So in my story I kinda want to have multiple warrior characters, among mages and others but if they both use weapons like swords how do you make them separate but still making them be grouped together. I don't want them to be mindless knights. Any help is appreciated.

You do sub-archetypes. I can't really get specific without knowing how the world works, but it'd be basically something like this:

Warrior Archetype - A fighter that uses martial weapons, and is generally experienced in front-line combat

Berserker Sub-Archetype - A warrior who dual wields martial weapons, and enters a trance in combat that increases their fighting prowess the closer they are to the edge of death.

Knight Sub-Archetype - A warrior who wields a martial weapon and a shield, protecting his allies by being a formidable wall through which the enemy has to push through.

Blademaster Sub-Archetype - A warrior who has practices a single martial weapon to its pinnacle, wielding it with a finesse and skill rarely seen.

Something like this, but you'd want to fit the sub-archetypes around the worlds laws. You'll also find that certain areas/races/communities in a world would mostly be part of a single sub-archetype, as that is what that area/race/community would value the most. So there might be a single small village that exists in an extremely brutal area, and they would be the berserker sub-archetype (because they're in a constant fight for survival).

There's a lot of freedom with this, I'm just giving you a basis to go off of. As long as you make it work with your world and story, you can do anything :)

What if they are the same , the weapons there wielding and stuff but they just look different not a different race or anything.

'Anime-Sensei' pid='734709' dateline='1469331088' Wrote: What if they are the same , the weapons there wielding and stuff but they just look different not a different race or anything.

If you're just going for aesthetics and personality, then that's easy enough.

Everyone fights differently. Their personalities, attitudes, who they are as a person defines how they will fight.

An attention seeker who wields a sword, will use flashy techniques and fighting styles to overpower his enemy. His gear will be catered towards that. He would prefer flashy clothes and items that say 'look at me, I'm strong'.

On the other hand, someone who doesn't like attention would wear clothes and equipment that doesn't draw attention to themselves. And they would employ a fighting style that isn't flashy, and is swift and deadly (the faster the fight, the less time he has to be on the stage).


A single martial weapon can have thousands of different fighting styles to its name. Even if they grow up in the same environment, have the same teachers, and are trained the same; who they are as a person will still define how they fight and what they wear. As well as their attitudes of course, which is the easiest way to separate similar people.

Is this helpful?

Thats some insight you have there , thanks!

I don't know the story to construct ideas built more for purpose. So I'll just add some ideas.

-Only characters that are going to have some relevance to the plot should be focused on.

-Status in the form of cloth or armor is another way to differentiate these people in some form. 

-Dialects can differentiate the area they come from.

Aye cake made a very nice point there.

Firstly like he said alone the sword has far over 1000 different styles. Chinese, british, scotish, arabian, viking where ever you look throughout history. They all had different styles for slightly different swords.

And those characters, if they have dialogue in your story. Then give each another speaking habit. Like one speaks gruff and rough. The next one could speak softly and intelligent, while another just communicates with grunting sounds :D

Besides that their natural behaviour, one could be a heavy drinker, having the habit to sip from a canteen all the time. Another one could be very gentle in nature, enjoying peace and quiet. That like mentioned above could be shown through their clothing too.

Clothing can reveal a lot about a character. Is his shirt buttoned up? or is it open? If its open he may be very confident in his body, or he may be simply lazy and not caring about appearances. The other one could care very much about appearances etc. There are basically countless possibilities to differentiate between similar characters.

I hope this helps atleast a bit? :D

'Anime-Sensei' pid='734679' dateline='1469329528' Wrote: So in my story I kinda want to have multiple warrior characters, among mages and others but if they both use weapons like swords how do you make them separate but still making them be grouped together. I don't want them to be mindless knights. Any help is appreciated.

Depends on the story.  If it's a game system type story (trapped in a game/game like world) you can easily use sub genres like berserkers, knights, fighters, samurai, stuff like that

If it's a fantasy story, you separate them by nationality, physical appearance and personality.    Maybe add racial differences, weapon differences.  You can end up with 3 fighters who are completely different.  Heck, sometimes style is the only thing you need to differentiate them.

For example.  In my current series (first book Curse of the Forsaken), many characters are basically spell swords.  Yet everyone is different, they all fight with a sword and magic, many with the same types of weapons and armor, yet because it's not a game world, you end up with the characters themselves defining themselves.  the Main character Jace and main girl Verna both wear the same armor, wield similar swords and fight with both magic and blades, yet when they're fighting side by side they fight completely differently, so much so, if you took away the fact they were a man and a woman, and you were looking at a generic black figure fighting for each character, you'd never mistake the two for each other.  Verna is an up close warrior for whom magic is often an afterthought, while Jace leans heavily on magic, to the point his sword is almost an after thought.