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Reminder wrote:This is a city of 400k people! NPC are vital tools to consider and many important public positions will in fact belong to NPC - don't worry about needing to fill any kind of role, instead let your character thrive at what they do best. This is to maintain stability and diversity in the setting, as a concentrated area (such as a court or a business or even a smaller event) filled with primarily player characters often ends up being a mix of unlikely individuals - and unfortunately, when spots need to be 'filled', those who do not always quite believably fill their roles.
Never be afraid to utilize generic NPC for your scenes!Useful Information wrote:See Demographics for more information on the local population!
Original Characters Only! Please, mind the setting and the continuity, and only play characters who belong to you - this goes for races as well, please do not attempt to bring in concepts from copyrighted content.
Original Species are most certainly welcomed, particularly if the character in question fits well into the overall setting - if you have an interest in potentially adding your race or species into the continuity and open it up to the rest of the community, talk to us!
Canon Species however, are not – not even in the cases of Furcadia canon. While very similar creature types will exist, they will not go by the same name or history. We will have to ask you to alter your character accordingly.
Ferals are discouraged - here, any feral animal with notable intelligence is likely to be another race in cursed form or less 'intelligent animal' and really a more mythical being like a dragon. Any typically non-sentient races that develop sentience tend to have developed along the lines of beast folk and the ability to form any real culture requires the use of certain anatomical traits or magic to supplement a lack of dexterity. It disturbs the image we're trying to create to have too many intelligent animals outside of appropriate mythical beings and rare unusual cases.
Regarding "Divine" or "Celestial" Characters: While beings like fae (nature spirits, faeries, elementals), vampires, werewolves, minor "demons" and other supernatural or magical beings are highly encouraged (within reason), beings of a more distinctly 'godly' nature are not.
No gods, no demigods, nor any other kind of directly associated beings / spirits. Sorry, but your characters are not allowed to have divine lineage.
It is less of a concern that a character might be 'overpowered' and require a responsible player so much as that their very presence can be immersion breaking and disrupt the overall continuity of setting. While characters of such a nature can be fantastic when done well, they must be of distinctly purposeful and reasonable nature, coming with an 'impress and convince' us clause.
While there might be some presence of angelic or otherwise celestial and otherworldly beings in this world, they should be exceedingly rare and not casually placed among mortals or out of their own realm in general. They should also be inexplicable, indefinable, uncertain, and absolutely alien.
Regarding Demons: There are many individuals that use the term loosely to define an association with darkness or a mysterious origin from somewhere beyond the mortal plane - summoned from other dimensions and planes of existence or corrupted by dark magic, things of a generally more grounded and less necessarily spiritual nature are fine. Just keep such characters on the minor end of such consequences and with no knowledge or history or any aspects of design that might establish any sort of religious concept in the absolute. Please, no confirming any sort of specific deity and especially not the 'heaven' or 'hell'.
Remember: monotheism didn't spread successfully in this world and strict Biblical inspirations are going to be either non-existent or reduced to obscure cult status. A "demon" is a creature that is generally considered of a nature more elemental and alien, not necessarily "evil" in the abstract sense or connected to any one concept.
The concepts of religion must remain overall fluid and uncertain - belief systems need to be potentially wrong or at least misunderstood. Any direct interaction by overtly powerful or influential celestial forces will not happen in this setting, which walks a fine line between themes of harnessing magic and engaging in a pursuit of science. A seer, a priest, or a paladin is more than welcome, but the power that informs their 'divine' abilities must remain vague and based on faith of interpretation, not demonstrated fact.
Holy Objects: Similarly, 'hallowed ground' and holy objects, any such supernatural light in general that make up classic weaknesses of darker entities - if you so choose to have these weakness in your character - should be less associated with specific religious concepts and more of a positive arcane energy of dubious origins. Similarly, any aversion to specific symbols is likely due to the faith of the person wielding it and maybe even the faith of the monster - and even then, as an individual is potentially accessing unknown power, the faith of the person should probably be a honed one and channeled through training as a priest or paladin might. Just be aware that your priest or paladin might be entirely wrong about they think is going on.
Regarding Vampires (and other undead): While many creatures considered "monsters" find refuge here as normal citizenry, vampires and similar undead or ghoulish individuals are not offered the same consideration. It is a massive cultural taboo to meddle with the dead, including reanimation of any sort - they are considered an affront to life itself, never mind nature. The local culture is very unkind to vampire or 'zombie' kind, treating them as lepers and criminals at best and disgusting pests to exterminate at worst. They are offered very few rights, if any - considered already dead, they're less liable to see justice for their "murder" than the lowest of slaves. It's often seen as doing a great service and laying someone to rest.
We want everyone to have freedom of creativity with their characters, but to maintain a reasonable level of coherency and consistency in the continuity, we have to lay down at least a few guidelines regarding IC Perceptions.
Beast Folk wrote:A 'beast person' is considered an anthropomorphic design on a more 'Funny Animal' level - bipedal beast races derived from normally non-sentient races, most shifters in monster form, and intelligent beasts fall under this umbrella of 'lesser' or 'honorary' monsters. There are some 'Borderline Petting Zoo People' that can absolutely fall under this category or even the next, but their anatomy must be primarily non-humanoid based, even if they have a very humanoid face.
Monsters wrote:In this group we have examples of monsters that make up the local populace - their races are many and most are typically composite form in appearance and defying what seems 'natural'. While some display much more humanoid features than others, what makes up the lower half of their bodies is generally what places a race into this category, even if their uppers appear quite humanoid. In fact, having a humanoid torso and and beastly legs very much causes one to fall into this composite 'satyr-like' category. Included in this group are taur of all kind from minotaur to centaur, harpies, naga, merepeople, sphinx, and all sorts of other strange and unusual races. It's notable that dragons are considered more magical monster than intelligent feral for the most part, honored above all other sentient beasts as more or less 'true' monsters.
Humanoids wrote:A 'little bit beastly' or even most 'petting zoo people' designs are zoomorphic and absolutely going to be considered a variant of either human or elf stock. This is due to these designs appearing to have developed from that direction. A borderline “anthro” design does not equal beast folk here, they must look like an animal that has developed humanoid traits and not the other way around.
A design appearing more primarily humanoid based will be classified as elf or human in this continuity and will not be able to claim any supposed 'animal' heritages beyond spiritually - they might even been seen as offensive for trying to do so, as humanoids wanting to be something they're not, unlike shifters who have received true 'gifts'. It is notable that there is great diversity among humanoid races, but monster culture does tend to typically place them together. You should expect a character of this nature to potentially experience discrimination, with such races sometimes dismissively referred to as 'furry' or 'scaly' elves. This being said, there are going to be some appearances that tread a fine line between honorary monster and humanoid, often to the discomfort of the monster community.
Language: The official local dialect is Latin, followed by Greek; however, the languages spoken here are many and diverse, and the next most common include Punic, Coptic, Aramaic, Syriac, Armenian, Old French, etc. You will certainly get more far flung languages, but the more distant the culture they come from, the more uncommon they'll be.
Germanic languages like 'English' which is often used as "common" in most roleplay as that's what we're translating to, is not in fact 'common' and is viewed with suspicion as a barbarian language.
Latin and Greek is 'common' here!
Character Clothing: Remember, Trivantis is trying to maintain an overall consistent feel as a setting! We want to maintain the suspension of disbelief as much as possible. While the 'feel' of the era can be stretched as far as late medieval and even the early renaissance, please try to keep characters attire appropriate within that range and if possible leaning more towards the early medieval period.
Some anachronisms are functionally more 'workable' or open to fantasy 'hand waving' than others - vaguely 'Victorian' fashion is acceptable as 'fantastical' as long as clothing items aren't too era distinctive.
"European" Characters: Trivantis is a 'Eurasian' setting sitting between Europe proper and the expanse of Asia. There has been a war going on primarily among humans for decades - slowly a fanatical people has been claiming kingdoms and turning into a force to be truly reckoned with, expanding and closing in on the bridge between lands, ever expanding as their eyes turn eastwards.
It is very important to remember that your character may not be so warmly welcomed IC - those of European or 'Western' nature, particularly humans, are disliked and distrusted as 'barbarians'. While humans have been around for a long time and are plenty mingled into societies all over, their numbers were still too few to prevent a growing feeling of animosity towards their race due to the actions of those in the West. A character associated with more western European belief systems and cultures of the enemy hegemony is likely to be outright ostracized and subject to hate speech up to attempts on their life. Someone of such nature looking for a new life is going to have to work hard to establish trust.
Any 'noble' status afforded by a previous life outside of the monster empire is also unlikely to be recognized, if at all.
Don't Overload Yourself! Keep your alts down to a number you find manageable. It's not a hard and fast rule so much as a recommendation!
Rejection - there is a chance your application will be rejected - but don't get discouraged! If you weren't spoken to about the reasoning and want an explanation, please contact a moderator to discuss why your character wasn't approved. We're can be strict on allowing certain types of characters in order to maintain a certain degree of coherency in the setting, but we're happy to try and work things out with you to the best of our abilities.
If your character doesn't fit the era well or is otherwise too thematically inappropriate, is from an established product (canon), has been distinctly created for erotic RP purposes, appears overtly 'over-powered', or of too distinctly 'celestial' nature, odds are good they're not getting through. It's nothing personal! If you feel an error was made or adjustments can be discussed, please don't be afraid to contact us.
