Note: The following pertained to the original group. Players entering later in the story, especially those of a different race, will obviously have different information to work with.

ADDITIONAL WORLD INFORMATION

Languages:

You all speak Common. You know that many monsters in the world have their own languages as well, such as Goblins and Giants. You know of Dwarves and Elves and roughly where their respective lands are. Elemental forces and ancient arcane languages exist for your study in Cornelia's liabrary.

Basically every D&D language is in this campaign.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/speaklanguage.htm
If you speak it, someone else will too. I do not suggest learning Sylvan or Gnoll, but it is possible for them to come up. Druidic is out for obvious reasons. Everything else is a thumbs up.


Landscape:

Maps are available to look at. The world, as was taught to you by royal tutors in your childhood, is admittedly incomplete. The knowledge of the elders who founded Cornelia has been lost through strife. It is rumored the earth itself is capable of shifting quite a bit after thousands of years, so ancient maps are regarded as nearly useless outside of academic curiosity when they are found.

Cornelia is surrounded by oceans, forests, and rivers. There are mountains in the distance. The bridge just north of town has been damaged and closed for repairs. The royal navy suffered immense losses to sahuagin and pirates within the past 10 years, but it is common knowledge the coast closest to Cornelia is on a giant, nearly land-locked sea--the Aldi.


Religion:

It is known that religion used to be a much larger part of people's lives in Cornelia. As first hand experiences are turned to accounts, and those into stories, and those into legend, and those into myth, much of it has simply been forgotten. There are still many superstitious people in the world, but it is a far cry from the original faith that most likely spawned such beliefs.

Stories of gods and demons, powers from other worlds, and great heroes overcoming immortals are numerous and enjoyed by many. Few think such stories are rooted in truth, and fewer still actually know it.

There are no gods for you to worship, per se. There are shrines to natural forces, ancient heroes, and wondrous entities of ages past. Any sort of actual effect such mythical beings could have on the world has never been apparent to you.

As you travel the world you may encounter a variety of different spiritual practices or even complete religions devoted to a deity of some kind. Whether or not these targets of worship are of any actual significance will be up to you to discover.


Calendar:

There are 8 days a week, and 50 weeks a year. The succession of the days:
Firesday
Earthsday
Watersday
Windsday
Iceday
Lightningsday
Lightsday
Darksday
Different cultures consider different days as the beginning of the week. In Cornelia, this day is Lightsday.

The weeks have no progression and are merely numbered. Different civilizations celebrate new years in generally the same week, but on different days.

The weather changes with the seasons in Cornelia, but nowhere near what we're used to in North America (especially those of us who have lived above the mason-dixon).


HOW TO POST

General:

Post text your character is actually saying as Aqua.
Post all combat rolls in Red. This is attack rolls, damage, and offensive effects. Include your reason for the roll in the dice roller itself. There is a text field for this.
Post all non-combat rolls in Green. This includes skill checks, initiative, and anything else that isn't Red.
Out of character text is in Orange.

All other descriptive text, such as "BUTT inspects the door's lock and hinge mechanisms for signs of a trap." are in black.

I'm not a color-nazi. Please try to remember this as often as possible for the clarity of other players. If you forget too much I WILL TAKE 50 DKP.

Other colors you may see:

Experience gain and sometimes other rewards will be in Purple.
Sometimes I'll post things in Blue. This will almost always be important information or a point I'd like to make exceptionally clear as the DM.


In Combat:

Wait for me to repost the initiative order for your turn. If you want to give me explicit instructions of what to do on your next turn, or would like me to play your character for you due to absence, let me know. If I don't hear from you for over a day, I'll take your turn for you to the best of my ability. In rare situations where I am not comfortable doing this, we will pause the game and wait for you. Please be polite and let us know if you cannot be active for over 36 hours. Life happens; just try to let us know when it does.


DICE ROLLS

Due to the nature of PbP, attackers will always roll relevant miss chance percentage dice to hit targets with concealment.

Whenever practical you will always be rolling the dice for yourselves. If you would like to speed the game up, and all agree to, I can roll Initiative and the like for you. You will always roll your attack and damage. You can decide if you want me to roll your save DCs for you. It's not like you're any better/worse at rolling 1d20 + 5 than anyone else is.

If we were at a table surrounded by books and empty cans of soda, I'd have the players roll everything on the table. A lot of the time I'll even let them roll certain dice on themselves, such as how long they are on fire, etc. Sadly, in PbP, such actions can take more time than letting the DM roll some of this. Again, let me know what you guys would prefer in the OOC thread.

There are, of course, situations where hidden rolls are appropriate. If you feel like, after the fact, you should have gotten to roll something, send me a PM. I promise you that I did, and I'll be happy to send you a copy/paste of the dice log with a timestamp and label. We're all on the same team here.


CHARACTER STATUS POST

In this regard, please keep your character sheets as accurate as possible. Please only keep track of permanent effects. I will have all of the status effects and damage your character has received in the character status thread. Note: certain things, such as contracting a disease, may not show up there. There are some effects that require a successful Heal check to recognize. Generally, I operate, as a DM, somewhere between meta-knowledge for players and realism. You might not know what exactly is causing your friend SHIT's skin to turn grey and what is motivating him try to eat your flesh, but I'm going to go ahead and put his Zombified status up in the thread for you. At the same time, if FUNK gets bitten by a werebear and then that night runs off into the woods with much more hair than normal, don't blame me for not putting it up for everyone to see.


CARRY WEIGHT AND CURRENCY

You are expected to keep track of your carry weight. I am not a super-fascist about this either, but I do check it and I do expect it to be accurate 90% of the time, especially when in combat.

Currency in this game is not a bothersome matter. If you go to town, you can exchange your gold into whatever pieces and gems that are light enough to carry. Currency gotten in town or from an NPC has no weight.

If you find 10,000 gold pieces in a cave, do not expect to simply pick it up. Gold weighs a lot. The 5,000 you're already carrying is a mixture of exotic gems and higher denomination coins, weighing nothing (you're welcome). The 10,000 you find weighs as much as gold normally does, 50gp per 1 pound, meaning someone or something has to carry that 200lbs of gold pieces out of there.

The standard rules apply for standard coins:
1 PP = 10 GP = 100 SP = 1,000 CP.

As I said before, assume there are higher denominations of rare elements and gems that continue to exchange for more and more. Currency almost always bears a sign of where it was minted or gathered. Most people (all shopkeepers) accept currency as currency, regardless of where it is from. Cornelian gold coins are colloquially known as "gil" by its inhabitants.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:36, Sat 15 Dec 2012.

CREATION

Check the houserules/sources PDF for what you can draw from and what you cannot. There are some house-ruled feats and changes you should be aware of.

I am allowing character skill point, feat, and language retraining almost exactly similar to the system described in Player's Handbook II. I will elaborate on this later. Do not be afraid to recklessly pick feats now. Update: Now that you're entering at level 7 (or higher), you should probably not be so reckless.

We will be using the full HP/MP upon leveling up variant rule.

As far as character personalities: I am imposing additional alignment constriction from the PDF. You must be LG, NG, CG, LN, or NN. I am not allowing CN alignments. Assume that you are friends with Sara and your three childhood companions and have never had plans or thoughts of the contrary.

You have no starting equipment, apart from a dagger. It is sturdy, but somewhat ugly, and cannot be sold. You will also be granted a family heirloom. You have no say in what this is.

If you would like to submit a back-story, please do so. I will read it and do my best to incorporate it. Expect feedback. If you do not wish to submit a back-story, then don't. Either one is absolutely alright with me. If you have any questions, ask them here. If for some reason you'd like to ask in private, then feel free to do so. Knowledge of FF1 is not required, but you may find it enhances your experience. I am curious to know if any of you have played it.

For some odd coincidence, all of your character's first names are exactly 3-4 characters long. It is common for people to have last names, but they are only ever used in official record-keeping and are absolutely unimportant otherwise. Cornelia has somewhat odd pronunciations explicitly for names at times, so names such as "AAAA" and "FAGS" are historically acceptable, although they absolutely ruin any first impression that person is likely to ever make. Just kidding. Name yourselves whatever the hell you want, although sticking to the FF1 standard convention will not go unnoticed.

Finally, you will notice that, rarely, some sections of the PDFs are described as [SUBJECT TO CHANGE] or may not even be present. This game is in active development. All classes are complete up to level 10. This, of course, will change. Take everything at face value "AS IS". I feel the game is perfectly playable and basically finished up to level 15.

GAMEPLAY

Experience points will be granted for completed objectives and winning (or, most of the time, avoiding) encounters. It will be a rare occurrence that some party members are granted EXP when others are not outside of what is described below, but it is possible. Especially ingenious methodology can potentially grant bonus EXP.

Bonus EXP will be granted if you respond quickly in combat situations. If it takes you less than 20 minutes to respond when it is your turn in initiative, I will grant you an additional 1.5% EXP for the encounter. If you respond in less than an hour, I will grant 1%. This will add up. I feel this rewards players who are able to be active while not punishing those who are willing but unable. You cannot earn more than 10% extra EXP in this way, but continuing quick response times would make me a happy DM. :D This is suspended for now as everyone has been quite active. I will reinstate this if necessary.

If you will not be able to post for an extended period of time (36+ hours), please let me know. I will do the same for you. If I don't hear from you in over 60 hours (2.5 days), I will be annoyed. Be polite, please. If characters are absent, I will play them based off of instruction to the best of my ability. If it is a critical juncture of the game that I am not comfortable performing for a player, we will simply pause.

My schedule:
I am free for roughly 6-12 hours a day to respond to your posts. I am an alcoholic, so evenings when I leave for the bar for six hours then pass out for twelve happen at least a couple times a month. I have a RL D&D group on 95% of Sundays, and posting during those games is mostly impossible.

In combat, please wait for me to respond to the previous player's actions before posting. This is to allow for any delayed or readied actions and other such tom-foolery. I will state if it's alright to post without me responding when it's appropriate. IE: You're fighting enemies that are too stupid to do anything clever with readied actions or delayed initiative.

I will wait, at personal discretion, before continuing out of combat storyline or non-combat (and non-initiative) encounters. If you see me online but not posting the next phase, it's probably because I'm giving other players a chance to respond.

RETRAINING

Every even level, from 2 to 16, you are allowed to retrain one of the aspects of your character. You can retrain one of the aspects of your character every level past level 16.

You can:

1: Unlearn one language and learn another
This language can be either one of your bonus languages or a language you've gained through the Speak Language skill. This can only be done for languages to which you are exposed. IE: Another player speaks the language, you have access to a reference book written in a language you speak (that you are not unlearning), or you spend time (DM discretion, but I am not strict) around NPCs that speak the language you wish to learn.
2: Untrain a selected, general feat and select another
You cannot untrain feats on which other selected feats depend. You must unlearn a "chain" of feats from the top down. You must have been able to select the new feat at the level in which you would have originally obtained it. IE: You cannot retrain your third level feat into Improved Two-Weapon Fighting as it requires a Base Attack Bonus that you did not possess at level 3.
3: Untrain a selected, mage bonus feat and select another
This works exactly the same as regular feats, except that the new feat can only be from the mage bonus feat list.
4: Transfer up to 5 skill points from a skill or skills to another skill or skills
You can trade class skills for other class skills or cross-class skills to cross-class skills. You can never exceed your maximum allowed skill ranks for your level. It is also possible to trade cross class skills into class skills but you do not gain any extra skill points by doing so. Class skills can never be retrained into cross-class skills.

Consult the DM for retraining anything not listed here. As a small bonus, characters who reach level 16 without ever retraining up to this point are granted the Toughness feat. This happens again at level 20.

RIDICULE

U BETR SPEEK ENGLISH GOOD!!!! OR I'L CALL U STUIPD..

On a lighter note~ please reread your posts before posting (or read them afterwards and edit) to make sure they are clear to myself and the other players. I intentionally (and unintentionally) use comma splices all of the time for the interest of clear understanding. Occasional misspellings and mistakes happen all the time, but make sure your god damned verbs are conjugated correctly and you know the difference between "your" and "you're". I'm assuming all of you have been through 11th grade English or at least have a GED. Please don't make other players wonder what the fuck you're trying to talk about... unless it's intentional in your speech... then that's ok.

DIFFICULTY

This campaign will not baby you. I tend to be a challenging DM. The encounters you are entering have all been play-tested with a different party. I will be adjusting them only slightly for particular circumstances. Death will almost assuredly occur. You WILL run out of MP. Play like you're afraid of death, because you should be.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:45, Thu 17 Jan 2013.

ADDITIONAL HOUSERULES

Rolling a 1 For Your Hit Points:

When you roll a 1, you have the option to roll the die again and subtract one from the result. You always get a minimum of one hit point from your hit die (plus any additional hit points from a high CON modifier)


Negative Hit Points and Death:

You are dead when you reach your negative CON score in hit points.

Note: Be aware, this makes taking Constitution damage slightly more dangerous than it otherwise might already be.

Normal: You are dead once you reach -10 hit points.


Assisting someone's check:

Normally, when you roll a Strength or Search check for example, you can have someone assist you. They roll the same check and if they beat a 10 they add +2 to your result. In many of these situations, I will allow two people to aid one another in the most advantageous way automatically. Both players roll their checks as normal. The higher roll is the check that is counted as the "base" check. The other person's check aids the base check (+2 or +0) as normal.

Search checks, Strength checks, Spellcraft (when you have time to actually sit down and cooperate), Knowledge (same as Spellcraft), and many others that make sense can be used this way. For some checks, this is not an option; an obvious case would be Tumble checks. Simply aid one another as normal and I'll mention when this house rule is in effect for that action, as it is always beneficial.

There are some situations where more than two people could possibly aid each other. In such circumstances, the highest roll is the "base" roll, and every additional check adds either +0 or +2. For simple tasks, the DC for the third (or higher) player is still DC 10. In others the check for additional aid may increase by a small amount per person.


Allies and Cover:

Allies do not normally grant cover to enemies against your attacks (unless they are helpless or otherwise disabled and somehow are still granting cover). It is assumed your allies are at least somewhat aware of you and your intended tactics, and will do their best to duck or move to the side before you make a ranged or reach attack against an enemy. Firing into melee (without Precise Shot) and other such situations that affect attack rolls and AC remain unchanged. At DM discretion, there may still be times when allies provide soft cover. IE: The party is in a 5' wide hallway, and there are 6 allied players or NPCs between you and a small-sized enemy.

Normal: Allies provide soft cover for your enemies.


Kneeling:

Standing up from kneeling requires 10' of movement. Dropping to a knee is a free action, much like dropping prone. Small and smaller creatures must only pay 5' of movement to stand up from their knee. Medium and Larger creatures pay 10' as normal. Standing up from kneeling can never be considered taking a 5' step, even if you are small sized or smaller.

Basically, you spend a Move action to get up from your knee. This does provoke attacks of opportunity, though any ability that would allow you to stand up from prone without doing so can be used for standing up from kneeling. If you like, you can still move the rest of your movement. You cannot take any other move-equivalent action, such as drawing a weapon, as part of this movement.

Normal: Rules for kneeling are found in some FAQ or in the Rules Compendium somewhere.


Craft (alchemy) and Brew Potion:

Can be found in the Mechanics Discussion thread.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:23, Sat 15 Dec 2012.

Oh, and just in case, this is a notification for the staff of rpol.net should something happen and you nerds want to get DM access to this game:


If I get hit by a bus or something, and two or more of my players are saying I am inactive and have been for over a month, I authorize the ownership of the game to be transferred to one of the following users (in no particular order of preference or seniority, apart from alphabetical):

Dairius_Chi
Nihilarian
Zeign


My account may not flag as completely inactive even though I may be, as I have some scripts that snoop around from time to time that could be running on any number of machines. If I have not physically posted anything new within a 30-day time frame, let alone a 60-day time frame, without explicit and clear warning to the players beforehand, then it is very likely that I am dead or at least am incapable of coming back for a very long while, if ever.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:15, Sat 15 Dec 2012.

This game does not possess a mature tag, though at times we use PG-13 language or talk about some anecdotes from our real lives that would not be suitable for children. D&D, by necessity, also includes some pretty real shit when evil creatures are involved. Sometimes evil concepts such as homicide, regicide, genocide, or hell, even omnicide are present, as well as others. Below is a PM to the GM describing player ages.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:15, Sat 15 Dec 2012.