Just curious about this, as I'd like to find a family myself. Exactly how did you find your family? Were you talking with a random person who then offered to bloodline you, or did you work out a storyline with someone beforehand? Did you find a family member through the forums or other means?

Yes to all of them! Families are completely player-driven, so it's really up to the family in question. Your best bet is to hang out with the family you want to join and then discretely ask if you belong to them on a deeper level.

The Portal of Fate suggests that any of our characters could be related to anyone and everyone, but we just don't remember. You very well may be the daughter of Urazial Inseira from the Glomdoring, or the niece of one of the Talnaras!

Most of ours (mine and Vix's, I won't speak for all the Talnaras) met in game, but we did go for a couple after seeing them on the forums (specifically asking for it, that is.) We never worked out any storylines though - they always tend to be a bit cheesy, I reckon.

EDIT: And I guess you could be a Talnara niece, heh...but it probably wouldn't be very enjoyable. Depends on what you like though.

Seconding what Druken said.

Definitely take the time to scout out the people you enjoy playing with and with whom you would like to RP family relationships. Even though it's all pretend, things like your IC family, spouse, etc. can have a fairly large impact on your gaming experience, so it's worth it to take your time.

Shiri kind of roped me in, if I remember correctly. I don't think I've ever actually sought a family in IRE.

Yep! I think it was Azora's idea in the first place though, but it's been pretty nice since. (Some other Talnaras need to adopt more cool kids though, the family is getting top-heavy generation wise!)

Stop taking the cool ones and maybe that other married person in the Talnaras will.

I wasn't really involved in being scouted out because I married into my family (although I later found out that Arilyon and I had both wanted to be siblings but were too scared to ask each other! ), but always keep my eyes open for people who I want to add to the d'Murani family or have people in the family marry. When I notice someone I'll usually first approach them OOCly to see if they've found a family, then (time allowing) do some RP before adopting. The good thing is Kaervas and I have established the reasons for never knowing our children until they were older so that makes it easier to explain why they're suddenly back.

When Suhnaye and I (finally) got married, we just "adopted" children. The only factual child that we took in was Deas, because Gwyn (Gwynevere) introducted him to us. If you want to find a family, do as the people above said. Its all about who you know. But this could also make for some excellent role play as well, searching for your family and the whatnot. Good luck.

I followed somebody around and told them I was in the process of wooing them for a good week. Then they caved in a married me. Oh, and I conspired with some people who were intent on making a family that would become famous. Then somebody came up to me and said "Daddy!"

The rest is history.

I'm still searching for my family...

Though, in what I've come up with, it's best to become friendly with people who're in a family, or become friends with someone else, and start a family via bloodbond, as you'll be able to make your own family, which is cool.

Theomar's entrance into d'Murani was awesome.

I guess I had inspired Aiakon/Mire, because out of the blue, one day Mire walks up and goes "you look familiar."

I go, "I do?" Next thing I know, she's leading me to Aiakon, and Aiakon's like he's possibly my son. Next thing I know, I'm in the clan.

I was like "lolwut?"

Edit: Any 1337 speak mentioned here was thought in my head, and not spoken aloud. Yay immersion!

Does race come into it, or do people just not worry about that?

I'm trying to work out how a Illithoid could be the mum of a Trill, for example. Perhaps there is some way around that, not sure. I didn't pay too much attention to the groupings I have seen and what they were.

I didn't find my family. Alodia found me.

Hiriako and Elysiana found Shaddai and Shiida after Azora pointed them to a forums post. I personally asked Dylara and Orti. Couldn't be any happier with the people I've ended up with!

(Okay, Orti can at -least- be a bit more active...)

This Dracnari guy named Karrah proposed to me. That is pretty much it.






















Where is he anyway...

Many people don't worry. The Talnaras used to prefer furrikin-only, but between changelings and adoption that hasn't held up.

There are certain picky Viscanti-only families, for example, though.

The original plan when I started playing was to eventually bloodbond with my brother's character, and then yay we'd have our characters in a family and nothing to worry about! Of course, he stopped playing that fairly early on so I was all set to not have a family ... figuring I was going to be too shy to put myself forward and ask anyone and no one would approach me either.

So I concentrated on doing things in my guild, and got to know and then started frequently hanging out with and running around hunting a little with Siv and Tali (this was also back when the three of us viewed Nejii as something like an "uncle" because we could pester/tease him and exasperate him with various newbieish cluelessness ) ... and then one day out of the blue someone from the commune came up to me and said something like "Hey, we've taken notice of you and Siv and Tali and think you three might be our daughters. We already caught Siv and Tali and they think we might be right, what do you think?" and I though "Squee! Awesome!" but said something much more subdued but in agreement. So that's how Tsu became a Mes'ard, daughter of Gregori and Skyla (who weren't yet married at the time) and sister to Siv and Tali (the other siblings came later).


The family thing, once I was in it, was great fun, so I figured at some point I'd want to continue it. (Plus, the Mes'ards were more dynastic in those days so there was also significant encouragement to expand the family. ) Back years before any of that had happened, the departure of many/most of the people newbie Tsu had known to the then soon-to-be-formed Glomdoring had left her feeling rather alone, lonely, etc ... and someone she knew only slightly named Shorlen, who'd also been friends with some of those people, tried to cheer her up and helped by enlisting her as an undersec and novice aide so she had something to do and got to know some more people (which is actually how Tsu ended up initially meeting Siv ... teaching her when she was a novice ). At any rate, Tsuki and Shorlen developed a relationship out of that, though they didn't formally get engaged until Shorlen was 33 and didn't finally get married until much, much later on. Prior to and during the early parts of the engagement, Tsu (elfen) and Shorlen (elfen) took notice (sometimes individually, sometimes jointly) of certain other people who impressed them. Peri (elfen), who never ended up being considered because she'd become inactive, we decided had been fathered by Shorlen before he'd gone through the Portal of Fate. Cieli (faeling) was said to have resulted from Tsu and a fae knight, but some of Tsu's background was also faeling (Skyla, and Gregori had been at one point) so that's perhaps better left vague. Kelysa (elfen) was both of theirs, born not long after the initial stage of Tsu and Shorlen's relationship, and then we also later found Gehn (elfen). Shorlen and Kelysa really were the ones to notice Gehn, since Tsu was being too busy by far by that point. Tsu and Shorlen managed to finally get married at some point along there, and got to get three of the four possible children formally considered.


At some later point, for various reasons, I had Tsu resign as GM, which gave me the opportunity to step away from playing her. During the half year or so she was inactive, Shorlen divorced her, and I think by this point only Gehn of Tsu's children is still active ... but he's gone and considered (will be, or has ... haven't checked again recently) a few grandchildren for her.

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Different families treat the relationship differently. Some don't care about things like race/age/organization, some do. Some will decide children are adopted or related by blood. Some families will make certain to take advantage of marriage and consideration to make sure everyone who is in the family is mechanically in the family, others will be more informal (or want some structure that the mechanics don't allow for) and just have people tack the name onto their title. Some families (Magnagoran noble houses in particular spring to mind) might grant some perceived or actual benefit from belonging to them.

Definitely take some time and "scout out" potential families and members of them, if you think you'd like to join an already-existing one. If you find one that seems like a good candidate, spend time with them if you can, and/or send someone in it a message or otherwise ask about it (whether in a more IC or OOC fashion ... "is it possible that ...?" "hey, I was wondering if ..." "I want to be your kid!" etc). Cross-organization families, I would guess as being the most potentially problematic to get into, both in just "figuring it out" ICly and possibly in interactions once you're in the family (that's another thing ... some families view the family as more important than organization, others take the organization as more important (you're not likely to be very liked in your organization, for example, if you do something like refuse to come defend your areas if a family member is raiding, especially if you'll otherwise defend/etc against anyone else. some orgs might even view actions/attitudes like that as traitorous)).

There's also some threads pinned at the top of the Last Chance Trading Post section to help people look for family members for their characters, if trying to do so only in-game doesn't seem to have much success or whatnot.

Good luck!

I was still an ur'Guard notice, and seemed to be liked by Sybl. So, later on we talked, and she said how she noticed that I'd taken respect to the heart, and asked if I wanted to be her daughter. I said yes. Then she spoiled me.