Seinvocc

Here's a basic system by which many people make characters (or some variant of it):

[border]Name:
Age (or relative idea of that):
Height:
Weight:
Where from:
Some other info:

Appearance:

Personality/History/Backstory/WTFever:[/border]

Of course, that's just what a lot of people start with. You don't have to fill every field out, or even one of those, and it can be in first-person, third-person, or even second-person perspective. What is seen here is just a good base for human characters. (You can even make a character who's just a sentient blob, like an overgrown protozoa thing. See if I mind.) Remember that we have no site-wide templates; you can put whatever you want into your bio. You just have to be sure to list your equipments (and their effects/abilities, if any), expendables, and such in your inventory, your abilities in your ability list (herpderp), and list any allies in the respective list, if you have any.

If you're thinking of a basis for inventories, check Leilani's and Laola's out; Lei's may make your head swim, but that kind of detail and complexity makes for some hard-to-knock equipment, and her ammo list is powerful and versatile. Laola's equipments are simpler, but still well-designed, while Noah's are well-designed for him and also fairly simple (I think, at least). I'm sure that you read the guide to expendables, but take a look at Alexsys's (and the corrections that I mentioned, since they haven't yet been made, since last that I checked) to get an idea of some items, just as in Leilani's. If you're running short on ideas for armor, that's okay; no one said that you have to have armor at all, and you can always buy some badass suits from Leilani, but try to think of at least one good weapon. If you would like me to list some weapons properties that may help you to decide, ask away.

As far as abilities, there are so many ways to make them, but a couple ideas that I like to use when making my chars are as follows (if my opinion matters at all):
Pick a theme, e.g. death. It does not have to match the char's personality; in fact, if it doesn't, the contrast may make a good story element, but it's all optional. Think about how you want to go about using this theme, whether as more of a manipulatory thing, e.g. necromancy, as a fuel for all kinds of things, or simply as a common theme among your abilities that has nothing to do with how they're used. During this stage, I'd recommend looking through the Final Fantasy wiki, the Fire Emblem wiki, and/or other things to get some ideas. Think of animé, video games, movies, and whatever else (even those that you don't like, because there can be some good ideas in there, too) to think of some bases.

Decide on character stats and archetype. Do you want your character to be a slow, but tough-as-nails tank char with lots of physical strength and defense in addition to health, but problems with magic, resistance, and speed? Maybe you want someone who's strong and fast, but not very tough, or maybe you want someone who's well-rounded? Perhaps you want more of a magical character, like Noah? Don't forget to take your parameters, such as health energy, mana, and chakra into account, especially if you want to keep fighting. These are just some examples of some common archetypes (although Noah deviates from the norm by quite a bit), but you can come up with anything that you want. For instance, Leilani has an atypical archetype, being both fast and defensive, although not very defensive. She is a viera, after all. This is all based on your style and preferences. Oh, and don't worry about your character being a lightly armored girl; the first rule of women's armor is that more revealing = more defense. -dodges slap- I'm kidding! XD Seriously, though, it's easy for a light-looking armor to be tougher than the normal knight's armor, so don't think that appearance and stats have to relate.

Decide whether you want your abilities to relate to the theme of your equipment or not. You can always change your mind as you go, but it's generally good to decide on some preferences before you get too far into things. Just consider it; if you really can't pick either way, don't worry about it.

Start making abilities up that go with your theme as you like them. Don't just think of what makes sense and go from there; think of what you want, then make sense of it. You'll find that to be a broader perspective, I think. If you think of some sort of thing that you want to do, but aren't sure how to make sense of it, just ask here, and we'll help you come up with something. During this process, you may delve into the next two steps, which is fine.
Example of sense-making: I want to be able to make as much of this slime as I want . . . Ah, the paintbrush can be a gift from my sensei, who enchanted it in ways that I don't know about to be able to provide infinite goop.

Consider any other themes that you want to put into this. As you can tell by reading his stuff, Noah has several themes put into him, just as Leilani has a few, and Learpabru has a couple. It's okay to have just one theme! In fact, a lot of people start with a character that just has one theme, and that is completely fine. I like to put multiple themes into a character to make him/her/it/whatever more unique, more versatile, and more complex (like an "always keep them guessing" thing, so that you can't stop one of my abilities to completely stop the battle), but you can keep things as simple as you want. Also, keeping things simple has the advantage of allowing you to grow to be more experienced in that one field (and thereby have an easier time of translating your experience to related fields), both as a character and as a user. I mean, if I can manipulate water, lightning, earth, and wind, but you can only manipulate water, you're probably a much more strategic water-manipulator than I am. Of course, the magnitude of our water manipulation is based on our MAG ratings; if I have more MAG and we do the same thing, my trick will either cost less or hit harder. However, you'll get more experience in using it, so you'll come up with new tricks sooner. Is that understandable?

Think of abilities (often Support Abilities, for me) that go with most/all of your themes, or, if you have just one theme, just think of abilities that go with that one. Noah's and Leilani's Support Abilities are good examples.

Finally, look everything over and decide if it's sufficient. Are you as mobile as you wish to be? Are you as offensive as you wish to be? Are you as defensive as you wish to be? How's accuracy looking? Do your moves share a common weakness, such as all of them leaving you to be too vulnerable? Are they too straight-forward, so that you can't get very creative with them, but have to adhere exactly to their most basic uses, or are they more versatile? Can you potentially win in any fair fight? Can you at least get away from an excessively unfair fight? Are you going to run out of juice mid-battle, and, if you do, can you recuperate? Go back through and tie up any loose knots, and you have a great ability list.

Anywho, those are just some suggestions that you may want to consider; you don't have to listen to me at all. Oh, and here's a little tip: In case something screws up, write them out in Wordpad, Notepad, Microsoft Office Word, or something, then copy and paste them onto Sein, so that you still have them when your internet or the site fails. Also, don't be afraid to hit that "Save" button when putting stuff on; if you're not finished, you can just save a draft to come back and fix-up the next day, then submit. You could also just label your posts as unfinished somewhere in the post or thread title, and we won't bug you to finish things or anything like that. Sein isn't nearly so glitchy as Esc was, but I know better than to hit "Submit" without selecting everything and copying it so that I can paste if something goes wrong.