Melancholic Personality
Basic Information
The Melancholic Personality is one of the four basic personality types according to Humorism. It is the personality type associated with the humor known as Black Bile.
A melancholic person is organized, thoughtful, and hardworking, but prone to perfectionism, suspicion, and depression. They are independent to the point of introversion.
Sources
Bibliography
Game and Story Use
- May be used as a characterization handle for dictating how a particular PC or NPC behaves.
- This is especially fitting for characters in a historical or fantasy setting where humoural medicine is the dominant medical paradigm, as it allows you to hang a lampshade on it via explicit characterization, thus reinforcing the setting.
- This Personality type gives a general idea of the persona, but you may want to use additional characterization tropes to further refine that.
- If this comes up on the Random Character Generator you might interpret it to mean that the character especially embodies the traits of this personality type to such an extent that this defines them.
- The character may be part of a Four-Temperament Ensemble.
- In humorism, this personality type is associated with the Classical Element of Earth, which might suggest ideas for any magic or powers the character might have.
- A good match for reclusive NPCs with unconventional world views and strong mental stats, such as sages, hermits and alchemists.
- Melancholics carry grudges, which may result in such an initially-neutral NPC becoming a recurring villain if they feel they've been wronged by the PCs.
page revision: 3, last edited: 08 Feb 2013 00:15