Character Creation

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General

When you're ready to fill out an application, you can place your character art on the Application Template } and place your { Written App } in the description.

You can create up to two
sentient characters of the three character types to start with. These characters are allowed to gain stats, inventory items, currency, and experience. Youโ€™re also allowed to roleplay them. This means you could enter two singular characters, or a contracted pair, or only one character (and add a second character later).

You can give these characters non-sentient secondary characters to support them: for example, humans or magicians with entities of T2 and below as their partners. These entities are non-sentient: they cannot think, and should be treated chiefly as โ€œpetsโ€ in function.

Each character entered solo can be maximum second tier.

Two contracted characters can have a collective tier level of six. This means that between the two characters, the tier level may add up to a maximum of six. Check { World: Tiers } and { Mechanics: Tiers, Stats } for more information. This is only applicable if the two characters are roleplayed by different people.

Humans and entities must be contracted permanently to another character. Sentient entities can be contracted to humans and magicians โ€“ these must either be characters of your second character slot, or characters that belong to other roleplayers.

Humans can be contracted to entities and magicians. If you choose to have a human character contracted to an entity, you can either have another roleplayer play the entity, or play the entity yourself. If the entity is sentient, they will take up a character slot. If the entity is non-sentient, it cannot have stats, and you cannot play the character โ€“ but it will not take up a character slot. Humans contracted to non-sentient entities can form a second permanent contract, but only to a character not roleplayed by yourself.

Magicians can choose to enter the school freely, but may also optionally have a contract partner already. Feel free to enter characters without contracts to the school โ€“ itโ€™d be interesting to see characters form contracts as they progress through the storyline!

  • Note that this is a fairly prestigious international school, but characters with hard-to-control entities or powers are practically guaranteed a spot for theirs and others safety.

  • Feel free to be as flexible as you want with cultural backgrounds!

  • Students with financial difficulties have a wide variety of bursaries, financial aid and scholarships available to them just like in the real world, natch.

  • The spoken language at school is English, but your OC only has to be competent enough in the language to fill out the application.

  • Humans and magicians should have surnames, as they are not exempt to the same naming laws as the real world. If your character's country of origin does not have legal surnames, you can specify in a footnote, or use whatever surname they would list on a passport (their patronymic, for example).

  • Consider motivations, eventual goals, and how they relate to others. Outline their reasons for attending the academy, however big or small. We want to help along your characterโ€™s personal arc as much as we can!

  • You donโ€™t all have to be new freshmen to the school; itโ€™s a little structure-less, so if your student has been at the school for three years or so, itโ€™s likely natural that they would recognize the other older characters on a casual classmate basis. Unless your characterโ€™s a hermit

Occasionally, humans and entities can also enter the school individually, without a pactum - if you can write a legitimate reason for them to do so.

For ideas, you can consult either of the admins. If you choose for your character to enter as a human or entity individually, please be prepared for considerable scrutiny on the backstory section of your application. We wouldnโ€™t recommend making an uncontracted human or entity as your first character, especially if youโ€™re unfamiliar with Ars Pactumโ€™s setting. Some things to keep in mind:

  • Individual humans are hugely unlikely to be accepted at the school, especially students that are not graduates of secondary schooling.

  • Uncontracted entities are frequently considered dangerous due to their lack of a binding contract and human emotion. Moreover: entities rarely have interest in human affairs, let alone human education!


Humans

Humans have the normal range of natural colouring, and rules of genetics are in full force. If they have an unnatural hair colour, it will have to have been dyed-- but bear in mind that it implies they are imitating the fashion trends of magicians: the upper class.

Magicians

Natural or unnatural colouring in any combination is permitted. Itโ€™s a long-standing fashion trend for magicians to magically change their hair colour, which is considered fairly easy and standard magic. Magicians of a certain higher social standing generally dress to distinguish themselves from humans; thereโ€™s a lot more gilt trim, a bit more frouf, a bit moreโ€ฆ JRPG clothing.

They can wield a wand, staff, stave, or any other magical instrument other than their hands, but consider this something that โ€œchannelsโ€ their already-existing magic by personal preference. These are found more commonly among high magicians, for ceremonial purposes (theyโ€™re likely expensive, after all!) Magical jewelry and accessories are also A-ok, however, they may be rendered null and void in dungeon situations so that everyone is on equal footing.

Entities

A human form isn't necessary, and only open to entities ranked third tier or higher. When one is employed, however, they can choose look anywhere from human to downright weird. Note that your contracted partnerโ€™s pin extends to your powers, and will limit them, even though the entity isnโ€™t wearing the pin itself.


If a human form is present, a teacher may try and convince it to wear the school uniform for rigid dress code reasons. Some entities take to it quite well, and enjoy masquerading around the campus as students. Other entitiesโ€ฆ may not.

We're sure that at some point in time, there was an overzealous teacher that tried to force a large amassment of dark energy into a uniform hat with not much success.

Non-Player Characters

To begin with, each roleplayer may write one NPC, if they wish. If youโ€™d like to write another NPC, you may purchase additional NPC slots in the { Shop }. Ideally, your NPC should be treated as a tool used on occasion to facilitate roleplay, rather than a tertiary character slot.

For example, your NPC cannot:

  • Run labyrinth dungeons

  • Earn EXP or checkins, under any circumstances

  • Be contracted to a player character

  • Be par pactum to a sentient character that has an NPC slot

  • Participate in events unless under special circumstances

  • If youโ€™d like your NPC to be at a student at Concordia College, please discuss with us first!


However, your NPC can!:
  • Teach a class!

  • Minimally interact with player characters, when required.

  • Have a backstory or relationship with a player character (parent/child, teacher/student, sugar daddy/baby, and so forth)

  • Provide advice, perspective, screaming lecturesโ€ฆ etc.

  • Be referenced or mentioned by player characters


As a rule of thumb, your NPC should be a static or flat character that does not change its views or ideology over the course of the roleplay. A roleplay with the NPC should be focused primarily on the player characters involved. They are there to prop up the other players, or facilitate classes in the school environment. You cannot roleplay NPCs with other NPCs if player characters are not present.


NPC characters are not player characters: they should not be replacements for additional characters, or have their own independent plotlines. If you begin to feel as though you want to develop your NPC into a character, you are welcome to upgrade your NPC into a character slot: you can do this by purchasing a character slot and letting us know youโ€™d like to use your NPC in this character slot. You can then complete an application sheet for them, and weโ€™ll consider them player characters from thereon. You can maintain all their narrative functions (for example, if they were a sibling or teacher to an existing player character)!


Please be conscientious and sincere about the way you use your NPCs! If it feels that youโ€™ve started developing an NPC into the territory of a player character, we may ask you to purchase a slot for them before continuing to use them. Weโ€™d like tertiary character slots to be well worth their price: so to remain fair to those that invest in them, so weโ€™ll be enforcing the guidelines for NPCs. Thank you for understanding!


To enter an NPC, you can use the { NPC Application }. Submit this application the โ€œPending Applicationsโ€ folder. Weโ€™ll add the character to the NPC folder in the gallery and let you know if itโ€™s been approved or if we have further questions! They will still need a written application for their corresponding species (found at the bottom of this document), but they wonโ€™t need stats. This application can naturally more brief than a character written application.




ยฉ 2016 - 2024 Ars-Pactum
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