Daleos Character and Setting Guide

## Welcome to Daleos!

Daleos is a unique setting which mostly takes place on the continent of Daleos. While there are other islands, and continents even, most of the information on these locations are hard to find or even just unknown to players and characters on Daleos. The main areas of play take place on the continent of Daleos, which is a high-fantasy setting with the additional concept of the occasional rifts which can pull people and monsters from millions of other worlds and universes.

Due to the nature of the server and the wide-range of people, we like to have a good standard for where certain characters should fit. If you wish to play something outside of high-fantasy, dynasty-themed, or steampunk, you may require assistance in helping to make your character fit. The Lore Writers Team, Gameplay Advisors Team, Recruitment Team, and Team Leads can assist if you aren’t sure if your character is past this time, and can help reworking your character to fit.

We currently have 3 major cities on the continent of Daleos (with more on the way!).

* **Osteria** is known as the capital with people from many different worlds, cultures, and ideals that are all very different.

* **Sundry Hill** is a wild-west gunslinging steampunk style city, where outlaws prey on travelers, and the local guards are always ‘too busy’ to get anything done right. Steam technology is always appearing in small bursts to make daily life easier; but also quick to exploding and disappearing in a flash.

* **Dalehold** is a city of guilds, mining, and trading. They prefer to stay out of the thick of the heroics of Daleos, or the lawlessness of Sundry. They would rather wine and dine their way through life than pick up a sword; though a few individuals wouldn’t go past it. (Please note that Dalehold is a quest-only city, and not normally reachable during normal off-quest roleplaying).

## Making “Original” Characters

Another thing the Team Leaders have decided is that we wish to encourage people to create original characters for play on this server.  What does this mean?

* A character being inspired by another character or a piece of art is 100% fine, so long as they have unique names and personalities.

* If you think you might be too close to something existing, or you want help coming up with ideas for a piece of art you love, feel free to ask for help.  We are more than happy to assist you with your character creation.

* Characters who look like famous fictional characters (as examples, Batman, Edward Elric, Jon Snow, etc), may be too hard to take seriously, even with a distinct personality and name.  The same goes for famous real life characters (Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart). We ask you attempt not to use these sorts of characters as your character’s appearance.

* Rifting in a character with a group of other characters that know each is other is fine, but please try to make it so that your character can still be compelling to play without the rest of the group.

* While we understand that losing one of your characters can be difficult, we do not allow the creation of characters that are almost exactly the same as your deceased character (i.e. bringing in your character's sibling with the same experiences and backstory).

## I Want to Play a Character Outside the Norm; Where Do I Begin?

Wanting to play a character that would not usually be seen in most fantasy settings is fine, but Daleos is not a setting that most sci-fi characters and concepts can be easily adapted into.  Characters from more modern times than the Victorian era or who are used to more advanced technology than steampunk will likely not fit with the setting and will usually need to be reworked.  **Always ask in OOC chat before introducing a character from later than the year 1900 (or non-earth equivalent).**  The Lore Writers Team, Gameplay Advisors Team, and Team Leads can assist if you aren’t sure if your character is past this line, and can help reworking your character to fit.

An important tip to keep in mind, is keep it high-fantasy in the very end. If you want to play a 16-year old who played D&D in his mother’s basement with his friends, that concept is fine. Where it gets tricky is learning the RP differences you need to understand for this type of character. It might be a funny gimmick to mention reading about a monster in one of your books; but doing it more than once might start to make people feel like this world isn’t so immersive anymore. No matter what setting your character is from, you want to adapt them to this new world, and might have them live it out as if the rest of their life was a weird dream. Sci-fi characters used to light-swords and ray-guns might never see them again, and will and should from a RP prospective get used to it rather quickly.

If you are having trouble figuring out how to convert something from sci-fi to fantasy, take a look at the Spelljammer and Eberron settings for D&D.  Spelljammer is a space-based, planar- travelling setting, using magically powered sailing ships and magic to travel from realm to realm instead of, say, warp travel.  Eberron is a high-magic, steampunk setting with lots of good examples of how to make sufficiently magical technology - they have airships, magically controlled trains and carts (basically cars), and even fantasy robots. These serve as excellent points to have your characters come from; or even as just references to convert your chain-gun manadrives to something that is going to be a little less obstructive and less theme-breaking.

No matter what you decide, keep in mind that whatever your powers may be, they should behave in a way that is standard for classic D&D in both mechanics and flavor. Even if you play a modern character, the modern magic UA supplement is specifically banned. Some classes and subclasses, such as Gunslinger Fighters and Artificers, give your character proficiency with firearms, but your character cannot have a modern gun as a weapon.

## Other Things to Keep in Mind

* All characters in the Daleos server must be adults.
* You cannot have a pregnancy with an active character. Having a pregnant character would result in them being retired.