not be someone from a movie or book however.

For some Amtgarders, this is little more than picking a name. Picking a name is very important, because if you do not, odds are others will pick one for you. It is suggested that new amtgarders pick at least two names and put them together, to avoid confusion with other people who may have the same name. For example "Raven" is one of the most common names out there, so being named "Raven Stormshield" for example would help you establish a name that is more your own.

For other Amtgarders however, choosing a Persona is far more than simply a name. For them, this involes an elaborate creating involving character history, motivation, relationship, etc. Some amtgarders have more than one persona.

In general, it is the Role Players who go more into the elaborate persona angle, and the Stick Jocks for whom it is little more than a way to avoid being named something stupid.