Characters

While the Character Creation section of the Academy is designed with the actual creation process, this part is to give you a few pointers about that first character.

We require you to submit in a character before Role Playing. This is more for matters of quality control. Whatever you state on the form will not be used against the character. IC/OOC Separation. However all characters must be submitted. We suggest, for your first character here, something simple so you can best learn the setting. Imperia is a big drink of water however I shall try and cover the basics in this Introduction. Characters can be submitted either via the form on this website or on the Pending section of our Forum.

This can can be done, however within reason. No RP Channels (Besides Imperia) tries to establish diplomatic ties with other channels. They are normally closed off, isolationist and refuse to acknowledge the existence of other role play channels. We will allow said character, either redesigned to an Imperia version or here via some portal. If you want Imperia and another RP Channel to establish a link, then please suggest it to the Ops of that other RP Channel. Would mean more coming from you than it would us sadly enough. But for new players, we also suggest a local character before bringing in a Transfer (Character from another channel). This is mainly to know the world, also to cut down on the overpopulation of Outsider/Offworlder Characters.

After a vote by our Players, we have decided not to allow new players Offworlder/Outsider Characters. Instead we insist on the creation of characters local to Imperia, and with Imperia histories and viewpoints. While we may have one owner, we still practice a democracy and the players speak what they want for Imperia.

The point of making local characters is that your character has a reason, a motivation, a purpose for getting into Plots. All of Imperia's Plots use some elements of the background and the setting as "Plot Hooks", something to get you involved. Allow me to present to you the following situation.

Say five people are sitting in the Inn. Ok? Now of these five people you have a woman who works for Certus Services, a local Adventurer's Guild, she is an avid follower of the Primal Lothos. You have a man who works for Rhemult's Thieves Guild, he follows the Primal Argus. You have a Tantallon native who is looking for work due to a closing at the shipyard, who follows all Ten Primals. You have a traveler from Damocles who is on his way to Gensania for trade purposes, who follows the Primal Krondor. Then you have the Outsider/Offworlder character. He wanders from world to world, cares not for local politics and either worships no God, or some God no one has ever heard of. We shall label these characters 1-5. Anyway the cast is in place.

A Plot comes up, being ran by an Op. It appears Dorandus Cultists (A violent cult devoted to worship of the Elements and in a Jihad with Primal followers) is attacking trade wagons to and fro Tantallon and Gensania. The Merchants & Trade Association is hiring for people to investigate the matter. Now the stage is set. Who gets involved and why?

Well Character #1 is hired out cause she works for Certus Services. Also she dislikes the Dorandus Cultists. Character #2 may think a rival thieves guild could be doing this. He decides to go and investigate. Character #3 is happy for the job, also cares about his city of Tantallon so he goes to help. Character #4 worries that maybe HIS items for trade were attacked, also he wants to report this situation to Damocles. He decides to go. However Character #5 presents a problem.

He is apparently very rich, cares not for politics, nor of religion. This is, sadly, the generic Offworlder/Wanderer character found in most FFRP Channels. So Characters 1-4 go off on the Plot while Character #5 sits, drinks, yawns and complains OOCly that it's a boring night.

The next night, a new mission from the Merchants & Trade Association. Turns out it wasn't Dorandus Cultists but really Shadow Knights posing as Dorandus Cultists. The first Plot lead into this Plot. So the Characters are recruited to go again. #1-4 go, while #5 sits, drinks, yawns, and complains OOCly that no one is RPing with him.

That Plot extends over to a third night. Character #5 sits, drinks, yawns, and again complains.

For the fourth night, a new Plot occurs. Seems the Shadow Knights are attempting to use trade caravans to smuggle in the drug Acidhammer. The Axius Law wants this stopped. Characters #1-4 get involved, Character #5 finally loses his cool, and either complains that nothing ever happens here, or that he is being intentionally excluded. No he is not. Just all Imperia Plots use local elements for Plots and as the hooks, the draw.

Now repeat the above scenario over and over and over. Eventually the player behind Character #5 gets upset and leaves. Now you see the problem behind Offworlder characters. They simply have no viable uses when it comes to a Plot. There is nothing to attract them, nothing to interest them, so in the end the player and character becomes upset and either adapts or leaves.

We have a simple time flow system. For every OOC/RL Day, 3 IC/RP Days pass by. Meaning in two real life days, six Imperia days have progressed. Why? To allow time to flow instead of the snails pace of 1 RL Day for 1 RP Day. If a character is pregnant, and to come to term takes 9 months, then that will be 252 IC Imperia days (28 Days in a Month, Imperia has 13 Months in a Year). OOCly, in 84 days the character will give birth. (Instead of 9 RL months with a normal 1 OOC Day for 1 RP Day system). We feel the 1/3 Formula is just right. Not too fast, but not too slow. Any RP occurring in the Inns is considered to be occurring in the middle of those 3 days. What happens on the other 2 days? Characters traveling or working. You don't need to RP out your job, we can just assume the character did his 8 hours of work when the player is not RPing that character.

A job can be found based on a character's skill. You don't need to RP out the actual finding or working the job, but you can if you want. To determine your character's job, first determine your character's own skills. A Baker? Hunter? No skills? Then speak to the Owner/Zarak and he will tell you the job and basic rate of pay. Unskilled Labor gets around 8 silver a day.

Understand that you are in a very competitive market. The Adventurer's Guild, Certus Services, does both of those things and all mercenary/bounty hunter work of legal credentials usually goes to them. However some Plots will have mercenary/bounty hunter notices placed on the Forums and being ran by other ops or players.

Yes, within reason. You cannot just toss in some new race or some new Kingdom no one has ever heard of, nor use Plots to try and sneak people to your own established Role Play Channel. We consider that Advertising and thus against the rules. Ops/Plotmasters will assist you with any questions you need in constructing and running your Plot. However we advise people get a feel for Imperia before actually jumping into the world of making Plots. But we do allow players to run Plots.

We used to allow it, then we started running into problems. A Player would come in, bring in their own race or Kingdom, get Plots done around them then either vanish or throw some huge fuss and leave, placing us (Imperia) in a difficult position. We had to tend to the loose ends created by the sudden absence of that race and Kingdom. So now we only let people who have established themselves within Imperia and are known to be reliable and abide by the rules to toss in their own new material.

Well, as stated above, not many channels ever work together. And we prefer those channels people are being moved too to be within the Imperia "banner". To learn more about this ask Zarak. Also we feel that RP Channels suffer from over saturation. Everyone and their sister wants to run an RP Channel, not realizing how much work it is. However this is many people trying to slice up a pie. More people, smaller the slices. There are only so many players to go around. Imperia believes in that channels should pool resources, instead of dividing resources. If you had two builders, given a stack of wood, what would be a better idea? Divide that wood to make two small houses, or both builders working together, pooling knowledge and resources, to make one very impressive house? A few channels have pulled this off, not many, but there are still too many channels around. Also when you sneak people to your own channel, it's viewed as not being productive towards Imperia, leeching off it's resources and trouble soon occurs.

Because Imperian Humans are descended from Earth humans, all languages are based off of Latin. No you don't need to SPEAK Latin to RP here. We translate it for you free of charge. ;) However characters from other worlds, or maybe even characters of a modern Earth (if allowed) would recognize the language people in Verdania speak as some dialect of Latin.

Before I get into that let me list the current currency standards. Imperian nations use minted coins. Some nations decorate their coins while others just use lumps of metal. Below is the standard currency table, which is currently based on silver. They do not use lumps of metal, just minted official coins. The Silver is basically to Verdania what the Dollar is to the United States.

Values of Coin			Description
100 Iron	=	1 Silver	Iron is the lowest form of currency, and they appear as solid black coins. They are only useful for purchasing items such as a small bead necklace or a single apple.
10 Copper	=	1 Silver	Copper is more common than iron and only slightly more useful with making small purchases at marketplaces.
4 Bronze	=	1 Silver	Bronze is common in cities but even more common in poorer countries and rural areas. These coins look like polished brass and are often used as change.
1 Silver	=	$1	Silver is the most useful type of coin and is accepted everywhere. Most prices for consumer goods are listed in silver, ubiquitous to "one unit of currency."
1 Electrum	=	10 Silver	Electrum is used to make larger purchases, such as shoes or books. Electrum coins are produced by mixing molten gold and silver together and have a light creamy gold color.
1 Gold	=	100 Silver	Gold is used to make even larger purchases, like kegs of ale or fancy articles of clothing. These are rarely accepted in taverns, rural areas, or poorer countries.
1 Platinum	=	1000 Silver	Platinum is usually rejected by shop owners and inn keepers because of its value. These are used to purchase airships or contract the construction of a large structure.

This is where some math skills are required. First we will go into transferring. Say you come from the lands of Tir Na Nogwort. Your character brings with him around a hundred gold coins. Now let's assume in Tir that the gold is the basic standard, the $. So he goes to an Inn, finds out his money is no good. They want Axius or Damocles or SOME nation Verdania has had contact with currency. So he takes the gold coins to the local bank. The Banker will transfer over the coins, for a cost of thirty percent of the value. So he takes the 100 gold coins of Tir, and hands over 70 gold coins of Axius. 30 of those gold coins are kept by the banker. If these gold coins however are not real good high quality gold, then the exchange will be gold for electrum. The 100 Tir Na Nogwort Gold Coins are exchanged for 70 Axius Electrum Coins (With a combined value of 700 silver).

Anyway let's assume your character has been in Imperia for awhile. Starting wealth is normally somewhere around 10-50,000 silver. However it depends on age. Say your character is around 30 years old. For 12 years he has been working Unskilled Labor Jobs. Now we do some path

As the character starts RP, it has 27,956 silver accumulated. But where? If you are a citizen, then you can stash it in a Bank. If not then you either have it on you in smaller coins or stashed away. It all depends on Citizenship.

Citizenship is very easy to determine. Was your character born on Imperia? Yes? What nation? Then whatever nation that is, he/she is a citizen with legal rights of that nation. Legal rights of a citizen are recognized all over known Imperia. Being a citizen, having citizenship papers, enables you to rights. What kind of rights? Well in Axius a citizen accused of a crime is entitled to a trial. A person without citizenship is not.

A character who was born off of Imperia, on some planet they never heard of, has no citizenship. Such citizenship can be acquired either issued by a Kingdom for some deed, requested of by a Noble, purchased or advocated. To advocate, you simply need another citizen of the Kingdom to vouch for your goodwill, pay a 100 silver processing fee, and you are issued citizenship papers. To purchase, you pay the 100 silver as well as 20% of all money you have on you as an immediate Income Tax. Citizens have to pay taxes, however they get rights, jobs and such. Non-citizens do not pay taxes, but they have no rights and can only get unskilled or mercenary work.

No. You can if you want, and we are open to suggestions on a system for keeping track of this. Anyway taxes are automatically determined by wages. It's assumed that the sufficient amount is already taken out from your income and there is no need to do any additional math. For example, say you worked as a sailor making 15 silver an hour. In truth, you actually make more, but the amount stated is the after taxes amount. Taxes being monthly, 20% of all Income. Sometimes characters who come back from adventures with large hauls of gold and coins are expected to pay the 20% tax. Failure to may mean arrest. Money obtained from the sale of items or treasures found however are not taxed. But there is no need to keep track of taxes paid. It's just assumed. However Taxes can be sometimes used regarding Plots.

A plotline can be anything from a conversation, a fight, or a war. These plotlines can occur at any time. Usually, information about plots can be acquired from news postings in the channel topic or from what other characters mention. If you feel you're not in enough plots, then ask a channel operator what you can do to get into one. We welcome anyone to do any plot, but please run your idea past the channel ops first. The main purpose is to intertwine your plot into the setting and enhance plots, but we also do this to prevent powergaming.

To give an example of how we can help you develop your plots, let's say you want for one of your characters to become have a richer background. We can help you develop that history as well as purpose in the character. If your character overheard a Damocles knight bragging about slaughtering a wolf, one of two things could happen. If your character was a wandering traveler with no attachments to the area, not much would happen. However, if your character had a history, either as a person who is secretly a werewolf or has former relatives that were killed by wolves. That background would spark character interaction that could go anywhere, for better or for worst.

Keep in mind that the best plot is what you affect, not what you kill. Some of the best plots might rise out of a character's death or a war where millions are slaughtered and tensions are high. Some of the worst plots have come out of the classic "damsel in distress" story. Sometimes the heroes win, but sometimes characters die. Sometimes being powerful doesn't work and sometimes your character will have to think about what to do next before acting - just like life, roleplaying doesn't have retakes. We roleplay mostly for the story, not just to fulfill romantic, sexual, or joyful desires.

The next part deals about channels, but before I get into it let me state something

Do not place your character in a channel only cause there are people playing there. Place your character in the channel he/she would be in. If she prefers the quiet, safe life of Relgard, then Arennonmist, NOT TwistedBlade Inn. Having your character go to the dangerous city not only is signing your character's life away but is a breaking of IC/OOC Seperation.