Example of ARIA Persona Creation

These are general questions; several have been answered already:
The persona is a Merochasan, from Merochas, and will begin the game in that environment.
This persona will be called Varjo the Trader, and he is 29 years old at the beginning of the story.
The persona concept is a fairly well-to-do river trader, who travels up and down the rivers in and around Merochas, trading and adventuring.  He is literate and somewhat educated, but because of the hard work and rough crowd that he encounters every day on the rivers, he is a capable fighter as well.
This concept will work well in many types of adventures in and around Merochas, and because of the mobility inherent in the concept, will be suitable for stories in a variety of locations.

Based on the standard persona outline, Varjo gets 7 x 29 = 203 Interaction Points (IPs).
These IPs will be used to give a structure to the choices made in defining Varjo in the ARIA system.  Because the IPs give a defined limit to the amount of "stuff" this persona can have (high attributes, lots of skills, special backgrounds, wealth, etc.), those things that are most important to the persona concept will be emphasized, and other aspects will be reduced or left out of the persona description.  This gives the persona room to develop through the story.

Again, this question has already been answered - Varjo is a Merochasan.  Because Merochasans are a common heritage group, and don't possess a lot of special abilities or inherent aspects, they make a good "default" heritage group for the environment.
Checking the Heritage Template, we see that the IP cost for this heritage group is 0.   Varjo still has 203 IPs.  If the heritage group had an IP cost associated with it (either as a result of species characteristics, racial characteristics, or aspects unique to that heritage group), then we would subtract that cost from Varjo's total at this point.

OK, now we have to make some choices.  Chapter 2 of ARIA Roleplaying discusses Kinship.  ARIA places a great deal of emphasis on how a persona fits into the environment, and the persona's family background is one important aspect of that.
(Technically, this step in the persona creation process could be skipped, especially if the persona's background was thought to be "typical.")
First, we select a Status Archetype for the persona.  This represents the general social class into which he was born.  For some societies, this will be obvious, such as for a society with only one social class.
(Ref. ARIA Roleplaying PC 54)  For Varjo, we decide that he comes from a family of traders.  Looking at the Merochas Hierarchy of Social Estates, we see that independent merchants and river traders are listed in the Merchant (IV) category of social status, which places Varjo's family in the Professional Status Archetype.  Checking the table on PC 54, we have a series of choices to make about Varjo's relationship with his family:
1) Legitimacy.  We decide that Varjo is legitimate (no cost modifier)
2) Family Orientation.  This can be an involved choice, and might change through the course of persona development.  We can actually skip this step for now, because there no IP cost associated with this choice.
3) Sibling Rank.  Will Varjo inherit anything from his family?  We need to reference the Merochas environment summary to see what the inheritence patterns are for this society.   Checking the Kinship section of the summary, we see that the inheritence pattern for Merochas is Primogeniture.  This means that the eldest of the primary lineage will inherit all of the family's wealth.  Thus, Varjo's sibling rank is pretty important, especially since the family probably owns some kind of trading business (probably a riverboat).  However, we think that Varjo might just be a younger son who had to strike out on his own, and so we choose "Non-inheritor," with an IP cost of 0 (Varjo still has 203 IPs to spend).
4) Estrangement.  How are Varjo's relations with his family?  Did he receive their blessing when he struck out on his own?  Or was there some ill feeling involved?  If the family didn't like that, perhaps relations are poor.  We decide to assign Varjo a "Poor" estrangement rating with regard to his family.   The IP cost is -1, giving Varjo a total of 204 IPs to spend!
5) Family Renown.  How well known is Varjo's family?  If people recognize Varjo as being from an established trading family, that will influence their opinion of him (for good or ill).  Since there is no cost associated with this choice, we could skip it, but because family renown can give Varjo some starting renown of his own, we decide to give Varjo's family a Renown Value of 7 (Ref. PC 63), with the aspect of "River Trade."  This means that Varjo's family is known by peers (fellow traders and associated professionals) throughout Merochas, and that people in both the Privilaged and Labor status archetypes will have heard of his family, especially if they are involved in the river trade, either as investors or as laborers.  There might be more aspects we could define about Varjo's family, but those can easily be added later.
6) Reaction Orientation.  We know that many people have heard about Varjo's family, but is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Do people generally have a favorable reaction to someone from that family?  Or do they dislike the family (for dishonest trading practices, for example)?
We decide to give the family a Favorable orientation.  This means that most people involved in the river trade in Merochas not only know about Varjo's family, but in general they respect the family, and are favorable toward members of that family.  This costs 3 IPs (Ref PC 54), leaving Varjo with 201 IPs.

Now we get to make some decisions about what Varjo is really like.  What are his natural attributes?  What are his strengths (and weaknesses)?
Looking at the list of sixteen attributes (Ref. chart PC 72), we begin to make some choices.  We know that Varjo spends a lot of time on river boats, and so we want him to be agile.  We select Agility right away as one area where Varjo is above average.  We also think that as a trader, Communication will be important.  Life on the river can be a little rough, so we tentatively select Hardiness as appropriate for Varjo.
That's three of the six.  We also think that Varjo will probably need a good Manual Dexterity, since he will have grown up working with ropes and knots and wielding hooks, etc.  Another good choice would be Perception, since he will be on the lookout for obstructions in the river and other hazards, and finally we select Presence, because Varjo is going to be a leader.
Now, how about Varjo's weaknesses?  We don't have to give him any below average attributes, but looking at Varjo, we think that maybe he's just a little too sure of himself, and probably lacks a little Wisdom.  We decide that Wisdom will be below average (at least to begin with).  Listing our choices, we get the following:

You might notice that we've skipped a chapter in the ARIA rules.  We generally select Background Aspects first, and then go back and determine traits for the persona.  Sometimes you'll want to flip back and forth between sections as you "balance" out your choices for a persona.   For now, we'll select some background aspects, and then worry about Varjo's other traits.
Since we've decided that Varjo won't have to use the Reality rules, we don't have to worry about most of the special Background Aspects for Geoza.  Still, we've defined some aspects in special ways which are appropriate for the world of Geoza, and so not everything in the ARIA rules will apply (and some things that aren't in the ARIA rules might apply).
Looking at the list of available aspects (also Ref. PC 116), we see several that seem like obvious choices for Varjo.  Since he's a river trader, he'll likely need a river boat.  Because we decided that Varjo didn't inherit such a boat from his family, we need to allocate some IPs to an appropriate aspect such as Extensive Resources.  A river boat is a pretty substantial piece of property for someone of the Professional class to own outright, and so we decide to give Varjo the Extensive Resources aspect at rank 7.
We also look at some of the other material aspects listed, and decide that maybe Varjo has some debts as well.  We'll give him the Debt aspect at rank 3 - nothing horrendous, but enough that Varjo will have his debt commitments on his mind when trading.
We also decide that Varjo has a Good Credit Reputation at rank 3 - he's known for paying his debts, and if he needs to borrow some money in the future, he'll be in a good position to do so.
Moving on to other areas of Varjo's background, we look at the various psychological aspects.  We briefly consider "Born Leader" but hold off for now, wanting to look at some other options first.  We also note that a Weakness for alcohol or a drug is recommended for Merochasans, and decide that Varjo does drink a lot in dockside taverns, so he has a Weakness (Alchohol) at rank 4.
Looking at mental aspects, we think that maybe a good Sense of Direction would be handy for someone who spends a lot of time traveling, so we give Varjo rank 3 with that aspect.   Varjo seems to be able to tell which way he's headed most of the time, at least above ground.
Social aspects can be important for a trader, so we look carefully at those.  Varjo probably has a few contacts scattered along the rivers, and so we give him Contacts at rank 5.
Varjo also has a crew for his river boat.  Most of the crew will be hirelings, but a few might be more loyal.  We give Varjo Follower at rank 5 as well.  For Geoza, this means that Varjo has five followers of average ability.  We'll determine the specifics later (we could be creating a few other personas as a result of this choice), but for now we'll say that they're all crew for his river boat.
How about a sponsor for Varjo?  Does he have an investor who favors Varjo enough to provide some financial support?  Perhaps there is a wealthy Merochasan who helped Varjo finance his boat when he first built it?  This possibility is also attractive to the Mythguide, who can use such a sponsor as an adventure hook for some kinds of stories.  We'll give Varjo Sponsor rank 4 - enough for some influence, but not so muchl that Varjo is working for anyone extremely powerful (at least, not that he knows about...).
How about an unfavorable aspect?  We know Varjo has poor relations with his family, but why?  Maybe that's a secret - we decide to give Varjo a Secret at rank 4.   This is something we can add detail to later, but it gives Varjo an element of mystery.
Now we look at physical aspects.  There is one aspect that we really want to look at - Unrealized Potential.  We'd like to have the option of improving a couple of the "average" attributes that Varjo is currently stuck with, like Hardiness and Quickness.  If we give Varjo two Unrealized Potentials at rank 1, he'll be able to develop his Hardiness and Quickness during the story, and it won't cost a lot of IPs now.
Looking at the Merochasan Heritage Template, we see that Varjo automatically has a Resistance to Disease at rank 5 (no IP cost), and that a couple of physical aspects are recommended: Strong Stomach and Weather Sense.  Knowing that Varjo eats in a lot of riverside dives, we decide to give him Strong Stomach at rank 3, and also Weather Sense at rank 2.  That will give Varjo some kind of warning about one type of weather condition.  We decide that Varjo gets a mild ache in one elbow that warns him of approaching thunderstorms.
Finally, we look at supernatural aspects.  Merochasans are all a little superstitious, so we know that Varjo gets Superstitious at rank 2 (no IP cost).  We could choose to raise that higher if we wanted to, but that's good enough for now.   We also think that maybe Varjo could use a little good fortune, so we give him the Fortune aspect at rank 3.
Listing our choices out, with their associated costs (Ref. PC 115):

Now we skip back to chapter four and finish off Varjo's traits.   Because we now have a much better idea of what kind of persona Varjo is (after selecting the various background aspects), we can more readily make decisions about some of his traits.
First, we calculate his Charisma Trait (Ref. PC 86), which is the average of Intuition, Presence, and Willpower.  Varjo will have an above average Charisma Trait, because two of the three components are above average attributes for him.  8 + 8 + 5 (the average default for Willpower) = 21, which divided by three gives Varjo a Charisma Trait of 7.  Varjo is a charismatic persona.
Next we decide on whether to purchase Faith and/or Insight.  Since Varjo isn't a priest or sorcerer (that's something specific to Geoza, btw), neither is required.   But in the world of Geoza, humans tend to have Faith - they get to purchase the Faith Trait at a discounted cost (at the cost for Disciplines, rather than the cost for Renown and Faith (Ref. chart on PC 9)).  We decide to give Varjo a minimal rating in the Faith trait, at rank 4.  This costs 5 IPs, leaving Varjo with 131 IPs.
Now for Social Traits (Ref. PC 87).  Most personas won't begin the game with Influence Pools or Leverage Pools.  We note that some backgrounds might give a persona a starting rank in an Influence or Leverage Pool, but we don't see anything in Varjo's background that compels us to do so, so we move on.
Renown (Ref. PC 91) is something that many starting personas won't have as well, but they might have some renown that derives from their family's reputation.  Because Varjo's family is well-known, its likely that he'll have some renown deriving from that.   A persona can also develop renown as a result of events that occur during persona development - we note that we might have to come back to this later.  For now, we check the chart for innate renown (Ref. PC 96) and see that Varjo's base renown is equal to his family's renown, modified by a few factors.  Varjo's family renown is a 7, but because Varjo is a Non-inheritor (-4), and because his relations with his family are poor (-2), Varjo is left with an innate renown at rank 1 - not much, but better than nothing.  Varjo will be recognized by a few people who live in the area he grew up, or who are close associates of his family.  Any other renown Varjo gets will be on his own merits.  We could purchase some starting renown for Varjo at this point, but decide to wait for now.
Personality (Ref. PC 101) is something that doesn't require any IP expenditure, but is important for roleplaying the persona.  We know from experience that Varjo's personality will develop more through roleplaying than through us putting words on a sheet of paper, but we decide to make a couple of notes to help us get started.  We've already decided that maybe Varjo is a little overconfident, so that's one note we can add right now.  We've also decided that Varjo is more outgoing and gregarious than he is a loner, so we note that as well.  And we know that Varjo has a somewhat mysterious past (why is he on such poor terms with his family?), so we note that he is just a little bit secretive.  That's enough for now - we can always come back and add things later if we think of something.
That finishes up the Traits section, and we can move on to the big one - expertise development.  So far, Varjo has 131 IPs remaining.

We've already decided on a vocation for Varjo - he's a river trader.  We could develop Varjo through more than one vocation, but since he's only 29 years old, we decide he's probably only been in one vocation so far.

First, we list the innate expertises which all personas start with.  Varjo speaks the Merochasan dialect of the Jalani language at rank 5 (actually, the South Jalani branch of the Jalani language family, but Varjo would just say he speaks Merochasan).  Varjo also has Dodge rank 1, Physical rank 1, Influence rank 1, and Savvy rank 1.  These don't cost Varjo any IPs (Ref. PC 152).

We also check the Merochasan Heritage Template to see if there are any required or recommended expertises, or any other notes or limits to persona development listed.  We see that Streetwise (a special instance of the Social Adaption talent used in Geoza) and Boating (another special instance, this time of the Transport aptitude) are both recommended for Merochasan characters.  We'll keep those in mind as we develop Varjo - they both seem likely expertises for Varjo to have.

But first, we need to develop Varjo through his childhood.   Early Development (Ref. PC 153) outlines the method for developing expertises which a persona learns from his family and from opportunities during childhood and early adolescence.  The length of this period can vary from culture to culture, but in most societies, early development ends around the mid-teens (this is the human norm - other species or unusual cultures could be different).  The default standard for ARIA is to end early development at age 14.  Since the Merochasan heritage group is fairly standard in this respect, that will work for Varjo as well.
The ARIA rules treat early development as if it were a common "vocation" that all personas pursue while they are children, so this will be our introduction to the vocational development process.
Each year of development, the persona can spend IPs to develop expertises.  Vocations have have expertise "potentials" which determine how many different expertises a persona can develop simultaneously within that vocation.  These "potentials" are divided into Internal Potentials and External Potentials.   Each type, internal and external, is given a rating from 1 to 5, which is the number of expertises that can be developed within that category.  Higher potentials mean that the persona will be able to develop more expertises, faster.  Low potentials indicate the reverse.
OK, take a deep breath, read that again, and we'll go on.  This is the most complex part of persona development in the ARIA system.

Internal potentials are expertises that a persona within that vocation would easily learn and develop.  Taking a look at the river trader vocation which we've created already, internal expertises are such things as Guile, Savvy, Boating, Administration, and Observation.  External expertises are things that a person might develop, but not because they do them as part of their "job."  Personas can develop external expertises based on their social class (their "archetype"), the type of environment they are generally exposed to (urban, rural, wilderness, etc.), or because they are in a travelling vocation ("itinerant") or an official one.   Additionally, there are certain expertises that almost any persona can develop, as long as they have the potential to do so.  External potentials are developed outside of the vocation itself.  The potential for a given vocation to develop external expertises is related to how much time the persona has away from the job.
In the case of the river trader vocation, we see that it has an Internal Potential of 4, and an External Potential of 3.  The high internal potential indicates a vocation with a great deal of variety in the types of tasks that are typically performed as a part of the job.  Likewise, the relatively high External Potential indicates a vocation with a lot of opportunity for development outside of the job.

OK, back to childhood.  Early development always has internal and external potentials of 1.  A persona can develop up to two expertises at one time - one internal, one external.  An internal expertise for a child is based on the vocation of the head of the family.  In Varjo's case, he gets to develop river trader expertises as a child, because that's what his father did, and he grew up in that business (this also means we can refer to the river trader vocation template for all the information we need).  External expertises for children are likewise based on the status archetype and environment in which the child developed, as well as the universal expertises available to any persona.  There is a limit to how much a persona can develop within early development (Ref. chart PC 154).  In Varjo's case, he is from a professional status background, so he can develop any one expertise up to rank 2 during childhood.
For each year of early development, Varjo will develop two expertises (Ref. PC 157 for IP costs).  Note that this does not indicate that the persona develops a certain expertise during the first year of life, for example.  The total amount of development is what is intended to be represented.  Also remember that Varjo starts with ranks in some innate expertises such as Physical and Native Language.  We'll lay out a rough table:

Also, Varjo has been a river trader for the past 15 years.  He probably hasn't run his own boat for that whole time, but he's likely well-known on the river.  Taking another look at innate renown (remember, we said we might have to come back to this?), we note that the river trader has a vocational prominence of 6.  River traders interact with a lot of different people, and thus are likely to be recognized by a lot of people within their area (the river trade and associated elements).  (Ref. chart PC 96)  We note that the listing for vocational prominence skips from "3-5" to "7-9" and leaves us in a quandry as to which category a "6" should have been included in.  Since we don't want to take the time to send LUG an email and wait for a response, we decide to lump it into the "3-5" category (now the "3-6" category), and see that Varjo gets 1 point of vocational renown for every 3 years spent in the river trader vocation.  That works out to a renown of 5, with an aspect of "river trade," because that's how he acquired that renown.  He might also be known for something else, but only among those involved in the river trade.   The scope of the renown (Ref. PC 93) indicates that Varjo is known throughout a city-sized environment - likely his "home base" city, the one he most frequently operates out of.  We decide that the city of Merochas is where Varjo is best known.  We also check Varjo's background aspects to see if they might give him some renown.  Its possible that Varjo might be renowned for acquiring his own river boat at an early age, but that only gives him a renown of 2 (Aspect Rank divided by 3, Ref. PC 96), which isn't many people that know about it.  We decide not to bother with any renown from his background.

OK, with those things noted, let's discuss an aspect of the ARIA persona creation process that we haven't mentioned yet.

Varjo has much more than the average amount of wealth for his culture and status.  He owns his own river boat and all associated equipment.  Varjo likely can afford whatever basic gear the player wants him to have, and likely has a few nice things (a gold earring, for example, or a fancy "dress" tunic and trousers made of embroidered cotton or maybe even silk).  Varjo is an accomplished trader, and although he has some debts, he also probably has enough hard coin to do some speculative trading of his own, in addition to carrying cargo or passengers for others.

This is the player's chance to add anything we haven't included already.  If you look back at all of the notes we've made along the way, a lot of the persona's history has already been created.  We still need to decide just why Varjo is on the outs with his family, and why he's keeping it a secret.  And we need to work with the Mythguide to create Varjo's sponsor and the followers on Varjo's crew.   We could also fill out a "Combat Profile" for Varjo so we don't have to stop and look up key information if his river boat gets attacked by bandits....