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Character development

Although this section is not in the OOC section of the web site, the content is related strongly to how you, the player, control the development of your character. The importance of consistant roleplay has already been discussed, this page is designed to inform you how to support your roleplay using the structure of the game.

Stats or statistics are a concept all previous roleplayers will be familiar with. The character's physical body is represented by the description you choose to give it and the game-code attributes: strength, dexterity and constitution. You should not describe your newly-made character as 'bursting with muscle' or 'poised like a dancer'. Your newly-made character, as I have already stated, would have a hard fight in single combat with a rabbit and probably wears boots because they cannot manage shoelaces.

Strength	is used for evaluating the damage that is done by the character on a successful hit on an opponent in combat. Also for calculating how much they can carry before it slows down their actions.
Dexterity	governs both the manual dexterity of a character, used for lockpicking and stealing and the full-body dexterity used in combat. A highly dexterous character has increased chances of hitting or dodging in combat.
Constitution	is the measure of how much damage the character can withstand in combat. Also it is used to work out resistance to poisons and illnesses. Constitution also determines how much physical exertion the character can stand before becoming tired.

The mental attributes of the character are named: intelligence, wisdom and discipline. People have different ways of viewing these, what follows is my own interpretation of the stats.

Intelligence	corresponds roughly with what we might call; psychic-energy, mental power or chi. The greater the intelligence of the character. the greater their mental energy-banks. These are drained by casting a spell, calling for a 'miracle' from a deity or by performing one of the special combat moves that are available to certain fighting guilds.
Wisdom	is a measure of the character's ability to learn and memorise information by rote. The wisdom of a character governs the number of spells that they can memorise as a mage and their understanding of martial specials, influencing their chances of success performing the moves.
Discipline	governs how easily the character may be feared by undead or other fearsome monsters. Essentially it is a measure of mental resistance, it is the main attribute tested against if someone or something attempts to influence the character mentally. This could be through a fear spell, a bard's dance or sleep song or some form of possesion. It also affects how someone controls the release of the mental energies used in combat special attacks and how effective they are.

If you type vitals in the game, you will be shown your character's current state of being. Whether they are hungry or thirsty is shown at the top, along with whether they are tired. Underneath is shown an assessment, in words, of each stat. This is NOT given numerically in any place. It is Xyllomer's policy NOT to represent your character to you in terms of numbers, this is also true of skills and your character's appraisal of weapon damage and armour protection.
And abreviation of the above information and how loaded down with equpiment you are can be got by typing: vhp. This leaves out the information on your character's statistics. The hp command gives only your physical and mental health and physical energy level.

If you type stats then you will see each attribute listed, along with the proportion of experience earned that will go into building it. Different races have maximum and minimum settings for some of these, but all start with them set roughly similar. There are places in the game-world where you can meditate and set these preferences.
Also shown here is the deity that the character has most faith in, (faith is measured in sermons attended and donations given). For various reasons this may not be the deity that the character actually holds highest in regard.
Alignment is a subject of contention in the game. Currently it is measured from 'holy' to 'damned', passing through neutral on the way. It is affected by a few actions on the game, but mainly by killing .. bad stuff or good stuff. Some players choose to ignore their character's alignment in favour of consistant roleplaying, others try and keep their alignment as close as possible to that of their deity.

Content by Verdigris

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