Before you decided to create a character and join up, please read at least the pages on creation, the afterlife, the RULES and the culture which you want to use for your character.  I would prefer that you read all the pages though.  If you are going to use Kethol or Get, you should read both of these files, since they are at war.  If you want to use the Tarabethian Islands, be aware that they are a contested area between Get, Odeland and the native inhabitants of these Islands.
 
Here is a list of the cultures and what Earth culture they KIND OF resemble.  Do not make the mistake of thinking they are this culture!  This is just to tell you where to look to find a culture you might like reading and creating a character for.  I will just use a list of key words.  You need familiarity with one of these cultures.  If you do not read them all, then please make your character such that she would not be familiar with any world but her own.  A good example of this is a peasant who has never travelled more than a day from her village center.
 
Empire of Get- Islamic, Medievel Europe, Male Dominated, Slave State, Militaristic, Reject Mother Goddess, Monotheistic, Hates Odeland
United Kingdoms of Kethol- Democratic, Asian, At Peace, Educated, Inovation, Ancestor Worship
Odeland- Medievel Europe, Female Dominated, Sacrificed Goddess, Carneval, Sea Traders, Hates Get
Parkik- Celtic, Mother Goddess, Animal Totem, Berserkers, Female Druids, Blood Rites
Tarabethia Islands- Hawaiian, Peaceful, Oppressed, Youth Training For Rebellion
Forest of Emdoor- Rugged, Hunters, Circle Of Life, Trolgs (Trolls), Snow, Tribes
Tar Mountains- Frozen, Goblyns, Tribes, Human Appearence (though green)

 

You may not bring in a character from another game.  The character must be native to this campaign world.  If you leave, I would appreciate retaining the right to use the character as an NPC to maintain story continuity, until I find a logical way to write them out.  If you could stay long enough to write them out yourself, it would be appreciated.
 
Even though I created reasonable complete cultural files, these files are not nearly complex enough to reflect a real society.  A real society has many social groups and sub-classes.  I made no mention of tinker or Rom type peoples, but they may exist.  I did not discuss guilds much, so they are open to interpretation.  Use your creative mind to come up with something original.

I tried to give enough information to give a feel for the cultures, without making them so well defined that there was no freedom in character creation.  I did not over specify some aspects of religion and politics, because I want the players to have room to improvise.
 
When making a character, remember that the strongest, most skillful characters are not always the most interesting.  A character that rings true will have faults and problems.  They will have room to grow.  They will have a past that comes back to haunt them.  They may have psychological problems as well.  I am not asking that all characters be dark, brooding mental patients, with secrets in their pasts and totally impractical skills.  I am just asking that characters be realistic.  We all have our hang-ups and our secret shames.  We all have had our sorrows and troubles.  We all have our weaknesses

 

When creating a magic using character, keep in mind that this campaign world is a low magic world.  Most magic will require extensive rituals.  Pray can give more immediate results, but is at the whim of the deity being petitioned.  This is not AD&D and you will not be hurtling fireballs and such with-in sixty seconds.
 
There are few true magic items.  There are some holy relics out there (Earth examples- splinters from the cross of Christ or the bones of a saint and such items as Excalibur), but they are not just created by any magician.  They are sacred and special items that carry responsibility and a touch of the divine or of evil.  Your character will NOT own one of these off the bat, unless I tell you differently or you convince me.  A character with skills in ritual and with the right concept might have minor ancestral items.

 

You can be whom you want, but I already know who most of the top government officials are.  You will probably not be allowed to start as a prince, unless you were in exile or had no knowledge of who you were, or some other cliché.  You might be a royal bastard though.  It is more important to create an interesting character that you will enjoy writing for than it is to find an excuse to make them a royal.

 

 

CHARACTER SHEET (This goes under "private stuff and backgrounds")

 

Name:
Gender:
Sexuality:
Age: (Your character must be eighteen years or older)
Nationality/Race:
Pets/Familiars/Mounts:
Appearance:
Profession:
Secondary Skills: (limit this to one or two)
 
Languages Spoken:  (Put an asterix next to any language for which you are literate- see below for linguistic information)
 
Personality:
 
Religion and Values:
 
Personal History:  (Where is she from?  Who nurtured her?  Who is in her family?  Who does she know?  What in her past made her the way she is today?  Who are her oldest and most trusted friends?  Who is the most important person she knows?  Who does she owe favors to or who owes favors to her?  Who are her enemies?  What do you own and where did it come from?  There are many other questions to answer.  These are just example questions to help spark your imagination.)

 

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Languages

 

The language of Get and Odeland are very similar, but not identical.  Both Odeland and Get use the same alphabet.  It is a picture-based alphabet that requires years to learn.
 
The Gobyn tribes have a distinct language that is spoken somewhat differently from tribe to tribe.  It is a reasonable sophisticated language for such a primitive people.
 
Parkik is very different from them.  Different clans have different dialects, but they also have a common set of words that are a language in and of themselves.  There is no written language for the Parkik languages, but they have a tremendous oral tradition.
 
Tarabethian is a separate language.  They have a form of writing that is done with notches carved into slender clay sticks.
 
The tribes of Emdoor speak a language that is very similar to Parkik.  They to have no written language, but have a good oral tradition.
 
Their neighbors the Trolgs have a primitive language of about five hundred words that uses a combination of spoken words and hand gestures.
 
Northern and Southern Kethol are totally different languages, though they share a few words.   They both use a twenty-letter phonetic alphabet.  Northern Kethol is spoken at court across the United Kingdom.
 
Trent's Corner has a language that is strongly related to Southern Kethol.  Skill in it or in Southern Kethol will automatically grant skill in the other language at one level less.
 
There is a common trade language that most sailors and merchants have adopted throughout The World.  It only has about two thousand words, but it is very effective for trade.  There is no separate written language for it.
 
There is also an ancient, language common to all the languages.  It is almost a lost language, with an alphabet of it's own.  Even if you take it, no one remembers it enough to be fully fluent.  It would come in useful for some religious and magic rituals and in historical and occult research.
 
There is a forbidden dead language spoken by the people of Lister.  It is somewhat like the Get/Odeland family of languages, but the common man or woman of those countries would not recognize it today.

 

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Magic, Religion and Witchcraft
 
If you choose to create a character that will use magic of a sort, you can go by way of three different routes.