Online:Character Creation

The character creation screen for the Isle of Balfiera tutorial

Creating your character is the first decision that you must make when playing The Elder Scrolls Online. Although you are presented with a wide variety of options for altering your character's appearance, the only decisions that have an actual effect on gameplay is your class and faction. Your character's capabilities are more strongly affected by how you choose to play the game (and by choices made when you level up) than by your initial character creation.

Characters are server-bound. Characters can be deleted, although the amount of deletions allowed in a given time period is limited. In general, deletion is irreversible. Up to eleven Additional Character Slots can be purchased from the Crown Store for a maximum of twenty.

General Considerations

The character creation screen is split into four menus: Race, Class, Body, and Face. The name text field appears at the top of each menu. Throughout this article, the following will be used to indicate which attributes you can change after character creation:

• ^C — Can be freely changed by the use of items in the game. These items may cost Crowns initially, but once purchased can be changed at will for no additional cost.
• ^T — Can only be changed by purchasing Tokens. These cost Crowns every time you want to make a change, though you may change as many attributes at once as you want for a single Token (depending on the Token type).
• ^U — Unchangeable.

The factors that you must decide upon are:

• Your Name ^T
• Your Gender ^T
• Your Alliance ^T and Race ^T
• Your Class ^{U[verification needed — Outdated?]}
• Your Appearance ^T
  • Your Hair Style, Facial Hair, Head Markings, Body Markings, Major Adornments, and Minor Adornments^C

Name

Your name can be any name that is not already used by another player on the server, so long as it meets the following requirements:

• At least three characters.
• Name cannot start with a space.
• Must end with a letter.
• No more than two of the same letter in a row.
• No numbers.
• No adjacent punctuation characters.
• Four hyphens, apostrophes, or spaces at most.
• [No] Invalid characters.

If any of these requirements are not fulfilled, they will show up red. Additionally, the text box takes a maximum of 25 characters and does not allow entry of symbols other than apostrophes and hyphens, so the no numbers and invalid characters requirements should not be possible to break. To get an idea of which names may suit your race and gender, see this page.

Gender

The two options are male and female. This only affects your appearance, notably the set of hair styles and adornments to choose from.

Alliance and Race

There are three available alliances: the Daggerfall Covenant, the Aldmeri Dominion, and the Ebonheart Pact. Your alliance will determine your starting location and more importantly the side you will fight for if you choose to take part in the Alliance War in Cyrodiil.

Alliance is usually determined by race with the exception of Imperials, available only with the Imperial Edition, who can join any alliance. Players with the Explorer's Pack or Adventurer Pack can choose to play any race with any alliance.

There are ten possible races to choose from:

Daggerfall Covenant	Aldmeri Dominion	Ebonheart Pact
Breton	High Elf	Argonian
Orc	Wood Elf	Dark Elf	Imperial
Redguard	Khajiit	Nord

Your choice of race will determine the racial skill line you unlock at level 5. Personal preference plays an important role in deciding race, since it may limit your alliance choice and to some degree determines your character's appearance. If you are not concerned about alliance or appearance limitations, then the primary factor left is whether the racial bonuses pair well with your class and possibly the weapon and armor skills you plan to use.

Full details on these characteristics are provided on each individual race page; a table summarizing skills and special abilities can be found on the race summary page.

Class

There are seven different playable classes, although only four are available with the base game: the Dragonknight, the Nightblade, the Sorcerer, and the Templar. Three additional premium classes have also been added: the Warden (available with the Morrowind Chapter or separate Crown Store purchase), the Necromancer (available with the Elsweyr Chapter or separate Crown Store purchase), and the Arcanist (available with the Necrom Chapter).

Your class grants you three skill lines for use throughout the game. This decision will have a greater impact on gameplay than any other choice in character creation, and cannot be changed without deleting the character and starting over.

	The Dragonknight class is best suited for tanking-oriented characters due to the Draconic Power and Earthen Heart skill lines, although the Ardent Flame skill line does provide some rather literal firepower.
	The Nightblade class is best suited for characters with a stealth focus, reflected by its skill lines of Assassination, Shadow, and Siphoning.
	The Sorcerer class is the most magically-focused class, and have access to Dark Magic, Daedric Summoning, and Storm Calling.
	The Templar class has both decent magical and melee capabilities. Their Aedric Spear skill line is focused on improving their melee abilities, while the Restoring Light and Dawn's Wrath skill lines primarily augment their magical powers to deal damage or heal allies.
	The Warden class focuses on nature-based magic, with the Animal Companions skill line for damage-dealing and Green Balance skill line for healing, as well as a frost magic line called Winter's Embrace that focuses on mitigating incoming damage.
	The Necromancer class is for those who wish to master death magic. It is a versatile class, offering the Bone Tyrant skill line for tanking abilities, Grave Lord for damage dealing, and Living Death for healing.
	The Arcanist is a powerful class that channels the eldritch powers of Apocrypha. It is a versitile class, with the Herald of the Tome for damage dealing, Soldier of Apocrypha for tanking and defensive abilites, and Curative Runeforms for healing.

Appearance

Many aspects of your character's appearance can be customized, although race will generally have the largest impact. You can rotate and zoom the view of your character using the buttons at the bottom of the screen. This can also be done by clicking and dragging left and right to rotate and scrolling the mouse wheel to zoom. The preview options on the left let you see your character in Novice Gear, Champion Gear, and No Gear (armor depending on class).

There is a button in the bottom right to randomize your appearance. Additionally, each option has a lock button that disables editing for that feature, allowing you to randomize only certain things.

There are a wide variety of aspects you can tweak and they come under various sections, split between the Body and Face menus:

Body

Body Type ^T

Two subsections. One is a triangular slider with three options of Muscular, Large, and Thin. This is the main factor in your character's body shape. The second is Height. Although both of these factors are largely tied to race, with Altmer being the tallest, Orcs being the bulkiest, and Bosmer being the smallest in either regard, these sliders allow players to differentiate their characters from other members of the same race.

Features

Skin Color ^T — Your options are dependent on your race (there are some shared options and some unique options for each race). Although each race has a larger selection of possible skin colors than in Skyrim, the overall range has been reduced for some races. For example, Nords and Bretons have a large number of subtly different skin tones to choose from, but they will remain fairly light-skinned no matter which a player chooses.

Argonian	Breton	Dark Elf	High Elf	Imperial
Khajiit	Nord	Orc	Redguard	Wood Elf

Body Marking ^C — Choose from a list of 24^{[verification needed]} scars and tattoos.

Upper Body

Torso Size ^T

Chest Size ^T

Gut Size ^T

Waist Size ^T

Arm Size ^T

Hand Size ^T

These all range from small on the left to large on the right. The triangular body type slider will also affect each body part, so these individual sliders allow the fine-tuning of body proportions within the selected body type.

Lower Body

Hip Size ^T

Posterior Dimensions ^T (Also affects tail-thickness on Argonians)

Leg Size ^T

Foot Size ^T

Again, these range from small to large and work in conjunction with the body type slider to control the proportions of each body part.

Face

Face Type^T

One subsection; a triangular slider with three options of Heroic, Soft, and Angular. This is the main factor in your character's face.

Voice^T

One subsection; your choice of voice for generic sounds. There are 8 options, ranging from Voice A to Voice H.

Hair

Hair Style ^C — These options are dependent on race but also on gender, with some unique hairstyles per race, notably for Argonians and Khajiit. You will have a maximum of 24 hairstyles to choose from no matter what choices you have made up until this point.

Hair Color ^T — These depend on race, and can be selected from the sets shown below.

Argonian	Breton	Dark Elf	High Elf	Imperial
Khajiit	Nord	Orc	Redguard	Wood Elf

Features

Age ^T: young—old

Adornment ^C: Choose from 24 options. Like hair, these depend on race and gender.

Head Marking ^C: Choose from 24 options. These depend on race, but not gender.

Face

Forehead Slope ^T: inward—outward

Cheekbone Size ^T: small—large

Cheekbone Height ^T: low—high

Jaw Size ^T: small—large

Chin Size ^T: small—large

Chin Height ^T: long—short

Neck Size ^T: thin—thick

Eyes

Eye Color ^T: Eye color has unique options for several races, such as all black eyes for Wood Elf or red eyes for Dark Elf. See the table below.

Eye Size ^T: small—large

Eye Angle ^T: angled—flat

Eye Separation ^T: together—apart

Eye Height ^T: low—high

Eye Squint ^T: wide open—nearly closed

Argonian	Breton	Dark Elf	High Elf	Imperial
Khajiit	Nord	Orc	Redguard	Wood Elf

Brow

Eyebrows ^C: Choose from 20 different eyebrow shapes. This is not available for Argonians and Khajiit.

Eyebrow Height ^T: low—high

Eyebrow Skew ^T: higher left—higher right

Eyebrow Depth ^T: inward—outward

Nose

Nose Shape ^T: concave—convex

Nose Height ^T: high—low

Nose Width ^T: thin—thick

Nose Length ^T: short—long

Mouth

Mouth Height ^T: low—high

Mouth Curve ^T: frown—smile

Lip Fullness ^T: thin—thick

Ears

(Not available for Argonians)

Ear Size ^T: small—large

Ear Rotation ^T: close to head—far from head

Ear Height ^T: low—high

Ear Tip Flare ^T: toward head—away from head

Style Parlor

It is possible to revisit certain aspects of character creation via the Crown Store. While the official name of this feature is the ESO Style Parlor, these options are also commonly termed the "Barber Shop" due to MMO parlance. Class cannot be changed.

Appearance Change

An Appearance Change Token will allow you to change a character's appearance and gender, but does not allow race, name or alliance changes. These tokens cost 001000 .

Name Change

A Name Change Token will allow you to change a character's name to any currently available on that server. These tokens cost 002500 .

Race Change

A Race Change Token will allow you to change a character's race as well as appearance and gender, but not their name or alliance. It does not affect style knowledge, meaning the character will retain knowledge of their original racial style. These tokens cost 003000 .

The Name and Race Change bundle, also available in the Crown Store, provides one Name Change Token and one Race Change Token for the reduced price of 003500 .

Alliance Change

An Alliance Change Token will allow you to change a character's alliance, but not their name, race or appearance. These tokens cost 002500 .

Notes

• Attributes (as seen in Oblivion) do not exist, meaning that your choice of race has fewer implications, and that gender does not affect gameplay.
• On the PTS, you can often choose from certain pre-made characters using a menu in the top left.

Gallery

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  Background for the base game

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  Background for Morrowind

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  Background for Summerset

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  Background for Elsweyr

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  Background for Greymoor

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  Background for the Style Parlor