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.

Where to go next

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, 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.