Alathra Roleplay Guidelines
Alathra Roleplay Introduction
The World of Alathra is a unique one, separate from our own. It has its own species, politics, peoples, cultures, wars, religions, etc. The development of this world depends on how you develop the idea above in your roleplay and lore. You'll need an approved character to make lore-worldbuilding posts on our Discord. However, you can contribute to the wiki or participate in in-game worldbuilding in the game without a character. Everything that happens in Alathra builds on this collective world story. Our lore and roleplay guidelines are intended to ensure the community knows what is and isn't allowed in lore and roleplay. The goal is to give everyone a clear framework for what can be added to Alathras lore. This way, we hope to inspire you to participate in worldbuilding by adding your piece to the world's story.
Lore Creation Tips
To add your creations to the world's lore is a daunting task. One way to do so is to develop the idea of the character you'd like to play. You should ask yourself the following questions:
- What's their species?
- What do they look like?
- How do they act?
- Where did they come from?
A character's background often can decide how they'll act in the future and explain why they act that way. Some good ideas for coming up with a background are:
- What trades or jobs have they done?
- Where are they from?
- What do they know and how do they know these things?
- Who do they know?
- When were they born?
After thinking about the characters you'll play with or interact with, you can begin to develop the towns, nations, and organizations they interact with. This will also naturally occur as you interact with players in unpredictable manners.
If you have questions about your lore or want help developing lore, feel free to make a lore ticket on our Discord.
Lore & Roleplay Rules
Alathra is its unique realm; as such, it has no relation to the earth or our reality. We also use the term Medieval Fantasy to describe the setting of the world. As such, the world and environment within Alathra always exist in this Medieval Fantasy setting.
These guidelines aim to help set clear guidelines on what is and isn’t possible within Alathra’s setting and ensure roleplay and lore are fun and engaging for all parties involved. These guidelines can be considered a set of boundaries for roleplay and lore.
As stated, the server setting is Medieval Fantasy, and the Alathran world is unique. All lore, builds, technology, characters, roleplay, and other server aspects must fit within the guidelines that follow on this page. Below is a short guide to the most important guidelines, but they aren’t the only guidelines, and as such, even if a guideline isn’t in the following list, it still may be enforced.
- You may only have ships and vehicles that fit within the setting
- No pop culture references or parallelism
- No handheld gunpowder weapons of any kind
- No cataclysmic events (e.g., You couldn’t have an ancient evil descend and threaten the server within your lore)
- Buildings shortlist
- No builds that use modern or early-modern building styles
- No faction bases of any kind
- Character deaths, maiming, and mental punishments in-game are not enforced unless the player consents.
- Tech that does not exist in Alathra(see guidelines for what is):
- Mechanically or magic-powered ships of any type (steam, nuclear, levitating, “magic reactor,” oil, coal, etc.)
- Submarines, airships, air balloons, or anything similar to those.
- Small arms (handheld gunpowder weapons) of any type or variety
- Weapons of mass destruction
- Steam generators or other more advanced power or mechanical technologies
- Super advanced technologies akin to what you’d see from Sci-fi or an “advanced ancient precursor.”
- All magic must have a cost attached that balances out its power. Furthermore, the cost must:
- Not involve the griefing of the nearby environment
- Not forcibly change another player's character without their consent
- Be properly balanced to avoid metagaming
Alathra Medieval Fantasy Lore Guidelines
What is Medieval Fantasy?
Medieval Fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that loosely describes a fictitious world from the fall of Rome (5th century) to the fall of Constantinople (15th century). However, we realize that not all technology from this era is included on the server and that we allow others, like Colonial Age ship types, that didn’t exist until long after the medieval period.
This still means that all lore and roleplay on Alathra must fit into the Medieval Fantasy setting, and you should still base your lore on the period. However, you may not include any of the technologies or advancements that are banned on the server. Below, we have made some guidelines to keep you informed on how to add the best lore possible to the server timeline. These guidelines are subject to change, and we will post a changelog in the server discord if we make any updates. Please create a ticket on our Discord if you have any questions.
General Guidelines
- No lore from the first iteration of Alathra
- You need a character to participate in #lore-worldbuilding, but you can participate in worldbuilding in the game just like any other player without one.
- Your lore should not directly copy at all from pop fiction.
- You can't have a swordsman named Luke Skywalker.
- You can have a blacksmith named Merlin
- Use Medieval and Fantasy themes to inspire your lore.
- Your lore and roleplay cannot make other players' characters do or say things without their consent.
- You can use traumatic themes such as (but not limited to) slavery, racism, homophobia, or genocide within the lore of your character, but they cannot occur within the in-game rp of the server.
Character Guidelines
Your character is the vessel through which you experience the world of Alathra, and it must fit within the theme. Our character guidelines are intended to prevent power gaming and keep players within our version of the Medieval Fantasy setting.
What can't my character do?
- Cause a cataclysm that destroys Alathra.
- Be older than 1400
- Be younger than 14
- Have skills, abilities, or magic beyond their years
- Be the best at everything
- Be bad at nothing
- Claim to have impacted previous events without the consent of the players involved.
- Be sci-fi or steampunk-themed
- Based on any other technologically advanced fantastical genre
- Be immortal, a demigod, or descended from any divine being
What can I do in my character application?
- You may create a species in your application; however, all characters' species must be fair and balanced. Including only an appearance and adding more information to your lore later is also okay.
- Species should be well-designed and balanced in lore, meaning they can’t be immune to things or have no weaknesses. Similarly, humans should be taken as the baseline, and as such, all species should somehow be able to be defeated by humans.
- Your character can access magic with an appropriate cost to the magic.
- Your character can have witnessed magic that did or didn’t have a cost.
- You may have characters from other lands and dimensions who end up in Alathra.
- You may make a character with any job, role, or standing within the Medieval Fantasy theme.
- You may make your character between the ages of 14 and 1400
- You may make any character within your imagination that does not break our rules.
Building Guidelines
Builds on the server help to expand the setting, giving characters a place to exist. They're also important as they can symbolize the civilizations that created them. Due to this importance, builds need to comply with the Alathran world setting of Medieval Fantasy.
What can I build?
Any building style based on a real-life architectural style from the medieval period is allowed. Additionally, you can incorporate the fantasy aspect by using the same block types to represent real architecture creatively. Smaller parts of a build (e.g., decorations) can float without restriction. However, larger builds have the following restrictions.
- Your home block is not on them.
- They do not offer a defensive advantage in times of war [cannons on them, archers, etc.].
- The build does not attempt to hide anything on the dynmap.
- The build should make sense [a floating island, obelisk, clouds, etc.][not a 1-block thin platform, etc.].
What can't I build?
Any builds constructed outside the build theme or emulating technology that doesn’t exist within the server setting.
What happens if I build something illegal?
Make a ticket if you find something that looks against the rules or are curious about one of your builds. Staff will rule on the build and suggest either modifications or the removal of the build.
If your build is deemed illegal, you will have one week to make the changes or destroy it to recover your resources before staff remove it themselves. Further consequences could apply depending on circumstances.
Technology Guidelines
Our technology guidelines define the limits of the technology in your lore. Technology must fit into the world’s setting. Technologies from the medieval era are mostly allowed, although some later technologies are disallowed.
What is allowed?
- Magitech that isn’t used to emulate modern technologies
- You may use any era of ships that operate under sail or oar power, including fully rigged ships.
- Clockwork technology
What isn’t allowed?
- Small arms (Firearms, hand cannons, etc.)
- Sci-fi technology
- Weapons of Mass destruction (e.g. nukes)
- Steampunk
- Modern technologies or early forms of those technologies that existed in weaker forms (e.g., submarines, airships)
Magic Guidelines
The magic guidelines are intended to give you everything you need to write a fair and enjoyable magic system for your characters. These guidelines are all about the "fantasy" in Medieval Fantasy, and the goal is to ensure that the magic lore you create is fair and balanced and that it blends well with the world of Alathra.
How can I use magic in Alathra?
Some may see enchanting or alchemy as forms of magic. Still, regarding the general magical prowess that fantasy is best known for, Alathra currently has little actual gameplay form of this (relics and the boss loot items certainly are magical items, though). This form of magic is done within lore and roleplay on the server. When you consider adding magic to your lore and roleplay, please ensure you incorporate a proper cost.
How do I incorporate cost into my RP magic?
In this short section, we'll give a few suggestions on incorporating cost into RP magic. Here are a few recommendations:
- Item/block expenditures (burn a resource)
- Apply negative effects to yourself via potions(harming, slowness, blindness, etc)
- Drawing power from the nature around you (breaking grass, flowers, or crops)
- Limiting the physical capabilities of your mages as they progress in your magic system(can't wear armor, hold weapons, etc.)
- Create a mana system for your magic that requires the character to harness enough mana to cast a spell
- One-time vows or restrictions that allow the character to cast magic but at a cost to their future ability to do things. (e.g., a character gives up their ability to cast fire magic in the future to cast large fire magic now)
Griefing rules still apply when you're enforcing a magic cost for magic that occurs. As such, please do your Due diligence as a player is needed to ensure that your lore and roleplay don't cause problems.
What about the magic cost in my lore/background?
Magic in your lore and background must have some kind of cost. Therefore, when creating magic lore, you may not:
- Have your character cast spells without a cost (except lighting candles, slightly hovering, blowing a bubble, etc.)
- Have world-ending or cataclysmic events happen to Alathra
- Power game or Metagame
In contrast, you may:
- Witness magic without a clear cost
- Include only a vague cost for your magic
- Have cataclysmic events happen to other realms that are not part of the lore of other Alathrans (you can destroy your home dimension, not someone else's, or one someone else has based their lore around without their consent)
If you are unsure about the validity of the magic in your lore or character background, please make a ticket.
Breaking these guidelines may result in punishment from the staff team at their discretion. These guidelines may change at the staff teams discretion, and staff ultimately hold the final say on what lore or rp is and is not allowed.
