The Setting
Arelith is a small isle off the Sword Coast, closest to Luskan and the Moonshae isles. It takes place in the Forgotten Realms setting, 3.5 which is after the Time of Troubles but before the Spellplague. Specifically, the Arelith timeline diverges in early 1372 DR: Bane has been resurrected, but Lolth has never gone silent.
The time period is, I would say Renaissance-y. Lords and ladies, city watch, swords and shields, knightly orders but also at the cusp of new technologies being invented and new advances in magic and the like. No, that doesn't mean you have to talk in ye old english but modern phrases and references won't go off well.
This is a persistent RP server, meaning that all the time, 24/7, in every area, you are In Character. The server doesn't exactly permit // (()) talk outside of tells (which should also be limited if you can help it!) This is to keep the server immersive for everyone!
There are two major cities, Cordor and Andunor, both of which are starting cities for the Surface and the Underdark respectively. It is this author's opinion that it is easier to start off in Cordor if this is your first time in the Forgotten Realms/D&D universe, as the Underdark can be a little more lore intensive. However both cities are full of friendly and helpful players who are, more often than not happy to answer questions you may have or at least point you in the right direction.
The races supported by Arelith are (Not including 'Reward Races')
Elf (Sun Elf, Moon Elf, Wild Elf, Wood Elf, Drow)
Half Elf
Halfling (Ghostwise, Strongheart, Lightfoot)
Half-Orc (Vanilla, Orog)
Human
Gnome (Rock gnome, Deep gnome, Forest Gnome[Reward required] )
Dwarf (Shield Dwarf, Gold Dwarf, Duergar)
Gnoll (Monster Race)
Kobold (Monster Race)
Goblins (Monster Race)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Making Your Character-
When you build your character, you're obviously going to want to end up with something that's at least useable, even if you're not a powergaming munchkin looking to PvP everyone. It's relatively easy to make an arelith character who's passable, so don't sweat it too much. There's a Helpful thread here with some meta builds if you want something easy you can get with right away.
Helpful starting information:
Arelith is a level 30 server, meaning that you can take 20 normal levels and 10 epic levels, in whatever combination you wish, with two exceptions:
1) Harper Scout PRC requires you to apply with a DM to get permission to take the class.
2) Red Dragon Disciple requires EITHER a major reward for character deletion, or requires you to have a 20 RPR, play a kobold, and find a certain NPC in the module.
Multiclass penalties have been removed, meaning that you can take any class you want as any race. Some races, of course, will have benefits for taking certain classes (And Arelith has a fairly expansive custom subrace system), but you won't be actively penalized for, for instance, playing a half orc wizard/rogue.
All Classes on Arelith require you to take three levels minimum. What this means, is that if you are, for instance, a level 3 fighter who decides to take a level in paladin, you'll be required to take three total paladin levels before you can return to taking paladin levels. This requirement exists for every class, but after you've taken your first three levels you can take levels in whatever order you wish.
Most classes, abilities, skills, feats and spells have been altered on Arelith: You can find more detailed information in the mechanical information forum, here. You also can access this information in game, through the rest menu.
Arelith has a number of subclasses, or 'paths', which are altered versions of familiar, base NWN classes, changed to behave differently to help simulate certain classes from P&P games. These subclasses can be taken on character creation if you are the proper base class. More details can be found in the mechanical information forum.
Arelith has a number of subraces, which are slightly different versions of the familiar base NWN races (Elf, Human, Halfling, etc). These subraces get slightly modified abilities: See the mechanical information forum.
Now we move onto the Role Play aspect of your character. The Who rather than the What.
Arelith adopts a very orthodox fantasy RP setting, in that walking down the street, you likely won't find a winged dragon person or a talking dog or something equally whimsical. We embrace mundane and most characters you'll find will be their own interesting spin on crusader or merchant or politician etc etc.
As it stands, unless you get a Major Reward (we'll talk about that later!) you aren't allowed to play a bright green halfling or a Dragonborn lizard person or a half-elf-half-cat-half-celestial man child either. Try to keep it simple; there's plenty of other ways to make your character interesting and memorable without using quirks as a crutch. Arelith is a busy place and your character will undoubtedly find something to get remembered for, for better or worse.
Try to keep your character's appearance generally 'normal' as well. Moon elves are a bit of an exception, as they tend to have Lightly Blue Tinted skin.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you step through the Arelith Entry portal you'll find yourself in Cordor's docks. If you proceed down the docks and go to the left to the immediate building there, you'll be inside the Speedy Messenger building. You can talk to the halfling, Frugo behind the counter and get the first (and one of the only) quests available on the server. This quest serves like a tour of the city, as you deliver packages around to NPCs found about the city. There's hints on where you can find them, and if you utilize your mini-map you can find them faster. If you find yourself having trouble, try talking to one of the PC characters you can find walking around. More often than not, your fellow player is willing to lend a hand to a new player.
Once you've given all your quest items out you'll get your third level, and now...
Now what?
Well there's quite a few things you could do. Arelith is an open world, and if you've got the passion and skill you can do about anything. Get involved in politics, join the guard, get a job, get into the crafting system and pander your wares, go on dungeoning trips for exp and adventure! It's this author's opinion that joining the Guard is a great way to get initiated into the server, and get a feel for the political air, and also get a group of people who are willing to help you get started and help you find things to do.
There's also the Nomad, where you can take a quieter job selling booze and being charming.
If you prefer more exciting means and getting your levels more proactively, the are the Rats, found in the Cultural District of Cordor down by the docks. Talking to the captain there will explain the rat infestation on the ships docked there, and payment offered if you bring the captain tails of the rats you kill. This is a great and relatively easy way to get money and exp. You can even take the hides and meat from the rats and sell them to the city. (which will be explained in the Looting subsection)
There are plenty of other great places to get adventure too. There's Cordor's Graveyard, home to two different dungeons, the Bramble Woods, home to two different dungeons, the "Iron" Mines, the Bandits up the Coast, and then the Sewers. All of these dungeons are give or take in the 1-6 range. From 6 onwards, you'll likely be meandering through the swamps and all the dungeons found there.
Low Level Life- Andunor Edition!
Once you've made sure to pick a monster race in your creation menu in the Arelith Entry area and walk through the main door you'll be loaded into the hull of a ship that's just docked in the port city of Andunor. Speak to the NPCs if you want to get some delicious Lore- but absolutely make sure you snag the quest from the Boatswain before you leave. There is no coming back to this area once you leave, and the Boatswain is the only NPC with this quest. It's crucial to complete to get your third level.
The quest is akin to the Speedy Messenger's quest done in Cordor; you receive packages to hand out to the various denizens of the Underdark city. This serves as an excellent way to getting to know the city; if this is your first time, speak to the NPCs and follow through all their dialog trees to get a better understanding of the complex system that keeps Andunor afloat. While the characters in the Underdark are of course, notoriously evil, the players are generally friendly and helpful; if you get lost, ask for directions! Someone is more than likely to help you out
And now... You'll likely want to start getting acclimated to the setting, as there's only One city in the Underdark for monsters and outcasts to gather to, unlike on the Surface. (This is barring Blingstonhold) You can get used to your surroundings by getting a job, maybe working for one of the various factions from Drow Houses to roving Mercenary bands or starting one yourself.
For more adventurous pursuits, you'll be looking at the Spider Web's basement killing rats (a mirror of Captain Tert in Cordor), Andunor's Sewers to quell the slave rebellion, and then outside the city there's the Boneyards, Quaggoths, Driders, and the Derro. The Derro should be noted are fairly tough, so proceed at your own risk!
Chen is one of the only merchants in Andunor that sells healing kits, and you'll notice his prices are fairly high. This author recommends making friends with a cook friend who can craft healing kits with materials. (More on this later!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Misc. Tips-
+ ALWAYS. Put your gold away into the bank before you go out on adventure. When you die you lose your coin and can't get it back!
+ Check your rest/food/water meters, and make sure it doesn't go below 0%, or else you'll suffer debuffs from exhaustion. This ticks off every 6minutes, and is displayed in your Combat Log.
+ Did you remember to pick a deity? You can pick a god using the Deity Book that spawned automatically in your inventory. Make sure you know which one you take! It costs 500exp to change Gods.
+ Remember to restock on bandages/supplies when you get back from a trip. Haulfest in Cordor's Temple is known to be one of the cheapest NPCs on the server to get healing kits from.
+ Party up! Approach people, talk to them, get help on adventures! It makes the grind for exp and glory a lot more fun when you're doing it together.
+Don't run everywhere silly, or people will look at you funny. Preset to F2 on your quick bar is detect mode, using that ill make your character auto walk when you click. Alternatively, shift click will also cause a character to walk.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Gear and Enchanting-
You're going to notice, likely some point at level 6-10, that everything is getting very very hard. You can get gear/equipment/items that can increase stats and skills to help you keep up with the increasing strength of spawns.
You've likely noticed the Enchanting Basins littered around Cordor and the isle at large. For x amount of money, you can put an item into the basin, and then use the dialog box that pops up to chose what you want to attempt to put on the item.
While you're doing these enchantments, you'll notice that certain options are presented in blue or white, as opposed to the red of most options. These are the properties that are possible to put on your item, with what's possible depending on the base item you're trying to enchant: You obviously can't put bonus damage on a ring. Otherwise, you're free to put whatever you want on your item: Item enchantments are limited only by gold value, and while you can enchant items past this gold value, it's much harder to do. The amount of gold pieces you have to expend to enchant an item depends on the base value of the item (Rings, for instance, are more expensive than other items) and how powerful of an enchantment you are trying to put on it. It's obviously easier to enchant +1 Discipline onto an item than +1 strength!
When you decide on what you want to put on your item, you'll be prompted to confirm, and then the enchantment basin will check if you succeed or not. If you do, your money will be consumed, and your item improved. If you fail, your item will be destroyed, your money consumed, and additionally your character will lose some experience depending on how difficult the enchantment was.
If you're having too much trouble enchanting your gear, have no fear: Anyone with spell focus, greater spell focus, or epic spell focus enchantment can do enchantments more easily and cheaply (And also produce more powerful items). Also, anyone with a magic deity has a small chance of succeeding on an enchantment they would have failed, as their deity intercedes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Role Play, and your Role Play Rating (RPR)-
As mentioned earlier, Arelith is a persistent RP server, meaning that we take our RP very seriously! We have a rating system, the RPR system to help mark how well you're doing with your RP.
The scale is as follows;
0 Bonus: Does not stay in character, rushes around from spawn to spawn killing things with little to no interaction.
10 Bonus: Stays in character sometimes, OR is new to the server and still to be evaluated - this is the starting RPR for all players.
20 Bonus: Stays in character at all times, creates a memorable personality, and is fun to play with.
30 Bonus: Shows exceptional aptitude to bring out the good RPer in those around them, is part of the living, breathing world and environment of Arelith.
40 Bonus : "A master role player is one who is willing and able to bend their character concept to make the game more enjoyable for all involved. To assist the DM in making the game fun, and not to show discord." -Gary Gygax
Everyone starts out with a 10 RPR, meaning that every tick, (every six minutes) you get a little bump of 10 exp, just for existing! And 20 exp a tick for 20 RPR, and 30exp for 30 and so on. This stacks with the adventure exp you get just for exploring an area you've never been before. DMs (dungeon masters, or the Game Mods) control your RPR, and can change it as they feel is necessary. Typically a DM will not adjust your RPR without first informing you of the change.
So how can you get DM-Senpai to notice you? This is a complex question and the answers will always vary depending on who you ask. It is this author's belief that focusing on promoting role play, doing things that are fun and interesting for other people to be involved in, and keeping conscious of your fellow player's feelings and working with them to build a narrative, are all things you can do to help increase your rating. Role play that helps other people get involved and do things.
Let's get into the nitty-gritty of RP. Everyone writes their own way, has their own style, and that's fantastic! Poor spelling has never stopped anyone from getting 30, and even 40 rpr ratings, so don't feel self conscious if English isn't your first Language, or you're just not that great at it. As long as you're trying and understandable, you'll be just fine.
Some people like to write with the [] ** :::: to mark their characters actions. Other people prefer to write book-style, or;
Hailey looks down the street with a quizzical frown. "I wonder where he was going..."
Which is also perfectly fine!
Avoid writing emotes that dictate what the other character does, or are God-Mody. There's a list of things you should avoid doing in your writing, but they would be better touched on in a different thread.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Roll for Reward-
Not to be confused with RPR, the Reward system is it's own unique incentive for players to roll their high level characters (levels 16+) to keep the server fresh with new characters cycling through.
There are four different rewards classes, Minor, Medium, Greater, and Major (also known as the 5%), and are earned when -delete_character is entered into the chat log twice. Obviously this permanently deletes your character, but the roll for the reward is automatic. Before you're kicked from the server a little message will pop up informing you what reward you earned.
The chances for the four different rewards tier depends on the level of your character. It's worth noting also that the script checks for the value of equipment, gold, and loot owned by your character, and applies a bonus to the roll based on how much money your character has. This includes money in your character's bank account.
The chances at the various reward tiers are listed below.
26+ 5% Major, 20% Greater, 75% Medium
21+ 10% Greater, 35% Medium, 55% Minor
16+ 25% Medium, 75% Minor
The list of awards is currently as follows. All apply only to new characters created after the retirement. Only one award may be redeemed per new character.
+Minor: -1 ECL applied to your character
------>Ability to play a Hobgoblin, or a Wild Dwarf
+Medium: -2 ECL applied to your character OR one of the following:
------>Ability to ride horses.
------>Ability to play an Imp or Forest Gnome
------>Good alignment for an innately-evil race (as kobolds or drow).
+Greater Reward -2 ECL Applied to your character, OR one of the following
------>Ability to play a Deep Imaskari
------>Ability to play an Ogre
+Major: -3 ECL applied to your character, OR one of the following:
------>Any Normal award.
------>RDD PrC Token
------>Shifter PrC Token.
------>Planetouched Races
------>*Special Requests, ex. Character made into a permanent NPC, new dungeon, or permission to
play a Special (blight druid, grey guard, etc), pending Admin approval
Minor, Medium and Greater Rewards are available upon next visit to the Arelith Entry area when you make your new character, and will be displayed in the dialog box that comes up. You can only use it once, so if you need to remake your character due to RP or build reasons, you aren't able to move that gift to the new character. To turn in your Major Reward, you'll need to send a PM to the Admin team to get it reviewed.
----------------------------------------------------------------
-Dungeoneering Tips-
Getting together on your first adventure can be awkward and trying, especially when you're still trying to get into the rhythm of writing and walking at the same time and still figuring out what's up and down. These are, by no means concrete rules one must strictly follow, but it is certainly nice to practice and might help your party get along without too much trouble.
Never split the party.
-----> Wait up for your party members, and try not to get too far ahead of them. If a member has paused to type something, give them a minute to write.
-Guard.
-----> Are you particularly squishy and keep getting smashed by orcs? Get a tanky- fellow with a lot of AC or a lot of health to put you on Guard. To do this, either send the player you wish to guard a tell saying -guard, or type -guard X into the chat box and hit enter. What does Guard do? Attacks that would have gone to said squishy now go to the tank/guardian. A Guard cannot be Guarded by someone else. You cannot -Guard if you are currently being Guarded yourself.
Pick One Designated Looter
------> This practice makes it simpler to split and divide the spoils at the end of the trip.
Take your time
------> Arelith is a persistent RP server, and running spawn to spawn without emote or dialog is typically frowned upon. Not to mention it can be dangerous to blindly run into a mob, as you can accidently pull other mobs in the room and suddenly become swamped.
Be Prepared
------> Before leaving the city, make sure you have appropriate healing supplies, potions, and have put excess coin back to your bank account. Nothing soils a trip like realizing at the boss room you have two healing kits left.
-Looting-
After you kill a spawn (you know, those baddies trying to kill you highlighted red), a clickable tiny skeleton will appear. Clicking on it will show you that creature's inventory, which you can take. Many spawns have flavour items along with cash and spoils to give them a little more personality. An orc might have a fish along with a gem and necklace, or a boar will have meat and hide. As much as your inner pack rat screams to take all of it, you'll quickly run out of inventory space if you adopt this policy.
The Search Skill allows you to to be able to find more sick loot per corpse! The roll for loot is performed using the highest search score in the party, meaning that you don't need to be the one with the high search if you're doing the looting.
Loot comes in four varieties in Arelith; Gear, Junk, Resources, and Spoils
Gear is often found in locked chests in boxes, or sometimes, randomly generated onto monster spawns. This can range from interesting utility curios (like feathers that shoot gusts of wind) or enchanted equipment with random stats/skills.
Junk are things like, stone bowls, torches, traps, dolls, fruit, rations, rags etc etc. These are items that you cannot sell and can't profit off of. However do to their unique nature you can enchant them in a basin so you can re-describe their descriptions and make interesting RP items with them.
Resources are things like magical blood, magical horn, meat, hide, and raw gems. These are items that can be used in crafting, or donated to a settlement's resource bin for money. (More on that later)
Spoils, are the things you can turn to profit. These are gem stones, coin, rings, and necklaces. Any jeweler will accept your jewlery if you can't get to those two for whatever reason. Gems can be put onto a Gem Scale, where they will automatically be converted into gold for you.
--------------------------------------------
Death and You
If you reach -10 hit points on Arelith, you die. You will be transported to the Fugue area, leaving a corpse (And any gold you were carrying at the time!) behind. This corpse can be raised via either Raise Dead or Ressurection if you were with friends, or someone else who finds your body, but otherwise you will have to respawn. Death at the hands of NPCs or via bleeding out drains a small amount of experience while death by PvP will not.
Scattered through out the Fugue, you will notice a number of portals. If you enter these, they will cause your character to respawn at either your character's assigned respawn point, or the server's default location if you haven't set a respawn point, or aren't on the same server as your respawn point. Respawning drains a small amount of experience, and, if you're high enough level, will cause a respawn penalty. A recent change in server policy states that you are able to remember the events that transpire within the Fugue*.
Respawn penalties are a drain to all six of your attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, etc), the severity and duration of which depends on how high level you are. Characters below a certain level do not trigger respawn penalties. Every 6 minutes, along with your RPR tick and hunger/thirst/rest/piety meters ticking, you will also get a message explaining how long before your respawn penalty wears off completely, measured in Arelith Hours (One arelith hour = six minutes real life). Fortunately, this meter will continue to tick down while you are offline, so if you wish you can log out to play another character or another game while the meter ticks down.
Of course, the penalty can be avoided if your corpse is raised by a player via appropriate scroll or item, as some items do have the raise dead spell imbued to them. If you happen to be the sole survivor of an adventure gone wrong, you can often find someone willing to help you out in town if you bring the corpses back into the city and ask for assistance. (Except in Andunor.)
Worth noting: If you are killed by another player, the two of you are then bound by the rules not to interact for at least 24 hours. This means they can not raise you without your permission, and that you should take efforts to avoid running into them again. If the two of you waive the rules on this area (Which you can do, if you both agree), then they are free to kill you again, after appropriate RP of course. Accepting a raise dead/Resurrection from the other party is considered consent to continue RP after PvP, and thus waves your right to the rule.