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Once again, many thanks to Anya! for her permission to use the diary concept!
Diary Basics
In order to roleplay with your feien, you will require a diary in which to record events and keep track of stats and abilities. Your diary will be created for you in the guild. Only guild members may post in the guild; if you have a friend you would like to involve in your feien diary, simply have him or her submit a request to join the guild detailing why.
The Official Post
The first post of your diary is your
Official Post, or
OP, which provides all of the information about your fairy. At the top of your OP is a link back to the main thread. Below this are the
Updates. Changes in your fairy's stats, age, and abilities are reflected here.
After this is your official feien image. It shows a graphical representation of your feien, the name of your feien, the element, the Date of Birth (DOB), the developmental stage, and your Gaia username. You may direct-link this image in your sig or on your website to observe your feien's growth.
<img align="left" src="http://www.drowtales.com/galleries/f/heights.thumb.gif">After this are your feien's stats, beginning with
height. The height chart to the left can help you envision how big your feien is in relation to other feien and in relation to yourself. Simply grab a rule and use your favorite graphics program to adjust the image so the stated heights are accurate.
Arguably the most important area of the stats is the
personality. This is your "base personality" and defines the major characteristics of your feien.
The base personality is not a rulebook on how to play your feien. It is merely a starting point upon which you can build your own character.
Why? Because unfortunately, it has been my experience that most folk roleplay the same character archetypes, so in order to ensure a varied cast of characters, the base personality is required. It helps keep characters more consistent, though most characters soon grow and expand beyond this base personality, and keeps up from having three dozen brooding heros, twenty exuberant airheads, and four hundred Mary Sues. But again, the base personality is merely a starting point. It gives you a cornerstone on which to build. You could have "egotistical, driven, bibliophile, superstitious" as your base personality. This does not mean your fairy cannot have an obsession with turtles, or enjoy charity work, or be a compulsive neat freak. You could do any of these things with the character, just so long as s/he is still an egotistical, driven, superstitious bibliophile at the same time.
In other words, base personality traits do not exclude personality traits not included in the base. Unless you attempt to play your feien diametrically opposite the base personality -- it would not be wise to portray your supresitious, driven, egotistical bibliophile as giving up after only one try because a driven character does not give up. Similarly, a cheerful, bubbly little feien probably shouldn't walk into the shop and throw curse words around and threaten to drop rocks on people. There can always be mitigating circumstances, but you'll have to convince me of that, and anyway, people usually bounce back to their basic personality after the situation has resolved itself. (Recent research in the area of psychology supports this.)
Moving along, next we have the
Stats. Stats rate your feien in nine different categories and allow you to unlock special skills and abilities. Stats are detailed further in the next post.
Spells/Abilities lists the various skills your feien qualifies for and those your feien currently knows. All feien begin their lives with one to three abilities: usually flight and one free skill based on their element. (Feien with dual elements will have two free elemental skills.) These are
free skills.
Free skills are listed in green. You do not need to roleplay to unlock them.
Stat-based skills are listed in blue. These are abilities that depend on a particular stat, for example, a feien with a STR (Strength) of 8 has the skill Giant Strength. Stat-based skills must be roleplayed to unlock, but are automatic. If you feien has a STR of 8, s/he will learn Giant Strength, provided you roleplay enough to unlock it. (More on unlocking skills below.)
Elemental skills are in
black. These are skills which depend on your feien's MAG (Magic) score. Every element has a set of skills associated with it. If your feien possesses that element, s/he can learn the skill, but to do so uses up one
magic point. Your total number of magic points is given at the top of the Spells/Abilities section and is equal to your feien's MAG. Unlike Stat-based skills, elemental skills must be picked out by you. You may choose as many elemental spells as you have magic points.
School skills are in brown. There are several schools of magic in the feien universe, giving you even more spells and abilities to unlock. You may only choose one school and you may not change it. The school skills are set for each school and can only be unlocked in order. Further details on school skills are given below.
Artificial skills are in olive. An artificial skill is any skill which a feien does not actually possess on his or her own. They are usually acquired by means of artifacts which grant the user additional spells. As such they are free skills, requiring no roleplaying to unlock, but if you lose the item or do not have it with you, the abilities granted by the item are not accessible.
This covers all of the information in the OP.
Diary Set-Up and Modifications
When beginning your diary, it is recommended that you reserve a few posts for the purpose of creating a more detailed feien profile. For examples of how to do this, browse around and look at the existing diaries. If you see something someone has done which you like,
ask them if you may use it, be it formatting, layout, or profile setup.
You don't have to reserve posts for a profile or add graphics to your diary, but it does make it looks nice and helps keep things organized. If you make diary graphics and wish to have a title banner added to your OP or simply want your diary's title changed, post a note to the
Spell & Stat Update Request thread and it will be dealt with as soon as possible.
In addition to being pretty, an extended profile can help you get a better grasp on your character and his or her abilities, particularly as they relate to roleplaying, and adding profiles on other characters your feien lives with greatly aids anyone reading your diary or roleplaying with you. It really is strongly recommended.
(more info coming later)
Brief Notes
- Feel free to link to your image in your sig. Direct-link so you can see your fairy evolve! (Bandwidth is not a problem.)
- For Photo Albums, please save the images and upload to your own server. I'll only save your most current fairy image on my server.
- If you'd like to alert other owners to your diary posting, use the
Diary Announcement thread.
- You don't have to post daily! Post as little or as often as you like. I would suggest trying to post at least on a weekly basis, though. Anything less won't have your feien taken away, but may delay your feien's development into adulthood.
- Diary topic can be changed. Just ask! (And make sure your topic will fit in the alloted space.)
- OP notices (where new abilities and stat changes are announced) occur when I do diary checks. Don't expect to see them all the time.
The Official Post (OP)
The Official Post is where you will find updates and special events, as well as your inventory of things from the shop and your fairy's stats. Check the OP often!
Starting Off: The Feien Bloom
Well, so you've paid for your feien, now you have this lovely, one-of-a-kind flower. What do you with it?
If you choose to do nothing, your feien will emerge happy as can be. If, however, you'd like to get to know your feien better as a flower, you can try to find out what the flower likes!
Variables: light, darkness, heat, cold, room temp, water, no water, dirt, no dirt, more...?
If you'd like results to go with your experiments, you'll have to IM me. You are responsible for both roleplaying performing the experiment and roleplaying the experiment results. I hold you to the honor system - if you IM me an action and it has a negative effect, I expect you to stick with it!
For experimenting, your feien may have bonuses when it hits juvenile stage... or there may be downsides...
Please note! Fairy blossoms subsist on elements.
They do not need to eat! They don't even have mouths.
sweatdrop
Part Two: the Juvenile Stage
Your young fairy has just emerged into the world. S/he may be confused or disoriented at first, but thanks to your caring during the bloom stage, the fairy will already have a spiritual anchor: you!
Your juvenile fairy has full speech and reading capabilities and a personality. You are given a base personality, three to six words that describe your fairy, which you may build upon at your leisure. You can write up a longer personality description at this point if you like.
At this point, you get to see what your fairy looks like! Things like markings and colors will be visible, but your fairy's growth is not complete and some traits don't appear until the adult stage, so please note that there may yet be a few surprises in store for you!
A juvenile fairy will still be able to subsist on elements, but will probably start wanting some tidbits of actual food. Just a bite or two from your dinner will be fine. You might discover they have favorite foods or music or anything... at this stage, their preferences and actions are up to you! They have become your character to play with. You're still expected to hold to the base personality, though, and anything too out of character might be penalized. (Like if you got a shy fairy and roleplayed him as the loudmouthed life of the party.) Personality development is, of course, allowed, over time. (People change over time, and likewise do fairies.)
You can basically consider your juvenile fairy to be your own character at this point. You can also start buying items. Buying items and then roleplaying with them can change your fairy's stats or adult appearance. Please note that any appearance changes due to items will not appear until adult stage!
A juvenile fairy will also begin to uncover its magical abilities, a process that continues into adulthood. All fairies start off with the appropriate 0-level spells, as listed in the spellbook. Roleplaying unlocks more spells. To unlock spells, you don't have to roleplay your fairy researching new spells (though you can): the spells will unlock over time with roleplaying of any sort.
Please note that since abilities and spells are rewarded based on your fairy's experience, non-feien stories (however wonderful) will not add to your feien's skill development.
All Grown Up: the Adult Stage
Congratulations, your fairy is an adult! At this point, a fairy has a totally unique image. All visible genetic traits appear. If you roleplayed any items on during juvenile stage, they will appear on the adult fairy. If not, your fairy will have its default image.
At this point, fairies require food. They can no longer subsist on elements.
Adult fairies may breed with other adults of any gender (remember, gender is only apparent, not actual). In order to do so, they must have a close bond with with other fairy. This can be romantic love or simply a love between friends. The desire for two fairies to breed must be roleplayed in order for me to give permission. It can't just be one fairy walks up to the other and says, "Let's unf!" Breeding is not to be taken lightly. (Especially given the price tag.)
Concerning adult images, you can request an image update once every two months. This will remove any items your fairy is no longer using and add new items s/he may have acquired. The first four image changes are free. That's enough for eight months if you change every two months. After that, there will be a fee, as yet undetermined. (It won't be excessive.)
Feien Sex? - No, sorry, they don't have the necessary bits for anything besides snogging. Their erogenous zones are where the ears meet the skull, where the wings meet the back, the mouth and the back of the knee.
Quests and Special Items? - Your adult feien may receive a quest or a special item. These are rewards for good roleplaying. There are a number of ways to complete quests, and we can discuss which is the right one for you and your fairy when the time comes. You might get a quest to complete items, write a story, complete a task, etc. Quests can yield special items or stat increases. And, of course, there's the ultimate quest for immortality...
Feien Death? - Yes, your feien can die, either in an accident or due to old age. It takes a long time. Your feien may die prematurely if you have an RP feien and you neglect it. What constitutes neglect? Not posting in your diary for two one-month periods will cause energy starvation. (Bad way to go.) Feien can also die by being eaten, crushed, impaled, severed, or even by suicide. Don't worry too much about this -- I won't run around looking for chances to kill your fairy. If, however, you commit some sort of crime (like art theft) or misbehave extremely and are banned from Gaia, you might very well have your feien killed and the resulting gemstone repossessed by the shop. But we're all nice folk here, so no need to worry!
Help! My feien is losing points like mad! There are a few reasons this may be happening. The most common is roleplaying against your feien's personality. If your roleplaying doesn't seem to reflect the set personality traits, watch the points drop a lot. The second reason is lack of roleplaying a stat. Regardless of personality traits, if your feien has high wisdom and acts foolish or immature, their wisdom will decrease until it's at the level you're playing at. If you have the high stat, use it or lose it! Usually, though, you'll find the stat is replaced by points somewhere else... The third reason is lack of interaction. If I don't see you around the thread much, your feien's stats will drop, generally in charisma or luck. Just dropping by once won't be enough to raise the stat back; either involve yourself more often or accept the loss or switch to Sig-only. Finally, the fourth and last reason is godmoding or other roleplaying gaffes. If your feien does something that's impossible or too powerful for the feien, stats will drop. If you suddenly pull a wacky stunt like afflicting your feien with a wasting disease, stats will drop.
But I'd like to do such-and-such with my feien! Wonderful! PM me and tell me what such-and-such is. If it's a good plot idea, I'll give it a go-ahead. If it's not, well, back to the drawing board!
I do a lot a roleplaying, but my stats don't increase much? Feel free to tell me, and point me in the right direction. I do miss things. Also consider that you might want to select a few spells for your feien to learn. I generally award stat points for specific roleplaying actions, like practicing some skill. Spells and abilities, however, can be awarded in a number of situations, even for just regular posting, and are much easier to get.
I'm going to be gone a while, but I don't want my feien switched to Sig-only! Tell me. I can always help you if you tell me. I'm willing to put your feien on hiatus, effectively freezing him/her until your return. I will not put your feien on indefinite hiatus longer than two months, though, and I will not extend a hiatus more than three weeks longer than your initial request. (Furthermore, requesting hiatuses for periods longer than three months may very well result in my asking you to switch to Sig-only instead.)
