Well, besides crowning yourself king of the universe and claiming to be in charge of massive armies ready to overrun Caligo, we usually let you have all of that for free. You can be a traveling musician, a slum lord, a wealthy merchant, even a king or a queen of some distant land. Your character can be well schooled in a trade and you don't have to pay for that skill. You can be a master tailor, musician, singer, blacksmith, or an underground mob boss without having to 'pay' for that skill. You can wear kevlar or leather armor, and fight with a pistol or a large heavy rock. The only real limitations are those imposed by your special. Like a nonsentient probably isn't going to be a brain surgeon, and an anarchist won't be a Mist Knight, and you can't appoint yourself as a God. If you're not sure, feel free to discuss it with the staff. Keep in mind, though, that extremely complicated items such as massive buildings and super enhanced plasma weapons won't work in TK. For something to exist you have to believe that every inch of it exists, and the mists are constantly corrupting the things around them. One person isn't capable of the concentration required to keep such extremely complicated items or vast areas intact all by themselves.

Consider it the basic core of your character. The single aspect that defines them the most. Understand, though, that it's only the core. It's your job to fill it out and make of it what you wish. You can only have one special, but it doesn't mean that if you don't choose cynic you can't be cynical. What you want to do is pick the one that seems to fit the best, whether it's a physical, social, or psychological aspect of your character.

It doesn't matter. Specials are a very broad way of defining what your character is, and you can and probably will end up going in an utterly different direction than anyone else. We have a crafty thief, a gifted artist and a shy archer out of the finesse special, for example. What you do and what you make out of the special you choose is probably going to be entirely different than anyone else's vision. Nobody is going to think you're unoriginal just because you're not the first of something on the grid.

The stats are our way of keeping things balanced. A way to stave off the twinks and Mary Sues so to speak. If you stat your PC so that he's a powerful magician then you won't have much to spend on physical traits. If you make a brick, you'll have very little magic to work with. This does not mean that if you don't buy speed, you're slow, unless you want to be. By default, it means you're average normal human level.

You can look at anyone's stats by typing sheet <playername> or just type sheet to see your own stats. That way, when there might be a contest of speed or strength, the stats are a quick guide to see who is stronger/faster/whatever. Considering most systems make you buy every little skill and possession your character has and can do, we feel ours is extremely open and adaptable.

A high score in Sanity does not mean you're sane. It means you have a grasp of yourself and your existence. Consider it to be how well you believe in yourself and believe in the things around you and how they affect you. Characters with a high mist score can do great feats of mist handling, but they are also susceptible to its effects a great deal more than the average person. Having a high sanity means that feats of mist are harder for you, but it is harder for people to use mist against you as well. You can lose sanity in a number of ways, thus losing your grasp on reality. When you lose it all, you lose your belief in yourself and will probably fade into the mists. For more information, see Guide 12: Sanity.

Guide 3: Building a Character and Guide 4: Character Setup are a step by step instruction guide for setting up your character. You can also try the pedit command. Lots of people stumble on the list editor and the pedit commands, so be sure to take a moment to read the documentation, and don't get frustrated. Everyone hits some snags in chargen but once you get out of the gates you probably won't have to touch it again unless you want to.

Mist born are extremely rare, to the point of being considered mythical. If you get one, it must be earned by impressing us with the fact that you won't use the power to twink and by blowing us away with your roleplay skills. Nobody has ever asked for a mist born and been given one; the ones on the grid were all offered as rewards by the wizards for being a good roleplayer, being helpful above and beyond the call of duty, and being fair. If you do get a Mist Born or other restricted special and twink with it, we can and will take it away.

Twisted Kingdoms is a world that exists between sanity and insanity. A place dominated by the mists. Philosophers and scholars are still trying to figure out what exactly the mists are. People step out of them fully formed, the mists can be used to make things, and they even seem sentient at times. As for your place in it... Maybe you were born here, or maybe you just ended up here somehow. The technology level varies widely. If you want to carry a computer and have cybernetic implants, go for it. If you want to dress like a ranger and fight using only your trusty sword and bow, feel free. You don't need to know a huge pile of info to understand the setting. It's a waystation between many worlds, that's pretty much it, and the little quirks and details you can pick up as you go along.

In the broad sense, mist is everything. It's a force like magic that can be manipulated and twisted to serve you. It can also turn on you and hurt you, so it's a force to be respected and feared. You use mist to do magical feats. Typing Mag #help will give you information on how to do that. You will find that you have an allotment of mist points in your inventory. Those regenerate on a daily basis (it's a random number) up to a max of 200, and they're what you spend on your magic feats. The more points you spend, the better chance you have of succeeding.

When you enter a mist clearing you can choose to wander, just exploring randomly and potentially finding new areas, or find (location) to get where you want to go. Typing learned will give you a list of the destinations you know of. When you reach your destination or a new destination, you will need to type stop to stop navigating. Keep in mind that even if you're trying to FIND someplace, the place you want to find may not be the first one you come to. You will see a FOUND message when your desired area is found. If you have your color flag on and your client accepts it, we have messages in color that will tell you when you have found a new area (in yellow) or your destination (in red).

More than one, less than a hundred. New stuff gets added all the time. Not every area is easily findable though, and the lower your mist score is, the longer it will take you to navigate. Don't sweat not knowing every location; it's not a competition. If you're curious, though, maybe you and some other PCs can go on an adventure to seek one or two of them out sometime.

Your mist navigation skill is partly a function of your mist/sanity score. If your sanity is high, your belief in the transient nature of the mists is low, and navigating them will be difficult. If on the other hand, your mist score is high, the mists will cooperate with you more and show you more of their secrets. Initial mist/sanity levels are affected by your special and your choice of stats. Someone with high magic scores and low magic resistance will start out with a lower sanity (and higher mist score) than someone resistant to magic and with no aptitude for it. Mist navigation is a skill like any other skill, with its own set of trade-offs. If you want to be able to navigate quickly, you may have to sacrifice some sanity and some physical strengths. If you choose to be less efficient at mist navigation, work it into your character: maybe something bad happened to them out there and they don't go out in them anymore. Maybe you can meet someone who is a good navigator (such as mist walkers, or the bugnuts insane) and explore together, or even hire them as a guide.

Whatever you want. Wander around, meet the locals. Have a drink at the Fiddler's Green. Pray in the temples (at your own risk). Start a fight. Have an adventure. Explore the mists. Whatever you'd like to do. We have a good group of roleplayers here who are friendly to newcomers and who would love to interact with you.

Most people just roleplay it. If you want to set up shop at your chosen trade, go for it. Similarly, if you want to be a student at the university, you don't need to go through an admissions procedure. Congratulations -- you're a student! The exception is where there is already an established playerbase in place: if you want a job at the pub, it'd be polite to talk to one of the in-character owners; if you want to be a Mist Knight, wander over to headquarters and find someone to give you an interview. We do have factions, with contacts for your character to seek out if they'd like to join one, but most PCs prefer to work out their own jobs and remain free agents. The options are open, either way.

Firstly, TK is not a game where you kill PCs and gain levels. We're not Everquest. That being said though, yes. Some people get tired of their PCs and will kill them off in interesting ways. Usually this is consentual. But, also, if your character happens to end up in a situation where the natural way of things is for them to die, and you've ignored repeated warnings of this thinking you can shrug off massive damage or such, an RP mod may come in, make a judgement call, and declare your PC dead. It happens very rarely, but it does happen. We will only go so far to save your PC from itself. Actions have consequences here. For more information on our policy regarding IC consequences and implied consent, see Appendix B II: Muck Policies.

This goes for other actions, too. TK characters have memories and develop In-Character history; each scene does not start as a blank slate. If you piss someone off, double cross them, or backstab them once, don't expect them to act like it didn't happen when they see you again. That's not to say DON'T piss them off. Rivalries can be fun to play, and not everyone has to be bestest friends. That would be boring. Just don't be surprised if the waiter you shortchanged yesterday spits in your soup tomorrow. Don't take it personally, OOC, if another PC doesn't like your character. Treat it as an opportunity for Roleplay, which is almost certainly all it's meant to be.

Just ask. If people are free, they'll find you on the grid. You can find out where people are by using the WhereAre command. Any public place where there are people is open to roleplay.

Public places are generally the streets, the shops, the common room in the pub, you know... anywhere public. Private spaces are things like people's homes, a god's holy ground, out of the way romantic nooks... use your common sense. You wouldn't burst into a hospital room where there's an emergency in progress in Real Life, for example, so unless your character has a reason, don't do it here.

If people are in a private space, it's polite to page them and ask if they mind company FIRST, before just showing up. Most of the time, people playing in public spaces are very happy to have you join in.