Getting Started

Welcome to Althanas, the Internet's most exciting fantasy play-by-post role-playing game. Althanas is a community dedicated to innovative role-playing and to improving the writing of its players. As a new member of the forum, we recommend reading through this guide as you create your character and explore Althanas's features.

What is Althanas?

Althanas, a Play-by-Post Role-Playing Game (or “PbP” for short), was founded in January of 2002. In a PbP, you create a character and write stories from that character’s perspective, as you would in any piece of fiction. Often in a PbP you’ll work collaboratively with other players, teaming up to write a story together. Wikipedia has an entry on PbP that offers a quick summary of this process:

"The first message posted onto a thread of that nature is usually one person laying down the scenario, starting a story about their character and inviting others. If successful, the thread then becomes an ongoing story in which players periodically advance the plot by reading the latest reply and then typing a short paragraph or two about what their character does and how the environment changes in response. These replies are often open-ended so that other players can continue."

Althanas is no different. What separates us from other forums, though, is our emphasis on improving the writing of our players. At the conclusion of each role-playing thread, Althanas staffers offer advice and comments on how the story could be improved. This system is known as the “Althanas Rubric”

Forum Registration

(Note: This section explains how to register on vBulletin, the forum software that runs Althanas. Many players may already know how to do this and should move to the next section)

The first step in becoming a member of Althanas is to register an account. You will use this account to interact with other players and also to build a character with whom you will fight battles and participate in quests and tournaments. Most of your role-playing on the forum will involve your character, so registering a solid character when you start is the most important step towards making your stay at Althanas a worthwhile experience.

Once you click the registration link, you’ll be taken to a page asking for your date of birth (your own, not your character’s). You will then be asked to agree to the forum rules.

Next comes a page which asks for your user name. Your user name does not have to be your character's name –- it is simply the account name that all of your writing on Althanas will be posted under. Most players find it less confusing to use their character's name as their account name, however. The rest of the registration page is self-explanatory, although we call your attention to the profanity filter at the bottom. By default, all users will not be using a profanity filter. The filter included in this registration forum will allow you to select words that you would like censored on the forum.

Creating your Character's Profile

The profile page serves as part of your character sheet for Althanas (it appears to the left of your posts), and filling this out correctly, as well as maintaining your Realm of Greeting thread (detailed later), is key to your character's success on the forum. Remember, the most important rule about your character is that he or she (or it!) must be your own work -- you cannot role-play as Luke Skywalker, or Legolas, or Elton John. However, you may borrow or use parts of your favorite character, meaning that you can make a character that is based loosely off of him or her, provided you use an original name and make it so that the character you are registering isn't recognizable as a character from another setting.

Let's go over a few tips for the profile fields. Remember that while you will be asked to fill in this information at registration, you can always change it later from your user control panel:

1) Full Name: The first field of your profile is for your character's full name. Keep in mind that Althanas is a fantasy setting, and try to be as creative as possible with your character's name; it will be with you for a long time! If you have trouble naming your character, try using one of the many fantasy name generators.

2) Race: Althanas has no required race for your character, so he or she can be can be anything including those from the common fantasy group (Human, Elves, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Goblins, etc.) or any other species you want, even one of your own creation. Keep in mind, though, that the regions which make up the world of Althanas are each dominated by one major race (the exception is the island of Coroné, where populations are almost equal), so your preferred geographic location may be affected by your racial choice. There is further information that can be easily accessed by looking at the Regions in order to find the racial "breakdown" of each country.

3) Age, Gender, Hair Color, Eye Color, and Height/Weight: These fields involve aspects of your character's appearance. Keep in mind that writing a convincing 24-year-old tall, muscular female warrior presents different challenges from writing a 75-year-old short, frail male warrior. Feel free to be creative in your combination here; it will help to make your role-playing feel even more realistic.

4) Language: The language your character speaks, whether it is Elvish, Dwarfish, Dark Elf, or your own created tongue. The common language of northern Althanas is “Tradespeak.”

5) Occupation: If your character had a job before he or she was an adventurer, list it here. If not, then “Adventurer” is fine.

6) Weapon, Armor, and Skill/Item: Your character’s favorite weapon, favorite armor, and a few of the skills or items that make him or her different from other characters. You will go into more detail about these choices when you make your Character Sheet in the “Realm of Greeting” forum.

7) Location: Your character’s current location – this may be his or her hometown, or an Althanas region.

8) Power Group(s): Leave this alone for now. Once you’ve started role-playing on Althanas you may join one of our player Power Groups – on other forums these organizations are sometimes called “clans” or “guilds.”

That’s all there is to your profile page. Next we will discuss how to get your character approved so that you can begin to role-play on Althanas.

Your Character Sheet and the Realm of Greeting

After filling out your profile , your first stop should be to the forum near the top of Althanas, the Realm of Greeting. There you will make a thread (called a character sheet) detailing your character and the skills he or she starts with. You will also be asked to provide your character's history and any equipment he or she starts with. Once you have posted the thread, a moderator will look to approve your character.

Here is the format of the character sheet and some tips on filling it out:

• Name:
• Age:
• Race:
• Hair Color:
• Eye Color:
• Height:
• Weight:
• Occupation: ((This is optional))

• Personality: Give us an idea of your character’s traits. How does he or she interact with other people? What does he or she think about themselves? ((Though optional, this section helps not only yourself but the other members of the Althanas community to understand your character a little better.))

• Appearance: Describe your character as he or she would appear to someone else.

• History: You should make your character's history as detailed and as creative as possible. The more history your character has, the more interesting stories you will be able to write about him when you begin role-playing. However, be careful not to use clichés, or other commonly used plotlines. It seems that every other character's parents were killed in some accident or murder, and that their death was what led the character to become a hero. A detailed history is not required to play, but you'll find that building one helps you to immediately jump into your story on the forums.

• Skills: Please clearly define and list every skill your character has. Skills are subjective abilities, based solely on your character's knowledge, that can have an indirect affect on another character. Common Althanas skills are swordplay or marksmanship. You may include adjectives to describe your skills as well. For example, you can make your character a "master swordsman," but realize that your equipment quality and your tangible abilities might be too low to make this claim true. Skills are not moderated by the Realm of Greeting staff on Althanas. Instead, they are moderated by the judges who read your threads. We allow you to have as many skills as you want, so long as you don't power game.

• Equipment: It is not necessary to list all traveling necessities, but if you have items unique to your character, you should describe them under this category. Remember that you will be able to purchase more equipment for your character in our market forum, the Bazaar.

• Abilities: Please clearly define and list every ability your character has. Abilities are tangible actions or traits that have a direct affect on another player. They includes magic, speed, strength, etc. Racial traits, like elfish reflexes, are also considered abilities. When considering racial traits, the moderators will ask you to compare them to a human. Each ability must be written individually on your profile. Characters can begin with three (3) abilities. This number increases as the character's level increases. Note: Control over magic of a particular type will be considered a single ability, however you will be asked what your character can do with it at each level.

Notes on Ability Combination. Recall that characters only have a certain number of abilities at each level.

-- "Stacked abilities," or individual abilities that combine to enhance the affect of the abilities, will be considered a separate, unique ability at each level. For example, a fire tornado created by combining wind and fire control would be considered stacked and would have to be listed separately of the fire and wind entries. Passive abilities (abilities that are always "on") that intentionally combine with active abilities are considered "stacked" as well. An example of this is the ability to see in darkness combined with the ability to create darkness.

-- "Sequential abilities," or individual abilities that are used one after another to create a combination result, do not count as a separate, unique ability at each level. For example, if a character uses the wind to trip a character and then throws a fireball at him while he's on the ground, this "wind-trip-ball" is not considered a unique ability and does not have to be listed. This will be moderated by typical powergaming rules (which prevent the use of too many attacks in one post).

• Familiars (Optional): A familiar is a minor adventuring companion, usually a small animal, demon, or humanoid of some sort. This section may be skipped if you do not have one.

After posting your character sheet as a new thread in the Character/PG Registration Forum, one of our Approval Moderators will then read it. If they feel that it needs anything added or taken away, they will ask you to modify it. When a moderator determines that your character sheet is acceptable, they will then approve you and you may begin role-playing at Althanas. In addition, your character will be awarded 200 GP and, if the approvals moderator finds your character to be particularly unique or creative, you may also potentially receive a 100 bonus experience points.

The approvals process is vital at Althanas because is prevent players from creating overpowered characters that make the game unfair to other players. Getting your character approved is a short process, and you can expect a waiting time of typically only a few hours. Please remember that you should wait to make any sort of in character post until after your character is approved. You are free -- and, in fact, encouraged -- to make an out of character introduction thread to meet members of our community.

Information on history

Storyline information goes in the history. Length doesn't matter, but if you provide length just for the sake of providing length, it can be a pain for us to read through. However, if you feel it's necessary to have a long profile, that's fine. A very long, extended history is great though. We love to see characters that are well thought out and obviously took some time to create. This shows us that you care about your character, care about your writing, and intend on spending some time using that character. Just make sure your skills and equipment are in plain view and easy to find at a glance. Provide enough information on your abilities so that they are understandable.

A character's history is not one of the criteria for whether or not a character gets approved or not (The one exception being if you blatantly ripped off your story/character from someone else). So, for the ease of both the RoG Mod looking at your profile and for the sake of any future RP partners searching for your abilities, gear, skills, and so on, please have well defined sections containing these categories in your profile. There have been instances where people muddle up all the criteria for approval into an extremely long history and it makes it difficult on everyone.

Furthermore, history for your characters should explain why your character is on Althanas. The fantasy based world of Althanas is a planet all its own. It is not Earth, but another planet completely. You can have characters that aren’t from the planet, as long as they somehow make sense why they are here. Take the time and explain how your character came to the planet if they aren’t normally from Althanas, otherwise the RoG mod that’s looking over the profile may be lost as to why and how the character is here.

Information on Weapons and Armor

Weapons and armor can be as strong as steel and no stronger when you are registering a new character. Iron is encouraged if you have a lot of skills or many pieces of equipment, because it's considered to be slightly less durable and heavier. For wooden weapons, the maximum strength can be Yew, though oak is encouraged for those with multiple skills or weapons. You don’t have to have weapons and armor that are exactly the same as steel/iron or yew/oak, as long as the relative strength of the material that you’ve created for the character are equivalent to the strength of these materials.

Enchantments for weapons are not allowed at level 0. You can purchase them at the bazaar when you earn enough GP. Enchantments that are tied to character abilities (like directing magic through a sword) must be listed in the ability section. Please note that we no longer allow weapons or armor that grow in tier as the character grows in level.

How many skills can you start out with?

You can have as many skills as you want and they can be described however you want. Be careful though, as judges will be on the lookout for powergaming (using your skills unfairly in combat) and inconsistency. An example of using skills unfairly in combat would be, "Character dodges because he is a master swordsman and easily predicted this novice's attack."

Another good thing to think about, and a way to get a little more of a power boost added to your skills/magic/abilities is to consider allowing your character to have weaknesses. As a moderator in charge of the RoG I am always welcome to offer more leeway for people that have taken time to be reasonable and allow their characters to be weak to different affects. This can include something physical like bones can be broken easier, senses aren’t as strong as other peoples, or your character is slower/weaker than others. Or you can have magical weaknesses such as allowing certain spell types to affect you more, or being within an area of magic makes you sick (which would work for a pure warrior type character). The weaknesses are really up to you, so long as they make sense to your character and are realistic for what you are working towards. Obviously, a weakness to a specific material that isn’t present on Althanas, or isn’t prevalent on the planet, won’t be a weakness we’d take into much consideration.

Information on Magic and Abilities

• Magic and Abilities in Regards to the RoG: As you can see in the above, magic is regulated along with abilities (including racial traits) in the ROG. Initially, you are allowed to have three (3) abilities. This number increases as your character's level increases. Remember that with magic, control over a particular type will only be considered a single ability. A moderator will assist you in the thread if you have questions regarding how you should start out.

• In regards to spells and “mage” characters: There are no limitations when it comes to variety of magic. You can have elemental magic, summoning spells, enfeebling curses, etc. You can basically use anything your mind can think up. We don't have a list of spells you can choose from, so everyone makes up their own. There are always the regular, basic idea’s that can be used such as fireballs and freeze-rays, but the creativity and extent of the spells you can choose know no bounds.

However, we do ask that you write the extent of your magical control in the ability section. This does not mean you need to specify details. For example, you don't need to say "my character can build a baseball sized fireball from an existing flame that achieves a temperature of 300 degrees and can be launched 40 yards at 40 miles per hour." We will simply ask you the types of things your character can do with the fire and what their effects can be. For example, "my character can use his control over fire to make small fireballs that can leave minor burns on my opponent when thrown." Judges will ensure that you're using these abilities fairly when grading your threads.

The clearer you are with an ability or a magic spell, the better. Carefully choosing your words will help anyone looking at your profile understands the abilities your character has.

What comes next?

• If a profile is not approved and is inactive for two months, is it deleted? No, not immediately. It will be closed and moved to the Pending Approvals forum where it will sit for up to at least a year or more before being deleted. But they can be recovered, all you have to do is contact a mod or admin and they can move it back and re-open it for you. It's encouraged to start a new one, however, as the character might no longer be fresh in your mind after a long period of inactivity without ever writing with him. Approved profiles are never deleted.

• Don’t fret! Whatever you wanted that might have not been approved can be potentially quested for. That means if you wanted to cast lighting and fire spells at the same time, but only got the fire ability… you can quest for a fire spell or abilities with fire. When you’re done with the quest or battle, you can request that you gain the ability/spell at the end. It is up to the moderator that judges it as to whether it’s approved or not, either way you will have to wait till your next level up and approval by the RoG in order to use it.

• Magic and abilities granted in quests are subject to review by the RoG. Just because a judge gave you a spell or ability does not guarantee it will not be modified or asked to be removed when updating a character profile.

• Updates can be done mid-level, but aren’t always going to be immediately accepted by the RoG mod handling them. If you update a profile mid-level you are not allowed to update skills, magic, or abilities. You can update history, appearances, personality, and equipment but nothing more. An exception to this is if you develop a skill or an ability mid level in a quest, you can have the ROG decide whether to grant you the ability.

After Approval

Once you have your character approved, the entirety of the Althanas world becomes open to you. However, we have a few special areas for newcomers to help you to get accustomed to our system.

Many players will begin their journeys in The Peaceful Promenade. This area is an in-character locale where you can introduce your character to other players, and perhaps even plan a battle or quest with another player's character. Underwood is our training forum for people who's levels are between 0 and 1, where Moderators will help new players learn about Althanas, and run them through the parts of a battle. That battle will then be judged by a member of the Althanas staff, and players will be given tips about how to improve their role-playing.

New characters may also find the Bazaar a useful starting location. It is the Althanas marketplace, and your character can buy almost any item you can imagine to use in role-playing threads. Remember that your character starts off with 200 GP, and supplementing your starting equipment with some new goodies is a good idea.

But of course, do not forget the Introduction Forum -- an Out-of-Character chat where you can introduce yourself to the community of Althanas. Tell us everything that's interesting about you, so we can welcome you to our forum.