2. How To Play
If you're out and about in the Dragonlands
area, please stay "IC". You're obliged to be part of
the "Let's Pretend." Please keep all real-life
conversation in ((parentheses)).
In the Furcadia Dragonlands area, we follow
the Rule of Cool,
specifically COOL1. Cool1 requires you to know the
background. We recommend that you have a character sheet on
hand on paper, and to use the online dice rolling. You can
only die with your OOC permission, You must ICly react when
attacked but you can only be injured with your OOC permission.
SEE ALSO:
Roleplaying
Tips.
Some "Game" Things Don't Exist In-Character:
A couple of things that you
see in Furcadia are there for OOC purposes. They don't exist
in the In Character Dragonlands. Yes, you should pretend you
don't even know about them when you're there.
-
Making "Dreams" is a player
activity, not a character activity.
-
If you leave the map and show up on
another one, it is assumed that some in-character time has
passed, and that you travelled there in an ordinary way.
Sorry, you can't say you Teleported.
-
If you're going to log off, please move
out of sight of the other players first.
"Dreams" and disappearing when you log off are
not IC.
-
Portals that are magical require
tremendous energy and skill. Your character should not
claim to make them or control them. It takes many, many
mages to set one up permanently, and new ones get placed
either by arrangement with Count Dragar or Lady Semathon.
*For the present please assume your character cannot do
this.
-
Pages, that is, /whispers, to somebody
not standing in the next diamond over, are also OOC.
DRAGONLANDS ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES
Being beautiful or fast or strong or
skillful, or owning a dragon, or being noble-born, these
things don't come for free. They're Advantages, and for
every Point of Advantage, you have to have one Point of
Disadvantage. You're limited to 5 Points of Advantages and
5 Points of Disadvantages. This keeps your character from
being too powerful.
Nobles:
You can play a noble
but the highest-ranking positions in the Houses are
already taken by those characters named in the list of
Noble Houses. If you're a noble, you must take the
name of one of the Noble Houses of Kasuria, and this will
cost you 1 (Lesser House) or 3 (Greater House) Advantage
points.
Weapons, Magical Weapons and Magical Items:
Because there is no
fair way to give them out, no magical weapons or items are
permitted here. Unlike in Persona Play, in Roleplaying,
Magic Weapon and Magic Item are not something you add to
your description and say it exists. The effects of your
armor and/or weapons are glossed-over and assumed to be
already included in the results of the Quickie table.
Alignment:
When you make your
character, you need to choose for them to be "Lightside"
(pretty nice), "Neutral" (in it for themself,
mostly), or "Darkside" (a bad guy). This is an
out-of-character mechanic, not something that Furre
philosophers and priests might discuss using these terms!
:)
It's the nature of the
Furcadia universe that beautiful locations help "lightside"
people to fight, while frightening and ugly places make it
harder. Conversely, the bad guys ("darkside"
characters) do better in the scary areas, and do less well
in the colorful cheery happy and well-populated areas. The
vast majority of Furres in the world are "Lightsiders".
Most Bugges are "Neutral". Most Wyrmmes are
"Darksiders".
Locations have
"Alignment" ratings too, which are the modifiers
to Quickie table die rolls used according to the region.
Goldwyn is in Kasuria; Kasuria grants a +2 to Lightside
while penalizing all Darksiders -2. Drakoria gives
Lightside characters a -2 and all Darksiders +2. Neutral
characters get no bonuses or penalties to their rolls. See
here for details.
The Once-is-enough Rule:
There's no magical
flipflopping between "alive and undead",
"alive and dead", and so forth. This is a
slightly more serious world. A Vampyre Furre may be cured
*once* and then they are immune to going back. Your mortal
character should return from being thought dead no more
than *once*, whether it's because they became an undead,
received magical resurrection, or they simply weren't
really dead but were just faking their disappearance. Note
that changes in Alignment are subject to this!
Concerning Aging and Time:
An
excerpt from here...
According to Furre! rules and the
Dragonlands, our default Continuity (especially for those
who would voluntarily like to adhere to a Continuity!
), aging can be accomplished temporarily by a Mage, and
permanently by an Alchemist's potion. These are the
only ways in which "insta-aging" can happen.
In Drakoria, this may be done to a
tribal or court heir so that they will be
"of-age". Drakorians practice
trial-by-combat, and although the royalty are allowed many
luxuries and protections, a champion in a duel isn't one
of them!
It's frowned upon in Kasurian society
to do this to a child, because it's seen as irrevocably
robbing them of years of their life. Because their
mind doesn't mature normally; they'll still be an immature
person in an adult body, impulsive and lacking the amount
of skill and experience their peers possess. Conditions
under which it might be acceptable include the following:
when preparing for a dire invasion by deadly
enemies, when protecting a child from a deadly enemy, as a
treatment for a disease that would be deadly to a child
but not so harmful to an adult.
(Potions don't work in the Olde World,
so they don't have to deal with the question at all.)
In Continuity, Mages can perform a very
temporary Youthing spell-- but the Alchemists have
not yet come up with a permanent Youthing potion. As
you can imagine, such a discovery would be valuable,
indeed...
"What
time is it?"
Officially, Furcadia defaults to
FST: Furcadia Standard Time, which is 1:1. So,
for now, anytime you want to know what time it is,
you can just type
time on a line by itself.
FST is identical to U.S.'s Central Standard Time.
Officially, furres age EXACTLY like
hyoomans do. They aren't mature after 3 RL years.
Dayside vs. Nightside?
In future, those using the official
Furre! RPG rules in a Dream might like to go by an
official ratio of RL to IC time is 1.5 to 1. So, if
2 years go by IRL, 3 go by IC. We'll eventually have
code to support this for those who are REALLY heavy on
Continuity.
To save us from having to explain this
to all but those who are EXTREMELY interested in having a
Continuity, this system is not in effect in Goldwyn or
anywhere else.
"One-and-a-half Time" has
interesting ramifications for play in Dreams where
night/day matter: The 1:1.5 convention means that
day and night alternate at any given RL time.
If you RP at 6 p.m. every RL day,
one day it will be IC day. The next RL day, it wil
be IC night.
Suppose that one RL Monday, your RL 3
p.m. = IC 11 p.m. That will happen again on the
following RL Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. On
upcoming RL Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, however, RL
3.pm. will be IC 11 a.m.
To distinguish IC from RL time, IC time
is referred to as "Dayside" and "Nightside"
instead of day and night. Dayside and Nightside are
conditions to describe an IC location's current state
according to the RL and IC time.
This makes it fair for those who have a
consistent but limited RL window of time in which to
be on Furcadia. If you play a vamp-furre, whose
powers and places-to-go are severely limited by daylight,
you aren't stuck in perpetual daytime. If you play a
mortal who doesn't want anything to do with vamp-furres,
you can safely be on every other RL day.
The reason all of this is going to
matter, is that as the sun comes up or goes down (dawn and
dusk of course), undead are awake but weakened. That
is a VERY important part of the mythos, and the RPG will
support that with statistical advantages/disadvantages.
Time must move forwards to give mortals a window of
opportunity to defeat them. It also makes play more
interesting for the undead-- it means they must still
worry about what time it is. That wouldn't happen if
the Dream was simply "night one day, day the
next".
Safe
Zone and Unsafe Zone?
In Dreams where
the Rah wants to ALWAYS have a place open where vamp-furres
can RP, I advocate "flip-flop" time. Under
Flip-flop, all the locations exist in the same
Continuity-- but one half of it (usually the less
"dangerous" parts of town) lag by 12 IC
hours. As a plot assumption, nothing is allowed to
happen "Safe Zone" that would prevent the flow
of events "Unsafe Zone".
Flip-flop time sounds complicated
but in actual play, it is very smooth and easy.
While you're playing in the Safe Zone, harsher
things (like IC final death) simply tend not to happen to
your character. Safe Zone and Unsafe Zone are terms
that permanently describe specific locations.
3. Special Features of the Dragonlands Continuity
No Metal in Drakoria:
In Harshlaw and Drakoria, there are
no metal tools or weapons. This is the kind of detail that
makes it important that everybody Roleplaying in the
Dragonlands knows the background! If you find somebody in
a Cool2 Dragonlands area who does not, please, be very
polite, and very kind, but insist that they should
"do their homework" if they wish to participate.
The Mystery of the Phoenixes
Where did these winged wonders, with
their ability to burst into flame intense enough to melt
steel, come from? As yet no one knows, but it is said that
the eldest amongst them can disappear, reappearing at
their own familiar nest. Phoenixes themselves tell of a
floating forest island, the Land of Lifted Woods. Alas,
where this fabled and beautiful place is, even they cannot
say. Perhaps it is gone forever, or maybe it never ever
was... Phoenixes call themselves the "Children of
Saligor". They say that Everflame, the first Phoenix
to ever see the Olde World, was given gorgeous gifts from
the crowned heads of Europe and she received many offers
of marriage when she travelled. She was kidnapped and
almost forced to marry an evil baron. Phoenixes relate
this tale as the reason they tend not to travel there
anymore. A more likely reason is that their power of
"Fire Recall" doesn't *work* in the Olde World!
Scarhawks and Dragons:
In Kasuria, a friendly rivalry
exists between Dracoriders and Raptor Knights. The giant
birds are less intelligent but both faster and more agile
in the air. Yet the Dracosaurs are somewhat armored and
more dangerous in close combat, making them more useful on
the ground where a scarhawk would be easily damaged.
In Drakoria, the Wyrmmes ride Dracosaurs to war, but
also consider both raptor and Dracosaurs delicacies, to
be consumed at victory celebrations...
Skyships:
Another thing that exists in the
Dragonlands is the Skyships. Constructed with the saliva
of Gray Bugge larvae, these amazing galleons can hold up
to thirty tons. Piracy of both air and sea Drakorian
slaveships is a grand Kasurian national pastime.
Bugges and Wyrmmes:
Two *new* types of character are
introduced: The Wyrmme (a bipedal sentient draconid), and
the Bugge (a bipedal sentient insect). Please remember
that in Drakoria, the Wyrmmes rule ALL Furres and Bugges
while ALL Bugges there are slaves. No exceptions. Bugges
and Wyrmmes are uncommon in Kasuria but lately there has
been an inflow of refugees. Despite their beauty, Wyrmmes
are treated with a bit of suspicion in Kasuria. [NOTE: You
may not dodge the Continuity by saying that you're
"some other kind of dragon". If you are a dragon
in Goldwyn, you're a Wyrmme, and your ancestors were
Drakorian.]
Cannibals:
Just as real-life humans hate
cannibalism and outlaw it, Furres hate and outlaw the
practice of "Sennibalism", that is, eating a
sentient (intelligent, thinking, reasoning) being. A
Furre's body is considered their own property. Even the
more open-minded who have no horror of their blood being
drunk by a Vampyre Furre are still outraged if this is
done without the Furre's consent, considering it a
combination of both theft *and* assault.
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