Characters

Characters are the heart of Tavern Cozy. A character is a complete AI companion: a name, an appearance, a personality, a first greeting, a world (scenario), expressions, and a gallery.

Create a character

1. Go to Create → Create Character (or /characters/new).
2. Fill in at least a name — the only required field.
3. Save. Your character starts private until you publish it.

Every field explained

Identity

• Name (required) — used everywhere; drives the chat room name and the character’s slug.
• In-chat name — how the character addresses themselves and appears in chat, if it differs from the display name.

Appearance

• Avatar — upload an image (cropped to a square) or paste a URL. PNG files are scanned for an embedded character card, so uploading a card image can pre-fill the character automatically.
• Left figure — a full-body image shown in the chat view, with an optional caption.

Writing

• Tagline — a short hook shown on the character card. Auto-derives from description if you leave it blank.
• Description — the character’s personality and backstory. This is core context for the model.
• Greeting — the first message the character sends when you start a chat.
• Scenario — the setting and situation the roleplay begins in.
• Profile — extended backstory or system-level notes.
• Example dialogue — sample exchanges that teach the character’s voice.
• Alternate greetings — extra first messages you can cycle through when starting a chat.

Behavior

• NSFW — flags the character as adult content. Browsing can filter these out, and they’re excluded from mobile-approved content.
• Expression detection — if the model should recognize emotional cues, and optional per-emotion images (neutral, joy, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust, love, anticipation, trust, shame) shown as reactions.
• Gallery — up to 3 images displayed on the character page.

Sharing

• Visibility — public (listed in browse, viewable by everyone), unlisted (viewable via direct link only), or private (only you).
• Tags — up to several; pick from existing tags or type new ones. Banned tags are rejected.
• Original author — attribution when you import or rework someone else’s character.

Importing characters

You don’t have to build from scratch. On the create page:

• Import JSON — load a CharaCard file (V1 or V2). Fields map automatically: name, avatar, greeting, description, scenario, example dialogue, tags (NSFW detection included), expressions, and original author.
• Import PNG card — upload a PNG with an embedded chara text chunk; the card is parsed the same way.
• Bulk upload — select up to 10 card files (JSON or PNG). Each is validated (needs name, profile or description, and greeting) and imported. Avatars are downloaded automatically. You get a per-file success/error report.

AI-assisted creation

Two helpers are built into the form:

• Generate field — asks the model to write a tagline, description, profile, greeting, scenario, example dialogue, or an alternate greeting from the fields you’ve already filled.
• Random character — generates a complete character from nothing.

Editing and the approval queue

Editing a private or unlisted character applies immediately. Editing a public, approved character goes through a moderation queue:

1. Your edit creates a pending version.
2. The live character stays unchanged until a moderator approves the edit.
3. You can keep submitting — a new pending edit supersedes the previous one.

Comment settings (enable comments, require approval) apply immediately, even on public characters.

Publish, fork, delete

• Publishing — making a character public flags it for approval before it appears in browse.
• Forking — copy another public character as a starting point; forks track their lineage to the original.
• Deleting — removes the character, its versions, favorites, comments, and views. Deletion is permanent.