New Player Primer

Theme

Rusted Promises is a fantasy world with anthropomorphic animals as the dominant species. Highest tech-level is muskets, though there are ruins from the Creators with much more advanced tech(beyond atomic age).

Background

400 years ago animals arrived on a planet called Promise. They weren't the animals we have on Earth, however. Instead the Creators, who are strongly implied but not outright stated to be humans, uplifted them. This gave them the ability to speak, changes to their hands, and much increased mental capacity. They have since prospered, building cities and advancing civilization.

However their moon, where their souls were stored, got all blowed up. This caused creatures called shadows, and a new subset to the uplifted animals called, at the time, soulless. Soulless were able to use soul gems, gems containing abilities and all of another, while those who weren't soulless could not. Eventually the term soulless got changed to Gifted.

You are one of the Gifted, able to use your special ability to switch souls and become who you want at a whim to help defend Promise from the Shadow and threats of war. Or to damn it.

Creation

There are two ways to make a character. The first is using the web interface(here), and the second is through direct connection (rustedpromises.com port 9630). The web interface creation process is an easier, simple process. But for creating through the direct connection here is a bit of a guide.

First Step

When you first create after choosing a name and password then putting them in with CREATE (name) (password) you will have a screen come up welcoming you to the game, and prompting you to set up a clan, gender and species. At any time you can LOOK or L to see the room you are in, which contains instructions. First we will go with the clans.

Clans

For a detailed list of the clans you can check the Clans page. It is mostly a roleplay choice at the moment, though you should consider what species you want to be, as that can help determine a clan. A turtle, for example, fits quite naturally into the Shelled Folk clan.

CLAN (clan name) selects your clan

Species

This is where you set your species and gender. It is doen with &sex me=male, or &set me=female. Then species is &set me=(species). You can be any normal animal species, such as a dog, a cat, a leopard, a kimodo dragon. And with the proper perks you can even be an extinct species, such as a dinosaur or dodo bird.

You CANNOT, however, be human, or any supernatural creature, such as a dragon or phoenix. There are ways to become some of those in game, but not right away.

Register

Typing +register will take you into registration. You set up your account email, and password for the account. When you buy lunars, or subscribe, it is applied to your account, not to your character. Though items you buy with lunars are bound your character and not account, in most cases.

Merits

After this you will be able to select your merits. By typing M you will go to the merit room. At creation you can select 20 points worth of merits.

LIST PERKS will list them. Each perk costs a number of points. Those are discussed in a bit more detail later on. For now we will just cover the rest of the commands. Further, typing this will only show perks that you can currently afford with your 20 starter perk points.

LIST FLAWS will list flaws.

LIST PERKS (number) will list perks that cost that number of points.

BUY PERK (perk name) will buy the perk named that. This command is also how you buy flaws, just replace PERK with FLAW

SELL (perk or flaw name) will sell back the perk or flaw you bought, refunding the points to be spent on another.

+RPINFO (perk/flaw) RPINFO is a very useful command you can use it to view a perk or flaw for more detail. But it is also useful in the game itself. You can use RPINFO on many things for detailed information. For example, mage adepts get the power explosive blast. If you were to check RPINFO EXPLOSIVE BLAST, it would tell you a few details about that power.

PERKS This will show what perks you have.

PERKS # This will show details on the perk you have that corresponds to the number selected.

Once you finish this you just type O to return to the previous room.

Finishing

Once you have done all this you are close to being done. This is your last chance to review and make any changes. Make sure you are happy with your clan, species, gender, and perks. And if you are, then type I Am Finished. Any errors, such as an invalid gender or clan, will prevent this from going through.

Second Step

Once you type I Am Finished, you will be put on the main concourse and given 2000 crowns, the currency of the game. From here you type NE. Then you type list. Everything listed under this list, save for the Earth Mathemagician, is a soul gem. These are used to give yourself a class, in effect. At the start you will only have the parent soul gem, which is not as good as a specialized one.

The types of souls are discussed further on in the souls section. For your first soul it is recommended you pick one of the combat souls. You do this by doing BUY (number).

After this you must use your soul. Check Inv, then USE (item number). Then you can equip your soul, using SOUL (soul name). An example is SOUL FIGHTER. Once that is done it is time to get starter gear! To do that you just type STARTER. The first set of starter gear is free! Any further sets will cost 60000 crowns.

After getting your gear you equip it. You just type I, then EQ (number). Each item has a loadout amount that it consumes. Checking +GEAR (item number) will display this, and you can use EQ by itself to check your current equipment, their loadout, and the amount of loadout you have remaining. Unless you took the Always Be Prepared perk, you can only have a loadout totaling up to of 100. Also, equipping an item removes it from your inventory page, which will change the number of any items after it. Once that is done, you are set and ready to go play!

Final Notes

For a list of helpful commands check the Newbie_Command_List.

Further, if going through the direct connection you can use the newbie channel for asking questions, and hopefully getting answers.

Merits and Perks

Merits are things that change your character in some way. Most of the changes are small mechanical effects. An increased proficiency in a type of magic, or getting more chances to avoid traps in web puzzles. Some are roleplay effects, such as having exotic patterning or coloring, or having less fur than others of your species. Generally the greater the effect, the more points it costs. You get 20 points free at the start. You can buy up to a total of 50 merit points. In game they have an XP cost of 10 x Point Value.

Perks are the same as merits, though generally the term merit includes those that are only something you can take at creation, while perks are those you can take after creation.

Flaws are a special type of merit. Only taken at creation, instead of being something that helps your character, it hinders it in some way. Maybe your enemies are always stronger than you, or switching between multiple souls causes you to develop multiple personalities.

Writing a Description and Background

To write a description in game you have a few options. If you are going through direct connection(either through the direct connect tab on the web or through your own client) you can use the EDITPLAYER command to bring up a list of things you can write, including description and short description.

Through the web client if you go to Personal, then Settings you can edit both description and short description.

The short description is what people will see when entering a room with you in it, or when using +glance. It will look something like this.

Arimia[Female:raccoon]: A thin, runt raccoon, wearing a vest and short shorts.

A description is what people will see when they look at you, and is generally much, much longer.

For help with figuring out your character and what they look like you can check Creating_A_Character

Another useful thing for your character is the WIXXX system. WI #HELP can walk you through this. In short, it is a system for setting up roleplaying flags that others can check, thus letting them know what sort of roleplay you like.

Theme Points

You are Soulless, or Gifted. Point blank. You require a soul gem to keep from being taken over by Shadow.
You are some species of anthropomorphic animal. You can be a bird, snake, raccoon, wolf, and so on. With the right perks you could even be a dionsaur, or dodo bird, or some other extinct species. But you are NOT human, or an elf, or pixie, or anything like that.
You are a member of a clan. Which of the clans is your choice, though growing folk and shelled folk almost have racial requirements. You are not, however, clanless, an Apostate. You may have been at one point in your life, but you aren't now.
You are in Sweetwater, and most likely live in the city of Firmament. You can be from elsewhere, and RP events can take you elsewhere, but for casual roleplay that is where you are.

Souls

Souls are the equivalent to classes here. There are three types of souls, though the line between them can be a bit blurred at times. There are combat souls, social souls, and crafting souls. You can switch to any soul you own without cost, provided you are not in combat. Further, each soul has it's own set of equipment and chakra. So if you have a mage adept soul with padded armor equipped, and switch to fighter, you will not be wearing padded armor anymore. It will not show up in your inventory, but instead be tied to that soul, and will show up when you reequip that soul.

As a note, it is very, very strongly recommended you select a combat soul for your first soul. This will let you progress web missions for XP, and go out and fight monsters.

Combat Souls

These souls are the combat souls. They are the only ones usable in, and capable of gaining xp from, combat. And their proficiencies, powers, and granted skills reflect this. While they may have some non-combat proficiencies, such as the crafting proficiencies for Journeyman, the majority of their proficiencies will be combat oriented. (Examples of such are fire magic, and moderate weapons.)

Starter Combat Souls

These souls are ones you can afford to buy with the starter crown given to you, or in web connect the ones you select at creation.

Fighter
Journeyman
Mage Adept
Priest
Rogue
Scholar

Other Souls for Purchase

These souls are available for purchase for more crown than the standard souls, for lunars, or for reward tokens.

Army Magician
Berserker
Cannoneer
Dark Knight
Dark Magician
EarthShaker
Golem Crafter
Hearth Magician
Monk
Treasure Hunter
Windrunner

Mission Reward Souls

These souls are rewards for certain level 30 missions.

Champion of Light
Ninja
Street Fighter

Combined Soul/Proficiency Rewards

These souls are awarded for either getting two specific souls to thirty, or for getting a particular proficiency to that point.

Crusader
Duelist
Lightning Caller
Machine Priest

Unavailable Soul

This soul is being worked on, but is currently not available.

Bard

Social Souls

Courtier
Merchant
Noble¹
Performer
Unseen

These souls are social souls. They cannot gain xp from, or be used, in combat. Instead they gain xp and influence from roleplay and from preforming social actions. Social actions, and the influence system in general, can be read about at Influence. These souls, while they may have one or two non-social proficiencies like stealth, are mostly composed of social proficiencies. (Intrigue and Underworld are examples of these.)

¹The noble soul is not sold. Instead you get it from the perks Noble Birth or Royal Born, chosen at creation. You can also buy the Lunar item New Noble Line, which lets you create your own noble house, and grants the Noble Birth perk, and thus the soul.

Crafting Souls

Craft Apprentice

There is only one crafting soul. Like social souls it cannot be used combat, and gains XP from roleplay and social actions. Though it only has the commerce social proficiency, limiting what social actions it can do. Instead the majority of it's proficiencies are crafting ones. These proficiencies, when raised, give increased chances for you to craft higher quality items, pertaining to which proficiency is raised. So if you raise metalwork you will have a higher chance of crafting an exceptional sword or armor. This soul is also unique in that it can gain XP from handing in craft bounties, in addition to the crown and possible token reward offered.

Proficiencies

So! You've seen all the talk about proficiencies above! But what are they? Well, a proficiency is your characters ability with a type of magic, or with items of a certain type, or a knowledge about how the royal courts function, and so on. They represent what your character can do. Your soul determines your proficiencies, and what the maximum you will be able to have at any particular level is. Higher proficiencies means you will be able to equip better items, do better when using them in RP, and that your items will do more damage or protect you more, or just have an increased effect for you.

You train proficiencies by spending a bit of XP and crown. However you can only train up to your current potential, which has a chance to raise higher each level. You can train higher than potential, up to the max for your level, but doing so will cost at minimum ten thousand crowns. So in most cases it is better to wait until your potential rises.

Your max potential is determined by more than level, however. Your equipment also increases how high your protential proficiency can get. Your starter equipment will let you train to a maximum of five current proficiency. To train higher you will need to have better gear crafted and equipped, then gain levels and potential proficiency.

Chakra

Chakra are a special type of equipment. They do not have a loadout, like other equipment, but instead have slots. Currently there are three slots; arms, legs, and torso. A chakra can raise your potential proficiency when equipped, or give special chakra powers. These work the same as the powers granted by leveling your soul. Some are active, some toggles, and some passive powers.

You equip a chakra same as any other equipment, but can only have one chakra per slot. Some chakra sets give a set bonus if you have all three slots filled with the chakra of that type, for example, Dullahan.