Roolikuvaa

Roolikuvaa is a Finnish term referring to a visual representation of a role-playing game character. The word combines rooli, meaning role, and kuva, meaning image or portrait, with roolikuvaa as the partitive/genitive form. In English, it is often described as a character portrait or character image.

Use and scope: Roolikuvaa is used in tabletop RPGs and online campaigns to help players visualize a character, whether as a drawing, a photographed person, or a digital avatar. It appears on character sheets, wikis, forums, and virtual tabletops (VTTs) to provide a quick visual reference for PCs and NPCs. The images can range from original art to fan art or stock images, and they may be created specifically for a campaign or chosen from existing collections.

Creation and rights: A roolikuvaa may be commissioned, drawn by the player, or sourced from publicly available images. When using third-party material, licensing and attribution are important. Images with open licenses (such as certain Creative Commons works) or images for which the artist has granted permission are commonly used in RPG communities. Respect for copyright and proper permissions helps maintain a positive shared gaming space.

Digital use and formats: On VTTs and online wikis, roolikuvaa is typically uploaded as a portrait or token. Common considerations include square framing and appropriate resolution to display clearly at typical in-game scales. File types such as PNG or JPEG are widely used, with vector formats less common but possible for scalable avatars.

Related concepts: Roolikuvaa is closely related to hahmon kuva (character image) and online avatars, and remains a central means of conveying character identity in Finnish RPG contexts.