Revision history for AvatarsPlayerCharacters
Additions:
======Avatars Player Characters======
After a short narration and flythrough of the Diadem to acquaint you with the setting, you are given an opportunity to customize your PC's appearance and choose your Avatar or Augment. You awaken from your 'dream' to be addressed by friendly NPCs as if you had just waken up from a dream, and they whisk you off to the gleaming city of Tara Tassa, largest city on the shard of Tasavalta and the capital of the kingdom of Tasavar, where you can begin your adventures.
**New for Avatars 2.0:** a shadowy figure steps out into the Hall of Entry and offers you the chance to take a third path, if you take his hand. This allows you to become a Mage, but you will begin in a different Shard within the Far Lands, Asphodel, a place of Gothic mansions and gardens - and the abandoned monastery where the Grey Mages train neophytes like you.
After a short narration and flythrough of the Diadem to acquaint you with the setting, you are given an opportunity to customize your PC's appearance and choose your Avatar or Augment. You awaken from your 'dream' to be addressed by friendly NPCs as if you had just waken up from a dream, and they whisk you off to the gleaming city of Tara Tassa, largest city on the shard of Tasavalta and the capital of the kingdom of Tasavar, where you can begin your adventures.
**New for Avatars 2.0:** a shadowy figure steps out into the Hall of Entry and offers you the chance to take a third path, if you take his hand. This allows you to become a Mage, but you will begin in a different Shard within the Far Lands, Asphodel, a place of Gothic mansions and gardens - and the abandoned monastery where the Grey Mages train neophytes like you.
Additions:
- __Gray Mages__ - heretics who believe the Sun is simply a source of energy, akin to fire or wind or the gravity emanated by Levistones, ignoring that none of these would flourish without the Sun. Their goals are unknown.
- Gray Mage stars are plain silver.
- Gray Mage stars are plain silver.
Additions:
AvatarsCampaign > AvatarsVirtualWorld > AvatarsPlayerCharacters
====Insignia====
Apart from the decision whether to take an Avatar or an Augment for their Guardian Spirit, player characters (PCs) can normally level their characters up as they see fit. They're not required to take certain skills; they can choose to focus on their Guardian Spirits or on their own abilities and skills.
PCs will have insignia on their collars, clothes, or as jewelry on their person. The number of insignia represents their "player level", but the shapes show what kind of training they have received.
__Blank Disc__ - the PC has reached a new level but has not yet trained anything.
__Sword__ - the PC has trained himself or his Guardian Spirit in fighting abilities.
__Book__ - the PC has trained magical abilities channeled through his Guardian Spirit.
__Hammer__ - the PC has trained crafting abilities such as Smithing, Alchemy or Rune Engraving.
__Star__ - the PC has trained innate magical abilities. These are new along with playable Mages and some players believe the Empire of Stars had something to do with all this.
Note that PCs do not need to, and usually will not, have only one type of insignia. It's more common to see a mix of Swords and Books on a player's collar than all Swords or all Books.
As PCs gain levels, the number of insignia they can have increases; thus PCs cannot throw themselves fanatically into training and become master swordsmen on day one. However, PCs may, in an OOC fashion, decide they would like to trade one type of training for another. They must still learn the new skill, but they will automatically forget the old one at the conclusion of the training.
====Guilds====
As players advance, they will find guilds who are willing to admit them, provided they meet the entrance requirements. These guilds offer more specialized and advanced training - thus even though the number of insignia players can have at one time remains limited, they can be more effective at certain things while giving up proficiency in things less important to them.
Examples of guilds:
- __The Solarian Order__ - elite bodyguards and champions that serve the King directly. They were deeply divided in the Civil War.
- Solarian sword insignias appear longer, to indicate greater attack power at the expense of defense
- __The Golden Order__ - wandering do-gooder knights supported by donations. They have sworn a vow of poverty.
- Golden Order sword insignias appear with shields behind them, to indicate strong defenses.
- __The Order of Caer Valta__ - a faction of clergy that supported the victorious Northern King. They advocate purity in faith and eradicating darkness and evil.
- Caer Valta book insignias are closed to represent their emphasis on attack and defense spells.
- __The Temple of the Light__ - a faction of clergy based in Tara Tassa, in the Temple of the Light. They advocate sharing the Light with all and helping those in need as the first priority.
- Temple book insignias are open to represent their emphasis on healing and scrying spells.
- __The King's Explorers__ is made up of those dedicated to prising out every last secret from the game of Avatars. They have a 'whatever gets the job done' philosophy - sometimes you need weapons, sometimes magic.
- The King's Explorers made headlines around the Breakdown of 2065 when they organized a vigil in front of the Avatars LLC amusement park that was supposed to have opened at that time.
- King's Explorers concentrate on clever tricks and exploits. Sword insignias are crossed sword and dagger, book insignias have an eye on top of an open book.
====Insignia====
Apart from the decision whether to take an Avatar or an Augment for their Guardian Spirit, player characters (PCs) can normally level their characters up as they see fit. They're not required to take certain skills; they can choose to focus on their Guardian Spirits or on their own abilities and skills.
PCs will have insignia on their collars, clothes, or as jewelry on their person. The number of insignia represents their "player level", but the shapes show what kind of training they have received.
__Blank Disc__ - the PC has reached a new level but has not yet trained anything.
__Sword__ - the PC has trained himself or his Guardian Spirit in fighting abilities.
__Book__ - the PC has trained magical abilities channeled through his Guardian Spirit.
__Hammer__ - the PC has trained crafting abilities such as Smithing, Alchemy or Rune Engraving.
__Star__ - the PC has trained innate magical abilities. These are new along with playable Mages and some players believe the Empire of Stars had something to do with all this.
Note that PCs do not need to, and usually will not, have only one type of insignia. It's more common to see a mix of Swords and Books on a player's collar than all Swords or all Books.
As PCs gain levels, the number of insignia they can have increases; thus PCs cannot throw themselves fanatically into training and become master swordsmen on day one. However, PCs may, in an OOC fashion, decide they would like to trade one type of training for another. They must still learn the new skill, but they will automatically forget the old one at the conclusion of the training.
====Guilds====
As players advance, they will find guilds who are willing to admit them, provided they meet the entrance requirements. These guilds offer more specialized and advanced training - thus even though the number of insignia players can have at one time remains limited, they can be more effective at certain things while giving up proficiency in things less important to them.
Examples of guilds:
- __The Solarian Order__ - elite bodyguards and champions that serve the King directly. They were deeply divided in the Civil War.
- Solarian sword insignias appear longer, to indicate greater attack power at the expense of defense
- __The Golden Order__ - wandering do-gooder knights supported by donations. They have sworn a vow of poverty.
- Golden Order sword insignias appear with shields behind them, to indicate strong defenses.
- __The Order of Caer Valta__ - a faction of clergy that supported the victorious Northern King. They advocate purity in faith and eradicating darkness and evil.
- Caer Valta book insignias are closed to represent their emphasis on attack and defense spells.
- __The Temple of the Light__ - a faction of clergy based in Tara Tassa, in the Temple of the Light. They advocate sharing the Light with all and helping those in need as the first priority.
- Temple book insignias are open to represent their emphasis on healing and scrying spells.
- __The King's Explorers__ is made up of those dedicated to prising out every last secret from the game of Avatars. They have a 'whatever gets the job done' philosophy - sometimes you need weapons, sometimes magic.
- The King's Explorers made headlines around the Breakdown of 2065 when they organized a vigil in front of the Avatars LLC amusement park that was supposed to have opened at that time.
- King's Explorers concentrate on clever tricks and exploits. Sword insignias are crossed sword and dagger, book insignias have an eye on top of an open book.
Deletions:
New Links are encouraged to learn a little about all the professions, but then choose one as their 'primary' profession.
For any given profession, there are a few levels that can be learned without commitment. After that, to advance through the 'journeyman' levels, they have to swear to abide by the code of conduct for that profession; to advance to 'master' they need to swear personal loyalty to the body of authority for that profession.
Skill points (within the Avatars game world) can be moved in an OOC fashion from one profession to another, so players can take back their choices if they didn't like them, but multiclassing is difficult because of the conflicted loyalties they might suffer. Abjuring their professions past 'Master' usually carries penalties with it, such as members of a profession refusing to treat someone who has abjured their ranks.
Examples of professions found within Avatars would be:
- Knighthood - exampled by many orders of knights, they share a common dedication to serving the grater good, aiding the weak, and driving back evil. Ranges from strong physically and weak magically to balanced in both, all knights will have at least some experience with weapons, armor, and riding.
- The Solarian Order of Knights serves the ruler of Tasavar as elite bodyguards and champions to be sent on the King's missions. They were deeply conflicted during Civil War, as Solarian fought Solarian in support of their (believed rightfully anointed King). The uniting has not left them wholly healed yet, as the true King is not yet decided.
- The Golden Order is more the compassionate arm of Tasavar, supported by the donations of the people and the rulers. They've fallen on hard times as the Northern and Southern Kings have had little to spare for charity, but as they say, 'Faith endures.' They tend to wander about doing good deeds and healing the sick.
- Clergy - again, many churches exist through Tasavar and the other world-shards. They are often tasked with civil administration, but the Links in the Clergy learn spells of a Celestial orientation which can be channeled through their Guardian Spirits, such as healing, divination or shielding, or smiting the enemies of the church with holy light. Usually weak on martial prowess.
- The Tasavar faith holds that the Spark was a divine entity who floated alone in the void; seeing nothing existed, she split herself into many pieces, so that each piece would never need to be alone. The Sun is the greatest part of the Spark, but the Worlds are small pieces of it, and the people who live on them, smaller pieces still. In doing this, however, she woke the Void, which hated the light and wanted it to go away. It attempts to extinguish these worlds.
- The Civil War split the Tasavar church as well, as the senior Archbishop anointed the Northern King, but a rebel faction claims that this was a corrupt choice and chose to side with the Southern King. Despite their prayers, divinations remain unclear on which King should rule. Most clergy profess neutrality; they're there to help people.
- Rangers - not everyone serves the government; explorers and bounty hunters and outlaws will pass on their teachings to interested pupils. Rangers have tracking and trap detection abilities, are usually woodwise, but often good at blending into the 'seamy underside' of a city as well, they tend to the rough lot.
- The Royal Explorers' Guild is the most common employer of rangers, issuing commissions from the Crown for missions like going out to explore world-shards that have drifted close to Tasavar, infiltrating areas dominated by Endless Night, or finding the hideouts of dangerous outlaws so that their gangs can be eliminated.
- The Kings continue to support the Royal Explorers, but some missions may come from one King or another, and mark the unwary explorer as having taken a side, whether or not he intended to do so. The canny explorer asks around first.
- Links in the Rangers usually have Avatar-style Guardian Spirits, and gain keener senses and intuition. It's common for a ranger to be able to sense danger.
