🎭 Characters & NPCs

👤 For: Game Masters · Players · 💳 Plan: All plans · 🔄 Updated 2026-10-17

Characters are the campaign. The NPCs your players talk to, the heroes they play, the relationships between them — this section covers building NPCs (with portraits, voice input, and optional dialogue suggestions), managing player characters with the full V2 character sheet, and onboarding players so they arrive at session 1 with finished characters.

The two kinds of character

NPC Player Character (PC)
Controlled by The GM A player
Has a portrait Yes (upload, or a suggestion made with AI) Yes (upload, or a suggestion made with AI, uses Threads)
Has a full statblock Optional Yes (5e sheet V2)
Has dialogue suggestions (AI) Yes — including multi-NPC scene conversations No
Creation path Manual, by voice input, or optionally a suggestion (AI) Standard builder or ELI5 wizard (for beginners)
Built during Prep Onboarding or prep
Lives on The campaign The campaign

Pages in this section

  • 👤 NPCs — create memorable NPCs with personality, secrets, portraits, mood portraits, and optional dialogue suggestions
  • 🎲 Player characters — full 5e V2 character sheet: tap-to-roll, death saves, spell slots, feats, rests, XP, crafting, inventory
  • ✨ Character creation — the SRD-backed guided character builder, with an ELI5 wizard for beginners
  • 🎟️ Player onboarding invites — invite links so players build characters before game night
  1. Build 3–5 key NPCs in prep (NPCs) — the patron, the antagonist, a couple of locals. Give them portraits — upload your own or let Tantu suggest one.
  2. Create onboarding invites (Player onboarding invites) and send to your players a week before session 1.
  3. Players build their PCs via the invite link (Character creation) — new players pick the ELI5 guided wizard (species → class → spells → abilities → background → skills → portrait → equipment → name, which is required); returning players use the classic mode.
  4. You review the PCs in the Players section, add GM notes, link them to plotlines.
  5. Session 1 starts at minute zero — no character creation at the table.

NPCs and PCs get their portrait in one of three ways: you upload your own image, link one by image URL, or let Tantu suggest a portrait (with the help of AI). The flow for a suggestion:

  1. NPC description — the short description you already wrote is the starting point.
  2. 📝 Use this — pulls the appearance from the existing description.
  3. 🎨 Let Tantu paint (5 🧵) — image suggestion (AI) in about 15 seconds, 5 Threads per image.
  4. Portrait saved — set on the NPC at once and also available in 🗂️ Choose from media.
  5. Ready to push to player phones.

You write "a grizzled dwarven blacksmith with a missing eye and a soot-stained apron", click 📝 Use this, click 🎨 Let Tantu paint, and ~15 seconds later you have a portrait suggestion. Each image suggestion uses 5 Threads — free only with your own Google Gemini key (other own keys make only text actions free). Players can get a suggestion for their own PC portrait from their character sheet (if you allow it); on the GM side, the PC card offers ✍️ Image description — Tantu writes an image prompt (1 Thread) you can use in any external tool.

Full details: NPCs — Portrait: upload, link, or get a suggestion (AI).

What's new (since June 2026)

  • ELI5 character wizard — a beginner-friendly step-by-step path for new players: species → class → spells → abilities → background → skills → portrait → equipment → name. Replaces the blank-form intimidation. Available on all plans.
  • Character sheet V2 — the player-facing sheet is fully rebuilt: tap-to-roll on abilities / saves / skills / initiative, death save trackers, spell-slot pips, feat/action use-counters, Short/Long Rest buttons, currency, XP progress bar, and crafting (material → ticks → clock).
  • Portrait variant picker — reuse any saved portrait: in the NPC portrait window, 🗂️ Choose from media shows your portraits and pictures; pick one to switch it live. Custom item cards have the same idea as an 🖼️ Image variants picker — see Portrait variants.
  • NPC dialog persistence & version dropdown — suggested dialog lines survive page reload; a dropdown lets you step through earlier suggestions.
  • Scene NPC conversation — get a suggested conversation between the NPCs cast in a scene. Each reply uses 1 Thread; the history is versioned.
  • Voice / microphone NPC creation — tap the 🎤 microphone button in the Add NPC modal to dictate the description. Runs on your browser's built-in speech recognition — free, no Threads.
  • Tantu-portrait checkbox on NPC creation — tick Generate Tantu portrait after creating to get a portrait suggestion immediately when you add the NPC.
  • Class-based starting equipment — automatically added to the character's inventory when the ELI5 wizard or standard builder completes.
  • Portrait suggestions for players — players can get a portrait suggestion (AI) for their own character (5 Threads, charged to the GM's Realm).

Plan limits

Uploading a portrait or linking one by URL is free. A portrait suggestion (AI) costs 5 Threads per image and is available on all plans. With your own AI key, text actions cost 0 Threads — image suggestions still cost 5 Threads per image.

The GM controls whether players may spend Threads on their own portraits: sidebar ⚙️ Tantu Settings, section 🎮 Player Tantu access, toggle "Players may use paid Tantu functions (charged to my Thread credit)". See Threads & costs for how to top up.