Character processes

This page contains an exciting mix of things that players have to do, things that players can (and should, if possible) do themselves, things we’re happy to do for them, and things we have to do that players can’t.

Players have to:

• create new characters
• create new bands

Players generally should, but GOD can:

• record character retirements or deaths
• check what skills they know
• assign their own skill points
• choose which rituals and recipes to learn from within Imperial lore

GOD can:

• manually reassign skill points (e.g. for new players, or for access reasons)

GOD has to:

• perform dead-or-alive checks
• activate new characters
• move characters between nations
• change or swap characters’ Personal Resources
• record that characters have learned rituals or recipes that fall outside Imperial lore

For the processes in this chapter, start by getting to the “Character” tab of the crew interface unless otherwise specified.

Miscellaneous

Creating new characters

To create a new character, a player needs to log into their PD account on a device connected to the PD Wi-Fi. If they have their own phone or laptop and can connect to the PD Wi-Fi, or can use a player PC, this is ideal, but if necessary and the queue is short enough they can use one of the query PCs.

When creating a new character, the player can join any publicly listed band. If they want to join a secret band, they can only do that in play; from our perspective, that process is described in (TODO Create Bond). Once the new character has been created, the player should come to the front desk in GOD and ask for the new character to be activated and their new pack to be printed.

Creating new bands

To create a new band, a player needs to log into their PD account on a device connected to the PD Wi-Fi. Once the band has been created, there are two ways characters can join:

• If the band is public, new characters can join during the character generation process, by simply selecting the band name from a drop-down list.
• If the band is secret, or the character looking to join is already in play, the only way for them to join is in play, using the (TODO Create Bond spell per Create Bond.)

Dead or Alive?

Note that egregores can check whether a character in their nation is dead or alive.

1. Get to the “Players” tab of the crew interface.

2. Look up the PID of the character’s player.

3. Click on the “Characters” tab under the player name.

4. Check that the relevant character is a member of the egregore’s nation.

5. If the character status is “Dead”, the character is dead. If the character status is “Retired” or “Played”, the character is alive. Tell the egregore whether the character is dead or alive according to our system (obviously, particularly during and shortly after battles, there may be a delay between the character dying and it getting updated on the database, but egregores should be expecting that).

Details

This section describes the function of the buttons present on the right-hand side of the page on the Details tab under the character name.

Play character

This button is only present for a character that has been created but not activated

1. Click “Play Character”.

2. A pop-up will appear saying something like “Please confirm that you wish to set [character] to played and create their resource and inventory.” Click “Confirm”.

3. A button labelled “Event Pack” will now appear on the right-hand side of the page. Click “Event Pack”.

4. A pop-up will appear saying something like “Please confirm that you wish to book out the inventory for [character] and print them an event pack.” Click “Confirm”.

• Note: because the character has been newly set to played, you should always see a confirmation that the player envelope and passport have been sent to the print queue. You should never see a message that the envelope and passport were already in the print queue. If you do, something has gone very wrong – get one of the heads of department to come and poke around in the system!

5. Either ask the player to wait while you assemble their pack (see 9.2 Making up), or ask them to come back in a time frame you have agreed with the heads of department, and make a note of the PID, the time you sent their pack request to the print queue, and the time you told them to come back. Make sure the heads of department have this information.

Retiring and killing characters

Retiring a character leaves them alive but makes them unplayable. Killing a character changes their status to dead. When players come in to GOD to register a character death, they should hand in any game items that were on their character’s body at the moment they stopped phys-repping the body. (So, for example, if their body was looted after their death but before they stopped phys-repping the body, those items are still in circulation and do not need to be handed in!)

Players can both retire characters and report character deaths themselves, but we’ll often do it for them. If a player has already generated a new character, go ahead and retire or kill their existing active character for them before activating their new character. If they haven’t, feel free to tell them to head to the player PCs (or use one of their own devices connected to the PD Wi-Fi) to report their character death and create their new character, then come back to the front desk to have their new character activated and their new pack prepared.

The steps are at least straightforward for this one:

1. Click “Retire Character” or “Kill Character” as appropriate.

2. Click “Confirm” in the dialogue box.

Edit character

1. Enter the PID and press Tab or Enter. (This will automatically take you to the page of the currently active character.)

2. Click “Edit Character” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

3. The only things you should ever change using this dialogue box are the name and the archetype. Do not change any other field via this dialogue unless you are being given explicit instructions by a head of department or referee: some fields can be changed via other menus, and some fields should not be changed at all.

Join band (banner, coven, or sect)

Characters can be joined to a band (a banner, coven, or sect). This is not done via the character screen, but by a magical casting (small magic).

Refs can record such magical castings, but sometimes players come to GOD to ask us to record a casting after the fact. There are a set of guidelines for referees which you may find helpful. The Empire wiki entry for Create bond is also informative.

FIXME: The below should probably be moved into Magic.

FIXME: The below procedure should be double-checked as being correct. If in doubt, consult a referee or head of department.

⚠️Caution

The Oath used to bond a player character into a Band is secret information; it's like a password to prove membership. While this information may be shown to you in the web interface, do not share this with the player — it is shown to you so that you can verify that the player is authorised to perform the action.

Join band (banner, coven, or sect)

1. Select Magic from the top-level menu.
2. Select Create Bond from the next top-level menu.
3. Enter the CID of the Caster. If the person in front of you doesn't know their CID, try pressing the Search button and looking up the caster with the details the player does know. The corresponding character name should appear when you tab away; double check with the requestor that this sounds right!
4. Ask the player and record the type of Band that the player has been bonded to — either a Banner, a Coven, or a Sect — and record this.
5. Ask the player which Nation the Band is within and record this.
6. Ask the player the name of the Band they're being joined to, and select this.
7. Ask the player to recite the Oath for the band they're being joined to. This is secret information, do not share this with the player. If the Oath the player recites matches that on the screen, accept the bonding as genuine.
8. Record the CIDs of the target character(s). (A single casting can bond multiple player characters at the same time for the same fixed cost.) Confirm the list of target character(s) with the person in front of you is correct.
9. Request and retrieve 1 Mana from the player.
10. Press Process Spell.

Leave band

Players can leave a band for any reason, but we have to process this for them. (Players automatically leave all bands when moving nations).

1. Click “Leave Band”.

2. Double-check with the player which of their Banner, Coven, and Sect they wish to leave.

3. Tick the appropriate check boxes.

4. Click “Save”.

Move nation

Before registering a change of nation at GOD, players should have completed roleplay in the field and obtained agreement from the egregore of the nation the character is moving to.

1. Confirm that the character has performed the appropriate roleplaying with the egregore of the nation they are moving to. This is a key step, but some players aren’t aware of it.

2. Find the page for the player’s character, and click “Move Nation”.

3. In the pop-up, select the new nation from the drop-down.

4. Click “Save”.

When a character changes nation they may also wish to change the location of their Personal Resource (see Personal Resources below), but this isn’t a requirement.

Personal Resources

For more details-Personal Resources- Player wiki

There are nine types of Personal Resource, listed here along with what a basic (level 1) resource of each type, that is not subject to any penalties, produces each downtime: • Business: produces 9 crowns • Congregation: produce 5 doses of liao; provides 10 votes in the Imperial Synod; cannot be owned by crew • Farm: produces 9 crowns • Fleet: trades to produce items or money, or privateers to produce random resources • Forest: produces 12 units of one rare material • Herb garden: produces 14 herbs (2 Bladeroot, 2 Cerulean Mazzarine, 2 Imperial Roseweald, 2 Marrowort, 6 True Vervain) • Mana site: produces 7 mana crystals • Military unit: can be used to enhance an Imperial army, or to produce random resources • Mine: produces 12 units of one rare metal

There are a number of things players might want to do with their resource, some of which GOD can help with and some of which we can’t.

Change resource

Whether or not we charge people depends on why they want to change resource. If they’re a new player or character, they’re still getting to grips with the game, or they’re not having fun, they can change resource for free. Otherwise, there’s a charge.

Note: game crew – crew like GOD whose crewing mostly happens during time-in, rather than, say, the site crew who make things happen before and after time-in – cannot have Congregations as their personal resource. This probably won’t come up, but if you do get a crew member asking to change their resource to a Congregation, call a head of department over.

1. Click “New Resource”.

2. In the pop-up that appears, select the desired new resource from the “Type” drop-down.

3. Check whether the player wishes to change the location of their resource, and if so make that change using the “Territory” drop-down.

4. Select one of the Payment radio button options.

5. Click “Save”.

Swap resource

Sometimes two players will want to swap ownership of their resources. Provided you have both players in front of you and they’re both happy with this, go ahead and do it!

This is also how to handle resources that were left by a dead character to another in a will: swap the dead character’s resource with the living character’s resource. You can normally take it on trust that the players are being reasonable here, but if you’re concerned, get a head of department.

(Neither GOD nor referees will register wills out-of-character, nor will the Civil Service register them in character; they’re entirely managed by players, with the sole exceptions of (a) they need someone in GOD to swap resources over, and (b) if there’s a dispute about a will, player characters are able to involve the magistrates, who are PD NPC crew.)

1. Navigate to the character page of one of the players.

2. Confirm that their resource is what they think it should be.

3. Click “Swap Resource”.

4. In the pop-up that appears, enter the other player’s PID in the “Recipient” box and press Enter or Tab, or click “Search”.

5. Confirm with the players that the recipient character name is what they expect. (If not, see Looking up PID's in Player accounts)

6. Select one of the Payment radio button options. (For resource swaps, you will almost always need to take payment.)

7. Click “Save”.

Assign Resource

Ignore this button. If GOD ever needs to touch it, something has gone wrong – escalate to a head of department so they can handle things.

Upgrades

Personal resources can only be upgraded during downtime. This is not something we can do in GOD during an event.

Personal resources can only be upgraded one level per downtime. Upgrading a resource requires Bourse resources (i.e. mithril, weirwood, or white granite). The number of wains required is equal to the level being upgraded to, so upgrading a resource from level 1 to level 2 requires 2 wains of the relevant material; upgrading from level 2 to level 3 requires 3 wains; and so on.

To check what level a resource has been upgraded to, click the resource type under the character details. The resource details will open, likely in a new tab. In the Details tab, next to the heading “Upgrades”, a pair of numbers will be given in the format “2 / 1”.

• The first number indicates the number of upgrades the resource has received. This is likely to be relevant when double-checking that people are about to swap the resources they intended to.
• The second number indicates the effective number of upgrades taking into account any bonuses or penalties. For more detail as to what’s going on for any particular resource, see the “Magic” tab. This information is likely to be relevant if somebody received fewer materials in their player pack than they expected.

Skills

There are lots of things relating to skills that players can do for themselves. In general, in this section, use your discretion: if there’s a long queue for the player PCs and a short queue for queries, or the player wants to ask multiple questions and skills are only some of them, or they’re a new player or generally seem like they’d benefit from reassurance, feel free to use your judgement about whether to redirect them or whether to answer their questions yourself. All the step-by-step instructions in this section assume that you are starting from the “Skills” tab of a Character page.

Miscellaneous information

• Sometimes players are concerned that their player passport is out-of-date, either because they think GOD crew won’t believe they know how to do things (we can check on the computers if we’re worried), or because they’re concerned they’ll forget what they know. Offer to hand-write the details of their skills on their existing passport (and initial it). As a last resort, offer to print out a new copy of their player passport.
• If a player wants to know how much XP they have to spend: ideally redirect them to someone who can show them how to find this out for themselves at the player PCs.

Learning new skills

Characters learn skills by spending skill points, or XP. Characters receive 8 XP on creation, and 1 XP for the first and third event they attend each year. Players can spend XP themselves using player PCs or their own devices (connected to the PD Wi-Fi). If players aren’t sure how to do this themselves – or are unsure how many XP points they have available – ideally they’d be redirected to the player PCs, if a member of GOD crew is present to explain to them, or show them how to do it. Use your judgement.

Note: if you do wind up adding skills for players, be aware that the system lets crew spend more XP than the player actually has available, because it’s very occasionally useful to allow players to “overspend” their XP. You should never be doing this unless you have been told to by a head of department.

1. Click “Edit Skills” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

2. Click the “Add Skill” button in the middle of the page, under the “Total Points Available” line.

• Note the appearance of the “Total Points Allocated” line. When the number after the “Total Points Allocated” line is equal to the number of points after the “Total Points Available” line, you have spent all the character’s XP and should not keep adding skills!

3. Choose a skill from the drop-down box labelled “Choose One”.

• Note that some skills require other skills as prerequisites, e.g. the skill “Hero” must be bought before any of the other “Heroic Skills” can be purchased. See the wiki for more information.

4. If necessary, click “Add Skill” again to generate another drop-down box.

5. If at any point you make a mistake, click “Delete” next to the skill you wish to delete (or simply change the dropdown to a skill you intended to add). At any time, you can click “Cancel” at the bottom of the page to discard all your changes and leave the page, or “Reset” to return the page to the state it was in before you began editing it.

6. Read out the list of changes you’ve made to the player to confirm they’re happy.

7. When complete, click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

Note that the interface for players looks different – both in terms of how to get there and in terms of what it looks like once you are there. Watching over our shoulders won’t help them much with sorting themselves out in future!

Learning new rituals or recipes for items

Players can master most rituals (for mages) or learn most recipes for items (for artisans) themselves, at player PCs or using their own devices connected to PD Wi-Fi. Use your discretion.

To master a ritual that is part of Imperial lore:

1. Click “Edit Rituals” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

2. Find an empty lore slot for the appropriate realm for the ritual, i.e. one with a blank drop-down (“Choose One”) next to it.

• If the player doesn’t know the realm for the ritual, you can look it up on the wiki.
• If the player does not have an empty lore slot, they will need to spend XP on an additional ritual slot for the appropriate realm. You can do this for them now (see Learning new skills above).

3. Select the ritual name from the drop-down box.

4. Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

However, when characters learn rituals or recipes that do not form part of Imperial lore, this must be recorded by a member of GOD crew (or sometimes by MattP).

For mastering a ritual that is not part of Imperial lore:

1. The player must have in their possession the physical “ritual text” (magic bit of paper), which will usually be printed on vellum.

2. Click “Edit Rituals” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

3. Find an “Extra lore” slot with a blank drop-down (“Choose One”) next to it.

• If the player does not have an empty “Extra lore” slot, they will need to spend XP on “Extra ritual”. You can do this for them now (see Learning new skills above).

4. Select the ritual matching the name on the ritual text.

5. Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

To learn to make items in general: 1. Click “Edit Items” from the buttons on the right-hand side.

2. TODO: complete this, including noting the restrictions on what levels of thing can go where.

Learning to make an item that is not part of Imperial lore happens rarely. If you’re confused about an item a player is asking about, escalate to the heads of department – they might well need to radio through to plot to ask what’s going on.

Dropping and forgetting skills

Players sometimes want to forget skills, rituals, or recipes they already know, for a variety of reasons.

• After a brand new player’s first event, they can retrain as many skills and options as they want to, including all of them, by logging in to their account on the PD website. There’s an enormous amount of lore, and getting your head around it takes time! We can also do this for them at their first event, especially if they’re not having fun.
• After every event a player attends, they can retrain a single skill, crafting option, or pair of rituals, by logging in to their account on the PD website. If a player did not use this option during downtime before an event, they can do it themselves at the event using a player PC or their own device.
• Sometimes a player’s access needs change, e.g. they have spent a lot of XP points on battle skills but can no longer participate in battles. In these cases, we need to remove all their battle skills for them. Err on the side of generosity and believing the player, here – and if in doubt, escalate to more senior crew or heads of department.

In general, if a player wants to forget more than one skill for IC reasons rather than OC reasons (e.g. access reasons, being a brand new player), they’ll need to forget skills gradually, one per event, or find some other in character mechanism (e.g. this has sometimes been possible with magic rituals) – but do escalate if you’re at all unsure.

Note: if players want to forget all the rituals they’ve mastered, freeing up all their ritual slots, this is possible in-game with the ritual Infant Starts with a Blank Slate. Tell them that a ritual exists for this, and ask them if they’d like to be told the name by you or if they’d rather find it out in play – either is fine!

To use a player’s ability to forget one skill, one item recipe, or two mastered rituals per event on their behalf:

1. Click “Drop Skill” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

• You will be taken to the “Retrain Skill” page.
• If the player wishes to retrain a skill:

(a) Click the button labelled “Retrain” next to the skill the player wants to forget.

(b) Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

– Some skills are prerequisites for others. For example, the skill “Magician” cannot be retrained while a character knows any realm lore. The “Retrain Skill” button won’t appear next to a skill that is a required for other known skills.

• If the player wishes to retrain rituals:

(a) Click “Cancel” at the bottom of the page.

(b) Click “Rituals” from the tabs underneath the character name.

(c) Click “Retrain Ritual” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

(d) Click the button labelled “Retrain” next to up to two rituals the player wants to forget.

(e) Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

• If the player wishes to retrain an item recipe:

(a) Click “Cancel” at the bottom of the page.

(b) Click “Items” from the tabs underneath the character name.

(c) Click “Retrain Item” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

(d) Click the button labelled “Retrain” next to the item the player wants to forget.

(e) Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

The player can then relearn skills, rituals, and recipes as normal (see Learning new skills, Learning new rituals or recipes for items above).

To forget multiple skills, e.g. for access reasons or for a brand new player, without affecting the player’s ability to forget one skill per downtime:

1. Click “Edit Skills” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

2. Click the button labelled “Delete” next to each skill the player wants to forget.

• Note: this system will let you delete skills that are prerequisites for other skills. For example, you will be able to delete “Magician” without also deleting “Autumn lore”. If in doubt, check the wiki or check in with more senior crew.

3. Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

To forget rituals:

1. Click “Edit Rituals” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

2. Click the button labelled “Delete” next to each ritual the player wants to forget.

3. Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

To forget item recipes:

1. Click “Edit Items” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page.

2. Click the button labelled “Delete” next to each item the player wants to forget.

3. Click “Save” at the bottom of the page.

Ignore the “Edit Dropped Skills” button – you shouldn’t ever need to use this if you’re not a head of department.

Inventory

In theory, the entire contents of people’s inventories should be “booked out” into their player packs at the beginning of every event. In a small number of cases, this might not happen – if so, any items still in people’s inventories should be listed on the “Inventory” tab under the character name. All the processes in this section assume you’re starting from the Inventory tab unless otherwise specified.

Some frequently asked questions are:

• Can I deposit…? →New Entry
• Can I withdraw…? →New Entry
• I thought my pack was supposed to contain… →Show Entries

TODO: Actually write this up

New entry

Generally players are discouraged from depositing items to their inventory at the event unless they’re using them immediately for a ritual or similar. (See Resource hand-in in Player Packs- GOD)

To record deposits:

1. Click “New Entry” from the buttons on the right-hand side of the page. A pop-up will appear.

2. For each resource, enter a positive number in the appropriate box. Multiple resources can be deposited at once.

3. Under the “Details” heading:

(a) leave the “Type” drop-down as “Handed in at God”

(b) change the “Notes” field to “Handed in at…” (from “Handed in after…”)

4. Click “Save”.

To record withdrawals (hopefully rarely!):

1. Click “New Entry”.

2. For each resource that is being withdrawn, enter a negative number in the corresponding box, i.e. a minus sign followed by a number. Multiple resources can be withdrawn at once.

3. Under the “Details” heading:

(a) change the “Type” drop-down to “Handed out at God”

(b) change the “Notes” field to “Handed out at…”

4. Click “Save”.

Show entries

This button is mostly useful for detective work, when someone’s confused or surprised about the quantity of resource in their pack. This is usually because they are (or in some cases are not) under the effect of some ritual or military action, which you’ll likely be able to dig out of the full history of inventory transactions. Grab a more senior member of crew to talk you through this until you’re confident with it.

Book out

This is the button to click when you want to withdraw everything in a player’s inventory without having to fiddle around with the individual numbers. You shouldn’t need to use this very often.

Not collected

See Break down in Player Packs- GOD

Transfer

You’re unlikely to need to use this button. Check with a head of department if you think you do

Downtime

Downtime- Player wiki

This tab only appears for characters with the Artisan skill. It provides information about which items the character made during downtime between events, and which resources they consumed to make those items.

TODO: flesh this out more – what Do about it? What information do we give players? What Problems do they Have?

Bonds

Create bond- Player wiki

TODO: what Problems? what Information can we Provide?

Magic

Magic- Player wiki

This tab provides information about magical effects the character is under.

TODO: what Problems? what Information can we Provide?

Soul

Testimonies- Player wiki

TODO: This will show Testimony but…. what else? what do we need to know? what can we tell players under what circumstances? &c.?

Ribbons

TODO Fill out this section

Notes

TODO: what for, when to use, how to use