TADC OC Maker & Creator

Ragatha, the cast's optimist, is a rag doll in the style of Raggedy Ann, with red yarn hair, a blue button eye and a patched blue dress. A doll OC stands apart through its material: porcelain, carved wood, paper, plastic or felt, each with its own way of cracking, creaking or crumpling.

Jax is a tall periwinkle rabbit in pink overalls, and flashbacks add a frog, a yellow cartoon dog, a mouse plush and a purple dinosaur. Animal avatars in the show have rubber-hose limbs and big cartoon eyes, so pick a species nobody has yet and give it one toy detail, like stitching or a squeaker.

Gangle is a set of red ribbons with a comedy mask that breaks to show a tragedy mask underneath, and Zooble is a mix-and-match toy whose parts change between episodes. Object avatars give you the most room: a snow globe, a crayon, a cassette tape or a watering can, with a face, arms and legs added wherever they fit.

Kinger, the longest-surviving human in the circus, is a king chess piece in a violet robe with floating white gloves for hands, and his wife Queenie was the queen. Chess is taken, so look elsewhere in the game box: a die, a playing card, a domino, a marble or a board game token.

Pomni, the newest arrival, is a jester in a red and blue suit with a two-point hat, and Kaufmo was a clown with a head shaped like a bowling pin. Plenty of other acts are still open: an acrobat, a magician, a juggler, a strongwoman, or a lion tamer without the lion.

When a member's mind can't take the circus any longer, they abstract: the avatar turns into a black, glitching shape covered in glowing eyes. It can't be undone, the others hold a funeral, and for most of the series Caine kept the abstracted shut away in the Cellar. Darkness calms them down.

Every day or so, Caine sends the members on an adventure to keep their minds busy, from Candy Canyon Kingdom to the haunted Mildenhall Manor to a shift at the Spudsy's fast food restaurant. His worlds are full of NPCs, many built from blank wooden mannequins, so an OC can also be an NPC made for one adventure.

In the pilot, Pomni finds a red exit door and runs through it, only to wander a maze of empty office rooms that opens onto the Void. Caine admits he made the door because everyone wanted an exit, but never decided what to put behind it. Almost every new arrival goes looking for a way out, which makes it a natural first scene.