Alathra Roleplay Introduction

Alathra is a vast, living world rich with diverse characters, nations, towns and cultures waiting to be shaped by you. Whether you’re crafting your very first character, weaving the lore of your town or nation, or just exploring what’s possible, our Lore & Roleplay Guidelines are here to guide you every step of the way. Alathra is not our world; it’s a realm of its own, with unique species, politics, religions, and conflicts, all built by the stories we tell together. To leave your mark on this ever-growing tale, you’ll need an approved character to post lore on Discord, but anyone can help shape the world in-game or by contributing to the wiki.

World building is a cornerstone of Alathra’s storytelling. It preserves the history we build, records the rise and fall of kingdoms, and gives every player a place to document their characters, towns, cultures, and great events for all to see. By adding your lore to the wiki, you ensure your ideas inspire others and become part of the living history that new players can discover and expand upon. Everything you do becomes part of Alathra’s collective story. Use these guidelines to understand what’s possible, then bring your ideas to life, write them down, share them with the community, and help us build a world like no other - one page, one tale, one adventure at a time.

Lore Creation Tips

To add lore to the world is a daunting task. One way to do so is to develop the idea of the character you'd like to play. 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:

Developing a town's lore can really put it on the map and raise its prominence throughout the world of Alathra. Intertwining your character’s lore into that of your town isn’t easy but will really bring your town to life. Here are some tips to help you do that:

The forming of a nation is a significant step, it’s not only a sign of a greater collective strength but a chance to widen the scope of both your character and town lore alongside that of your fledgling nation. Forming a nation opens up a whole host of potential opportunities to develop lore:

Worlds grow as players engage. Don’t worry about perfecting your lore from the start, it’s natural for it to evolve through player interaction. Unexpected twists, forged alliances and rivalries often become the most memorable parts of any story. Once you’ve thought about the characters you’ll play or interact with, you can start developing the towns, nations, and organizations connected to them. Much of this will also grow naturally as you engage with other players in unpredictable ways.

Lore & Roleplay Rules

Alathra is its unique realm; as such, it has no relation to the earth or our reality. We also use the terms Medieval Fantasy & Light Steampunk to describe the setting of the world. As such, the world and environment within Alathra exist at a point in time relatable to the 5th century - late 1700’s.

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 & Light Steampunk, 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.

  1. You may only have ships and vehicles that fit within the setting
  2. No pop culture references or parallelism
  3. No cataclysmic events (e.g., You couldn’t have an ancient evil descend and threaten the server within your lore)
  4. Buildings shortlist
    • No builds that use modern or early-modern building styles
    • No faction bases of any kind
  5. Character deaths, maiming, and mental punishments in-game are not enforced unless the player consents.
  6. Tech that does not exist in Alathra (see guidelines for what is):
    • Some methods of powering are not allowed (nuclear, levitating, magic reactors, oil, etc.)
    • Submarines, airships,trains or land vehicles
    • Weapons of mass destruction
    • Super advanced technologies akin to what you’d see from Sci-fi or an “advanced ancient precursor.”
  7. 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

What is Medieval Fantasy & Light Steampunk?

On Alathra, Medieval Fantasy refers to a setting inspired by real-world history from the 5th century up to the late 18th century. This includes castles, villages, kingdoms, swords, bows, simple gunpowder weapons, and other technologies fitting within that historical range, combined with fantastical elements like magic, mythical creatures, or unique cultures.

Light Steampunk is a term unique to Alathra. It allows for steampunk-inspired aesthetics and inventions — like gears, clockwork, steam engines, air balloons and other early industrial concepts — but with important limits. Advanced or late-period technologies are restricted. Things like nuclear power, levitation engines, magic reactors, submarines, airships, trains, land vehicles, weapons of mass destruction, or sci-fi-level tech (including “ancient precursors” with advanced machines) are not allowed.

This blend keeps the world grounded in a medieval atmosphere while allowing creative, steam-powered twists that don’t break immersion or push the setting too far into industrial or sci-fi territory.

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