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 today, 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.

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

Theme Points

1. You are Soulless, or Gifted. Point blank. You require a soul gem to keep from being taken over by Shadow.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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

• Berserker
• Champion of Light
• Crusader
• Dark Knight
• Dark Magician
• EarthShaker
• Fighter
• Golem Crafter
• Hearth Magician
• Journeyman
• Machine Priest
• Mage Adept
• Ninja
• Priest
• Rogue
• Scholar
• Windrunner

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.)

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 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.)

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.