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Portraits, portrait states and expressions

How character pictures are made, and how to give a character other outfits and faces.

All of this lives in the left column of a character's sheet (Atlas → NPCs → a character).

The portrait

A portrait is made from the Portrait Prompt alone. The game frames it as an upper-body portrait and adds your world's art style. Nothing else from the profile is used, so Appearance and Default Outfit never change the picture.

What to write. Describe the subject only: features, hair, build, expression, and clothing from the waist up.

What to leave out:

• art style, lighting, background and camera terms (added for you)
• the character's name (names are blocked in image prompts)
• real people and political titles (see Image safety)

In worlds using the BuddyMix model, the AI writes portrait prompts as tags rather than sentences. See Writing image prompts.

Regenerate Portrait makes a new picture from the prompt. The cost is shown on the button, and a failed image is refunded. It's only available while the Default state is selected.

Two buttons sit on the portrait itself:

• The gallery button (top-left) lets you use any image you've generated before, from any of your worlds, at no cost.
• ⇋ flips the character to face the other way. The flip applies everywhere they appear: portrait, states, expressions and the map.

Portrait states

A portrait state is an edited copy of a portrait: the same character, changed by an instruction like "give them a long wool travelling cloak" or "soaked from the rain".

Choose + in the Portrait States strip under the portrait, then fill in:

• Type: Outfit or Custom (see below).

• Name: up to 30 characters.

• Base image: the default portrait or another state, so you can build edits on edits ("blue dress", then "blue dress, soaked").

• Edit prompt: describe the change, not the whole character.

• Model: which image editor does the work:

  • Flux 2 Klein: every plan.
  • Qwen Image Edit and GPT Image 2: Hero only. GPT Image may refuse some requests under its provider's content rules, and you're refunded when it does.

  The costs are on Credit costs. The picker remembers the model you used last.

Outfit or Custom?

• Outfit: while this state is active, the character treats it as what they're wearing, in place of their Default Outfit. They read the state's name, not the edit prompt, so name outfits descriptively: "rain-soaked travelling cloak", not "Outfit 2".
• Custom: changes the picture only. Use it for moods and poses ("battle-ready", "exhausted") that shouldn't change what they say they're wearing.

To manage states:

• ✎ (or double-click) re-rolls a state, with its settings filled in. The old image is replaced once the new one finishes.
• × deletes a state.
• The default portrait can't be deleted.

Switching states in a conversation

In a conversation, open the character's portrait menu (the pencil on desktop, or long-press on touch) and choose Change state. Pick a state, or Default to go back. The portrait changes straight away, and an Outfit state changes what they're wearing from their next line.

Only you switch states. Characters never change their own.

Expression sheets (Hero)

An expression sheet makes ten versions of a portrait's face: neutral, smile, angry, sad, surprised and more. In conversation, the character picks an expression for each line, and their portrait changes to match.

• Choose Create Expression Sheet under the portrait. Creating and regenerating sheets is Hero-only. If you already have a sheet, you can keep using and managing it on any plan.
• Each expression has a key: the word the character chooses from. Edit the keys and prompts to suit them. Clear emotion words work best.
• Hide an expression to stop the character using it without deleting it.
• Each portrait state can have its own sheet. With a state selected, the button reads "— state name". A sheet is only used while its portrait or state is the active one.

Results vary with the art style and the face.

Age rules

Every character renders as an adult. Characters under 18 can't have portrait states or expression sheets, and edits that try to make someone look younger are refused.