( GAME FAQ )

[ironwood]

This is the general game FAQ. For the FAQ specifically relating to applications, please see the post HERE.


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
      Last updated Jan 2016

CONTENTS
1. Arriving and Characters Status 2. Explaining Hows and Whys 3. NPC Interactions and Building Damage 4. Life on the Turtle 5. Consoles and Encryptions
ARRIVAL AND CHARACTER STATUS
What happens if my character was injured at the time of their canon point? Characters arrive in Tu Shanshu in the same state they were in as they were taken from their canon point. This means that if they were injured, they will have those injuries upon arrival (and also why you cannot apply for a dead character). As your character could wake up anywhere on the turtle at the player's discretion -- such as in the rural farmlands, near the shell's shoreline, or anywhere in the city itself -- they may be helped by a fellow Foreigner, by a sympathetic kedan, or any scenario you would like. There are Foreigners who possess healing skills and abilities, as well as both player and NPC-run institutions within the city who can help, such as the Healer's Guild or Milyn's clinic. What happens to my character's possessions? Any inanimate items which were present on the character's person at the time of their pull-point will be brought along with them. This would cover immediate possessions, clothes, backpacks, etcetera. For electronic devices, they will also arrive, but for anything like a cellphone or laptop, they will not be able to connect to any network, including the one in Keeliai-- only devices constructed here can do so. They will also run out of battery unless they can be charged, but thankfully there are many tech-saavy Foreigners who can assist with that. Other possessions such as alternate outfits, additional personal effects, and the like can be requested after their arrival through the use of reward requests. So, are my characters... you know, dead? Not so! Tu Vishan inhabits a metaphysical current which ordinarily exists in-between the planes of Life, Death and Dreaming. The Dream Plane, in particular, can be accessed by many things. Your character might be unconscious, injured and near death, or simply sleeping. Or they could be in a coma, or they might be legitimately dead. An Avatar might have ended up here accidentally when they were in the Spirit World. Lately the planes of Life and Dreaming have been closer than ever, and as a result access to the turtle’s back is easier than ever before. Every character is told upon arrival that time has stopped in their universe, as Tu Vishan exists entirely outside of it. There is no reason to be concerned about going back to stop the Fire Lord omg!! So what's up with this soul bling? As part of their arrival on the Turtle, characters will awaken to find themselves in possession of an unusual piece of magical jewelry they didn't have before -- a ring, a necklace, a brooch, whatever. This jewelry will always be set with a crystal-like stone the colour of your choice, although it will lean toward darker shades. They will be warned straight away not to take it off, and definitely not to throw it away, since it is vitally important to the stability of their soul while in Keeliai. These have become colloquially termed "soul jewelry" or "soul gems" by most people. If a Foreigner is parted from the crystal, they will begin to suffer progressively more severe symptoms of dizziness, fever and lethargy. They may hallucinate or develop crippling pains in their limbs, as though they've been attacked or injured. If allowed to remain separated for more than three days, they will die. What if my character requires ongoing medication / has special needs? If your character requires extra assistance -- for example, like for an illness that needs ongoing treatment, or a vampire who needs a blood source -- there are IC options for them to explore. The various Healer establishments in the city can usually provide or synthesize most things with a sample, or alternate avenues could be explored. If you have a specific question about how a character can be accommodated, please ask us.
HOWS AND WHYS
How does time pass in game? Time passes in the game at the same rate as reality. When it is December 25th here, it is December 25th there, but be advised that local customs, holidays, and festivals are different. Characters are welcome to celebrate Valentine's Day, but might get some strange looks from the kedan if they do so publicly. Please do note that Tu Vishan’s timeline is now precisely a year ahead of ours! So while it might be December 25th, 2016 here, it will be December 25th, 2017 in Keeliai, due to the year the Foreigners missed while in the Dreaming. Oops, I accidentally a dead. The world of Tu Shansu exists between the planes of Life, Death and Dreaming. Death, once the stronghold of a great enemy, has since been closed by the merging of the Life-Plane and the Dreaming. While for the local population this means very little, people from other worlds - the Foreigners - arrive in possession of a crystal, set in jewelry. This crystal acts as an anchor for their soul and prevents them from dying proper. Characters who are killed will experience some hours (or days, depending on player discretion) of blackout before awakening in the Cherrywood Healer Milyn's clinic. How they got there is varied - everyone knows Milyn is the Foreigners' pet, and so it's likely one of the kedan simply gave the body over to her, knowing she would be able to heal their bodies until they're returned. They will have all their memories up until their death intact. All clothing and supplies on the character's person at the time of death will be delivered with them - no kedan wants responsible for some Foreigner coming after their trinkets once they wake up! If a character has regenerative powers that can automatically return them to life, the player may choose to have them revive of their own ability, but the option to be revived through the normal game mechanic. How can my character communicate with others? The magic of Tu Vishan automatically translates any spoken word to the language most understandable to the listener. This includes any verbal language, whether from Earth or not, and also includes communication from animal characters, so long as they are sentient (for example, Amaterasu from Okami communicates using barking, but it is her language and not simply random canid noises). Originally, characters were not able to speak in their native tongues without this translation magic kicking in, but more recently this seems to have relaxed, and now characters can choose to speak in their native tongue and have it heard as such merely by concentrating on doing so. This translation magic does not extend to text communications, whether on the console or radio networks. Keep this is mind when your character is making or responding to a text post-- what is legible to one person might look like nothing but gibberish to another! What happens if my character has god-level powers? As part of the application process, the mods may choose to impose OOC limits on omniscient-level (essentially game-breaking) powers. ICly, Tu Vishan's magic will interfere with those abilities in order to bring them down to a level which won't overwhelm the game. What's stopping my character from leaving the turtle? The soul gems which anchor the Foreigners' souls to this world are powered by Tu Vishan's magic, which fades exponentially if its moves away from the turtle shell. There is a roughly elliptical shape of "safe zone" around the shell's edge being 10 nautical miles in an outward direction, and approximately one mile above and below the turtle. Remember that Tu Vishan is an unbelievably massive creature, so this is quite a range. Moving beyond these borders will result in a soul gem very quickly losing its power and imparting its separation effects on the character; a decline that would normally take days takes only hours, ultimately ending in death. What happens to my character if I'm on hiatus? When a player takes a hiatus, they have three options as for what can happen to their character. The first is putting them on "autopilot", which is where their character is assumed to be around as normal, but it's simply not threaded out. The second option is to have them fall into a deep slumber caused by the Dreaming, where they cannot be woken by any normal or magical means, nor can they be contacted telepathically (the attempt will be met with only mental static). The Dreaming will completely support all their required bodily functions; basically a ~magical~ coma, but their body remains on the Life Plane. The third option is to have the character disappear completely from the city and be pulled into the Dreaming, where they will feel as though they're wandering a great gray expanse of hazy nothingness. To the character, this could feel like minutes or weeks, depending on the player's preference. What happens when a character is dropped? A dropped character simply disappears from Keeliai, returned via the Dreaming back to their world from the exact time and place from which they were taken (including, unfortunately, those who were taken from their moment of death if applicable). Their soul gem disappears with them at the same time. Their possessions do remain in Keeliai, including any items they may have acquired through reward requests, however the kedan will be quick to take ownership of them if they go unclaimed after a Foreigner's departure. While attempting to contact their console inbox will produce a "no such user" error, any past posts that were made on the console network (not radio) will still be viewable.
NPCS AND BUILDINGS
The kedan make up the civilian population of Keeliai and are available for general control. They can be found just about everywhere in the city, and in varying other locations on the turtle. General interactions with these characters do not need mod intervention, as there are thousands and thousands of them scattered about. Feel free to have your character interact with them in conversations, transactions, etc. There are a few guidelines to remember when dealing with the unnamed NPCs in Tu Shanshu. One is that they should never act as a separate character in concurrent threads, etc. While your character may engage in a relationship with a kedan, that kedan is not your character to play. They may appear in the occasional thread and respond to stimuli, but generally should not be the source of the stimuli. This means that your character can chat with and otherwise interact any kedan, but the focus of threading and posts should be with other player characters. An exception to this are the gang members and less favourable elements of the kedan. On a limited basis, they may approach or aggravate your character. Short-term hassling and muggings do happen here and the NPCs are often the cause. The line is drawn before sexual assault and murder as committed by the NPCs; these are major crimes and the former will not occur as the kedan generally stay within their numbers for physical stimulation. Murder, if part of a plot and/or approved by the mods via a request, may be permissible. What if my character would kill some of the kedan? Murder is allowed in game, but remember that in-character actions equate in-character consequences. If your character kills an NPC, there may be an investigation and punitive action may be taken depending on the circumstances, if your character is seen and reported. Note that not every NPC death needs to be cleared by the mods; we are working on an honour system, as we trust players to be realistic with this game mechanic. A stealthy character may get away with a few deaths without witnesses, but a megalomaniac shouting from the rooftops before hurling fireballs isn't going to get very far. If you intend for your character to kill ten or more NPCs, it needs to be approved by the mods over at the player plots post prior to the murders happening. Can my character kill more than ten NPCs over a long period of time without mod approval? If you're thinking something along the lines of a serial killer, or someone who's 'bucking the system' and trying to get away with it, the answer is no. Ten NPCs is the max limit your character can kill without having sufficient IC and OOC attention drawn to their actions. Of course, keep in mind that this limit is unbeknownst ICly to characters. If your character is on an all-out rampage and for some reason stops magically at nine dead NPCs so that you – the player – can have them avoid IC consequences, then be ready to justify to us why they stopped. (For example, 'well my character was performing this ritual from their canon that only requires nine sacrifices...) What happens if my character kills five NPCs one month, and then four the next, and then three the month after that? The 'NPC killing' is currently functioning on the honour system, by which we the mods assume that if your character kills more than ten cumulative NPCs over the course of their stay at Tu Shanshu, you the player will come to us and let us know so we can take IC action. If, however, you're apping a character, and the previous version (played by someone other than you) was at a kill-count of nine, that kill-count will be reset for you. What about NPC allies? Can my character amass an army of kedan to do their bidding? That depends on whether your definition of 'army' caps out at ten. That's right! Any given character may hold an alliance or close relationship of any sort with up to ten NPCs at any one time, but anything more than that needs to be routed through the mods as a request. KEEP IN MIND that this limitation is known OOCly only. Should you be playing a character likely to recruit more than ten allies, then we recommend checking with the mods first. My character has telepathy/mind control/other powers, can I use them on the kedan? You can, but the same ten person limit applies. If you are mind controlling kedan into minions to do your bidding, you'll only be able to control ten of them at a time. As for telepathy, general surface thoughts can be easily read on any of the kedan, but they're largely unremarkable. They're just like any civilized species, with a wide variety of emotions, thought patterns, motivations, and fears that people have. Keep in mind that named NPCs cannot be mind-read without the approval of the mod playing them, and that Tu Vishan is completely unable to be read by magics of any strength and level. How is any of the above different regarding named NPCs (mod controlled NPCs)? Attacking any of the named NPCs must be approved by and coordinated with the mods, as there are heavy in-character consequences for such actions. A few of the listed NPCs are the governing structure in Keeliai and unprovoked aggression is deeply frowned upon. Others may have no hand in ruling Keeliai, but consider it pretty darn rude to take potshots at their head! Building Damage & Public Destruction Buildings are treated similarly to NPCs in Tu Shanshu. Minor buildings can be damaged or destroyed, but mod approval is needed for large-scale destruction (defined as three or more buildings) or the damaging of any major buildings, such as the College or Tu Yunxu's mansion. The rule of thumb is that any building detailed and named here should be left alone without prior approval. If in doubt, please ask the mods beforehand.
LIFE ON THE TURTLE
What sort of information might my character be able to learn about the world? That's a very good question! There are bookstores scattered throughout the city and The Welcome Center will provide loads of introductory information. As for other forms of knowledge: speaking with the local population, exploring the rest of Tu Vishan on their own – go for it. The locals on the whole aren’t very enamoured of the Foreigners, but they certainly won’t mind proving how well-off they were without the Foreigners' influence. They're particularly close-lipped on the subject of the world before Keeliai (though they will happily tell you about the various civil wars that have been fought across the back of Tu Vishan – your character's life is probably not complete without Old Jinsan telling them about how his great-grandfather carried sixty-four people to safety on a single day in the Red Spring of '04). There are still ruins of older villages and empty mines scattered about Tu Vishan, but the turtle’s back is currently undergoing an extensive re-seeding program which has left many of these areas re-populated by small farming communities. While the homesteads are now populated, the old mining shafts and tunnels under the shell are places the locals avoid -- your character may just find something in there to salvage! If you'd like to go this route, please keep the 'salvage' to things that are believable or compliant with the technology/resource level of the world. You probably aren't going to find a sword made out of meteorites or a radioactive Pokémon, but you might find some old graves or mining tools. Any salvage found on Tu Vishan will be left to player discretion, but please be realistic. Are there familiar things my character could recognize? Tu Vishan is home to an amazing variety of exotic flora and fauna, and while some of them may seem familiar, others are completely new and exciting! There are a good number of things that have similar-to-Earth analogous counterparts in Keeliai, and Foreigners are always able to discover more. For example, there is a variant of chess that is played on a triangular board with three people, a sport that's a cross between cricket and tackle football, and a holiday similar to trick or treating at Halloween, except the kedan will give you jellied fish eyeballs and hair combs instead of candy. Many foods have likewise been discovered to have nearly-similar tastes, such as a blue and orange spotted melon that tastes like licorice, and a very popular herb that makes chocolate-flavoured tea. Just please, don't eat the sea prunes. The kedan celebrate an assortment of holidays and festivals during the year, some which are similar to Earth-based ones (such as a harvest festival around in the fall). Yet others seem to bear no relation to things the Foreigners might be used to hallmarking, like the twenty-second time a kedan loses a wager. As for the physical world around them, Tu Vishan largely mimics Earth life -- grass is green, the sky is blue, gravity is comparable, and water doesn't flow uphill. Although the turtle experiences a day/night cycle in the same 24-hour period, the starscape does not match any known configuration, Earth or otherwise. There are some distant planets that could be identified in the night sky, but their presence in relation to the starscape would not be familiar to any known star chart. Kedan asked about these "brighter stars" would simply reiterate that they are stars and would offer the source of the query an odd look before going about their business. Characters like werewolves will still experience a monthly change, as there is a lunar cycle. Can my character learn new abilities in-game, even if they don't have magic/superpowers/etc in their own universe? Yes! There are a variety of ways characters, both powered and non, can gain new abilities in Tu Shanshu. Some Foreigners' magics can be taught to others, sometimes the Dreaming bestows unusual gifts upon people, and there are many strange artifacts that can be discovered as reward requests (under Special Items) that grant unique abilities to their owners. Can my character open or own a business? Foreigners are welcome to start their own businesses in Keeliai. There are areas in the Sky Sector which have been specifically set aside for Foreigners to operate on, but if a character wishes to rent a building in other sectors, they will need to speak with Odyni, the Merchant's Guild representative who handles real estate transactions. So I can open a business and my character will be rich? Money matters in Tu Shanshu are on a player honour system, and we trust players to keep things realistic. A newly arrived Foreigner is not going to accumulate thousands of juulan in their first weeks, nor should they be able to amass the funds to buy multiple parcels of land all over the city. Likewise, Foreigners are expected to get jobs to earn their money, and pay for expenditures like rent, food, and living supplies depending on their situation. Please keep things realistic with what your character can accomplish.
CONSOLES & OTHER COMMUNICATIONS
Consoles The consoles can be found all throughout Keeliai, from public cafes to offices to personal quarters; since they're also stationary, your character must return to a console in other to reply to messages! The consoles offer video, audio and text, and can be locked privately. Their text feature does allow anonymous posting, though no special formatting (such as fonts or colours). Image posting and uploads are not supported at all. Text posts/writing are the only time in-game where a character can write in a specific language (example: if character X knows Greek, then the post can be all Greek if they want to write it that way). No translation software exists for alternate languages. Be aware when responding to a text post, as your character may not be able to read the language. Accidental posts are impossible to make as the console must be logged into with character-specific passwords and the posting feature activated before anything hits the network. Handsets Portable communicators based off of the radio handsets established by previous Foreigners are available by request at the Welcome Center and the Midnight Hotel. These portable communicators integrate with the public console network and are available to both Foreigners and kedan. They currently support video, audio and text broadcasts, as well as support encryption functions, and they can be privately locked to specific individuals. Each handset only stores about 48 hours worth of charge at a time. Stationary consoles are outfitted with a charging dock, and a handset will charge fully in about 8 hours. The handsets for the specialist Foreigner network do still exist, but are not widely used. Encryptions in use should be clearly marked with a percentage rating as to how hackable it is. Be reasonable about setting this, as not every character is proficient with technology, and while it is possible to change the handset's security settings, the default can be broken by someone with the right equipment and knowledge. My character is a mechanical/technological genius, can they take over the network? Unfortunately, even the most skilled techies will find themselves stumped to precisely explain the network, as it is a complex mixture of technology, magic, and bio-mechanical energy. They're powered by the same source of energy emitting from Tu Vishan that powers the soul gems, and it cannot be so easily quantified. What happens if they try to dissemble/upgrade/tamper with the consoles? Any attempts at alteration done to the consoles will result in its anti-tampering mechanism causing the housing to melt into actual gloop, completely self-destructing. A new one will have to be installed -- where it is literally grown back in -- to the location while the Metalworker kedan overseeing that glare sourly at the perpetrator because these are not disposable so be more careful!! Depending on how busy these technicians are, the process could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Posting to the Network Community All IC network posts are to be posted to the tushanshu community. There are two ways for a character to make a network post: one, by logging into one of the stationary consoles located in the housing suites or in a public cafe or office; two, by using the portable radio handsets developed by the Foreigners. Both networks have different properties, so please specify which one you're using by labeling your entries either [CONSOLE] or [HANDSET]. There are also tags %console and %radio for you to use. In addition, whenever you make a post or tag into a thread, don't forget to tag that post with the appropriate tag for your character (post: charactername OR thread: charactername as applicable). Tags will be created for your character in the IC communities upon acceptance into the game.

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APPLICATIONS • APPLICATION FAQ • RESERVATIONS • TAKEN CHARACTERS • RULES • GAMEPLAY FAQ SETTING: TU VISHAN • SETTING: CITY OF KEELIAI • SETTING: WORLD LOCATIONS • NPCS & GROUPS ARRIVAL GUIDE • CANON UPDATES • REWARD REQUESTS • PLOTS & EVENTS • HIATUS/DROPPED • MODS