Rules and Guidelines
This is where we do our best to keep an exhaustive record of the rules and guidelines surrounding playing in Adylheim, as well as guides and introductions to various subjects relating to gameplay.
Character Death
Whenever a PC dies in character, there are four options left to the player. They can start over with an entirely new PC, they can reincarnate their character, they can choose for their PC to linger as a ghost or, in very rare cases, they can hold out for a resurrection.
Starting Over
Starting over means the new PC starts out as any other new PC, with no extra skills or possessions.
Reincarnation
Choosing this option means that the player will be allowed to start a new PC retaining some of the skill levels and influence they have achieved in character and with the help of the staff can use these to build a new character, separate from their old one. A PC which has been reincarnated can never be resurrected.
Ghosts
The player may choose to let their PC linger on as a ghost, while the PC is a ghost, they can only advance one new skill, which is Manifestation, this skill allows ghosts to do such things such as lifting solid object, becoming visible and audible to the living and so on. A PC who is a Ghost can choose to be reincarnated or hold out for a potential resurrection.
Resurrection
Resurrections are a very rare occurrence. They happen as a result of long adventures which deal with the afterlife and rarely leave their characters without scars, both in terms of levels and physical ability. The staff will rarely resurrect PCs as it cheapens the finality of death.
Code of Conduct
Adylheim has a code of conduct that everyone who plays will be expected to follow at all times. This is primarily a matter of etiquette: we want the game to be fun for everyone, and a civil community is an important part of that. The staff reserves the right to punish or expel any player who is in violation of these rules.
1. Treat other players (including staff members) with respect.
2. No out of character racism, sexism, or other forms of discrimination or spreading of hateful speech will be tolerated.
3. There is a line between persistence and harassment. If someone asks you to leave them alone, you should. The staff takes all complaints of harassment very seriously.
4. Do not advertise on our forums. That is not what they're for.
5. Do not add copyrighted or otherwise plagiarized content to our website, we will not accept it as contributions to Adylheim.
6. Use of obscene words is discouraged, both OOC and IC. We strive to keep this a civil place OOC, and your character should be able to utilize IC alternatives.
7. Obviously, sex happens in the game world, but erotica should be hinted at or skipped over, rather than described on the forums. The "fade to black" literary device is a useful tool in this situation.
8. Also, events of great violence can occur in Adylheim, but gratuitous and detailed descriptions of such events should be avoided.
9. Certain subjects are likely to make people uncomfortable, most notably rape. No PC should ever be subjected to rape without the prior consent of that character's player. Try to stay within people's comfort zones on this sort of thing.
10. OOC should stay OOC, and IC should stay IC. If something happens to your character, do not take it personally, nor should you use OOC knowledge to further your PC's agenda.
11. Powergaming is no fun for everyone else. Don't go around self-modding your character so that he's the only one who gets to do all the awesome stuff. Unless you are the moderator of a thread, you should never dictate what happens to another character, just what your character intends to do.
12. A character should not be mutilated or killed in a thread unless the person doing so is the agreed upon moderator of the thread, or the consent of the character's player is given ahead of time.
13. Similarly, respect the game world. Although this is a fantasy setting, we expect a certain amount of realism. New nations do not appear out of nowhere, nor do governments topple for no reason. Every event IC should have a rational explanation within the game world. In other words, no god-modding.
14. Discussion of controversial topics such as religion and politics is discouraged because of their potentially divisive nature. There's plenty of dedicated forums where people can talk about such things.
15. Remember, this is a game. We're all here to have fun.
Breaking any of the above rules may result in an administrator placing a warning on the users account. Three warnings results in an automatic ban for a week, during which time the administrators will discuss whether any further extension of the ban is needed.
Flexible Continuity
Q: Do I have to account for every day in my character's life?
A: Nope! In fact, we do prefer that you didn't write about every time your character buys a sandwich or visits the outhouse (though you certainly could, if that's your fancy). Focus on the important and interesting events in your character's life, like chapters of a novel, and don't fret if there's a gap in your character's timeline. This just means that nothing particularly interesting happened during that time.
Q: Can I post in more than one thread at once?
A: Definitely! Life would be boring if you were waiting on only one thread at a time. Just make sure that, when posting in multiple threads at once, your character doesn't end up in two places at the same time, and that you give your character enough time to travel between locations. If you want to post in a thread in Arameia and one in Starkwater, make sure you account for at least a few days' journey in-between (unless your character has magical means of travel, of course).
Q: What is Flexible Continuity?
A: Flexible Continuity is the name we give to the rules and guidelines about posting in multiple threads at once. These rules are:
- Your character may not appear in multiple threads that take place at the same in-character time.
- Travel time between separate locations must be accommodated into your character's timeline.
- A Date must be present in the first post of a thread, or in a character's first post in a location thread.
- New threads may only take place within the current Continuity Gap.
Q: What is a Date?
A: A Date is like the date at the top of a diary entry: it's a short statement that marks the in-character time when a thread or post takes place. Dates can be written in a variety of ways, and can be done according to personal preference. It can be as exact or as vague as you like, and must only include the current year and month or day. A few examples of acceptable Dates follow:
- Dusk, 32nd of Akaril, year 4235
- 32 Akaril 4235
- 5th Week of Akaril, year 4235
- Dusk, Late Akaril, 4235
A Date is important in that it helps you keep your threads in chronological order, and it helps everyone else to fit your thread or post into the world timeline. There are two ways to use a Date:
- A New Thread: Write a Date at the top of the first post of your new thread to mark the time of the events. This is the only Date needed for the thread.
- An Open Location: Write a Date at the top of your character's first post in the location to mark the time of his or her visit.
Q: How do I know what to write in a Date?
A: Check at the top of each in-character forum! There will always be an announcement posted that lists the current Continuity Gap, as well as the current range of dates you can use in your Dates. At any time, you can post threads for any time within the range of dates listed there.
Q: What is a Continuity Gap?
A: To make sure that no characters are left behind in the flow of time, and to be sure that no one posts too far into the future, at any time there will always be a block of three in-character months that are available to post in. This block of time is called the Continuity Gap. The Continuity Gap changes at the end of every real-life month, and will always include three in-character months. When the Gap changes, one in-character month is left in the past and another is made available in the future. For example, if the in-character months are labeled by letters, the first Continuity Gap would include the months "A, B, C". When the Gap changes, the months available will be "B, C, D", then "C, D, E", etc. New threads and posts in open locations may only be labeled within the current Continuity Gap.
Q: What is Inactive Continuity?
A: Any threads that take place in a time that's not included in the current Continuity Gap are labeled Inactive Continuity. Inactive Continuity threads may still be ongoing, but no new characters can join in on the thread. In other words, anyone who's still posting in the thread when it goes Inactive may continue posting in it, but no one else can come in as a new character.
Guide to Magic
Magic in Adylheim is very different from the normal sorts of spells mages cast in books, games, and RPG’s. Before delving into the nuts and bolts of magic, I present a number of examples of how magi does NOT act followed by a general explanation of why.
MYTH: Ms. Jayne Mage throws a fireball and destroys Aram.
FACT: High Magic allows certain mages to cause ‘direct’ damage albeit on a far, far smaller scale. It involves the manipulation of an already-present element (say, a campfire). However, there’s no way to learn High Magic—it’s a trait scattered across the collective gene pool. So Ms. Jayne Mage might be able to set an attacking bandit on fire, but not rain meteor death on a city. In times of great distress or need, she can scorch a decently sized area, but at significant risk to herself.
MYTH: Mr. Johan Mage constructs a sigil and instantly calls forth a fairy to help him.
FACT: Low Magic can take hours (even days) to cast a significant spell. Even simple spells can take a long period of time to cast and, conversely, create only minor annoyances for one’s foes. The trick when it comes to Low Magic is finding ways to outsmart and outmaneuver your foes using your repertoire of spells.
Rules of Magic
- Nothing comes from nothing: Magic cannot create something from thin air, magic is the art of manipulating the forces around oneself.
- Something must come from something: All magic requires a source of power. There are a multitude of these found throughout the Multiverse, the foremost among which are the life force of the magi, the Numen, as well as Ley Lines, Artifacts, Divinity and other beings.
- Magic is affecting change: Magic takes on several forms, but they all work to alter the environment around the mage, or to alter other things forcibly to the mage’s advantage. Magic is manipulation, not creation.
Starting a Mage
There are two magic-type skills your character can learn:
- High Magic: The manipulation of an element (fire, water, earth, air, life, nature) through the direct use of one’s Numen.
- Low Magic: The manipulation of various types of energy through a wide range of rituals, sigils, and other methods. The Arts (Necromancy, Enclosing, Scrying, etc.) are all different ‘schools’ of Low Magic. Most mages choose to specialize in one Art, but also dabble in other disciplines.
Your character can practice Low Magic, High Magic, or both. Many mages consider people possessing a talent in High Magic as excellent potential practitioners of Low Mages. This is largely a social effect as, in practice, there’s no such positive relationship.
High Mages can only manipulate a single element. There are cases of individuals changing talents during the course of their studies, but this is a rare occurrence as talents are usually heavily tied to the personality of the mage.
Low Mages possess knowledge of 5 + # of experience points in Low Magic. This represents the spells a master mage taught during the course of a PC’s training and apprenticeship. These can be spread across most of the known branches of low magic, but the majority will likely be in the area of expertise of their master.
Notes on Spells and Progression
High Magic does not become more powerful with practice and experience. Mages, however, do learn strategies and methods to manipulate their chosen element with more precision, accuracy, and skills.
Low Magic, however, does become more ‘powerful’ as PC gains levels. This happens as mages learn to unlock new sources of power generally tied with their Art. Necromancers, for example, need to sacrifice humans to cast some of their spells. They also learn the general ability to use the death throes of creatures to power their spells earlier than, say, a Low Mage with a specialty in Enclosing. Conversely, the second mage learns to recognize and employ ley-lines far earlier than their necromantic counterpart.
Spells are rare and valuable objects. It can take weeks and months of careful, meticulous research to create a new spell. Powerful spells can take years of hard labor for a master mage to craft from scratch. Apprentices slave for years and years to learn only a fraction of their master’s spells. Most PCs, in all likelihood, will not create their own spells until much later in their careers. There are three primary mechanisms for learning new spells:
- Flashback-style learning: PC with a current mentor/master (or a past master) can assume that, after obtaining a certain amount of experience, their master teaches them a new spell.
- Questing: Magical tomes and figments of knowledge are often the subjects of quests and/or intrusions.
- Modify a current spell using the character's knowledge: Eventually, the PC will become knowledgeable enough to create their own spells.
PC's with other training methods are encouraged to contact a moderator or an admin with their ideas!
Low Magic Skill Advancement
Resources
- Magic of Adylheim: The main Codex article on magic of both the High and Low variety.
- Codex of Knowledge: Magic: Everything you need to know about magic! And then some.
- Edi'Tok Lisek: An example cooked up by the Admins of a starting PC mage.
- Question and Answer Forum: If you have any further questions, feel free to drop in to this forum and ask questions!
Magic Skills
Acquiring training in magic is far from easy. There are some paths that are easier than others. One of those is gaining admittance to the School of Magic in Salen. However, most of those who would learn magic are taught by magi who live in their solitary towers. Please note that this list is only valid for those looking for an education in Low Magic.
On Spells
Most practitioners of Low Magic learn a handful of spells from their mentor during the course of their apprenticeship. For the purpose of character creation, the number of spells your new PC knows is equal to 5 + # of experience points in Low Magic. These can be spread across most of the known branches of low magic, but the majority will likely be in the area of expertise of their master. Additional spells can be learned or developed as your character gains experience during roleplay.
Moderation and Posting Rules
Posting Rules
Posting
The contents of in character posts should not refer to out of character events or things.
Continuity Declarations
All storylines should be marked with a Continuity Declaration, this means that it should be at the top of every thread which is not a location thread, and on every post in which a character enters a new location thread. Look here.
Joint Posting
Occasionally moderators or PCs in a thread may see that in order to keep the thread moving at a decent rate, it is better to move the roleplaying to another medium, such as IRC or an IM service. This can happen in cases such as conversations or combat, which often necessitate fast, relatively short posts, when this happens all those in the thread should be present and the results posted on the forums in the appropriate thread. Things which are not documented on the forums are assumed not to have happened.
Controlling Player Characters
Player characters other than your own can only be controlled or roleplayed with their consent, though moderators may occasionally control them to remove them from plots, in order to keep the thread from stalling.
Moderation Rules
Moderator Purpose
In Adylheim moderators are the ones who decide the potential success of the character's actions, they take the place of dungeon masters and dice in tabletop rpgs or the computer in computer rpgs. Moderators may not take control of the minds or actions of PCs without specific permission of PCs or the presence of entities which have the ability to do this in the storyline.
Who Can Moderate
Anyone in Adylheim can moderate a thread, PCs are free to moderate each other having adventures. Adylheim does have staff moderators however, these are tasked with both overseeing PCs who are moderating and offering them advice and help if necessary. Those who wish to moderate a thread should send a proposal to a staff moderator who will look it over and offer help and tips.
Staff Moderators
Staff moderators are tasked both with overseeing other moderators and creating overarching plotlines and ensuring that the continuity of the places used in the adventure is held to. Staff moderators are also moderators who deal with overarching stories as well as ensuring a smooth transition for new players. Staff moderators are the ones who hand out experience at the end of threads and generally ensure that finished threads are locked and updating stickies.
Quick And Dirty Guide To Economics
This guide is intended as a quick guide to economics in Adylheim. Rather than examine the subject in any depth, this guide will deal with broad strokes of economics for Adylheim rather than go into the nitty gritty details.
Roleplaying vs. Realistic Economics
In Adylheim economics is always going to be a choice. It is up to you whether your character is well off, poor or anything in between, there is no need for rolling dice or anything similar. There is an upper limit to how much money a character can start with, but this is set high enough that very few persons in Adylheim would actually have this much money on hand. This upper limit is set to 500 gold coins. We will get back to just how much money this actually is later.
We set roleplaying before a portrayal of realistic economics. No one will ever be asked to detail every purchase they make, unless it's an extraordinary item of some kind, saying that you bought it someplace is plenty. Unless a purchase is of interest to the roleplaying, actually spending time on roleplaying it is never going to be required. To give an example, if a character has bought a new house, it might be interesting to roleplay the purchase of the house, perhaps it is haunted, or there are other interesting angles to be played out from the purchase of the place, however how many new pillows, their cost and what cutlery is purchased for the new house is of very little interest to most to roleplay. There is no rule against it, of course, but unless you wish to roleplay these details, you do not have to.
The Value of Money
To get an idea of what money is worth, most spend the equivalent of 10 coppers a day on food. Most people spend approximately 50% of their income on food. It should be noted that this is a minimum though. It is enough to feed a person, but the food isn't going to be very interesting.
If we extrapolate from this though, we can say that for a single gold piece you can feed a grown man for a thousand days. While it is very difficult to accurately translate a fictional medieval currency into a real currency, to get a very loose estimate however, one could say that one gold coin would be the equivalent of 30 000 to 50 000 US$. Gold coins are very rarely used in character. Most day to day purchases would be handled in copper coins, with more expensive items being handled by silver coins.
With Adylheim being primarily an agrarian economy, there is actually little use for coin outside of the cities. Most people live off what they make on their farms and are given food and shelter and the other necessities of life through their work there. This is not to say that people will not trade for money, of course, just that there is very little of it lying around for most average farmers and serfs.
Taxation & Cities
In most cases taxes are not paid in coin, but in produce. This produce is then taken to the nearest cities where the local magistrate or noble turns them into coin via trade or simply selling it. The exact nature of taxation will vary from fiefdom to fiefdom, given that it will have everyone from private individuals, to government officials to local nobles may be in charge of gathering the levies. Of course, in the cities themselves, taxation is usually done with money rather than product.
Even in cities though much of a city's workforce, as much as 25% will be working in the food industry somehow. Either as bakers, millers, hawkers, fishwives and all manner of other jobs. Just behind the food industry in prominence is the fuel industry. Naturally, fuel will not mean the same in Adylheim as it will in real life. Fuel is everything from wood and charcoal for fires, to oil for lamps and similar.
Cities rarely produce raw materials of their own, but rather gather them from the surrounding countryside and turn them into processed goods, such as turning ore into ingots or metal implements or wool into rolls of fabric or clothing. Fiefdoms often have regulations concerning what may be traded where, however, which leads to trade being channelled through specific cities.
It's a common misconception that cities are created by trade, this is actually a very rare occurrence, cities are usually created as administrative centres or to take advantage of and refine a nearby resource, trade may cause a city to grow beyond being a small town or village but has little influence on the creation of a city or town. Institutions in Adylheim often regulate trade in various ways to benefit themselves, Teslan is known for charging toll of those who pass through the Northwater Strait for instance.
Skills and Lore
Skills are anything in which PCs can be trained or learn through study. Players are encouraged to keep track of the particulars of their skills in their character sheets, someone with a similar levels in longsword for instance may be using different styles and techniques, recording these will greatly aid moderators in their job. This game uses an open ended skill system, meaning that if it's possible to think of it as a skill, it will probably be a viable skill. However, any skill dealing with magic and the supernatural should be checked with the staff before being used in character. If the skill existed in real life during the late middle ages, however, there is no reason it cannot be used in character. Articles on specific skills may exist, but will, by nature of the open ended skill system be the exception to the rule.
Level Chart
0: Everyone is at this skill level, with some variables, just how much knowledge someone has of the skill at this point is up to the individual skill. From here onwards it takes one skill experience point to gain a level.
1: This level represents those who has only the most basic understanding of the skill they're using. Someone who has picked up a sword and knows which end to stick in the other person, someone who's just started their apprenticeship.
2:
3: This level represents those who've advanced a little in their understanding of their skill.
4:
5: This skill level represents the majority of militia and raw army recruits, journeymen and apprentice mages.
6:
7:
8:
9:
10: This represents someone with a good grasp of the skill, a skilled soldier, an artisan, a hedgemage. From this level onwards it takes two skill experience points to gain a level.
11:
12:
13:
14:
15: This represents a veteran soldier, a celebrated master craftsman or a mage.
16:
17:
18:
19:
20: At this point the skill reaches a level where it starts to become all but supernatural. These are the true masters of their crafts, rarely found and often heard of in legend, the powerful archmages, the legendary warriors. All crafting skills are all but considered a form of Low Magic from this point and all skills start to take on near magical abilities. From this point onwards it takes three skill experience points to gain a new level.
21:
22:
23:
24:
25: The Absolute pinnacle of skill advancement, at this point the person holding the skill can redefine and create wonders with whatever skill it is.
Skill Experience
Each finished thread where the skill is used counts towards one's levels. For relatively normal and passing use of a skill, moderators will usually choose to award one point of skill experience. For threads where the skill is the focus or plays a pivotal role in the thread, moderators may choose to award two experience points. In very rare cases the moderator may choose to award 3 points of skill experience.
Skill experience is always awarded towards a specific skill. A player may choose whether or not to level up in a skill however.
Lore
Certain things are not considered skills, but are considered Lore. These are similar to skills but rely primarily on knowledge as opposed to training and advancement. An example would be languages (the skill equivalent of which may be language theory or rhetorics), history and so on. Generally speaking, factual knowledge as opposed to trainable skills. Due to the open ended system, there may be some degree of overlap between the two. Lore may be learned IC through single threads, awarded by moderators or assumed to be known at the beginning of the game. Players are encouraged to keep track of what Lore their PC knows.